Lesson 25 The Ark of Safety

                                                The Ark of Safety

                                                 Genesis 6:3 - 8:12

With “every imagination of the heart being evil continually,” the wickedness of man was great in the earth (Gen.6:5). “So Jehovah said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them’” (v7). “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (v12).

Jehovah must destroy man, whom He had created, that He might have sons of God in His image. Man must be destroyed from off the face of God’s earth. And the other living beings which God had created on the sixth day must undergo the judgment of waters along with mankind.

Jehovah was not defeated in His purpose. He had one man who had found grace in His eyes. “Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations, and  Noah walked with God” (Gen.6:8-9).

Moses recorded four things concerning Noah: First, Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah. Noah grew up in the godly line of the descendants of Seth (Gen.5). The godly line preached the grace of God, through which one is saved through faith. Grace is the great favor that God has done man in Christ, an undeserving favor, but one necessary to God’s purpose to have man in His image. Paul makes this clear in Ephesians 2, verses 1 through 10.

God set forth His Son as the Propitiation, a Gift to mankind (Rom.3:22-26; 1 Jn.2:1-2; 4:9-10). The Son was sent to die in man’s stead (Heb.2:9-17; 9:24-28; Rom.8:3). Jesus was delivered for man’s offenses and He was raised for man’s justification, that man’s sin might be put away once for all in the death of the cross (Rom.4:25-5:21; Heb.10:12-14; 1 Pet.3:18)). That man might be made righteous and acquitted of all charges of sin and guilt, and through the washing of regeneration be raised up to walk in newness of life (Col.2:9-14; Rom. 6:3-23; Tit.3:4-7). Jehovah saw that Noah had received the grace of God.

The second thing Moses recorded of Noah was that Noah was a just man, a righteous man. Believing in the righteousness of God through faith in Christ, Noah was justified, made righteous. “The just [righteous] shall live out of faith” (Rom.1:17b; Hab.2:4; Heb.10:38).

Noah lived out of faith. Having access into God’s grace through faith, Noah could rejoice in the hope of glory (Rom.5:2). Having received the eternal life as a gift in the coming Son of the Covenant Noah was assured of a body like the body promised the Son of the Covenant (see Phil.3:21). A deathless body would be raised up from the dead body of Noah (see 1 Cor.15:42-54).

The third thing that Moses recorded of Noah is that he was perfect in his generations. The original word for “generation” is the word commonly found in the sense of “a generation of men.” Noah lived through generations of ungodly men. Noah is recorded as being perfect, complete in his generations.

Noah was taught the truth concerning the coming Son of the Covenant through “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Eternal Covenant” declared in the heavens (see Gen.1:14-19; Ps.19:1-6; 97:6).

Noah believed that which he had been taught (see Heb.11:7). By being saved by God’s grace through Noah’s faith in the coming Christ, Noah had been justified and, having been justified through faith, Noah had also been glorified in a forever living body, to be raised up at the last day (see Jn.6:39-40).

And the fourth thing Moses recorded is that Noah walked with God. Though it is possible, it is not recorded that Noah had personally seen Jehovah with his own eyes to hear Him speak as had his first ancestors, Adam and Eve, but he had the testimony of his godly ancestors and the witness of the Holy Spirit. He had been shown eternal life and told that he could have fellowship with Jehovah and His Christ (see 1 Jn.1:1-4).

Having taken the step of faith into the righteousness of God, Noah began walking in agreement with God’s thinking (see Amos 3:3). In fellowship with the Father, made known in the Son, the Spirit of God taught Noah the deep things of God, the things hidden from the natural man in the flesh (see Job 32:8; Jn.1:14-18; 1 Cor.2:9-14; Eph.1:17-21). The complete Eternal Covenant of God is set forth in the stellar signs and their decans and the names of the main stars God set in the heavens to make Himself known (see Job 9:6-9; 26:13; 38:31-33; Ps.147:4; Is.40:26; 45:12; Amos 5:8).

