Why Does God Send a Flood on the Earth?
Today we’re going to continue studying the narrative of Noah in Genesis, looking at chapter 7. What happens here is a fulfillment of what we’ve seen in chapter 6. God keeps his word to Noah. He sends a flood that destroys every living thing on the earth, and yet he saves Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark. The main point of this chapter is that God keeps his promises concerning his judgment on the world because of sin.
Before we look at the text, let’s consider briefly how we got here. Why is God sending a flood on the earth? The reason is because mankind spoiled God’s good creation. God created all things “very good” (1:31), but Adam and Eve believe the lies of the serpent and doubted God’s goodness and disobeyed his word, bringing sin into the world.
Like a cancer, sin started to spread, moving from their hearts to their children. Cain killed Abel and then lied about it (4:8-9). Brutal men like Lamech boasted about their brutality (4:23-24). The godly sons of Seth married into the cursed line of Cain (6:2). And all people were wicked and evil to the core (6:5).
This pained God (6:6) and moved him to decide to wipe out everyone and everything except Noah (6:7-8). As we saw last week, Moses the narrator reiterates how bad the situation was in 6:11-13. The earth was “corrupt” (3 times in vv. 11-12), meaning that a beautiful and good situation was now ruined, spoiled, and twisted. It’s like kids who open a new present on Christmas morning and within hours are destroying it and using it in ways it wasn’t designed for.
The earth was also “filled with violence” (vv. 11, 13). The Hebrew word for “violence” means more than murder. It’s a word that means lawlessness, unrighteousness, and injustice. It’s a broad term referring to all the ways we mistreat God’s image bearers. Old Testament scholar Peter Gentry points out that it’s a term that “refers specifically to social violence and conditions where social justice is lacking.”[1]
The flood, then, is God’s response to the evil of the human heart and the resultant corruption and violence. Man ruined God’s world, so God decided to ruin them. In the flood, God decided to destroy what was already self-destructing. The flood was God’s way of wiping away the stain of the world’s sin.
A Great Flood
Chapter 6 tells us why God is sending the flood. Chapter 7 tells us that God sends the flood. We can break the chapter into two sections: a great flood (vv. 1-16) and a global graveyard (vv. 17-24). The main idea of this text is that God keeps his promises concerning his judgment on the world because of sin.
A Righteous Man
In contrast to the people around him, verse 1 says that Noah was a “righteous” man (cf. 6:9). Just as God “saw” the wickedness and corruption of the world (6:5, 12), he also “saw” that Noah lived righteously before him. Noah wasn’t like the people around him. He “walked with God” (6:9), reflecting God’s character, not the world’s corruption.
Noah is like the ”righteous” person described throughout the book of Proverbs. One Old Testament scholar says, “The righteous are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community; the wicked are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves.”[2] Noah made massive sacrifices to make the ark. He gave up decades of his life and all his material resources to do something for God that would benefit the community. This is what God’s grace does in a person’s life. It frees us from self-focus so that we can live radically for the glory of God and the good of others.
For you that could mean giving a friend a ride to church, having church members over for dinner, having coffee with a friend to see how they’re doing, offering to babysit for couples with small children, moving to another culture to learn their language and plant a church, writing a check for $5,000 so that we can replace our broken baptistry, visiting homebound members, starting an evangelistic bible study at your office, reading the Bible with your kids, praying with your wife or roommates. Grace makes us righteous, which means it frees us to live radically different lives than the people around us.
Clean and Unclean Passengers
Chapter 7 presupposes that the ark is complete and ready for its passengers. In verses 2-3, the Lord gives Noah more detailed instructions about the animals that’ll be hitching a ride. There should be seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean animals. What’s this about?
This is another instance where Moses, the narrator, assumes information that’ll come later in the Pentateuch. In Leviticus, there are laws about which animals can be eaten and not eaten, sacrificed and not sacrificed. Only “clean” animals could be eaten and sacrificed, like cows and sheep. Unclean animals like pigs could not be eaten or sacrificed.
Noah was to have more pairs of clean animals because he’ll need to eat them and sacrifice them when he gets off the ark, which is what happens in 8:20.
But isn’t it interesting that God mandated the preservation of the unclean animals? In ancient Israel, if you touched the carcass of an unclean animal, you’d have to miss church. They couldn’t be eaten or sacrificed, but God wanted them to be spared from drowning. They’re as much an object of God’s mercy as Noah and his family.
Why? Because God sees all of his creation as inherently good. He loves and cares for all that he’s made. There’s a lesson for us here. Things and places and people we may see as dirty and unclean are made by God, and therefore loved and cared for by him.
