(Continued from p. 397, December, 1930)

IV.-THE FLOOD AND THE ARK

With the murder of Abel we are fairly launched on the course of this world's history. The forces which give character to it arise within the family of Cain. City-building, the commencement of the arts and sciences, and polygamy; also cattle-raising with the necessary agricultural development; all it would appear are initiated by the Cainites. On the religious side, it is naturalism, as we see in Cain's sacrifice. This finds its issue in the worship of the creature rather than the Creator, and modern Humanism is its twentieth century expression, but greater in wickedness when adopted in the face of the complete revelation God has long since given in His Word. With this beginning of things we cannot help linking those references to Cain found in the closing parts of that Word.

"Cain was of the wicked one;" "The whole world lies in the wicked one" (1 John 3:12; 5:19).

Jude speaking of the lawless and sensual who yet profess a form of godliness says, "Woe to them! because they have gone in the way of Cain." That woe will come when Enoch's warning prophecy is fulfilled at the Lord's coming in flaming fire to judge the ungodly who obey not the gospel of God (2 Thess. 1). Thus that period and the present are linked together in that they are of the same character-solemn and awful consideration for the world of this generation.

Gen. 5, like a parenthesis, gives the line of Seth, in which God was given His place. Seemingly God dwelt with pleasure upon the number of their years, and recorded of each his death, for thus He got His own out of a world rushing on to judgment. Not their achievements, but the fact that they lived and died is precious in His sight.

Chap. 6 resumes the course of history. We compass centuries in the brief record of its opening verses. They tell what the way of Cain really meant then, and must mean now, for those who are of it. Judgment must sweep over the foul scene of moral corruption, yet no doubt of great material prosperity. "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of Man." So then, too, that watery overthrow becomes a figure in the light of Enoch's prophecy of that fiery coming when another purging judgment shall make the earth fit for a new age when righteousness shall reign. The ordinance of government and the covenant-relations of chap. 9, established with Noah and creation, are the evident representation of this. How the soon-repeated story of man's breakdown tells loudly that all must wait until He comes who alone can be the Sun of Righteousness for the world's new day, when no longer it will lie in the wicked one, then cast into his prison, and the now groaning creation shall rest in the light of the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. Glorious prospect!

"Jesus, Thy fair creation groans-
The air, the earth, the sea-
In unison with all our hearts,
And calls aloud for Thee!"

The flood, and the ark-God's provision for Noah, his family, and creation as represented in the creatures he takes with him, and which carries all through judgment into glory, as we may say-bring before us in various ways that which is basic to the accomplishment of all that this history in its deeper significance certainly teaches us concerning God's purposes.

While the world goes on its Cainite way God sets up through the testimony of faith that which is the world's judgment, God's witness to it and against it, yet faith's way of deliverance and blessing (Heb. 11:7).

Let us think of Noah as a type of Him who says, "Behold I and the children which God hath given Me." This is linked by the Holy Spirit with that work wrought in death by the blessed Speaker, whereby He became perfected as the Leader of many sons to glory where all is in the light of the bow-encircled throne, while the odor of rest fills the scene, rising ever as that does from Him who is the whole burnt-offering (chap. 8:21).

"Thine was the cross, with all its fruits
Of grace and peace divine;
Be Thine the crown of glory now,
The palm of victory Thine!"

Viewed in this connection what precious suggestions of truth are found in each part of this remarkable scene, from the downpour of judgment to the place on Ararat, and what follows-whether it be the ark itself and the features of its construction, the shutting in by God, the completeness of the judgment, the raven and the dove, the liberty, the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the order of government and relation then set up by God-all with some lesson to teach concerning Christ, His work, and the results flowing from it. In fact we may see in it what it means to be "in Christ," whether in respect to our identification with Him in death, or viewed as now raised up with Him. In its way it teaches what it means to us to know, as it did indeed for Noah, the ending of one scene and the opening of another, only for us it is moral and spiritual; and again, the putting off of the old and the putting on of the new. It suggests the twofold teaching of Romans 6, also that of the old and the new man in Eph. 4, Col. 3. Here the truth of the cross is of fundamental importance.

