Gen 8:20-22 | KingComments | STEP | The first thing Noah does when he has entered the new earth is to build an altar for the LORD and to offer him offerings. In doing so, he acknowledges that God has every right to the new earth. He offers burnt offerings of all clean animals, which are animals that man is later given as food. This is the third time we read about an offering pleasing to God. The first time it is an offering that God brings to clothe man so that he may exist before Him ( ). The second time it is Abel who offers an offering ( ). He is aware that he can only be accepted by God on the basis of the blood of an innocent one. Here it is a burnt offering on a new earth, brought on an altar. A burnt offering is an offering that is exclusively for God ( ). It goes up completely in fire and smoke, while its smell rises to God. An altar speaks of offering and worship. The clean offerings speak of the Lord Jesus. We bring a burnt offering when we tell God Who the Lord Jesus is to Him, what His work means to Him ( ). Bringing a burnt offering requires an understanding of the joy that God has found in the Lord Jesus, of the honor that God has been brought by the Lord Jesus in His work on the cross. Bringing such an offering is an expression of the new life of someone who has come to conversion and walks in newness of life. His heart goes out to the Savior. Such a person can do nothing but honor God in this way. He wants to do this in his personal life, and he wants to do the same with other believers, as a church. Such worshipers the Father seeks ( ). The offering of Noah consists of clean animal and clean birds. The clean animal speaks of the Lord Jesus as Man on earth, the clean birds speak of Him as Man Who came from heaven.

‏ Genesis 8:20-22

An Altar and an Offering

The first thing Noah does when he has entered the new earth is to build an altar for the LORD and to offer him offerings. In doing so, he acknowledges that God has every right to the new earth. He offers burnt offerings of all clean animals, which are animals that man is later given as food.

This is the third time we read about an offering pleasing to God. The first time it is an offering that God brings to clothe man so that he may exist before Him (Gen 3:21). The second time it is Abel who offers an offering (Gen 4:4). He is aware that he can only be accepted by God on the basis of the blood of an innocent one. Here it is a burnt offering on a new earth, brought on an altar.

A burnt offering is an offering that is exclusively for God (Lev 1:1-17). It goes up completely in fire and smoke, while its smell rises to God. An altar speaks of offering and worship. The clean offerings speak of the Lord Jesus. We bring a burnt offering when we tell God Who the Lord Jesus is to Him, what His work means to Him (Heb 13:15). Bringing a burnt offering requires an understanding of the joy that God has found in the Lord Jesus, of the honor that God has been brought by the Lord Jesus in His work on the cross.

Bringing such an offering is an expression of the new life of someone who has come to conversion and walks in newness of life. His heart goes out to the Savior. Such a person can do nothing but honor God in this way. He wants to do this in his personal life, and he wants to do the same with other believers, as a church. Such worshipers the Father seeks (Jn 4:23-24).

The offering of Noah consists of clean animal and clean birds. The clean animal speaks of the Lord Jesus as Man on earth, the clean birds speak of Him as Man Who came from heaven.

God’s Answer to the Offering

It is impressive to see what the soothing aroma of the burnt offering does with the LORD. This gives rise to thoughts in Him which He also makes known to us, so that He allows us to share in what concerns Him on the basis of the offering.

He says to Himself that He will no longer curse the ground on account of man. The reason He gives for this is almost the same as He gave in Genesis 6 (Gen 6:5-7). There He says that He will destroy the earth, because the thoughts of man’s heart are only evil. And now He says that He will not destroy the earth for exactly the same reason. We see the solution when we pay attention to context.

The first is said before the flood, the second after it. First comes the judgment about man because of his evil. After the flood, the LORD takes into account that the heart of man is evil “from his youth”. Evil is innate to man and that makes him all the more dependent on the grace of God. Therefore, after the flood, God takes another ground for His relationship with man. Judgment has not changed man’s heart, but God now looks upon the earth on the basis of the soothing aroma of the burnt offering.

The LORD smells the soothing aroma of the offering. “Soothing aroma” is literally ‘the smell that gives peace’. God has found His joy and rest in the offering of the Lord Jesus, His Son (Eph 5:2). He still finds it, despite the immutability of man. On the basis of the offering He will not destroy the earth again through water.

Through the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross, which always stands before God’s attention, God maintains the cycle of Gen 8:22. On the basis of that work God still “causes His sun to rise on [the] evil and [the] good, and sends rain on [the] righteous and [the] unrighteous” (Mt 5:45).