Verse 11 of chapter six explains the situation which necessitated the destruction of the whole human race. Corruption and violence are the two conditions described in this verse. “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.” Corruption relates to the perversion of true religion. I’ve often argued that Jesus did not come into the world to establish another religion to compete with Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, or any other so-called “religion.” He came to destroy them! Radical convictions may drive people to kill each other. I’m writing this on Memorial Day, May 30, 2022. I just saw a post about the numbers of people that died in the wars, from the civil war through the current wars in the Mideast. Of course, WWII was the largest. We lost half a million lives during that war.
Genesis 6:11 explains the flood! The corruption of religion leads to violence. When men cast off a personal walk with God, a genuine relationship with the God of heaven and earth, they naturally turn to some form of perverted religion. When there is no “fear of God” in man, we naturally turn against one another. Without God, as Exell puts it, man “has only to let the laws of nature take their course…for when men depart from God, the principle of union is lost, and self-love governs everything: and being lovers of their own selves, they will be covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Such a flood of wickedness is at any time sufficient to deluge a world with misery.”[1]
Recently, a border guard rushed into a classroom in Uvalde, Texas. He killed a shooter who murdered 22 people. The world celebrates the death of that shooter, and the parents want to know why they didn’t break into the classroom earlier. We do not grieve the elimination of pure evil. We celebrate it! Just as the border guard shot and killed the madman in the school to protect others, God shot and killed a whole generation of evil for the sake of those that would follow. After the flood, in Genesis 9:6, God gave the right to the border patrol agent to shoot that murderer. It says, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” Today, we honor the memories of men and women who were charged with protecting us from evil in the world, and in so doing, they gave up their lives so we might live in peace. Today, we thank them and thank God for raising them up for us.
[1] Exell, Joseph S. n.d. The Biblical Illustrator: Genesis. Vol. 1. The Biblical Illustrator. London: James Nisbet & Co.