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.
and they knew not till the flood came and took all away; thus also shall be the coming of the Son of man.
The Lord has just described a world going about its business right up to the day Noah entered the ark. Now He names the outcome. His point is not the flood itself but the parallel: His own coming will be like that.
The words do not mean the world had no warning. One writer presses the opposite point. That generation heard preaching for over a century and did not listen.
He describes what the effect was of all Noah's preaching. I think the extra light that Scripture throws on the scene is wonderful. "They were unaware." Had they not had plenty of testimony? Abundance. For a hundred and twenty years Noah, the "preacher of righteousness," pointed to the coming storm. Enoch too had predicted it. They had plenty of testimony, but paid no attention to it. How dull were their ears!
The same refusal reaches to our own day. Anyone who wants to read what God has put on record can read it.
Those in Noah's day were willingly ignorant. That is what the apostle Peter deals with in his Second Epistle... They are willingly ignorant, but God stepped in by the flood. God has recorded it, so they can know it. They are willingly ignorant of the Lord's coming too, because the same word reveals both.
Nothing in that daily round is a crime. The danger lies in letting it fill the whole horizon.
People were aware of the testimony of Noah about judgment, and there will be no lack of testimony then either. But people of the world will carry on in an independent way. They will still concentrate 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 object of men's existence.
The flood did not just frighten that generation; it ended their age. One writer reads Noah as a pattern of how one era closes and another opens.
Noah lived at the close of an age. He was saved with his house through a great judgment, and then became the beginning of a new age... As Noah's age closed with the flood, so will the Jewish age close with judgment. The judgment came suddenly on the ungodly generation of Noah's day; so will it be when the Son of Man comes.
Two men came through that era in different ways. God took Enoch away; Noah went through the flood. Which one the Lord chooses as His illustration decides how we read the next verses.
I would point out here that our blessed Lord speaks of Noah and not of Enoch in His prophecy in Matthew 24. He does this because He was the minister to the Jewish people, the prophet of Israel. And since Noah is His theme, we have at once the right interpretation of the prophecy. The taking the Lord speaks of is a taking to judgment, like that of the people before the flood. The leaving means a leaving for blessing, like that of Noah and his household. Indeed the Lord tells us so Himself (see v. 39). But if He had been speaking of the church in this prophecy, He would have taken Enoch as His theme, and not Noah. Then the leaving would have been a leaving for judgment, like that of the corrupters of the earth who lived on after Enoch, and the taking would have been a taking to glory, like that of Enoch himself.
The word translated "coming" does not by itself carry the idea of public display. Here the title "Son of Man" adds it.
"Coming" or "presence," as applied to the future of our Lord, does not involve display. It does so only when other words modify it, such as "Son of Man" (as in Matt. 24:27, 37, 39)... These additions unquestionably show not "presence" only, but its display.
God gave the generation that perished a way through. One writer points to the ark as a picture of where safety lies now.
Noah was safe in the ark; the rough waves struck it, but could not reach Noah. In the same way the Lord Jesus is our refuge — our "ark". All the waves passed over Him. He has taken God's judgment against our sins. We trust in Him, as Noah trusted in the ark; and so we also will not come into judgment.
- Warned. They were not short of testimony — Noah preached for a hundred and twenty years, and they paid no attention.
- Willing. Their ignorance was chosen, not forced. God has put the flood on record, and the same word announces the Lord's return.
- Absorbed. Eating, drinking and marrying are not sins; the ruin was letting them become the only object of life.
- Sudden. The flood swept away one age and started another. When the Son of Man comes, being taken means judgment, as it did in Noah's day.
- Sheltered. Noah came through the judgment inside the ark. The waves that could not reach him fell instead on Christ, our refuge now.
Then two shall be in the field, one is taken and one is left;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
two [women] grinding at the mill, one is taken and one is left.
Two women are at the same mill, doing the same work, and in a moment they are separated for ever. Everything in the verse turns on one question: taken for what?
The mill here is not a factory. It is a household tool, worked by hand, usually by a woman.
In the East these are usually small, with every family having its own mill. A woman, or sometimes two, sit at the mill turning the upper stone, casting in the grain now and then through a hole in it.
The two women are as close as two people can be. Closeness saves neither of them.
And so our Lord adds here a word that touched not only the Jewish system, but the condition and doom of the whole world. He lets us know that in that night two would be in one bed; one taken, and the other left. So two women at the mill; for here we are not dealing with human judgments. God will then judge the living. So it makes no difference what the relationship, the job, or the sex is, or whether people are indoors or outdoors. There can be no shelter and no exception.
To modern ears "taken" sounds like rescue. The example the Lord gives just before points the other way.
First, take Noah and the flood. We can freely admit the application to the coming of the Lord that He Himself makes (Matt. 24:37-41). "One will be taken and one left." But we must handle such things carefully: "taken" how, and for what? Those whom resurrection takes out from among the dead are saints and taken for glory. At the rapture of the living saints, it is the same. In Noah's time, "the flood came and took them all away;" those taken are the judged and not the saved.
Noah's case shows which of the two women is better off.
We have the illustration of Noah and the flood. The world before the flood was TAKEN for judgment. Noah was LEFT for blessing. Those before the flood were not "taken home or received," but drowned. Noah was not left "alone, left unprotected," but found in a renewed earth.
Many read the verse as a picture of believers being caught up. Commentators here read it the other way round.
At a first glance some have thought that this was like the rapture of the church, but it is exactly the reverse. At the rapture the saints are caught away, and the world is left to go on its course. But when the Lord comes to judge the living on the earth, the taking away is in judgment. The righteous are left to pass into blessing on the earth at the millennium.
