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CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DIVISION OF LIFE AND DEATH

Noah afloat on a Mass Grave-Yard

Genesis 6-8

The Life Lead-In

History can be Helpful when You are In It!

Comparing Genesis 5:32, 7:11 and the nature of the outline in Genesis 5:32-6:13, it seems that Noah at 500 years of age suddenly comes into focus. Presumably this is for some special purpose, and since one of the most epic epochal events in world history was impending, it makes it likely that what follows ties in with this age.

It does not necessitate this precise year of his life, as that of his having three sons, rather his age at his predecessor's passing; but at least sets the environment of terms. When therefore God announces the need of an ark and sets the time limit for flesh in its roving horror, on the earth, at 120 years, it seems unlikely that Noah took this time to build the ark, rather starting in precise relevance not too far from the figure of 500 and finishing his preliminary work at 600 years of age, to set sail. It appears that the time limit of 120 for man was set before Noah's 500th year, and that the situation was well under way, both as to cause and consequence by then. In fact, there is no direct reference to what point of development during the frantic failure of man situation, the declaration of the decision and determination was made by God re 120 years, but into that period it came at the appropriate point, to finish it all 120 years later. He SAID it in timely fashion. Time was up, and the ark in its time, would be up also, and ready.

In round terms, it seems clear that

	age of 500 marks the entry of this dramatic figure, Noah, into what follows in the record,
	120 years is the stated span, the residual time for man in the conditions outlined in Genesis 6:1-7, given at the appropriate point in that period as God chose.
	It is in review of the developments of the Age that Noah is said to find grace in the sight of the Lord in an historical sense, In this milieu of outcomes, he reaches the half-millenium at Lamech's passing.
	In due time being directed to proceed to build the ark, at God's select point, Noah is well equipped with time, for the purpose. He uses it aptly.

It is possible either that the entry of NOAH PLUS THREE SONS as a tableau, for the 500 years-of-age time of focus, is a tied together apparition or en scène impact, so that the time for children is at this point, not relevant, the package being seen as one, Noah and co., and now envisaged as extant in an integrated group. Again, it could be that time for the children to come in natural order, is in view. Thus far is the initial scene. It does not bind. There are however two constraints, one giving liberty, the other restricting it.

Firstly, in actuality, there is no 'after' as such in the text, as you see in the AV and NASB and the Hebrew: the 'after' is just an interpretation put in. Prima facie, it COULD be rendered so, but only as a viewpoint for translation. Indeed, putting in the 'after' instead of 'and', which is written, would tend to diminish the starkness of the arrival of this chief actor under God, and his, as a task force thrust into view for a vast divine work. However, as Sarfati points out, (Creation, 2011, No. 4), Genesis 6:14-18 makes provision for his sons and their wives, while 11:10 shows Shem around 98 when the flood came. Hence tableau it indeed appears, with one son born around 502, so that there may have been at least one son when Noah was 500: not however the three. As noted, this number of sons at this point is not deducible from the text; so that the tableau is thus useful as it shows not as such, what happened after 500, but the aggregation in view with Noah, not all born at that time as noted.

The spread of the 100 years from Noah's noted entry into the picture before our eyes, to setting sail, the quick review of this world following his entry and the sharp divine decision being exhibited, with Noah then getting the RELEVANT grace to meet the situation, is not readily quantified as to post-family point of divine direction; for at the outset, we do not know the spacing of the births of the children. However, apparently Shem to be 98 at the flood, would require his birth some 22 years before the passing of Lamech and well into the danger zone of 120 years, a reasonable approximation for the warning on the one hand, to and by Noah (II Peter 2:5), and the completed building of the ark on the other hand.

That assumes ordinary and expected terms, where there is no prolepsis in the divine announcement re building and sons and their wives, with the Lord's intending to make the covenant with Noah (Genesis 6:18). If, however, God foreseeing the whole family, so spoke in terms of what was to be, both flood-wise and family-wise, as well as covenantally, then of course there could be rather more time for the building years. Yet since this is history in correlation with conduct, and plainly recorded in continuity from first to last, throughout the Testament, whatever precise number anyone chooses to have in mind, the actuality presented stretches beside the sense of a LIMIT for the total 120 years. When, during the described period of morally hideous developments on this earth, that was set, with the GRACE found soaring to an end, in the timely days when all could see what Noah doing, responding as they would, it was a vast warning! The scope for that general warning stays at 120 years, since then God said what was to be, whoever heard. Nor is the speech likely to have been directed to none!

