CHAPTER 5

THE FLOOD: THE BURIED TRUTH OF DIVINE INTERVENTION

The biblical explanations of creation as the true origin of order and goodness and of the fall as the origin of chaos and evil are incomplete without a further element. Granted that evil is a post-creation “add-on” effect originated by the creature and limited by the Creator, is there any final escape from the consequences of the fall? Does the Absurd ever end? Does God ever expose more of the rational and just plan we believe He has? In short, is there salvation from evil?

Of course in searching for some sort of salvation, the pagan mentality cannot be so focused on God. Having replaced the God of the Bible with the Continuity of Being that forever contains evil, unbelief is left ultimately with some form of anesthesia as the only tool to relieve the horror of an evil existence. Whatever salvation that is possible on the pagan basis, must be a “do-it-yourself” salvation dependent upon man.

In this chapter I turn to the Bible’s answer to a fallen world that suffers the consequences of bad choices. Instead of relying upon man’s works, the Bible insists that salvation must come through divine intervention. Such an intervention is seen in next cosmic event recorded in the Word of God after the fall: the cataclysmic flood of Noah’s day.

You must appreciate the cosmic dimensions of this flood story and its spiritual and moral background so I deal first with the interpretation of Genesis 4-8. Then I move on to outline the shape of the biblical doctrines that lie at the heart of the gospel--the concepts of real judgment and real salvation. To prepare for this study, please read Genesis 4-8 and its New Testament interpretations in Luke 17:26-27; Heb. 11:7; I Pet. 3:20; II Pet. 2:5; 3:5-7.

THE DISTINCTIVES OF THE BIBLICAL FLOOD

Just as the creation narrative in Genesis 1-2 conflicts radically with the officially-sponsored origin myth of evolution, the narrative of pre-flood humanity and the flood cataclysm also conflicts with prevailing notions of geological history. For similar reasons, therefore, Christians have tried the same three strategies to attempt reconciliation between the Bible and pagan thought on the flood matter: capitulation, accommodation, and counterattack.

Those who have capitulated over the matter of Noah’s flood do with Genesis 6-8 what they do with Genesis 1-2. The biblical flood story is just a Jewish version of ancient mythological flood stories. Because this form of unbelief replaces the authority of biblical historical revelation with the authority of man’s speculative mental powers, they have no need to be concerned over the historical integrity of the text.

Those who try to accommodate the Genesis text to whatever happens to be the current speculative model of earth history interpret Genesis 6-8 as referring to some sort of local flood in the Mesopotamian Valley which left one or several of the Tigris- Euphrates flood strata. Some accommodationists hold that the flood did literally destroy all humanity in Noah’s day but only because all humanity were locally confined to the Mesopotamian Valley area. Others hold that the flood did not destroy all mankind, only those in Noah’s immediate vicinity.

In 1961 Whitcomb and Morris wrote their highly controversial book, The Genesis Flood (hereinafter TGF). They argued against the accommodationists that normal interpretation of the Genesis text did not support a local flood. The Scripture, they insisted, presented a flood of global proportions. If this interpretation collided with everything we “know” about earth history, then there must be something wrong with our model of earth history. One infuriated evangelical critic responded: “Those who dwell inside the house of geological science have been in the process of remodeling it continuously ever since it was built. Now Henry Morris and John Whitcomb have come along insisting in the name of the Master Architect that the whole thing is on a shaky foundation and must be bulldozed to the ground. Detailed plans for the fine new edifice which should be built in its place, they claim, were found by them in the pages of the family Bible.”[1]

From the last 30 years of debate between the counterattacking young-earth, strict creationist movement spearheaded by Whitcomb and Morris and the accommodationists, it has become obvious that how one interprets Genesis 6-8 is vitally related to how one interprets Genesis 1-2. If the flood was local, for example, then geological strata with its fossil remains of dead animals must be due to natural processes dating from before mankind. The chronology of Genesis in this view is very long with the days of Creation Week being either symbolic or long ages of time.

