As we have mentioned before, in the human culture that was without God and was united with Satan, man and the angels of Satan, the fallen angels, became mixed as one through human marriage. This caused the human race created by God to become mixed with the race of the evil spirits. Therefore, God used the judgment of the flood to destroy the entire human race, except Noah’s family of eight. One of His intentions was to destroy the mixed human race, to clear up the human race and put it in order, thus restoring and preserving the purity of the human race, that He might still carry out His eternal economy through man according to His purpose in creating man.
This point also is a model, signifying that God’s subsequent judgments are for clearing up the human race to preserve it for the accomplishing of His eternal purpose. For example, at His coming Christ will judge the people living on the earth to clear away the evil ones, the “goats,” separating them from the righteous ones, the “sheep,” and casting them into the lake of fire for perdition (Matt. 25:41, 46), after Antichrist and the false prophet are cast there (Rev. 19:20). Also, at the end of the millennium, God will judge and destroy the last group of people who follow Satan and rebel against God. He will clear them away from the rest of the nations, devouring them by fire, and will cast the devil, who deceived them, into the lake of fire and brimstone, where Antichrist and the false prophet will have been cast (Rev. 20:7-10). By so doing He will purge away the rebellious nature in mankind. Finally, after the millennium, at the judgment of the great white throne, God will cast all the dead, including all the dead people imprisoned in Hades and all the demons confined in the sea, and death and Hades into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:13-15). In this way God will clear up the universe completely.
God had a positive intention in judging the human race by the flood. His intention was to rescue out of the corrupted age those who took His way of redemption and life, that they might live for Him on the new earth, which came out of the judgment of the deluge. Therefore, 1 Peter 3:20-21 considers the judgment of the deluge a prefigure of the water of baptism in the New Testament. In this aspect also the judgment of the deluge is a model of the three judgments mentioned previously. On the positive side, the first of the three aforementioned judgments is to separate the righteous ones from the evil ones, that the righteous may enter into the millennium and live on the restored earth to be God’s people for the fulfillment of God’s kingdom (Matt. 25:31-34). The second judgment is to separate the purified people, whom God desires, from the rebellious ones, thus clearing away the poison of rebellion against God, which was injected by Satan into people. Thus the purified human beings may enter into the new heaven and new earth and live on the new earth to be God’s people forever for God’s eternal kingdom, so that God and His redeemed and transformed people may carry out His kingship, and so that His glory may be manifested in them (Rev. 21:24; 22:5b). Finally, in the third judgment, the judgment of the great white throne, the positive purpose is to separate out the new people of the New Jerusalem and the purified people on the new earth, both of whom God will have obtained by then, for the accomplishing of God’s eternal economy. At that time, the old heaven and old earth will be consumed by fire and will be renewed to be the new heaven and new earth (2 Pet. 3:10-13), in which will be the New Jerusalem as God’s eternal expression.
When man lost God and all the blessings that come from God, he became a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, a person who had no goal, no satisfaction, no rest, and no protection. Hence, man invented a godless culture apart from God for self-preservation, self-support, self-amusement, and self-defense. The intrinsic factor that caused the formation of the godless culture was Satan’s instigation and incitement within the man who had left God. Man, who had left God and thereby lost God, followed Satan and cooperated with Satan, even to the extent of being united with the angels of Satan. This brought confusion into the human race through marriage, thus inviting God’s judgment for the purpose of clearing up the human race. Such a culture, which was without God and was united with Satan, became a model representing all human cultures throughout the ages and signifying that these cultures have departed from God and are without God and that they have followed Satan and are united with Satan. Consequently, they will be cleared away and judged by God.
The man who departed from God and refused to take God’s way produced a culture that corrupted the entire human race. As a result, the judgment of the deluge was brought in. In this judgment God changed the function of the atmosphere that He had created, so that it was no longer for the existence of man and all living creatures, but was for the executing of God’s judgment to destroy mankind and the whole earth. God also used the judgment of the deluge to destroy the mixed human race so that the purity of the human race might be restored and preserved. God even used the flood to rescue out of the corrupted age those who took His way of redemption and life, that they might live for Him on the new earth, which came out of the judgment of the deluge.