The day of reckoning (7:11-24). The flood was God’s judgment of a wicked world. God opened the floodgates of heaven so that torrential rains came down, and “all the springs of the great deep burst forth” (v. 11 niv), so that even the highest mountains were covered by water (v. 20). God had waited for over a century for sinners to repent, and now it was too late. “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near” (Isa. 55:6).

The rain stopped after forty days, which would be on the twenty-eighth day of the third month (Gen. 7:12). However, the water continued to rise for another 110 days and reached its peak after 150 days (v. 24). At that time, the ark rested on a mountain peak of Ararat (8:4). It would take 150 days for the water to recede (v. 3), which takes us to the twelfth month, the seventeenth day. Two months and ten days later, Noah and his family left the ark and set the animals free (8:15-19). From the day that God shut them in, they had been in the ark a year and ten days.

A universal judgment. In recent years, people who want to accommodate Scripture to the views of modern science have opted for a flood that was “limited” and not universal. They suggest that the writer of Genesis used “the language of appearance” and described only what he could see.

There are problems with both views, but the “limited” interpretation seems to be the weaker of the two. The clear language of the text seems to state that God was bringing a universal judgment. God said He would destroy humans and beasts “from the face of the earth” (6:7), and that “every living thing” would be destroyed (7:4, 21-23; 8:21 nasb). If the mountains were covered to such a height that the ark could float over the Ararat range and eventually settle down on a peak, then the entire planet must have been completely immersed (7:18-20). A person reading Genesis 6–9 for the first time would conclude that the flood was universal.

But if the flood was not universal, why did God give the rainbow as a universal sign of His covenant? (9:11-15) Why would people in a local area need such a sign? Furthermore, if the flood was a local event, why did God tell Noah to build such a big vessel for saving his family and the animals? Noah certainly had enough time to gather together his family and the animals in that area and lead them to a place where the flood wouldn’t reach them.

God promised that He would never send another flood like the one He sent in Noah’s day (vv. 8-17). But if the flood was only a local event, God didn’t keep His promise! Over the centuries, there have been numerous local floods, some of which brought death and devastation to localities. In 1996 alone, massive flooding in Afghanistan in April left 3,000 people homeless; and in July, flooding in Northern Bangladesh destroyed the homes of over 2 million people. In July and August, the Yellow, Yangtze, and Hai rivers flooded nine provinces in China and left 2,000 people dead. If Noah’s flood was a local event like these floods, then God’s promise and the covenant sign of the rainbow mean nothing.

The plain reading of the text convinces us that the flood was a universal judgment because “all flesh had corrupted his [God’s] way upon the earth” (6:12). We don’t know how far civilization had spread over the planet, but wherever humans went, there was sin that had to be judged. The flood bears witness to universal sin and universal judgment.

Both Jesus and Peter used the flood to illustrate future events that will involve the whole world: the return of Christ (Matt. 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27) and the worldwide judgment of fire (2 Peter 3:3-7). If the flood was only local, these analogies are false and misleading. Peter also wrote that God did not spare “the ancient world” (2 Peter 2:5 nkjv) when He sent the flood, which implies much more territory than a limited area.

A patient family. In spite of the devastation on the outside, Noah and his family and the animals were secure inside the ark. No matter how they felt, or how much the ark was tossed on the waters, they were safe in God’s will. Patiently they waited for God to complete His work and put them back on the earth. Noah and his family spent one year and seventeen days in the ark, and even though they had daily chores to do, that’s a long time to be in one place. But it is “through faith and patience” that we inherit God’s promised blessings (Heb. 6:12; see 10:36), and Noah was willing to wait on the Lord.

Peter saw in Noah’s experience a picture of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:18-22). The earth in Noah’s day was immersed in water, but the ark floated above the water and brought Noah and his family to the place of safety. This was, to Peter, a picture of baptism: death, burial, and resurrection. The earth was “dead” and “buried” because of the water, but the ark rose up (“resurrection”) to bring the family through safely. Jesus died, was buried, and arose again, and through His finished work, we have salvation from sin. Peter makes it clear that the water of baptism doesn’t wash away sin. It’s our obedience to the Lord’s command to be baptized (Matt. 28:19-20) that cleanses the conscience so that we are right before God.

The British expositor Alexander Maclaren said:

For a hundred and twenty years the wits laughed, and the “common-sense” people wondered, and the patient saint went on hammering and pitching at his ark. But one morning it began to rain; and by degrees, somehow, Noah did not seem quite such a fool. The jests would look rather different when the water was up to the knees of the jesters; and their sarcasms would stick in their throats as they drowned.

So is it always. So it will be at the last great day. The men who lived for the future, by faith in Christ, will be found out to have been the wise men when the future has become the present, and the present has become the past, and is gone for ever; while they who had no aims beyond the things of time, which are now sunk beneath the dreary horizon, will awake too late to the conviction that they are outside the ark of safety, and that their truest epitaph is, “Thou fool.”

Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion

1. How can a person receive or develop a strong faith like that of Noah?
2. When a professed believer is not leading “a life that is right before people,” what do we say to that person? How should we interact with them?
3. How can local churches help families pass on the faith from generation to generation?
4. What does it mean to “walk” with God? In what ways is “walking” a helpful picture of the life we’re meant to live?
5. What types of peer pressure do you have to resist? What helps you to be successful in your effort?
6. Noah was faced with what looked like an impossible task: building an ark. But he began it in faith. What task are you facing that you need faith to get started or to continue?
7. Which of God’s promises give you peace and confidence?
8. What is the difference between humans and animals when it comes to hearing and obeying the Lord?
9. What does God’s decision to send the flood tell you about Him?
10. How would you defend the reality of the flood to a skeptic?