And as it took place in the days of Noe, thus also shall it be in the days of the Son of man
The Lord's questioners want to know when the kingdom of God will come. He turns to His disciples and points back to Noah's generation, to show what the world will look like on the day He is revealed — busy, at ease, and entirely normal.
That day will be clear to everyone. But it comes only after rejection: suffering first, then open display.
Time had to pass, and events that looked disastrous to the cause they cared about had to happen, before the day of the Son of man could appear... First the Son of man — a title of the Lord tied to power (Psalm 8) — had to suffer many things, and that generation had to reject Him. The cross must come before the glory. His day will come, though, and it will come openly... Nothing about it will be hidden or uncertain. Knowledge of it will not be kept to a select few. It will be plain to all.
Some expect the world to grow better and better until Christ returns. The comparison with Noah says the opposite.
In Luke 17 He does not tell us that the world will slowly change from a wilderness into a Paradise. He does not say that the nations will drop their false gods, or that the Jews will drop their hatred of the true Messiah. Instead He warns the disciples that it will be as in the days of Noah, and in the days of Lot. Those were times of ease and worldliness, when all mankind was rising up against God. Yet they picture the scenes that will meet the Lord as He appears from heaven to judge the world... The world will show the same self-security and love of ease when the Lord is revealed as it showed just before the flood.
Nothing on the Lord's list — eating, drinking, marrying — is a crime. That is the point. One writer shows where the guilt lay.
"They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all." (Luke 17:27) There was nothing wrong in any of these things by itself. The wrong was not in the things done, but in the doers of them. Each of them could be done in the fear of the Lord, and to the glory of His holy name, if only they were done in faith. But they were not. They rejected the word of God. He told them of judgment, but they did not believe.
The same danger reaches respectable people. Daily life can crowd God out without any scandal.
How busy Satan is, even among Christians, in shutting out the things of God! He does it through the demands and pressure of things that may not be evil in themselves — things we have not learned to connect with God and to use for God.
One writer marks this scene off from two others. It is not the moment when Christ receives His own, and not the judgment of the dead. The flood swept away people who were alive and busy.
This is not about receiving the Church, and not about judging the dead. The judging of the dead follows at the end, and the receiving of the Church comes first. What we have here is the judgment of the living on the earth — a truth Christendom has largely forgotten... This can only mean people alive on the earth, caught out by the flood... Men forget too easily that a far wider judgment waits for the world, on the pattern of these two times when God stepped in — and above all for the part of the world that has had God's testimony.
Noah preached at the end of an age, not into a calm world. One writer draws the parallel to our own day.
So Noah lived at the close of an age, when the storm clouds of God's judgment were gathering on every side. We too live at the close of an age, and once more God is preparing judgment for an evil world. Men are as careless and indifferent now as they were in the days of long ago.
Our part is not to build, but to take shelter.
Noah's faith saw that the world stood under judgment... Noah built an ark to save his household. We do not have to build an ark. We have to take the shelter of the death of Christ and the end of all flesh before God. Then we find that God's saving power carries us through a world under judgment.
- Suffering first. That generation rejected the Son of man before His day dawns. The cross comes before the glory, so our long wait is order, not failure.
- Normal, not notorious. Eating, drinking and marrying are not wrong in themselves. The fault lay in the doers. They heard God's warning and did not believe.
- No golden age first. Ease, self-security and worldliness will meet the Lord when He is revealed — not a converted world.
- The living are judged. This is not the receiving of the Church, and not the judging of the dead. It is judgment falling on people alive and busy on the earth.
- Shelter now. Noah built an ark. We take the shelter of the death of Christ, and God carries us through a world already under sentence.
they ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all [of them];
Jesus describes the world at His return by pointing back to the days before the flood. He does it with a list of the most ordinary human activities. So the question is not what terrible sin those people were doing. It is what they were doing when judgment came, and what they had done with the warning.
The scene is not the church being taken up. It is not the final judgment of the dead either. The flood fixes the moment: living people, going about life on earth, caught where they stand.
The Lord next refers to the days of Noah: so should it be in His own days when He comes as the Son of man. This is not about receiving the Church, and not about judging the dead. The judging of the dead follows at the end, and the receiving of the Church comes first. Here it is plainly the judgment of the living on the earth — a truth the Christian world has largely forgotten. "The flood came and destroyed them all." This can only mean people alive on the earth, taken by surprise.
The warning is not mainly about sin. It is about assuming the world will simply keep going. And the listed activities show people still alive on an earth that still exists.
Here the passage does not warn people about sin, but about the unholy idea that the world may just keep going for ever. As soon as Noah entered the ark, the flood came and destroyed them all. As soon as the church is taken up, judgment will come, for Satan will have filled men's hearts with lies. Notice here how impossible it is to apply this to the great white throne. When He sits on the great white throne, the heavens and the earth flee away; there is a total destruction of everything. Men will not then be eating, drinking, planting, building.
Not one item on the list is a crime. The problem was the place these ordinary things had taken in people's lives.
People of the world will carry on in their own independent way. They will keep concentrating on the material things of life: eating and drinking and marrying. These things are not wrong in themselves, but too often they are the only thing men live for. They forget God, so they will be shocked when He steps into their affairs without warning to judge them.
That generation had a preacher, and a warning they could watch growing for years. They still did not believe.
While Noah built the ark, he was a "preacher of righteousness". With his hand he was driving a nail, but with his mouth he was saying: "Judgment is coming. God will destroy the world with a flood. All will be drowned. Come, come quickly into the ark." But they did not believe. Did they not know? It was not a few days or months that Noah took to build the ark: but 120 years... Perhaps they said, "No, Noah, you have said this for many years. The flood has never come: we are not afraid." Or "Today we cannot go in. Wait. We will not get ready yet. Maybe tomorrow."
The verse turns on a single day. Life went on as normal right up to the moment the door shut. And God shut it.
The ark grew larger every day, a witness to the coming judgment. There was no sign at all of a coming flood... But the flood came, and destroyed them all. "And they went in to Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh;" "and the Lord shut him in." Every soul that was not shut in with Noah, was shut out. There was then no hope; it was too late.
The days before the flood are the pattern. So the world will not slowly improve until it is ready for Christ's return.
Some would have us believe that righteousness will cover this earth from pole to pole, like a beautiful robe, before the Son of man appears in the clouds of heaven... but the brief passage just quoted pulls up all such empty and misleading expectations by the roots. How was it in the days of Noah? Did righteousness cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea?... Scripture replies, "the earth was filled with violence." "ALL flesh had corrupted his way on the earth." Well, then, "so shall it be in the days of the Son of man."
- Living, not dead. This is judgment on people alive on earth. Men are still eating, planting and building — which could never describe the great white throne.
- Lawful, not harmless. Eating, drinking and marriage are not wrong in themselves. They had become the only thing men lived for.
- Warned, not ignorant. For 120 years a growing ark and a preacher of righteousness stood in plain view. The answer was "maybe tomorrow."
- Shut in, not shut out. Normal life ran right up to the day Noah entered. Then the Lord shut him in. Everyone not shut in was shut out, and it was too late.
- Pattern, not exception. Violence filled the earth then. So do not expect the world to grow righteous before the Son of Man appears — the Lord's own comparison rules it out.