The Great Disembarking: A New World by the Word Text: Genesis 8:13-19
Introduction: The Patience of the Righteous
We live in an age of frantic impatience. We want our coffee instantly, our information immediately, and our sanctification yesterday. We are a people who despise waiting. We check our phones at red lights, we get agitated in grocery lines, and we treat God's sovereign timing as a personal inconvenience. We want the kingdom now, but we don't want to wait for the King's appointed hour.
But the story of our faith is a story of waiting. Abraham waited for a son. Israel waited for the Messiah. The saints under the altar wait for their vindication. And here, in our text, Noah waits. He waits in a floating menagerie, surrounded by the stench of animals and the silence of a dead world. He has endured the cataclysm, he has weathered the storm, and now he is perched on a mountain in a washed world, and he waits. He does not kick the door down. He does not form a committee to explore his options. He does not lean on his own understanding. He waits for the word of the Lord.
This passage is about the great disembarking. It is the beginning of the world 2.0. The waters of judgment have receded, and the man of God is about to step out into a new creation. But more than that, this is a story about the nature of true obedience. It is a story about how God's people live and move and have their being. We do not move by sight, though the ground may look dry. We do not move by impulse, though we may be weary of our confinement. We move by the word of God alone. Every step a believer takes is a step of faith, and faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Noah was saved by faith, he lived in the ark by faith, and he would leave the ark by faith.
What we are about to witness is not simply the end of a long boat trip. It is a foundational lesson in how the kingdom of God advances. It is a pattern for every new beginning God grants His people. It is about the authority of God's command, the reissuing of man's purpose, and the orderly procession of God's new creation. This is the beginning of the world that we now inhabit, and its beginnings have much to teach us.
The Text
Now it happened in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. Then God spoke to Noah, saying, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may swarm on the earth, and that they may be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by their families from the ark.
(Genesis 8:13-19 LSB)
Seeing is Not Believing; Hearing Is (v. 13-14)
We begin with the patient waiting of Noah.
"Now it happened in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry." (Genesis 8:13-14)
The Holy Spirit is remarkably precise with the dates. This is not mythology; it is history, logged with the care of a ship's captain. On the first day of the new year, in the 601st year of his life, Noah gets his first good look at the new world. He removes the covering of the ark, and what he sees is promising. The ground is drying up. The water is gone. For any normal man, this would be the signal to get out. The danger is past, the confinement is over, the coast is clear. Let's go.
But Noah is a man who walks with God. His life is not governed by what he sees, but by what God says. And God has not yet spoken. So he waits. Notice the gap. He sees that the ground is dried up in the first month, on the first day. But it is not until the second month, on the twenty-seventh day, that the earth is fully dry and the command comes. That is nearly two months of waiting. Two months of looking at a new world through a hole in the roof. Two months of smelling fresh air and seeing dry ground, yet remaining inside the ark.
This is a profound lesson for us. We are often tempted to run ahead of God. We see an opportunity, a "dry patch" of ground, and we assume it is God's will for us to move. But sight is not faith. Favorable circumstances are not a divine command. Noah's patience here is a rebuke to all our presumption. He had God's word to get into the ark, and he would wait for God's word to get out. The same authority that commissions is the only authority that can decommission. God had shut him in (Gen. 7:16), and only God could let him out. This is the essence of submission. True obedience is not just doing what God says; it is waiting until He says it.
The Authoritative Word of Release (v. 15-17)
Finally, after the long silence, God speaks. And when God speaks, worlds move.
"Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 'Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may swarm on the earth, and that they may be fruitful and multiply on the earth.'" (Genesis 8:15-17 LSB)
The command is clear, direct, and authoritative: "Go out." This is the word Noah was waiting for. This is the starting gun for the new world. Notice the structure of the command. First, God releases the human family, the covenant head and his household. Noah is the new Adam, the federal head of the human race, and God addresses him as such. He is the one responsible for leading his family out into this new creation.
