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Foundation of Faith
Foundation of Substance
Lessons from Noah's family
Conclusion
The fall of Adam's family set humanity on a long, dark course of indemnity before God was able to choose a family out of the lin-eage of Seth to restore Adam's. That family was Noah's. Its mission was to indemnify the mistakes made in Adam's family and lay a foundation for true parents, who would begin a new lineage of sinless men and women. According to scriptures, the time period between the two families was 1600 years, spanning the course of ten providential generations. By "ten" scriptures signify the return of humanity from its fallen state to full unity with God, after passing through nine stages of growth.
God worked through these generations to raise up a man of good character and humility. According to scriptures, Noah was called by God to make an offering as a condition to establish a foundation of faith. He was instructed to build an ark, a large, three-decked boat, and to toad it with representatives of the creation in preparation for a massive flood. The ark was a symbol represent-ing the whole cosmos, with Noah's family in the position of humankind. By separating Noah's family and the ark from the fallen world, God could begin the restoration providence again, with spore family and a representation of nature; all the elements needed for fulfillment of the three blessings.
Noah had great faith in the word of God and invested himself completely in building the ark, even though the people of his time, including his own family, found it ludicrous to build a huge boat on a mountain when there was no evidence of a flood to come. It took Noah a very long lime to complete the project, but in persevering he succeeded in building the ark and established a foundation of faith.
Then, according to scriptures, God inundated the land with a forty-day flood, allowing only Noah's family and the animals he brought on board the ark to be saved from destruction. The flood physically separated Noah's family from the fallen world, giving Noah a chance to set up the conditions for true parents to come to a purified world. Thus God chose Noah's family to establish a new, purified lineage.
Because the number forty represented the four position foundation being restored through ten generations, Noah's family persevering through the flood indemnified the 1600 years and ten gen-erations from Adam to Noah. Furthermore, the forty-day flood set a pattern of indemnification through forty-based time periods. As this discussion of providential history will show, these time periods appear frequently in the annals of restoration.
Noah's family had eight core members, after the pattern of Adam's. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, representing Cain, Abet and Seth respectively; Noah's wife represented Eve and his three sons' wives represented the wives of Adam's three sons. The first generation of Noah's family had to restore the first generation of Adam's, and the second generation of Noah's family the second generation of Adam's. Noah was chosen by God to lay a foundation of faith to restore Adam's lost faith and renew the faith of Abel, but his sons had to make a foundation of substance to restore the fail-ure of Cain and Abet. By Shem and Ham restoring the relationship between Cain and Abel they would make a condition to restore the relationship between the Servant and Adam.
Ham, as the second son, was naturally in the Abet position because, as in Adam's family, Satan had a stronger claim on the first son. Nevertheless, Ham had to make a condition to inherit the foundation of faith from his father so that he could be confirmed in the Abel position. Unless he was united in heart with his father's realm of faith, indemnifying the transmission of fallen nature from parents to children in Adam's family, Ham could not qualify as Abel.However, when his faith in Noah's devotion to God was tested by an apparent moral lapse on the part of his father, Ham proved wanting. He was embarrassed by the sight of his father lying unclothed in his tent. Ham got his brothers to cover their father. On waking from his steep, Noah was angry with Ham. Noah knew that by covering him Ham was being critical and that this criticism came from a lack of faith in him, even though he had demonstrated remarkable faith in building the ark at a time when everyone was ridiculing him. In essence, Ham's shame at the sight of his father's naked body showed that he was still under the influence of the fall. Shame in the naked human body was introduced by Adam and Eve when they covered their sexual parts after misusing them in the fall. Ham showed that he was not free of that fallen influence and therefore not qualified to inherit the foundation of faith from his father. Furthermore, even though Noah's faithfulness had saved Ham's life, Ham was not persuaded of his father's godliness. Instead, in a shameful display of arrogant self-righteousness he urged his brothers to condemn the very person who saved them.
