Genesis 7-9
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, … that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Genesis 9:8-11
Here God makes an unconditional promise never to repeat destroying the entire world by a flood. And sure enough He never has. God is faithful, and He keeps His promises.
The Lord makes this promise in the form of a covenant. We will come across multiple covenants in our journey through the Scriptures, so it is important to know what a covenant is, but I’m not going to attempt to cover the topic myself here. Instead, you’ll be better off checking out the following:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_(biblical)
- https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-covenants.html
- https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/covenant/
The main thing to note here, though, is that God treats covenants very seriously. In this “Noahic Covenant”, God has made a solemn vow never again to destroy the earth by a flood. That does not mean that there won’t be any flooding at all. (That is patently absurd.) Nor does it mean that the earth will not ultimately pass away or that there will be no final judgment. (Later Scriptures clearly tell us otherwise.) But we can confidently rest in the knowledge that the end will not come by another global flood.
One more thing…
Ironically, the very fact that God has kept the promise that He made to Noah is used by the skeptic to scoff at the story of the Flood and, by extension, at the entire Bible and thus at God Himself. The skeptic’s logic goes something like this:
- I have never seen a global flood
- No one in living history has seen a global flood
- The very notion of a global flood is thus preposterous
- Ergo, the Great Flood of Noah never occurred and the Bible is bunk, along with the God it describes
Such is the warped logic of the fallen and faithless human heart. The same kind of thinking presumes that since Jesus has not yet returned, that He never will. (See II Peter 3:1-10.) Fortunately for all of us, God remains faithful, despite such nonsense.