As in the days of Noah ...

"AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH"

The question I've had in Genesis 6 is "Why didn't Satan also corrupt Noah?" Satan apparently was successful in corrupting the rest of humanity, to the extent that God had to "pull it" and begin again through Noah.

And why, by the way, did God allow this corruption to occur in the first place, knowing full well that it would ultimately destroy all but a handful of his Creation? He is sovereign after all. He could have easily just spoken it all away.

I now think the answer is something loosely like the following:

God is engaged in a kind of spiritual "chess match" with Satan, His creation. This has been the plan from the get go. Satan was always going to have a major role in this Creation story. Satan was likely even created especially for this purpose (of "humanity destroyer") — complete with his incredible beauty and intense drive for recognition — for God knew Satan's (or, Lucifer's) future when He created him.

But God is clearly in control of this match, even if Satan doesn't fully believe that. And Satan — as brilliant as he is, and he is light-years more brilliant than even the most brilliant humans — is no match for God. Satan sees the game in finite dimensions, while God sees it in infinite dimensions, "as the heavens are higher than the earth."

So, it goes like this: God lets Satan make his moves first, then God sort of says, "OK, is that your final answer, your final move?" Once Satan commits, God then makes HIS move.

In the case of "the days of Noah", one of Satan's moves is to introduce the Nephillim, the product of fallen angels mating with human women. These Nephillim then reproduced like a virus, until the entire Creation was apparently tainted. This was Satan's attempt to to corrupt the line of Adam to prevent the fulfillment of the Messianic redemption.

Satan makes his move, and it looks to him like he just checkmated God. "Is that your final answer, your final move?" asks God. Satan clearly answers in the affirmative, maybe even holding back a bit of a smug smile.

Then God makes His move. Satan is likely puzzled when he sees what God does, because he doesn't see its ramifications at first or what it really means. But God has effectively preserved the line of Noah, just one man in all creation. It's so subtle that Satan just cannot see it. But he must realize that somehow "checkmate" has eluded him.

Satan probably won't truly begin to understand the significance of this move until the ark is being built. It will certainly hit him full force when the flood finally comes and he sees his entire plan washed away — except, of course, for one uncorrupted man, Noah — whose bloodline will carry on God's Messianic plan.

Why does God do it this way?  I don't know. As God himself says in Is 55:8-9:

 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

   neither are your ways my ways,”

            declares the LORD.

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

   so are my ways higher than your ways

   and my thoughts than your thoughts."

"THE SHOWDOWN AT THE CROSS"

Satan will later encounter the same level of God's brilliance when it comes down to the final moments of Jesus' perfect sacrifice on the cross.  In that case, Satan felt he had God on the edge of the eternal precipice, just a finger poke away from pushing Him off and achieving victory.  All he had to do was get Jesus to doubt — even for the smallest, tiniest of moments — and Satan would finally be able to declare victory.

Satan clearly felt he had the means to make Jesus doubt. So there, with Jesus on the cross, presumably weakened and vulnerable, Satan had one final opportunity, and he let loose with everything he had. This was the finale of all finales, the mother of all assaults. He threw it all at Jesus, every despicable, horrible, unimaginable sin in all Creation, in the final attempt to make Jesus doubt. It was explosive, nuclear, with nothing held back.

And let's not minimize how horrible this was. Remember Jesus the night before in Gethsemene, on His knees, clearly in agony, doubled over in spiritual pain, even sweating blood!  He knew how horrible this was going to be.

(The only way I can imagine this is to think of all possible ways the most evil, sick men in the world, who hate me to their core, could devise unspeakable tortures for me, and torture me over and over, with no mercy, until I give them what they want. Imagine your own worst nightmares.  Jesus knew He was facing something infinitely WORSE and MORE CRUEL than anything even the most sick human mind could conjure up. Satan himself, the prince of darkness, was devising this horror.)

As Satan fired his vicious, unprecedented salvos, he couldn't really be sure if or when doubt actually entered Jesus. So he kept hurling, feverishly, relentlessly, desperately reaching deep and pulling out every sin in his arsenal. Every sin.  Exhausted and probably at his last gasp, Satan reached back and threw the last remnants of sin in his arsenal at Jesus. He was spent, and the vault, which had held ALL the sin from the beginning Creation, was now emptied on to Jesus.

Satan waited. The silence was deafening. The world stood still.

Jesus then said the words, "It is finished".

Remember the "chess match"?  Just like when Satan thought he had checkmate with the Nephillim, he now thinks this brilliant move has somehow routed God's master plan and that he has checkmated Him at the cross.

"Is that your final answer, your final move?" God asks. Satan is spent and has nothing else, and nods in affirmative.

God makes His move. And Satan can't believe what just happened. Not only had he NOT created the doubt he intended, but he suddenly realizes that what he actually did was take every ounce and spec of sin he himself commanded, and put it squarely on to "the Lamb" ... and that made the Lamb — Jesus — the perfect, perfect sacrifice to God! (and Satan surely understood the full nuances of the Jewish sacrificial system set up by God.)

The Christ on the cross drew in every last bit of sin in Satan's arsenal to Himself. He got it all, every last spiritual molecule of it. And Satan was in effect helping Him do it!

Satan meant to do one thing — batter God's Son, make Him doubt, and thus kill the redemption plan — but what he did was something else — he took his ultimate weapon (ALL sin for all time, which keeps mankind separated from God and eternal salvation), and unwittingly handed it over in full to God through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.

As in the days of Noah, God's Creation would go on.  But unlike in those days, Satan now knows his days are numbered and that his final destination ultimately will be the lake of fire. He's still feverishly making moves, but he knows full well that he has lost and that his destiny is settled.