Genesis 7: Finality

Noah's Flood certainly left a big impression.  We continue to talk about it (and decorate nurseries with it!) thousands of years later.  We argue about its historical reality.  We look for evidence of remnants of the Ark.  And we remember the lesson about the finality of its judgment upon the earth.

This very day in Genesis 7 when Noah enters the Ark with his family is a pivotal moment referred to later in the New Testament.  Jesus said, "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man.  They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them." (Luke 17:26-27)

Jesus' point seems to be that the end will come suddenly, without a lot of warning, in the midst of the typical busy-ness that has defined human activity throughout history.  It could literally happen at any time, just like the flood began on an ordinary day.  Judgment is coming again, and it will come with finality.

Yet the story of Noah's Ark also contains a message of salvation and deliverance.  The important thing is to strive to be righteous like Noah.  Peter wrote, "And if God did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly...then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment." (II Peter 2:5 and 2:9)

This is what I find to be the twin messages of application for Noah's Ark today:
- The reality of judgment.
- The deliverance of the saints.

P.S. It is in this chapter that we see several significant numbers that will continue to play major roles in the Bible:

• Seven pairs of clean animals (the exception to the "two by two" we usually remember)
• Seven days later the rain begins
• Forty days and forty nights of rain