Dr. Meredith Kline, Prologue, Lecture 29
© 2012, Dr. Meredith Kline and Ted Hildebrandt
Student
comment: Truth comes through Jesus Christ, which, if you read
it in terms of truth versus error, you’re stuck with Moses bringing error, you
know, but Christ bringing truth. And that just doesn’t work. -
Kline’s comment: Yes, that’s another good… whereas
then does he actually adopt the view that I do that the law that came through
Moses would be works and grace which is the opposite of works?
Student response: he doesn’t spell all that out, he simply
says, the idea that, what he said, that fact that the book of Hebrews has
certain categories shadowing reality. He said the Johannine writer had the same
concepts, with different vocabulary. His vocabulary for heavenly truth as
opposed to the earthly or the typological.
Professor response: Okay, no all these folks have read Biblical
Theology and the other one that was mentioned, what’s the title of it?
Redemptive something… There was a whole series of things that Vos published
that were added to by Dick Gaff and were published under this title.
That sounds like it. No that’s something else, and Vos’s particular
studies on the whole book of Hebrews. Who was it that told me that the fellow
that’s publishing my stuff now at Wipf and Stock is also publishing that. Was
one of you were telling me that? That should be of interest to you. Oh, yeah. This
is the name of the publisher in Oregon who is reprinting my stuff. I guess it
was Pete Vostene, Do you know Pete Vostene?
Professor response: Pete Steen, yeah. Oh he’s another
character. Well Wipf and Stock apparently are republishing Vos’s studies on
Hebrews which have been not available and also his little book on the Kingdom
and the Church. That’s not been available. Ned Stonehouse used to say that
everyone should read that little book of Vos’s the Kingdom and the Church
once a year. I don’t know about that. But in any case, it’s a valuable little
treatise and that’s available now.
People of God in the city of man: the alar community
Alright, to now back our analysis here, of the people of God in
“the world that then was” living in the shadow of the oppression that’s going
on in the city of man. Their particular function then is they are identifying
themselves as God’s own people in the midst of this world. Their particular
function is associated with the presence of the altar in their midst, which
means that they are a worshipping community, that they are a priestly
congregation. You know the family is the covenant community.
We were just making the point that it’s no special group of priests
or anything like that, but you have the family authority structure. The
natural family authority is the covenant authority. They are the altar
community.
There are no special priests there. The father, I guess the
patriarch would just assume natural leadership. If we read through the
narratives of someone like Job or Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we find that the
fathers of the family, of course, take the leadership at the altar, but they
are not special priests, whereas the rest of the family isn’t priests. It’s just
primis inter pares “a first among equals.” It’s just a matter of natural
leadership that’s going on in these particular communities.
So that the covenant community, the congregation, the holy
congregation is just the family congregation with its own already existing
authority structure. What their functions are then can be analyzed as I try to
do here in terms of priestly functions. Please read then that discussion on
pages 123 and 124. We get into the area of how as a priestly people they are in
their hearts consecrating everything to the Lord. They’re consecrating
themselves to the Lord. Even their involvement in the area of culture, they are
consecrating to the Lord. There then we have to make the distinction between
what we do as God’s people, whatever we do, even in the area of common grace
callings, we do as unto the Lord. We commit it to the Lord. We consecrate it to
the Lord, and yet that doesn’t make it holy. What we are doing in terms of our
business, whatever activity that we are engaged in, apart from the
distinctively ecclesiastical connection that we have in functions that whatever
we’re doing out there is common grace, non-holy, non-sacred.
The fact that we as God’s people are doing it as unto the Lord, and
consecrating it to him, doesn’t make it holy. It’s the sanctification of
culture, which we engage in as priests. It is something that takes place within
our hearts. I don’t know, I usually try to give an illustration of a Christian
and a non-Christian engaging in making some cultural product--a pair of shoes. So
each one makes a pair of shoes. As the Christian does it he, in his heart,
dedicates what he is doing to the Lord. He is serving the Lord in this
activity as well as in worship. The unbeliever makes a pair of shoes, he
doesn’t dedicate it in his heart to the Lord. The two pairs of shoes arrive on
the shelf of the store, the fact that the Christian in his heart dedicated the
one he made to the Lord doesn’t make that a holy pair of shoes. The product
itself remains common, even though it has undergone this act of priestly
sanctification in our hearts. So there’s that kind of discussion there.