Events arose in a little time, provisions, calls ... challenges! God said what He would do, when, and did it. The announcement of intention and the reference to Noah's crucial finding of grace in the Lord may be taken, in view of the cumulative and critical period reached, to be small!

Thus as now, the JUDGMENT was already settled, and stated (Genesis 6:3). All being relevant, the one to the other, grace and judgment, we find, as now, no small conviction as to the type of time for action. Then, it moved with time specified from the source time, 120 years, to the devastating flood. In due time, when the entry is required, there are seven days (Genesis 7:4). So the express train comes suddenly to its station. Warning, building and then ... entry. In the New Covenant time now, it moves, with signals specified (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5), to the devastation of devilries bringing on judgment with the Lord's return. SUDDEN destruction, after significant delay, is the role once more! (I Thess. 5:1ff.)

Think of it then, well over 100 years of warning information for what would become a scenic adventure, by all appearances, and in this time an ark is to be sited with intensive labour, where there is no record of water: a boat so large that to bring it to water could be a problem of engineering proportions, almost a jarring clash with common sense. As Genesis 6:17 mentions flood waters over the earth for collapsing the wantonry of flesh (cf. News 1, Diamonds of Divine Divulgement in the Bible Ch. 8), then to faith there is no problem about building on land so vast a structure. Floods overflow land, and devastating ones do not stop at little things. Much that is done now, built now, towards an enduring edifice, as in II Corinthians 4, is incomprehensible to those who though products of God, prefer not to know Him, or to keep so much of themselves for themselves, that there is no road for communication.

Without faith, then, it could seem one more ludicrous limitation of resources and opportunities on the part of the godly! Come continue in marriages and mixtures of spiritual breeds, take no heed of foolish warning, the thought might go, for we have already had a set-back as a race, so now let us hurry on with every evil thought, depravity, as they call it, to enjoy our luxuriating thoughts, and have a little comic opera in watching Noah build his maritime monstrosity.

The feeling is not unusual. Now, in our day, they say, Why build a kingdom of heaven, it is earth that matters, why wait on God, it is man who runs things, why speak of morals, the only morals that matter are our own quarrels and ways of fixing them up, resolving them so that we spend the more time in the more innovations, imagining anything and holding on to the rails as man moves into whatever it is that he is going to be good for.

It is not dissimilar about Europe. What was to be in its much discussed EU constitution ? Would some kind of Christianity rate a mention, as Rome desired, though this was rebuffed; would Greek and Roman history achieve a place in the resume for it, but no. They would have a COMMON DESTINY (like gamblers or followers of any other idol), whatever that would be. The fact that they were getting together would presumably mean that like bees, it would develop its own ways and procedures and ... honey.

The problem is that they are not governed, as are bees, by the most intricate, brilliant, schematically staggering and intellectually magnificent facade of directions inbuilt, programmatic and precise, directive and dynamic, and this correlative to outside conditions, involving a team work of such definitional design as to leave football and cricket playthings of the very idle by comparison. (Cf. Dig Deeper, Higher Soar... Ch. 2, History, Review and Overview Ch. 5, The Wit and Wisdom of the Word of God Ch. 2, *1A, Glory, Vainglory and Goodness Ch. 1). Proponents of self-made everything (plus a few throw-ins like mentality, matter and spirit, prestidigital or casual additions) writhe as the facts twist in their arms, like lethal serpents. While it is sad to see their confusion, yet it is just and with most abundant cause for it (cf. Wake Up World! Chs. 4 -6, with Lord of Longsuffering ... Ch. 2, *2, and Ch. 1 above).

Government of particles or people: it is no easy matter and requires different ingredients, whether for mind, matter or spirit (cf. Reflections ... Ch. 4, Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 13). As to people, in their tantrums and disregard of God, they are scarcely governable at all, as present woes in Europe make clear. If they want plan, it is useless to let chance bring it in, which merely means undirected forces, relative to your purpose, irrelevant to it, on which you rely, as they do what they ARE directed do to, expecting them for null reason to act to your advantage. That is like imagining that all the parts of a Boeing 737, left lying around, will before coming to ruin, assemble themselves, find correct co-ordination, wire themselves up, and fly... except that no parts are lying around!

