The Days of Noah (1)
We have a number of different though related questions from the same reader and, since they all concern Noah and the building of the ark, we will treat them together in this article and the next, DV. The brother first quotes from Genesis 7: “And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark … For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth … And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth” (1, 4, 10). He then summarizes three arguments used by advocates of various forms of universal grace:
1. The “Seven More Days” Argument. God tells Noah to go into the ark but does He then immediately bring the flood? No. He waits seven more days. Why is that? Isn’t this a gracious act of kindness and benevolence on God’s part? For He was, essentially, delaying His judgment upon the earth, even if only for seven more days. From the perspective of election, all the elect were in the ark. It seems that the door of the ark was only shut and sealed by God after those seven days. Do we not see here God giving one more chance for anyone outside the ark to be saved? What else does this seven-day delay mean?
2. The “Size of the Ark” Argument. The sheer size of the ark that God instructed Noah to build was immense and testifies to the availableness of salvation. Although the ark wasn’t big enough to accommodate the entire world, nevertheless, the very fact that it could have held many more people than just Noah’s family testifies that the well-meant offer of salvation is real—that there is room for more to be saved than just the elect; that Christ and His atonement, which are pictured by the ark, are sufficient to save anyone—whosoever—if only they desire to go in. If, as it is claimed, there is no such benevolence, offer or desire of God for anyone other than the elect to be saved, surely God would have had an ark built that would have only enough room for Noah’s family and no one else—indisputably implying that there would be no de facto allowance for other persons to come into the ark, even if they desired to, and that the atonement would not be sufficient for such individuals.
3. The “120 Years of Preaching” Argument. If you want to kill another bird with the same stone, I have an additional point that’s related to the two Noah questions I have presented above. It’s the notion that the 120 years of Noah’s preaching to the world (Gen. 6:3; II Pet. 2:5) is another example or proof for the well-meant offer. For example, why would God postpone the judgment for 120 years unless He was giving the world a chance to repent? Was Noah preaching a well-meant offer gospel to all men? Wasn’t God gracious to all men in allowing them 120 years more? Aren’t these 120 years a sort of divine patience toward all of the predeluvian world? Especially as, in those days, only Noah and his family were of the elect. Was the Spirit’s “striving” an attempt of God to save all?
In answer to the first question (#1) about the seven days between God’s command and the coming of the flood, my understanding is that the divine command to Noah came seven days before Noah finished the business of getting all the animals, as well as his family, into the ark (Gen. 7:7-9), at which time the ark was closed up by the hand of God and the rain began to fall. The main reason for the “delay,” therefore, was the work that Noah still had to do.
Some commentators erroneously view the seven days as a period of longsuffering or grace shown by God toward the unbelieving and reprobate world. The same view is held of the 120 years it took to build the ark (cf. #3 above). Lutheran theologians, C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, in their commentary on the Pentateuch, call the 120 years “the period of grace,” though even they admit that it had passed when God told Noah to enter the ark.
That the seven days (#1) or the 120 years (#3) are God’s grace to the unbelieving and wicked world is very difficult to see, to put it mildly. Scripture tells us that the Lord beheld their great wickedness (Gen. 6:5), repented of His creation of man (6), and announced His intention to destroy humanity, the animals and the birds (7). How then is any “delay,” whether 7 days or 120 years, gracious when God does not grant repentance to any of those who remained unbelieving when Noah and his family entered the ark? How is it mercy, when the “delay” only serves their continuing in unbelief and wickedness? Does grace serve that purpose? With the passage of time, men increase in wickedness and folly, and fill up the cup of their iniquity (Gen. 15:16; I Thess. 2:16), but that is not because God is loving and gracious to them.
The answer of many would be that God was giving them a chance to repent and believe, but repentance and faith are never a mere chance. Repentance and faith are certain, a sovereignly bestowed gift of God to those whom He has eternally chosen in Christ: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8-10; cf. Acts 11:18). Grace, because it is the grace of God, is powerful and saving. It never fails and is never wasted or in vain.
Our reader’s third question has to do with the 120 years (Gen. 6:3) it took to build the ark. These 120 years are alleged to reflect God’s supposed common grace, universal mercy and general lovingkindness towards all those who perished. But the only mention of grace in this passage of Scripture is towards Noah: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (8)! He alone, and he in contrast to the rest of the world, was shown grace. Nor is “delay” grace, unless one believes that salvation is a mere chance, available to all, and that God was giving men the chance to be saved by the right exercise of their alleged free will. In that case, however, why did God wait only 120 years? Why not longer? Is His supposed common grace or mercy really so limited?
