NOTES for Gen 9:8-15
One often hears from a person who has read the Bible, as also from one who has not read it, the question: why is all this history needed at all? Why does God need some special people whom He calls His own, why this special religion, and Christ too: why? Were there not enough good people in the world before Christ and before Abraham, and are there not such people now even among unbelievers, not to mention those who believe differently from Christians? How are these good and even, in their own way, believing people worse than the Jews or Christians chosen by God? After all, neither group as a whole is anywhere near ideal, and among both one meets all kinds of people. Is this game begun by God, this grand project that appears not to bring the expected results, really worth the trouble?
The parable of Noah, usually called the story of the flood, though the flood is exactly what concerns the author least of all, gives the answer to this question. This answer consists above all in the fact that God is not indifferent to "good people," whom the Bible usually calls the righteous. The righteous really did exist in the world long before Abraham, before the beginning of the history of the people of God. The image of Noah is the collective image of these righteous people, and it is not so important who historically stands behind this image from the biblical parable.
Something else matters: all righteousness is absolutely important to God, important enough that He is ready to make a covenant with everyone who is ready to walk His way, whenever and wherever such a person may live. Yet for all the importance of such righteousness, it turns out to be insufficient. It is enough only so that the world will not again be struck by catastrophe, so that it will not collapse into the abyss. All the efforts of all the righteous of the pagan world are enough only to maintain the status quo.
This is not enough for God: He wants to change the situation radically. It is important to Him not merely to draw the world back from the precipice, but also to direct it onto another path and in the end to save and transform it so that the world becomes a full part of His Kingdom. Here all the righteousness of the pagan world is not enough; special efforts are needed, a special revelation and a special people who will become its bearer and guardian, and finally the Messiah, through whom the Kingdom will enter the world, transforming it.
In Noah's time all this history still lies ahead, but God's plan already exists, and He has already begun to act. Only the first step has been taken, but without the first step there will be no following steps, and therefore no whole history of salvation.