Biblical Floods

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, visited a farm on the Somerset Levels to witness the appalling floods at first hand. “It’s a biblical scene,” he commented. “The scale of it here in Somerset is immense when you think of how many square miles are under water.”

“Biblical” in this context means enormous in size and scope. People may speak of a biblical scene when describing the aftermath of a massacre, or the widespread devastation that follows in the wake of a natural catastrophe.

It is intriguing for a Christian to hear the word “biblical” used in this way. After all, in today’s culture the Bible is rarely taken as a point of reference. Indeed the Bible Society conducted a survey recently which revealed widespread ignorance of what the Bible says about even basic subjects of religious knowledge.

Anyway, for Mr Cameron the floods presented a biblical scene to the eye. Doubtless he was thinking of the great Flood in the book of Genesis, the one where Noah fashioned his famous ark. Those who know the story will remember that he was delivered, along with seven of his relatives, and specimens of every creature liable to fall victim to flooding, from the total destruction of life on earth.

In recent centuries there has been a prevailing view that the story of Noah’s ark was just a pleasant fable. Even though I have a high view of the Bible, I was for many years under the influence of these ideas. Then as a young adult I was involved in correspondence with a keen creationist. He introduced me to “The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications”, a 1961 work by young earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris. The “scientific implications” were that you could not take the biblical record seriously and accept an evolutionary point of view at the same time.

I must admit that I was rather doubtful about the book’s arguments at the time. Yet the biblical creationist movement has come a long way since then in its manner of presenting its case. Along with that development, there is now a wider understanding about how catastrophes on an enormous scale (a biblical scale, even!) have happened during the history of the earth, producing tremendous changes in a very short space of time.

But above all, using the word “biblical” to describe the Somerset Levels floods is testimony to the helplessness of man, for all his knowledge, in the face of the forces of nature and of God. In trying to play God, the human race may well have unleashed a power beyond its control. The late Baroness Thatcher, in an address to the Royal Society in 1988, expressed the concern that “we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself”.

Who knows where it will end? But for the one who trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, the watchword is not to look downcast, but to look up!

"And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:25-28 ESV).