A Journey Through the Bible, Part Four

Old Testament

Genesis 7, 8, 9

Genesis 7:11—This chapter largely records the flooding of the earth and destruction of all living things (fish would have survived in the water). Noah and his family were preserved, of course, along with the animals he brought into the ark. The ark was huge, over a football field and a half long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. It wasn’t a “boat” meant to navigate, it was a box meant to float. The nature of the flood has long been discussed by Biblical writers and there’s no absolute agreement on the matter. Raining for 40 days and nights would not provide the water to do what the Bible says the flood did, so Genesis 7:11 tells us that “all the fountains of the great deep were broken up.” This seems to indicate, and it’s my view, that the flood was more tidal than atmospheric (i.e., caused by the rain). This great geological cataclysm would have significantly changed the face of the earth and explain much of the current surface of the planet. The discussion is much too long to detail here, but perhaps I shall do so in a subsequent article. It is a fascinating subject, but again, one in which absoluteness is impossible. But let it be said that a geologic catastrophe could accomplish the same thing, and much easier, than billions of years of slow evolutionary change. It’s simply a matter of philosophy; does one accept a naturalistic, largely atheistic, view of the world, or does one believe in a theological perspective? It isn’t terribly surprising that most of the “intelligentsia” of the world, who have no desire to humble themselves and admit God is smarter than they are, accept the evolutionary world view.

Genesis 8:21—God promises never to “curse” the earth with such a physical calamity again. The next judgment will be the final one, “in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (II Peter 3:10). The rainbow of Genesis 9:13 was a sign of this covenant between God and man. Think about that next time you see a rainbow—and prepare for the next major world catastrophe (read II Peter 3:10 again), in which “the Lord will come as a thief in the night” (ibid). You don’t know when the thief will come, so you (should) prepare each evening. And we don’t know when the Lord is coming back, so it behooves us to be ready at all times.

Genesis 9:26—“Blessed be the Lord God of Shem.” Here we see a continuation of the promise of Genesis 3:15 (read comments in “Journey, Part Two”). Immediately upon man’s sin, God promised a Savior. He will come in human form—thus, from Adam and Eve. The next step is to look for him through the family of Shem—not Ham or Japheth, the other two sons of Noah. As we will subsequently see, Abraham was a descendant of Shem. Incidentally, the idea in verse 25 that God cursed Ham, the supposed father of all Negroid peoples and thus places a curse on that race of mankind, is simply untrue. The curse is on Canaan, Ham’s son, and the ancestor of the people who dwelt in the land of Canaan when the Israelites arrived under Joshua. This verse indicates that those heathen people in that land would serve the children of Israel—Canaan, Ham’s son, “a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren.” This is, in effect, a prophecy of the conquest of Palestine by the Jews under Joshua, not a plague upon black people.

New Testament

Matthew 4 and 5

Matthew 4:5-6—These two verses are in the midst of Satan’s temptation of Jesus. “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down [from the pinnacle of the temple],” Satan dares, “for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” Notice Satan quoting Scripture, though obviously misusing it. The devil knows the Bible perhaps as well as any of us, and certainly far better than most. And since he does know it so well, and most of mankind are so ignorant of it, we should not be surprised when people are deceived by the emissaries of the evil one who use the Bible to seduce and deceive the unsuspecting. The Word of God can be handled “deceitfully” (II Corinthians 4:2) and “twisted” (II Peter 3:16). Gentle reader, not everyone who quotes Scripture is a God-fearing Christians, which is why there are repeated warnings, in both Testaments, to be on the lookout for false teachers (see Matthew 7:15 for only one example).

Matthew 5:48—“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” This is the King James Version rendering and I like it better than the “you shall therefore be perfect” of some versions. The Greek form could be either imperative or future. I think the Lord is commanding here—“be perfect, as God is perfect.” None of us do that, of course, which is why Jesus died on the cross. But still, the Lord had to set before us a faultless ethical standard—perfection. If He had taught anything less, we would always wonder if there wasn’t something better and purer beyond His teaching. But this is it: absolute moral perfection is the doctrine of Christ and anything less than that is less than what we ought to be. What’s further interesting—fascinating to me—is that this verse is in a context regarding love. Begin with verse 43. We should love our enemies, because God loves everyone, sending His rain and sunshine on the just and unjust, on those who regard Him and those who do not. And we should equally love all men--friends or enemies--and by doing so, we will be “sons of [our] Father in heaven” (verse 45). In other words, if we love perfectly, like God loves perfectly, then we will be perfect as He is perfect. Loving God and loving man sums up, in a nutshell, our total duty on this earth (Matthew 22:37-39). If we always do the loving thing (which we don’t) towards God and towards our fellow man, then we will be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. And anything less than that is a failure. “Be ye therefore perfect” by loving perfectly, just as God does (I John 4:8).