Genesis 8:20. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
The ark builder now becomes the altar builder. Noah exits the boat and takes his place as priest. His first thoughts are toward God, and rightly so. God has graciously saved the world from total destruction. Noah now kneels in the mud and prays most assuredly a prayer of thanksgiving, but also a prayer of repentance – offered burnt offerings on the altar.
Moses describes Noah’s offering as the burnt offering. The burnt offering was the offering of atonement and dedication. It appears that the rules for offerings which will be codified in the Mosaic Covenant are already in place in the time of Noah. He knows the difference between the clean and the unclean. He knows that an altar made of earth is required for sacrifice. He also understands what Cain did not, a living, blood sacrifice is required, offered to God from a penitent heart.
It might seem strange that the only “righteous” man on Earth, the man favored by God, the man who obeyed God, laboring over the ark for over 100 years, has to offers sacrifices of atonement and repentance. Noah doesn’t exit the ark declaring, “I did it!” He exits the ark fully aware of his own sinfulness. And as the new Adam, the new High Priest of creation, the representative of mankind, he understands that the flood has not cured man’s wicked imaginations. Thus the pattern here is important. God’s grace, the ark, preceded man’s repentance. Isn’t this exactly what Paul tells us in Romans 2?
Romans 2:3-5. 3Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
As always, God receives Noah’s offering of repentance. God always draws near to those who draw near to him. Noah’s sacrifice is a pleasing aroma to God.
Genesis 8:21-22. 21And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
In the Babylonian flood myths, the gods end the flood because they are starving for man’s sacrifices. They require the offerings of humanity to live, and so they cannot fully destroy man. But the God of the Bible needs nothing from man, and realizing this is part of our repentance. Admitting that ultimately all we do is receive from a good and gracious King, we never actually give. For how do you give to a God who needs nothing? “For who has ever given to God that he should repay them?” (Rom. 11:35).
And yet the sacrifices of repentance are required by God. Why? Because they teach us to remember the pattern – death precedes life. This is the pattern established in Genesis 3 and that is repeated in the flood. Noah had to enter into death to live. The clean animals had to die on that altar so that the sins of mankind might be covered and the covenant of God established – I will never again curse the ground because of man.
There is no life without death, and there is no atonement without sacrifice. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb. 9:22). But the blood of bulls and goats can never take away our sin, all it can do is provide a cover, a down payment if you will. Jesus will provide the necessary sacrifice to bring about the covenant grace and restoration of God. In Christ, never again are we cursed. In him, we are not struck down. Though still deserving of death, we are alive in Christ. Though still living within the curse, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Jesus. Though plagued by every evil intention from our youth, we are dead to sin and alive to God.
May this great kindness of God in Christ lead us each day to the altar of burnt offering – the cross of Christ, where Jesus gave his life to atone for you and me. May our daily repentance flow upward to God as a pleasing aroma to him. True repentance that remains honest about who we are, and hopeful in who God is.
Questions: What can and should repentance look like for you today? How does God’s kindness in Christ compel you to repent and dedicated yourself to God?
To Live is Christ 