On the Comfort Seen in the Flood
Posted by Ryan Schroeder on January 16, 2007
Nearly everyone in the world is familiar with the Story of the Great Flood and Noah’s
Ark. However, most people, even some who call themselves Christian, do not hold the story to be true. For many it is just too terrible to imagine that God could be so disappointed with his creation that he felt the need to destroy it. However, it did happen. The Lord did see the need to destroy it and did cover the entire world with water for at least 150 days. This water did kill every person and land animal that was not in Noah’s
Ark. The Lord had shown his wrath. There is a time coming when his wrath will be shown again.
Even in the midst of this rather unpleasant story, there are many things in which we Christians can find comfort. The first and most obvious point in which we can find comfort is that God protected the faithful, his Elect from the punishment. God is in control of his judgments and he will not execute them without providing for the safety of his people. We see God providing Noah with safety in this story by giving him the exact information he needed to build the ark, and when he needed to enter it. After they entered the ark, we find that it was the Lord himself who shut Noah and his family safely in the ark (Gen 7:16).
This same attitude is shown by God when he rescues Lot and his family before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. In verse 16 we see that even after the Lord sent angels to personally warn lot, he still hesitated in leaving the city. Nevertheless, because of God’s compassion, the Angels physically took hold of them and brought them out of the city. After it was decided that Lot and his family would take refuge in the small city of Zoar, God tells him “Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Even after having to physically remove Lot and his family from the cities about to be destroyed, he refuses to do anything until
Lot was in a place where he would be safe.
In Egypt, the Lord provided for the safety of his chosen people when he inflicted the Hebrew’s captors with the ten plagues. When it was the plague causing the death of the livestock, the Hebrews were protected from the plague by God. In the same way we are told that the Boils only affected the Egyptians. The Plague of hail did not affect the land of
Goshen, where the Israelites were. The Lord protected the Israelites in the same way from the darkness and the Death of the first-born. In this time of great tribulation for the entire country of Egypt, God protected his chosen people, his Elect. He did not need to remove them from Egypt to protect them, he simply provided safety and security to them.
As Christians, we know that we too have God looking out for us. In our time of great tribulation, we know that God will provide for our safety and our security, just has He has done for his people through the ages. This does not mean that we will have an easy life, or that we will not be persecuted, we will. However we will continue to be strengthened by the Lord and will eventually be brought home to be with him.
The next item of comfort we see in the account of the flood is one that many probably overlook, it is simply the fact that God chose to take 40 days to destroy the world (and an additional 150 for the water to subside. Compared to the six days that Good took to create the world, this is an extraordinarily long time. He could have done it in the blink of an eye, but he chose to do it much more slowly. I certainly see this as a comfort, a reminder that God is slow to anger. It shows us that this was something that God saw as necessary to do, not desirable. We know that God desires the salvation of all men (Eze 33:11, 1 Tim 2:3-4), the destruction of the entire world, save Noah’s family, must have been something that God would not have done if it was not absolutely necessary.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we know that the waters of the flood are a type of the waters of Holy Baptism.
When God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. [1Pe 3:20-22 ESV]
When we look at the flood, we do see death and destruction, but we also see God saving lives through water. This naturally reminds us of the Sacrament of Baptism in which we are granted new life through God’s Word connected with the water. We are reborn and given new life, just as those who came through the flood started a new life after being saved through God’s promise connected with the water of the flood.
Although on first glance we see nothing but death and destruction in the account of the flood, upon a closer inspection we also see many examples of God’s Grace being shown to his Elect.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
