Genesis 6:18

"But I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee."

THE COVENANT WITH NOAH

It is remarkable how little attention is paid to God's covenant with Noah, which is by far the most important thing in the chapter, in that the redemption of the entire human race afterward is most surely involved in it. Whitelaw wrote it off as the "already well known covenant"[17] that God had made with man. Willis thought it was the rainbow covenant;[18] and Keil's total comment was that, "With Noah, God made a covenant!"[19] The necessity for this covenant derived from the fact that the promise of deliverance God had made to Eve (Genesis 3:15) was apparently about to be abrogated and canceled through the death of all mankind, as God had just announced. What about the Seed (singular) who would crush the head of the Serpent? This covenant was God's arrangement with Noah, whereby the Seed would be delivered through him and his posterity. Aalders accurately observed this:

"Noah need not be afraid ... he would survive this judgment. And as Noah's part of the covenant, he was required to believe and obey God's word, build the ark according to God's instructions, and then enter it with his family. In that way only would he be saved.[20]

Right here is the very first mention of covenant in the entire Bible; and inherent within it is the revelation of the way that God's New Covenant should be understood. Although the parties of such a covenant are by no means equal, yet there is a part for each to fulfill. Noah fulfilled his part of it in the manner described in Genesis 6:22, below. In short, he DID what God commanded him to do. That is the manner in which he "by faith" became heir of the righteousness that is "according to faith."

Right here is also the real explanation of how Abel offered the "more excellent" sacrifice than Cain. The examples of Noah and Abel lie side by side in Hebrews 11, where it is related that each of them "by faith" was well pleasing to God. The exact reason for Abel's actions being acceptable to God are not related in the Bible, but they are recounted in this record concerning Noah. Therefore, whatever Noah did, it is safe to receive it as an explanation of what Abel did. In Noah's case, he simply and faithfully believed God and did exactly what God commanded him to do (Genesis 6:22), and the notion that Abel was received and his offering accepted upon any other basis than his having done exactly what God had commanded him to do is totally unacceptable. The speculation to the effect that some subjective attitude on the part of each of those brothers resulted in the sacrifice of one of them being rejected and that of the other being received as pleasing to God could not possibly be correct. The genuine salvation "by faith" comes only from believing and obeying God. "Faith comes by hearing God's word" (Romans 10:17).

It should be evident that Noah was, in a sense, his own savior, and also that his salvation derived from the grace and mercy of God, that Noah did not earn it, nor did he deserve it, but that he could not possibly have been saved apart from his obedience to God's commandments. This is the perfect analogy of the way sinners are saved by OBEYING the gospel under the gracious terms of the New Covenant.

"And thou shalt come into the ark ..." This is the summary of the covenant agreement by which Noah and his family were to be saved. Nothing could have availed for him and his apart from this key action of entering the ark. For men today, Christ, that is, his spiritual body, the church, these being one and the same thing, is the ark into which men must enter to be saved.