Such enormities of folly make neither man nor unity in Europe, and are an abdication of intellect. They do not work, and even considerable planning from Brussels does not make it work. You have to consider what it actually TAKES, in DEFINING countries, and their co-ordinates and associations, and what they must be willing to accept as orders, before you can consider even rationally at all, what KIND of association would enable WHAT KIND of result; and even then, they may be numerous features, as now, not even thought of, that might ruin the venture, and make it merely what now threatens, a meddlesome adventure. You need more than the pleasantness of an outcome to induce it. Results do not magically call to causes and invent them. We deal with reason, not naturalism or the whimsical just-so stories of organic evolution, with its consultant, nothingness.

You need far more than the invention of what is not there in kind at all, like mind and spirit, to make the best examples at the physical level, ever seen on this earth. You also need the building blocks. You also need the very concept of blocks, and building, and what builds. You actually need everything that produces what you want; not its absence, called fro from the abyss in its apparently teeming brilliance. That may be deep, but equally devious.

Why build Europe then ? Why, to avoid more wars - power is too great, to make them ... safe; to enable more production - given friendliness and reliability, division of labour and resources can be cheaper as means of production; to achieve a dominant world position and so avoid unpleasantness or inflict it, according as the mood takes, and so on. HOW build it ? by taking thought and action and making efforts, not relying on less-than-moronic thought, as if in a blind nature, to produce some kind of workable system. It is not this that works results conformable to need and operability, but rather embracive understanding to grapple with mouldable means, economic, psychic, geographic, aspirational, philosophic, national, international, martial, commercial, and so subdue them to purpose that something not too far off might be MADE TO HAPPEN.

That of course is according to reason, currently out of fashion as the most irrational means are proposed for the most rationally investigable results in the world of nature, in a causation-denial so great that if the logic used had as little, it would be mere muttering. (Cf. Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny Section 8).

Noah was building then. Man is always building. He learns by experience, if not by thought, often being wilful in general disposition, and loving possessions without paying for them, by imagining strange things, and keeping a close cover on them, since to his divorced and deadened spirit (Ephesians 4:17-19), they do not seem to make any sense. Evict the Maker and live in the house! That's the way.

How does the story go ? Let's try to find legs for it. Thus it happens that as one (who wasn't actually there) was walking along a beach (which wasn't actually there), in one day, at a specific time (which actually wasn't there), he used or something used his mind (which actually wasn't there), to invent code and symbol, system and meaning (none of which were there, nor was the mind to do it) so that given matter (which wasn't actually there but had first to be invented and given its laws from an accord which wasn't actually there), he could makes things. No, since man wasn't there to do all this, let's have 'Nature' there (though it wasn't actually there to make itself before it WAS there). Well with what can we start rationally ? With nothing (which before anything at all, WOULD be there) ? No because with nothing at all, that IS and ever will be all. Something with a future is definitely not nothing.

Why not start with something then, since there is no other logical option. What kind of a something ? Something that is always there (to avoid the nothing problem). You mean eternal ? or do you want it to develop with laws that are not there and forces that are not there outside it, forging it and forming it into something existent ? But the forces and the laws and the forge are not there. Oh well, HAVE them there! Is that reasonable ? Where do they come from ? They were always there then. The force and the forge and the developmental power all there ? Of course. But what made and then assembled them into one system ? Oh system, comes the reply. So system made system, and the systems wove themselves into meshes and invented thought to enable them to have done so, so that the thought was there at the first in the usual way. So it was all there, machine tools, or their intellectual equivalent, law and planning, imagination and disposition; for making all this up and pushing it into operational existence is far harder a thing to do than any man ever did with profound intelligence, and inventing the things and the logic and the system of causation requires tremendous intellectual capacity.

It was then all there at the first.

So in the beginning God ... or you can have no system and no logic and no laws and nothing, and stick with that; and so no world. It so happens however that we are talking about the world. It is best to stick to the point, with the alternative a mixture of blather and blah, the irrational in short.

But man builds. He is limited, and not original, but he tends to build. He has the gift of creativity which is part of the creation, not surprisingly. He likes to omit our discussion and begging the question have the results of the sufficient cause of God, and then slay Him in his mind, and hope it happens outside it, as well. But you do not slay someone by having negative thoughts. You merely doctor the integrity of your mind. That in turn ruins all thought based on this.

