Life is simple: The Way is narrow and the gate straight. [i] Every person must make a decision to which path to walk and which gate to pass through. The Way to the Tree of Life is guarded by Cherubim. [ii] The implication is that there is one “gate” to Paradise in heaven, and it is guarded by angelic beings. And since there is a gate, there must also be a fence of some sort around Paradise to keep any from entering by another Way.
Since Paradise was a Garden of natural features, perhaps it was surrounded
by a “boma” to keep beasts of prey and the evil-doers out. There is a reason
that Jesus wore a crown of thorns. He was ridiculed as King of the Jews. The Perhaps
the crown of thorns guarded wicked ones from entering Paradise from some other
way. Jesus bled from his thorny crown. Only by His blood can anyone be saved.
Only He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no man cometh unto the Father,
but by Him. [iii]
Noah had to enter Paradise from the same Path and through the same gate as
anyone thereafter. There are not two gates, and the one gate is guarded
by heavenly beings to keep all but the faithful out of Paradise. Well, Noah
built a ship to Paradise. It was not to another world but in the same realm
that he had always lived… him and his generations. Paradise is not on
Earth nor in earth, but apparently an invisible realm called “the
heavens” that only God can transport from one to another realm.
Jesus was born of a virgin. She carried Jesus on Earth until
he was delivered to mankind. (She was the “Ark” that carried Jesus from one
world to the next). However, God borne Jesus from heaven to earth, from
the real to the corporeal. He transported His Holy Spirit from heavenly Paradise
to Paradise on Earth by God willingly it to be. The Way to and from
Heaven seems to be transportation by God. The means of transportation that God
picked for Noah was much different than what He picked for Jesus! God transported
Noah on an Ark and then the Ark carried Noah to safety. Noah was borne by God
and born by the Ark. He was antitypical of Jesus.
KEY VERSE: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. (Gen 6:9b)
Perfect? That needs to be questioned. Was Job blameless of any sin at all?
Scripture says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom
3:23). That would include Noah as well, but like Job, perhaps Noah had perfect
knowledge of God as God has of Himself (Job 37:16). That would not mean
that Noah was perfect in all his ways but would know all the truth. Since Jesus
is the Truth, then the knowledge of the truth and a willingness to comply with
the truth would merit God’s grace. [iv]
Each Christian comes to know the truth by hearing God’s Voice in
Scripture. Noah heard God and obeyed. Not that obedience would merit grace, but
Noah’s willingness to please God. God said, “build and Ark,” and without
question, Noah built an Ark in expectation of rain, despite that Noah
had never seen rain before! He had the perfect knowledge of God — that God said
it would rain and then it rained!
As a sidenote, Christians have never seen an apocalypse before, but God
said the world will be destroyed by the raining down of fire on the world, to
wit: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in
the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein
shall be burned up” (2 Pet 3:10). Now you know this, and if you read the Bible,
you too shall have perfect knowledge — the knowledge of God that is the Word in
scripture. Someday, just as God said, the end shall come! Will you enter the
gate to Paradise?
Soon, it became known that Noah was not a perfect man, but he
had perfect knowledge of God’s Will. He believed in and trusted God to be and
to do what He says. The fact that he became drunk was not damning because Noah
was perfect in spirit. His spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak [v] just as the apostle Paul’s
and any true Christian’s.
Then examine, “Noah was a just man.” The person Noah was the
seminal Adam. He was the new head of mankind and was of the seed of Adam. That
is why that he was “perfect in his generations” as he was the seed of Adam who
was planted outside the Garden.
As the seed of Seth and Aklia, he was righteous. God had
planted the seed that would be Noah when Abel and Seth were born. He was the
cry of the blood from the ground of righteous Abel. [vi] With that said, Noah had
no Cain in him but most if not all the others did. In other words, Noah had no
blood of the Wicked One in him, or he would not have been perfect in his generations.
Noah was a “just man.” He was righteous by nature. Evil had
not overcome him as it had all the others who for whom God had less grace. By
grace, however, Noah’s household was included: Shem, Japheth, and Ham.
Shem had to be because Shemites are God’s chosen and peculiar
people [vii] Japheth was allowed in because
the seed that Noah would plant in the new world from him would also be God’s
chosen and peculiar people. [viii] Only the seed of Ham
would not be, but God also had a purpose for him. The seed of Shem, Japheth,
and Ham would, when they had grown, all unite and collude to kill the Son of
God. The “Seed” for Jesus would make it through the flood, as well as the seed
of the Wicked One.