One reason for this “delay” is simply that Noah had work to do, the work of building the ark. It was a huge project and would be even today. Another reason for the 120 years is that in the purpose of God only Noah and his family were to be saved in the ark (Gen. 6:18), but others in the line of the covenant were still living. Methuselah died during the year of the flood and Noah’s father, Lamech, departed only a year or two before.
God had His purpose in letting them live so long. The writing of the Bible had not yet begun so the truth had to be transmitted orally. The long lives of the prediluvian patriarchs served that purpose. Methuselah and Lamech would both have heard the story of creation and the fall from Adam himself, and they would have been able to pass it on to Noah. Not only was there merely one link between Adam and Noah, but Noah would have been able to pass it on first-hand to Abraham! But only Noah and his immediate family were to be saved in the ark, and so the others died during the 120 years.
As to Noah’s preaching during the 120 years (II Pet. 2:5), the Word of God does not say that he preached a failing divine love for all without exception or a common grace of God or that he “offered” salvation to those who witnessed the building of the ark. Scripture instructs us that he preached “righteousness,” that is, the righteousness of God which is the condemnation of the world, but which the Messiah merited and revealed, and is given through faith alone in Him. No doubt Noah preached the necessity of repentance towards God and faith in the coming seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), but that is not common grace. It is simply the call of the blessed gospel.
Hebrews 11:7 bears this out: “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” The building of the ark was the condemnation of the world and only Noah was heir of the righteousness which he preached. I Peter 3:20 says that “the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing,” but the question is, for what was it waiting? Was it waiting for the possible salvation of everyone to whom Noah preached? Romans 9:22-23 is a loud “No” to that idea for the longsuffering of God only endures or puts up with “the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,” while it waits to “make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.” At that time, Noah and those of his family were those “vessels of mercy.”
There are a number of matters that we have not covered in this article, particularly the “size of the ark” argument (#2) and the Spirit’s “striving” (Gen. 6:3), an aspect of argument #3. Thus we will continue our discussion of Noah, the ark and an alleged common or general grace in the next issue, DV. Rev. Ron Hanko
Vessels of Wrath Fitted to Destruction
“What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction …?” (Rom. 9:22). A reader asks, “Are ‘the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction’ by themselves (as many advocates of a divine desire to save the reprobate claim) or by God?”
Of course, it is true that humans who perish eternally do fit themselves for their destruction by their unbelief and other sins. They themselves are morally responsible for their damnation; God is not to blame. Belgic Confession 13 declares, in the context of God’s almighty providential government even over evil, that He is not “the author of … sins.” But this ethical responsibility of lost sinners is not the teaching of Romans 9:22.
The text clearly teaches that Almighty God fits the vessels of wrath to destruction. First, the verb form is passive: they are fitted. Romans 9:22 does not state that the vessels fit themselves, actively, for destruction but that they are fitted by Another. As the first part of verse 22 indicates, this Other is “God,” who is “willing” (i.e., desiring) to show His wrath upon the vessels of wrath and to make His power known upon them.
Second, the thought of all of Romans 9 is the sovereignty of God in damnation, as well as in salvation. God hardens whom He wills or wishes or wants or desires (18). God is the omnipotent Potter who (actively) makes vessels “unto dishonour” (21). The thought of verse 22, in its close relation with verse 23, is that just as God prepares some humans unto glory so He fits others unto destruction.
How does God fit some to destruction? The fitting of verse 22 is not the eternal decree of reprobation itself, but an activity of God upon and within some humans that carries out the decree of reprobation. God has sovereignly reprobated some in the same predestinating decree in which He has elected others unto eternal life. This damnation is in the way of God’s fitting the reprobate for their destruction. This fitting consists of their condemnation and total depravity in the fall of Adam, God’s hardening of them by the preaching of the gospel and His giving them over to all their other sins.
Some who claim that Romans 9:22 teaches that the vessels of wrath fit themselves for destruction and who oppose the doctrine that God fits them profess to be Calvinists. I confront them, therefore, with Calvin’s own explanation of “the vessels of wrath” in Romans 9:22: “That they were ‘fitted to destruction’ by their own wickedness is an idea so silly that it needs no notice. It is indeed true that the reprobate procure to themselves the wrath of God and that they daily hasten the falling of its weight upon their own heads, but it must be confessed by all that the apostle is here treating of that difference made between the elect and the reprobate that proceeds from the secret will and purpose of God alone” (Calvin’s Calvinism [Jenison, MI: RFPA, 2009], p. 66).
Who are the genuine Calvinists? Those who reject and twist the apostle’s confession of God’s sovereignty in Romans 9:22, and outrightly contradict Calvin’s explanation of the text and hold a view which he calls “so silly,” or all those who faithfully confess Jehovah’s sovereignty and stand with Calvin on Romans 9:22? Prof. David J. Engelsma
