The Extent of the Noachic Flood

There has long been a debate on the extent of the Flood of Noah. Was it literally worldwide? Or is that language intended to refer to the world as the Mosaic audience knew it. Either usage is possible, and can be seen in other uses.

Here is the primary description of the Flood (Genesis 7:17-24: "The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days."

However, I think that there are two contextual references that require a literal global interpretation of that passage.

The first is in the prior chapter (Genesis 6:11-13): "Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, 'I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.'" So, God tells us that mankind was thoroughly corrupt, such that He, anthropomorphically speaking, regretted creating them. The relevance of this is that a regional flood would not have dealt with a worldwide problem.

Furthermore, to cut off any claim that this is mere hyperbole, it is not rational to believe that such a radical solution would have been required for a merely-regional problem. Therefore, we are logically compelled to believe that the Flood was necessarily worldwide.

The second issue is back in chapter 7 (Genesis 7:2-9): "'Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.' And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah."

So, as part of the preparation for Noah and his family, God commanded him to collect samples of every animal, presumably limited to land animals ("everything on the dry land," 7:22), two of some kinds, seven (or seven pairs) of other kinds. Thus, provision is made for the entire ecological system on which man is dependent. But why? If the Flood were merely regional, then God could merely have caused them to migrate beyond the range of the Flood. They would have been preserved by not having to pass through the high waters at all. However, their survival is guaranteed, not by migration, but by resorting to the Ark with Noah. Again, that is rational only if we take the Flood as general, worldwide, and not merely regional.

The Justice of Reprobation

There is a hard verse in Scripture. Not just hard, but hard.  It is Romans 9:21: "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" In this verse, God refers to Himself figuratively as a potter, who has made mankind from a lump of clay (Genesis 2:7). He looks at this lump as after the Fall, the mass of sinful humankind. As formed from one lump, every human is by nature equivalent to every other. Yet, as the potter, God chooses to form some lumps for honorable use, i. e., the elect, making them honorable, and some for dishonorable use, i. e., the reprobate. All men are by nature dishonorable. Yet, upon some He chooses to be merciful, and others are left condemned.

Even among Christians, this verse is blanked out, or explained away by semantic acrobatics. Why? Because there can be no greater ax laid to the pride of men than to be told that God is in absolute control, and men are absolutely without sovereignty.

One of the worse ways that men fight against this truth of God's sovereignty is by the creation of caricatures. For example, I have been told by actual opponents that this means that some men would be begging to be saved, to be forgiven, yet God will refuse them because they are not among the number of the elect.

That caricature is demonstrated to be humanistic drivel by one simple truth: it describes an impossibility. The Scriptures tell us that no man of himself seeks God: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God" (Romans 3:10-11). We even have the words of Jesus Himself: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44). So, even the proposition of this caricature is to claim that Jesus and Paul were mistaken about the nature of men. 

Furthermore, all objections to the doctrine of reprobation erroneously assume that men deserve to be saved. They deny the sinfulness of sin. They deny that all sinners deserve the judgment of Hell. Yet these same evangelicals will quote the answer in other circumstances: "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Therefore, "it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" (Romans 9:16). The objector to God's sovereignty has the truth reversed. It is the reprobate who receives justice. He only gets what his sins have earned him. The elect receives mercy, not what he deserves. No one ever receives injustice.

"None but a sinner can be a suitable subject of reprobation, and men are reprobated only as sinners; but one man is passed by and another elected, not because one was a greater sinner than the other, but because God saw fit to do so" (James Henley Thornwell, "Election and Reprobation").

For Whom Does Jesus Pray? Particular Atonement in the Words of Jesus

"When Jesus had spoken these words, He lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, 'Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You, since You have given Him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You gave Me to do. And now, Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed" (John 17:1-5).

I deal often with people who claim that Jesus loves every person in the world equally, and that He has done everything He can to save everyone, but He leaves it to our free will to reject Him. Those claims are humanistic nonsense and refuted by the words of Jesus Himself. 

We have here Jesus, speaking to His Father. About what? "The work that you gave Me to do." What was that work? "To give eternal life." To whom? "All whom You have given Me" (compare His words in John 6:37-39). So we see His own view of the work He came to do and for whom He was to do it. 

