GOD
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Noah One Ark One Kind Of Timber One Door One Window One Family Safe In The Ark Lost Outside Flood |
Christ One Church One Kind Of Material One Way Of Salvation One Book To Guide Us One Family Safe In Christ Lost Out Of Christ Day Of Judgment |
J.D. Tant
As my subject is an unscriptural one, yet the most popular in all churches today, I’ll find a text in the Bible for it.
At all places where I go to preach the gospel and teach people that there is one way of salvation—one place where it is located and one road that leads there—I find five people more interested in some other way than one willing to take the way Christ points out. If I can help that class any by showing them how 400 were saved outside the ark when the flood came, I am sure it will be appreciated by many who do not want salvation in Christ.
The thief on the cross is the most popular case of conversion that comes from sectarian pulpits. They tell their people that the thief did not have to be baptized to be saved, therefore they can be saved without being baptized.
If I can show them with equally strong proof that 400 were saved who did not get into the ark—therefore no one needs to get into Christ for salvation—this will add much material to religious teachers to help them get up new sermons where they have worn out the thief on the cross. But before calling attention to how many people were saved outside of the ark, it is necessary to show how people were saved in the ark.
In the diagram above, we have placed God at the head because in all salvation—whether temporal or spiritual—He is the Author. He is the great Saviour and others are only instruments in His hand to do His will in saving people.
The salvation of Noah and his family in the ark has reference to their temporal salvation from the flood, and not to a spiritual salvation, as some suppose.
In a recent debate, my opponent argued that God put Noah in the ark, locked the door, and saved him and put the key in His (God’s) pocket seven days before the flood. Therefore, Noah was saved above the high water mark. The door was locked, God had the key, and Noah could not get out if he so desired.
I remembered that this preacher worshipped one of the creed gods and his creed says their god has neither body nor parts. I could not imagine what he wore his pants on, or what use he had for a pocket if he had neither body nor parts.
Had this preacher known that Noah was a child of God before he commenced to build the ark, and that his salvation by water (1 Pet. 3:19-21) meant a salvation from the flood, and not a spiritual salvation, he might have had no trouble in understanding the passage referred to.
God never used one prophecy as a fulfillment of another prophecy. Neither does God use one spiritual blessing as a type of another spiritual blessing. But He often takes temporal affairs to illustrate, or typify, spiritual blessings. So Noah’s salvation from the flood became a type of our salvation from sin.
If I can examine Noah’s salvation from the flood and find God’s plan of saving him, I can come to the New Testament and find God’s plan of saving men from their sins.
I read first that when God saw the wickedness of the world He selected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, to save his family from the flood. I find that God selected Christ on the spiritual side, and in the very proclamation of the birth of Christ, the angel said He should save His people from their sins (Matt. 7:21). As Noah became the Saviour of his family in the hands of God, so Christ becomes our Saviour.
Noah was to build one ark—and only one—in which his family was safe when the flood came. It was also ordained of God that Christ should build His church (Matt. 16:18). As Noah built only one ark in the antitype, we would expect only one church. Paul recognized this when he said there is, “one body” (Eph. 4:4), and that this one body is the church (Col. 1:18-24).
At this point, denominationalism leaves the Bible. The Bible teaches that we are saved in Christ’s church. The religious world condemns this teaching and says that we are saved out of the church, and then go into the church because we are saved. They argue that we can be saved in one church as well as another. Why not argue that God saved Noah from the flood while he was out of the ark, and after the flood destroyed the old world God let Noah go into the ark because he was saved?! Why not argue that Joe Smith, Bill Jones, or Sam Hall could each have built an ark like Noah’s and it would make no difference which ark a man went into, he could be saved? But keep in memory that God only promised to save them in Noah’s ark.
In building this ark, God told Noah to build it of one kind of timber. But many preachers I know would have taught Noah that it makes no difference what kind of timber you get. In like manner, the church is to be composed of regenerated men and women. But many will say, “Lord, that doesn’t suit me. I will build up our side with children also.”
God told Noah to make but one door. If some of our modern preachers had been there, they would have argued that everything cannot get in at the same door. We must make a big door for the elephant, one smaller for the camel, and still one smaller for the sheep and cats. On the side of Christ is only one way of salvation. But sectarian preachers say, “We can’t all see it alike, and you think all will be lost if they don’t go in your way.” But the Son of God says, “I am the way” (John 14:6), and, again, “If any man climb up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1).
To all who were in the ark, there was only one window for light. Those who are satisfied with God’s law are satisfied to take the Bible for all spiritual light. But many preachers would argue than Shem, Ham, and Japheth could not all see out the same window, and each would want a window for light. Yet, God stood behind one window. So God’s people today claim that the Bible is God’s only book for spiritual light. But our sectarian friends say, “It is not enough. We must add our creed—a human window—for more light, because we cannot all see alike.”
There was one family in the ark, and Christ has only one family here. If we follow the Bible, there is one fold, one family, one shepherd (John 10:16), one bride and one husband (Rom. 7:1-4). But in the religious world we have many families, or folds, and many brides, all claiming the same husband.
All were safe in the ark when the flood came, and in the antitype we can see that all who are regenerated will be safe in the church. All who were outside the ark were lost. Here, the religious world is mistaken again in claiming that one can be saved outside the church as well as in the church.
But when all warnings had been given and rejected, the time of the flood came at last and swept away those outside the ark. Christ warns us. But as people continued in sin until the very day that Noah entered the ark—little heeding their fearful doom—so shall it be at the end of the world. Peter teaches that, “few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us” (1 Pet. 3:21).
In all the items on the diagram, you notice the type answers the antitype. Noah on one side, Christ on the other; ark on one side, church on the other; saved in the ark on one side, saved in the church on the other. In all these types and antitypes, I find perfect agreement.
But the religious world claims that we should put so much stress on the word of God, for we know that people are saved in 400 or more of the human churches which are not the church of Christ. Then, at the very place in the Bible where they find salvation in 400 churches—that being the antitype—I’ll turn back to the time and read them where 400 were saved outside the ark when the flood came.
If the good people who claim that we can be saved in all the churches can find no authority for the same (which they cannot) then it may become as foolish to them, as it is for me, to claim 400 were saved outside the ark.
Let us all turn from the doctrines and commandments of men, and accept the narrow way of salvation as taught by Christ, and walk in the narrow way pointed out in His word that heaven may be our eternal home.