Noah’s father, Lamech, named his son “Rest” (Gen.5:29), and Noah lived up to his name. When Jesus came to dwell among men, He invited men to come unto Him and He would give them rest, the rest of the security of the salvation and redemption in Himself (Mt.11:28-30). Noah had done that. He had come to the God who is, and he had received that rest of redemption. In walking with God, Noah learned of Christ to find rest of soul, the rest of the meek, the lowly. Noah found the rest of submission to the will of Jehovah and he found the joy of the Father working in him to will and to do after His good pleasure. In all of the unrest of the godless generation Noah found rest in his soul, to be comforted in the formidable task set before him by Jehovah.

Faith is the only condition making it possible to enter into rest. Christ Jesus would still the troubled soul, but unbelief will not let Christ still the soul. In unbelief, the soul remains troubled and unsatisfied. There is no inner peace, no true sense of direction for men in the flesh, born in Adam’s image.

What really causes so much trouble and unrest in this world is not so much the physical labor to be done to have food and clothing and shelter, the true cause is man’s own will, unsubmissive to our destiny as Jehovah Elohim planned it for us. When we can truly say, “Your will be done,” and submit all to our Lord and trust Him with ourselves, when we enter into His will for us and into His doing for us, we find rest unto our souls. We come to Him to learn to be meek and lowly in heart. Rest is in obedience to our Lord and Master.

“And God said unto Noah, ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. You make an ark of gopher wood; rooms shall you make in the ark, and shall pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which you shall make it: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shall you make to the ark, and in a cubit shall you finish it above; and the door of the ark shall you set in the side of it; with lower, second, and third stories shall you make it’” (Gen.6:13-16).

When Jehovah gave warning of the judgment to come, a judgment almost inconceivable to the imagination, Noah simply listened to what Jehovah had to say, and then did as Jehovah had commanded him (Gen.6:22). Faith lives in fellowship with God and overcomes all hindrances to obedience.

Moses recorded in the second chapter of Genesis that a river went out of the garden of Eden to water it, and from there it was parted into four heads (Gen.2:10-14). No mention is made of travel on the rivers, nor is it recorded in Cain’s civilization that there was river commerce or boat travel for pleasure. It is not likely that Noah had any shipbuilding experience. But Noah was not building a ship or a boat. He was building an ark. God gave him the blueprint.

The blueprint called for a large boxlike structure, 450' by 75' by 45'. There was one window all the way around the top, and one door. There was no mast and no sail to steady the ark. There is no record of a rudder or of a wheel to steer her or an anchor to stay her. The only need of the ark was to stay above the waters of judgment. And Noah did not need any nautical experience, as he would be totally at the mercy of Jehovah Elohim. Inside the ark Noah would have no control in guiding the ark. The ark was his place of safety from the waters of judgment. Noah trusted his family and himself entirely to Jehovah’s care.

If Noah had any other plans at the time the warning came to him, he would have had to set them aside. The one all-important thing would have been to finish the ark before the judgment of waters came upon the earth. Of course there would have been fleshly objections. Self does not like anything that bothers or makes one uncomfortable, or takes up too much of its time. Anything that interferes with one’s own plans is irritating. Then there is one’s own imagination. The mind cannot help jumping ahead to what could be involved. What would people think when Noah began building this huge box with a window all around and one door in his back yard? If there were boats in those days, this box certainly did not look like one. And how would Noah get the ark into the river? When Noah explained how the ark would float and why it would be necessary that it float, would the people believe him?

Of course Noah would be preaching the gospel of Christ while he built the ark and he would be warning that Jehovah Elohim was planning to wash the corruption off the face of His earth (see 1 Pet.3:20). Noah understood that he would be a spectacle and that men would ridicule his preaching and his work, as they refused to believe into his Christ. Some may have believed the Spirit’s witness through the lips of Noah and would have passed from death to eternal life and did not come into the condemnation of the judgment but died before the Flood of waters came. Believe and be made safe, or do not believe and be destroyed in the judgment (see 2 Pet.3:3-7). Each one of Noah’s generation had the choice of life or death.