Noah built. Was it one more of these idiotic, question-begging, less-than-moron 'nature' myths requiring work of the utmost intellectual and investigable brilliance to be performed by a nature that was not there, except by begging the question and saying of some prodigious entity: Oh yes, as you see, it is there and so made itself. But you say, Show me doing it ? Oh no, comes the reply, it is slow. Show me the means ? Oh no, comes the answer, they are hidden. Show me the failed efforts then. Oh no, comes the usual response, that is very deep. Why, one asks ? Ah, natural things, they do things, who knows ? What things ? do you mean the measurable and discernible and objectively viewable things, or non-things you imagine merely ? The latter, but you see, it has to be like that or God is in it, and THEN where will we be ?

Where indeed! but let's stick to the empirical and the rational. No, 'nature' as we see from your responses, is just a name for the things that are here, and naming it does not put them here, any more than any other marvel, like purchasing power in a system where it means something.

Nature is a word, but for its limits and laws, this inbuilt and circumscribed, you need what is to PUT them there, since it is not self-explanatory, as to cause, but merely operates as made. What it does is not seen to be or found to be or built on empirical evidence for being, what put it there. It is affirmation as if that were explanation.

Noah, however, did not act in this sub-moronic manner, hoping for things to do what had to be done, giving them time, as if this was all required, as if this sort of thing made works of ideational brilliance, systematic incandescence and of a magnificent symbol-command-execution triad; or even arks! He knew better than that, and that even if he did a half-hearted binge, putting cut lengths of timber there, there is nothing in that system to build. They rot.

But to build ? to build a thing that would endure the storms ? Noah did better than dream or even use inadequate knowledge. Noah had instruction from the One who made Noah. It is good to have team-work and great to rely on the source of logic in the world and in our minds, so that the latter can investigate the laws and ways of the former, both being of one LOGOS (cf. John 1:1-14), and each instituted in this domain, and in correlation, the mental and the physical, to be and to be investigable.

But what did the people round about Noah think of this maritime marvel of his, evidently being built free of water, desolate of destiny, void of meaning ?

We do not know, but if it was anything like the approach to building the Kingdom of Heaven, in the power and at the design of God, to be brought into full effect in its time (the return of Jesus Christ), it would have involved mockery, comedy, and perhaps taunting or means of dissuasion. It appears that for a good century Noah kept at it. We do not know that he was a king, or his resources, but it was no small hobby! Yet God was with him.

Do it ever occur to them that God MIGHT have a few words to say about their evil imaginings and lustful longings and self-serving sequences, as described in Genesis 6 ? No, why worry ? If He has not spoken yet, perhaps He never will. Forget it! Man is not always gifted with patience, but God is. It is unwise to imagine delays as congratulations from Him! dangerous and delusive.

As in Matthew 24:36-38, while Noah worked, many married and built, as at the best of times, uninterested to be involved or engaged in the process. Noah looked the ideal fool, religious maniac, idle dreamer, involved in reckless fantasy, consuming his wealth; but then, potent comedy became grave reality, in more senses than one; and the madman became a prophet unheeded. The inviting door of the ark was sealed, and there was neither grace nor place for what was left. But what if others HAD SOUGHT the Lord in that long period! What, for that matter, if many HAD SOUGHT the Lord in this OUR long period of some 2000 years! There is a pathos behind the comedy of idle naturalistic thoughts, making nothing mother logically, or just bringing all in causelessly while using causal considerations in their own reasoning and so making an antinomy of massive proportions.

There is pity vested in the moraine of man, born by his cold heart to its crumbling end. Foolish he has become in rapt crowds (as in Romans 1:17ff.), desecrating obvious reality; but pitiable he does not cease to be. Yet there is an end (cf. Isaiah 57:15ff.).

Indeed, to this day, Christ's door lies open, and judgment, though getting closer, has not yet made its name co-extensive with the earth - even if in the last 100 years large tracts of this earth, at various times, in Europe and Eastern Europe, in Russia or USSR, in China, at times in India, in North Africa have been in conditions so appalling that one might have thought that even the devil would be exercised to think it all up. Yet provoking the spirit of man, he has helped make of him such a victim of irrational paranoia, incompetent dreams, inaccurate postulations, that tyranny simply has replaced truth, and devilry has ousted mere bestiality, as a more advanced form. The prepared ark was a thoughtful provision; faith accepted it and ACTED and SO built.

