The Encourager
“Saved Through Water”
Saved Through Water
by Jeff Curtis
In Genesis 6:5-7, the text tells us; “ 5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil [c]continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
The event of the world wide flood in Genesis chapter 8 that gives several lessons to learn from and to apply to New Testament Christianity. The Bible says nothing about how the passengers aboard the ark ate or slept or how they spent their days. It gives not description of the sights, sounds, smells that Noah’s family experienced for months as God cleansed the world of its sinful inhabitants. The eight passengers who were in the ark with the animals God was preserving may have wondered if God had forgotten about them.
Chapter 8 tells about God’s “remembrance” of Noah’s family and all the creatures in the ark. He caused the flood waters to recede (8:1-5) and the face of the earth to dry (8:6-14). At God’s command, Noah family and all the animals left the ark (8:15-19). The chapter concludes with Noah’s offering a sacrifice and God’s promise to never again destroy every living creature as long as the earth remains (8:20-22).
In this article, we need to also look and make comparison of the flood to what Peter tells us in 1Peter 3. That the flood was more than a purging of sinfulness from the world, it was also an anti-type of baptism.
As for the eight people in the ark, their deliverance was a type of the salvation that Christians have enjoyed from Pentecost to the present day.
(1) The record says that, by faith, Noah and his family entered the ark, a place of physical refuge. Penitent believers are “baptized into Christ” (Romans 6:3), our place of spiritual refuge.
(2) The flood was the instrument of death to those who did not repent on that old world; but it saved Noah and the others in the ark. When penitent believers are baptized into the death of Christ (Romans 6:3), instead of dying, they receive spiritual life through Him.
(3) Peter stated that “eight persons (Noah and his family), were brought safely through the water,” even so, or “corresponding to that, baptism now saves you” (1Peter 3:20,21).
(4) By faith, Noah and his family came out of the ark as new (saved) individuals, with a new beginning in a world washed clean of the wickedness of the past. When penitent believers arise out of the waters of baptism, they come forth in “newness of life” (Romans 6:4), as new creatures “in Christ.” This means that “the old things (have) passed away,” and “new things have come” (2Corthinians 5:17).
(5) The salvation of Noah and his family was not water salvation, that is, the water did not literally save them. It was what divided the old world from the new, and, by faith, they had passed through it. In the same way, the water of baptism doesn’t literally wash away sins (1Peter 3:21). It marks the dividing line between the old life and the new life in Christ. Only by faith in Jesus Christ and the cleansing power of His blood can our souls be washed away as we pass through the watery grave of baptism (Matthew 26:28; Acts 22:16; Romans 6:4-6).
(6) The survivors who came out of the ark owed the salvation to God, since it was His grace that had saved them and given them a good conscience for a new life in a cleansed world. Even so, penitent believers are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:4-9) when they are baptized into Christ (Galatians 3:26,27; Titus 3:4-7). They make an “appeal to God for a good conscience – through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1Peter 3:21).
(7) God promised not judge mankind as worthy of death by another flood. Rather, He determined to bless them with a new world that would have regular seasons for seedtime and harvest, where man could once again enjoy the fruit of the land. Today, God blesses His people with new life in Christ. Christians enjoy the Holy Spirit’s fruit of righteousness now (Galatians 5:22,23). In the heavenly paradise, those who remain faithful will share spiritually in the tree of life, which bears the “twelve kinds of fruit… for the healing of the nations,” in the presence of God, the Father, and the Lamb, for eternity (Revelation 22:2).