On the other hand, if the flood was truly global and earth- transforming, then the strata can be attributed to a post- creation, post-fall event what happened recently. In this view the chronology of Genesis can be short with literal 24-hour days in the Creation Week. Thus the flood-caused contrast with modern earth-history models is so radical that literal days in Genesis 1-2 are no extra shock. Because I believe the flood event is so crucial for our understanding of God’s salvation, I will now point out four distinctive features of Noah’s flood that imply its global nature and the magnitude of God’s judging and saving work.

1. The Depth-Time Distinctive. Prior to TGF most discussion about whether or not the flood was global or local centered upon the relative ambiguity of the Hebrew word for “all” (kol). Whitcomb and Morris, however, pointed out that the details given in Genesis 7:19-20 implied a global flood regardless of how the reader interpreted “all”: “If only one (to say nothing of all) of the high mountains had been covered with water, the flood would have been absolutely universal; for water must seek its own level--and it must do so quickly!”[2] TGF changed the argument from one over the adjective “all” to one over specific textual details and their implications. Let’s look at the logical implications of the so-called “depth-time” details in Genesis 7:11-8:13.

Clearly the flood event lasted one year (Gen. 7:11 cf. Gen. 8:13). Whatever the extent of the flood--whether global or local--the waters remained at a certain depth for many months. What depth? Genesis 7:20 reports that the waters were 15 cubits (over 20 feet) above every hill. Most interpreters take this measure to refer to the draught of Noah’s Ark, i.e., it floated over every obstacle without grounding on anything. So we conclude, without deciding about what “all” means as to geographical extent, that the waters covered every hill and mountain for one year in whatever area the flood occupied.

Next, we come to the term “under all the heavens” (Gen. 7:19). A check of occurrences of this phrase elsewhere (Deut. 2:25; 4:19; Job 28:24; 37:3; 41:11; Dan. 7:27 and 9:12) shows that it never refers to an area smaller than several hundred miles wide. Given such a minimum area, where in the Middle East can one place the flood without including at least some points of land several thousand feet above sea level? And if these points must be covered for many months, the flood must have been global. Thus the details of the text directly imply a global flood regardless of the usage of the term “all” in a relative sense in other places.

2. The Ark’s Distinctive Size, Design, and Purpose. A simple check on the dimensions of the Ark that God gave to Noah in Genesis 6:14-15 shows that it was enormous. In TGF there are calculations that show it was equal in size to modern ocean-going vessels. Its volume was so great that it equaled the volume of 522 railroad stock cars! TGF authors show that pairs of each species of animal living today would fit in far less than 100 railroad stock cars.[3] Why this enormous size if the flood were only local?

Not only was the Ark huge, but its design was very distinctive compared with the “arks” of pagan flood-myths. Pagan stories tell of different boats with odd shapes varying from perfect cubes to rafts. None show any sense of hydrodynamical stability to keep from capsizing in rough water. Morris has shown with standard hydrodynamical equations that the Genesis 6:14-15 dimensions imply very great stability against capsizing.[4]

Another detail reported in the Bible’s flood story is how the Ark was sealed. It was covered inside and outside with some sort of pitch called by a name in the Hebrew that is related to the word for “atonement” (Gen. 6:14). After the Ark was loaded, there is the strange text that reads: “And the LORD shut him in” (Gen. 7:16). Quite in contrast to Hollywood movies like “The Bible” that show Noah shutting the side door with a pulley contraption, the Bible reports that an unusual sealing took place directly by the hand of God.

