Chapter 7: Noah and the Flood
chapter 7
Noah
and the
flood
History flows on, the course having been set by Adam and Eve and humanity divided by Cain and Abel. The history of divided humanity develops from the two lines delineated in Genesis 4:16-24 (the line of Cain) and Genesis 4:25-5:32 (the line of Seth). In the account which follows these genealogies, we are introduced to a world in which moral decay comes to so permeate society that only one man is left in the godly line. But this puts us ahead of our story.
“And He Died”
Throughout Genesis 5, which begins by recapitulating the heritage of the line of Seth, emphasis is placed on the conclusion of each man’s life. Verse 5, in reference to Adam, ends, “and he died.” Verses 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 27 and 31, in reference to Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Methuselah and Lamech, also end, “and he died.” Thus, as we run through this genealogy, we are reminded over and over that we live in an abnormal world; since man has revolted things are not the way God made them originally. But there is a curious exception to the phrase and he died. Verse 24 comments, “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” Both verses 22 and 24 contain that first phrase and Enoch walked with God, indicating that Enoch was indeed a man of God. The same phrase is used with reference to Noah in Genesis 6:9. But with Enoch something else is special: “He was not; for God took him.”
Hebrews 11:5 gives us further information: “By faith Enoch was translated [taken up] that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” A similar translation, Elijah’s, is explained in more detail in 2 Kings 2. Enoch and Elijah stand out as unique, being taken to God without dying.
Genealogy and Chronology
Genesis 5 raises a very interesting question. What is the connection between this Old Testament genealogy and chronology? Before the turn of the century, Professor William Greene at Princeton Theological Seminary and Professor Benjamin B. Warfield following him maintained that the genealogies in Genesis should not be taken as a chronology. And, while much of their scholarship had to be a response to liberal theology’s attack on biblical history, I think that the understanding that these genealogies are not a chronology is obvious from Scripture itself.
First, the relationship between the sequence of names and chronology is not always a straight line. In Genesis 5:32 we read, “And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” It would appear from this passage that Shem is older than Ham who is older than Japheth. But in Genesis 9:24 we are told that “Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him” (ASV). The reference is to Ham. Likewise, anyone reading Exodus 2 would certainly feel that Moses was the oldest son. Nevertheless, we learn in Exodus 7:7 that his brother Aaron was actually three years older. Consequently, the content of these various passages are accurate, but chronology was not what the authors had in mind. Undoubtedly Shem was named first because he was the most important one in the flow of biblical history. What they were recording was the flow of history–the thing we are talking of in this book–the flow of origins, especially of the Jews, for whom such things were of great importance, as we shall see in a moment. The Bible does not mislead us. It indicates that the genealogies are not chronological.
A second reason why we must not take genealogy for chronology is that several passages make it obvious that the writers knew the chronology but that they still deliberately omitted several steps in the genealogy. For example, if we compare 1 Chronicles 6:3-14 with Ezra 7:2, we find Ezra, despite the fact that he was a scribe and surely would have known all of the steps, omitted names in the genealogical tree. Not only this, but he seems to have added two names omitted in the 1 Chronicles genealogy. Of course, some of these men may have been known by more than one name as was common in Old Testament history, and there is a possibility of a later scribe’s error. Nonetheless, it does seem that some names were consciously omitted by Ezra.
An even more startling case which shows what the Jewish people were doing with their genealogies occurs in 1 Chronicles 26:24. Here we read, “And Shebuel the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was ruler of the treasures.” The time is that of David, roughly 1000 B.C., and the issue is that Shebuel had an official position on the basis of his genealogical line. The intriguing thing is that Gershom is the first-generation son of Moses, and yet between him and the next man, Shebuel, stand at least 400 years. There is no doubt that we have here a tremendous gap in years and in intervening generations. Thus we are reminded that the purpose of all this is to indicate the flow of official, historic lines. It is important to say, “This man comes from such and such an origin.”