The prepared salvation in Christ took even MORE than time and labour; it took acceptance of guilt to crush its consequence, so that death for sin could vicariously open the door to victory OVER a breached death, and so to eternal life. This, and not desolatory, mind-numbed isolation of parts and bits, as if unbuilding an aeroplane, is to the point. Aeroplanes are built to fly. Pre-occupation with the parts and ignoring of the necessary source (since they do not REALLY make themselves, they are just parts), this is non-flying. Wasteful it is.

Man is built for eternal life, and when betrayed, the results are not for the squeamish. They are as we see, so horrendous as to make the mind marvel, even when it is instructed in truth! We could trace the parallel further.

Consider aspects and the overall thrust then, in this deluge.

EPISODES

The Place

This world. It is a world sunk in sin, every imagination of the heart from youth up, evil; it is obsessive, infected, infamous, drunken in folly, studiously breaking down divisions between the godly and the ungodly, till it is all swallowed up in a reek of infamy.

The Mace

Into this unbeguiling scene, comes judgment. Majesty rules. Freedom is wonderful, truth however will out. Judgment impends, to be by inundation (Genesis 6:6, 11, 12, 17).

The Grace^*1

We find one man, a soul settled in the Lord (Genesis 6:8). He is one who alone, with family, finds place in the Lord. Like Elijah, he had a message not received, while hundreds blew their topical horns, making melodies of their maladies, and great sound out of nothing.

The Time

A good century seems indicated.

The Task

Preacher of righteousness with divinely assigned practical works, in essence able to avert judgment, not by its annihilation, but by escaping the swamping of sin with sentence which it carries (cf. I Peter 3:18ff., Genesis 6:13-14).

The Environment

Persistent Pollution, Pride and Vainglory, Impure Purposes (Genesis 6:1-2,4-5).

The Energy

This was positive and negative (Genesis 6:22,4-5,13). As to building the means of escape, Noah did just as commanded, this being both a symbolic index to the divine mercy and a practical procedure to apply it. So Christ was sent via a virgin both to present in practice, God as man, and to enable thereby, His sufferings as man to take over the guilt-glut and its results from as many as received Him: equivalent to entering the ark.

Negatively, there was a lot of abundant procreation, energies turned to greatness that grated, and a spiritual insolvency that God hated. There was corruption which, whether in apple or man, is odious and disturbing. Man turned his way to this byway, and shared his lot with devilish devices, ignorant of God, wise to do evil.

The Rearguard

The Ark Door was open before closed after some 100 years of preaching. Not least, preaching is news. It is from the Factory, indeed from heaven, and specifies recall of man to Maker to make systematic correction of faults, not in design, but in man's designs upon his design, to use and confuse it with unintelligence, unwisdom, irrationality, larrikinish pomp and self-will and a deadly interest in all that portended mortality. It requires regeneration in HEART, RENEWING in spirit, things only God can do. What does not repent, refuses recall, is by that very fact, ignoring the rearguard provided for escape from the dissolution of body and judgment of life (Genesis 6:7, 7:1). Who can tell what would have happened if those who had sought the Lord had been many; but it was not so!

The Result

The Ark door closed: the Ark, the case after so long a time of preaching, now closed, the means of escape intact, its mariners alive, its environment changed to the special effects of the maritime, for which in due time (cf. Galatians 4:4, Daniel 9:24-27), it had been specially prepared (Genesis 6:16-17). The Lord moreover, shut him in (cf. Ephesians 1:13-14, where we are told, all who are Christians, that having believed the Gospel of salvation, "You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." He is "the guarantee of our inheritance." When the flood-waters of judgment on sin, intertwined with its course, are finished, then the inheritance is a new heaven and a new earth, indeed heaven itself in the presence of God, to know Him as we are known. How large is THIS ark (I Peter 3:18ff.) ? It is as large as the load requires, being prepared before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), being Christ Himself, not made of planks, but nailed to a tree (I Peter 2).

It is as in Genesis 7:16, Ephesians 1:13, Jojhn 10:3,8-9, Acts 4:11-12. There was no other Ark; there is no other Saviour, there is no other Christ, there is no other God who calls, there is no other relevant grace in which to reside, nor is there any other building to be built, but that already built, nor any other foundation to be founded, but what will be confounded; for there is nothing other than Christ Jesus the Lord (I Corinthians 3:10-14).

The Reference

Genesis 6-9, I Peter 3, II Peter 2:5.