But He continues. 

"I have manifested Your name to the people whom You gave Me out of the world. Yours they were, and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they know that everything that You have given Me is from You. For I have given them the words that You gave Me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from You; and they have believed that You sent Me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are one. While I was with them, I kept them in Your name, which You have given Me. I have guarded them" (John 17:6-12a). He continues to refer to those whom the Father had given Him. Here he adds that that group of people already belonged to the Father, who then gave them to the Son to be redeemed. When did this occur? We know from other Scriptures, especially Ephesians 1:4, that this was before the foundation of the world. that is, in prehistory. And these same men He keeps secure, as the Father also does (compare John 10:28-29).

So, we have the words of Jesus Himself that He was not concerned about every person in the world. Rather, He was concerned about a particular group of people, those who had belonged to the Father, and whom the Father had given to Him to be redeemed. That group is not of the world, for whom Jesus did not pray. Therefore, we see the words of Jesus, rejecting the common assertions of the modern evangelical. He never loved all men in the world. He did not die for every man in the world. Furthermore, He explicitly states that His death would be effectual : "They have believed" (see also John 6:37). Therefore, not only has He done everything that He can, as the evangelical asserts, but He has done everything necessary for the salvation of those for whom it was intended.

Are His words limited to the Apostles, who were with Him at that time? "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word" (verse 20). No, He prays for all Christians down through history, even to the time of His return.

My point here is to rescue the Gospel from the syrupy, man-centered drivel into which it has been perverted by modern American evangelicalism. It is a glorious thing, lifting up the mercy and love of Jesus, while casting down the pride and self-righteousness of men!

The Canons of Dort versus the Haters of God's Sovereign Grace

In the Canons of Dort (First Head of Doctrine, Article 7), the Synod, the first and only universal council of the Reformed Protestant churches, defines election in this way: "Election is the unchangeable purpose of God, whereby, before the foundation of the world, He hath, out of mere grace, according to the sovereign good pleasure of His own will, chosen, from the whole human race, which had fallen through their own fault from their primitive state of rectitude into sin and destruction, a certain number of persons to redemption in Christ, whom He from eternity appointed the Mediator and Head of the elect, and the foundation of salvation. This elect number, though by nature neither better nor more deserving than others, but with them involved in one common misery, God hath decreed to give to Christ, to be saved by Him, and effectually to call and draw them to His communion by His word and Spirit, to bestow upon them true faith, justification, and sanctification; and having powerfully preserved them in the fellowship of His Son, finally, to glorify them for the demonstration of His mercy and for the praise of His glorious grace..."

I love the doctrine of election. I know my own wayward heard (Jeremiah 17:9), so I am conscious of the fact that I would never have submitted to God out of any original motion of my heart. It took the sovereign intervention of God to change my heart (Ezekiel 36:26-27) and will (Philippians 2:13) to save me from the dominion of sin and Satan. "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" (Romans 9:16).

Yet, there are men who hate the doctrine of election. They hate it so much that they make up evil caricatures of it, because their biblical arguments are so unconvincing. I have had anti-Calvinists tell me that the doctrine of election means that people can plead with God to save them, but He will shut them away because they aren't elect. Really? Where does the Bible describe any such person? Rather, the Bible asserts just the opposite: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one" (Romans 3:10-12). So, the Bible says that not even one person, of himself, seeks after God. Jesus also addressed this subject: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44). So, this hypothetical situation invented by the anti-Calvinist is something that the Bible says is impossible. Yet, the same caricature is repeated ad nauseum.

However, what these verses do tell us is that there would be no one saved without election. That is the world preferred by the anti-Calvinist. Better that no one be saved than that God choose those who will be saved. 

To my mind, that makes the anti-Calvinist evil, not the sovereign God described by the Canons.

