The Beginning of the Fulfillment
But God remembered Noah ...
GENESIS 8:1
+
The Beginning of the Fulfillment
After the end of that awful wrath and after the destruction of all flesh, together with the earth, comes the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise that the Lord gave to Noah and his sons, that they would be the seed of the human race. Undoubtedly they were looking forward very eagerly to this promise. No life is more difficult than one lived in faith, like the one Noah and his sons lived, whom we see utterly dependent on heaven. Because the earth was covered with water and they had no ground on which to set foot, there was only the Word of the promise to give them support as they drifted over that vast mass of water. . .. Look at Noah, who was surrounded by water on all sides and was all but overwhelmed by it. It is not works that preserve him, but solely his reliance on the mercy of God, to which the Word of the promise kept calling him. This difficult situation Moses describes by implication in the statement, "The Lord remembered." He points out that Noah had drifted on the waters for so long that God seemed to have completely forgotten him. Men who live in such a conflict of thoughts—when the rays of divine grace are withdrawn, and we find ourselves in darkness or in a state of being forgotten by God—discover that it is far more difficult to live by the Word alone or by faith than to be a hermit or a Carthusian monk.
GENESIS 8:1
+
The Beginning of the Fulfillment
After the end of that awful wrath and after the destruction of all flesh, together with the earth, comes the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise that the Lord gave to Noah and his sons, that they would be the seed of the human race. Undoubtedly they were looking forward very eagerly to this promise. No life is more difficult than one lived in faith, like the one Noah and his sons lived, whom we see utterly dependent on heaven. Because the earth was covered with water and they had no ground on which to set foot, there was only the Word of the promise to give them support as they drifted over that vast mass of water. . .. Look at Noah, who was surrounded by water on all sides and was all but overwhelmed by it. It is not works that preserve him, but solely his reliance on the mercy of God, to which the Word of the promise kept calling him. This difficult situation Moses describes by implication in the statement, "The Lord remembered." He points out that Noah had drifted on the waters for so long that God seemed to have completely forgotten him. Men who live in such a conflict of thoughts—when the rays of divine grace are withdrawn, and we find ourselves in darkness or in a state of being forgotten by God—discover that it is far more difficult to live by the Word alone or by faith than to be a hermit or a Carthusian monk.
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