The Inference

Cleansed consciences and washed hearts need no further dipping or spray (I Peter 3:21^*2), Romans 10:9. Once you are in the Ark, then the seal in on the door, wrought by the Spirit of God, and you are secured for your journey to rest (Noah means 'rest'), in a salvation crafted by God, instituted in Christ, executed on the Cross, validated in the resurrection of the body, just as the ark did not sink, but came to rest upon the mountains of a world delivered. Water baptism (as in Ezekiel 36:25ff.) is a symbolic act. The 'baptism' which counts is, as Peter declares in I Peter 3:18ff., the testimony of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (cf. Romans 10:9).

NOTES

One man finds grace in the sight of the Lord (6:8). There is the division, the great divide: there is one man, and his family with him; and there is the rest. ONE MAN is informed, advised, taken, and receives grace; the rest do NOT. On one cliff is one with family; on the other are the rest. One is on the side of right; the rest on the side of wrong. One is awakened; the rest sleep. One is ordained to life; the rest drift to dereliction, but that, it comes after long opportunities, remorselessly not only turned down, but over-ruled with a force both unreasonable, treasonable to the Maker of mind, matter and spirit, and their intensive correlations, and unseasonable. The season of JUDGMENT arrives. Winter has come and they dress for Spring.

What then of the rest ? What of divine grace ? It is not a short-circuit of God's mercy that sendS people to hell, but short shrift to Christ Himself, the door of mercy (John 3:15-19, 36), SENT AT COST THAT THE WORLD MIGHT BE SAVED! AND NOT JUDGED. Opportunity is not lost; whether the mercy is to be focussed sooner or later. It is still there (Acts 17:30-31); it is grounded, it is offered. Ransom was then still to come, though sacrificial pictures of it abounded; but repentance was still required.

The 100 or so preaching crusade held no empty words: one could see Noah's faith by what he did. You see God's love to mankind - Titus 2:11, 3:4, John 3:17 - by what He did, and said - Colossians 1:19FF. Just as SIN ABOUNDED, SO GRACE MUCH more ABOUNDED - Romans 5:20.

Did Noah stop telling others because his own place was secure ? Far from it: indeed in II Peter 2:5, we learn that he was a "preacher of righteousness." He did not ONLY do; he preached. Many might mill and marvel at his nautical preparations, not mincing their words at his maritime expectations; but Noah preached righteousness, the absence of which, in repentance found, in mercy provided, led to destruction. Did they make up other gods, confuse tissue with truth, enact oddities and make myths as now ? Rank and rife with folly, they lived their own lives, found their own desires, rented out their hearts to evil, and inherited the bill in the will of God, that such miscreancy does not deserve continuation in creation, but must await devastation just as it has wilfully and abominably misused the gifts inherent in being created, including the CAPACITY TO LISTEN!

Christ

1) was put to death in the flesh, just for the unjust.

2) was made alive in the Spirit.

3) through the Spirit, went and preached a greater rest than that in Noah, to the spirits of a former time now deemed 'spirits in prison', not a biblical figure for those still living in the flesh but for departed beings (Jude 6).

4) being the Eternal Ark for all who are lost, is One condemning finally ONLY on the basis of John 15:21ff.. God is PLEASED to save, energetically so (Matthew 22:1-14). It is not a select elect, mysteriously made of the spiritual aristocracy, but a divine desire for ALL whether in heaven or on earth, BY HIS OWN STATEMENT (Colossians 1:19ff., cf. I Timothy 2), who knows Himself better than do theologians. His is seen to be a chaste love which forces none, but would rather weep for the devastation to come AFTER exposing the truth direct and dynamically, and NOT being received, than procure by mere power, however mysterious in operation.

If He is refused (cf. Luke 9, John 15:21ff.), despite this desperado refusal to receive Him, even when He was present, filled with desire, then in love He still weeps for the judgment according to truth which follows this proud rejection (Luke 19:42ff.).

Here is love. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, swearing it so by Himself (Ezekiel 33:11); but He insists on what before His eternal wisdom is a turning, even going back to when man was chosen or not, before time was, predestination (Romans 8:29ff.) itself being the confirmation of the true findings of foreknowledge in divine love which condemns on one principle only: light has come and darkness is preferred. It lies explicitly in man even when the most powerful being in the universe desires it otherwise. He is not thereby baulked; for His loving restraint is not overcome by His loving constraint, but stops with the eternal perception: I WOULD, YOU WOULD NOT (as in Matthew 23:37).

