THE NEW BEGINS

Genesis 8:6-19

NOAH WAITS FOR THE WATERS TO RECEDE

8:6-14 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it went out, coming and going, until the water had dried up from the earth.  Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.

He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.  By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

Forty days after the tops of the mountains became visible, Noah decided to open the window and release some birds.

It is uncertain where the “window” was on the ark for it is not mentioned in the construction details of the ark. It could possibly indicate the door of the ark or its roof; we are not certain.  The Hebrew word for window “callown” could also have the idea of a “hatch” or “porthole” that could be opened and shut as necessary.

A dove with an olive leaf in its beak is used to this day as a symbol of peace. But here it is a symbol of new life as well as peace. It meant the time of judgment was over.

It was no coincidence that the Holy Spirit chose to descend on Jesus at his baptism in the form of a dove. As the dove was a symbol of new life, so the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life. He is associated with the Son of God in creation and in the new creation.

Romans 8:1-2, 6 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,  because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death... The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.

GOD COMMANDS NOAH TO LEAVE THE ARK AND ENTER THE NEW WORLD

8:15-19 Then God said to Noah, "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.  Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you — the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground — so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it." So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives.

All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds — everything that moves on the earth — came out of the ark, one kind after another.

THE NEW WORLD

The earth that once thrived with animals, people and lush vegetation had been replaced by a desolate wilderness. The air which formerly was mild and predictable would now be ever changing depending on elevation and geography. The upper vapor canopy was now removed and the earth would receive rain, snow, sleet and hail depending upon weather conditions.

At the same time, the earth had been purged of wicked humanity that had made its physical beauty only a mockery, perverting what God had perfected. God had now granted man a gracious opportunity for a new beginning.

Notice that the great world-wide flood resulted in at least seven major changes of God’s original physical creation.

The oceans were now much more extensive, since they now contained all the waters which once were “above the firmament” and in the reservoirs under the earth’s surface known as the “great deep”.

The land areas were much less extensive than before the Flood, with a much greater portion of its surface uninhabitable, due to the destruction of plant life and of life-sustaining minerals.

The thermal vapor blanket had been removed so that instead of one climate world-wide you now had many different climates around the world. These climates ranged from hot tropical and desert climates to cold and frigid climates of the high mountain and polar regions.

The large moving volume of water cut out deep rocky canyons, tall rocky mountains as well as vast deserts unfit for human habitation.

Severe winds and storms, rains and snows, were now possible, rendering the total environment less agreeable to man and animals than once had been the case.

The crust of the earth was in a state of general instability, reflected in recurrent volcanic and seismic activity all over the world.

The lands were barren of vegetation, until such time as plant life could be reestablished through the sprouting of seeds and cuttings buried beneath the surface.

The earth’s surface became a great fossil graveyard as attested by the great beds of fossil-bearing sedimentary rocks that are now found everywhere around the world. These fossils speak eloquently of death, and therefore they must have been deposited after Adam’s fall and God’s curse.

The record in the rocks is not a testimony to evolution, but rather to God’s sovereign power and judgment on sin.

The Hebrew term for “family” (after its kind) is used almost exclusively of human family relationships. Here it is used of animals, probably to underscore how they were created, not how they mythologically evolved. God created each animal species uniquely different, with the ability to only reproduce after their kind.

The ark is like the great sheepfold, with Christ the door, through whom the sheep, “shall go in” to be saved, but also, through whom, they shall “go out, and find pasture” (John 10:9). In the pasture of God’s world, we will go after other sheep and bring them in through the testimony of the gospel of God’s grace.