Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 517
Genesis 9:16.
THE story of Noah’s preservation in the ark is a suggestive representation of salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is, we think, especially intended to depict that part of our salvation which lies in the washing of regeneration. In the same way as Baptism is the outward symbol of regeneration, so also is the ark, “wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” The ark was immersed in those dreadful rains and awful waterfalls which deluged the earth, and Noah’s family were buried in that ark to all the world.
But by this burial they were floated out of the old condemned world into the new world of life and Divine Grace. Death to the world and burial in the ark were the means of their safety. “The like figure whereunto,” says the Apostle Peter (1 Peter 3:21), “even Baptism does also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Baptism is a most significant picture of regeneration, but it is in no sense the cause of the new birth. And the blunder of the Puseyites lies in considering the outward manifestation of an accomplished fact, as though it were the means of creating that fact.
Baptism saves no one, except, as Peter says, in figure. But as a figure, it is eminently full of Divine teaching, for it sets forth the great Truth of God that the Believer, standing today in the old world, is buried to that world, “buried with Jesus Christ by Baptism into death.” And his rising from the liquid tomb is the figure of his resurrection in Christ, into a new world, as a new man, “that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Would to God that we thought more of being dead with Christ, buried with Him and risen with Him. Brethren, let Noah in his ark preach the work of righteousness within the heart to all of us this morning.
Do you not think, dear Friends, that the history of Noah, when he left the ark, in all its items, may be viewed as typical and instructive? Noah came out of the ark no longer cooped up and penned within its narrow limits. He walked abroad and the whole world was before him where to choose. Was not that a picture of the freedom of the Believer who has been “buried with Christ,” and enjoys the possession of God’s free Spirit? For him there is no spirit of bondage, he is free as a child in his father’s house. All things are his, by gift of God, to use and to enjoy. He has learned the liberty wherewith Christ makes men free, and if the Son make us free, we are free, indeed.
When Noah slew the bullock and the other clean beasts and offered them upon the altar, did he not show forth the Believer’s employment? We also offer acceptable sacrifices of prayer and praise unto God, and we, ourselves, are living sacrifices unto God. Did he not as much say to all generations of saints, “You being thus delivered from a death which you deserve, are to spend your lives as priests unto your God”? When the Lord was pleased on that day to bless Noah and his family, bidding them be fruitful, did He not therein set forth the fruitfulness which belongs unto Believers, so that, abiding in Christ, they “bring forth much fruit”? May not that benediction teach us how earnestly we should seek to be spiritually the parents of immortal souls, travailing in birth till Christ is formed in them?
When the Divine Father gave them dominion over the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and over all cattle, did not this portray the power which Believers have over lust, and sin, and evil? And did it not prophesy the subjugation of all things by the power of their faith, so that they who become “priests,” in sacrifice, become also “kings,” by virtue of the charter of dominion which the heavenly Father bestows upon them? What do you think, Brothers and Sisters? When He enlarged the grant of food, and permitted them to eat flesh, did He not set forth that food on which true Believers feed, who now eat His flesh and drink His blood who has become the spiritual Food of our souls?
Is it straining the allegory, is it carrying it too far, if I close this spiritualizing by observing that the very same security which God then gave to Noah and his descendants is that security under which we stand? He gave them a Covenant—a Covenant embellished with a Divine symbol and ratified with His own signature written out in all the colors of beauty. We, too, stand under a Covenant which has its own faithful witness in Heaven, more transcendently illustrious and beautiful than the rainbow—the Person of Christ Jesus our Lord.
Leaving, however, all those points, which I have only started to excite thought among you, we come to this: we have Scriptural reason for asserting that this venerable Covenant—that the world shall no more be destroyed by a flood—is typical of a yet more ancient compact which God made with Christ. That being that He would be unto His people a God, and they should be His chosen ones, world without end. In the fifty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, (vv. 8-10), we find such language as this—“In a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment. But with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto Me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with you, nor rebuke you.