GENESIS 6.5-7 (BEEBE)

In regard to the text, Gen. vi. 5-7, we have neither time nor space to treat largely upon the subject.

God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and expressed his determination to destroy both man and beast, by a deluge of water. The manner of making this announcement was in language calculated to impress our minds with a sense of that abhorrence with which God regards the transgressions and sins of the sons of men, as sin is the very opposite to holiness. But we cannot understand the terms “repented him,” and “grieved,” in the text, in the ordinary acceptation of the words, or as when used in relation to finite beings. Repentance, when applied to God, cannot mean a change either in his nature, or any of his attributes, or perfections; for we are expressly informed that with him there is no variableness or shadow of turning. He is of one mind, and none can turn him, and he has himself declared, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore the sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Nor are we at liberty to construe the term grief, in this case, so as to imply that God is a being of excitable passions, such as we possess. 

The most brutish darkness ever charged on sinful man, was in that they had supposed that God was such a one as we are, or in likening or comparing him with ourselves. His ways are not our ways, neither are his thoughts like our thoughts; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways and thoughts higher than ours. Any interpretation given to any portion of the Scriptures, which conflicts with any other portion, must be wrong, for the Scriptures are in perfect harmony. We, being finite, and consequently limited in our understanding, may fail to comprehend many portions, and perhaps all the inspired writings of the Bible, but that does not prove a defect in the Scriptures, but weakness and inability on our part. In this passage, and in what is said in the book of the prophet Jonah, of God’s dealings with Ninevah, we understand that nothing more is intended than to show a change of providential dealings with men. God had borne long with the abominations of the old world, and as Peter has said, “Once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.” God had manifested a long forbearance toward them, but their iniquities were now full, and according to the holy standard of all God’s administrations, namely, the counsel of his own will, according to which he worketh all things, the time had come for him to make known his wrath upon the vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction; and he in vindication of his own holiness, displayed his righteous displeasure against their abominations, unstopped the bottles of heaven and poured down on them the deluge, and swept them from the earth, on which he had permitted them so long to dwell, and at the same time made provision for the salvation of his chosen servant Noah, and his family, as embraced in the covenant provisions of mercy; and hence it is said, “And Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” 

The whole figurative import of the subject, embracing the wickedness of men, the justice and mercy of God, is to set forth in a figure the sublime and glorious doctrine of salvation by grace, and by grace alone. For God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. There was no redeeming quality. Not one thought, not one imagination, not a work at that, or at any other time, but was evil, and evil continually. Upon the ground of human merit, none could be saved. Grace, and grace alone, could reach the case of man; but all did not find grace, neither did all desire grace. It is probable that the ante-deluvians hated the doctrine of grace then as bitterly as all Arminians of the present generations now do, but Noah found grace because God had grace in store for him; and that grace secured him and his family in the covenant of salvation, from the waters of the flood.

From the plain import of our figure, let us then understand that a day of retribution awaits the ungodly world, when God, whose mercies have hitherto been showered down upon the just, and upon the unjust, will be withheld; when death and hell shall deliver up their dead; when he will judge the world in righteousness, and turn the wicked into hell, with all the nations that know not God, when only the subjects of his grace, embraced in the covenant of life and peace, embraced in the rainbow that encircles the throne of God and the Lamb, shall be brought into the ark, and therein lifted above the earth, and finally lodged in the mount of Jehovah’s holiness, where there are pleasures for evermore. May it be our privilege, through abounding grace to the chief of sinners, to sing the song of the redeemed in that great day, for Jesus’ sake. Amen