Questions to ask about the movie, Noah. #8. Why did God bring the flood anyway, even when he promised never to do it again and it didn’t work to purge the evil from the hearts of humanity?
- Why did God bring the flood anyway, even when he promised never to do it again and it didn’t work to purge the evil from the hearts of humanity?
When we study the Genesis account of the flood a question comes to mind, “Why did God do it anyway, especially since he knew it wouldn’t work to rid mankind of evil?“ Even after the flood the evil inclinations of people’s hearts were evil still. The flood did not work, except for reducing the human population for a while and letting the world know that simply starting out with a few faithful people does not work to bring about world salvation. What does work is God planting his promises in the heart of one person and helping that person live by faith and that person passing on the faith to the next. This was accomplished through Abraham, which led to the coming of Jesus. And so why wipe out humanity and start afresh. Why not just bring Abraham on the scene instead?
In my mind it served two purposes. It showed the justice of God. It revealed that there will be judgment and that God is offering a way of salvation, the ark. God is just and judges sin. There is a time when the righteous judgment will come to fruition. For all practical purposes, for most of us it will come when we close our eyes in death. That is akin to the ark’s doors closing. It will also come when Jesus comes again. That too is when the ark’s door is closed. The flood is the judgment of God. Today, we need to get into the ark of salvation, Jesus Christ, by faith. Though there is a time of judgment, there is also a time of salvation. God cares about his people and offers up a way of salvation. I feel that this is one major point of the Noah story.
But I think that Noah in the movie was struggling about the reason why all of this was happening. Noah deduced that God wanted to judge humanity and eliminate humanity from the face of the earth. He couldn’t understand the God who judges and the God who loves and hopes in his people. Noah is convinced about what he believes is the character of God and he wants to walk in that way. If God judges and condemns humanity to extinction then he too will live his life with this purpose. But before all of humanity must cease to exist they must be used by God to save the animals, and then die. This is what Noah is convinced of and he is bound and determined to not deviate from that path even if it means killing his new granddaughters on the ark. He literally created a hellish environment for his whole family for nine months because of his messed up ideas about the will of God and the character of God.
It really goes to show you the importance of the holding onto the premise that God is love and that God chooses to save. It also shows the importance of knowing the character of God. We can know this character deeply by learning about Jesus, for Jesus is God. If we start out with the wrong premise about God, our whole world view and emotions will become crooked. We need Jesus for life, peace, love and happiness. He shows us the way to eternal life. If we don’t have the right view of God, we could become like Noah in the movie, very dark and cynical about humanity and life.
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