Gen 7 — Total World Cataclysm

“Total world cataclysm.” This is what we have just read. We have read a devastating event. The flood came upon the earth and destroyed every living thing upon the earth.

If you recall in many of our Sunday school lessons for small children or many of our children’s Bibles, they will often go over this story of the flood and Noah’s Ark in a very one-sided way. I do not know if you have noticed this, many children’s Bibles do this, where they focus on, oh, how wonderful it is that all the animals are in the ark, and there is a pair of zebra, and a pair of giraffes, and it is just so beautiful to see all these animals in the ark. And yet, oftentimes (and I understand why, because you do not want to traumatize the kids) they leave out the absolute devastation that happens outside of the ark, the total destruction. The death of all of humanity aside from those that are inside the Ark.

This is not a happy story of look at all the beautiful animals. This is a story of judgment. This is the story of the judgment of God coming upon all mankind. It is a picture, it is a prototype of the day of judgment at the end of history, when Christ returns. It is a picture of the final judgment, when there is a separation between those that are God’s people, like Noah and his family, and the animals in the ark, there is the redeemed ones, and those that are not, those that are subject to God’s judgment, who are subject to the wrath of God being poured out upon mankind outside of Christ.

What we are seeing here is a prototype, a picture, a foretaste of that final day of judgment. This happens throughout the Bible, . There are many places in Scripture where we get this little glimpse, this foreshadow of the final judgment at the end. Think, for example, of the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt. You have the same duality, right, where God’s people are saved. They are protected. They pass through the waters. And even before the actual passing through the waters of the Red Sea, you have them being protected in their homes by the blood of the Passover lamb that protects them from the destroying angel. Meanwhile, outside of those homes, outside of that special place of protection, You have God’s judgment coming upon the Egyptians, upon Pharaoh and his army. The darkness that comes upon the land. Everyone is wailing in grief as they are being subject to the wrath of God.

That is a picture of the final judgment at the end. And we have that same idea of God’s elect, God’s people being brought into the ark. That language is used in Exodus chapter 12 to refer to the people being safe within their homes and the protection of the blood being placed upon the doorposts and the door of their homes with the destroying angel passing over so that they are protected. That is like an ark symbol, is it not? They are hiding within the ark. Outside of the home, if they are not within the home, if they are outside, they are going to be swept away. By the judgment that is coming.

God gives us these glimpses, these pictures of the coming judgment in order to show us his grace and salvation to those that are within the ark, to show us his saving grace. It is redemptive judgment, judgment for those that are not God’s people, and it is redemption through judgment for those that are his people.

Our text today divides into two main sections. The first section is verses 1 through 16 that describes this process of God’s people being gathered into the ark. It even says at the very beginning of our text, then the Lord said to Noah, go into the ark, you and all your household. And we have the description of how Noah obeys the Lord and he gathers his family and he gathers all of the animals into the ark.

Meanwhile, as we have this, in this first section here in verses one through 16, as we have this description of Noah and his family and the animals being gathered into the ark, we already have interspersed, interwoven throughout that paragraph the fact that the flood is starting. It is very interesting how Moses, he is a good, he is a good director of the movie. Because even as he is telling us about how Noah is obeying the Lord and entering the ark and gathering the animals and gathering his family in, he will pan to the context. And you will see statements like verse six. Noah was 600 years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And then again, later on as it goes down, it talks again how he is gathering his sons, his wife, his son’s wives, but then it pans back again to the context. The camera pans out to what is going on outside of the ark. In the 600th year of Noah’s life, verse 11, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened.

And so we have this first paragraph here. Before we get to the actual narration of the flood itself, which is the second paragraph in verses 17 through 24, and the absolute total cataclysm and destruction, before we get to that, in the first paragraph of this chapter, verses one through 16, we have this process of gathering God’s people into the ark But at the same time that we are hearing about that and we are seeing Noah obey the Lord and gather everything into the ark, we also have these ominous pictures of the floodwaters. It is almost as if as you see Noah doing the work, come on, come into the ark, you also are kind of feeling the waters begin to rise. You hear the crack of the thunder and the lightning in the background and the rain is beginning to fall and they are coming into the ark. It is very dramatic. And it is a wonderful picture of salvation.

