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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Ezekiel's so-called parables


When God promised the ever-rebellious Israel that He was going to send a forest fire as judgement, they claimed Ezekiel wasn't actually speaking literally. There would be no forest fire, or any other judgement Ezekiel was warning them about. But there were.


2,500 years later, people continue to allegorise Scriptures that were clearly not intended to be allegorised. Take, for example, the Noahic flood. No objective observer will tell you Noah's flood was allegorical, or that it was simply a local flood. It was a global flood. God sent a flood high enough to cover mountains to destroy the whole earth (Genesis 7:19-20), killing everything with the breath of life in it (Genesis 6:17), sparing only Noah and his family, who repopulated the earth (Genesis 9:19), and sending a rainbow to promise He would never do it again (Genesis 9:11).


But some very much non-objective observers will tell you that the flood, if it happened at all, was just local. Here's the problem. Just as Israel allegorised Ezekiel's warnings, the flood serves as a warning for us as well. In 2 Peter 3:5-7, we read "For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."


The first thing to note here is that it actually predicts that people willfully forget Genesis, which basically means Peter has jumped ahead of me and solidified the fact that Genesis is, in fact, literal. But he also describes the consequences of this wilful ignorance. These same people reject the second coming of Christ (v1-4). Furthermore, Peter compares the world that was destroyed with the flood to the world that is now reserved for a second global judgement, this time by fire. Now, if the Noahic flood never happened, the final judgement will also never happen by the same token. If the flood was local, the fire will be local by the same token.


Thus, we see the danger of allegorising what is not allegory. God's word has a context, and no amount of "I interpret the Bible differently" will change that context. When God promised a global flood, He sent a global flood. When God promised a global future judgement, believe He will deliver. Therefore, repent, and ensure you are ready for it.

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