Does that mean the Lord never takes the saved one? Commentators answer with a careful distinction.
It will be true, of course, that two people may be together when the Lord comes for His own, one saved and one unsaved. He will then take the saved and leave the other. But everywhere in Scripture where the phrase is used, it is one taken by judgment, and the other left for millennial blessing.
Wars and disasters take whoever happens to be standing there. This will not.
But this judgment, sudden and unexpected as it may be, will be sure and discriminating. The eye of God will discern those that are His. They may be in exactly the same circumstances as those who are not. Two men may be in the same field, two women at the same mill; judgment will leave the one unharmed, and take the other. To the heart that was really watching and waiting for Him He would come as a deliverer from all the power of evil. The disciples were to watch; they did not know at what hour their Lord would come.
The choice of illustration tells you which group of God's people the Lord has in view.
If heavenly saints had been in question, Enoch would be the fitting Old Testament picture. But the Lord meant saints who are not caught up, saints carried through the waters of judgment. So He rightly chose Noah as the pattern for the remnant who will be on the earth.
- Taken. In Noah's day the flood took people away in judgment. So here too the one taken is the one judged, not the one rescued.
- Left. The one left behind is left for blessing on the earth, as Noah was left in a renewed world.
- Sorted. This is not a blind disaster. God's eye picks out His own from people in the very same place.
- Unsheltered. No tie, no job, no place and no closeness to another person can shelter you. Two women at one mill; two different ends.
- Watching. For the heart that is watching for Him, that same coming is deliverance. So His disciples are told to keep watch.
Watch therefore, for ye know not in what hour your Lord comes.
The Lord has been describing His return and the judgment that comes with it. Now He turns from what will happen to what His hearers must do, and His reason is their ignorance of the day.
The Olivet discourse divides into sections, and this verse sits near a hinge. One reading keeps it with the part addressed to Jewish disciples:
The Lord's prophecy in Matthew 24 and 25 has three main divisions: first, the Jewish part in Matthew 24:4-44; second, the Christian part in Matthew 24:45 to 25:30; and third, the Gentile part in Matthew 25:31-46.
Commentators differ on exactly where the line falls. Another writer draws it at this very verse:
Matthew 24:15-41 gives the judgment of Israel; Matthew 24:42 to 25:30, the judgment of Christendom; Matthew 25:31-46, the judgment of the Gentiles.
The command and its reason hold together. Take away the uncertainty and the command falls apart. (Older translations read "Watch therefore" — the word the writers below use.)
We are told in Mark 13:35 to watch, because the hour of His coming is unknown. How could anyone watch for the Lord to come, if it were known that He would not come until a certain time? The command to watch implies on the face of it uncertainty as to the time.
This cuts against every attempt to work out a date. One writer answers the person who claims to know at least the year:
The fixing of dates as to the coming of the Lord is a harmful thing, and those who do it are presumptuous people... Yes, says someone, but we know the year. Indeed? Then why did the Lord add, "Watch and pray: for you do not know when the time is"?... Think of the apostles, who gave us the Word of God by the Holy Spirit's inspiration. To them the Lord said, "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which the Father has put in His own power" (Acts 1). In His wisdom the Father kept this knowledge from them. So where does the Word show that He would make it known to us?
Some turn this command into a warning about death: be ready, since you do not know when you will die. One writer answers that the Lord fixed watching on something else:
The sheep hear His voice. He said, "Watch, therefore" — not because you do not know what hour you will die, but because you do not know "what hour your Lord comes." And so it is throughout — never once on the ground of death. We are set to watch for the coming of the Master, with our lamps burning and our belts fastened for service. Death is in no way the Master. Through the grace of our Lord Jesus, death is now one of our servants.
Watching and waiting are close, but not identical. A servant can be ready without his heart being in it:
Both have their place, but watching means expectancy, the heart is engaged. A servant might be quite ready for his master's return, just obeying a command. But if he is watching, it shows that his master's return is filling his thoughts. For the Christian the two must go together. If the heart is not right towards the Lord, the belt loosens and the light grows dim.
One writer illustrates the difference with three men who hear that a friend's ship is due at a port. The first is interested and changes nothing. The second travels to the port and stays there, though he passes the days pleasing himself.
But the third man does more than travel to the seaport and wait for his friend to arrive. He looks out over the sea many times a day. He asks every question he can about the expected ship, and he looks closely at the passengers to see if his friend is among them. This one is watching. Our Lord wants the hope of His coming to be so real in us that it stirs our hearts to go out and meet Him. He wants us watching as well as waiting — not on special occasions only, but as the settled posture of our souls. Nothing could be more practical, or do more to make us holy: "everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure" (1 John 3:3).
Watching can begin at a low level and still be genuine. The Lord meets a troubled conscience where it is, then lifts it higher:
Suppose we watch in dread, afraid His coming will catch us by surprise. Even that is good. We will not go into any place where we would dread His finding us. We will not take up any pursuit that we would dread being found in when He comes... But our Lord does not leave souls watching out of a fearful conscience. He trains them to watch with affection and joy of heart.
- Unknown — The day is hidden, and that is the reason for the command. If we could fix a date, watching would mean nothing.
- Unwise — Fixing dates is presumption. The Father kept the times and seasons even from the apostles.
- Yours — We watch for "your Lord," a Person returning, not for death. Death is not the Master; grace has made it one of our servants.
- Engaged — Waiting can leave the heart untouched. Watching means the heart is taken up with His return, as a settled posture, not an occasional mood.
- Trained — Watching may start as fear of being caught somewhere shameful. That fear is a real safeguard. But the Lord teaches His own to watch with affection and joy.