"God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me.... Make thee an ark of gopher wood." Here was man's ruin, and God's remedy. Man had been allowed to pursue his career to the utmost limit, to bring his principles and ways to maturity. The leaven had worked and filled the mass. The evil had reached its climax. "All flesh" had become so bad that it could not be worse; wherefore nothing remained but for God to destroy _it_ totally; and, at the same time, to save all those who should be found, according to his eternal counsels, linked with "the eighth person,"--the only righteous man then existing. This brings out the doctrine of the cross in a very vivid manner. There we find at once God's judgment of nature with all its evil; and, at the same time, the revelation of his saving grace, in all its fulness, and in all its perfect adaptation to those who have really reached the lowest point of their moral condition, as judged by himself. "The Day-spring from on high hath visited us." (Luke i. 78.) Where? Just _where we are_, as sinners. God has come down to the very deepest depths of our ruin. There is not a point in all the sinner's state to which the light of that blessed Day-spring has not penetrated; but, if it has thus penetrated, it must, by virtue of what it is, reveal our true character. The light must judge every thing contrary to itself; but, while it does so, it also "gives the knowledge of salvation through the remission of sins." The cross, while it reveals God's judgment upon "all flesh," reveals his salvation for the lost and guilty sinner. Sin is perfectly judged,--the sinner perfectly saved,--God perfectly revealed, and perfectly glorified, in the cross.
If my reader will turn for a moment to the First Epistle of Peter, he will find much light thrown upon this entire subject. At the third chapter, verse 18, we read, "for Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which (Spirit) he went and preached (through Noah) to the spirits (now) in prison; which once were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water ([Greek: di' hydatos]); to which the antitype ([Greek: antitypon]) baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, (as by water,)[12] but the answer of a good conscience towards God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who, having gone into heaven, is at the right hand of God, angels, and authorities, and powers, being made subject to him."
This is a most important passage. It sets the doctrine of the ark and its connection with the death of Christ very distinctly before us. As in the Deluge, so in the death of Christ, all the billows and waves of divine judgment passed over that which, in itself, was without sin. The creation was buried beneath the flood Of Jehovah's righteous wrath; and the Spirit of Christ exclaims, "All thy billows and thy waves have gone over me." (Ps. xlii. 7.) Here is a profound truth for the heart and conscience of a believer. "_All_ God's billows and waves" passed over the spotless person of the Lord Jesus, when he hung upon the cross; and, as a most blessed consequence, not one of them remains to pass over the person of the believer. At Calvary we see, in good truth, "the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven opened." "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts." Christ drank the cup, and endured the wrath perfectly. He put himself, judicially, under the full weight of all his people's liabilities, and gloriously discharged them. The belief of this gives settled peace to the soul. If the Lord Jesus has met all that could be against us, if he has removed out of the way every hindrance, if he has put away sin, if he has exhausted the cup of wrath and judgment on our behalf, if he has cleared the prospect of every cloud, should we not enjoy settled peace? Unquestionably. Peace is our unalienable portion. To us belong the deep and untold blessedness and holy security which redeeming love can bestow on the righteous ground of Christ's absolutely accomplished work.