Genesis 7
1 Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. 2 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, 3 and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. 4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” 5 And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth.7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9 two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in. 17 The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.
There is a naïve belief held by some that ancient people were more naturally religious whereas modern people are more skeptical. In truth, the whole spectrum of belief and disbelief has been around in every age. Consider, for instance, the following comment by Tertullian, the 2nd/3rdcentury Christian writer, who wrote, “We get ourselves laughed at for proclaiming that God will one day judge the world.”[1]Imagine that: people have been laughing at the concept of divine judgment since the beginning of the Christian movement. And, tragically, many churches have capitulated to a desire to not be laughed at by simply jettisoning beliefs, like the reality of divine judgment, that some find off-putting. Thus, you can now find ostensibly Christian churches and Christian individuals who would “laugh” at the idea “that God will one day judge the world.”
This is unfortunate, because the thread of divine judgment has its rightful place in the tapestry of divine truth and it is excised only to the detriment of other doctrines that detractors profess to love. Think, for instance, of what it does to the cross itself if you cast out the idea of divine wrath of judgment. Why on earth would Christ come to die if not to save us from coming judgment? What is more, jettisoning divine judgment undercuts Christology as well insofar as it makes Jesus, who clearly believed in and taught the reality of judgment, a liar.
Yes, Jesus taught the reality of divine judgment. In fact, in Matthew 24, He pointed to the flood as the case study we should consider when trying to understand what His final judgement will be like.
36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
This is most telling! It means that we should pay special attention to the realities and details of the flood in order to craft our theology of divine judgment, for the second coming of Christ will be like “the days of Noah.” What, then, can we conclude about divine judgment by considering the flood?