The Altar as witness
Then also, the setting up of the altar is obviously then along
with being a place of worship, where that function is carried out, it also
constitutes a witness. You set up a visible altar in the midst of this pagan
world looking on and you are bearing witness to the world there. Here is an
altar pointing up to heaven representing God’s presence and claim. What you
are saying is that this visible altar on this visible earth belongs to the God
on whose name we are calling. In fact, we maybe have named this altar after the
name of our God. So the people of God are bearing a public testimony in the
face of these unbelieving pagans, self-deifying pagans. They are asking for
persecution and they get it, then. This world belongs to the God of this altar.
Now later on in Israel where God has staked out a particular land then the
altar that is set up within that holy land of Israel is saying that God, our
God, Yahweh Elohim, claims this particular land as his. In fact, in expression
of that he has already exercised judgment and thrown the unbelievers out of it
through the holy war that we have conducted and so forth.
Now before you come to that phase of things, just in the world in
general, there is still the altar. It is not just claiming a particular land
like the land of Canaan. What it is in effect doing is claiming the whole
world only prophetically. Now in Israel the altar was saying God already claims
right here and now, this particular land and therefore you unbeliever, you’re
unholy, stay out of here. Apart from that the altar was a prophetic witness. It
was saying ultimately this whole creation belongs to our God. The day is coming
when he will claim it. Meanwhile get yourselves ready folks. So that the
setting up of the altar is a prophetic witness to the world, warning them. It’s
a call for them to repent. As I said, there’s a magnetic, centrifugal, missionary
dynamic. You folks out there come to the God of this altar.
So there is a prophetic witness not just as priests engaged at the
altar. But then in the more distinctive sense, there is a prophetic function
that is attested in this community of faith because you actually have prophet
figures, like Enoch, who is raised up, and Noah, who is raised up, who are
identified in the scriptures as prophets. They bore their witness of warning to
their own particular generation. So here’s a distinctive community, people of
God who are fully engaged in the whole world enterprise out there, but who have
as their distinctive calling, this identification with the covenant Lord and
with his redemptive purposes and his ultimate claims.
Well you can see then why there would be such a tension and such a
clash between the counter-claims of these two communities. And so it went.
There must have been a lot of apostasy unhappily as part of that pattern of
eschatology, the days of Noah, the days of Jesus. When we come down to the New Covenant
we see the theme of apostasy. It is very prominent. You come to the book of
Revelation, if I understand the figure of the harlot Babylon, it is a very
significant development within the New Covenant. It is this drift away from the
real Jerusalem, the true bride, to the Babylon and the harlot figure. It is
this large scale apostasy that characterizes the history. Certainly in part it
is promoted and triggered by the kind of persecution that the true saints are
undergoing precisely because they are martyrs, not just in the sense of the
martyr witness, but martyrs in the sense of those who suffer death for their
faithful confession to the Lord. So it was back in that period.
Section Three: climax of the history of the world that then was--flood
So by virtue of apostasy, by virtue of persecution from these “sons
of the gods,” who claimed to be gods, who wouldn’t tolerate their rival claims
there’s only eight of them left. By the time we come to this long history, and
we come up to the section three. So let’s then move on through this climax of
the history of the world that then was.
This is the matter then of the story of the flood. Page 131, where
we have then how to settle it. The contest is on and the conflict is on. It’s a
legal contest, it’s a matter of rival claims to the proprietorship, the
ownership of the whole world. Who’s claims will be vindicated? God will settle
the matter. So the flood becomes a trial by ordeal in which the rival
claimants are alike subjected to undergo the ordeal element, which in this case
is water and the flood. By the medium of the flood ordeal, God will render his
verdict, and he will, of course, render a verdict on behalf of the Sethite
people who are calling on his name. He will, by the same token, be condemning
and executing all at once by the same waters of ordeal, those who claim the
world for themselves in defiance of their creator. So that’s the meaning of
this third section. It unfolds as we see in the form of a covenant which we
should look at a little bit further.
The
flood as a physical phenomenon: global or local?