The Synod of Dort

Election and Reprobation: Treating Biblical Truths as Shameful

Regarding the hesitancy to preach on election, Southern Presbyterian Theologian James Henley Thornwell wrote, "This squeamish timidity is no less dishonoring to God [than is to be inquisitive and speculative], as it supposes that He has communicated some truths, in a moment of unlucky forgetfulness, which it would have been better to conceal, and flatly and palpably contradicts the assertion of Paul that all Scripture is 'profitable' [II Timothy 3:16]" (Thornwell, "Election and Reprobation").

Thornwell is correct to identify Paul's words as the issue here: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (II Timothy 3:16). This verse is fundamental to the Christian attitude toward the Bible. First, it is literally the word of God, not given directly, but through the instrumentality of men. Therefore, as God is necessarily incapable of error, then, too, His word is necessarily free from error. Second, Paul tells us that this origin with God, and as given to men, is profitable, "that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (verse 17). God gave His word that His people may be trained for the work that He has given us to do. Therefore, there can be nothing in it that is harmful or irrelevant. Yet, there are many men in the pulpit who avoid dealing with the myriad passages that discuss the doctrines of grace.

I had this experience once. I had moved to a new community, and needed to find a new church. There was a Presbyterian congregation - I won't specify, but each was of an orthodox denomination, though not the same one - at about equal distance north and south of my house. To help in choosing between them, I asked the minister of one whether he would preach on predestination if it were a natural part of whatever text he was using. His response, word for word, was, "Oh, no! That would offend too many people!" I went to the other church and never looked back.

Is that not a rebuke to God, as Thornwell says? Is such a refusal not telling God, "You screwed up by putting this in Your word, so I have to fix your mistake"?

Here is the instruction from the Westminster Confession of Faith III:8, to which this minister had committed his subscription: "The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending to the will of God revealed in His Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God; and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel." Handling with prudence does not mean don't handle at all.

Enthusiasm versus the Scriptures

In our day, the largest portion of evangelicalism consists of pentecostal denominations and charismatics within non-pentecostal denominations. Such groups are marked by their claims of miraculous gifts of unknown languages, prophecies, healings, etc.  I have explained before why I do not consider such "gifts" to be legitimate expressions of the Holy Spirit, such as here. Not only do I consider the original gifts to have ceased, but I do not believe that their modern forms are even like the biblical gifts.

One major concern I have with such claims is that people receive revelations from God. Especially in Africa and South America, so-called "evangelists" claim that God has given them messages, whether for the crowds they attract or for individuals. Sometimes they claim that such revelations are of less authority than Scripture; other times they don't. Theologian Wayne Grudem even claims that modern prophecy is fallible, while biblical prophecy was infallible. How can a revelation from God be fallible? And how can one revelation from God be less revelatory than another? These are distinctions without differences!

Furthermore, what happens when a "revelation" contradicts Scripture? That would be true of all of the revelations claimed by Mormonism. Yet, even a single isolated revelation would be the word of God! It would be from the same source as Scripture. Therefore, to claim that it has less authority is irrational.

This is why I don't just refuse to seek such revelations for myself, but I am forced to deny the biblical faith of those who claim such revelations. Either they are lying or they are under the influence of lying spirits. Either way, such claims are inconsistent with a sincere profession of faith, which must, necessarily, include receiving the Bible as the inerrant and all-sufficient word of God.

The Prophet Isaiah dealt with such men - let's call them by the term used by the Puritans, Enthusiasts - who claimed revelations from various methods of divination, including necromancy. Here was the answer that God gave such men through His real prophet: "When they say to you, 'Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,' should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn" (Isaiah 8:19-20). Point them to the Scriptures! If their revelation agrees with them, then those revelations are unnecessary. If they conflict with the Scriptures, then those revelations are lies. 

"A deep conviction of the fullness and sufficiency of the Scriptures, combined with a hearty regard for their disclosures, is the only effectual check to this [inquisitive and speculative] presumptuous pride of intellect" (James Henley Thornwell, "Election and Reprobation").

The Knowledge of Election: Avoiding the Effort to Be Wise Above What is Written

When dealing with even professed Christians on Facebook, I get a continuous stream of questions about hypothetical issues. Today someone asked, "What if Noah were really the Archangel Gabriel?" I am not making that up. 