The purpose of the Ark can be more readily appreciated today than ever before because of our new realization of genetic science. The taking of pairs of every “kind” of animal saved a selected gene pool of animal life. Man as lord of creation who was to rule the earth (Gen. 1:26-28) was used by God as the vehicle for saving the gene pool of the entire animal kingdom. The Ark salvation of the animal kingdom was the greatest ecological act of human history. Incidentally, this detail also shows why the Bible allows for so-called microevolution or adaptive diversification. Every variation of animal today came from the Ark’s gene pool of original pairs. Such adaptability reveals the efficiency of God’s creation design so that the entire gene pool could be collected in a relatively small volume.

3. The Distinctive Commentary of Peter. Overlooked in most of the global-local flood debate is the commentary of the Apostle Peter. TGF authors brought Peter’s comments on the Genesis flood narrative back into the discussion, and I know of no critic who has ever answered them. Peter must have been heavily influenced by Jesus’ use of the flood as a picture of the future judgment (Luke 17:26-27). He wrote of it as an illustration of baptism and resurrection (I Pet. 3:20).

His most incisive comments are given in II Peter 3:4-7. He begins by warning his readers against the old pagan notion of the continuity of nature in verse 4, that man can universalize his finite, local knowledge of natural processes. No, says Peter, nature has been structured by God for his future acts of judgment. In verses 5 and 7, he distinguishes this present world (“the heavens and the earth which are now”) from the antediluvian world (“the heavens were of old and the earth. . .”). By using the vocabulary of Genesis 1:1 (“heavens and earth”), Peter

teaches that the flood event marked off two eras of history for not only the planet earth but also the entire heavens!

Peter, in other words, interprets Genesis 6-8 as referring to a truly cosmic cataclysm. Far from minimizing it as the accommodationists do, he makes it appear even greater than it appears at a first reading of Genesis. He speaks of the “world that then was” in verse 6 as being completely destroyed. Then he moves on to speak of the final days of judgment upon this present universe. It is the universe, not just planet earth, that suffers from the past flood intervention and future fire intervention. If with the accomodationists you make the flood a local Mesopotamian Valley overflow, then consistency would require you to minimize the coming future fiery judgment with all its details in the book of Revelation.

4. The Distinctive Features of the Antediluvian World. A careful reading of Genesis 4-9 will show several geophysical features of the pre-flood world that sharply contrast with the present environment of this planet. Before the flood both man and nature differed radically from present man and nature. So great are the differences, so distinctive does this strange world of Genesis 4-9 appear to modern eyes, that many unbelieving scholars have called this pre-flood world a “mythical land” in a “mythical age”.

Here are some observations straight from the text. Foremost among the differences are the phenomenally great lifespans of man before the flood (compare Gen. 5 and 11). Using simple curve

fitting techniques with the life spans given in the biblical text, you can observe the significant change that happened with the flood. Engineering and science students will recognize the familiar “exponential decay curve” form here, a form usually seen when a physical system transitions from one steady-state to another. No mere Mesopotamian Valley inundation or local calendar change could cause this effect! Something radical happened to human physiology. Not only man but nature, too, was different.

Observe the description of the garden of Eden in Genesis 2:8-15 and 3:24. Note that the garden is “in” a region called Eden. Inside this region a “mist” would periodically rise from the earth and water the “whole ground” (2:6). The Hebrew word here for mist is not well defined; cognate usage suggests another translation--a spring bubbling up from the ground. Trace where the water goes: four rivers diverge from out of Eden with some names Noah and his sons apparently used to name our postdiluvian rivers and land areas. Rivers only diverge from mountainous areas. Eden must have been at high altitude (cf. Ezek. 28:13-14). And the source of water was not rain, but apparently a subterranean fountain (Gen. 2:5-6). This strange hydrologic cycle of artesian wells supplying the major river systems (rather than rain) appears again in the New Earth to come (Rev. 22:1-2). The Bible student can’t help recalling the imagery of eternal life as a “well of water springing up” (John 4:14).