He really would like everyone to get into this ark of salvation; destruction is a last resort. Blaming God is nonsense; it is invention. It is contradiction of His word. It is a speech against His self-defined love. It is man only in the face of a passion so vast in a breadth so total that it is even seen in the light of the blood of the cross (Ephesians 1:19ff.). It is not apt to blame one of this stated purpose and express action to the uttermost; it is apt to repent that in you it was necessary, and to receive in Him the remedy which love which stops at no good thing, has provided.

You might have to be taken in as a spiritual cripple with a fallen will (Ephesians 4:17-19, John 1:12), but the Lord knows the will of man before man does, and beyond, and states PRINCIPLES of the program are as divinely stated and there is no technical impediment for God! (cf. John 15:22ff., 3:19, Ezekiel 33:11, Jeremiah 48), who being as He is, does according to what He says.

If then you see this other Ark, enter it at once. You are most welcome; but wipe your heart on the heart-cleaning breast-mat as you come. No disease is permitted to come in.

As to Christ's descending into hell, as in the Apostle's Creed, the following applies.

From What is the Wheat to the Chaff! Ch. 6, we have the following on this divine thrust of love, this penetration that nothing stills, as far as it will go.

First let us note I Peter 3:18ff. suggests what the Apostles’ Creed declares, Christ ‘descended into hell’ so completing a vast universe tour of triumph in which He ‘preached’ to the spirits in prison there. This is a phrase not used in the Bible of people still living on earth, but closely resembled one used of those awaiting judgment in Jude 6, and the entire conceptual presentation in Jude concerning this; and hence it is not only comportable scripturally with such an understanding, but matches no other scriptural concept in its form and content.

Again, in I Peter 3:18ff., where you find Christ preaching to the spirits in prison, you have a thrilling sequence. It is this.

First, Christ is seen suffering, then the reason for it is given, then the form of it is shown, put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit, and next after this vitalisation by the Spirit comes further reference to the Spirit in whom Christ went to the spirits in prison, those from Noah's day of mass judgment, and the information that He preached to them. Hence the focus is, and remains, Christ the Saviour, and the movement is into the earth, providing action, achieving salvation, then declaring it, moving even into hell, covering all.

Here is cohesion, sequence and focus on Christ's movements, raised by the Spirit, moving by this Spirit while His body lay dead, to preach to the last vast agenda of world judgment. The love is universal, the scope is universal, the tour is universal (befitting Colossians 1:19ff.), the meaning is universal in OFFER; and although it is most limited in the limited ATTAINMENT, according to the foreknowledge of God, for it is a narrow way and by no means do all receive Him, yet this is not to be read backwards as if the self-control of love were to be equated with its demise or delimitation.

Scripture continually gives just such a breach of all that could or might seek to hold in that sacrificial splendour and conscientious zeal of the Lord, of whom it is written, 'The zeal of your house has eaten me up!" (John 2:17).

These things were hard because His love was unwavering, and nothing was just dumped, nowhere was just ignored.

Such then is the thrust and language, concept and sequence in the Scripture. But to avoid this, it is a strange adventure!

It is to refer by an alien phrase

(people may be seen as prisoners of sin, but the phrase SPIRITS IN PRISON of people on earth is more Platonic then Biblical; and this is not Plato but God speaking),

	to a breach of sequence,
	and then to aggravate the situation, by dispensing with the liaison and development of raised by the Spirit and going by the Spirit, this in order to satisfy some desire to depict a sudden breach in the focus, with a reference to Noah's day becoming thereby an oddity more than an odyssey. Let us pursue this error in interpretation of I Peter 3.

To think about some earlier time when the Spirit is conceived of as speaking to people who, though alive on earth, are 'spirits in prison' seems to abandon an odyssey of meaning and sequence, closely composed, for an episode of breach, like drinking coffee while you type; and appears as forced in sequence and relevance, as alien in verbal construction to the Bible.

Instead however of such time-displacement, like a lecturer having a sudden aberration, or someone reminiscing instead of proclaiming an intense and coherent doctrine: when the issue is taken in order of depiction, as written, then there is time concatenation, the sequence moving from first to last, from achievement to consequence, from action to application, from attainment to its delivery, from the love that sent to the love that gives vent and acts.

So does theme determine the matter in wedlock with phrasing, and that with the biblical depiction of man, not as a spirit in prison, when alien on earth from God, but as a spirit in sin, and a prisoner self-condemned.