The Gathering into the Ark

The first thing we see about in this first section here on the gathering part is that it is a divine command to gather and to enter the ark. God said to Noah, go into the ark. It is God’s command, it is God’s work, it is God himself who is accomplishing salvation and who is causing his people to be able to escape. There is a gathering process here. This reminds us, does it not, if we are viewing this as a picture of the day of judgment at the end, does this not remind us of the words of Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 24 when Jesus talks about the coming judgment? And he says that God will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will do what? They will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

And Jesus himself explicitly ties this to the flood narrative. He says, just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the day of the Son of Man. The whole world is going to be occupied with their engaging in all of their life. Being married and giving in marriage. Having parties and doing work and all the things that they enjoy. But completely oblivious to what is happening. Completely oblivious to the fact that judgment is coming. The waters are rising. So here we have the first point, which is that in this process of judgment, it is God who gathers his people into the ark. He is the one that commanded Noah to go into the ark to gather his household and to gather the animals with him into the ark. Salvation is of the Lord. It is a sovereign work of grace. God is the one that appointed this ark. God is the one that came to Noah and said, build the ark. And here is the dimensions and here is how I want you to build it. God is the one that provides the way of salvation. God is the one who saves his people. The deliverance from the wrath of God is not our own doing. Noah did not have an idea and said, I know, let us make some rafts. Let us go to a mountain somewhere and find a way to escape. It was not Noah’s idea to save himself. It was God. It was God who provided the way of escape.

We looked at this when I was, before I went on my trip to Cambodia in our last paragraph of chapter six, that God is the one that commanded Noah to make an ark, and God is the one that provided the way of deliverance. Now there is something interesting in our text today that is not evident in chapter six. In chapter six and verses nine through 22, we have the description of the ark, the fact that it is going to be 300 cubits in length, it is going to be 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high and so on. It is going to have three decks, lower, middle and upper deck. But we do not really have a clear sense of what this ark is all about. Until we get to our text, because in Genesis chapter seven, notice that it says in verse two, in verse two, it says, take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate. This is interesting, because here we have the distinction between clean and unclean animals.

Now where have we heard about that before? Not earlier in Genesis, but later on in the Pentateuch, we will hear about this. When God gives distinctive commands to Israel about how they are to avoid certain unclean animals, and only to eat and to observe the clean. The distinction between animals that are unclean and animals that are clean is something that occupies a large portion of the giving of the law, especially in the book of Leviticus. Moses comes to the people of Israel and says, these animals here, because of their association with death, like birds of prey or animals that are unclean because of the way that they are connected to death in some way. They are to be avoided by the people of God and only clean animals are to be eaten. And furthermore, another point that is made in the book of Leviticus is that only the clean animals can be used for sacrifice. They cannot offer sacrifice from the unclean animals.

In Genesis, we see that same idea. After the flood is over, in Genesis chapter 8, the water subsides and then God finally says, okay, it is okay to go out from the ark in Genesis chapter 8. In verse 20, it says that Noah built an altar to the Lord and he took some of those clean animals that he was commanded to bring back in chapter 7 And he took some of those, some of every clean bird and every clean animal, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar, just like Israel will do later on. And so what does this tell us? It signals to us that the ark is a holy place. It is a place of holiness, just like Israel later on is going to be a special holy people of God surrounding the tabernacle, which is the holy place of God, where sacrifice is offered upon the altar. The distinction between clean and unclean animals in Genesis 7 verse 2 signals that the Ark is itself like the holy theocracy of Israel later on. It anticipates and points ahead to the holiness of God’s people set apart from the nations around them.

That was one of the reasons why God commanded them to only eat clean food, clean animals, because one of the purposes of that was that it created them, it created a social separation from the nations around them. The nations around them did not observe those distinctions, and so they were defiled by those things, and that defilement of the nations around them was associated with their idolatry. And that is why the people of God were not allowed to eat unclean food so that they would be prevented from intermingling with the nations and being defiled by the idolatry that is associated with that.

Do we not see a similar thing here in our text? If we go back to the previous chapter, which we looked at in the previous weeks, what is the problem with the world? The problem with the world is that it is engaging in deeper and deeper sin and idolatry. The whole world is corrupt in its rejection of God. The whole world is engaging in this rebellion against God that goes back to Cain’s rebellion against the Lord.

