James Nisbet Commentary - Genesis 6:6 - 6:6

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James Nisbet Commentary - Genesis 6:6 - 6:6


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

HUMAN SIN AND DIVINE JUDGMENT

‘And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.’

Gen_6:6

I. Human Sin.—(a) Sin had grown. This thought should be amplified, and special emphasis should be laid upon the fact that evil always has a tendency to grow. Every wicked man was once an innocent babe; the child committed its first conscious act of wrong-doing, perhaps a very little fault, but a real one. Then came another, then another. So it is easier to go wrong afterwards. Illustrate by the rolling of a stone down a slope, or by the increasing size of a leak in a ship. The stone accumulates force as it goes; the water flowing through the tiny hole in the ship’s side makes it larger. So the men of the old world each grew more and more sinful.

(b) One helped to make another bad.

(c) God’s patience, instead of leading them to do better, was taken advantage of.

(d) God saw it all. Perhaps they forgot Him altogether, or else persuaded themselves that He was taking no notice. They said, ‘How doth God know? Can He judge through the dark cloud?’ (Job_12:13; Psa_73:11). But nothing is hidden from His sight, and He not only saw what men did, and heard what they said, but He read their very thoughts (v. 5). Remark, that though sin had driven God out of man’s heart, and there was no longer that happy fellowship between the two which existed in Eden, yet sin cannot drive God out of the world. Though unseen, He is yet everywhere present; seeing all, hearing all, knowing all.

II. Divine sorrow and anger.—It is impossible for us to fully understand what God is and how He feels; therefore we are obliged to be contented with words that describe actions and feelings of men. Thus we may say God was disappointed with man. He made him upright; intended him to be happy; but ‘all flesh had corrupted his way upon earth.’ All the Divine expectations and hopes were disappointed, and God was sorry He had made man. The sorrow was very deep; ‘It grieved Him at His heart.’ Impress upon hearers the thought that sin grieves God. Illustrate by sorrow of father or mother when children do wrong. But our Lesson teaches us that God is not only grieved at sin; it sets forth

III. Divine Judgment.—(a) God resolved on an appropriate punishment. The earth was filled with violence; He would fill it with a flood. Men were corrupt; they should all die. Everywhere there was violence (v. 13); they should all die a violent death.

(b) The punishment was to be very complete. God would destroy all men, and all that belonged to them; their houses, their cattle, their flocks, their fowls. Almost always sin uses God’s gifts against Him; hence He often punishes now by taking away what would, if rightly used, be a blessing.

Illustration

(1)‘Each age develops one or other of the many depraved tendencies of human nature in larger proportions than others—as Cain the self-righteous—the man that would be independent of the Maker of the world. Lamech, the sensual man, that overthrows God’s family order for man’s wellbeing. Nimrod—the rise of ambition, and its struggles for empire. This cycle has been often repeated; men get wearied of certain vices, and exchange them for others, as the fruits become too bitter to be longer endured, or as retributive providences produce a reaction against them.’

(2)‘We have no conception of the antediluvian age. Men then lived long enough to mature in sin, and we are told that everything that a man could imagine was carried out, and there was great violence in the land. But there is another class of people tell us, “Well, you know God is so merciful that all will be saved.” See how that will correspond with this: Man was so wicked and so corrupt and so violent that God could not let him live upon the earth, so He swept them all off, and left the only righteous man and his family. Yet some tell us that believers and unbelievers, thieves, murderers, sceptics, pantheists, deists, all alike, are going to heaven. It is a monstrous doctrine. He is coming to judge the world. God gave the world in Noah’s time one hundred and twenty years to repent, but how long our own day of grace may continue it is impossible to say. We do know, however, that there is still hope, and therefore, while it is called to-day, harden not your hearts.’