Jesus the Hero Family Devotional: Week 2 Day 2

[Noah] drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.” Genesis 9:1, 21                                                                                             

Noah: A New Adam, a Failed Messiah

From the very beginning, God’s design was for man to reign on earth. In Genesis 1:28, immediately after the creation of man and woman, came the command: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Yet, the first Adam failed in this task. Instead of exercising his dominion over the beasts, he was himself subdued by the craftiness of the serpent. From this time until the flood, humanity spiraled deeper into sin. And, while mankind was “multiplying” (Gen 6:1), man’s numbers only increased their capacity to sin so that God, deeply grieved, regretted creating man (Gen 6:6). But, Noah “found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (Gen 6:8) and was spared from the destruction of mankind.

Thus, it is no accident that God said to Noah and his sons when they stepped off the ark, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” echoing the command to Adam. God had dramatically “reset” the world and put in place a new, second Adam to exercise dominion over the re-creation. This new Adam, however, failed as the first did. Though Noah’s fall into shameful drunkenness under the fruit of the garden was not exactly immediate (planting and reaping the fruit of a vineyard would take some time), it was definitive. The Bible clearly teaches here that a physical change in the people one is surrounded by and that a change of physical circumstances cannot change the sinfulness in man’s heart. A flood of God’s grace into the human heart is needed to overcome sin. Fortunately, though God’s representative had once again failed in his duty, God would not abandon humanity. A day was coming and is now here in which the last Adam, Jesus Christ, would come to defeat sin for his people and to righteously rule over the cosmos with his redeemed people as the perfectly obedient image bearer of God (Rom 5:12-21, Col 1:15).

Joe Martin and Jon Canler 

Connection with Newer Testament  

Romans 5:12-21

For the Kids

Ask your children what would happen if you put a scoopful of sand and grass into a brownie mix and baked it. Would they eat it? Why not? Help them understand that our sin – even just a “little” sin – is like the sand and grass. It ruins the whole batch of brownies. Even if we just sin once, we have broken God’s law and are worthy of God’s punishment. Thank God that he chose to send his Son to offer salvation to us despite our unworthiness.

Prayer Prompts  

1. Life after the flood reminds us that sin cannot be remedied through external circumstances apart from heart change. Praise God that Jesus, the last Adam, lived a sinless life and established the new covenant whereby our hearts are made new to love the lord and to hate sin.
2. The command to exercise dominion over the earth and to fill it for God’s glory is still binding. Ask the Lord for grace to be diligent about kingdom work. Filling the earth certainly now includes making disciples of Jesus from all nations, not just physical reproduction. Pray that you would be faithful to preach the gospel to those God brings in your path.