Verse 20
Noah, we are told, "was a just man, and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God." Noah reverenced right and justice; he ordered his family well; he lived in the presence of an unseen Being, who is right and true, and who had appointed him to be the head of a family. By the orderliness and quietness of his life he became a witness against the turbulent, self-willed world, in the midst of which he was dwelling. But there is in him also an earnest interest in his fellow-men. He separates from them only that he may be a witness to them of the good that they are flying from, and which he claims for himself and his family because he believes that God designs it for the creatures He has formed.
I. There is an evident difference between the sacrifice of Noah and those of Cain and Abel. Here, under God's guidance, the mound of turf gives place to the altar which is built. An order is discovered in the dignity of the inferior creatures; the worthiest are selected for an oblation to God; the fire which consumes, the flame which ascends, are used to express the intention of him who presents the victim.
II. We must feel that there was an inward progress in the heart of the man corresponding to this progress in his method of uttering his submission and his aspirations. Noah must have felt that he was representing all human beings; that he was not speaking what was in himself so much as offering the homage of the restored universe.
III. The foundation of sacrifice is laid in the fixed will of God; in His fixed purpose to assert righteousness; in the wisdom which adapts its means to the condition of the creature for whose sake they are used. The sacrifice assumes eternal right to be in the Ruler of the universe, all the caprice to have come from man, from his struggle to be an independent being, from his habit of distrust. When trust is restored by the discovery that God means all for his good, then he brings the sacrifice as a token of his surrender.
F. D. Maurice, The Doctrine of Sacrifice Deduced from the Scriptures, p. 18.
The text teaches:
I.That worship should succeed every act of Divine deliverance.
II. That sacrifice is the only medium through which acceptable service can be rendered. Noah's sacrifice expressed: (1) a feeling of supreme thankfulness: (2) a feeling of personal guilt.
III. That no act of worship escapes Divine notice.
IV. That human intercession vitally affects the interests of the race.
Parker, The Cavendish Pulpit, vol. i., p. 61.
References: Genesis 8:20 . J. Cumming, Church Before the Flood, p. 359. Genesis 8:20-22 . G. Moberly, Plain Sermons, p. 280.
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