In Palermo, Sicily resides a Palatine Chapel which is reported to contain a famous mosaic of Noah’s ark. Pictures of it can be found here:
https://www.christianiconography.info/sicily/noahArkPalatineChapel.html
https://www.christianiconography.info/sicily/noahPalatine.html
In this mosaic, Noah’s ark appears to
be representing the Church, which Catholics officially believe to be the
“universal sacrament of salvation” (Lumen
Gentium, chapter VII, par. 48).
See here:
Please note
that another official teaching of Catholicism is that the Catholic Church is
absolutely necessary for the salvation of mankind. The first paragraph of the papal decree Unam Sanctam reflects this teaching:
“Urged by faith, we are obliged to
believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also
apostolic… we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither
salvation nor the remission of sins… In her then is one Lord, one faith, one
baptism... There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah,
prefiguring the one Church… outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the
earth was destroyed.” (Unam Sanctam, Bull of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated
November 18, 1302).
Moreover, this document “infallibly”
declares:
“Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim,
we define that it is absolutely necessary
for salvation that every human
creature be subject to the Roman pontiff [pope].” (Emphasis added)
See here:
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/bon08/b8unam.htm
This whole bull (public papal decree)
is about the authority of the Catholic Church and the necessity of it for
salvation. And because of this concept,
this Church puts forth the idea that the ark of Noah (Genesis chapters 6-8)
has to be a picture of the Church – specifically, the Catholic Church. So, with this in mind, we can begin to
understand the reason why the average Catholic in the pew sees Noah’s ark as a
symbol of the Church.
But is the
ark of Noah indeed a picture of the Church, or are Catholics mistaken? Furthermore, does it even matter?
Wrong Picture
Yes, it does
indeed matter, because Catholics are attributing to their Church a power that
Scripture does not give it.
It was certainly the ark that saved Noah and the other seven
members of his family, but the church is not a structure, like a boat or a
building, but rather, the church is defined as the people of God (1 Corinthians 16:19; Philemon
1:1-2). Believers are not IN the church, they, collectively, ARE the
church.
It is the people in the ark (Noah and his family) who are the picture of
the church – while the ark itself represents Jesus, the one who saves from judgment!
What Does “the Church” Mean?
When most Catholics (even the
“clergy”) use the term “the Church,” they are not using the biblical definition. They are usually not talking about the
universal, worldwide church of Jesus Christ (e.g., Ephesians 5:23; Colossians
1:17-18), nor the local assembly of believers (e.g., 1
Corinthians 1:2; Galatians 1:2; Revelation 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14),
but to them, the term “Church” means specifically the Magisterium, i.e., the leaders of the institution of the Church
of Rome, the Catholic Church and no
other church.
Whether it is intentional or not,
there is a continual effort in the Catholic Church to present the Magisterium
in this way. But the term “church” is
not ever used this way in the Bible. And
once we use the biblical definition,
it clears the air and does not allow the heresy of having any one denomination as
the “one true church.”
This is simply the mindset of most
Catholics. See more of this mindset in this
link:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-catholic-mindset.html
What About 1 Peter 3:20?
According to the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, the event of Noah’s ark and the flood prefigures/symbolizes salvation
by water baptism:
“The Church
has seen in Noah's ark a prefiguring of salvation by Baptism, for by it ‘a few,
that is, eight persons, were saved through water.’" (CCC #1219)
And it then footnotes 1
Peter 3:20, which says:
“Which
sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the
days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls
were saved by water.”
Of this verse, Catholics will often
focus on the last three words in the King James Version of the Bible – “saved
by water.” They claim that this
verse proves that a person is saved by water baptism. But the context does not bear this out.
A more correct reading would be “saved
through the water,” as the great
majority of the Bible translations indicate, as well as the Catholic Catechism quote above.
It is a fact that not every Scripture
passage that talks about baptism is about water
baptism. Yes, there is water in the
context of this passage, but the water here destroyed
all those who were “baptized” in it. The
water in this context was the judgment of God.
If this is all about water baptism saving a person, this is a terrible
example!
The only reason that “baptism
language” is used here is to indicate that Noah and his family were
placed/immersed into the ark – which is what saved them. This is a picture of those who are incorporated into the body of Christ to
be saved (1 Corinthians 12:12-13), not into water. Water baptism is simply a symbol of what
happens to you when you get saved.
So, this “salvation-by-baptism”
argument fails to show that Noah’s ark is symbolic of the Catholic Church.
See more about 1 Peter 3:20 and baptism here:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2015/07/
Biblical Church vs. Sacramental Church
For the biblical Christian, the local
church should indeed be a vital aspect of his life. There, he is fed spiritually (Hebrews
5:13-14), he is edified and equipped for the ministry (Ephesians
4:12), encouraged and comforted in his Christian walk (1
Thessalonians 2:12), he is convicted of sin when necessary (1
Corinthians 14:24), and he is fellowshipping and interacting with other
Christians in a mutually positive way (1 John 1:3, 7) – but most
importantly, he is encouraged to depend on the life and work of Jesus Christ on
the cross for his salvation, and that alone (Romans 4:4-6) – or, at
least this should be the case.
But throughout the individual
Catholic’s life, the Catholic Church subtly (and sometimes not so subtly)
conditions him to depend on the Catholic institution/organization/denomination
itself for salvation. Usually, he receives
the sacrament of baptism very early in life, even as an infant. He is brought up to believe that this
absolved him of his original sin. He is
also taught that the sacrament/ritual of confirmation confirms and establishes
him in his faith. He will also receive the Eucharist weekly and go to confession often, and when he is at the
point of death, he will receive the last rites.
It is a cradle-to-grave dependence upon the (Catholic) Church for
salvation, through the sacraments.
All these are necessary steps in his
salvation and these can only be obtained from the leaders of the Church. And if he happens to miss a step, he can
always depend on a temporary visit to Purgatory to finish the job that Jesus Christ
was unable to finish with His work on the cross! Yes, this is absolute blasphemy, yet, in
practice, this is what the Catholic is expected to believe.
See this link for more on the
sacraments:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2011/01/sacraments-gods-grace-for-sale.html
See also a seven-part series on
Catholic sacraments, beginning here:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-sacraments-of-catholic-church-part.html
Conclusion
Yes, the (truly biblical) local church
is indeed very important. But again, the
Catholic Church puts great emphasis on a person’s lifelong subjection to its sacraments
and rituals for salvation.
And this is exactly why they liken the
Church to Noah’s ark, because the ark is what saved the eight people of God,
and they desperately want their members to believe that their salvation comes
from the Church.
But in Catholic theology, it seems
that Jesus always has to take a back seat to the Magisterium, which, in practice,
is the one that is actually exalted.
Granted, in their official documents, the
Catholic Church uses many sublime descriptions and eloquent language to
describe their honor of, and submission to, Jesus – yet in practice it seems to
be quite different. Mother Church is the
one who always seems to be in the limelight, while the work of Jesus is minimized.
When one looks deeper into their
doctrines, he will see a notable disparity between those teachings and the Holy
Scriptures that they claim to love and obey.
To nail it home, the event of Noah’s
ark points to the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ as the one who saves
mankind, not to the Catholic Church.
