Christianity: What the Flood Teaches Us

Taken from Creation Untamed by Terence E Fretheim, this is what the Flood in Genesis Chapter Six teaches us about God and his relationship with us and the world:

Relationship
God wants a relationship with us. He personally involves the divine self in the brokenness of the world and works on the situation from within.

Agents
God uses us to carry out His work in the world. Take Noah, he fulfilled every divine command and his obedient behaviour to God is sharply responsible for the salvation of a remnant of humans and animals.

God’s Emotions

God is deeply and personally moved by what has happened to the relationship with humankind. God is not removed or detached from the world, but genuinely engaged with it.

God’s Regret

God regrets that things had to come to what they were in terms of the flood.

God’s Plans
God’s created the world good, but not perfect

Human Resistance
The text in Genesis chapter six is a witness to a divine vulnerability in the unfolding creation and it shows that Humans have successfully resisted God’s will for creation.

God’s Changes of Strategy
God’s initial reference to blotting out human beings seemed to allow for no exception (Genesis 6 v 7)  but God’s pain and sorrow lead to a decision regarding Noah that changes that judgemental direction with positive effects for ‘all flesh’

God’s Grief
God grieves over what has happened to His world (Genesis 6 v6-7)

God’s Suffering
God’s suffering climaxing on the cross proves to be very powerful indeed one might say that suffering is God’s chief way of being powerful in the world.

God’s Promises
The divine more of the flood finally leads to God’s promises never to engage in such a destructive act again.  God will never do this again.

Human beings have not been changed by the flood, but in view of God’s experiment with the world, God charts new directions in relating to the world.  It is this kind of God that provides a basic lens through which we are invited to interpret the God who is presented in all biblical texts to follow.

The flood story shows us among other things that human wickedness can make disasters worse.