WAS NOAH’S FLOOD LOCAL OR WORLDWIDE?
There are commentators and reformed theologians who would like us to believe that Noah’s flood was a little local flood. That the Mesopotamian Valley got a little bit flooded, and that was it… There are at least 30, indicators in the text of chapters 6 through 9 that indicate this flood covered the whole world.
First one is the extensive language in chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9. As you read through, repeatedly, again and again and again, it says that the whole world was covered, that the mountains were covered, that all under heaven perished. The language is extensive. The language is comprehensive…
Secondly…we know this was a worldwide flood and, because the construction and outfitting and populating of the ark was an absurdity if the flood was local. An absolute absurdity to build a…a…a big box and to spend 120 years building it as big as an ocean liner to float all that entourage of thousands of animals around in a local flood in the Mesopotamian Valley would be idiotic…God wouldn’t have told Noah to do that…He would’ve told Him to get out of the Valley. He had 120 years. He coulda gone anywhere he wanted in that amount of time.
And if you’re looking for a parallel for that, remember, God told Lot He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. What did He tell him to do? Get out…And why would you go to all the trouble of collecting all the animals if the only ones that were gonna drown were in the Mesopotamian Valley? Make any sense?…
A third reason why we know it was a worldwide flood is that, after the flood, God promised never again to bring such drowning destruction. Chapter 8, the end of verse 21, God says, “I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. Never again. From now on, while the earth remains, it’ll be seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night.” In other words, it’s gonna be routine. There’s not going to be another worldwide holocaust like this. Over in chapter 9, verse 11, “I will establish My covenant with you; all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood. And never again will I do that…verse 15…I’ll remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh. Never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.” If that was a local flood, then God didn’t tell him the truth…
Has there ever been another local flood? Of course, there are plenty of local floods. It was a lie if the flood was local. There have been tens of thousands of local floods. We read about ’em all the time. We’re going to read about some later this year in which people will die…When God said, “I’m making a promise never, ever to destroy people again in a flood like this,” He couldn’t have been referring to a local flood. That happens all the time…
The fourth reason we know the flood was worldwide is because Genesis traces all the people in the world back to Noah and his family. We’ll see that in chapters 9 and 10. when the Lord starts to lay out the genealogy, starting in chapter 9 verse 18, they all come out of Noah’s family…
Finally when you look at other Biblical references to the flood, they affirm but never deny its universality. There are a number of portions of Scripture that refer back to the flood.
One would be Psalm 104: 5 to 9. “He established the earth upon its foundations so that it will not totter forever and ever. Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters were standing above the mountains. At Thy rebuke they fled, at the sound of Thy thunder they hurried away. The mountains rose; the valleys sank down to the place which Thou didst establish for them. Thou didst set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth.” And there what you have in Psalm 104 is a description of what happened in the flood. God covered the mountains. The mountains pushed up. The valleys pushed down. The seas were gathered into the great chasms, the great valleys, and God would never again do that to the earth.
Second Peter 3, familiar passage where we’re reminded that the…Peter says, “The Lord will destroy the world in the future by fire. And if you don’t think He would do that, then look back at the flood when He destroyed the world by water.” And the comparison there of the destruction of the whole earth in the future with the destruction of the whole earth in the past.
Now that’s just five different reasons why we have to see this as a universal flood.
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