“Damned if I don’t do what it takes to survive. Damned if I don’t do what I want.”
All throughout this movie we see human depravity played out. It’s not pretty, it’s dark. Mankind is the master, the strong survive, to live is to accomplish whatever you want, without God or others as a consideration. This is human depravity lived out in absence of God. The earth is destroyed, before the flood ever comes.
There is another form of human depravity that is perhaps even more sinister. This is the depravity that is lived out in the presence of God. God becomes a tool to accomplish whatever one wants.
“God has made us in his image, we are to subdue and dominate, so be a man and seize whatever you want.”
A third kind of depravity is particularly sorrowful. It’s not when people ignore God, or use God, it’s when they misunderstand God
“The time for mercy has passed, God’s judgement is on us all. We all must die, and I will see that it happens”
Noah is painfully aware of all the wickedness around him. He also becomes aware of the wickedness of his own heart. He rightfully understands that he and his family are no better than anyone else. At this point, Noah of the movie, makes a massive mistake in his understanding of God. To this version of Noah God is simply the distant creator and the judge who has come to wipe away all that is wicked including Noah and his family. As faithful servant to this stern, unloving, master, Noah sets his mind to ensure that even his family doesn’t escape God’s judgement. The results of robot like obedience to a false God like the one portrayed in this movie, produced catastrophic results for Noah’s family. False understandings of God, have regularly produced similar horrors all through out human history.
God is the creator and God is judge, yes, but God is savior as well. The human cannot save himself, Noah of the movie was aware of this, but he failed to realize that God can and does save those who are willing to be saved. The human need only to repent and believe that God loves his children and will rescue them. This is the overarching story of the Bible. This is what the actual Noah believed. The Old Testament is a tangled mess at times, but keep reading, what emerges is that God has a massive love for the human and he is committed to our rescue. All these ancient stories point in unique ways to the ultimate story, the story of the cross, where Jesus, God in flesh, enters into the dark human world to offer salvation, forgiveness, and life for any who would put their faith in him. Jesus is the ultimate ark, his blood is what pays for the safe passage of any who wish to enter. A Noah story that fails to offer mercy and redemption from a loving God misunderstands, the person of Noah, the actual story, and worst of all, God.