But
it just may be a preliminary word about the flood. The flood as a geological,
physical phenomenon. Again, I don’t intend to belabor this thing a great deal. The
issue then is the extent of the flood. Is it global or is it not global? That’s
been debated very much back and forth and for the most part it’s those who
would hold to a younger earth view, to solar days of Genesis 1, who also then
hold that the flood was a global episode. Whereas those who take other
positions on the issues of the antiquity of man or the antiquity of the earth,
would also then perhaps be inclined to come down on the side of a non-global
flood. As I said, I don’t want to try to get into this because a lot of it I
think would end up being a question of evaluating various kinds of scientific
evidence and that’s not my field. So I’m particularly just concerned as to what
we should feel that we have to say in the name of the Bible on this subject. I
want just to express a word of caution against being dogmatic as to the
conclusion that if you believe the Bible you simply have to believe in a global
flood. All I want to try and show is that exegetically you can’t be that
dogmatic. However, then the scientific evidence would make you come down one
way or another, but just what the Bible compels us to say?
Now admittedly there’s language that sounds very universal. That
God is saying what he intends to do, seems to be describing wherever there are
those creatures that have the breath of life in them and so on. It seems to be
a universal description. When the results of the flood are described in
similar terms, they have a certain very universal sound to them. The passage in
2 Peter that I referred to many a time here when we were describing that
overall structure where the history of the “world that then was” and the flood
ending that and also introducing the history of the “world that now is,” that
language of Peter that I’ve been citing, that too seems to have a cosmic ring
to it. The world that then was, the world that now is, the heavens and the
earth that now are. So you can understand certainly why there are those who
want to insist on a universally global interpretation of the extent of the
flood.
Now the trouble is now that elsewhere in the Bible where you have
similar language, sounding universal as all get out, we know that it was actually
intended in a non-global sense. I’ll just give a very brief discussion of
this, I forget how much I have at the beginning of that chapter. One
illustration I always use to show how universal sounding language can have a
very limited actual applicable meaning and intent is in the book of Daniel
where the empire, the control of Nebuchadnezzar is being described. Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom is described
in terms of a tree, that reaches up even to heaven. But also, you get this
language especially in the second chapter where, maybe someone can help me with
the exact language here, but wherever the sons of men dwell and the beasts of
the field and so on. It’s the kind of basic broad categories, the man and the
beasts of the field and everything, wherever these creatures of God dwell. “God
has given it to you O Nebuchadnezzar, you are the head of gold.” Alright, so
there’s the creation-wide language used, as in the case of the flood. But, of
course, the question, how far did Nebuchadnezzar reign. We know within the
Mesopotamian valley is one part of the Near East.
[Student reading] ‘In
your hands he has placed the beasts of the field the’… Dan. 2
[Kline] Yes, that’s the one, thank you. So that’s the same sort
of ring. As I say, we know that, so what it does is make us sit back and be a
little cautious and not overly dogmatic.
Now, one other thing then that I would like to point out is that
within the story of the flood when it talks about the mountains being covered
and so on the question is, from what perspective is this being told. Is it
being told from the perspective of someone who occupies a position in outer
space and is looking down on planet Earth? It’s saying down on that planet Earth
all the mountains were covered? So is it that sort of bird’s-eye or outer-space-eye
view of what’s going on. Or is the whole thing being described from a more
immediate local point of view of someone who went through this experience. More
specifically is it being told from the point of view of Noah and company within
the ark? I think that there is evidence that supports the latter position.
Chiastic structure of the Flood narrative
In Kingdom Prologue, I give you an outline of the
account of the flood. And it’s an interesting chiastic structure itself,
literary structures, and especially since the story of the floods the literary
unity of the things been challenged and so on. So I think to show a beautiful
chiastic arrangement of the thing is evidence of one mind at work structuring
the whole thing as a unified whole.
Just
quickly, I think, since it’s in Kingdom Prologue, it begins at ends with
the themes of construction. It begins with the theme of the construction of
the ark, chapter 6:13-22. Then it ends with the theme of the construction of
the altar. In effect, since the ark represents the kingdom of God, it’s the constructing
of the kingdom of God, and then it’s the dedicating, or the consecrating of the
kingdom of God at the end of the story. The last A section being Gen. 8:20-22.
