06. A New Beginning, The Same Problem
After the flood, God gave a new beginning and blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” (Gen. 9:1)
God gave mankind an opportunity to start over. He reaffirmed his design and gave another chance to fulfill his original intention.
Even amidst the new beginning, the problem of sin continues. Mankind remains corrupt because the problem is internal, not merely external.
Noah began to be a man of the soil and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.
Genesis 9:20-21
Noah obeyed God for many years. Yet the problem of sin was still in the heart of man.
The tension between the desire to follow God and the problem of sin is a common thread throughout the Bible.
Sin did not stop with Noah. It continued with his son Ham, the father of Canaan, who saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.
Ham dishonored his father, but Noah’s two other sons Shem and Japheth took a garment and covered the nakedness of their father, and did not look at his shame. (Gen. 9:23)
God covered Adam and Eve after they sinned, and the two sons did the same for their father.
We see a number of connections where Noah was supposed to function like a second Adam, and yet he fails like the first.
- Adam tended the garden ➜ Noah planted a vineyard
- Adam fell in the garden by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ➜ Noah fell in his vineyard by getting drunk on the fruit of the vine
- Adam and Eve sinned; they saw they were naked and were filled with shame ➜ Noah sinned and lay uncovered (naked and ashamed)
- Adam and Eve sinned, sin multiplied through descendants ➜ Noah sinned, sin continued through his descendants
- Adam and Eve sinned, God declared multiple curses ➜ Noah found out about Ham’s sin and said, “Cursed be Canaan…” (Gen. 9:25)
Sin continues to multiply in the story of the tower of Babel.
Noah’s descendants were meant to multiply God’s image on the earth; instead they sought to make a name for themselves and built a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. (Gen. 11:4)
The Lord came down to see the city and the tower… And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11:5, 9
Exile and scattering continue.
Noah’s genealogy continues through Shem to Terah, then to his son Abram and his family.
They traveled together from Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan, but when they got to Haran, they settled there – representing mankind stopping on the journey short of the promise. (Gen. 11:31; Acts 7:2-4)
In closing, God made a new beginning, yet sin in the heart remained. However, God continued working with imperfect people because his grace and faithfulness did not give up.
The unified story of Scripture keeps moving us forward toward a new covenant where sins are removed and a new heart is given.