We talked about the, that strange passage, remember, in Genesis 6, verses one through four, about the sons of God, who are the sons of God, and how they came down and they saw the daughters of men, and they chose, they took as their wives any that they chose, they gave all the different views of that. Suffice it to say there is something bad going on in the world. There is something demonic that is happening. There is something mankind is becoming utterly corrupt in its rejection of God.

And so we see that God’s people now, Noah and his family, And these clean animals, as well as the animals that are not set apart as being clean, they are being brought into the ark in order to create a separation, just like Israel is being gathered later on to be a separate people and a holy nation. God is not only redeeming his people, we not only see redemption through judgment, we also see that God is forming his people into a holy nation. A people that is separate from the nations of the earth because of their corruption and idolatry.

Furthermore, we see as well that God is using Adam, using Noah I should say, as if he were like a second Adam figure. Noah is like a second Adam figure. In fact, we saw that back in Genesis chapter five in the genealogy. Remember when Lamech, Noah’s father, when he had Noah, he called him Noah because he said, this is the one. This is the one who is going to bring relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. This is the one that God is going to bring about the fulfillment of his promise back in Genesis 3:15. This is the offspring of the woman who will be the second Adam figure who will redeem the world and bring about a new creation.

We see that very thought here in our text. Genesis chapter seven describes the world as being returning back to its former state of chaos. Verse 11, in the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened.

That language there is reminding us of the creation narrative in Genesis chapter one. The world is being de-created. It is turning back to its original primal state of chaos.

Noah is the new Adam though, he is the second Adam and through him God is going to bring forth a new creation. We will get into that later in Genesis 8 and Genesis 9. But you can see that very clearly in Genesis 9 verse 1 where it says, God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth just like God had said to Adam in Genesis chapter one.

Noah then is a second Adam figure. He is not the second Adam, he is not Christ, but he is a figure, he is a type. He is one who shows us what God is doing through Christ. Just as this whole narrative is giving us a glimpse and a picture of the day of judgment, it is also giving us a glimpse and a picture of the work of Christ as the second Adam, who builds the ark and saves his people and brings us into the new creation, even though the world around us is being destroyed under the wrath of God.

This is what we see in the gospel narratives. When you turn to the gospels and you see what happens when Jesus is crucified. You see darkness covering the earth. You see the sun no longer giving its light. These are apocalyptic images that are saying this is the day of the Lord. This is the day of judgment.

But, for those of us who are in Christ, for those of us who are in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are hiding in Him, our ark, and we are being redeemed. We are joined with Him in His death, that we might also be participants of His resurrection on the other side, after the flood is over. Into that new creation that emerges after the day of judgment.

The difference is that with Christ, it happens in two stages. The first coming and the second coming. The first coming of Christ is the day of judgment for the elect. But we have to wait yet for a little bit of time. It seems like a long time from our perspective. It seems like so far 2,000 years. But from God’s perspective, 1,000 years are as a day in his sight. But we have to wait a little bit more of time for the final outworking and for the day of judgment to come upon those that are not elect.

Another wonderful thing that we see in our text is this beautiful image here of the Lord’s tender care for his people. Not only does God provide the ark, not only does he command Noah to go into the ark, not only is God the one gathering his elect into that shelter, but then we read these wonderful words in verse 16 at the very end.

They went in, they entered, and then the Lord, the Lord shut him in. The Lord shut him in. I kind of imagine it a little bit like this. It is like when you get into an airplane, the way we do it now is that we can shut ourselves in. The stewardesses and the crew, the cabin crew, they will be the ones to pull the door in and lock it shut. But Noah is not doing that. Noah is not shutting himself in. God is the one who shuts them in. The Lord is fulfilling his promise. Remember the promise, the covenant that he made back in Genesis 6, verse 18, where God said to Noah, I will establish my covenant with you and I will cause you to be delivered in that day of judgment. The Lord is fulfilling his Ark Covenant promise in Genesis 6 verse 18. Salvation again is of the Lord. God is the one who shuts his people in. God is the one who saves us. He is the one that makes himself into our hiding place.

