Engineered History
On the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountain of Ararat Genesis 8:4
Seventeenth – I recently read something so interesting that I want to share it with you. It comes from the second volume of the Torah Club called Shadows of the Messiah. It’s all about the calendar. You may know that the Hebrew calendar is based on the lunar cycle whereas the modern calendar is based on the solar cycle. Furthermore, the Hebrew New Year begins in the month of Nisan (April of the contemporary calendar). However, there is another calendar that may have been used to account for the days of the Flood. This account is documented in an ancient Jewish commentary on the Genesis passage. You can explore the details if you wish, but the net result is an amazing statement of God’s engineering of history.
According to this ancient calendar, the ark rested on the mountain on precisely the same day that Jesus was resurrected from the tomb. Yes, that’s right. Thousands and thousands of years before the resurrection, God engineered history to point toward the pinnacle event of salvation. Just as the ancient judgment ended on the day the ark touched ground, so the judgment of the restored world ended on the same day of the year when the tomb could not hold Him.
If that isn’t enough to make you take a deep breath, remember that the Passover in Exodus occurs on the same calendar day that Jesus is crucified and that three days later, on precisely the day that Noah’s family is restored to the earth, the crucified God emerges from the tomb. It’s déjà vu “all over again.” J
Hebrew history is like a wheel spinning while it travels down the road. It is going someplace. It doesn’t just endlessly repeat itself as the Hindu and Greek religions suggest. But as it moves forward, it goes around and around, making cycles within the progress. This is one of those cycles. Over and over we see God’s hand revealing one example after another of the great plan of salvation. Each example is different, but the pattern always points toward the same end result. Now imagine how many of these repeating cycles you could discover if you read the whole Bible with an eye toward this pattern.
Do you find this interesting? Yes, it certainly is. However, there is something else here that we cannot ignore. This is much more than an interesting coincidence. It is a demonstration of the majestic sovereignty of God. Imagine a God who so carefully plans His every move that He engineers a gigantic floating box to run aground on a day that will become the turning point of all history. Imagine, if you can, how many details, how much organization, how much direction has to go into every single decision in order to bring about a plan like this over thousands of years. That is a God of total reliability and faithfulness. He has shown us just a glimpse of His infinite carefulness. Isn’t it obvious that we can absolutely trust Him?
So, why don’t we?
Topical Index: Sovereignty