Then the second last themes match each other. After the
construction of the ark, then there’s the matter of the entrance into the ark
or embarkation which lasts for a week. Then matching that, by the way that’s
in 7:1-5, over here in 8:15-19, is the opposite—entrance/exit; embarkation/disembarking.
Alright?
Then, we’ve got the next two sections, working toward the middle,
matching each other. 7:6-12 after they enter the ark, which takes a week, then
you get the theme in the Hebrew it’s the mabul, the “increasing” of the
waters, which goes on for the forty days, the forty nights--the increasing of
the waters. The counter theme in this one is the decreasing of the waters in
8:1-14-- the decreasing of the waters.
Now what that leaves as the center piece of the whole thing--the
main point. What is the whole point of this whole episode? It is God’s judgment
on the world. How God, in judgment, prevails over everything. Particularly,
how he prevails over the wicked. So here’s a judicial judgment, a
discriminating water ordeal, which on the one hand is going to declare the righteous
and vindicate his own people, and on the other hand condemn and declare guilty
and destroy the others. He does that by prevailing over the whole world and
that’s the theme of this middle section in 7: 13-24.
Now that’s the area where we’re going to take a focus on in a minute to try to get some evidence of the local perspective, from Noah’s log book, and the good ark perspective on this episode is over against this outer space perspective. We’ll be looking back at that in a moment.
Flood narrative echoes the creation
Now that’s the structure of the thing and some
other interesting things just to note quickly is the way in which the narrative
of the flood echoes the narrative of the creation. Now Peter brings it up that
this was a new creation, not only the end of the world that then was, but it
was the creation of the world that now is. The very story of it, here in
Genesis, is told in a way that, in terms of literary form, echoes a lot in the
story of the original creation. I try to spell out a lot of that in Kingdom
Prologue too, so no need to go over it all. But already you see this seven-fold
theme. What strikes me as interesting also, particularly when I’m defending the
view that the days of creation are narrated in such a way that they’re treated
thematically and not just a straightforward chronological sequence. There is chronological
recapitulation -- that’s the way Genesis 1 is told and that’s the way in which
everyone has to admit the flood story is told. So you not only have the seven-fold
section, but you have a kind of chronological recapitulation as well where the
entry into the ark- theme B here. The entrance into the ark lasts for seven
days. Then the increase, section C, once they’re in, the increase starts, the mabul,
the opening up of the windows of heaven and the doors of the deep. As it
were, the remerging of those waters that on the second day of creation had been
separated and the waters below and the waters above. Now we’re sort of returned
to the original more chaotic condition as it were before then God starts to
recreate the thing. You get back to the Genesis 1 and 2 situation. Then we
have those forty days of the upper waters and lower waters now increasing on
the earth, the mabul.
Then you come to the theme of the prevailing of the waters. The
prevailing, it turns out, begins back here, so that chronologically having come
to the end of the forty days of the mabul, then you go back to the
beginning of the forty days because right from the beginning the waters began
to prevail. So the waters were prevailing for a hundred and fifty days and the
dates that are given tell you when they were. They began back here, they
continued the forty days of the mabul, then they continued another
hundred and ten days afterwards. That’s when the flood prevailed over the ark,
over the earth, over the mountains. In the process, of course, of prevailing
over the mountains, it prevailed over all wicked mankind, because you can just
see them scurrying to the highest point that they could to escape the rising
waters. Once the mountains are covered the waters prevailed over mankind as
well as over the mountains. So that’s the theme of the prevailing and that
goes on through the hundred and fifty days.
Meanwhile even before the end of the prevailing of the waters over
all of these things including the ark, even before the end of that, as soon as
the waters-- this was the increase for forty days, as soon as it came to the
end of the forty days and before the next hundred and ten the waters began to
decrease. So once again you have this recapitulation. What I’m saying then,
sensitize yourself to the literary form, don’t assume that the story has to be
told in a straightforward chronological fashion, it’s told in terms of themes
and the themes involve backtracking recapitulating in terms of chronology. So
this section, and the decreasing of the waters, begins at that point and then
continues on even before. So just in terms of an exegesis it is something one
should be aware of.
