When we talk about being saved from the fires of hell, we should view this as being called out of it, not spared from a punishment by it.
For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water.
Genesis 7:17-18
If you can see it, it’s so clear.
Forty days is a period of testing.
The flood is a refining force.
The Ark is covered in pitch, which is the same word as atonement.
In our lives, there is a period of testing. This testing refines us. It grows us and raises us above the earth and the waters that would swallow us.
But we are preserved in the ark. In atonement. Held by the very hand of God through it.
I. ark
1. vessel which Noah built
2. basket vessel in which Moses was placed
H8392: תֵּבָה (tēḇâ)
Perhaps you didn’t know this, but the basket that little baby Moses floated in, which was also covered in pitch (but not the atonement kind), was also called an ark in Hebrew.
Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
Genesis 6:14 (KJV)
I don’t normally quote the KJV, but it’s one of the few translations that follow the Hebrew’s weird phrasing of “pitch it… with pitch.” You might think that is odd, but the Hebrew language has some meaning buried in it that is extremely important.
This word “pitch” is used firstly as a verb and then as a noun here, and while that doesn’t seem to make much difference, look closely at the Hebrew meanings of these words.
to cover, purge, make an atonement, make reconciliation, cover over with pitch
H3722: כָּפַר (kāp̄ar)price of a life, ransom, bribe
H3724: כֹּפֶר (kōp̄er)
These are theological words.
The imagery we see is God’s destructive flood that covers the earth, but the boat, inside and out, is going to be covered with PITCH.
With atonement.
With reconciliation.
With the price of a life.
With a ransom.
Everything we hold dear in our faith lives inside Genesis.
However, that’s not the word used here. A “covering of skin” is a phrase that shows up again later, in Genesis 27. The usage of the phrase may give us a clue.
Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins.
Genesis 27:15-16 (NIV)
Perhaps God is doing something… tricky.