Another clear case is found in Matthew’s genealogy of Christ. In Matthew 1:8 we read, “And Asa begat Jehoshaphat; and Jehoshaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Uzziah” (ASV). Yet if we go back into the Old Testament we will find that Uzziah’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather are omitted in Matthew’s genealogy. (See 1 Chron. 3:11-12; in this list Uzziah is called Azariah.) The important point is that Jesus is to be seen in the right genealogical line, and after that has been accomplished, chronology is of little or no interest.
Prior to the time of Abraham, there is no possible way to date the history of what we find in Scripture. After Abraham, we can date the biblical history and correlate it with secular history. When the Bible itself reaches back and picks up events and genealogies in the time before Abraham, it never uses these early genealogies as a chronology. It never adds up these numbers for dating.
There is a third reason why it should be quite obvious that these genealogies are not meant to be a chronology. If they were, it would mean that Adam, Enoch and Methuselah were contemporaries, and that just doesn’t seem to fit at all. If this were the case the silence of the Bible in regard to these interrelationships would seem curious. But the situation is even more striking after the flood, because in this postdiluvian era if genealogy were chronology, all of the postdiluvians, including Noah, would have still been living when Abraham was 50 years of age. That would seem to be impossible. Furthermore, Shem, Salah and Eber would all have outlived Abraham, and Eber would still have been living when Jacob was with Laban. The simple fact is that this does not fit into the rest of biblical history. We will consider this further when we take up Genesis 10–11, but at this particular place we can say very clearly that the Bible does not invite us to use the genealogies in Scripture as a chronology.
The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men
Genesis 6:1-2 raises a question which men have discussed for many years: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.” The difficulty is with the phrase the sons of God because this phrase can mean either of two things: (1) the godly line, those who were calling themselves by the name of the Lord (as in Genesis 4:26) or (2) the angels (as in Job 1:6). What has stirred men’s curiosity is that the book of Jude seems to refer to this. Verses 6-7 read, “And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh [the Greek says other flesh], are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire” (ASV). This passage seems to say that there are angels who left their own proper place and are specifically under judgment because they acted like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. That is, as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah sought “other flesh” in homosexuality, these angels sought flesh that was “other flesh”; they involved themselves with human women in what could be called fornication.
There is further interest along this line if one understands this as a co-mingling of the angelic and the human, for then it is possible that it was the original historic source of an element common in mythology. More and more we are finding that mythology in general though greatly contorted very often has some historic base. And the interesting thing is that one myth that one finds over and over again in many parts of the world is that somewhere a long time ago supernatural beings had sexual intercourse with natural women and produced a special breed of people.
Such a notion is further strengthened by Genesis 6:4: “There were giants [Nephilim] in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” One can speculate, therefore, that the mighty men which were of old, men of renown, might be the historic reality behind these myths.
The other reading–that verse 2 denotes that there were those in the godly line who intermarried with others in the ungodly line to the destruction of the godly line–fits into the whole of Scripture, for there is a constant prohibition throughout the Old and New Testaments against the people of God marrying those who are not of the people of God. The Old Testament says repeatedly: If you marry those who are not God’s people, and if you give your sons and daughters to them, the godly line will be destroyed. The New Testament contains the same command: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14). This passage has to do with those links which are central to men’s lives, and no link is more central than marriage. This point is made explicit in the great marriage passage in 1 Corinthians 7:39. Paul instructs the church that “the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.” The principle is clear: God’s people are to marry God’s people.
It is, therefore, possible to interpret Genesis 6:2 as indicating the intermarriage between the godly line and the ungodly line.
One Man Left in the Godly Line
Genesis 6:5-12 brings us to a point in history where there is only one man left in the godly line:
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually [the Hebrew reads, every day]. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man [blot out man] whom I have created [note again this word created] from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air [not the fishes, because in the form of destruction, the flood, of course, fish can live]; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
We might ask, “Isn’t it strange that only one man is left in the godly line?” But, surely, Scripture points out that this is the general course of every era. Man’s heart is in rebellion against God, and the rebellious heart must be taken into account in balance with the factor of a sufficient knowledge of God. In each era the case is similar. For example, by the time of Abraham, the world had thrown away almost all of its knowledge of the true God. Likewise, by the time of Christ, the Jews had so turned from God that only a minority accepted their Old-Testament-prophesied Messiah. And we are amply warned that the end of our own era will be exactly the same. Because of the rebellion of man’s heart the course is not upward. Therefore, speaking of the end of our age, Jesus could say, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Lk. 18:8). As we shall see shortly, Jesus expressly connects the time of Noah with the time of his second coming.
