Noah’s flood is making headlines again. This week, a group of researchers claims to have unearthed “definitive proof” that a geological formation near the Turkish-Iranian border contains vestiges of a large manmade object. Could this be the remains of Noah’s ark?
Such news is hardly new. Similar expeditions have pored over the site, only to yield nothing but dirt and rocks. Until experts in the field have had a chance to evaluate these most recent claims, I’ll maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. Sometimes a hill is just a hill and not a hill worth dying on.
It’s noteworthy that the New Testament writers show no interest in locating the whereabouts of Noah’s ark (or the ark of the covenant, for that matter.) Instead, they mine the biblical flood account for moral purposes.
Consider 1 Peter 3:19-22. The apostle interprets the deluge as a type of baptism. In the ark, God saved eight people in all from the floodwaters. In a similar way, baptism delivers its recipients from God’s judgment against sin. Baptism saves us. But not, Peter hastens to add, “as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (ESV, 1 Peter 3:20-21). Those who call upon God in baptism have the assurance of salvation through the risen Christ. They arise from the waters as a new creation and live in the hope of sharing in a resurrection like his (Romans 6:3-5).
Why is it that so many of these “ark-eologists” are obsessed with finding an ancient boat, but dismiss what the New Testament clearly teaches about the saving importance of baptism? According to 1 Peter, the ark is a sign that point us to baptism, not an excuse to play Indiana Jones. The point of Genesis 6-9 isn’t geology but soteriology: How are we saved from sin?
If you keep reading 1 Peter, you’ll quickly discover that people today are in grave and imminent danger from a very different kind of flood. Peter explains, “For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead” (4:3-5).
Our world is being inundated, not by the waters of a flood but by a “flood of debauchery.” The church’s critics think it strange that we don’t plunge ourselves into the current moral cesspool, and as a result, we’re criticized for our commitments. But to join them would be a betrayal of our baptism and our Lord.
As Paul reminds us, “How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Romans 6:2-3)?
The most urgent challenge facing the church today, I believe, is to live out faithfully the meaning of our baptism. The world needs to see the difference that the risen Lord can make in our lives and theirs!
Would it be amazing if someday archaeologists did uncover the remnants of Noah’s ark? Of course! But I’m not pinning my hopes on chunks of fossilized wood, and neither should you. Our hope is a living hope born of the water and the Spirit (John 3:5).
He loved me ere I knew Him,
And all my love is due Him.
He plunged me to victory
Beneath the cleansing flood.
-Darren Johnson lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and preaches for the Central Church of Christ