Another feature of nature is the shift in climate. While no rain occurs before the flood (Gen. 2:5-6), storms of all sorts become a normal occurrence afterward (Gen. 8:22; 9:14-16). These observations recorded in the biblical text have a remarkable physical consistency that belies all attempts to label them as mythological speculations. The optics of a rainbow require water droplets of a size sufficient to fall out as rain. The first occurrence of a bow would be consistent with no previous rain. A first occurrence of seasonal temperature differences would be consistent with a prior calm climate with no strong winds and small temperature contrasts. (In Part III of this series I discuss a possible scenario for the early postflood climate which explains the evidence for “ice ages” and termination of the so-called prehistoric plants and animals.)

A straightforward interpretation of Genesis 4-9 continues the tension begun with Genesis 1-3. This narrative simply defies all attempts to accommodate it to modern historical science. The flood event was a massive discontinuity in universal history. It was a total intervention. Modern historical science, following the skeptics of Peter’s day (II Pet. 3:4), insists upon ultimate continuity and freedom from any such disturbance in what is called “natural law”.

Either the Bible or modern historical science is very, very wrong. A further defense of a literal interpretation of Genesis may be found in Appendix A; the conflict with biological evolution in Appendix B; the conflict with cosmic evolution in Appendix C; and the conflict with historical geology in Appendix D. In all cases you must be aware of what I spoke of in the very first chapter and of what we have learned through the events of creation, fall, and flood: two very distinct mentalities exist among men--pagan and biblical--and these mentalities affect every area of thought including the language of science and history.

GOD’S INTERVENTION OF JUDGMENT AND SALVATION

From these very early foundations come the primary revelation of how God intervenes to damn and to save. These two opposite works always occur together. You will never see one without the other because both are necessary to separate man and nature from the domain of evil. Evil can never be brought along into the permanent Presence of God; it forever must be excluded. The obvious problem in salvation is how to exclude evil without excluding creatures who have sinned. How can God separate corruption from incorruption?

The pagan mind of rebellious flesh can’t correctly diagnose the problem. By “forgetting” creation, paganism substitutes an idolatrous Continuity of Being in which both “God” (if acknowledged at all) and man are encased in an ultimate mystery which neither can fully understand nor control. By “forgetting” the fall, paganism renders evil unavoidable and man irresponsible. Out of this confusion any talk of salvation must remain trivial. Any proposed salvation is merely a relative thing: more good works than someone else; less pain with whatever the gimmick than without it; etc. There is no intervention from “outside” because there is no outside from which salvation could come. Thus all non-biblical religions never fundamentally deal with salvation.

To make as clear as possible the biblical view of judgment- salvation, I turn to five characteristics found in the Noahic flood event that re-occur again and again with every saving work of God throughout history. Master these pictures, and you will know the gospel as never before!

1. Grace before Judgment. Prior to the flood judgment Noah’s generation had received the clear warnings of Enoch (Jude 1:14-15). For about a century this generation had seen Noah building the Ark and preaching righteousness (Gen. 6:3; cf. II Pet. 2:5). God never intervenes without graciously providing an adequate warning. The first occurrence in the Bible of the word grace, in fact, is in Genesis 6:8. Grace is the temporary extension of His eternal attribute of love into an evil environment.

Here is a vital principle in God’s economy. Grace is only the temporary extension of His love, not an eternal extension. Grace is as “abnormal” as evil is. His permission of evil is limited. Eventually, the limit is reached. When that day comes, the day of grace is over. No further opportunity to repent and believe is left (II Pet. 3:9 cf. Matt. 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27). In that day God’s justice will be acknowledged (Rev. 16:5), and the “problem” of evil will go away because evil will go away.

The assurance of this future judgment added to our knowledge of the creation and fall provides a powerful framework for faithful living. Evil can now be seen as limited at both extremes--the past and the future. Whatever the purposes of God in making use of the evil which the creature started (remember the eleven patterns of suffering in the last chapter), it is not because He is impotent or negligent. It has much to do with His love toward those creatures for whom He has provided salvation from evil. Picture Noah’s generation hearing and seeing the message of the Ark and coming judgment for insight into God’s gracious extension of his love!