“And Noah was five hundred years old; and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (Gen.5:32). Shem is named first, as the seed for the coming Son of the Covenant will come through Shem’s line (Gen.9:26). Ham is the younger son (Gen.9:24), and Japheth, the elder (Gen.10:21).

Shem and Ham would be the more prominent lines in the new beginning. Shem is the progenitor of the coming Son of the Covenant through Abraham, called to be the forefather of the great nation God promised to build for a people for His coming Son (Gen.11:10-26).

Ham, the younger son, would represent the enmity of the mind of mankind, a creation of human flesh. Those of Ham’s line would be the first enemies of the Son of the Covenant. Japheth’s line was less prominent until his descendants began spreading out over the European continent and then began colonizing.

Against all objections of his own heart and of the objection of any others, “thus did Noah according to all that God commanded him” (Gen.6:22). Jehovah had worked in Noah to will and to do of His good pleasure. Noah had made a decision for Christ. Noah had disowned himself to identify himself with the One who was coming to die in his stead. He had followed the Christ to save his own soul. He would build an ark to the saving of his house and to the saving of the household of the coming Christ. Noah, like Moses after him, was willing to bear the reproach of Christ (see Heb.11:7, 24-26).

Noah was 480 years old when the warning came (Gen.6:3, 7:6). It is not recorded that he had any sons as yet who could help him build the ark. Perhaps there were some in his righteous family who helped in the beginning. It would be a monumental task to build the ark. After 20 years sons were born. In time, the boys would have grown enough to be put to work helping to prepare the ark that would save their household.

The ark was planned by Jehovah to be a type of the coming Christ, who makes man safe from the condemnation of being destroyed in the second death. In Adam, dead in trespasses and sins, man is disapproved as unfit in an earthen vessel (see 1 Cor.15:21-22, 47-50; Eph.2:1-3). The body of the earth will return to the dust of the ground and leave the inner man unclothed (Gen.3:19; Job 34:15; Ps.104:29; 2 Cor.5:1-3).

It is appointed unto man to die once (Heb.9:27). Man must be made safe from dying in his sins. He must be healed from sin-sickness. Christ [Jesus] came to die in man’s stead that man might be made safe from condemnation. He came to take the sins of the whole world on Himself and put away sin once for all and to make man righteous, that He might raise man up out from the dead mortal body alive unto God in a body like unto Jesus’ body of glory, a vessel fit for a son of God (Rom.6:9-10; 2 Cor.5:21; Col.1:12-15; Phil.3:21; Heb.9:26; 10:10; 1 Pet.3:18). 

That is why the ark is a big box - like a coffin. The ark designed by God was a picture of His Son, the Christ, as the Ark of man’s safety. Christ, known to Noah as the Coming One, was lifted up on the cross to take the execution of the death sentence passed upon all mankind (Rom.5:12; 1 Pet.2:22-25). There, lifted up between heaven and earth, Jesus put away sin once for all that man might not come into God’s judgment on sin but pass from death to eternal life.

As many as believe into God’s Son are placed into His death as man’s Substitute (see Rom.6:3-10; Heb.2:9-17). In this way, in being placed into Jesus to have one’s sins put away and to become the righteousness of God in Christ, man is lifted up above the condemnation to come, and he is made safe from the judgment of destruction - the second death.

Noah had the ark as a visual means of  teaching in a picture form the salvation provided man in Christ. While Noah was working, with his heart at rest, he was learning and seeing the type of Christ. Noah could teach his sons the truths to be seen in this type of Christ as the only place of safety from the judgment of the second death. He could have taught anyone who was willing to hear the voice of the Spirit.