Support for a local flood position
But now let’s come to our particular question
here in the middle section of the prevailing. As I recall it’s going to be
around verses 19, 20 and so on. It will in part depend on what Bible
translation we have. The NIV doesn’t help us too much at this point. We’re in
chapter 7. I guess we can start with verse 17. This is all part of the central
main theme of how the waters of the flood were prevailing over everything
eventually. “For forty days,” alright, that’s the forty days of the mabul, here.
“For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased
they lifted the ark high above the earth.” Okay, verse 17. The waters have
prevailed over the ark. Here was the ark, remember Noah had built the thing on
its moorings. Now the waters come and they prevail over the ark by lifting it
up from the earth. As the waters increase they lift the ark high above the
earth.
Then verse 18: “The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth
and the ark floated on the surface of the waters.” So that just intensifies this
theme of the rising waters. So it’s lifted up from its moorings and its cast
adrift at the mercy of the wave and the wind but, of course, under the control
of the Lord, as the floods continue to rise. Then in verse 19, this NIV says,
“Yes they rose greatly on the earth.” Now in addition to saying that the
waters prevailed on the ark by lifting it up and setting it loose, now it says
that the mountains are also covered. The waters prevail over the mountains
presumably by covering them.
Then verse 20, and here’s the key verse, “The waters rose.” Now
here’s where the NIV leads us astray, anyone have something else? Does anyone have
a nice King James Version maybe, or something like that around? Okay that’s
fine. Now that reflects the Hebrew faithfully. “Fifteen cubits upwards did the
waters prevail and the mountains were covered.” Now you see, what is being
done, which is reflected in the King James Version is that these two themes
that have already been treated, the A theme, is that the waters prevailed over
the ark, and the B theme, is that the waters prevailed over the mountains.
Verse 20 summarizes the two. It summarizes the fact that the waters prevailed
over the ark by saying waters hit a level of fifteen cubits. Then it repeats
the idea that it covered the mountains.
So B refers to verse 19, A refers to this. Now, what does that
mean? How are the waters prevailing over the ark? The equivalent of the waters
prevailed by 15 cubits. Here is where the local perspective comes in very
distinctly. The ark was thirty cubits high. Noah built the thing, he would know
enough about it to know what the draft of the ark was. How much water would it
take to float a boat 30 cubits high? Well about a half of it, 15 cubits. So
here is Noah and company within the ark, and the rains coming down, the waters
are increasing, suddenly they feel that they are no longer secure in their
moorings. The waters have prevailed over it and lifted the ark up. In other
words, the draft of the ark, fifteen cubits has been achieved, and now the ark
has been wrenched loose.
But it’s a very local, distinctive perspective that Noah is
describing. He didn’t go out and measure to see how deep the water was. He had
built the ark, he knew what the draft of the ark was, namely fifteen cubits. So
when he’s caught afloat, he knows that the water must have prevailed by fifteen
cubits.
So the thought is not that look here is someone in a space ship
looking down there or God himself is looking down and he knows that way off on
Mount Everest, the highest point on the earth, that the waters are fifteen
cubits deep. Now in his special revelation he comes and he tells us. Of
course, you didn’t know anything about it but way over there on Mount Everest,
the mountain was covered by fifteen cubits. Who cares? What a completely
irrelevant thing that would be. This is not the kind of information that God is
giving a special revelation about here to Noah. This clearly is something that
reflects the experience of those that were in the ark.
Now there’s one other possible exegesis over the thing that might
tie these things in verse 20 together a little more closely, but it would still
reflect the local perspective. As the ark is caught up and he looks out and he
sees that the mountains, within range at least, are covered, and yet the ark
isn’t scraping them. He would know that by the fact the ark isn’t scraping that
these mountains must be covered by at least fifteen cubits, which was the draft
of the ark. If it were anything less they would be scraping the mountain tops
over there. So that might be an alternative explanation. But once again, it
would reflect the experience of someone who was within the ark who knew the
dimensions of the ark.
So alright, what I’m suggesting then is that the biblical evidence
is that this is not an outer space, bird’s-eye view of the thing, this is more
a worm’s-eye, or an ark’s-eye view. The story then is being told from a local
perspective. When it speaks about the mountains being covered. It’s not
talking about Mount Everest, over there. It’s talking about the mountains
which were in view.
