Genesis 7 the Great Flood

Many people refuse to take the biblical account of the flood as literal history, preferring to regard it as some kind of mythology which conveys to us certain important truths about ourselves and about the world. They point to the survival of various flood stories in different traditions in the East, and tell us that the account in Genesis 7 is one of these mythologies.

However, the New Testament is under no illusion about the truthfulness and the trustworthiness of the Genesis account. Jesus tells us that no word of the scripture can be broken, and Peter, in 2 Peter 3, takes the account of the flood as the foundation for his emphasis upon the doctrine of the second coming, and the need for us to be prepared for final judgement, which, he argues, will come as surely and as certainly as this particular judgement came at this particular time.

People in Noah's day, argues Peter, scoffed at the idea of a flood. They looked at the uniformity and constancy of creation and said - nothing can upset the laws of nature: they are fixed and immoveable. On the basis of what their eyes could see, they argued that God could never intervene. So it is now. People look around them and see the world going on as it has always done. They say - "Where is the promise of his coming?" But come He will - Jesus will return at the close of human history and God will judge the world, just as he sent the flood at this time.

But this is a story of judgement tempered with grace, for Noah and his family were preserved alive by God. In the midst of darkness there is light, and in the midst of hopelessness, despair and threatening, there is the power of God displayed in the rescuing of Noah. We read here of three things that God did for Noah:

God Took Him In

The time came when the ark was ready; Noah had built it according to God's design and provision. It was Noah's ark, but ultimately it was God's ark, and God's provision alone was what gave salvation to Noah, his wife, his sons and his daughters-in-law. God said to him "Come into the ark" (7:1).

This was a word of grace indeed. When the flood of judgement was to fall, a place of safety was provided. And the Gospel today is the same. In a world ripe for God's judgement and under God's threatening; in a world of sin, hopelessness and despair, God says - "Come into the ark". He tells us that there is a place of safety for us all. The predominant Gospel word is "Come" - it is on the lips of the Saviour again and again. There is no salvation without it.

The Gospel invitation reverses sin's curse and sin's despair. When Adam and Eve sinned, God sent them out. Now he takes Noah in. Sin drives us away from God; the Gospel calls us to God. The message of grace is the message of a free, unfettered offer of pardon to lost sinners. God says to us "Come into the ark".

God Shut Him In

But God not only called Noah in; we read in verse 16 - "God shut him in". God closed the door, and made the ship finally watertight. There was no possibility of loss, of drowning. For Noah, there was no condemnation any more.

So it is with the rescue ship of the Gospel. There is a finality about God's salvation in Christ that gives to sinners a complete and ultimate guarantee of salvation and of hope. There is no more condemnation for those who are shut in and closed in with Jesus Christ. To be sure, there may be difficulties in the way, trials to meet with, problems to overcome. But God has shut the door behind his people, "and no man opens it" (Revelation 3:7). With the key of David - with all the promises of God's eternal covenant of grace - God opens a door of hope for his people, and closes them in with Christ, where they are safe for all time.

God Kept Him In

Whatever thoughts were going through Noah's mind as the ark rolled and twisted over the waves, one thing was sure - God was not going to lose him in the flood. As the world drowned into a lost eternity, "Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive" (7:23). Outside there was chaos, judgement and death. Inside there was the presence of the living God, preserving alive and keeping through divine power the family who were heirs of God's salvation.

The Gospel not only promises us salvation; it promises that we will be kept by the power of God. It promises that the God who took us in, and who shut us in, will keep us in the hollow of his hand, where none can perish. To be in Christ is to be safe. Forever.