Creation Judged - Genesis 6:5-22

Genesis 6:5-22

God is sorry he made man.  That makes me wince when I read that.  But imagine the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, who at the beginning loved everything that He had made.  How he delighted in it all.  God had made a partnership with mankind to care and tend the creation, but that all seems lost now.  Now the feeling of regret hangs over the Lord of all.
 
People can get hung up with questions on how an Omniscient God can feel regret.  But this scores just how tragic the situation really is and how mankind has rebelled so far from God.

God’s regret comes from the wickedness that he sees.  Mankind is no longer living rightly before Him and also not living rightly with one another and with the earth.  And God can pierce the mind and heart and there God sees that mankind only thinks of sinning and rebelling without ceasing.  The hole of the heart is dark and evil indeed.
 
God’s judgment is then rendered.  The slate must be wiped clean, literally.  And not only mankind, but the rest of the living creatures must go too. 
This judgment that is rendered is just, if not terrifying.

But a glimmer of hope is revealed in this judgment, for Noah has found favor, or grace, with God.  What is this grace, but God’s unmerited favor.  Because, you see, God made a promise.  He made a promise with Adam’s race.  He spoke it to Eve saying that a descendant would come from Adam’s line to fix what was shattered.
 
That promise went from Adam to Seth and to all of the line of Adam until we get to Adam’s son Noah.  It is to that promise that God made that Noah finds favor with God.  And so God, with much grace and love, tells Noah to build the ark and to preserve the remnants of the creation inside.

God tells Noah the plan, why this flood will occur, and how God will establish the covenant still with Noah and his descendants.  It is through this flood that God will provide the means of salvation for the human race, though our hearts sin without ceasing.
 
God’s judgment is found to always be tied to his mercy.  The cross of Christ highlights this tension of justice and mercy perfectly.  There on the cross, God takes out his wrath and justice upon sin.  But through the cross of Christ, we find mercy and grace because the Lord made a promise to his creation, and Jesus Christ will see it through.