This is especially true when discussing the doctrines of grace with people not from a Reformed background. They are constantly demanding an answer -  i. e., one that will satisfy them - as to why God chooses one person over another. Other than according to mercy alone (Romans 9:16) for His glory alone (Ephesians 1:6), Scripture does not give us an answer. Rather, we are given this rebuke: "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?' Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" (Romans 9:20-21). The answer is simple, Paul tells us. God makes His decision on the basis that he chooses because He is God and we are not, so stop prying into things above your station!

And Paul is answering on the basis of a longtime Biblical tradition, going back to Moses: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:29; see also Paul's remarks in I Corinthians 4:6 and Colossians 2:8). Moses tells us that God has given us everything we need to know for salvation and sanctification in the Bible. Beyond that revelation, whatever imaginations arise from our inordinate curiosity are to be cast aside. "The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men" (Westminster Confession of Faith, I:6).

"Men of inquisitive and speculative minds are apt to forget that there are limits set to human investigation and research, beyond which it is impossible to pass with safety or satisfaction. To intrude with confidence unto the unrevealed secrets of God's wisdom and purpose manifests an arrogance and haughtiness of intellect which cannot fail to incur the marked disapprobation of heaven, and should always meet the prompt reprobation of the pious.Whatsoever is useful to be known, God has kindly and graciously revealed, and it argues no less ingratitude than presumption to attempt to be 'wise above what is written'" (I Corinthians 4:6, James Henley Thornwell, "Election and Reprobation").

Jesus Rejects "Other Paths to God"

It is popular in our day to say that all religions are equally true. The Pope recently announced that even atheists are saved, even though they aren't aware of it. These beliefs depend on something that Jesus said: "The gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to life, and those who enter by it are many. But the gate is

A Narrow Path

narrow and the way is hard that leads to destruction, and those who find it are few" (Matthew 7:13-14). 

Wait a minute! Is that what Jesus said? Actually, those verses read this way: "The gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." That is just the opposite of popular American religion, even if the Pope says otherwise. 

There is something else that Jesus said on this matter: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep" (John 10:1-2). So, He insists that there is only one way to enter the sheepfold, His image for salvation. One way, not many. What is that one way? "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture" (verses 7-9). Jesus Himself is the way! Not good works, or sincerity, or church attendance. None of those things that are acceptable to our fallen culture. Only Jesus Himself, received by faith alone.

Know the Bad News, then Recognize the Good News

"The law must be applied with power to the conscience, or the preciousness of grace will be very inadequately known. The superficial piety of the present day is owing, in a large degree, to feeble impressions of the malignity of sin" (James Henley Thornwell, "The necessity and Nature of Christianity").

The comment above was part of a long article in the Southern Presbyterian Review in 1849, but would be even more properly written in our current days. If anything, American evangelicalism has degenerated far past that described by Thornwell in his own time. What would he say about "churches" with female ministers, gay marriages, and that serve as laughingstocks to the world.

His diagnosis is correct. As the church has come to despise God's law, she has lost sight of the sinfulness of sin and its insult to the God she claims to serve. If the word is used at all, "sin" is left undefined, and only in occasions of unfortunate poverty and ignorance. Never is any person called a "sinner," because that is harsh and unloving.

A false Gospel that says only that "God loves you" to everyone leaves everyone satisfied with sin. God loves everyone unconditionally, so there is no need to repent. Church discipline is unheard of in our day.

The result is to use Thornwell's words, a feeble church, and people with a superficial piety.

That wasn't the way Jesus lived: "I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (Luke 15:7). And His cousin and favorite Apostle tells us: "Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil" (I John 3:8). When was the last time a minister called out sin as being the influence of the devil, rather than ignorance or poor economic conditions? And what does the Bible say about that silence? "If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand" (Ezekiel 3:18).

Rather, this is how the Bible defines sin: "Sin is lawlessness" (I John 3:4). And this brings us back to the problem identified by Thornwell. If minsters do not preach on the Law, then their congregants never learn God's standard of right and wrong. And if Christians have no standard, then we have no standard to present to our world: "Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine" (I Timothy 1:8-10).

Paul the Apostle