Genesis 7—“For yet seven days … I will cause it to rain upon the earth …”

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 (Gen. 7:1, 4, 10).

WELL-MEANT OFFER ARGUMENT: 

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. But why? Why would He delay the coming judgment? Is that not grace? … 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?”

The ”Size of the Ark” Argument: “That the ark could have held many more people than those inside it provides grounds for a genuine, sincere offer of salvation to all man: if they would only believe, there is room for them, a sufficient atonement that could save them, and they would be saved. If there was no such benevolence, offer, or desire for the rest of the human population on God’s part, He would have had an ark minimally necessary for the animals and Noah’s family, and no one else, and there would be no de facto allowance for other persons to come into the ark if they would, and the atonement would not be sufficient for them …”

(I) 

Prof. David J. Engelsma

Regarding the seven days delay in God’s sending the flood (Gen. 7), the one making this argument assumes that this period followed the entrance of Noah and his family into the ark. This is an assumption. The text only states that the seven days followed the command of God that Noah and his family enter the ark—during which seven days, Noah and his family entered the ark and made all final necessary arrangements for a long stay in the therein, for example, food and other provisions, as also the entrance of at least some of the animals. Animals enter the ark after the mention of the seven days (Gen. 7:7ff.).

If it is the case that seven days passed after Noah and all the animals entered the ark, the seven days delay of the flood was not the hope and desire of God that members of the wicked world also enter the box of salvation. If the history of the flood in Genesis teaches anything at all, it teaches that God’s will of salvation concerning the flood was restricted to Noah and his family. Genesis 7:16 has God shutting Noah and his family in the ark, thus shutting all the ungodly world out. The delay of the water, after the seven days delay, if there was a delay, was not due to a chance that God was giving the ungodly. He shut them out, after years of warning of the impending flood.

In addition, II Peter 2:5 teaches that God in His sovereignty and justice “spared not” the old world with all its ungodly citizens, which is quite different from giving them all a final chance to be saved (as though salvation is a matter of chance, rather than a matter of election). In addition, the text makes plain that salvation in the ark depended upon righteousness, which the ungodly of the world at the time of Noah did not possess. Still more, the flood was the execution of divine wrath upon the world of the ungodly, not the display of a well-meant offer of salvation (if there should be such a thing). Finally, the entire context in II Peter 2, in which there is reference to the flood, is a warning of judgment upon the ungodly. To introduce into the event of the flood a notion of God inviting the ungodly to salvation in the ark contradicts the thought of the entire passage.

As for the size of the ark, Noah built it in the dimensions God gave him. God was under no delusion that hordes of the ungodly might clamor for passage. Besides, the ark had to house many animals and their fodder. I am always surprised that a boat of such size could contain what it had to contain.

At bottom, these questions suffer from a serious doctrinal error. The error is to suppose that salvation, whether in the ark or outside it today, is not governed by God’s decree of election, so that God was ignorant of how many He would save in the ark.

(DJE, 22/08/2022)

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(II)

More to come! (DV)

 

Further Thoughts:

How would you reconcile the idea of God’s longsufferingness and desire for all to be saved with the fact that the ark was closed with Noah and family in it, and that God had told them that they must enter and shut the door?

Genesis 7:16 makes clear that the Lord shut the door to the ark. When He did so, the passage does not say explicitly. It can certainly be read to mean that God did so as soon as Noah was in, but there is no indication that the door stayed open for a time.

The argument here raises other questions. God commanded Noah to go in; why then did He not command others? Or, if God was merely waiting to see if any others would go in, why did He not just wait to see if Noah would go in?  Clearly there is a recognition here that God treats some men differently than others—to Noah the command, to others a wait and see approach.  In fact, we see no indication that God commanded, or desired any others to go in. If it weren’t for the idea of the well-meant offer already implanted in someone’s mind, he would never read of it here.  But we can’t disprove it from Genesis 7, because that chapter does not say the things the “well-meant offer” suggests it says.