Saved Through Water

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you turn in your Bibles with me, please, to 1 Peter 3. We'll continue this mini-series on verses 18-22. 1 Peter 3, beginning at verse 18. If you're using the New King James Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 1078. 1 Peter 3, beginning at verse 18. Brothers and sisters, this is God's Word.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit. by whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water.

Prayer for Illumination

There is also an antitype which now saves us, baptism. Not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God. through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him. Thus ends this portion of the reading of God's word. The grass withers, flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray.

Sermon

Lord, we thank you. We thank you for your word and we thank you for the propositional truths contained in it. Lord, we thank you that it is inspired by you. Not just inspired as it inspires our spirit, but Lord, the words on the page truly are your words.

And so Father, we pray that as we come to the preaching of your word, we pray that you would please help us. Lord, I pray that you would please help me. This is a difficult series of passages. We pray that your spirit would guide us, that our consciences and our minds and our hearts would be anchored in your word. Lord, we pray that you would give us a path forward of clarity and not of confusion. Lord, we pray that you would encourage our hearts rather than leave us with scratching our heads. Please, Lord, teach us, we pray in Jesus's name, amen.

We come to specifically in this passage this morning to verses 20 through 21, and I'm just going to tell you there's a lot of fish to fry, not a lot of time to do it, so we're going to be jumping straight into things with the question of, how was Noah saved through water? How was Noah saved through water?

And how in the world does that tie together, as verse 21 says, with baptism? How do these two things go together? So there's a debate that swirls around these two verses here. Who formerly were disobedient when once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight souls.

Now notice, Noah and these eight souls were saved through water. How were they saved through water? I mean, normally when we think about Noah's flood, we think about the people who went through the water or were in the water were the people who died. So how is Noah and his, these eight souls, how are Noah, part of these eight souls, right? And Noah, his three sons and their wives, how are they saved through water?

And secondly, with this is, when we think about verse 20, they were saved through water. Well, what was the water then? What was the purpose of the water? And thirdly in all of this, as the debate swirls around different people who write in this, is how in the world does this tie together in verse 21 with baptism? What in the world's going on here? If baptism is the anti-type, what's the type?

We're going to have to explore these different questions. And as we go through, like we did last time, again, I want to encourage you, as we're going through these series of sermons, I'm going to follow the same six steps, the key verse, the main question, the debate surrounding this. And I'm going to give you a bunch of problematic answers. And some of them, I'm not going to explain why they're problematic. You're smart people. You'll be able to see for yourself.

Final Point

Finally, I'm going to go to the last two.

What do I think is the most biblical way to understand this, the most theologically sound way to understand this, and how does it apply lastly to our lives? So what are some of the problematic answers that people give to some of these questions about how is Noah saved through the water and how does that tie with baptism? Well, there's one group of people, I'm going to say they're the type of people who like symbols and myth. There are people who will say, in this first category of problematic answers, well, you know, the Noah story and the flood is just so big, and it just seems over the top, and we can't really trust it as history. It's just meant as myth, as symbols, and it didn't actually happen. Well, if the type isn't real, the anti-type falls apart.

Peter certainly seems to understand that Noah really did die, or Noah really did live and that the unrighteous died. Peter seemed to understand that. Moses, when he wrote through the book, seemed to understand this. I mean, did you notice in chapter seven, it gave the exact date that the flood started in Noah's life?

Not just like here's a general range in which no one could remember, here's the date when the rain started to fall. It's written as very much history. It's not a fictional story, it's a very real and sad story, but also possibly hopeful. There's another troubled answer that some people will come to.

I'm just gonna let you know, almost every cult I looked into or every type of religion that branches off or touches somehow with the Bible, it seems like almost everybody's got some type of thing with Noah and his family. I didn't realize this until I started reading and I thought, man, this is crazy, but one of them is a cult that arose in the 1960s and 70s. This is a Glorian cult. They're kind of this Gnostic, Kabbalistic type cult.

And they want to see everything as symbols, right? The water represents turbulent, emotional, and instinctual currents going on in your life, right? And so what do you need to do? Well, you need to get in the ark, and you need to learn physical, body, and sexual disciplines, right? And so that's what this is talking about. And Noah shows us in their interpretation of this, Noah shows the way of inner purification and ultimate salvation. We need to go through a spiritual cleansing that's about physical discipline. I don't know where you found that in Genesis 6 through 9, but that's an interesting and crazy interpretation. I'm going to say there's all sorts of problems there, and their support for it goes not very well either.

One of the things that these cults will often do is they'll say, here's this, and we'll talk about this in the next interpretation, well, here's this word, and it sounds very similar to this word, and because this word sounds similar to this word, and by the way, the other word isn't anywhere near Genesis chapter 6, we're talking about like, you know, This guy refers straight to 1 Chronicles chapter something or another.