Later on in the story of Israel, there are many times where we see this image of Day of Judgment, but God’s people being preserved. We saw it in the Exodus, but we also see it later on when they are about to go into Babylonian captivity. In Isaiah chapter 26, God is saying to the people, the wrath of God is coming. I am going to destroy this earthly temple, and I am going to hand it over to the Babylonians. But you, my elect remnant, you will be safe.

Isaiah 26, verse 20, which is also the silent meditation verse in the bulletin, says, come, my people, enter your chambers and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. Again, this is redemptive judgment with two outcomes. Those inside are sealed and delivered. Those unrepentant idolaters outside are judged.

The Waters Prevail

So that is the first main paragraph, the first section of the chapter. Then we come to the second part, which is the description of the actual flood, and it is horrific, is it not? Genesis 7, verses 17 to 24. The flood continued 40 days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face. Of the waters, horrific but also joyful because we see the ark buoyed up upon the very waters that caused death and destruction for those outside, but now are causing God’s people to be saved.

Notice the language of this text here in verses 18, 19, and 20. It repeatedly uses this word, prevailed. The waters increased, the waters prevailed. The waters prevailed so mightily, verse 19. That all the high mountains were covered. It is even used again a fourth time, the same verb at the very end of the passage in verse 24. The waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.

The fact that the waters even covered the mountains signifies that there is no way that anyone could run to high ground. There is no false refuge for mankind outside of the ark. Everyone is going to die who is outside of the ark. All creatures that have the breath of life in them perish outside the ark because the waters rose and prevailed so high that they covered even the mountains.

The Scope of the Flood

Now one question that comes up here is, does the Bible require us to believe in a global flood? Or is it possible that the flood was more of a local

If you read the text literally, it sounds like it is absolutely global. But on the other hand though, sometimes the Bible does use universal terms that are not to be taken literally. For example, just give you one example of that. In Daniel chapter two, in Daniel chapter two and verse 37, we read these words. You, O King, the King of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all, you are the head of gold.

So this is Daniel interpreting the dream that King Nebuchadnezzar had. And he says to King Nebuchadnezzar that he has been granted authority by God to rule over the entire creation. Even though we know literally that is not the case. The kingdom of Babylon did not literally cover the entire globe at that time. So this is not necessarily to be taken literally.

Another example of this is in Daniel chapter four. In Daniel 4:20-22, we have another dream. Daniel says, the tree you saw which grew and became strong so that its top reached to heaven and it was visible to the end of the whole earth, whose leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, and which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field found shade, and in whose branches the birds of the heavens lived. It is you, O king, who have grown and become strong. And your dominion reaches to the ends of the earth. It says there at the end of verse 22.

So sometimes the Bible uses universal terms that are hyperbole to express something great and expansive and very impactful, but not necessarily literally global.

On the other hand, we do have to wonder, why is it that after the flood, and if you keep reading in Genesis, you go on after the flood, you have the flood subsides, you have God’s covenant with Noah and all creation in Genesis 9, but then in Genesis chapter 10, Genesis chapter 10, you have that famous passage that explains what happened to the world after the flood. It talks about how Shem and Ham and Japheth, the three sons of Noah, that they had children and those three sons began to spread throughout the world and to repopulate the earth after the flood. And their work of populating the earth after the flood in this table of nations it is called, in Genesis chapter 10, seems to imply that this is what is being done in order to make up for the fact that it looks as though the whole human race, aside from Noah and his family, has perished. And so now God is repopulating the world.

So my personal view is that the flood was universal in an anthropological sense. That is, all mankind perished in the flood. But mankind was still likely in the Middle East at that time and had not yet spread globally. The text’s perspective then is the known world at that time, not the entire globe. Including where we are here on the other hemisphere in the Americas and so on. So it is not a local flood, just a small local flood over there in Mesopotamia somewhere, but it does not necessarily have to be an absolutely literal global flood either.

The Bible does want to emphasize, though, that it was anthropologically universal. That is, all mankind died in this flood. It was total world cataclysm. God was judging the world and saving his people through the ark.