“These Are the Generations”
Genesis 6:9 uses a phrase which is one of the striking literary forms of Genesis: “These are the generations of. . . .” In verse 9 the reference is to Noah, but the phrase has already been used in Genesis 2:4 and 5:1. It is, in fact, used eleven times in Genesis.
In 1936 Wiseman suggested that the phrase these are the generations of is not the beginning but the end of a section. The phrase means “this is (has been) the story of. . . .” As he pointed out, the tablets of that time put such a title at the bottom rather than at the top. Thus, for example, in Genesis 2:4, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth” would summarize that which had already been given. This would be likewise true of Genesis 5:1: “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” Wiseman suggested that Moses had other materials in front of him when he wrote the book of Genesis and that he incorporated them. This is only speculation but it is interesting, for if this were so then the inspiration would be in the choice of the material used. It would be parallel to Hezekiah’s men copying out the proverbs of Solomon (Prov. 25:1).
In any case, Genesis is without question broken into sections signaled by these phrases. There is, first, the cosmic creation (“these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth”–Gen. 2:4), second, the period of Adam (“this is the book of the generations of Adam”–Gen. 5:1), third, the period of Noah (“these are the generations of Noah”–Gen. 6:9), and fourth, the era of Noah’s sons (“these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth”–Gen. 10:1). This phrase also occurs in Genesis 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 25:19; 36:1; 36:9; 37:2. This phrase is a literary form that gives unity to the whole book of Genesis.
The Building of the Ark
The generation we are concerned with now, however, is Noah’s. In Genesis 6:13-15 we find God warning Noah, telling him to escape the coming judgment: “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with [from or with respect to] the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms [it should be translated more like a place to rest or nest] shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.”
There are two things to notice in this section. First, the plan of the ark was not dreamed up by Noah. He was not a boat engineer. Rather, the plan of the ark derived from God himself. It was a specific, propositional revelation that dealt with detail. At another great moment when the tabernacle was to be built God also gave the specific plans and dimensions of all that concerned it (Ex. 25:9-40).
God says to Noah, “A tremendous judgment is coming and here is the way to escape. Build a huge boat.” It’s interesting that among the common myths in the world’s history, no other one is so widespread as the story of the flood. From China to the American Indians and even the pre-Colombian Indians, one finds in strange forms the myth of the great flood. Most of these myths have weird elements–foolish elements, for example the descriptions of the boat that was used. In the Bible these strange and foolish elements are not there. We would say, then, that the Bible gives us the history of the flood; the myths all over the world are contorted, but show that men everywhere have a memory of it. Here in the Bible is the one flood story whose details, including the construction of the vessel, are reasonable.
If we assume that a cubit is 18 inches (one cannot be absolutely sure), we can calculate that the ark would contain 1,518,750 cubic feet–quite a boat! The deck area of the three stories would total 101,250 square feet. Furthermore, a boat with the dimensions given is floatable. It just so happens, in fact, that the size of this ark is almost exactly the size of the Great Eastern which laid the first North Atlantic cable. Hence, compared to the various myths and other stories of the flood throughout the world, this one bears the mark of history.
The New Testament, of course, insists that the flood and the Noah account are history. Hebrews 11:7 reads: “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” Notice again, just as with Abel in Hebrews 11:4 and Abraham in Romans 4:3, faith is related to a propositional promise from God. Noah could not yet see the flood, but he had a propositional statement that judgment was to come, and he was told in a most propositional statement the dimensions of the boat he was to build. And he was asked to build a boat somewhere with no adequate water in sight: This was his act of faith–believing a propositional promise of God.