It's like, whoa, it's not even the same context. It's not the same meaning. It's got nothing to do with each other. It's not even the same words, and you're just making these weird parallels. If somebody tries to say, hey, here's this linguistic thing, and just trust me, it's true. Go research it yourself. And what he's saying just isn't true. But he wants to see it all assembled. There's a Kabbalistic, a spiritual wisdom.

There's this way of interpretation within that comes out of a Jewish understanding of a certain sect of Judaism. But it's like the word is written not in historical fact, but it's in code. And so you need to be able to decode the scriptures. You need to look at these branches of wisdom and you need to be able to figure out what was the divine wisdom God himself giving as wisdom through these mythical wisdom stories. And they want to reach out and say that there's things where the flood just becomes the sin of Onan and it's about waste and imbalance and purification and trying to get harmony back on earth. causes more problems, and it is helpful.

There's a group that calls themselves Gnostics, right? Gnostic is this idea of gnosis. The Greek word for knowing is gno, gne, gneo, and so it's I know something. It's some type of secret wisdom. And so there's these esoteric groups that will say things like the floodwaters are, if you understand it according to wisdom, is psychological degeneration and suffering. The floodwaters aren't actually floodwaters. The floodwaters are meant to show that we're going through really difficult and hard things. And the ark is this hermetically sealed vessel.

And it corresponds to wisdom. Wisdom that withstands the flood and continues to guide humanity. You see, it just takes the things of the flood story and just says, No, no, you need to understand that there's just a wisdom way to interpret this. You can assign this to a different way. And you can kind of stuff in all your own meaning into the different things.

This is one of my favorite parts of reading about this that I just kind of struggle about. They said, well, the Ark had three different levels. And so in the three different levels of the Ark are representing three different intellectual and wisdom achievements of men. So, you know, you kind of have the lower intellectual level, and then you have the middle intellectual level of your feelings, and then the top intellectual level of the spirit. Where'd you find that in Genesis 6, Genesis 7, Genesis 8, Genesis 9, or 1st Peter chapter 3? You don't find it in the text, right? This is somebody taking a picture and shoving all the stuff they can into this bag.

No. No, but it was interesting, too, as I went back to what my Mormon friends would teach about this. As they write in their different prophecies, one of their authors said, thanks to latter-day revelation, we know that the gospel has been the same from the beginning. Meaning, we know because of what the prophets told us in the 1800s and 1900s, that the gospel's always been the same.

When they say that Noah was a preacher of righteousness, they have a whole idea of this. Now, I want to read to you from part of their writings. They have this book of Moses. And maybe you've picked up on 2 Peter 2 or Jude 6, where Noah is this preacher of righteousness. And you wonder, what did he preach? Well, here's what the Mormons would say he preached.

And this is in quotes. This is literally what they say came out of Noah's mouth. Believe and repent of your sins and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, even as our fathers, and receive the Holy Ghost, that ye may have all things made manifest. And if ye do not do these things, the floods will come upon you." Man, that's amazing, isn't it?

Out of Noah's mouth comes, believe in Jesus Christ? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before The word Christ was even invented? Noah would never have said the word Christ because Christos is a Greek word and the Greeks weren't even around during Noah's day. Nonetheless, Moses' day.

Who wrote this story? No, hold on. There's even linguistic problems here. But they would say Noah, according to the Doctrines and Covenants, Noah is a patriarch and he's a priest. Actually, he's more than just a priest. He is Gabriel. one of the archangels himself. Man, that is interesting stuff, yeah? That's like the stuff that you would find in all sorts of religious fiction books. But it's just not true.

Now, how do we understand this within the context of Scripture itself, without pulling in all these theological problems? Well, Noah was saved through the water. The big issue that, or the big question we have is when it says these eight souls were saved through water, through is a preposition, the Greek preposition dia in Greek, and it can have a few different meanings, right? How is this being understood, right? It could be understood by, it could be understood through, as an instrument. How is this happening? Well, when Noah is saved through water, We can read that as Noah is being saved by the means of the water. How is Noah saved by means of the water, though? I thought the water was killing people. How is it saving Noah?

Well, here's the thing, and this is one of those difficult areas. The same waters that filled the lungs and drowned the unrighteous also lifted the ark. that preserved Noah and his family's life. The same water that killed the wicked, destroyed all those who would not believe, is the same water that saved Noah and his family from that wicked generation.

The challenge is baptism It's just difficult, right? Those who really, really got wet. How we think of, okay, this corresponds to baptism. Baptism is those people who get wet. Well, who's the people who got wet in Noah's story? It was the wicked. So how does this work out? Well, baptism corresponds to this because both the flood and baptism show us two things.

