Saved from God by God

Sermon on Genesis 6:13-7:24

Last week, I compared our Biblical flood story with the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. But as a Chinese, I think it is useful that we also know the Chinese version of the flood story called: NuWa fixed the sky (女娲补天). [1] The story begins with a fight between the Water God GongGong (共工) and Fire God ZhuRong (祝融). GongGong lost the fight, got upset, and slammed his head on Mt BuZhou (不周山). This was a bad idea because this Mt BuZhou was a pillar supporting the sky. In other words, the sky was collapsing and the rain was causing a flood, killing all life on earth. NuWa was the creator of humanity and wanted to save them. So she created special stones (五色石) to patch up the sky to stop the rain and flooding. She also amputated the legs of a magic turtle (神鳌) and used them to prop up the falling sky. And that’s our Chinese version of the flood story.

In comparing these flood stories, you might have noticed one major difference, and that would be my main topic of sharing today. The major difference is that these stories, whether Chinese, Sumerian or Akkadian, they are all told from a polytheistic worldview, whereas our Biblical version has a monotheistic worldview. In a polytheistic world, you have many deities. These gods are in charge of different aspects of nature, and sometimes, there can be conflicts between these gods. This is especially typical of a flood story. You have a god who either made a mistake or had bad intentions, and he started the flood. But then, you have another god who represents the good side, and he or she is the one that would save humanity from the destruction caused by the first god.

Yet this is not so in our biblical version. We have only one God. I’ve entitled my message today: Saved from God by God. We need to be saved from God because God was the destroyer in our story. In 6:13, So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. Again in Verse 17: 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. God did not shy away from taking responsibility for the destruction. The flood was the direct action of God, and the aim was to put an end to all people, and everything on earth would perish. Yet to be saved from God was also salvation by God. The passage is equally clear that God was the saviour of the story. Everything Noah did was based on the command of God. Even the animals which would be saved were saved by God. I’ve always wondered where Noah got his degree in zoology, until I realised that it was God who did all the work in 7:15 “15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark.” God sent them there, not Noah. Yet, don’t miss out on an equally critical phrase in Verse 16 “Then the Lord shut him in.” “Once everyone was on board, God shut Noah in, like the steward on an aircraft making sure the door was secure. In … (Epic of) Gilgamesh, the door was shut by … Utnapishtim (himself). In the Noah story, it was God who makes sure that Noah, his family, and his cargo (the animals) were safe and sound.” [2] God shut Noah away from the Flood. God shut Noah away from the destruction. God shut Noah away from God himself.

So you have 2 versions of the Flood story, and indirectly you have 2 ways of understanding the destruction and the salvation. In the polytheistic world, you have the gods of destruction and the gods of salvation. In the biblical world, you have just one and he plays both roles. Isn’t it just a matter of simplification? It may seem like the biblical God is just a process of eliminating all the lesser gods and letting one guy be responsible for everything. I would strongly disagree. This is not a matter of quantity but of quality. When you have many gods, gods are just gods of nature. [3] Their powers are limited by one another, their plans can be thwarted by one another. They have a divine world in which they interact with one another. And their wills are bound by the knowledge and strength of their individual domains. In such a world, humans play magic to survive. We manipulate the different deities, pitting them against one another. We placate the wrath of the evil gods and we seek the blessings of the good gods. We try to understand what is going on in their world so that we might position ourselves well when their conflicts affect our world. In the polytheistic world, the gods are only one of the many elements of the human worldview, perhaps the supernatural element behind the natural forces. It is no coincidence that as we understand more and more about nature, the relevance of these gods also fade away.

But in the biblical world, there is only one God. And because it is just one God, he is instantly qualitatively different from these so-called gods. Destruction comes from him and Salvation also comes from him. Throughout the story, there is only one absolute sovereign will, and that is God’s will alone. There is the one God that directs history, there is the one God that dictates what is good. He is the God of Creation, yet he is also the God of Un-creation. He is the God of judgment, yet he is also the God of salvation. He is not merely a nature God because nature itself was created by him. Because he is the one true God, he is the God of absolute will. His word alone determines destruction and salvation, and he can change the course of history by his will alone. Furthermore, God cannot be limited within a specific domain, or limited by the influence of a fellow god, or even limited by evil. Only God can limit himself, and he does so by giving humans free will. In the monotheistic world, there is also no division of the supernatural world and our world. God is in this world. There is no story of the gods because God’s story is in our story. When God acts, his actions directly deal with us.

What does it mean for humans in such a world? No more magic and no more games. God is not to be manipulated for the benefit of our lives, he is not one concern out of the many concerns in our plans. Because he is the one true God, his will becomes our absolute sovereign will. His morality becomes our absolute standard for morality. Therefore, his concerns become our main concerns, his agenda is our top agenda. In such a worldview, humans have only 2 choices: to rebel or to obey. When we rebel, we are not just saying that we want nothing to do with this single god, we are saying that we are gods, we are determining our future, and we are setting up our own rules and agenda. This is why disobedience to God’s will is sin. It is not immorality, it is self-idolatry. And when we obey, we are walking faithfully with God. His word becomes our command, his will becomes our life. Not only do we walk with him, we also choose to walk before him. Our obedience is an act of submission. We submit to his sovereignty over us. We acknowledge that he alone determines what is good and he alone determines what is true.

I want to hammer home this differentiation today because I feel many of us worship a nature god and not a God of creation. We put our priorities first, and God becomes a concern only when we need a spiritual booster or we need to prevent a spiritual hindrance. Maybe that’s how you see pastors. Pastors are the ones empowered to handle the spiritual things. In the polytheistic world, that may be true. Everything on earth has different degrees of divinity and possesses different levels of divine power. But in the biblical world, there is only God and creation, and nothing is in comparison to God. When we know more about the laws of nature, the nature gods fade away, yet the God we know does not fade away. Why? That’s because nature is not God, nature is merely from the word of God. This is the way with nature, this is same with the laws of life. As Christians, when we look at the world, there is only one absolute principle, and that is God. Justice and judgment come from God. Yet, grace and mercy also come from God. And if that is true, there is no side-stepping God in any issue. God’s judgment will surely arrive when his will for creation is compromised. Yet, to be saved from God, you can only be saved by God. There is only one truth to abide, and that is God himself.

I’d like to conclude today’s reflection with the words of Peter. He saw the salvation of Noah as evidence that God indeed saves the righteous. But he understood that it is not only salvation by God. It is salvation from God. God was the one who came in judgment. He is the one who would destroy. And while there were scoffers and doubters, this judgement was already set in stone waiting for God’s own time.
2 Peter 3: 3 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

But because God is the one true God, to be saved from God also means salvation by God. One God, one absolute will, one and only one way of salvation. We must return to God and live by his word. The just shall live by faith, faith in the one true God.
2 Peter 3: 11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

Brothers and sisters, at the end of the day, the flood can become a judgment of fire, the ark can become the cross, but the one unchanging reality is the one true God. We can only be saved from God by God. Let’s live holy and godly lives. God may judge and destroy, but for the righteous, God saves.

[1] http://baike.baidu.com/view/59793.htm
[2] Goldingay, Genesis for Everyone, p 105
[3] My entire differentiation of Polytheism and Monotheism is based on Christine Hayes' summary of Kaufmann's analysis in The Religion of Israel. See http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-145/lecture-2