More striking yet is the parallel which Jesus drew between his own future space-time coming and the flood in the past. Jesus emphasizes that his future second coming is a historic event, “But of the day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Mt. 24:36-37). The word translated coming used throughout the New Testament in relation to Christ’s second coming means presence. It is “a being alongside of,” that is, there is coming a future time when Jesus will be present on the earth–historically, space-time present in the same way as he was on earth when he spoke these words. Jesus continues, “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming [here again presence] of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left” (vv. 38-41).
The parallel is interesting even in detail, for it takes up the normality of life upon the earth before the flood came and parallels it with the normality of life just before Jesus comes. Just as life was going along in an unbroken line and the flood came, so life will be going on in an unbroken line and the first step in the second coming of Christ will occur.
Many other passages speak clearly of the historicity of the flood. Isaiah 54:9 records God as saying, “For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.” That is, God is saying that his promise is as sure as the events concerning the historic fact of the flood. Likewise, 1 Peter 3:20 says in a parenthetical way, “. . . the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved through water” (ASV). The specificity of the number, eight, underscores the fact that the event was considered historical. Furthermore, 2 Peter 2:5 speaks about God who “spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person [that is, eight people, Noah and seven others], a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.” Notice another historic detail: Noah was a preacher of righteousness. This, by the way, is the text which some Christians have used to picture Noah preaching as he built the ark; that’s really an extension of the text but seems warranted. Noah didn’t just build a boat in faith resting on the warning of God; he also preached righteousness.
In 2 Peter 3:3-7 the flood is again paralleled to the second coming of Christ. Prior to the time when Jesus is to come, there will be scoffers who will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” To paraphrase this in twentieth-century language: “Where is the promise of his coming? There has been an absolute uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. Why are you talking about something catastrophic? It’s always been like this, and we say it’s going to keep on being like this.” Peter explains this reaction: “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” Thus past historical events in the time of Noah are paralleled with coming historical events.
But there is a further note here–a note of universality. If the judgment at the second coming of Christ is taken to be universal, isn’t the judgment by water at the time of Noah also universal? Christians who love the Scripture have discussed at length whether the flood was universal or not. I believe it was, but I do not think by any means that we should make it a “test of orthodoxy.” We cannot base a case on the word earth in Genesis 7:4 (“every living substance [thing] that I have made will I destroy off the face of the earth”), because the word can be translated “ground.” Rather, the argument for universality rests on other factors, including the parallel between the second coming of Christ and the flood as it is given in the New Testament passages we have just considered. The tone of the language that is used in Genesis suggests this as well. It seems to have a totality about it, the same kind of thrust as Genesis 1–a thrust conveying universality. For instance, in Genesis 7:23 we read, “And every living thing was destroyed [blotted out] that was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and birds of the heavens; and they were destroyed [blotted out] from the earth: and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark” (ASV). That sounds universal. Furthermore, the word ground (as it appears in both the American Standard Version and the King James translation of this verse) and the word earth in this verse are two different words in Hebrew. Admittedly, both can be more limited; but the fact that two different words are used may add some weight to the argument in favor of universality with regard to the flood. Also in Genesis 7:23 the other living things are closely paralleled to men, and Genesis 9:19 and 10:32 make it absolutely certain that Noah and his family were the only men left. That the flood was universal as far as man is concerned is made totally final in the Scripture.
Another difficulty arises if the flood is not universal, and I don’t see how anyone can quite get around this factor. If a flood occurs in a limited area, a lot of animals can be drowned but not all of them. There is no way you can eliminate them all unless they are all in a sealed canyon. When a forest fire or flood comes, the animals take off.
One further indication that the flood was universal is found in God’s statement after the flood is over: “And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh” (Gen. 9:15). Unless the flood were universal and did in fact destroy all animals on the earth, I don’t understand how to interpret the phrase the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. Of course, this does not include the fish. The promise does not preclude smaller floods, nor does it preclude the possibility that the world could be destroyed by fire. The covenant is, however, specific: No flood will again destroy all flesh.