To begin building the ark, the first thing that Noah would have to do would be to cut down the trees and plane them into boards. It would take a lot of trees to build an ark to the saving of Noah’s household and to the saving of the multitudes to be born of Noah’s three sons. But it would take only one Christ to make those multitudes safe from the condemnation of the second death. Also the multitude of those who had lived out of faith, believing into the coming Christ, and had died before the Flood, would be made safe in the Ark, the Christ, the Son of God. Anyone having lived and died in the faith in the righteousness of Christ before Jesus actually did come in the flesh and in His obedience to the death of the cross put away sin once for all and overcome death with eternal life were made safe through the saving of the household of Noah (see Rom.3:22-26; Phil.2:5-8; 1 Tim.2:4-6; 1 Pet.3:18). In the household of Noah was seed for the nation for a people of whom Christ Jesus should be born.

Jehovah instructed Noah to make the ark and the inside rooms of gopherwood. Noah was to cover the ark inside and outside with pitch (Gen.6:14). The rooms inside the ark were resting places. While riding out the storm, Noah and his family could rest inside the ark of safety.

When one has believed into Christ [Jesus, the Anointed Son], one can rest in Jehovah and wait patiently for Him to bring to pass. Since one has committed his way unto Jehovah, he can trust in Jehovah and do good. He can delight himself in Jehovah under any circumstances and let Him bring to pass His doing (see Ps.37:3-9). And one can rest in the hope of an eternal resting place, a body like unto Jesus’ body of glory raised up through the redemption that is in Him, raised up in the resurrection (Rom.8:11, 14-30; 1 Cor.15:35-54; Phil.3:21).

The coming Christ is “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever He does shall prosper” (Ps.1:3). The gopher trees must be cut off from the land of the living in order to prepare an ark to save Noah’s household and, having been cut off, they would have become dead. Christ, the Man like a tree, must also be cut off from the land of the living and become dead (Is.53:8).

Within, the ark was pitched and without, the ark was pitched with pitch. Every square foot of the board planed from the trees pitched inside and out. The waters were kept out of the ark by the pitch. No water of judgment could come into the ark.

The Hebrew word used here for “pitch” is the same Hebrew word used for “atonement.”  Seventy times in the Old Testament this Hebrew word is translated “to make atonement.”  “Atonement” has the meaning of “covered” or “covered over.” Before Jehovah  ever created man He had sin covered through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. The Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the world (1 Pet.1:18-21; Rev.13:8). Man would sin and must therefore suffer death. God had the means of making the dead to live again - through new birth from above (see Jn.3:3-8; 11:25).

God set His Son forth as the Propitiation (1 Jn.2:2; 4:9-10). In Him is the redemption. God could pass over sins done before Christ actually came in the flesh and He died for man’s sins, and He was buried, and He was raised up again the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor.15:3-4). And God would be just to pass over the sins of the one believing into the coming Son of the Eternal Covenant. He is the Justifier of all who put their faith in Christ. Jesus is the Ark of Safety from eternity past. It is done in the Eternal Covenant. All one had to do was receive the Propitiation through believing in the blood of Christ to make him safe from the condemnation and to heal him of sin-sickness. One believed into Christ to be made safe from judgment. Each one in Christ covered all around with the Son of God (see Rom.3:20-28; 5:1-21; 1 Cor.1:30).

The ark had a window and a door. “You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks” (Gen.6:16). A cubit is about 18". The window of about 18" going all around the top of the ark was for air and for any light which might come through the storm clouds.

In Christ, we of the Body of Christ have the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, the Wind of God, to blow in the fresh atmosphere of the heavenlies (Rom.5:5; 8:14-27; 1 Cor.3:16; 6:19-20; 2 Tim.1:14). The Holy Spirit enlightens the darkness and gives understanding as to what the will of the Lord is (see Job 32:8; 1 Cor.2:9-16; Eph.5:17-18).

