Not long ago, I was going about my day when a bit of pride strutted through my soul. I can’t even remember what it was about. But my reaction was, Ugh. Every thought of my mind is only evil all the time! I realized I was paraphrasing Genesis 6:5, where God is grieved he made mankind because of our continual evil. 

My next thought was, Then came the flood. All the wicked died in the flood. Only Noah and his family escaped by getting into the ark (1 Peter 3:20). Coupled with this were verses connecting the flood to baptism, which is emblematic of the fact that we died with Christ. Going under water is our burial with Christ. Coming up out of the water is our resurrection with Christ (Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Peter 3:21). When the flood put away evil in Noah’s day, it was a picture of God putting away humanity’s continual evil through the cross. This includes my continual evil, and all the thoughts that come from it. 

This all had to come from the Lord. What a reminder of the complete work He did in Christ! What a call to trust in that work! Noah didn’t wring his hands about man’s continual evil or run around fighting wickedness; he just got in the ark. The flood took care of the rest. Bemoaning or wrestling our own evil is unproductive. It is a fight we can’t win. We just need to consider ourselves in Christ, God’s Ark. Our evil dies in the baptism of His cross as we rise in Him.

This isn’t to say we shouldn’t feel bad or repent when we fail. We absolutely should repent—not only from sin but from our own attempts to solve it. Like the flood, the cross is a global solution to evil, beyond human ability or improvement.