The Date of the Flood
We have already pointed out that since the genealogies do not constitute a chronology, we cannot date the flood. There are reasons to think that, if the dating systems used in present anthropological studies are correct, the flood should be dated before 20,000 B.C. Let me say that I think these dating systems are still open to question, but if they are correct, then this date is to be considered. If all men but Noah and his family were destroyed (Scripture clearly states this), then the flood would have had to occur sometime before this date. Most anthropologists estimate that the American Indians entered America from the Orient in about 20,000 B.C. across either an ice bridge or a land bridge over the Bering Strait. Thus, because the Indians were descendants of Noah and his sons, the flood would have had to be prior to this time. It is interesting that both the North American Indians and the pre-Colombian Indians of South America had flood myths.
Noah Enters the Ark
If we take the various New Testament pas. ages and put them together with the Old Testament material, we see that while Noah was building the ark he was preaching and that there was the normal flow of life just like that on any day today. We hear cars on the road, people are in the village, people are in the city, others are farming, some people are making their dinners, there’s a couple making love, a baby being born and life is moving on in its general stream. This is exactly the picture that the Bible gives of the situation immediately before the flood.
Then, when the ark was built, God said to Noah, “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth” (Gen. 7:2-3). As we have seen, it is apparent that Noah already had a knowledge from the past, a knowledge which the Bible does not record as being given at a specific point, because Noah needed no explanation of the difference between “clean” and “unclean.” Such a knowledge with regard to clean and unclean is also assumed in Genesis 8:20. This fact is interesting because it means that these men may very well have known considerably more than we think.
Finally, it comes time for Noah and his retinue to go into the ark, for God says, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance [thing] that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth” (Gen. 7:4). Genesis 7:10 says, “And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the food were [came] upon the earth.” God is saying to them, “Now the ark is finished; you’ve been preaching here, but that is over. You’re to go into the ark and stay there for seven days.” I believe that to follow this command called for very strong faith on Noah’s part.
Remember, the boat is out on dry land. We don’t know the altitude at which it was built, but it would be something like having an ocean liner in Huemoz. What a strange sight! People are people and psychology is psychology. You can imagine them coming up and poking at the boat and, to put it mildly, being skeptical. The black preachers in America used to weave tremendous stories of Noah preaching as he built and people coming by, standing before the boat and laughing. Of course, it’s a stretch of the imagination, and yet it must have been strange to get into this boat and then just sit there for seven days.
What a picture of Christian faith this is! It is not that there are no propositional promises; it is not that there are no good and sufficient reasons to know that the things are true. But faith is standing against what is seen at the moment and being willing to be out on the end of a limb in believing God. It’s not a leap; it’s not a denial of rationality. But it is sitting in this boat out in the middle of Huemoz when most people say it just doesn’t make sense. If any generation has ever been in this situation, it’s ours. We are surrounded by a total, monolithic consensus that says to us, “It doesn’t make sense; it is against the uniformity of cause and effect in a closed system!”
Genesis 7:7 expressly says that there were eight people: “And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.” There is an interesting parallel here to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Christ himself draws it) in that a whole family was involved in one man’s faithfulness. Thus we find that not only Lot was brought out, but those daughters who would listen to his warning in Sodom. Likewise, there is a parallel with the Passover, because, when the Jews killed their Passover beast in Egypt, and put the blood on the door, both the first-born in the family and the first-born of the animals in the Jewish house were protected from death.
Verses 11 and 12 are a parenthesis covering the whole forty-day period. Verse 11 says, “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Surely this is an insistence on history. The genealogies are not meant to be a chronology, but the Bible dates this event in detail in regard to the central character of the event.
Verse 11 also tells us there were two sources of water which opened up–the fountains of the great deep and the windows of heaven. The water came from two sources–“the windows of heaven” and the “fountains of the great deep.” The water involved was something more than forty days of rain. Verse 11 could cover a wide field of possibilities.
The flood is thus presented as catastrophic, not necessarily in the flow of the uniformity of cause and effect we know now. Furthermore, 2 Peter 3:3-7 parallels the catastrophic flood to the future catastrophic destruction by fire.
