The Flood: Wrath and Grace on Display

One of the most famous and disputed stories in history is found within the first 10 pages of the Bible. Noah and the flood. Genesis 6-9 contains the narrative of Noah and his family, wherein God covers the entire earth with a flood but chooses to save Noah and his family. After the flood, God establishes his covenant with Noah. These are but four short chapters, but a huge hinge in the Old Testament story.

The narrative of Noah acts as a sort of reset in the story, a new beginning. After the fall (Gen 3) and Cain’s murder of Abel (Gen 4), “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5). The depravity and fallenness of man were so great that the LORD even “regretted that he had made man on the earth” (6:6). Because the LORD is holy, perfect in every way, the pervasive sinfulness of man “grieved him to his heart” (6:6). The LORD’s response to this human depravity was to “blot out man” from the earth “and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens” (6:7). The way the LORD blotted was by an all-encompassing flood that destroyed humanity and every living thing. So powerful was the flood that “all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered” (7:18).

When we consider the flood, we can be quick to feel as though God was unjust, merciless, or quick to act in anger. It does seem harsh, doesn’t it? The story of the flood bumps up against our sensitivities and forces us to examine the character of the LORD, who in his ability to create and destroy, chose to wipe everything out and start afresh with Noah’s family. When we look at the story of the flood, however, we do not see a vengeful, bloodthirsty god, but we see a God who justly acts according to his great mercy and consistency. While it seems paradoxical to our finite, human minds, God’s wrath and mercy were on display in the flood.

Wrath on Display

In the flood, God’s wrath is on full display, yes. Because he is perfectly holy in every way, sin and corruption of man are the greatest offense to him. God cannot look passively at sin; he must act on it. His holiness demands recompense for sin. But God’s action against sin is completely just because God is completely just. He cannot be unjust. We must ground God’s action in flooding the world in his holiness and justice. God both promised and fulfilled blotting out every living being by means of the flood. And man can bring no charge against him in this.

God is rightly situated in Genesis 6-9 as being the sovereign being over man. While man is allowed to sin and choose disobedience and depravity, God is never uninvolved or even emotionally distant. The sin of man grieves the heart of the LORD. A distant, uncontrolling God would leave mankind to its own devices and peril. However, God, in his holiness and righteousness, determined that he would carry out great and terrible wrath on man in the form of the flood. A “hands-off deity” would have left mankind well enough alone, and if they were to destroy themselves, so be it. But God cannot be passive. He is never not acting. 

So he took action. He gave the people what they deserved. God carried out a harsh but just and even loving sentence upon the people. In fact, the earth deserved worse than the flood. But that’s where grace comes in.

Grace on Display

Grace is unmerited (or undeserved) favor from God to us. Humanity deserved to be wiped out by God before the flood. In fact, every second that passes in which mankind remains in its sinful state merits the full and just and eternal wrath of God. However, God is a God of grace. He is “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). God’s patient grace is on full display in Genesis 6-9 because he did not completely wipe out civilization in one fell swoop.

God, acting in his sovereign grace, chose Noah and his family to survive the flood. He provided them with the means of protection (the ark) and sustained them through the terrible flood. Though God’s wrath was on display, his grace was right there along with it. By God’s grace were Noah and his family spared the flood. God allowed humanity to restart, as it were, and only by his grace. God established his covenant with Noah by grace and gracefully promised that he would never again send a flood to “destroy all flesh” (9:15). 

We can wrongfully think of the flood as merely an event of God’s wrath. God’s wrath was on display in the flood. But the grace of God shown to Noah and his family—and by extension, all the descendants of Noah—is also worth examining, and then celebrating. We serve a gracious God who extends grace to his people, unmerited favor abounds in his covenant people.

Wrath and Grace at the Cross

This theme of wrath and grace is continued forward in the story of redemption, culminating at the cross of Jesus. As Christ bore the wrath of God for sinners, he was also performing the work that would make grace and forgiveness possible. The paradoxical nature of the cross is that the full wrath of God and the fullest measure of God’s saving grace were on full display at one time. God poured out the fullness of his wrath as Christ bore the fullness of our sin. Through Christ, and based upon his obedience, God lavishes the fullness of his grace onto us, his adopted children. Let us praise this God, who first poured out his wrath not on us who deserved it, but on Christ who bore it for us, then showered us with his grace.