Noah was not just a “man.” Hebrew for man is ‘adam but Noah
is described, not as ‘adam, but as ‘iysh. He was the male or husbandman.
He is not meant to be a second Adam (that was for Jesus) but another image of
God who IS the “Husbandman.” [ix] God picked a male with
perfect knowledge to be His image on the new world. He would be as God but
not God. That is God’s intent for all of Noah’s seed. The “seed” that Noah would
plant on the holy mountain would be his “vines” so the speak that would branch
out and cover the earth. But only one “vine” would be the branch that would
produce Perfect Fruit, Jesus by Name.
God would not need another man (another Adam) at that time,
but the “husbandman” would seed a second Adam to grow until the time would be
ripe; a time when mankind would be saved forever!
Lastly, the most crucial: “Noah walked with God.” That
was not an afterthought but a perfect thought. God had grace on Noah because “Noah
walked with God.” Noah was a just man, but God did the justifying. “Justification”
is not just as he never sinned, but because he walked with God even though he
sinned. As he walked with God, he was a “shadow” of God. Noah obeyed God, and
by that He shadowed God. Paul wrote, “For the law having a shadow of good
things to come, and not the very image of the things” (Heb 10:1). Noah was not
God, would never be God, but by doing God’s Will he was a “shadow of good
things to come.” What would be those “good things?” Jesus and grace. That is
why God had grace on Noah because he was a shadow of Jesus.
Jesus wrote the Law because He is the “finger of God.” [x] By
freely obeying God without coercion, Noah was not only the present husbandman
in the new world, but the “vine” as well whose branch would be Jesse [xi]
and Branch further to Jesus.
Noah walked with God, and by doing so, God transported
him to another, better world — a second “paradise;” one prepared for him and his
new kind. To this day there are three kinds of people from the
root of Noah: Semites, Gentiles, and pagans. They are the seed of Shem, Japtheth
and Ham. (That is generalized because God has grace on all kinds and wants that
none should perish.)
To enter Paradise, remembering that the “gate” is guarded,
Noah walked with Jesus through that gate. In the case of Noah, that “gate” was
the door of the Ark of God. It was open for all who would enter, and all his
sons and daughters-in-law did so. It was not in their time, but in God’s time.
He waited 120 years for all to decide which Way they would go.
Do you think that there were no requirements to enter? God
was on the Ark and when all had come in, God shut the door. Noah and his seed
walked the way up the ramp and through the door. They followed Jesus, so to
speak.
All the others walked their own way and were lost. No one
swam to the boat. All who would go, were on before it began to rain. Water
would not be saving, but grace would be. God gave everything grace. They could
have entered in and shadowed the walk of Noah. They adamantly refused to walk
as silly Noah walked. Just like Noah,
the people considered Jesus to be crazy! Like Jesus who they said was “beside
himself,” [xii]
they too thought Noah was alone in his thoughts; that he were irrational!
To this day, that destruction will come is considered
irrational; that only crazy people would prepare for the apocalypse! God gave mankind,
those of the Wicked One, 120 years at most to decide. Now the time is the same.
The lives of the wicked ones remain less than 120 years to this day. Sinners
are of the Wicked One [xiii]
and their days are numbered. Mark this: before most will reach 120 years, they
will walk some way. Some will be transported on the true “Ark” (The Holy
Cross) to safety on God’s Holy Mountain. The others will drown in the fire
of the River Styx.
Who goes where depends on whether they walk as Noah walked —
in the shadow of Jesus — or swim like the Wicked Ones who tried to swim to
safety toward the Ark. That time, God shut the door and angels surely guarded
it to prevent the Wicked Ones from swimming their way to the Tree of Life.
Noah and family merely walked as God walked — patiently and
with stedfast faith in God’s Plan for them. All the others tried it there way —
by their own efforts they tried to enter the Ark to Paradise. That is still not
the Way to walk or even to float toward the Ark of the Cross. God opened the
door to the Ark and left it open. It would not surprise me if the Cross is of
the same wood as the old wooden Ark.
(picture credit: iStock; "Dead Man Floating")
No comments:
Post a Comment