Naoh & The Covenant

Noah and The Covenant
Genesis 9 1 June 08

Covenants with Adam, Noah, Abram: be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.
Key verse:
Gen. 9:17 ¶ So God said to Noah, “This is the guarantee of the covenant that I am confirming between me and all living things that are on the earth.”

I. God confirms a covenant with the earth and all its creatures.

EBC, Sailhamer
As a result of Noah’s altar and offering, the whole of the state of mankind before the Flood is reestablished. Man is still fallen (9:21); but through an offering on the altar, he may yet find God’s blessing (8:21-9:3).

Turner:
The imperatives in 9:1,7 enclose a catalogue of statements governing relationships in the renewed creation:
a) Animals will live in fear of humans (v.2).
b) Every animal will be food for humans (v.3).
c) Blood must not be consumed (v.4).
d) Capital punishment for all humans and animals that take a human life (vv. 5-6).

Ross: This covenant through Noah declared that God held life sacred and that humankind too must preserve life in the earth.
…unfolds the continuing recreation theme with the comparison between Noah and Adam. There the study must retrace the original design of the Creator for blessing and commissioning humankind in the image of God. This passage alludes to the former by the use of “be fruitful,” “multiply,” and “fill the earth.” It also parallels the garden scene with the permission to eat any animal, but with a prohibition against eating blood.

Another theme that is important to the Levitical laws is the value of blood. The blood of an animal, according to Leviticus, belongs to God. Humans dare not eat it. Moreover, the blood of human beings are in the image of God. For the crime of murder, then, society would have the right to take the murderer’s life.

a. The covenant is plainly stated.
Summarizing…
Gen. 9:9 “Look! I now confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you
Gen. 9:10 and with every living creature that is with you, including the birds, the domestic animals, and every living creature of the earth with you, all those that came out of the ark with you–every living creature of the earth.
Gen. 9:12 ¶ And God said, “This is the guarantee of the covenant I am making with you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all subsequent generations:
Gen. 9:13 I will place my rainbow in the clouds, and it will become a guarantee of the covenant between me and the earth.
Gen. 9:15 then I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures
Gen. 9:16 …the perpetual covenant between God and all living creatures of all kinds that are on the earth.”

b. The underlying point is God’s commitment to his creation and all its creatures.
i. We are not the first environmentalists!
ii. The divine commitment to the ecosytem is unparalleled.
iii. Our commitment to the ecosystem is distinct from that of secular commitments…
Freeman Dyson [physicist]
There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism,

iv. Our commitment is based on God’s love for his creation, not our own need for the creation, not our own valuation of the creation, not our own reverence for the material world.
More narrowly…
II. God confirms a covenant with Noah and his offspring.

Gen. 9:9 “Look! I now confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you

Alter: … Perhaps the ban on bloodshed at this point suggests that murder was the endemic vice of the antediluvians.

Waltke: Blood is equated with life in the OT (Lev. 17:11). Here blood is equated with the animal’s ‘soul’ (i.e., its passionate vitality). By forbidding the eating of blood, this regulation instills a respect for the sacredness of life and protects against wanton abuse (see Lev. 3:17; 7:2-27; 19:26; Deut. 12:1-24; 1 Sam. 14:32-34). Adding meat to the human diet is “not a license for savagery”. [Sarna, 60]

Transition: the promise has no response from Noah…
Alter: …first instance of a common convention of biblical narrative: when a speaker addresses someone and the formula for introducing speech is repeated with no intervening response from the interlocutor, it generally indicates some sort of significant silence—a failure to comprehend, a resistance to the speaker’s words, and so forth.

III. God provides a sign for his covenant with a bow.
a. Not a rainbow! But a “bow,” a warrior’s weapon, a hunter’s tool.
b. The sign is a typical divine demonstration:
Waltke: God certifies his covenants by signs:
i. for the covenant with Abraham, circumcision (Gen. 17:11);
ii. with Israel at Sinai, Sabbaths (Ex. 31:13,17);
iii. with Christ and new Israel, the cup (Luke 22:20).

Gen. 9:12 ¶ And God said, “This is the guarantee of the covenant I am making with you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all subsequent generations:
Gen. 9:13 I will place my rainbow in the clouds, and it will become a guarantee of the covenant between me and the earth.
c. The bow is upside down, not at the ready as a weapon.
d. The bow is most readily visible at times of chaos.
e. The bow is beautiful, reminding us of Psalm 19: “the heavens are declaring the glory of God!”

IV. God uses a rainbow to explain his grace.
a. The creation is sustained by God himself, alone unable to effectively resist the destruction of humankind.

Ross…establishment of an unconditional, unilateral covenant. From this point on, the God of Israel would be known as a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God.

b. The recovery of creation and of humankind is enabled by God.
i. God does this by coming to his creation.

Waltke: God unilaterally takes full responsibility to preserve the earth and its complete ecology forever in order to sustain his image bearer (8:20-22). The covenant confirms God’s preexisting relationship with all creatures when he blessed them at the time of their creation.

ii. God does this by focusing all his wrath on Jesus, his innocent, one-and-only-son.
iii. God has so intervened graciously many times…

Noah—a second chance, a set of rules to protect him and the earth
Abram—a second chance to have a family, a personal promise and the gift of a child
Joseph—after betraying his brothers and pushing them to homicidal anger, a second chance to bless his family and save them from starvation.
David—after proving extreme loyalty to an evil king, David betrayed his own loyal field general, so God brought David a true friend, Nathan the prophet, who carefully told the king the truth, bringing him to his knees.
Peter—the lead disciple, ultimately betrays Jesus, who then invites him to share breakfast at the beach, calls him to feed Jesus’ sheep-like followers, restoring him to servant-leadership.

iv. God is today intervening on your behalf…

My life/Your life… we are each rescued in our failures, reminded of the truth, comforted in our brokenness, reminded of the boundaries, and graciously restored to usefulness; the God of the second chance.