Second, God gives the great commission for the animal kingdom. They are to be brought out for a specific purpose. And what is that purpose? It is the cultural mandate, reissued. They are to "swarm on the earth," and "be fruitful and multiply on the earth." This is a direct echo of Genesis 1. God is not just letting them out of a cage; He is recommissioning them for their creational task. The judgment is over, and the original purpose for creation is being restated and reapplied. God's purposes are not thwarted by man's sin or by divine judgment. He simply washes the slate clean and begins again with a righteous remnant.
This is a profoundly optimistic and postmillennial text. The flood was not the end of the story. It was a reboot. God's intention is for the earth to be filled, for life to flourish, for His creation to abound with creatures. This is the dominion mandate in action. God is commanding His world to be filled with life under the headship of His chosen representative, Noah. This sets the pattern for the Great Commission in the New Testament. The church, the family of the second Adam, is sent out into a world judged by the waters of baptism to be fruitful, to multiply, and to fill the earth with disciples.
The Orderly Procession of the New Creation (v. 18-19)
Noah's response to the command is immediate and exact. There is no hesitation, no questioning. The waiting is over, and the time for action has come.
"So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by their families from the ark." (Genesis 8:18-19 LSB)
The obedience is as precise as the command. First Noah and his family go out, and then all the creatures follow. This is not a chaotic stampede. It is an orderly procession. The text says they went out "by their families." This is a beautiful picture of created order. God is not the author of confusion. He saved them by their kinds, and He releases them by their families. The created distinctions are maintained and honored. The world was destroyed because man had corrupted his way, blurring every line and despising every distinction. The new world begins with a restoration of that order.
This orderliness is central to a biblical worldview. God creates, commands, and governs with perfect wisdom. The disembarking of the ark is a microcosm of God's plan for the world. He calls His people, He gives them His word, and they are to move out in an orderly, family-based, distinction-honoring way to fulfill His mandate. The family is the basic unit of society, and we see it honored here at the very dawn of the new world. The covenant is made with Noah and his household, and they come out as households. The animals come out by their families. This is how God builds. He builds with families.
The image is powerful. A man, his family, and a world of creatures, stepping out of a vessel of salvation into a pristine, empty world, armed with a divine command to fill it. This is the task that was given to Adam. It is the task that is renewed for Noah. And it is the task that is given to the Church. We have been delivered through the waters of judgment in the ark of Christ, and we have been placed in this world with a command: be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with the glory of God.
Conclusion: Your Ark and Your Commission
Every one of us is in this story. The ark is a type of Christ. The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. That is the world of our sin, our rebellion, our spiritual death. It is a world under the just condemnation of God. But God, in His mercy, has provided an ark. Jesus Christ is our refuge from the storm of God's wrath. By faith, we are brought into Him, and God Himself shuts the door, sealing us in His grace.
Inside that ark, we are saved. We pass through the waters of judgment, and they cannot touch us. This is what baptism signifies. As Peter tells us, baptism is the antitype of the flood; it saves us, not as a magical washing, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21). We go down into the water, symbolizing our death with Christ, and we are raised up, symbolizing our resurrection to a new life in a new world.
And when we come up out of those waters, what is the first thing we hear? We hear the same command that Noah heard. "Go out." Go out into this world. Be fruitful. Multiply. Take dominion. Fill the earth with worshipers of the living God. Your home, your work, your neighborhood, your nation, these are the new lands you are to fill. You are to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. You are to multiply disciples. You are to establish godly families that go out by their families to serve the Lord.
But remember the patience of Noah. Do not run ahead of God's command. Steep yourself in His word, so that you know His voice. Wait for His timing. And when He says, "Go," then go with the full assurance of faith. The God who brought Noah out onto dry ground is the same God who has brought you out of darkness into His marvelous light. He has given you a new world, and a glorious commission to fill it for His glory. So let us go out, by our families, and get to it.