There was only one door to the ark. Noah went in through that door and his sons and his wife and his son’s wives with him and all of the animals, seven pairs of clean animals and birds, and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Two by two they went into the ark, two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life, and verse 16 says Jehovah shut him in (Gen.7:1-16). In the Hebrew it is literally, “Jehovah covered him about.”  That door, pitched with pitch inside and out, kept out the waters of judgment. What a refuge from the waters of death. Inside the ark all were safe and sound. Outside all was darkness and the death of the judgment of waters.

When Jesus became flesh, He said to His people, “I am the Door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved” [made safe] (Jn.10:9a). Anyone who has believed into Christ has been made safe from death and darkness. He is covered all around with Christ Himself. He shall not walk in darkness - he has the light of life (Jn.8:12; 12:46). In His light we see light (Ps.36:9).

The Flood was on the earth 40 days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. The waters prevailed and kept increasing, rising upward of 15 cubits, until all the high hills and mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The Flood covered the whole earth and all living things upon the dry land were destroyed. Only Noah and those with him in the ark remained alive. And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days (Gen.7:17-24).

In the ark, the souls were covered all around with the provision given by God, and received from God. The same waters that supported the ark, lifting it up far above all the high hills that were under the whole of heaven, high above all those of the earth being judged, drowned all those upon earth who had refused to believe into the coming Christ, those who had refused the only Ark of Safety. All were taken in judgment, every living thing (see Mt.24:38-39).

How thankful Noah and his family must have been to be made safe while those waters were rising higher and higher. Noah and his family were in the only safe place upon earth and lifted up into the atmosphere. Outside the ark was only water, an element in which man cannot breathe. Not being able to get one’s breath, one dies.

Are we thankful and overjoyed to be in Christ, safe and secure? Thankful to have been seated in the heavenlies to breathe the heavenly atmosphere in the realm of the spiritual? Walking with Christ Jesus in the light, and breathing the spiritual realities is the only safe place upon earth. We have been made safe from the condemnation to come, safe from the second death, the lake of fire (Rev.20:11-15).

Noah and his family were safe from the waters of judgment, but there must have been a great deal of work to be done with all of those animals to take care of. Each one must have been assigned to certain duties each day. Were there times when Noah and the members of his family felt discontented to be shut up for so long? Times when they felt discouraged? Noah was walking with God in faith. He must have been the encourager.

Do you ever get discouraged? Feel discontented with your state? Does all seem dark and gloomy and the storm has lasted too long? Do you sometimes feel condemned and guilty? Yet is there ever a moment when you are not safe? Where is your place of safety? In Christ. What did Jesus say? “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn.16:33).

Was there ever a moment that Noah and his family could not trust to come out to a new beginning? Whether they did or did not trust, all were safe in God’s hands. God held the timing in His hands. The new beginning was at hand.

We, the members of the Body of Christ, are covered all around “in Christ.”  Our sins are not just atoned or covered over. Our sins have been put away once for all. They were put on Jesus Christ, who took the execution of the death sentence (Is.53:4-6; Col.2:12-14; 1 Pet.2:22-24). Baptized into Jesus, we are baptized into His death and buried with Him, and we have been raised up to walk in newness of life (Rom.6:3-4). “Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col.3:3b). Can we not be assured that we will come out of this world to a new beginning, with old things passed away and all things become new? If we are not assured, whose fault is that? God says it is so.

Now we are the children of God and it does not appear what we shall be, but a body in the image of the heavenly is assured us (1 Jn.3:1-3; Phil.3:20-21; Rom.8:29-30). We may have severe trials here in the body of flesh and blood. There are testings to pass through. We learn obedience through suffering. Even our Lord learned obedience by the things which He suffered (Heb.5:8; see Heb.2:18).

We must be being transformed through the renewing of our mind through looking into the mirror of the word to think with God (Rom.12:1-2). But there is never a moment when those in Christ are not safe and secure. You will be forever safe in Christ. You are kept by the power of God. You have been sanctified together with Christ, “your whole spirit, soul and body preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that called you, who will also do it” (1 Thess.5:23-24).

