Truly I say to you that this generation shall by no means pass away until all these things happen. / Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall by no means pass away. / But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but the Father only. / For just as the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. / For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day in which Noah entered into the ark, / And they did not know that judgment was coming until the flood came and took all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. (Matt. 24:34-39)
When Noah was called to build the ark, the earth was corrupted, full of wickedness, violence and flesh (Gen. 6:1-13). God desired to wipe out the old to make way for the new — to end the old, fallen generation and initiate a fresh, new beginning to recover His own purpose on the earth. Indeed, Noah was given a revelation of the ages; the building of the ark was his gospel. Every day, he put his hands on his calling by building; his gospel was far from theoretical! And yet we can imagine that as he preached this gospel, no one on the fallen earth believed. Out of an entire generation, only Noah and his family came out: “Then Jehovah said to Noah, Come into the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this generation” (Gen. 7:1).
Just as in the days of Noah, today we find ourselves on the cusp of a dispensational change. We know that the ark typifies the church — and even more, that it is the vessel that carries God’s people in turning the age. It brings forth the new dispensation, and transitions from the old world into the new. But what does this mean for us today? What is the reality of the nature and function of the ark — the church — in this age? How does the church function as a junction between two dispensations? When Noah and his family entered the ark, judgment came (Matt. 24:39). The ark was a bridge out of the old through judgment — the destroying or ceasing of everything from the old world. But its function does not stop there. After God destroyed all life upon the earth, those souls preserved from death in the ark were carried through to the other side — to the dry, new, uncorrupted land — by the nature and function of the ark itself: to terminate the old and germinate the new. When Noah entered the ark, the world was old and fallen, but when Noah exited the ark, it was into a new creation. This is the nature and function of the church in serving us the cross; by this we are able to pass over and enter into new creation. The world that was once beautiful yet now corrupted — utterly degraded by fallen man and the worldly current — is transitioned into one that is reborn, renewed, and eternal.
After the waters receded, God called Noah to “go forth from the ark” (Gen. 8:16). As he looked upon dry land after so many days of tumultuous waters, he didn’t celebrate, leap for joy, or even cry tears of gratitude. Instead, the first thing he did was build an altar:
And Noah built an altar to Jehovah and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. // And Jehovah smelled the satisfying fragrance; and Jehovah said in His heart, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I ever again smite everything living as I have done. // Throughout all the days that earth remains, / Seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, / And summer and winter, and day and night / Shall not cease. (Gen. 8:20-22)
Presenting such an offering at this timing required a dispensational understanding; after living through many years of building, of rejection by the world, and of waiting on the Lord, the altar and the offering were Noah’s response. Genesis 8 is the first time in the Bible where we find the words “altar” and “burnt offering.” Actually, the root meaning of “altar” in the original Hebrew refers to “a slaughter,” meaning it is for sacrifice — for redemption, or for repentance. Where did this offering take place? In Hebrew, the word altar corresponds to the Greek word for skull, related to the namesake and physical location of Golgotha, where the Lord Jesus was crucified (Matt. 27:33; Luke 23:33). This building of the altar is to build a place of killing, a place for slaughter. The Hebrew word for “burnt offering” means “that which goes up,” or “ascent”; we know that the burnt offering is burnt up entirely to become a sweet savor that ascends to God. There is no other purpose for this burnt offering: it is wholly and completely for God.
When this altar — this skull, or place of slaughter — is built, there is something that satisfies the Lord. With this burnt offering, the satisfaction of God signals the transference from one era to the next in His divine plan: God gaining His foothold on the earth, a remnant, through judgment, repentance, and redemption. At this turning of the age — at the dawn of a new generation — the burnt offerings on the altar are nothing for man, but are burnt completely only to be a sweet-smelling fragrance unto the Lord. Just as this was the gospel Noah preached, so we see this throughout the Bible. Specifically, we see this altar is in relation to a new land — a promised land, a redeemed land that comes out from judgment and redemption. Noah must have had some understanding of the flood — that redemption comes out of repentance. So he did not celebrate as he came out of the ark; he built an altar for repentance and redemption — a recognition of the process of death that brings about the new land in life. We see this altar again four chapters later in Genesis in Abraham’s life: “And Jehovah appeared to Abram and said, To your seed I will give this land. And there he built an altar to Jehovah who had appeared to him” (Gen. 12:7). As a contrast, earlier in the Bible, we see Cain’s offering was not offered in this nature; the difference is in the understanding of the need for redemption (Gen. 4). The fine line of genealogy in the Bible is carried through redemption.
In the same way, our Christian life can only begin with a true and real judgment, repentance, and redemption. We need to go through the altar and offer Christ as the unique sacrifice on the cross. If we are truly saved, the altar is our privilege. But the path to the altar requires a vessel of life — a building, a people to be priests — to carry human sin to Christ so that degradation can turn to salvation. The church’s function is to serve us the cross, making the way for us to be fully consecrated to God. This is the true priestly service; this is how we exercise the church life. These priests serve. They carry power. They prick our conscience and develop our spirit. They serve us to the altar. Outside are endless, tumultuous waters. But the Spirit leads us to the dry ground. The Spirit leads us to termination, and from termination to germination. Yes, the cross puts something to death, but it is also the germination of the new man. In between the old and new is the buoyant and vital church carrying us all the way through to fully satisfy God on the Lord’s altar.
At the end of the flood, Noah sent out a dove three times. Sent out the first time, the dove searched for a “resting place” but found none on earth. On her second trip, she came back with a freshly plucked olive leaf. The last time the dove went out, she did not return. Although the Bible never recorded where the dove went, we can see there was a junction of thousands of years before we see the dove once again, when the Spirit of God descended as a dove upon Jesus, who is the Beloved, God’s Son, in whom God abides and finds His delight, after His baptism (Matt. 3:17; John 1:32). There is a definite relationship between the Spirit’s leading and the church, especially as the Spirit broods, searches, and points to a resting place. The Spirit’s leading not only moves us from era to era, but also descends upon Christ as a place for rest, even as an abode, connecting God’s eternal purpose from the Old to the New Testament. The olive leaf the dove brought back indicates that the dove landed on Mount of Olives. Just as olives are crushed to make oil, the Lord Jesus was offered up as the unique sacrifice of God to redeem this degraded humankind. And in His return, the Lord who ascended from the Mount will also come back in the same way: “His feet will stand in that day on the Mount of Olives” (Zech 14:4). Without the olive being crushed, there is no reconciliation — there is no way for the Lord’s feet to find a resting place. From this we see that the new world comes through an offering.
Without the altar being built, there is no new land — no kingdom life, no New Jerusalem. If we go through this process, then we can see clearly that the church’s bridging of the old world and the new era to come is a journey for God and his remnant to find a resting place. This is the junction we are at today; we are preaching a gospel no one accepts and we are being ushered into a churching in the midst of an ocean of judgment. We survive by the leading of the dove, and find a solid ground upon which we can offer the sacrifice. In this way, the church serves the altar. It serves the one true sacrifice, Christ Himself. It serves the juncture between the old and the new. It serves a genuine salvation. The altar is what makes the church the church.
(Above is part 1 of a series compiled from notes of fellowship taken from gatherings on 9/17/2021 & 9/19/2021, not reviewed by the speaker. Read part 2 here and part 3 here.)