Both judgment and salvation at the same time. condemnation and mercy simultaneously. Luther at one time wrote a prayer out while he was going to baptize a person. He said something that struck with me and I thought was very helpful. Luther, as he was praying before this baptism, said, Lord, you, the righteous judge, condemned the unbelieving world through the flood and also preserved believing Noah and his family. You drowned the hard-hearted Pharaoh with all his army in the Red Sea, and did lead your people, Israel, through the same dry ground." I never thought of it that way before.

In my mind, baptism is always this picture of washing and cleansing and salvation, but it's also this picture of judgment. Luther went on to pray, all that has been born in him of Adam and which he has added to may be drowned in him and engulfed preserved dry and secure in the holy ark of Christendom. Because in baptism, you see, it's not just that we're cleansed from our sins, it's not just this picture of us being raised up in His life, but it's also this picture of us truly being put to death in His death. And so when Luther is praying for this person who's about to get baptized, he's praying that just as the floodwaters killed those who were unrighteous in Adam, so also do it in this person who's being baptized.

So how was Noah saved through the waters? Well, there was a judgment of the wicked world. And yet, there was also a simultaneous household salvation. Hebrews 11 verse 7 says, By faith Noah, believing, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness, which is according to faith." Did you see it? Salvation and condemnation in the same verse, referring to what Noah did. He was moved with godly fear, and he prepared an ark for the saving of his household, which he condemned the world."

Do you see they're right there next to each other? He and his household, by faith, enter the ark and are saved. But yet their building of the ark is also that exact same way, that same testimony against the unbelieving world that their death was impending and that God was going to kill them even by that same water. And so the flood is simultaneously of judgment and of mercy. So how does Noah's salvation through the water serve as a type or an anti-type of baptism?

Well, this is not a common word that we use in our English language. There is also an anti-type. What does that mean? Anti-type. What's a type? That's a difficult word. Typology is the idea that one thing corresponds to another thing. There's one thing that comes previously, and there's another thing that comes later. There are two things that run parallel with one another.

This is often the way we speak of things like King David. King David, at his best, was a type of Christ. That doesn't mean he was the same as Jesus. It means he was a shadow. He was a foreshadowing. He was something coming beforehand, pointing us to someone greater later. We can say the same thing of Solomon.

We can say many things about the Old Testament, and the tabernacle, and the temple, and all their worship, and as they served as types for what's going on in heaven. This is what the book of Hebrews is all about, is showing what were the different antitypes in the Old Testament, and how do they point towards what's really going on in heaven. And so how do these two things correspond, the floodwaters and baptism?

I've got a little chart there for you, and so I'm gonna go through this. First is there's a judgment of sin. That's what the floodwaters were doing. There's a judgment of sin. So how does that correspond to or parallel or foreshadow baptism? Our sins really are judged.

Romans chapter six, three through four. If you've got your Bible, we're only going to flip to a few places here, but I think this is important. Romans chapter six tells us one of the things that's going on here. When we think about baptism, this is what the Lord says. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Verse three.

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Do you see, in our baptism, just as we know that those who were wicked in the days of Noah were to suffer death, if we're honest, we are those who should have been suffering outside the ark. But Christ suffered for us. And so in his death, we also died.

Colossians chapter two, verse 12, picks us up also, Colossians chapter two. I'll start at verse 11. In him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. Did you notice that? Buried with him in baptism. Why did Christ die? He died for the unrighteous. Who are the unrighteous?

Such are we. So see, this judgment for sin by the floodwaters coming is that same judgment that's shown most clearly in Jesus' suffering for the sins of His people. But the floodwaters don't just represent judgment, they also seem to represent this idea of cleansing. And so how does that represent even the cleansing that we find of ourselves? Well, we can turn in our Bibles to Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3, and we're able to see there also this same picture that gets shown to us. Titus chapter 3, beginning at verse 5. We'll start at verse four.

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by his grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The waters that represent in one's real sense our death because of our relationship to Adam and the wickedness that God saw upon the earth, that it was exceedingly great and all the thoughts and intents of his heart was only wicked continually. That same death is true, but yet the waters also teach us in Titus chapter three, that we were never saved by our works of righteousness, but according to his mercy, through the washing of regeneration. He doesn't just drown us in the flood, no, the Lord sent his own son to suffer that death for us. But he washed us in the washing of regeneration, in the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

And so there's both a judgment, there's a cleansing, and there's also a salvation. I don't think it's hard for us to see how baptism encourages us and gives us joy when we think about the salvation that we have in Christ Jesus, because we were not just baptized with him in his death, but also raised with him in his resurrection. But I'm not gonna go too far into that, because that's another sermon when we get to verse 22. And so how, how do these things relate? How is Noah's flood, to or mirror or correspond to this baptism.

God really does take sin seriously. The Lord doesn't put up with sin forever. The Lord is righteous. The Lord is just. He's not a judge who just turns a blind eye and turns away from sin and just will just endure it forever. No, the Lord is patient and slow to anger.