Now take it from there scientists, you can have all your big
arguments from that point on. You can argue on the one hand that if even the
local mountains were covered water seeks its own level and therefore must have
covered the whole earth. The others from the other side would say no, to cover
the waters on the whole earth you would need more water than existed, and on
and on and on the scientific debate goes. You can settle that, but that’s not
my field. All I’m saying is from the point of biblical exegesis don’t be
dogmatic. You’re going to have to settle it in terms of some other evidence
from someplace, but don’t be dogmatic in the name of God on this particular
subject. Have the caution that’s forced upon us by the biblical evidence.
Now a related question is the anthropological. If the flood is,
let’s say for argument’s sake, not global geographically, then was it universal
in terms of mankind? There’s just too much that we don’t know. We don’t know
the date of this event. Was it 12,000 BC? Was it 35,000 BC? At whatever point
it was, how widespread was mankind? So there are the unknowns, and therefore it
becomes difficult. I think that once you have acknowledged the flood was less
than global, then also it might turn out to be true that there were human
beings that were outside the range of the flood and whose descendants therefore
might be among us today as well as the descendants of Noah and company who were
there.
So these are some of the unknowns and I’d just like to leave it at
that and not be too dogmatic. But what we are more interested in is what the
Bible itself says how to understand this whole thing. Here’s then where I’ve
tried to develop the biblical theological picture.
Flood as redemptive judgment
So you can work through these. The main headings then
that I used to analyze this episode, from a biblical theological point of view,
is redemptive judgment. This whole episode by the way is a great illustration
of things we’ve been talking about. We were talking about common grace. Then we
were saying how there is this other principle at work in history beside God’s
common grace where he is tolerating a situation of coexistence with believers
and unbelievers. Along with that are these intrusions of God into history, into
the midst of the non-holy. God redemptively is projecting and intruding by
redemptive supernaturalism, the Holy Spirit and on and on and on. The
incarnation of Christ, symbolically intruding the kingdom to come into the
world and in to Israel. the final judgment symbolically intrudes and influences
the way in which the holy war is conducted.
Now the flood episode is another huge scale intrusion into the
realm of common grace. Here is this history of common grace and it comes to an
end with an intrusion of judgment. It has the effect of terminating within the
sphere of the judgment this whole common grace thing. Now God doesn’t tolerate
coexistence. Now he judges precisely between his people and those who are not
his people. That’s what we mean then by redemptive judgment. Redemptive
judgment is one that, of course, condemns and executes the wicked, but at the
same time it has the effect of delivering God’s people. How so? Because the
wicked have been persecuting God’s people as we saw. The sons of the gods have
been persecuting the Sethite community out of existence until there are only
eight of them left. So for God destroys those sons of the gods and all of their
proud mighty princes in the world is to save the eight souls who are left. Therefore
his judgment is redemptive with respect to his own remnant community.
So in our discussion of that in Kingdom Prologue, the way we
develop the theme of redemptive judgment is: a.) we go through that business
of Genesis 6, the antichrist crisis. What is it that leads up to this judgment?
It’s that history has come to that final intolerable stage represented by the lawless
one or the antichrist crisis. That’s on page 95 I think.
Then another aspect of this flood still as a part of redemptive
judgment is that it is a judicial ordeal. A trial by ordeal, and we already
were discussing this and on other occasions, I guess we reflected on the
practice in ancient Near Eastern legal procedure of settling issues by various
kinds of ordeal and whether they’re subjecting someone to an ordeal element by
water or fire, or by having them engage in individual combat with two rival
claimants to settle things that way. So this episode then, is a trial by ordeal.
It results in dual verdicts as we said, the condemnation of the wicked, and simultaneously,
the corollary of that is the vindication of the righteous.
Also worked into the discussion in Kingdom Prologue at that
point is the way in which the Bible elsewhere, and here again Peter, makes use
of this episode as an indication of what baptism is. So in our discussion in a
little while, hopefully, of the theme of circumcision and baptism, we’ll hark
back to this idea. This flood experience was expressive of what’s expressed by
the waters of baptism and what is expressed by the flood waters, of course, is
the judgment of God. It wasn’t a bath, it was a destructive flood. That’s what
baptism also then symbolizes, primarily.