Because Ham failed to inherit Noah's foundation could not take the Abel position in relation to his elder brother Shem. This meant they could not even begin to creation of substance. Thus the foundation in Noah's family was lost and Adam's family remained unrestored. This meant the providence of restoration had to be prolonged so that indemnity could be paid for the failure of Noah's family as well as the Adam's family.According to the pattern of Adam's family, Satan wanted to claim dominion over Noah's sons through Shem, the first-born. However, when Ham acted against the wilt of God and his father he took Satan's side and caused Noah's family foundation to be lost. According to she principles of creation and restoration, Satan cannot claim everything from God's side. Therefore he could not dominate both Shem and Ham. Because of Ham's failure, Shem was never put in the Cain position and out of the lineage of Shem God chose a new family to lays foundation to restore Adam's family. That was the family of Abraham.
The story of Noah's family contains several important lessons, especially related to the importance of trusting and supporting Abel figures in the restoration.
First: Because God's restoration providence is often difficult to understand, providential leaders should be supported as the people chosen to represent God's point of view. Sometimes the words or actions of religious leaders are incomprehensible to others because their positions of special responsibility before God give them perspectives that are more vertical, or God-oriented, than the common view. This means that people have to learn to trust that God is working through such leaders, even though they may not understand how. God's providence of restoration is always based on central figures. Once a person has qualified as a central figure, the providence can succeed through the harmonious cooperation between that central person and those he or she is to lead. If the central figure cannot succeed, there is no way for the others to succeed either. Ham should have supported Noah as the central figure of his family until Ham himself was qualified to inherit the foundation of faith from his father and establish a foundation of substance with Shem. By disuniting with Noah, Ham destroyed the providence for his family. Although his father had conditionally restored Adam's faith by building the ark, Ham had no foundation of faith himself because he had not supported his father in the construction of the ark. It was natural of Ham's fallen nature to suspect the faith of Noah, but if Ham had looked at his father from a God-centered perspective he would have recognized him as a great man of faith.
Second: Because of their positions, central figures are often endowed with insights into God's providence which are essential for the success of missions. Central figures are the people God is most likely to communicate with to get messages to fallen humans. Thus Noah received instructions from God (to build the ark) that others in his society, including his own family, considered patently foolish, They should have trusted that Noah's closeness to God made it possible for him to have a particularly profound understanding of God's will. A central figure's potential for greater insight has to be trusted by others.
Third: Since every fallen man and woman has a Cain-like nature inherited from the fall, everyone must find an Abel figure to guide him or her to God's providence and a virtuous life, No person can restore his or her own fallen nature without the help of a central figure, Ham had to recognize Noah as his Abel figure in order to inherit Noah's foundation of faith. Without that inheritance, Ham was not qualified as Abet in the second generation of Noah's family. Because fallen nature entered human beings through unprincipled relationships between irresponsible individuals, the only way to remove it is through principled relationships between responsible people. The central figure represents the position of Adam before the fall, that is a principled and responsible Adam, This is true even though within the fallen world Abel, as a fallen person, is only relatively closer to God than Cain.
Fourth: Following an Abel figure is training to follow the absolute Abel, true parents. Their explanation of God and standard of life is bound to be much higher than normal levels and therefore incomprehensible to many. Only by following them in the faith and knowledge that they are indeed the true representatives of a responsible and principled life, in the position of Adam and Eve before the fall, can one inherit their understanding and their restored standard of love, life and lineage. Ham's inability to follow Noah disqualified him, Without training in a life of obedience to a central person, fallen people will not be able to follow true parents.
Fifth: When providential figures are unable to fulfill the mis-sions given them, a prolongation of the providence of restoration always results. If Cain and Abel had succeeded in laying a foundation for true parents, the providence for restoration would have immediately progressed to the next stage and the third generation of Adam's family could have seen the appearance of true parents.
They would have set up a sinless lineage and ended the world of evil and suffering before it had had a chance to develop. As it was, because Satan claimed Adam's family, the providence was prolonged for many centuries before God could raise up another family in its place. All the suffering and all the sins committed during those centuries had to be indemnified. With every passing moment the restoration providence becomes more complicated and diffi-cult.
The failure to establish a foundation for true parent in Adam's family resulted in centuries of human suffering before conditions were set for Noah to be chosen to restore Adam. However, despite Noah's great faith in building the ark, his own family foundation was lost through the faithlessness of Ham. Thus Noah's family lost its chance to be the starting point of a new, restored history.
Ham's mistake resulted in another prolongation of the providence of restoration, after which God chose Abraham to restore the families of Adam and Noah. The providential generations of Abraham's family are the subject of the next chapter.