Question: 
Even if the “all” statements of Scripture are defined by a covenant context of the account, the local flood view still has an impossible problem regarding Christology. If the flood didn’t destroy all other humans besides Noah and his family, then doesn’t the flood teach heresy: salvation can come to man apart from Christ? Scripture does not stand if the flood was not global.
 
Answer: 
 

This objection has two fundamental problems. The first problem is it begs the question. The flood is God’s judgment. To argue that salvation would come to those outside the ark simply assumes the flood covered the entire globe. This would be a valid objection to anyone who claimed the flood was global and there were survivors. Those who argue for a local flood related to a covenant context do not destroy the type of Christ because it applies contextually. All those in this covenant context except Noah and his family were destroyed. Put another way, the flood is a true picture of Christ without being a globally comprehensive picture of Christ.

Consider the passover. Only those who had the blood of the lamb on the doorpost were “passed over” by the angel of death. Does this mean the firstborn, both man and beast, was slain in every household on planet Earth which did not have blood on the doorpost? No, the passover picture of Christ is true, even though it is limited to the Egyptian context. The same principle applies to the flood event.

The second problem with this objection is much more serious. The argument rests on the premise that a type must be physically perfect in a scientifically precise and comprehensive way in order to be true. What would this requirement mean for all the other pictures and types of Christ?

Consider another picture of Christ in Genesis. Abraham offered his son, Isaac, as sacrifice to God on Mount Moriah. This event pictured God the Father’s offering of his Son as a sacrifice for sin – the Lamb of God. Yet Isaac didn’t die in a physical, scientifically precise way. Does this lead to the heretical notion Jesus didn’t really die on the cross? Do types have to be comprehensive in a scientifically precise way in order to be true?

David’s life is also a type of Christ. We read about the sin David committed (2 Sam. 11). Using the assumption of the argument in question, that types must be scientifically precise and complete in order to be true, we would arrive at the heretical view that Jesus was a sinner, also.

Added to these examples is the problem of types and pictures in regard to Jesus Christ himself. Does the fact Jesus was circumcised or that he was baptized teach he was in need of the removal of sin? Or does his observance of Passover teach he needed a blood-guilt offering before God? Types and pictures of Christ are not required to be scientifically precise in order to be true.

Many present arguments similar to this objection as a scare tactic to ward off open inquiry into the scope of the flood. It is easy to scare someone looking into a local flood by saying any local reading of the flood ruins biblical Christology. But the demand of this objection is a precision of biblical types that is plainly absurd.

The nature of communication in the Bible follows a general metaphorical rather than a scientific precisionist method. Metaphors are not based on precision. They function by analogy. Pictures of Christ in the Bible are not syllogisms from which to formulate the doctrine of Christ. Pictures and types are true without being comprehensive in every detail. According to the logic of this rationalistic objection against a local flood, every type or picture of Christ would teach heresy. After all, Noah and his sons built the ark with their own hands; it did not come down out of heaven.

 

Beyond Creation Science
P.O. Box 729
Whitehall, MT 59759 406-287-2146
Email Us