In five chapters, Genesis tells the tale of how God made the world very good, how sin and death entered the world by man’s disobedience. In chapter six we are told that God, seeing the wickedness of man, the corruption of his heart, was grieved, and decided to destroy the world he had made. The outlook is grim: “but” we are told, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8), one man, though not perfect, God regarded with favor. Well you know the story - how God commanded Noah to make an ark, and to bring into it his family, and two of every unclean creature, and seven of every clean creature, and how Noah, trusting God’s promise, and obeying his commandments, rode out the Flood in the safety of the ark, to emerge in a world washed clean of old wickedness, for a fresh new start.
So God is not only the Creator, and the Judge of the world - he is also its Savior - and not for the first time. Over and over again, God the Creator and Judge will prove himself the Savior of his people - saving them from bondage in Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea, bringing them into the promised land through the river Jordan - the story told in the Old Testament books of Exodus and Joshua - and then saving them again, in a new and greater Exodus from sin and death - the story told in the New Testament.
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