God Commanded, Noah Executed
Verse 4 says that God gave Noah a week’s warning before he would send the flood. You think you’ve had a busy week? Packing our van for a family trip stresses me out every time, and we never leave on time. Imagine how busy Noah was that week! But verse 5 says that he got it all done.
This is another example of God commanding and Noah executing. In 6:14-21, God commanded Noah to make an ark. Verse 22 says that Noah executed all that he was told to do.
It’s fascinating (and frustrating!) that Moses leaves out so much detail here. He could’ve told us how Noah built the ark and gathered the animals, about his feats of engineering and incredible zoological skills, but he doesn’t. Instead, he zeroes in on only one fact: Noah’s obedience. He only notes that Noah executed God’s command.
Jesus Died for Our Obedience
God’s grace toward Noah created a man who obeyed God. Noah didn’t just want to obey, but actually did obey God’s commands.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins and for your obedience to him. Peter says that Jesus “ransomed (us) from the futile ways (we) inherited from our forefathers” (1 Pet. 1:18). Jesus didn’t die just for our sins, but also to bring us out of our former way of life. And then Peter says, “(Jesus) bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (2:24).
As John Piper said in his sermon at Together for the Gospel last week, there’s an effective connection between the sin-bearing death of Christ and the sin-killing life of the Christian.[3] Sin bearing produces sin-killing. The only sin we can conquer is a forgiven sin. Jesus’ blood justifies and sanctifies his people.
The practical import of this is that if you’re not growing in obedience to God, you don’t have warrant to think that you’re among the ransomed.
What attitudes, words, or actions in your life aren’t in harmony with the holiness of God? Greed, gossip, laziness, perfectionism, workaholism, envy, lying, boasting, bitterness, unforgiveness, hatred, lust, sexual immorality, drunkenness, selfishness, and fits of anger are sins that Jesus died to set you free from. Jesus died for your forgiveness and for your holiness. By his Spirit, and because of his blood, you can be holy.
God Always Keeps His Word
In verses 6-9, Noah does what God says to do in verses 1-3. In verse 10, God does what he said he’d do in verse 4. Noah did what God said, then God did what God said. God kept his promise about sending judgment on the earth because God never breaks his word.
God always does what he says he’ll do. Have you noticed how many things the Bible says God will do? Here’s a sampling: The Bible says that God will remove his people’s heart of stone and give them new hearts that want to obey him, that he’ll gather in his elect from among the nations, that his people will hear his voice and come to him, that he’ll have mercy on those who repent of their sins and come to Christ in faith, that he’ll send those who don’t to hell.
The Bible says that Christ will build his church. He will defeat Satan. He will discipline those he loves. He will bless those who’re persecuted for his name’s sake. He will draw near to the brokenhearted. He will never cast out those who are his. He’ll comfort those who mourn. He’ll hinder the prayers of husbands who don’t honor their wives. He will provide for the financial needs of his people. He will only give good gifts to his children. He will bless those who bless the poor. He will provide for orphans and widows. He will uphold the weak. He will hear the cries of the afflicted. He will cause us to reap what we sow. He will help us conquer sin by his Spirit. He will end all wars and judge the wicked. He will humble the proud and exalt the humble. He will baptize the world with fire. He will save his people from his judgment. He will give his people new bodies and make for them a new world to live in. He will give his people pleasures forevermore in his right hand. And we will see his face.
Everything that the Bible says God will do, God will do. When has God lied? When has he broken a promise? Why would we not trust someone who’s never lied and always tells the truth?
De-creation and Re-creation
Verse 11 reminds us of 1:6-7. It says that the floodwaters come from two sources: waters below and waters above. We’re meant to see the flood as a de-creation. Through the flood, God de-creates the earth and returns it to its conditions before the first day of creation (1:2). The whole flood narrative (chs. 6-9) is meant to show us the de-creation and then the re-creation of the earth. The end of everything will also be the beginning of everything. The earth dies because of sin and then is resurrected by the power of God.
Through this death and resurrection, God’s covenant people are saved and preserved. Notice the end of verse 16. The Lord shuts the door from the outside because he’s the protector of the ark and its precious cargo.
A Global Graveyard
In verses, 17-24, the camera zooms out to what’s happening outside the ark. Through the flood, God turns the world into a global graveyard.
There are parallels to Genesis 3. Being inside the ark is like being inside the garden. Being outside the ark is like being outside the garden. Inside the garden and inside the ark is salvation and life, outside is condemnation and death.
Verses 17 and 18 say that the flood waters “bore up the ark” and that “the ark floated.” The ark neither sinks nor capsizes. And this is without any navigational equipment or sails or a rudder or an engine. If Noah and his family survives, it’ll be solely because of God’s grace. Divine grace, not human skill, is what will bring Noah safely home. As the hymn Amazing Grace says, “Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”
Verses 19-20 are good reason to believe that this was a global, not local, flood. But rather than get lost in that debate, the main point of these last verses is that everything that wasn’t on the ark died (vv. 21-23).
