Big Picture: This story recounts how Noah and his immediate family are rescued from
the flood - a flood which is a divine judgment in response to the evil of the human heart
and the resultant corruption and violence. But even as God judges the world, in his
grace he continues the line of the seed of the woman. The whole process is presented
as the undoing of creation and then the recreation of the earth as it emerges from the
flood. But after the flood not everything returns to a pristine condition. While the land is
cleansed of the defilement caused by human wrongdoing and a new start is made
possible by God, the people’s nature has not been transformed.

Key words, dominant ideas, parallel sequences of actions, and similar themes clearly
link the Noah narrative of Genesis 6–9 to the creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2.
The Flood Story as a New Creation

•  The flood story is presented in the narrative as a new creation. Just as God
  ordered the original heavens and earth out of the chaotic deep or ocean, so here
  God orders the present heavens and earth out of the chaotic floodwaters.
• Genesis 8:1 records that God caused a wind (Heb. rûaḥ) to pass over the waters
  of the flood covering the entire earth, which reminds one of the creation narrative,
  where the Spirit (Heb. rûaḥ) of God hovers over the waters of the original chaotic
  deep.
• In the creation narrative, God gathers the waters together and the dry land
  emerges; then he commands the earth to bring forth vegetation. After the flood,
  the dry land emerges as the waters subside, and the earth brings forth
  vegetation, as we see when the dove returns with an olive leaf in her beak.
  These parallels indicate that, after the flood, we have a new beginning like the first
  beginning.

This sermon in indebted to James M. Hamilton’s “What Is Biblical Theology? A Guide to the Bible's Story, Symbolism, and Patterns”