The history of the deluge is alleged in the New Testament as a type of the deep waters of sin, in which a lost world is perishing, and from which there is no escape but in that ark which God hath prepared for us. The eight souls saved from the deluge are types of that little flock which rides safely and triumphantly, though the floods lift up their waves and the billows break over them. And their safety is assured to them, because they are in Christ.
I. At the root of all Christianity lies that deep mysterious truth, the spiritual union of the Redeemer with those whom He redeemed. To this truth most emphatically witnesses all the New Testament teaching about the ark as a symbol and a prophecy. For (1) The ark is a figure of Christ. The ark floated over the waste of waters as Christ dwelt and toiled and suffered in the wilderness of this world and amid the waters of affliction. (2) The ark is a figure of the redeemed of Christ. The Church, which is Christ's body, is also the ark of refuge from the wrath of God. This life is still to the Church a conflict, a trial, a pilgrimage, a voyage. The crown shall be at the resurrection of the just.
II. The practical thoughts to which this subject leads us differ but little from the doctrinal. Is not the substance and the end of all safety in Christ, rest in Christ, and at last glory in Christ? Those only who have rested in the Ark will rest upon Mount Ararat. The life of the Christian is begun on earth; it is perfected in heaven. When the voyage is over, the Saviour, who has been to us the Ark upon the waters, shall be to us, in the eternal mountains of the Lord, rest and peace and light and glory.
Bishop H. Browne, Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge,p. 67.
Genesis 8:4 , Genesis 8:18; Genesis 8:20
On the slopes of Ararat was the second cradle of the race, the first village reared in a world of unseen graves.
I. It was the village of the ark, a building fashioned and fabricated from the forests of a drowned and buried world. To the world's first fathers it must have seemed a hallowed and venerable form.
II. The village of the ark was the village of sacrifice. They built a sacrificial altar in which fear raised the stones, tradition furnished the sacrifice, and faith kindled the flame.
III. The first village was the village of the rainbow. It had been seen before in the old world, but now it was seen as a sign of God's mercy, His covenant in creation.
IV. The village of the ark gives us our first code of laws. As man first steps forth with the shadows of the fall around him, scarce a principle seems to mark the presence of law. Here we advance quite another stage, to a new world; the principles of law are not many, but they have multiplied. As sins grow, laws grow. Around the first village pealed remote mutterings of storms to come.
V. The village of the ark was the village of sin. Even to Noah, the most righteous of men, sin came out of the simple pursuit of husbandry. A great, good man, the survivor of a lost world, the stem and inheritor of a new, he came to the moment in life of dreadful overcoming.
E. Paxton Hood, The Preacher's Lantern,vol. iii., p. 92.
References: Genesis 8:4; Genesis 8:18; Genesis 8:19. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 408. Genesis 8:9. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xi., No. 637. Genesis 8:11. T. Birkett Dover, A Lent Manual,p. 158; H. Macmillan, The Olive Leaf,p. 1.Genesis 8:13-16. G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 160.