In the Genesis account of Noah, God commanded that animals be brought into the ark that were approved for sacrifice. For what reason? The answer is simple, yet stunning: even at this point in redemptive history, God was already making provision for substitutionary atonement. He was making a way for guilty man to be absolved from his sin. That is still at the core of our gracious God’s heart, by the way — he wants you and me to live in freedom from our sin.

Going Deep // Focus: Genesis 7:1-2,5

When everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous. Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice…So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.

Righteousness-unrighteousness…obedience-disobedience…judgment-sacrifice. This is the storyline of Noah and the Great Flood that came upon the whole earth as punishment for the exceeding wickedness of humankind.

The earth had steadily devolved from the moral purity into which the first couple was created to absolute and resolute evil in the hearts of their ancestors by the time of Noah. So bad was it that God, to be a just and holy God, had to wipe out the human race and start over.

As I read this story, I wonder if I would have been one of the righteous that God found among the evil people who inhabited the earth. I fear that I would not! At the same time, my heart explodes with gratitude because even within this sad account we can find glimpses and foreshadowings of the mercy of God. We find that Noah, the only righteous and obedience human, was instructed to take animals into the ark that God had approved for sacrifice.

What is the point? Just that at this point in the story, and at this point in redemptive history, God was already making provision for substitutionary atonement. He was making a way for guilty man to be absolved from his sin.

Even though the system of sacrifice in Noah’s day was primitive, and the one to follow under Moses would be ineffective and temporary until Jesus came as the perfect sacrifice, God had still made a way for unrighteous man to live before his holy presence in a pardoned state.

Thank God for his mercy! I deserve punishment, I get pardon.