PART  V – ASSOCIATIONAL ASPECTS OF THE LAMPSTAND MODEL

SUBPART D – The Day of Atonement / Witness of Water Corollary

Article 3 –   The Waters of Noah

Section (a) – Noah & the Principle of Grace

By Daniel Irving

This section of Article 3 may be viewed in video format on Youtube, at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2GqF19kUEM&feature=youtu.be

a.  Apprehending the Curse

b.  Noah as Type for Sanctification via the Spirit of Christ, Our Comforter

c.  Noah as Typifying Repentance from Sin unto the Rest of God

d.  The Holy Ghost as the Comforter; Heaven’s Witness of God’s Mercy

Section (a)  –  Noah & the Principle of Grace 

a.  Apprehending the Curse

There is more happening in the world today – in terms of outward signs and manifestations that attest to the reality of spiritual things – than many believers in the Gospel likely ever expected to see in their lifetimes.  Particularly evident are the overt signs and symptoms of a new apostasy which appears to be sweeping away many of the unaware around the globe, particularly the churched unaware.  A false witness concerning God is on the ascent. If we suppose there to be defense through merely living out the natural course of our lives through attending upon secular interests and offering the occasional deference to the Christian religion, we have failed to receive the Lord’s testimony.

Men operate as if distraction upon the affairs of this world provides some barrier against the peril of spiritual things.  The Lord’s testimony is otherwise.  In fact, the Lord warned us it would be just this mindset that would characterize the lives of the perishing in the last days.  They will perish through simply living out their natural course of existence without occupation upon the things of God’s kingdom:

 “For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating & drinking, they were marrying & giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, & they did not understand until the flood came & took them all away;  so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.                    Matt. 24:38-39

In their distraction upon the temporal things of this mean existence, they will fail to perceive the glory God wrought even within this mean existence when He manifested Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ.  In so doing, their dust shall not be raised again to dwell in the glory of God.  The man of this world, content to live out his natural life in the flesh aloof from the true knowledge of God will sacrifice eternity in so doing.  This living out of the natural life without care or concern relating to matters of sin and the things of God in Christ, is the lot of the first Adam, who was created under the same circumstances as were the “beasts of the field”, ie. on the 6^th day, and it was also; “out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field”.[1]  When the first Adam can see no further than this temporal existence he shares with nature, he lacks the understanding God intended man to possess.  He is not worthy of distinction from anything else made from the dust of the ground:

Man that is in honor, & understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.                                                                                       Ps. 49:20

The first life – that of Adam – shall never be sufficient as an offering unto God, as demonstrated through his children, Cain and Abel.   Cain’s offering consisted of the fruits of his cursed labor, whereas Abel’s offering in blood was brought by faith.  While both men had a brute existence, one of them managed to sanctify Christ.  Cain’s offering was a show of what he could produce for God.  But it came from unbelief, else Cain would have received God’s Word that his produce had been cursed.  Abel’s sacrifice would ultimately be the forfeiture of himself, a sacrifice which while nothing in itself, was sanctified as brought in faith.

Just as the Lord raised allusion to Noah when speaking of men’s inclination to abide in the mean temporality of their material existence in spite of God having borne witness concerning Himself, so does God’s word through Isaiah speak of Noah:

For this is like the days of Noah to Me; When I swore that the waters of Noah should not flood the earth again.  So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, nor will I rebuke you.                      Is. 54:9

God’s covenant is a promise of eternal mercy, unending grace, His unbounded love.  And yet, men do not perceive.  Neither shall they understand until taken away in judgment of the ungodly.

& they did not understand until the flood came & took them all away; so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.      Matt. 24:39

b.  Noah as Type for Sanctification via the Spirit of Christ, Our Comforter

The name “Noah” is pronounced; no’-akh, and  means; “rest”.[2]  When Noah was born, this oracle was made by his father:

     And he called his name Noah, saying, “This same shall comfort us concerning our work & toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed.   Gen 5:29

The prophecy of Noah’s birth was that he would constitute God’s comfort; the name Christ applied to His Holy Spirit.  Noah prefigures Christ, particularly the work of the Spirit of Christ to prepare a resting place in God for men prior to the end of temporal things.

Lamech’s prophecy foretold hope for the cursed dust of the earth.  Our natural humanity may receive the blessing of God through the justification afforded by the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who humbled Himself to our own material existence:

And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, & became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.             Phil. 2:8

Although God in His being and heir of all things, Christ identified in our lowly and cursed condition.  He partook in our lowly-form, our poverty of spirit, our derision, and our death, that He might meet us and gather us in.  Therefore this is the place where God meets us with His grace.  We put on  the humility that Christ assumed for us:

. . . be clothed with humility:  for God resisteth the proud, & giveth grace to the humble.                        I Peter 5:5 

The Comforter comes to those who walk in the Spirit He gives.[3]  The only basis and means through which man may interface with his Creator is through the cross of Christ Jesus, as the only way to begin to know God is through and within the context of His mercy.  This we call Grace, and He is a Person.  Through Him, men find refuge and solace in the presence and power of God despite the condemnation of the Law upon their cursed temporal humanity.  Jesus came into the world as the blessed ground, the sanctified land of promise, a place in which God’s elect dwell.  He came sanctified of the Father.  Jesus comes to us in the Person of His Spirit, and in Him, we are reconciled unto God.