In the 2014 movie “Noah” you get a sense of the gravitas of this moment. There are thousands of people screaming and crawling up every hill and trying to get on the ark when the floodwaters come. And they’re all washed away.
Notice the text says that “all flesh died” in verse 21. It doesn’t say, “They drowned.” We’re meant to understand this great loss of life as a divine penalty, not the result of a natural catastrophe.
This story isn’t about cute animals on a Caribbean cruise. It’s about God killing every living thing on the earth that wasn’t on the ark.
The end of verse 23 says that the ungodly were washed away and only Noah was left. The Lord did this. Not nature or fate or global warming or aliens or Hollywood. God controls the destiny of the godly and the ungodly.
Noah doesn’t survive because he’s smart or strong or savvy. Noah is saved because God saved him. If you’re saved, it’s because God saved you.
“By Faith…Noah Built An Ark”
And God always saves people through faith. “By faith Noah, after he was warned about what was not yet seen and motivated by godly fear, built an ark to deliver his family” (Heb. 11:7).
Noah was persuaded that what he’d not seen would become a reality. He exercised faith in the unseen promises of God. Noah couldn’t “see” how God would de-create the world through a flood. He had no concept of a global flood that would destroy the world, but he believed in what God said even though he hadn’t seen it.
Faith looks to the unseen and trusts the promises of God. It isn’t irrational. It embraces a real God who made real promises about real things. Faith doesn’t rely on people’s opinions or our emotions but trusts and hopes in the word of God and his promises despite what’s going on around us or in us.
A Flood of Fire
By faith we believe that another flood will come upon the world, a flood of fire. Peter reminded his readers that “the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.” And then he said, “But…the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly” (2 Pet. 3:6-7).
When Jesus returns, he will baptize the earth with fire instead of water. It’s hard to believe this because we haven’t seen it. But we can’t see the wind or emotions or other galaxies either, and that doesn’t make them any less real.
Many in Peter’s day were saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (v. 4). Peter tells them why the Lord hasn’t returned yet, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (v. 9). Nonetheless, Peter says, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief” (v. 10).
The Coming of the Son of Man
Jesus said that he’ll come in a way similar to the way the flood came in Noah’s day: “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 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, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Mt. 24:37-39).
Jesus’s point is that his return will be surprising. In Noah’s day people were living their lives without reference to God and then suddenly God swept them all away with water. So also when Jesus comes, the world will be full of busy, ordinary life. Most of the world will be engaged in business as usual when the lightning of the Son of Man flashes from sky to sky.
We often think that things will always be as they always are. But the world will not continue like this forever. The end is coming. It will come as a surprise to many, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise to God’s people. We have to fight the tendency to become consumed with ordinary life: home life, school life, business life, which can deaden our senses to the reality that this world will end.
Stay Awake, a Flood of Fire is Coming
The return of Jesus and the end of all things should reorient the way we live. This is why Jesus says, “Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Mt. 24:42). Peter says, “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness” (2 Pet. 3:11).
Because God will baptize the world with fire, Jesus and Peter tell us to stay awake and live radically different lives. It changes the way you watch the game when you know how it ends.
Noah a New and Better Christ
The flood was God’s way of wiping away the stain of the world’s sin. But of course the waters of the flood weren’t strong enough to wash away sin. Another flood would have to come, a stronger flood, to wash away the stain of sin. “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.”
Noah prefigures what God will do in Jesus. God sends his Son, a righteous man who trusts and obeys God, a man who disadvantages himself for the good of his community, to inhabit a wooden vessel that will bring God’s people safely through the floodwaters of God’s judgment.
Jesus, the new and better Noah, is rescued from death by God, rising again so that everyone who trusts in him will be saved from death and judgment. God has a right to be angry with us because of our sin, but the cross tells us that he hasn’t given up on us.
Brothers and sisters, like the ark, Jesus is a safe place for us. He shields us from the torrents of hell and protects us from the world and nourishes us and keeps us warm and dry. His Spirit and word soothes our souls. Run into the ark of his arms. Let the Lord shut you in his house.
Friends, trust in God. Let him steady you. Live your life as if he actually exists and is who he says he is. Leave your final welfare in his hands rather than your own. Not doing so is to welcome your own destruction.
All who cling to the ark of Jesus’ cross will pass safely through the floodwaters of God’s judgment and land in a new land of life and delight.
[1]Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 180.
[2]Bruce Waltke, quoted in ibid., 181.
[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tGJhUBiSeY