Doubtless every detail is significant, but having indicated the viewpoint the general meaning of what is here may occupy our attention.

The judgment-flood itself is spoken of as in some sense bringing about salvation-"saved through water" (1 Pet. 3:21, New Trans.) -though of course we must not separate this from the fact that it was as in the ark that the few who were saved came through. We may, however, distinguish as to the spiritual lesson. The one is the execution of the divine sentence upon all flesh, and may well suggest to us how in the death of Christ we have sin in the flesh utterly condemned as well as sins judged-all forever removed from before God by the work of the cross. In that cross we are taught that there is the bearing of sins, the complete judgment of man in the flesh, and the judgment of the world-system in which he found his place and portion. The doctrine of this we have in Romans 1-8, Gal. 6, and Col. 2,3. In the ark with those shut in it by God's own hand, we see the companion truth, developed also in the epistles referred to, that of being "in Christ," and so in perfect security brought into a new place, one of perfect acceptance in righteousness, peace, joy, and glory.
But this latter aspect of truth not only has its bearing for the whole family of faith, though of first and" highest application to it, it blessedly involves also the whole animate and inanimate creation, apart from man. That creation now groaning shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory. Then will the creature know a scene without curse under the rule of the Son of God, who is set over God's house, whether viewed as the universe or the seed of Abraham (Heb. 3). Yet that is but the vestibule to that eternal state of which He is said to be the "Father" (Isa. 9:6, New Trans.), the One who as the Child born and the Son given came in lowliest birth but to fathom still deeper depths of humiliation-even the death of the cross- that eternal glory might break out and overspread the very scene where sin and corruption had once prevailed.

Thus we may pass in thought from the judgment-flood as a type of the cross to think of it as the presage of that sweeping judgment by which all that offends shall be gathered out of the kingdom, to be followed by that day when all things in the heavens and on the earth shall be gathered under the hand of Christ-the divine Governor to whom all judgment and administration has been committed. Here Noah becomes a shadow of Him as God sets up human government in his hand (chap. 9). But what underlies this is that He Himself has made peace by the blood of His cross. Then, too, shall Israel as a nation, all born again, enter upon the blessedness of Isa. 54, 55. These chapters follow the great chapter of the cross. That there is a link of meaning between the Noachian scene and that future restoration of Israel, in the blessing of which the nations and the earth itself will participate, is suggested by the words of Jehovah, "This is as the waters of Noah unto Me" (Isa. 54:9).

The judgment-flood bears the ark, and it finally rests on Mt. Ararat-"the curse reversed." It is the mount of resurrection, where we know that the judgment is passed, victory over evil gained, liberty realized, glory entered. At once must we not think of Rom. 8, Gal. 3, and Rev. 22? "And no curse shall be any more; and the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it." And so in Gen. 8, 9 there are Noah's burnt-offerings with their odor of rest, and the rule of God declared-His throne, as it were, revealed, with the sign of His pledged faithfulness to all creation.

To us the lesson of the flood and the ark comes as a reminder that we have been brought out of darkness into light, turned from Satan to God, liberated from his thraldom and placed in the kingdom of the Son of God's love, passing out of death into life, having put off according to the former conversation the old man which corrupts itself according to the deceitful lusts, and having put on the new man which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness; that we have died with Christ from the elements of the world and have been raised with Him, that now the things which are above where He is sitting belong to us, and that being identified with Him in the likeness of His death we shall be also in that of His resurrection. Surely we to whom the grace of God has brought such salvation should be subject to the teaching of that grace and show that we have not received it in vain. Therefore "having denied impiety and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, and justly, and piously in the present course of things, awaiting the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all lawlessness, and purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works" (Titus 2:12-14, New Trans.). John Bloore