In connection with this redemptive judgment and the duel verdicts,
the favorable verdict of course is passed on the eight souls who are still in
the ark. So we get the important biblical theme now of the remnant. Up to this
point the remnant, which suggests simply--God’s people are only a little
fraction. We’re a fraction of the whole thing, only eight souls as a matter of
fact. So a remnant means a little minority group. Now by virtue of their
passing through the flood experience and coming out as those who are vindicated
the biblical concept of the remnant means that we, the people of God, the
remnant, are the survivors. We’re the ones who survived judgment. In surviving
judgment we are also the victors. We are the overcomers. Because there had been
a warfare and our enemies are the people of Satan and we are God’s people and
we have not only survived God’s judgment but in surviving we win the battle. Christ
wins it, and God wins it for us. But we stand with him and are the overcomers,
we are the victors over our enemies. So the biblical idea of the remnant is
being enriched. We are not just the minority group, we are the saved, we are
the people of God, we are the overcomers and so on.
So the flood brings out all of those important themes under redemptive
judgment. Plus, of course, the fact that, as in the days of Noah, as in the
days of Christ, the day of Christ, the day of the Lord is, of course, the day
of his appearing. So what this whole episode, according to Jesus’s own
comparison indicates is that this flood episode was comparable to his own
appearing, to his own appearance. So you look in the story of the flood, for
the presence of God, or in the appearing of the God of glory. I suppose you
might find it in a general way in the phenomenon of the storm itself because
God’s presence is often in terms of storm theophany. This kind of thing
attests to his special presence.
Other aspects of the
flood
But then there’s a little touch here and there
that goes beyond that, and “God sealed them in.” So there is that note where
they have entered into the ark. Now you have a window on the top and you have a
door on the bottom. Now the door seems to be part of the structure that would
be in the draft of the ark where the waters would be coming, but God closes
that door, which will shut out the waters. He seals it in for them but there is
that special nice touch. That seems to conjure up in our minds as we read it,
some sort of visible presence, of God coming in and acting and sealing them in.
There’s a beautiful use of this in Isaiah 26 that I think I discusses
this, and if not here--did we pass out those articles on the martyrs from
Isaiah? That’s the one you just gave them wasn’t it? Yes. So for more of a
discussion on the point I’m trying to make here, you have that article. It’s
just a wonderful thought there in Isaiah 26 where he compares death, the dying
of God’s people, to the experience of those who entered into the ark. So that the
pictures that the flood waters are going to be the waters of death. What’s
going to happen is there’s going to be a passage through the waters of death,
there’s going to be a death experience for God’s people. In that connection the
ark is something of a coffin in which God seals them in. What is beautiful then
is that in Isaiah 26 is talking about Christian death, he describes it as an
experience where the Christian, the believer-- and he uses this language, the
vocabulary, that’s striking of God sealing them in from the waters round about.
It is very clearly that it is that language he’s very clearly using. Our dying
is described in the same way as the Lord then is taking us into a sort of
refuge place, the coffin, the intermediate state. The intermediate state is one
where we are delivered from the ongoing wrath of God and all the troubles this
world. We are sort of welcomed into this place of refuge where the Lord
enfolds us and shuts us in. So it’s a wonderful pastoral thing to have in our
hearts. We’ve been brought into the ark and it’s in the safety of Christ, the
ark and the presence of God that we pass through the trials of life and emerge.
So it becomes a veritable resurrection, they enter into the ark,
they pass through death, and they’re coming out of the ark on the other end is
a resurrection from death. The whole thing is a picture of the experience of
Christian death and resurrection. Then finally in terms of redemptive
judgment, a major theme, the days of Noah, the days of the Son of Man, when the
Bible talks about our Lord Jesus returning it’s his returning in glory. Then
over and over again associated with it is he comes with the angels who he sends
forth and he gathers his people together those of us who are alive and remain.
We are gathered together and the departed dead are raised up and together we
are the great gathering. Of course, the antichrist has his
counterfeit gathering and so the antichrist
theme as is developed in terms let’s say Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38-39.
Transcribed
by Abby Swanson
Rough edited by Ted Hildebrandt