2. Perfect Discrimination. A second characteristic of God’s intervention work is His ability to discriminate perfectly between those to be saved and those to be condemned. In the Genesis flood story, only those who responded to Noah’s preaching were saved. As Peter observed: “[God] preserved Noah. . .with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. . . .The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.” (II Pet. 2:5b,9)

Divine intervention, then, is not a statistical approximation, nor is it an indiscriminate catastrophe upon numerous innocent victims. After all, judgment is an act proceeding out of His attribute of holiness, the archetype of the conscience and human moral judgment. It should not surprise us to find that His judgment is sharper and more discerning than the most careful moral judgment any man could ever make.

You must see that the judgment-salvation intervention of the flood and of the last days is not like ordinary mishaps of natural evil today. These are special acts of God with clearly miraculous features. They dramatically show how He can surgically cut out all evil when He so chooses. Think of the eight people riding out the flood cataclysm inside the Ark while millions perished outside in the rising waters for a vivid picture of the discriminating holiness of God.

3. Only One Way of Salvation. No characteristic of biblical salvation is more debated and mocked by pagans than the insistence that one and only one way of salvation exists. Of course this mockery is consistent with the entire pagan story because salvation within paganism is a small, relative triviality. On such a basis there ought to be an entire cafeteria of salvations, not just one.

On the biblical basis, however, the nature of salvation must be a radical divine intervention because of the situation of the

fallen creation. Any salvation plan must come from the One Who originally created the universe prior to evil’s origin; it must come from “outside”. Thus the design of the Ark was directly revealed to Noah from the Omniscient One Who knew more about naval design than any human expert (Gen. 6:14-16). Only God is qualified to design a plan sufficient to save from the judgment He Himself is about to bring forth.

Eight people were saved only because they were in the divinely-designed Ark that would not capsize in turbulent water. The entire gene pool of man and land animals was preserved only because the Ark volume was large enough to hold them. How could Noah or anyone else speculate on a future discontinuity in the history of the universe accurately enough to design any other way of escape? The one way of salvation had to cope with geological upheaval, turbulent flood waters on a global scale, survival of a gene pool adequate to populate the next world, and correspond in design to the ultimate saving work of Christ. Limited human knowledge is utterly incapable of creating a way of salvation from such a complex of factors none of which had yet been experienced. In modern terms, the Ark had to be designed to meet things outside of man’s “event horizon.”

4. Replacement of the Whole World. Biblical salvation is often confused with subjective religious experience. It often is seen by the pagan world as no more than an interesting psychological phenomenon not at all unique to Christianity. If you will let it, the flood event will demolish that erroneous thinking in your heart.

You saw in both Peter’s commentary and the various reports in Genesis 1-9 that the entire cosmos was changed. For Peter there are two entirely different universes--before and after. The planet’s geography, climate, and biological ecosystem were radically changed. The psychological state of the eight passengers on the Ark was only a tiny part of the whole.

The reason, of course, is that biblical salvation is realistic salvation grounded upon the truth of what evil has done in the universe. Biblical salvation is built upon the events of creation and fall. For the Christian creation and sin’s damage exist throughout the physical environment as well as throughout the psychological environment. Real salvation, therefore, must deal with both. It would be no salvation at all if it did not deal with the eradication of evil “as far as the curse is found”. Here you observe the omnipotence of God at work.

5. Appropriation by Faith. Only if you grasp all that has gone before about God’s judgmental and saving intervention will you heartily conclude that you can only partake by faith and faith alone. If and only if there is the Creator-creature distinction so that He is “outside”. . . ; if and only if the creature originated evil in a fall that has spread everywhere. . . ; if and only if God’s intervention involved His divine attributes at every point. . .then faith is the only means a creature has of appropriating His saving work. Mix yourself up on any of these prior truths, as paganism and Christian heresies do, and you will try to add your good works to the package.

