“And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how long and wide and high and deep is the love, of Christ, and to know this love, that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19
The love of God is all encompassing, unfathomable and in our sinful state we cannot dare to understand it; the most we can do is try to grasp it as though looking through a faded grimy mirror, and when we do, we see but a dim reflection… we see in part 1Chorinthians 13:12; But isn’t it wonderful, the little we, see? What we are talking about is a love that has remained constant from the beginning of time. From the moment Elohim laid eyes on His newly formed creation and declared it good. He loves us and when Adam and Eve sinned, He made a promise to redeem us all, from sin. Genesis 3:15
Coming to the time of Noah, the world is in chaos, the people steeped in sin. A people, who did not deserve a chance but Our Lord gave them a chance anyway; Noah warned them though no one listened. A preacher of righteousness through his wordless preaching, in the very construction of the ark. He bore witness through each and every hammer blow and pounding of the nail. A call to repentance and a declaration that judgement was coming. Obviously, no one listened and they were destroyed by the flood, while eight souls (Noah and his family) were saved through the water by God, water that symbolizes the baptism that saves us as well 2Peter 2:5. The flood was a reminder of the coming salvation.
Fast forward to Abraham, hundreds of years after Adam and Eve. The Lord uses Abraham as an illustration and reminder of what was to come. In Genesis 22, Abraham faithfully offers up his son when the Lord asks him, and as they climb up the mountain without a sacrifice, Isaac questions this in Genesis 22:7-8 and Abraham responds by saying, “God Himself will provide {Jehovah Jireh} the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” and when Abraham is about to plunge the knife into his only beloved son’s chest, The Lord does indeed provide a Lamb. Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in the thicket and offered it in place of his son. Here we see an example of substitutionary atonement, an echo of what is to come. God provided a sacrifice to take the place of Isaac; this was another wordless sermon, this time directly from God. It is like God was saying, ‘see here Abraham, in the distant future I will come down Myself, become man through your offspring and die for the whole world. It will not be another ram taking the place of your son, but I who will be a sacrifice and take the place of all humanity in the wrath of the Father.’
All this illustrates God’s steadfast character. He is not like man that He should forget a promise made. He does not change His mind nor does He go back on His word Numbers 23:19. He made us for Himself and He has every intention to bring us back to Him.
“Now to Him who is able to do so much than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21