He is “able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the Presence of His glory, with exceeding joy. Unto the only wise God, our Savior, glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen” (Jude 24-25). He will present us to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that we should be holy and without blemish (Eph.5:27).

Jehovah had prepared to keep the waters of judgment out of the ark, and God remembered Noah and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided (Gen.8:1).

The world that then was had been destroyed in the Flood of waters. The Flood was God’s way of cleansing a corrupt and violent world from off His earth. The whole world system was washed away. The Flood was an act of righteous judgment, an act of a holy and just God upon sinners, who had stubbornly refused to repent of their sins. The Flood of waters was an act of severe mercy and love to rid the earth of unspeakable evil and to save Noah’s household, that there would be seed for the coming Anointed Covenant Son, the Christ who would make safe all who would come unto Him to be given rest to their souls.

God remembered Noah and all who were with him every moment that was spent on the ark. And Noah remembered God. In his heart, Noah was walking with God in faith in the One whom he knew to be his Life. As Noah took care of those on the ark, he rested in Jehovah’s care for them. Noah knew that there was not a moment of the day that they would be forgotten by Jehovah. Noah waited God’s time, trusting all to the One who knows best, the One who always does good, the only One who always does right. Noah’s thinking was, If God be for us, who can be against us? (Rom.8:31-39). All was for the glory of Jehovah Elohim.

The ark passed through the waters of judgment and then it rested (Gen.8:4). Here was one more spiritual picture of the ark as a type of the coming Christ. Jesus came down from heaven to be obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross (Phil.2:5-8). On the cross Jesus finished the work His Father had given Him to do (Jn.19:28-30). In His lifting up on the cross, the Father was glorified (Jn.12:23-33). Jesus overcame death and judged the world and assured that the prince of this world would be cast out.

Jesus passed through the waters of death and then He entered into His rest (Heb.4:10). Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures and He was buried and on the third day He was raised up out from among the dead according to the Scriptures (1 Cor.15:3-4). It was not possible for death to hold the body of Jesus (Ac.2:24). Nor is it possible for death to hold the bodies of those having been redeemed through His blood. Those bodies will also be raised up out from the dead (1 Cor.15:49-57; Jn.6:38-40).

When Jesus had, by Himself, purged our sins, He ascended back into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High (Heb.1:3). Having finished His work, Jesus entered into His rest (Heb.4:10-11). There, seated at the right hand of the Father, Christ Jesus is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Having overcome death, “He continues ever, and has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them,” those who come to God through Him (Heb.7:24-25).

We have been made safe from the penalty of the sin - death (Rom.6:23). We are being made safe from the power of the sin (Rom.6:7). We shall be made safe from the presence of the sin. The sin is excluded from the Kingdom of God (1 Cor.6:9; Eph.5:5; Rev.21:27). In the completion of the Eternal Covenant, a Kingdom of sons of God, there will be no lawlessness. There will be no self-will. All will be one with our God, all of one will - God’s will.

Jesus has invited us to rest with Him in His finished work. He also asks us to set our affections on things above and not on the things of the earth. Our citizenship is in heaven (see Phil.3:20-21). We have been baptized into Jesus’ death. We died with Him. He that has died is freed from the sin. God asks us to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto the sin and alive unto God (Rom.6:11-23). Like Noah in his day, we have the privilege of being believing believers in a godless, unbelieving world. We have the treasure of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God seen in the face of Jesus Christ in our earthen vessels that Christ might make Himself known through us (2 Cor.4:7; 5:11-21). We will not go forth from our ark but we have a new beginning with all things having passed away and all things having become new (see Rev.21:1-22:5). We have made our exodus out of a creation of human flesh to be born from above a new creation - a born son of the living and true God.

This concludes our lesson.