The Grammar of Grace: God Remembers Text: Genesis 8:1-5
Introduction: The Covenant Keeper
We come now to the turning point of the flood, and consequently, the turning point of the history of the world at that time. The waters have reached their zenith. The judgment is complete. The old world, thoroughly corrupted and violent, has been washed away. For one hundred and fifty days, the ark has been a solitary speck on a global ocean, a tiny vessel of life in a world of death. From a human perspective, this is the very definition of being forgotten. Adrift, with no land in sight, surrounded by the silent, slate-gray evidence of God's wrath. It is in this precise moment of apparent abandonment that God reveals His character most profoundly.
Our modern sentimentalism wants a God who never sends judgment in the first place. We want a grandfatherly deity who would never do something so severe as flooding the entire world. But the God of the Bible is holy, and His justice is as perfect as His mercy. The flood was not a temper tantrum. It was a righteous, holy, and necessary act of cosmic sanitation. It was a de-creation, a return of the world to the watery chaos of Genesis 1:2, because the pinnacle of creation, man, had filled it with rebellion.
But God is not simply a God of justice. He is a covenant-keeping God. He makes promises, and He keeps them. The central theme of this entire passage, and indeed the entire Bible, is that God does not forget His people. He does not forget His promises. The story of Noah is not fundamentally about a great flood; it is about a great God who saves His people through judgment. And in these five verses, we see the tide of judgment turn, and the waters of grace begin to rise.
The Text
Then God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.
Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained;
and the water receded from the earth, going forth and returning, and at the end of 150 days the water decreased.
In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.
Now the water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.
(Genesis 8:1-5 LSB)
The Pivot of Grace (v. 1)
The entire narrative hinges on the first three words of our text.
"Then God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided." (Genesis 8:1)
When the Bible says that "God remembered," it does not mean that God had a lapse in memory, as though He were distracted by some other cosmic affair and suddenly thought, "Oh, right, Noah!" To remember, in biblical language, is a covenantal term. It means that God is now moving to act on the basis of His prior commitment. It is the same word used when God "remembered" His covenant with Abraham to deliver Israel from Egypt (Ex. 2:24) and when He "remembered" Rachel and opened her womb (Gen. 30:22). This is not about divine recollection; it is about divine action. God had promised to preserve Noah (Gen. 6:18), and now, at the appointed time, He is keeping that promise.
And notice the scope of His memory. He remembered Noah, yes, but also "all the beasts and all the cattle." This is not an incidental detail. God is not just saving a man and his family; He is preserving the created order. This is a cosmic salvation. Man is the head of creation, and in saving the head, God graciously saves representatives of the whole body. This strikes a blow against a truncated gospel that is only about "me and Jesus." God is redeeming all things through Christ, and this is a beautiful foreshadowing of that cosmic restoration.
How does God begin this work of restoration? He causes a "wind to pass over the earth." The Hebrew word here is ruach. It is the same word for spirit and breath. This is a direct echo of Genesis 1:2, where the Ruach Elohim, the Spirit of God, was hovering over the surface of the waters. The flood was a de-creation, returning the world to a watery state. Now, the re-creation begins with the same agent: the Spirit, the breath, the wind of God. He is breathing life back into a drowned world. This is the Holy Spirit beginning the work of renewal.
The Sovereignty of Restraint (vv. 2-3)
God's action is decisive and total. He doesn't just start the drying process; He stops the drowning process.
"Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; and the water receded from the earth, going forth and returning, and at the end of 150 days the water decreased." (Genesis 8:2-3 LSB)
The same God who opened the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven now closes them. He is Lord over the chaos. He is the one who sets the boundaries for the sea and says, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther" (Job 38:11). The forces of destruction are not autonomous; they are on a leash, and God holds the leash. This is a profound comfort. The calamities and judgments of this world are not random, meaningless events. They are governed, measured, and restrained by the sovereign hand of God.
The water recedes, we are told, "going forth and returning." The process is gradual. God could have snapped His fingers and made the water vanish, but He chose to work through means, through process. This demonstrates that God's providence is not just in the miraculous, but also in the mundane, in the orderly processes of evaporation and recession. The one hundred and fifty days of the waters prevailing (Gen. 7:24) are now matched by a period of decrease. The tide has turned. The high-water mark of judgment has been reached, and the long, slow work of restoration has begun.
The Mountain of Rest (v. 4)
The story then moves from the general subsidence of water to a specific, historical, and deeply theological event.
"In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat." (Genesis 8:4 LSB)
The precision of the date is crucial. This is not a fairy tale. This is presented as history, anchored in time and space. But there is more here than just a date. The ark comes to rest. After months of being tossed on the waters of judgment, the vessel of salvation finds its foundation. It settles. This is a picture of the rest that God provides for His people after the storm. It is a foretaste of the Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God (Heb. 4:9).
And where does it rest? On "the mountains of Ararat." This is a real geographical location in eastern Turkey. But the name itself is significant. The name Ararat is linguistically connected to a phrase that means "the curse is reversed." Think about that. The ark, having carried the remnant of humanity through the judgment that the curse brought upon the world, comes to rest on the mountain of "the curse reversed." This is the gospel in miniature. Salvation is not just about escaping hell; it is about the curse of sin being reversed. And where do we find our rest? We find it at the cross, our Ararat, where Jesus Christ became a curse for us, so that the curse on us might be reversed (Gal. 3:13).
The Dawn of a New World (v. 5)
The process of revelation is as gradual as the process of recession.
"Now the water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared." (Genesis 8:5 LSB)
For almost three more months after the ark rested, nothing but water was visible. But finally, a new sight. "The tops of the mountains appeared." This is the first glimpse of the new world. It is a sign of hope, a promise of solid ground. It is the dawn after the long, dark night. The old world is gone, and the peaks of a new creation are beginning to emerge from the waters of judgment.
This is a picture of the Christian life. We are saved, our ark has rested on Christ our Ararat, but we still live in a world that is largely submerged by the effects of the fall. But God, in His grace, allows us to see the "mountain tops" of the new creation. We see them in the fellowship of the saints, in the beauty of His world, in the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. We do not yet see the new heavens and the new earth in their fullness, but we see the peaks, and that is enough to give us hope and assurance that the rest of the land will one day be dry.
From Ararat to Calvary
We cannot leave this passage without understanding its ultimate fulfillment. The entire event is a type, a foreshadowing, of a much greater salvation. The apostle Peter tells us plainly that the flood is a picture of baptism, which now saves us (1 Peter 3:20-21). But how? Baptism does not wash away dirt. It is an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The water of the flood was the instrument of God's wrath. It destroyed the ungodly world. But that very same water is what lifted the ark to safety. The judgment that condemned the world was the means of salvation for those in the ark. This is a perfect picture of the cross. The flood of God's righteous wrath against sin was poured out upon Jesus Christ, our Ark. That judgment, which would have drowned us all, was absorbed by Him. And in His death and resurrection, He carries us through that judgment and sets us down safely on the mountain of God's unshakable grace.
God remembered Noah, and He acted to save him. In Christ, God has remembered us. He has seen our helpless estate, adrift in a world under judgment, and He has sent His Son to be our Ark. The only safe place to be when the judgment of God comes is in Christ. To be outside of Christ is to be outside the ark, and to be outside the ark is to drown. But to be in Him is to be carried safely through the storm, to find rest on the mountain of the reversed curse, and to see the peaks of the new creation dawning on the horizon.