Noah had to respond to God’s “abnormal” extension of His love toward an evil world by believing it enough to start preparing (Heb. 11:7). He had to respond to God’s holiness by preaching righteous standards over against his world’s evil standards (I Pet. 2:5). He had to respond to God’s omniscience by following God’s design when he was building the Ark (Heb. 11:7). He had to respond to God’s omnipotence by letting God bring the animals to him and leaving the shutting of the Ark to God (Gen. 6:20; 7:16-17).

Noah did not try to use his human love and pity for his neighbors and the environment; he trusted in God’s love. He did not make his own moral judgments over who should and who should not be saved; he trusted God’s holiness. He did not use his knowledge as the final criteria in designing the Ark; he trusted in God’s omniscience. He did not attempt to meet the evil of his day by his own energy; he trusted God’s power to destroy it. At point after point Noah believed God.

This does not mean that his faith was perfect. Imagine as the first rain fell and as the Ark lurched loose from its mooring Noah and his family questioning whether it would be sufficient. Their subjective faith might fail momentarily, but did that jeopardize their objective safety once they were in the Ark? Did their inner psychological state affect their external safety from the flood? Once in the Ark their faith affected only whether they would ride the flood waters with relaxed confidence or tense fear and worry. It did not affect their safety or their destination!

The saving work of God, then, must be responded to by faith in order for it to remain the work of God. Any addition of human works merely confuses the issue and is wholly useless anyway. And what is the object of this faith? God Himself, the Infinite- Personal Creator over all. Such faith must not be confused with

your psychological state or your emotions, although obviously it ought to affect them. True faith issues forth, not from an emotional feeling, but from a conviction that the God of the Bible with all of His revealed attributes is there, calling to you.

When God intervenes to judge and to save, these five characteristics are usually quite obvious. Learn them well. You will appreciate the gospel so much more and will anticipate its completion with the return of Christ to judge the world.

Sadly, the very evidence of God’s first cataclysmic intervention in Noah’s day lies buried underneath mankind’s feet in most places of the earth. The thousands of feet of sedimentary rock, full of the signs of violent death, are like the layers of unbelief in the human heart that hide revelation of God’s “ever working power and godhead” (Rom. 1:20). Faced with both evidences of God’s intervention, the pagan mind of flesh keeps on insisting upon the “safe” Continuity of Being (II Pet. 3:4).

Exercise 5.1

1. State the arguments for and against a global flood interpretation of Genesis 6-8.

2. Numerous parallels exist between Noah’s family “in” the Ark and New Testament believers “in” Christ. Look at the following suggestions and elaborate on what you observe; add your own suggestions. a. The word “pitch” (Gen. 6:14) is closely related to the word “atonement” (Lev. 17:11). b. The Lord shut in Noah’s family (Gen. 7:16); the Holy Spirit seals (Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30). c. The flood waters saved Noah and judged the ungodly; the future resurrection saves believers and damns unbeliever (John 5:28-29). d. The flood and baptism seem closely related in the New Testament (I Pet. 3:20-21).

3. If you are interested in the scientific problems of Genesis 1-9, look at Appendices B, C, and D.

END NOTES FOR CHAPTER 5

1. Walter R. Hearn, “Review of The Genesis Flood,Ó Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, XVI, No. 1 (March, 1964), 29. 2. John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1961, p. 1f.

3. Ibid., p. 69.

4. Henry M. Morris, “The Ark of Noah,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, VIII (Sept., 1971), 142-4. Critics of the Bible love to mock the Ark story by citing alleged problems of eight people trying to care for “millions” of animals with their special diets and excreta. Recently a seven-year study has been published giving a detailed response to all of these sorts of arguments by John Woodmorappe, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study (El Cajon, CA.: Institute for Creation Research, 1996).