Page 179 - Through New Eyes

The World of Noah 175

Ham the way God judged Adam. There are parallels, but there
is zdso an advance in glory. History is not cyclical but spiral.
Fifth, there is a parallel, as mentioned, between the flaming
sword of God’s wrath and His unstrung warbow of peace. The
Garden and the flaming sword were gone, though the latter
would continue to play a rol,e in the Tabernacle and Temple until
the coming of the New Covenant. There has been, however, a
very real and important change from wrath to grace.
Although Noah’s vineyard designedly reminds us of the
Garden of Eden, yet there is an important difference: Noah’s
vineyard was not God’s garden-sanctuary. In the world immedi-
ately after the Flood, there was no garden-sanctuary, nor was
there a holy land. Remember that God originally created the
world, and then set apart the land of Eden, finally planting a
garden-sanctuary in Eden. We find the same sequence after the
Flood. Until the time of Abram there was no special land set
apart. Until the time of the Tabernacle and its courtyard, there
was no earthly garden-sanctuary in the world.
So, what was this “new heavens and earth” after the Flood
like? Well, first, in terms of world structure we have the seventy
nations of the world, given in Genesis 10. Although the number
of nations in the world soon grew beyond seventy, the symbolic
number of the nations remains seventy in the Bible. 14 Before the
Flood, the land of Eden had been dominant over the whole earth
— all the rivers came from Eden. After the fall of man, the land
of Nod with its counterfeit city-sanctuary Enoch dominated the
world (Genesis 4:16-24). There was a one-state world, ruled by
the Nephilim, mighty men (Genesis 6:4). There were not many
nations, though various lands had been listed in Genesis 2.
Rather, there were simply two genealogical lines, and the line of
Cain came to dominate the world. After the Flood, however,
there were seventy nations, and no one-world state.
Second, in these seventy nations we have city-states ruled
over by priest-kings. The preeminent Biblical example of this is
Melchizedek, who was priest of “God Most High” and also king
of Salem (later Jerusalem) (Genesis 14:14-22). This rule by
priest-kings, or by kings and priests, “chiefs and medicine men,”
together, is an advancement over the situation before the Flood.
Thus, the political heavens before the Flood were the mighty