Our Guarantee of the Life to Come

A man had spent many weeks at sea, but he had seen no land except for a rocky atoll jutting out of the water.  The provisions on the man's vessel would not last forever.  He had been told that he would reach habitable land, but when?  If only he had a sign to renew his hopes, an indication that land was somewhere ahead....

Another man was suffering from a terrible illness, wracked with pain and overwhelmed by depression.  Will God really resurrect the dead to a new life, free from sin and suffering?  Such a thing seems impossible.  This man also longed for a sign from God, a guarantee.

The first man was Noah.  Noah had been preserved through the deluge in an ark and God had promised that dry land would again emerge, a world cleansed of the terrible violence that prevailed before the deluge.  The ark had finally grounded on a mountain rock, but all around it the restless waters still rolled.  Could Noah have misunderstood?

The second man was Job.  Job knew that all things are possible with God, but from a human standpoint the resurrection seems incredible, and all the more so as generations come and go in apparently endless succession.  As Job wondered out loud about the resurrection a comparison came to his mind:  "At least there is hope for a tree:  If it is cut down, it will sprout again and its new shoots will not fail.  Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.  But man dies and is laid low...man lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep" (Job 14:7-12).

Every human family and each human being is like a tree stump in dry ground; sick, imperfect and doomed to death from the moment of birth, without any power of everlasting life.  The ancient nation of Israel and all of its families were in the same predicament, yet God promised something better for the future:  “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit" (Isaiah 11:1). Many other scriptures liken the coming Righteous One to a young olive tree or a freshly budding leaf, sprout or branch (Psalm 52:8; Proverbs 11:28; Isaiah 53:2; Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8).  God had given such a sign once before by causing the staff of Aaron, a piece of dead wood, miraculously to sprout fresh leaves and blossoms (Numbers 17:8).

Job reasoned that a dry stump may grow again if it catches “the scent of water."  God likens His life-giving Spirit to water:  “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring" (Isaiah 44:3).  When an angel appeared to the Israelite girl, Mary, of the family of Jesse and David, he told her that by means of God's Spirit she would bear a Son who would be the Messiah, the promised Branch (Luke 1:35).  Water had touched the stump of Jesse, and it sprouted by producing the one who is “the Resurrection and the Life" (John 11:25).  When Jesus was killed, the life-giving Spirit gave Him immortality and the power to release all who are held in the grip of death.  Paul later said that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is our guarantee of a coming worldwide restoration, including the resurrection of all who are in the grave (Acts 17:31; 1 Corinthians 15:17-20).  Obviously the message about Christ answers the question of Job, but what does it have to do with Noah?

When Noah needed an indication that land was emerging somewhere beyond his sight, he sent out an unclean bird, a raven, a symbol of man's sinful efforts on his own behalf, and received no sign. The dove, however, which symbolized the Spirit of God, brought Noah a guarantee in the form of a freshly sprouted olive leaf. “Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth" (Genesis 9:11).  The olive leaf, the Branch which sprouted from the stump of Jesse, was likewise brought to the human family by God's Holy Spirit as a guarantee that death will someday be no more and that beyond our sight a “new heavens and new earth” are waiting (2 Peter 3:13).

After bringing the leaf to Noah, the dove flew into the sky and did not return (Genesis 8:12).  A dove which had lighted on the first tree to emerge from floodwaters also lighted on Jesus, the “firstborn of all creation," when He rose from beneath the waters of baptism (Matthew 3:16; Colossians 1:15-18).  Later by the power of the Spirit Jesus became the first to emerge immortal from the grave, which is likened in the Scriptures to the bottom of the ocean (Jonah 2:5-6; Matthew 12:39-40; Romans 10:7).

The ark of Noah was not a ship with a bow and stern, but probably rather a box-like wooden structure which more than anything else would have resembled a floating building. Long before habitable land emerged, the ark came to rest on a rocky mountain top (Genesis 8:4).  From this vantage point, in the ark, grounded on a high mountain, Noah waited for the earth to emerge from the floodwaters. A house, standing on a rock foundation, safe even through the most tempestuous storm, is another illustration connected with the coming of Jesus. “Everyone who hears My words and does them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock" (Matthew 7:24-25). 

The Genesis flood account and the fourteenth chapter of Job appear to have no direct connection either to each other or to the various passages about the promised sprout.  And the events of Jesus' life took place many centuries after all of these Old Testament scriptures were written.  Yet once all of them were recorded for us to compare, they fit together perfectly to form a picture of God's provision of salvation in Christ.  How could such harmony arise without being orchestrated by God?  We come to have faith in Jesus, the olive sprout, because of the revelation about him in God's inspired Word, which is a manifestation of God's Spirit. The dove continues to bring the olive leaf as a guarantee of eternal life to those whose hearts are open.  These signs are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name" (John 20:31).                  

D. Barefoot  ©CDMI