How Was the Flood in Noah’s Time Just?
The global flood of Noah’s day was the direct judgment of a just God. The Bible says that the flood destroyed “every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven” – everything that breathed air (Genesis 7:23). Some people today are offended by the flood story, saying it is proof of God’s injustice, arbitrariness, or just plain meanness. They accuse the Bible of promoting a temperamental God who judges indiscriminately and say that only a bully would drown everyone, including children and all those innocent animals.
Such attacks on the character of God are nothing new. As long as there have been sinners in the world, there have been charges that God is unjust. Consider Adam’s subtle shifting of blame. When asked about eating the forbidden fruit, Adam said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” (Genesis 3:12). That is, it was the woman’s fault, and God’s, since He made the woman. But blaming God did not mitigate Adam’s sin. And calling God “unjust” for sending the flood will not lessen ours.
The flood of Noah’s day has many counterparts in history. God judged the people of Canaan with a command to wipe them out (Deuteronomy 20:16-18). He similarly judged Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh (Nahum 1:14), and Tyre (Ezekiel 26:4). And the final judgment before the Great White Throne Judgment will result in all the wicked, from all time, being cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15). The plain message of the Bible is that God does judge sin, whether by an invading army, by fire and brimstone, or by a catastrophic global flood.
The flood was just because God commanded it (and God is just). “The LORD is upright…and there is no unrighteousness in him” (Psalm 92:15). “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne” (Psalm 89:14). God always does what is right. His decrees and judgments are always just. If He decreed that the whole world be flooded, then He was just in doing so, no matter what human skeptics say. It is not surprising that we tend to define justice in a way that will benefit ourselves.
The flood was just because mankind was evil. “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5). We cannot fully imagine the extent of the wickedness of that day. We have never seen the like. The evil was “great,” and every thought of everyone’s heart was only evil continually. There was no goodness in the world; every person was wholly corrupted. There was nothing within them that was not evil. The people of Noah’s day were not dabblers in sin; they had taken the plunge, and everything they did was an abomination.
The text provides some clues as to the extent of the evil before the flood. One problem was the rampant violence: “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” (Genesis 6:11). The descendants of Cain, the first murderer, were abounding in bloodshed. Another evil among the antediluvians (people who lived before the flood) was occult sexuality. Genesis 6:1-4 mentions the Nephilim, “…mighty men which were of old, men of renown”, who were the products of a union between fallen angels and human woman. To the demons who participated in this sin, God has “cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (2 Peter 2:4). The people who participated – and the Nephilim themselves – were destroyed in the flood. The biblical description of pre-flood humanity is that they had become totally hardened and beyond repentance. Things were so bad that “it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” (Genesis 6:6).
But what about the children who drowned? The fact is that sin affects all of society, not just those who intentionally engage in evil. When a society promotes abortion, babies die as a result. When a father or mother begins taking meth, their children will suffer as a result. And, in the case of Noah’s generation, when a culture gives itself over to violence and aberrant sexuality, the children suffered. Humanity brought the flood upon themselves and upon their own children.
The flood was just because all sin is a capital offense. “For the wages of sin is death;” (Romans 6:23). We should not be shocked that God swept away the world’s population with the flood; we should be shocked that He hasn’t done something similar to us! Sinners tend to have a light view of sin, but all sin is worthy of death. We take God’s mercy for granted, as if we deserve it, but we complain about God’s justice as if it’s somehow unfair, as if we don’t deserve it.
The flood was just because the Creator has the right to do exactly as He pleases with His creation. As the potter can do whatever he wants with the clay on his wheel, so God has the right to do as He pleases with the work of His own hands. “Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.” (Psalm 135:6).
Here is the most amazing part of the flood story: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” (Genesis 6:8). God’s grace extended into His damaged, sin-stained creation and preserved one man and his family. In so doing, God preserved the whole human race through the godly line of Seth. And, in bringing the animals into the ark, God also preserved the rest of His creation. So, God’s judgment was not a total annihilation; it was a reset.
As always, God’s judgment in Noah’s time was accompanied by grace. The LORD God is “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty;” He does not leave the guilty unpunished (Exodus 34:6-7). God would rather the wicked repent and live (Ezekiel 18:23). God delayed judgment on the Amorites for four hundred years (Genesis 15:16). God would have spared Sodom for the sake of even ten righteous people dwelling there (Genesis 18:32). But, eventually, His judgment must fall.
It took Noah up to one hundred years to build the ark. We can assume that, if other people had wanted to board the ark and be saved, they could have done so. But that would have required faith. Once God shut the door, it was too late; they had lost their chance (Genesis 7:16). The point is that God never sends judgment without prior warning. As commentator Matthew Henry once said, “None are punished by the justice of God but those who hate to be reformed by the grace of God.”
The global flood of Noah’s day was a just punishment of sin. The story of Noah is a vivid reminder that, like it or not, there is another judgment coming: “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” (Matthew 24:37). Are you ready, or will you be swept away? (See Where Will You Spend Eternity?)