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“‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. … That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'” (John 3:3, 6 NASB)
The Torah reading Noakh, covering Genesis 6:9–11:32, is a testimony of the origin of Abraham and Israel, of different people groups and of languages. This is real history, not legend or allegory. That is important, because it’s a testimony about the intentions and actions of the Creator.
And the “days of Noah” (Matt. 24:36–44; Luke 17:22–37) teach us how we become “born again” via the Mashiakh (Christ) of God.
We see some key genealogies in this section, including Noach, Shem and Abraham. The names listed are not just random names. The meanings of their names tell a message.
Our modern culture attacks the historical account of the Flood. Often, investigators follow the evidence where their ideology takes them, imposing a worldview on it. There are many examples where huge amounts of water moved not just huge amounts of dirt but rock as well. The Grand Canyon is one of the greatest testimonies of the global Flood. Yet scholars from the late 1700s increasingly refuse to accept that they have been wrong about the Flood and have created very fanciful tales to try to obfuscate that truth.
Thanks to recent geological events such as the explosion of Mt. St. Helens, we see how water moves and buries large amounts of natural matter such as trees in multiple layers of sediment in a matter of days or weeks, not the millions of years fantasy we are taught in our culture.
God is indeed revealing some of His secrets and confounding the “wise.” Even those who don’t believe in God or want anything to do with God are seeing from observation of the natural world that there’s so much order and structure that there must be a master architect in control of it all.
Flood survivors ≈ ‘new creation’
Apostle Paul wrote that when we let our old way of life “die” — leave its desires behind — we become a “new creation” (2Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:10, 15; 4:24; Col. 3:10; Gal. 6:5). We are different from who we were before. We had to be “born again” (John 3:1–8).
The new creation is not accidental, and the original creation was not accidental either (Isa. 45:12, 18; Gen. 2:1–3). Everything we see was made with profound intention and God will see it all to completion.
This model we see in the account of the Flood will also be observed by those who live to see the Day of the Lord, not with water, but with fire.
We see all sorts of proof of a worldwide flood which destroyed all people, land and many sea creatures:
- Rock layers, like those seen in the Grand Canyon.
- Geological layers of sediment cross states, oceans and continents. Little signs of erosion between the layers.
- Fossils are creatures buried in sediment and transformed into rock by chemical processes.
- Many fossils show little signs of decomposition and burial in the midst of running, eating, giving birth and digesting.
- Increasing discoveries of “biomaterial fossils” such as flexible blood vessels in T. Rex bones and DNA (tiny.cc/biomaterial-fossils-list).
- The world has groups of core (“proto” per evolutionists) languages with few agreed linkages. Typical tree of languages has about a dozen languages of tongues.
When we follow the evidence of language where it goes, without imposing materialism upon it, we see language is a conduit of information.
Someone illustrated the disconnect between information in language and general information this way: Look at a restaurant menu, and notice the word “roast.” You can analyze the menu and word with biology, chemistry, etc. You can look at the chemical composition of the paper, ink, etc. You can also analyze the angles of letters, the typography, the font, but that will never help you will find the meaning of the word “roast.” Because information is really about meaning, not the medium for it.
People say that a snowflake has information, but a snowflake has data. Only human beings can see the information. “Spiritual things are spiritually discerned” (1Cor. 2:14), and those who are following a path that leads to nothing eternal find that meaningless.
What survived from before the Flood and after the Flood? The breath of life survived the Flood in the persons of Noach, his family and the occupants of the Ark.
Collective knowledge can do amazing things, but knowledge that doesn’t cause respect and honor for the Creator ultimately is futile.h
| Attribute | Noakh | Yeshua the Mashiak |
| Name | נֹחַ noakh (H5146) = “rest, quietness”
נָחַם nakham (H5162) = “to comfort, relent” נִיחֹחַ nikhoakh (H5207) = “soothing”
|
יְשׁוּעָה yeshuʿah (H3444) = “salvation”
מְנַחֵםmenakhem(H5162) = “comforter” (Lam. 1:16)
βασιλεὺς Σαλήμ basileus Salēm = “king of shalom” (Heb. 7:2) |
| Righteousness | “Righteous … blameless … walked with God” (Gen. 6:9)
“preacher of righteousness” (2Pet. 2:5) “heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Heb. 11:7) |
Μελχισέδεκ Melchisedek (G3198) = “king of righteousness” (Heb. 7:2) |
‘Days of Noakh’ ≈ ‘Day of the LORD’
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.” (Matthew 24:36–44 NASB)
There’s a parallel passage to this text in Luke 17:22-37. We see a number of parallels in this passage including the description of eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building and marrying suggests obliviousness to the conditions of the world around them. Those who have this mindset will be surprise and completely caught unaware when the Day of the Lord comes. The philosophy of Materialism encourages this clueless mindset.
In both the Flood and the Day of the LORD, those who were left behind survived, those who were taken were consumed by death. Those who believe that the world will never change will awakened rudely before they are taken away.
Are we training ourselves to be a light now so we will be a light at that time? Are we Heaven’s lights in the darkness? Or have we become so consumed with the busyness of modern life and squabbles over trivialities that we have become “of the world” (John 16–17)?
We are to be in the world but never of the world. We can’t allow ourselves to be consumed by the things of the world.
“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you — not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience — through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.” (1Peter 3:18–22 NASB)
The Apostle Peter drew a profound lesson in the story of Noach. He noted that eight people saved, and the entire world of the time were judged. Did Noach leave the Ark after the Flood, never suffering any inconveniences for the rest of his life? No. What Noach was saved from (and the animals with him) and came through the judgement that decimated the rest of the earth.
What’s the point of referencing baptism and a clean conscious then? The point is that after baptism, you no longer have God’s judgement against you. He has declared the newly baptized “not guilty.” He refuses to remember what they did before. God refuses to use the old creation as a rap sheet to condemn His new creation. He creates for all of us a new life, if we will ask for it and accept it. The judgement on us is washed away long with the water.
“The Flood is an OT mystery of salvation of the human race. Noah was saved from a godless society—not so much saved from the water, as through the water from evil. For through the water of baptism the resurrected Christ, having taken His place in heaven itself, gives us a clean conscience.” (Orthodox Study Bible)
Fallen into fire, or refined by fire?
Without Yeshua, the expectation is judgement and to be sent away permanently from God’s presence (Heb. 10:26–27). Noach saw the water, but those who witness the Day of the LORD will see fire.
Peter returns to the lessons from Noach in his second letter:
“Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, [selfless] love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.” (2 Peter 1:1–11 NASB)
Apostle Ya’akov (James) passed along similar counsel. Those who follow the LORD’s way would face challenges to their trust in Heaven but would come through them stronger.
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2–4 NASB)
This is in contrast to the Nephalim, or “fallen ones” (Gen. 6:4), and those who whose yetzerim (intentions) were saturated in wickedness (Gen. 6:5). Are we training ourselves to be as tamim (complete) and hitahalekh-Elohim (to walk with God) as Khanokh (Enoch), Noakh and Abram (Gen. 17:1)?
We see in 2Peter 3 that God’s judgement was not random. The Apostle Peter wrote that everything was made from water and by water then destroyed by water. We also see that history will repeat itself only with fire rather than water.
We are not to live in a cloister, away from the world. We are to be “in the world but not of the world” (John 17:14–16) — physically part of what goes on around us but not spiritually molded by them. May our prayer be to be molded in Yeshua’s example. He was God incarnate and He calls us to become a more accurate image of God ourselves.
Banner Photo: A (Egyptian) Coptic icon of Noah’s Ark by Tasony Sawsan
Summary: Tammy