The Flood as Redemptive Judgment

Theological implications we can draw from this. Number one, the big overarching point, which I have already said before, which is that the flood was a prototype of the final judgment. But more than that, it was not only a type of judgment, it was also a type of redemptive judgment, and of how God’s people are saved through that judgment. God gathers his elect into the sanctuary, into the ark, into this holy place where the clean, unclean distinction is maintained. He gathers them there. Meanwhile, the waters of death prevail over the offspring of the serpent who are in rebellion against God. And this is a pattern we see throughout scripture. The exodus out of Egypt being one of the primary examples of this. And the new exodus in Christ with his death and resurrection, being the day of the Lord coming upon us in Christ.

We often say it is so wonderful that Christ took the punishment in my place so that I do not have to bear that punishment. And that is indeed the truth of the gospel. We believe in substitutionary atonement. But there is another dimension to it, and that is that in a sense, we did undergo that judgment. Those who were in the ark, they were experiencing the wrath of God as well. The same waters that caused the death of all those outside was also what caused them to be redeemed. In union with Christ, we have undergone judgment. Not just that we escape judgment, but that we have undergone judgment. We have, in a sense, gone to hell in Christ, but we are safe in the ark, and so the waters of the wrath of God that would destroy those that are outside actually become saving for us and delivering for us.

What a wonderful truth that is to understand the gospel in that way. Is that not wonderful? It is such a delight to think about that. That is why Paul, in Romans, I just mentioned that I got back from Cambodia and I was teaching through Romans, but you see this same pattern in Romans. Because in the first section of Romans, Romans one through five, he is focusing upon this. The doctrine of justification. That Christ is the propitiation. The wrath of God has been turned aside because He has borne it in our place. But then in chapter 5 and 6, He begins to flesh that out in a way that is not just simply substitutionary, that He took the penalty that I deserved. He fleshes it out in terms of union with Christ. That is why he has that whole section in Romans chapter five about the two Adams. Just as one man sinned and brought sin and death into the world, so also one man, Christ, the second Adam, has obeyed. And through him, in union with him, because he represents us, we have righteousness and life.

And then he immediately turns to chapter six and says what? Shall we therefore continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. Do you not know that you were baptized into Christ? That you are a partaker of His death and resurrection? And you cannot get the benefits of His life without first going through the cross. And if you want to receive forgiveness because of His cross, well, you must also Continue on. After the flood, they come out of the ark and the new creation begins. Resurrection life happens in union with Christ. We are united with Christ in his death judgment and in his resurrection on the other side. The death and resurrection of Christ is the new exodus. It is the new flood. In the redemptive sense, Christ is the ark, and we are undergoing the flood of judgment in him, and then we are coming out on the other side to walk in newness of life.

So how then can we say, well, I am really thankful that Christ took the penalty that I deserved, but I want to continue in sin? How can we say that? It is an impossibility. It is totally incongruous. Because we are united with Christ in his death and in his resurrection. Redemptive judgment, we have been saved by judgment. We have been saved by experiencing that judgment in Christ where we are safe, we are hiding in the storm in Him. What a wonderful gospel we have of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Household Salvation

There is another point as well in our text, which I will just simply briefly point out, which is a subordinate point, but notice how there is the principle of household salvation in our text as well. At the very beginning of the passage, it says, you and all your household shall go into the ark. And that phrase, you and all your household, is picked up in the New Testament, in the book of Acts, in reference to household salvation. The angel that came to Cornelius to tell him that he was going to receive a message of salvation from Peter, the angel said that Peter will declare to you a message by which you are saved, you and all your household. Cornelius was a Gentile. But Peter declared to him a message by which he would be saved, you and all your household.

And the phrase in Greek that is used there in Acts 11 verse 14 is precisely the exact same phrase that is used here in Genesis 7 verse 1. You and all your household. The principle of household salvation. Now, of course, it does not necessarily mean that every child born of believing parents is elect, but this is the general pattern that God desires to save us and our children with us as long as we are responsible and faithful to bring them up in the faith. That is the Lord’s desire for us.

The Old Testament, it seems strange at first. It contains all these stories that are hard to understand, maybe even a little bit shocking when we see the devastation and death in this passage, but yet it is teaching us bit by bit, story by story, illustrating for us the fundamental foundational truths of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.