By the time of Noah, Adam’s descendants had degenerated into a depraved people, so degenerate in fact, that God regretted ever making man. The state of mankind is rather succinctly described in Genesis 6 with a rather bizarre narration of marriages between humans and giants (I'll let my Old Testament expert daughter-in-law deal with explaining that kind of stuff!), but also a description of the state of man’s heart. According to the account, mankind had become wicked, so wicked that he was totally inclined toward evil.
It is hard to imagine total inclination toward evil, although I have an idea that in some sectors of our society, that description might be fairly apt. Why people would have traded the kind of intimacy Enoch had had with God for depravity is beyond me, but that was the state of the world at this point in the biblical account.
Even more interesting, though, than the description of how mankind had deteriorated, is what the passage reveals about God’s character. In Genesis 6:5-7 we read. “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.’”
God had created man in his image. He had created man for communion with Himself. But by the time of Noah’s generation, God’s image had been defaced and evil, wickedness, violence and corruption characterized mankind and life on earth. In reflecting on this description, I can’t help but wonder what God’s thoughts are on the current condition of his creation.
What is so heart-wrenching about this story is God’s response to the evil. If I ever entertain thoughts that perhaps God does not really care about human suffering and evil, all I have to do is re-read Genesis 6. God is not unaware of what’s happening: he sees the greatness of man’s wickedness and he is aware that we are inclined toward evil all the time. But not only is God fully aware of our situation, he suffers grief and pain because of the state of the world. Our holy, grieving Creator cannot co-exist with an evil creation; judgment is the course of action that must be taken.
I don’t think that most artists after creating a masterpiece would destroy it. In this account, though, we see that God is so disturbed over what his creation has done to itself that he determines to wipe it out. God is going to destroy his magnum opus. Of course, it is not only man who will suffer in the process; the innocent animal kingdom will suffer as well. (Ecologists could have a great time with this passage!)
Somewhere recently I read that the account in Genesis from the Fall to the Flood is really a story of God’s judgment. Our sin deserves the judgment of God—no question about it. But it is also in the Flood story that we begin to see the major theme of the Bible: the possibility of redemption. Genesis 6:8: “But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.” And it is at this point in the Bible, that God’s plan to save us begins to unfold.
There are implications in this well-known story for me. God is fully aware of my visible sins, as well as the hidden inclinations of my heart. My behaviour can result in His judgment or approval. Jeremiah 17:9 reminds me “that the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” May God grant me the honesty to examine the inclinations of my heart, and may He incline me toward Himself. Amen.
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