He suffered in the days of Noah for over a century, waiting for the ark to be built, giving these people ample time to repent and believe, turn from their sins into the ark and be saved. And only a few, that is eight souls, eventually did it. But make no doubt about it, the rain will eventually come. For it is appointed for every man to die once, and after this, the judgment. Every single one of us, at some point, we're gonna face that judgment day.

The question is, where will you be in the story? Will you be in the ark? Will you be in the place that shows us that there is salvation provided by God? Or will you be like the rest of the world, going out on your own way, following after your own desires? There were only a few in the Ark. I mean, Noah prepared an Ark, and the thing was massive, it's huge. Could have fit scores and scores and scores of people in it. And yet there's only eight.

I have to imagine as Peter wrote this to the people in the area of modern day Turkey, right? They were living in this Greco-Roman world that they were suffering and being persecuted. Some of them lived in one of the most amazing cities in all the world. Some of them were living in Ephesus. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Temple of Artemis was there. This was a bustling city full of people, full of culture, full of money, full of well-dressed and well-ordered society. And the Christians would find themselves there, just a few. As the throngs and throngs of people would go and worship Artemis, there would only be a few resting in Christ. You may find it in your life now that you feel like you're just one and there's not very many Christians around you.

Don't give up hope. If persecution and suffering comes, remember you're a sojourner, a pilgrim on this earth. Your citizenship isn't here. The people during Noah's day thought that what they had then and there was all that was ever gonna be and they could live great lives. And the Lord is telling you that there is sometimes going to be difficulty coming.

Judgment may come, but you will endure if you believe in Christ. If you are in Him, you have no fear of the judgment day. That's one of the reasons why in our membership vows, we ask you to look forward to give your account with joy at the last great day. Because if we're in Christ, we do not need to fear that someday when that judgment day comes, God's gonna say, oh, no, no, no, hold on.

You said you believed, you said you were in Christ, and I know that I told you that if you were in my son, you would be saved, but you know what? Splash it like a bug. No. No, if you are in Christ, if you've trusted in who he is and the promises that he has offered out to you, then there is safety, and there is assurance, and there is hope, even though and may seem like judgment and trials come. And so I just want to warn you, this is just a pastoral concern of mine.

Avoid the traps of secret wisdom, special new prophecies, and outlandish interpretations. There's ways in which you come to the scripture, and yeah, some of these things are hard to understand, we scratch our heads, but I'm telling you, cults are really, really good at this. They'll pick up on the passages of scripture that make you scratch your head and go, huh, I wonder what that really means. And they will let you know exactly what they think it means. And they will fill you with all sorts of amazing ideas that are nothing more than hot air.

And so I just want to warn you about that. Colts love this type of stuff. Don't major on the minors. Go to the clear passages. Secondly, take sin seriously. Take sin seriously. Judgment is real. Sin is real. God will judge. Flee. Flee sin. Put to death the old man. Take God's judgment seriously.

And though you're imperfect, and let me just say this, right? you are never going to be perfectly righteous. Noah got out of that ark and found himself a drunkard. Whether that was because he had brought the wine or brought the vines onto the ship because he knew he wanted to plant a vineyard afterwards, or because he did it because he was foolish. I don't know what prompted him to do this. But the point is, you may have imperfections in your righteousness. But don't let that stop you from telling others about Jesus. And Noah was a preacher of righteousness, but it wasn't a righteousness that was his own. And so don't hesitate to tell others about the sin that you are also fleeing from.

And thirdly, trust in Christ, the true ark of our salvation. Remember your baptism. Remember that you were washed, and that this sign and seal, and we're gonna get into this more next week, but that sign and seal was placed on you, and if you are in Jesus Christ, if you truly do believe in him, if he is your only hope in life and death, then take comfort. Take comfort in Christ. Don't take comfort just because you were washed with water. It's just water. but take comfort in everything that that water points you towards. Rest in Christ and His life, death, and resurrection, and have hope, even though there may only be a few of us. We know judgment is coming, but we know that God has preserved for us a hope in His Son.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we confess to you that Lord, this is not an easy passage. And we don't want to be prideful as we come to it, Lord. We don't want to think that we have every single jot and tittle figured out. But Father, we pray that as we wrestle with the dual reality of judgment and of salvation, Lord, we pray that we would look at our own lives and think of our baptisms. Lord, what does it mean for us if we've been marked for salvation? Or Lord, does it mark us as those who have heard and yet harden our hearts and do not believe?

God, we pray that we would walk upon the dry ground and we would not be like Pharaoh who hardened his heart and he and his army were swallowed up in the Red Sea. Lord, we have heard your preaching in your word by your son. And so Father, we pray that your spirit would work in us that we would believe. In Jesus' name we pray.

We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.