While The Earth Remains (Genesis 8:22)

 


Wednesday, January 22, 2025


Psalm 51

Genesis 8

John 8:12-20


Observance: Vincent, deacon and martyr (d. 304)


While The Earth Remains (Genesis 8:22)


It is not a novel observance that this part of Genesis feels rather reminiscent of the first couple of chapters. At the start of the book, God made the earth and everything in it out of nothing. Now, God is remaking the earth and everything in it using what he has saved. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark, that they may be fruitful and multiply on the earth.


If we cast our mind back to the third chapter of Genesis we might remember a taste of the dread we felt at reading about the Fall. Everything was wonderful, perfect and enchanted, but the serpent and his lies brought down Adam, Eve, and everything else. Yes, there was the promise of a serpent-head-crusher yet to come, but in the meantime, there was the curse to deal with.


Noah was not the promised crusher. But he was found righteous in God’s eyes, and so through Noah God did this amazing, terrifying, awesome work of the global flood. As the waters receded, God’s grace was revealed: even though the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth, he will never again strike down every living creature. The initial wave of sin and evil released at the Fall was checked at the Flood. Things might look bad, but they will never be as bad as they were before the deluge.


And so we can now live our lives in confidence. Yes, Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead, and the heavens and the earth will be rolled up like a scroll. But in between now and then, while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. Seize the day; make offerings to the Lord; live a life that is pleasing to the Lord; be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with life.


What does your future look like? How will you live as someone saved from destruction by the blood of Jesus?


Lord of renewal and resurrection: bless my days so that I may live out your command as your image bearer in your creation.

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