What does Noah, his family and the ark symbolize?

 

In typology. What does Noah, his family and the ark symbolize?

Before saying anything, I will want to reason that typology tries to co-relate events and people in the Old Testament with occurrences (antitypes) in the New Testament. There are several types that appear in the bible and are vividly confirmed by the New Testament, those are sure types, yet there are others that we will find in the OT that are provable in the NT but not spoken of by the bible. In the latter, we need to be very careful as we ascribe meaning because faltering is very easy.

With Noah, his family and the ark, though it is commonly interpreted as prefiguring Christ, the faithful remnant or the Church, and the salvation in Christ, I do not find an all-inclusive reference to that in the New Testament except for some aspects. Below is what I could find in the NT:

1.      1 Peter 3:20-21: Typology of the flood and ark as prefiguring baptism and salvation in Christ.

2.      Hebrews 11:7: Noah’s faith in building the ark as a type of salvation through faith in Christ.

3.      Matthew 24:37-39 and Luke 17:26-27: Noah's flood is a type of sudden judgment, paralleled with the second coming of Christ.

4.      2 Peter 2:5: Noah as a "herald of righteousness," his rescue typifying divine salvation.

5.      2 Peter 3:6-7: The flood is used as a type of judgment, foreshadowing the ultimate judgment to come.

In this list I could not find his family, but I could find Noah, the ark, the flood, Noah’s faith, and his "herald of righteousness.”

As I said earlier, we simply ought to be careful as we study, apply, and teach the bible so as to keep probabilities as probabilities and definite truths as so. With this, we will not be guilty of adding or subtracting from the law of God and we will be able to nature his body, the church, in truth.

 

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