1. Exploring the Bowels of the Flood

This week we are specially privileged with a first-hand close-up eye witness account of the Global Flood of Noah's day, written by OT and Genesis scholar Dr John Whitcomb. Please read with prayer and godly understanding.

2. Dr & Mrs Whitcomb investigate Grand Canyon's wonderland

September 1, 2006, was a special day for Norma and me. For the first time, we descended by helicopter into the depths of the Grand Canyon, and beheld from below the "basement rocks" of the pre-Flood earth and the layers of Flood-deposited rocks above them. This was just a three-day glimpse of a tiny part of hundreds of thousands of square miles of sedimentary layers, some of them hundreds of feet thick, containing millions of fossilized plants and animals, all carved out by the retreating Flood waters. But, could there ever have been a flood that gigantic on Planet Earth? Could the highest mountains in the world have been covered by at least fifteen cubits of water (= 22 feet) as Genesis 7:20 informs us? Was there ever that much water here?

When God created the earth, it was covered with a shoreless ocean of liquid water, estimated to be about 330,000,000 cubic miles! Then, on the second day of creation week, perhaps as much as ha lfof this ocean was lifted up above the atmosphere (Gen. 1:6-8). God vaporized this water, thus forming a vast, invisible canopy of H20 molecules (not raindrops or clouds) around our entire planet. This global terrarium provided a warm and rainless climate for the first 1,656 years of earth history. However, enormous masses of water still remained on the earth's surface ("the great deep" - Gen. 7:11). Then, during the first six weeks of the Flood year, and even 110 days beyond that (Gen. 7:12,24), God condensed almost all of the great vapor canopy into liquid water again, which then fell back to the earth. For the first time in history it rained! Thus, Noah was "warned of things not seen as yet" and began to build the Ark (Hebrews 11:7). But, again, how could "all the high mountains under the whole heaven" be covered with water? At this point, it is important to understand that pre-Flood mountains were much lower in elevation than post-Flood mountains such as the Rockies, the Andes, the Alps and the Himalayas.

3. "Is any thing too hard for the Lord?"

If the surface of the earth were smooth and flat, the ocean would be about 10,000 feet deep - but not 29,000 feet to cover Mt. Everest! That is why Psalm 104:6-9 is so illuminating. There we are told that during the Flood "the waters stood above the mountains" (referring, of course, to pre-Flood mountains). Then, they "fled" and "hastened away" (vs 7). But where did they go? The highly significant answer comes at the end of verse 8 - "to the place which Thou didst establish for them . . . That they may not return to cover the earth" (= the Rainbow Covenant of Genesis 9). This was accomplished when "the mountains rose" to their present heights, and "the valleys [or basins] sank down" to their present depths. (For full discussion, see J. C. Whitcomb, The World That Perished [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2005], pp. 37-43). Psalm 104 is God's explanation for what happened in Genesis 8:5 - "And the water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month . . . the tops of the mountains became visible." In the final months of the Flood year, the ocean basins sank down as the continents (packed with trillions of fossilized plants and animals) and their mountains rose from beneath the waters that had "prevailed upon the earth" for 150 days (Gen. 7:24). Thus, by the end of the 371 days of the global Deluge, God had depressed the ocean basins to greater depths than ever before, because they now had to serve as reservoirs for both pre-Flood oceans - not only "the waters below the expanse" but also the waters that had been "above the expanse" (Gen. 1:7). This provided a topographical "balance" for five great continents to emerge with their very high, fossil-filled, and snow-covered mountains.

4. First Judgment by water; final by fire

One ocean basin today in the west Pacific is over 36,000 feet deep, and one mountain in the Himalayas is over 29,000 feet high! Now, with God's infallible Word as our guide, and regenerated hearts as our spiritual qualification to "see" the light of His written revelation in the Bible (Psalm 36:9 and 1 John 2:20,27), we can discover something of the profound differences between the geography, the topography, and the weather of "the world that then was" and "the heavens and the earth that are now" (2 Peter 3:6-7). But the fundamental issue, of course, is the reality of such a world-wide catastrophe of water at the dawn of human history. It will never happen again (Gen. 8:21; Psa. 104:9; Isa. 54:9). It was an absolutely unique and miraculous intervention by God - His holy reaction to human and demonic rebellion (Gen. 6:5; Psa. 29:10; 1 Pet. 3:19-20).

Of course, the "scoffers" of our day deny even the possibility of global and supernatural catastrophes, insisting that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation" (2 Pet. 3:3-4). But God's evaluation of their uniformitarian world-view is staggering and unanswerable: "This they willingly are ignorant of, that . . . The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (Vss. 5-6). In conclusion, our Lord Jesus Christ confirmed to us that "in the days of Noah . . . before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away" (Matt. 24:37-39).

Now consider carefully: our Lord said that a man named "Noah" survived "the flood" by entering "the ark" when "the flood came and took them all away." Could this possibly mean that a mere regional flood, which did not need any kind of an ark for Noah to survive, took away only some people? Was the Son of God a dependable source of information about the magnitude and significance of the Flood? Could He ever deceive people or be deceived concerning the history of the world? Was He really serious, and did He really expect us to believe Him when He said: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away" (Luke 21:33)? He said to the Jews: "If you do not believe [Moses'] writings [including Genesis], how will you believe My words?" (John 5:47). Friend, the next time you fly over, or stand at the edge of, or descend into the depths of, the Grand Canyon, please take God's infallible, inspired, inerrant Word with you as your infinitely dependable Guidebook to explain what you see there. Not billions of years of uniformitarian evolutionism - but supernatural catastrophism is what you will behold through the lens of holy Scripture. This is the only Book God has ever written! "Open thou my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law" (Psa. 119:18).

Adopted from Calvary Weekly,
22nd October 2006