Genesis 9-11: The Stage is Set

            We had a discussion in Wednesday morning Bible class about what sins we saw particularly prevalent in the first chapters of Genesis.  I said violence; another said adultery; a third said greed.  Today’s reading proves we were all right!  There is violence here:  the fear and dread the animals have for man and the strict accounting for a man’s life.  There is sex here:  the mockery of Ham at his father Noah’s nakedness.  And there is greed here, or said another way, excess:  the drunkenness of Noah.  The flood is merely a postponement of sin’s growth.  It’s all still there in the generation that survived the great flood.

            Things get even worse in tomorrow’s reading about the Tower of Babel.  There humans desire to build a tower to the heavens.  On the one hand, that sounds reasonable enough.  Perhaps they are trying to regain Eden, trying to regain their closeness and intimacy with God.  Unfortunately, that’s not the motivation they claim.  Their motivation is to make a name for themselves, and that desire for fame tells us what’s really going on.  Babel is the sin of Eden all over again.  In Eden, it was, “We shall be as God.”  At Babel it is, “We shall sit in the place of God.”  One of the recurring themes of the Bible is that man never quite knows his limits, that he keeps on pushing to get things his own way, that he is a greedy, violent, undisciplined creature, whose sin has shattered the image of God and made him more like a beast than some of the beasts!

            The Good News in all of this:  God still forbears.  He is long-suffering (a great old word that we should reclaim).  Or, as Jeremiah will put it centuries and centuries after Noah is dead and gone, “Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (NIV Lamentations 3:22-23).

            Genesis 11 brings us to the end of the primeval history, God’s first dealings with man.  Genesis 1-11 forms the foundation of everything that follows.  The keys here are the unique place that humanity occupies in God’s heart and in His creation, the devastation that is human sin, and the incredible determination of God that He will redeem His creatures, not destroy them—no matter how long it takes or how much it costs Him.  (I’ll comment on the first portion of Genesis 12 on Monday.)