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Now the point of the example in Heb. 11: 7 seems to be that Moses after all was a
servant, it is Christ Who is the Son. Moses "prepared" the house, but could do no more.
Noah PREPARED AN ARK, and saved "the house". So, said the apostle, will you not be
prepared to "leave" the work of Moses the servant, who can do nothing more than
condemn you, and enter into the provision made by Christ, whose one Offering is typified
by the use of the Hebrew word kopher "pitch" which later in the law is translated
"atonement":
"Christ as a Son (is) over His own house; Whose house are we, if we hold fast the
confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end" (3: 6).
Saved . . . . . condemned.
Noah's faith moved him to prepare an ark "to the saving of his house, by the which he
condemned the world". While from one point of view Christian charity knows no
bounds, from another point of view Christianity is very drastic and provoking. This is
not limited to the Christian faith. It belongs to all propositions and to all issues. The man
who is convinced that the teetotaller is right cannot avoid the alternative that the drinker
is wrong. The man who sees in Socialism the panacea for all evil cannot avoid
condemning Conservatism and Capitalism by his very conviction. The church by its very
constitution condemns the world. There is no justification for bitterness, for wrangling,
for strife, but even among professing Christians it is not possible to hold certain vital
doctrines without condemning those who deny them. Christian charity is a lovely thing,
but it does not enable us to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
The inheritance.
All that we have seen concerning Noah has been leading to this last clause, "He
became the HEIR of the righteousness which is by faith". The warning, the preparing,
the saving of his house had one thing in view--the inheritance. Noah was not moved to
construct an ark either to demonstrate his own prowess, or even his faith, but as a means
to an end. Redemption is for a purpose, it is not an end in itself. So marvelous is that
redemption, that we often speak of it as though it were the end itself of the purpose of
God.
Eph. 1: 1-14 shows as clearly as any passage the intermediate position of
redemption, with the will of God stated first, the inheritance reached at the last, and the
"mystery of His will" which involves redemption coming in between.
The blessing of God upon Noah, when he stood upon the restored earth with his saved
house, was practically a repetition of the dominion given to Adam, modified by the
changed circumstances (Gen. 9: 1-7).
"In the six hundredth and FIRST year, in the FIRST month, the FIRST day of the
month, the waters were dried up from off the earth" (Gen. 8: 13).
Thus Noah and his inheritance anticipates that day when He that sits upon the throne
shall say, "Behold, I make all things new", faintly suggested also by the "no more curse"
of Gen. 13: 21. We have further light upon the faith that inherits in the case of