But as the days of Noe, so also shall be the coming of the Son of man.
The Lord has just said that no one knows the day or hour. Now He points back to Noah's flood to show what the world will be like when He returns. Two questions follow. Which coming does He mean? And what made Noah's generation a picture of the last days?
The word translated "coming" can also be read as "presence." Whether a public display is in view depends on what is joined to it.
"Coming" or "presence," used of our Lord's future, does not by itself mean a public display. Display comes in when other words are joined to it, such as "Son of Man" (as in Matt. 24:27, 37, 39), or a term that plainly adds it (as in 2 Thess. 2:8), or facts like 1 Thess. 3:13. These additions show not only His presence, but the display of it.
This verse uses that very title.
The title "Son of Man" at once prepares you for a judgment connected with the earth and with persons living there. No doubt the Son of Man comes in the clouds of heaven, but He comes to judge the world and the people on it.
Noah's world was not only violent. It was a world at ease with itself.
These 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 same self-security and love of ease will mark the day when the Lord is revealed, just as it did before the flood. Then, as long ago, men will be absorbed in the ordinary matters of daily life.
Another writer puts the emphasis on how such things become the whole of life.
People of the world will keep going their own independent way. They will still concentrate on the material things of life: eating, drinking and marrying. These things are not wrong in themselves, but too often they are the only object of men's existence.
Some expect the world to grow better and better until Christ appears. Noah's day says otherwise.
Some would have us believe that before the Son of Man appears in the clouds of heaven, this earth will be covered from pole to pole with a beautiful robe of righteousness… But the short passage just quoted tears up all such empty and deceiving hopes by the roots in a moment. How was it in the days of Noah? Did righteousness cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea?… Scripture answers, "the earth was filled with violence."
That generation did not lack warning. They simply paid no attention to it.
He describes the effect of all Noah's preaching… "They were unaware." Did they not have plenty of testimony? Plenty. For a hundred and twenty years Noah, who preached righteousness, pointed to the coming storm, which Enoch had predicted too. They had plenty of testimony, but paid no attention to it… The flood caught people by surprise in Noah's day, and His return will catch them by surprise in the same way, when He comes Himself to judge the earth as Son of Man.
Why does the Lord point to Noah and not to Enoch? Noah came through the judgment; God took Enoch away before it.
Here is another proof that our Lord, in this setting, speaks of the Jewish disciples of the last days, represented by those standing around Him then, and not of the Church. His illustration comes from God keeping Noah and his household safe through the waters of the flood. But the Holy Spirit, through Paul, pictures our hope by the pattern of Enoch, caught up to heaven, completely away from the scenes and circumstances of judgment here below.
Noah did more than believe in private. His faith passed a verdict on the world around him.
Warned of what is coming on the world, he accepts and acknowledges the judgment, and he takes God's revealed way of salvation; and so he condemns the world. Note this: faith "condemns the world." It is not only belief in a sacrifice that saves, and power to walk with God. It also says of the world that it has completely turned away from God, and that it is going to be judged.
The same position belongs to readers now.
What He has predicted about His coming intervention in power is something completely new. It will mean a far greater overthrow for evil men than the flood brought. We believe it and expect it because He has said it. We too have been warned by God.
- Warned — Noah's generation heard a hundred and twenty years of preaching. The flood surprised them only because they ignored it.
- Unheeding — eating, drinking and marrying are not sins. They ruin a life when they become the whole of it.
- Unchanged — the world will not grow righteous before He comes. Violence, not righteousness, filled the earth in Noah's day, and the Lord says it will be the same again.
- Unmistakable — "Son of Man" marks this coming as a public display. He comes to judge people living on the earth.
- Unharmed — God carried Noah safely through the judgment, and Noah's faith condemned the world that was about to be judged.
For as they were in the days which were before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day on which Noe entered into the ark,
The Lord pictures His return by pointing back to the world before the flood — a generation busy with meals, homes and weddings until the ark door shut. Two questions follow: why is ordinary daily life a warning, and what did these people fail to know?
Many expect the world to improve until Christ returns. One commentator, reading the Lord's picture in Luke, finds the opposite.
In Luke 17 He does not tell us that the world will change step by step from a wilderness into a Paradise. He does not tell us that the nations will lay aside their false gods, or the Jews their hostility to the true Messiah. On the contrary, He gives the disciples the needed warning that it was to be as in the days of Noah, and in the days of Lot. These were times of ease and worldliness, when all mankind was rising up against God. Yet they picture the scene that will meet the Lord when He appears from heaven to judge the world... The self-security and love of ease will be much the same when the Lord is revealed as it was just before the flood. Then, as of old, men will be absorbed in the ordinary matters of daily life.
Nothing on the Lord's list is a crime. Food, drink and marriage are good things. So the fault must lie somewhere other than in the things themselves.
There was nothing wrong in any of these things, considered in themselves. The wrong was not in the things done, but in the doers of them. Every one of them might have been done in the fear of the Lord and to the glory of His holy name, if only they had been done in faith. But they were not done that way. The word of God was rejected. He told of judgment; but they did not believe. He spoke of sin and ruin; but they were not convinced. He spoke of a remedy; but they would not listen. They went on with their own plans and ventures, and had no room for God. They acted as if the earth were theirs on a lease that never ran out. They forgot that there was a clause of surrender. They never thought about that solemn "until." God was shut out.
The next verse says they did not know until the flood came. That sounds like innocent ignorance. Then you ask how much warning they had.
He describes the effect of all Noah's preaching... "They knew not." Had they not had plenty of testimony? Plenty. For a hundred and twenty years Noah, the "preacher of righteousness," pointed to the coming storm. Enoch had predicted it too. They had abundant testimony, but paid no attention to it. How dull their ears were!
The verse gives no warning event before the water rises — only one man walking into a boat. Nobody around him treated it as a signal.
Noah's generation was eating, drinking and marrying, just as the water began to rise. There was no warning sign, except Noah's entrance into the ark — like Lot's escape to the town of Zoar. But that looked like foolishness. To shut himself and all he had inside a ship stranded on dry ground — that was foolishness. Yet the flood came at the very moment they felt secure, and took them all away. They were "willingly ignorant" of the word of God, of the testimony of the "preacher of righteousness."
"Until the day" marks a boundary. Everything hinged on which side of the door a person stood when God shut it. Those inside were safe because the God who sent the flood had shut them in.
It was He who took counsel with Himself about the judgment of the world who had also planned with His chosen ones the way of escape. It was the hand that was about to let the waters loose which was now shutting Noah in. Could they then prevail against him? Just as impossible!
- Ordinary. The world before the flood was not shocking anyone; it was eating, drinking and marrying. Commentators point out that these are good things. The guilt lay in the doers, who rejected the word of God.
- Warned. They were not caught out by silence. A hundred and twenty years of preaching stood behind that day. Their ignorance was chosen deafness, not missing news.
- Mocked. The one sign God gave was Noah entering the ark — and it looked like foolishness. Obedience to God can look absurd until the day proves it right.
- Sudden. No slow improvement leads up to Christ's return. Commentators expect the same ease and self-security when the Son of Man comes to judge.
- Sheltered. The hand that released the waters had already shut Noah in. Safety was not in seeing the danger coming. It was in being inside what God provided, before the day arrived.