Sunday, March 28, 2021

WALK, SWIM, OR FLOAT

  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")



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



[i] Mat 7:14

[ii] Gen 3:24

[iii] John 14:6

[iv] Gen 6:8

[v] Mat 26:41

[vi] Mat 23:35

[vii] Deut 14:2

[viii] 1 Pet 2:9

[ix] John 15:1

[x] Deut 9:10

[xi] Isa 11:1

[xii] Mark 3:21

[xiii] Mat 13:38

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