God said to Adam:
Genesis 3:17 NKJV
Because you have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying: You shall not eat of it:
Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
Eight generations after Adam Lamech was born.
Genesis 5:28 NKJV
Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and had a son. And he called his name Noah, saying, This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord has cursed.
By eating the fruit of the tree of earthly wisdom the ground was cursed.
But God would comfort mankind and give rest from their toil, through Noah.
Adam was the fist man. His name also means man, or mankind.
When he was 130 years old, he got a son he called Seth. Seth means placed, or appointed.
Seth got a son he called Enosh. His name means mortal.
When Enosh was 90 years old, he got a son named Cainan. The meaning of Cainan is sorrow.
Cainan then got a son whom he named Mahalalel. This means God is praised.
Mahalalel named his son Jared, which means shall come down.
Jared late in life got a son whom he named Enoch. This means teaching or anointed.
Enoch named his son Methusalah meaning his death will bring or after his death I will send.
Methusalah later begot Lamech. This means taste or despairing.
Lamech named his son Noah. Because, so he had said, this one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord has cursed. (Genesis 5:28)
Noah also means rest or comfort.
When the meaning of these 10 names are all placed one after the other, a wonderful message appears!
Mankind is appointed mortal sorrow.
God is praised! The anointed shall come down.
His death will bring the despairing comfort and rest.
Here we see that the names of the first 10 generations of mankind already tell the gospel of Jesus Christ!
the Natural to teach us the spiritual
earth
Genesis 6:9b+11+13+17 NKJV
Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.
But the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
So God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die.
When we read this story with earthly eyes, we see only death and destruction, and you could come to see God as a ruthless, brutal Person who is always angry and hates humanity.
That is why it is important that we ask God to open our spiritual eyes so that we can see God’s love and the deep spiritual meaning of this story.
John 3:16-17
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through Him might be saved.
The story of Noah and the flood really happened.
God is now using this story to teach us spiritual things.
The spiritual meaning of the natural images in this story is found throughout the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testament.
The earth is an image of our heart.
This earth is cursed because we have eaten from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
This fruit is pleasant to the eyes, and the tree desirable to make one wise. (Genesis 3:6 NKJV)
The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil represents earthly wisdom. Rather than fully believing and trusting God, we have listened to the wisdom of the world. Because of this the earth, our heart, is cursed and there are stones in it and thorns grow up in it.
Now when the gospel is sown on this earth of our hearts, it does not always end up in good soil.
Jesus teaches us this in the parable of the sower.
Of all the seed that is sown, only a small part falls on good soil.
The rest of it falls beside the road, in rocky places and among the thorns.
Matthew 13:3-8 NASV
Behold, the sower went out to sow,
and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road,
and the birds came and ate them up.
Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil
and immediately they sprang up,
because they had no depth of soil.
But when the sun had risen, they were scorched
and because they had no root, they withered away.
Others fell among the thorns,
and the thorns came up and choked them out.
And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop,
some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.
rain
Another image we encounter in Noah’s story is the rain.
The rain that caused the flood
was to clean the earth from stones and thorns and thistles,
so that only good soil would remain.
This rain is an image of the Word of God.
Isaiah 55:10-11 NASB
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout,
and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire,
and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.
As the rain washed the earth in Noah’s time, so the Word of God washes our hearts.
All stones and thorns are washed away from our hearts by His Word.
That way, all that’s left is good soil in which the seed can germinate and grow into grain.
Mark 4:28-29
For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.
And when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.
When the grain in our hearts is harvested, the chaff is separated from the grain and the grain can be ground.
After this, it is made into flour and eventually bread can be baked.
This bread made from the gospel that has grown in your heart is Jesus, the Bread that gives life.
This Bread is now ín you and you may distribute it to others so that they can eat from it and live.
the curse reversed
After God washed the earth, the ark with Noah and his family ran aground on Mount Ararat.
Ararat (אררט) means curse reversed.
The curse that came upon the earth through eating of the fruit of earthly wisdom
has been undone by the waters of the flood.
The curse was reversed!
The complete story of Noah is a wonderful reference to Jesus.
The earth is a picture of our hearts and the water of the flood is a picture of the Word of God.
Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. This means Jesus is the water of the flood in your heart.
After your heart has been flushed clean by the Word of God through Jesus, the curse that came on you by eating of that same earthly wisdom Adam ate of is reversed.
We learned that Ararat means curse reversed.
So when the ark ran aground because the flood had done its work the curse genesis 3:17 speaks of is reversed.
Genesis 8:4 gives us the exact date the ark ran aground on mount Ararat.
Let’s find out why the Bible gives us that exact date.
Genesis 8:4 (NASB)
In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.
So on the 17th day of the 7th month, the month Abib, the curse was reversed.
In Exodus 12:5-6 we read that it is Passover on the 14th day of that month.
On that day the Passover lamb was slaughtered and the people of God were delivered from Egypt.
Years later, on that same day, the 14th day of the month of Abib, Jesus was crucified. (John 19:14-16)
He is the Passover Lamb slain for us.
Jesus lay in the tomb for 3 days and so rose again on the 17th of the month Abib. (Matthew 12:40)
So the 17th of the 7th month is the day that Jesus rose! The curse is reversed!
The curse is reversed and we no longer have to toil and may enter God’s rest.
Hebrews 4:3 NKJV
For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said:
So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Jesus send us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit teaches us all things, and brings to our remembrance all things that Jesus, the Word made flesh, said.
This allows us to grow, so we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18-19).
When eventually you are filled up to all the fullness of God, the Word has become flesh in you and the earth is flooded with the Word of God.
more natural images with deep spiritual meaning
Genesis 1:1-2 NLT
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
We had learned that the earth is a picture of your heart.
The Spirit of God in you hovers above the waters of the earth that is being recreated by the Word of God, just as it did at the beginning of creation.
This way a new heaven and a new earth are created through God’s Word.
Watch the video ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ or do the study to learn more about this.
The same image of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters is found in the dove that Noah releases over the waters of the flood.
We also find the dove as an image of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
Matthew 3:16 NLT
After His baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on Him.
The Holy Spirit came on Jesus like a dove.
It is not strange this happened right after He was baptized for the flood during Noah is a picture of baptism.
1 Peter 3:18-21 NRS
Christ was put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit, by Whom also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ!
The resurrection of Jesus Christ has reversed the curse.
He is the Word of God (John 1:1-5+15) that cleanses our conscience (Hebr. 10:22) from dead works (Hebr. 9:14) and from sin (hebr. 10:2).
In the natural this happened through a flood of water that washed the earth clean,
in the spiritual this happens within you, for Christ in you is the hope of glory.
Peter is calling you to repent and be baptized.
The word repentance in the Bible is the word metanoia.
Metanoia literally means ‘changing your mind’ or ‘thinking the other way around’.
Therefore:
be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self,
which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
Ephesians 4:23 NASB