Modern man believes in a uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, and therefore such a thing as a catastrophe in the sense of an abrupt change is not considered possible. John Woodward (d. 1772), the father of the study of fossils, made plain that he held the concept of orderly procedure and catastrophe, that is, that there could be great breaks. Just a little over a century ago Charles Lyell began to insist on uniformity as opposed to catastrophe. The concept of catastrophe in general was thrown away, especially in geology. And with it the creation account and the flood account were rejected.
Today, interestingly enough, geologists are finding it necessary to bring catastrophe (though they usually do not use this term) back into the story, for they have not been able to demonstrate that everything (in the order of events we know today) flows in a simple cause-and-effect line.
We must remember that the Christian position does not deny cause and effect. Rather, as I have stressed in my other books, it was the Christian base that gave a reason to expect cause and effect, orderly procedure. It is the concept of cause and effect in a closed system which is at issue. God has not made himself a prisoner to the machine of the universe. He can act into it. And consequently, a Christian, whether he is considering a great catastrophe such as the flood or something less dramatic, does not have to choose between a random universe without cause and effect and a universe of cause and effect in a closed system. God is a living God and can work into the machine at any time he wants to.
There are many problems for those who reject the catastrophic. Any events which do not fit the order of events we know today give difficulty. For example, science is wrestling with a great mystery involving a curious event that happened about 10,000 B.C. in what is now the Arctic. I am referring here, of course, to the frozen mammoths and other animals. As far as we can tell, for the past 12,000 years this area has been uniformly cold. But, as is obvious from the study of these great mammoths and the other animals that have been found there, up to that time it had been warm. When the animals froze, they died so quickly that plants of a warmer climate were still in their mouths, neither spit out nor swallowed.
Nobody can explain this–nobody. This is a matter of science that has nothing to do with the Bible, and I am not trying to relate it to the flood. I think it probably occurred after the flood. Nevertheless one cannot say that the idea of a great catastrophe is stupid. These great beasts were frozen with such rapidity that the meat was still good to eat when it was found. Scientists who are familiar with deep-freezing have figured out that on the basis of the mass of these huge animals, the temperature would have had to drop within a few hours to -150° F. Nobody knows how or why this happened.
The point is that we can discuss such things as the flood and still be giving honest answers to honest questions. There is no reason for a Christian to be defensive just because he is surrounded by men whose framework is the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system and who have arbitrarily given up the notion of catastrophe.
God Shuts the Door
Genesis 7:16 is a striking verse: “And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.” This is a hard verse, and I am thankful that Noah did not have to shut the door. Knowing that men would soon be drowning all around him, I don’t see how Noah could have done it. But he wasn’t asked to. He was asked to be faithful–a preacher of righteousness. He was asked to believe God and God’s propositional promise. He was asked to build a boat. But after he built the boat, the time came when God shut the door. That was the end of the time of salvation. It was closed because God had closed it at a point in the flow of history.
In the rest of the seventh chapter, then, the destruction comes. God’s judgment falls against sin, for God is holy and there are moral absolutes and we live in a moral universe. If God does not hate and judge sin, then he is not a holy God, there are no moral absolutes and we do not live in a moral universe. But the whole Bible resounds with emphasis: God does hate sin and God will judge sin. There comes a day when God shuts the door.
We have already seen the parallel between the judgment that God brought upon the men of Noah’s day and the judgment which is to come at the second coming of Christ. Genesis 6:5 and Matthew 24:37-38 are in many ways parallel passages. Both times are times when man stands in total revolt, times of great wickedness, and men in both days are unaware until destruction overtakes them: “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark. And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left” (Mt. 24:38-41). Jesus draws a conclusion from this: “Watch therefore: for ye know not what day [this is the correct translation] your Lord doth come” (v. 42). And lest we miss the point, Jesus repeats it: “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (v. 44). Jesus is saying you do not know what day (v. 42) and you do not know what hour (v. 44).
This judgment does not come only to the open pagans. One parable indicates that some even within the church are really not God’s people. Jesus concludes, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Mt. 25:13). A time of judgment does arrive. This is the flow of history.