06/11/2024 – Day 009 – Genesis – Chapters 4 – 7 / Post 2 of 2 / Genesis 6: 6-7 commentary: “God’s disappointment was not with human creation but with human sin. God is not indifferent to sin’s effects, but His grief is not a feeling of helplessness.”
“the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Then the Lord said ‘I will wipe off the face of the earth: man, whom I created, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky — for I regret that I made them.’ Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. ” Genesis 6: 6-7
My Apologetics Study Bible commentary on this passage:
“Although ‘regret’ is the customary translation of the Hebrew verb in verse 6, its basic meaning is to ‘be pained.’ This is the sense here, as suggested by the parallel ‘be grieved.’ As it hurts a loving parent to see the disobedience of his children, so it pained God to see how wicked men had become. Human regret arises from one’s in inability to foresee or alter the effects one one’s actions. But because of God’s perfect knowledge and unlimited power He is not subject to these human limitations. The correspondence between human emotions and the heart of God provides insight into the mystery of God’s nature. Although the Bible describes God as responding with human emotions, the correspondence is not exact. People often act out of sinful, irrational, or uncontrolled emotion, but God’s emotion is always consistent with His righteous character and eternal purposes (cp. 2 Thessalonians 2:13). A close reading of the passage shows that God’s disappointment was not with human creation but with human sin. God is not indifferent to sin’s effects, but His grief is not a feeling of helplessness. (Insert – *A) Coupled with His pained heart is the just recompense of His anger (cp. Psalm 78: 40-41; Isaiah 63:10)”
(Insert *A): God the Father knows something about suffering, he went dark on His beloved Son on the cross, who took the full weight of our sin so that we might be saved. But certainly, there was not a feeling of helplessness on the Father’s part. On the other hand, I would submit there was most certainly a horrific feeling of helplessness on Jesus’ part, for he was fully man as we are, as well as fully God.
I suspect many do not understand “substitutionary atonement” but it is an integral component of life. Let me illustrate an example in a smaller way: If a parent doesn’t take the time to read to his or her child, that child will end up suffering for it. By choosing to read, it is a sacrifice. Likewise, it is a sacrifice to answer that child’s question for the hundredth time: “Why is the sky blue?” So, somebody is going to suffer here for the benefit of another, it is a given.
An attribute of God: He is unfathomable to us, and I submit will remain so throughout our eternal lives. So, this connects in some way with Jesus telling his disciples that: “if they aren’t like little children they can’t enter the kingdom of heaven.”
I would also submit that : The Word of God is infallible, but words have limits to understanding.
Thoughts / reflections ?
Soli Deo Gloria!