Now the Lord is that Spirit; & where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.                                                                                     II Cor. 3:17

As Noah prepared an ark for the salvation of His family. Christ prepared the means of salvation for all the elect through the sacrifice of Himself.[4]  Those that walk in His Spirit likewise follow the task of Noah.  They build an ark through works of faith through which others may believe and be saved.

Take heed unto yourself, & unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this you shall both save yourself, & them that hear you.             I Tim. 4:16

c.  Noah as Typifying Repentance from Sin unto the Rest of God

This principle of the Spirit’s work typified in Noah is critical to our sanctification in terms of the overcoming of sin.  There is another word translated comfort in the King James.  Isaiah prophesies through the Holy Spirit:

I, even I, am He who comforts you.  Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, & of the son of man who is made like grass;                Is. 51:12

This is the Hebrew-word naw-kham’,[5] which finds alternative translation as repent.  Through the process of a Spirit-brought repentance, the temporal gives way to the eternal and we begin to enter upon God’s rest.  Thus Lamech’s prophecy is revealed!   In fact, we find the Hebrew word for no’-akh also  means; “rest”.[6]  This would seem a matter of design.  For as the Genesis account of the flood commences we find the word is translated first as comfort and in the second place as repent, and both in connection with the account of the flood:

And it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth,  & it grieved him at his heart.               Gen 6:6

From then on throughout prophecy, this Hebrew-word; naw-kham’  is interchangeable as meaning; to comfort or to repent.  Lamech prophesies to the effect that through no’-akh, we shall be comforted from the curse upon our humanity.  In nearly the same context, God presents as grieved in humanity, even repenting Himself of his making!  But recall the prophecy uttered by Balaam before he counseled Balak to entice Israel to sin, for his prophecy uses the very same word; naw-kham’ when he says:

  God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent:  Hath He said, & shall He not do it? or has He spoken, & shall He not make it good?                                                                                     Num 23:19

God does not repent.  His ways are perfect.  Of repentance He has no need.  Why then should God be grieved in man’s creation?

Balaam prophesies; “neither [is He] the son of man”.  However, God came as the Son of Man, and stood in place of mankind to become the eternal bond between Himself and all things through the Person of His Son.  Jesus Christ constitutes the eternal cohesion between Creator and the created, our identification in the Father and strength unto salvation as the firstborn of God.

Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.                                                                                     Ps. 89:27

Through repentance, we come to share in Christ.  Through repentance we come into the comfort that is the witness of God’s Spirit that in Jesus Christ, all condemnation is silenced, the principle of sin and death dissolved, and through which the knowledge of eternal life is brought increasingly to light.   This is a vital gospel principle and goes to the heart of saving faith in Jesus Christ, ie. that the powerful witness of God’s comfort, follows the profound witness that God walked in our humanity, stood in the place of our punishment, and stands eternally as our surety!  Therefore, the Spirit of Christ declares:

  Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands;  thy walls are continually before Me.                                Is. 49:16

d.  The Holy Ghost as the Comforter; Heaven’s Witness of God’s Mercy

Thus God’s witness of His all-sufficiency is birthed within us and abides within us through the means of the Holy Spirit in testament to Jesus Christ.  The witness of the Holy Ghost that was before a witness of the forgiveness of sins is now known in a deeper way to be a witness of Water and abiding grace, both cleansing from sin and comforting against the attacks of men and Satanic agency.  We know our Comforter in an ever more profound way, of Whom the Lord spoke when He said:

And I will pray the Father, & He shall give you another Comforter,  that He may abide with you for ever.          John 14:16

The Lord refers to the Holy Spirit as the “Spirit of Truth”, and refers to Him as the Comforter. This is the Greek word par-ak’-lay-tos,[7] meaning advocate or intercessor.  Its only other usage outside the last supper is in John’s epistle:

My little children, these things write I unto you, that you sin not.   And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:      I John 2:1

This is remarkable in that Jesus Christ is Himself referred to by the word; par-ak’-lay-tos; the same name He gave to the Holy Spirit.  This would be consistent with Paul’s words:

Now the Lord is that Spirit; & where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.                                                                                      II Cor. 3:17

This statement is subtle and yet powerful.  We have received the “Comforter” that Jesus promised.  Now God is telling us that this is He!  God Himself has been intimately acquainted with our hurting, our pain, our perplexity, and our struggle.  If the Creator Himself is intimately familiar with, and exercised upon our heart and our course through life, why then should we fear anything in this world?  The comfort and consolation of God arose in our heaviness, our perplexity, and in our distresses.  The Lord is now exhorting us to trust in Him rather than in those things our eyes can see.  For those things the eyes can see are animated by “the Oppressor” (Is. 51:13) and are not to be feared, for:

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.          I John 4:4