20230129 Genesis 9 - Promises, Promises: The Lord's Covenant with Noah
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Genesis 9 (ESV)
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. 7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” 18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed. 20 Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.” 26 He also said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. 27 May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.” 28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.
Understanding why Jesus had to die is impossible without understanding God's plan to save His people. This plan was established in eternity past when the three persons of the Trinity covenanted together to redeem us; the Father would send the Son, the Son would die for His people, and the Holy Spirit would apply the Son's atoning work to believers (John 3:16; Eph. 1:3–14). But this plan was established in light of what God has ordained to happen in human history, namely, the fall of man (Gen. 3). (Ligonier)
(1) After the Flood (Understanding Genesis 9)
Understanding the blessings and the curses of the covenants the Lord makes as the basis of the divine human relationship
(1.1) God’s covenant with Adam - the covenant of works (Genesis 2:15-17)
It is called the covenant of works because it is based Adam’s obedience. The blessing of eternal life is not a gift of grace that is not earned, but the result of perfect obedience to the Lord’s command.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
A covenant of obedience: obey and live; disobey and die
God promises eternal life if Adam perfectly obeys
In Jesus we see perfect obedience Romans 5:19
19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
(1.2) God’s covenant with Noah (Genesis 8:20-9:17)
In the Lord’s covenant with Noah we see the beginning of His covenants of grace.
In the covenant with Noah, the Lord promised never again to destroy all life with a flood (8:20-9:17). He also pledges to sustain the seasonal cycle, and thus the general stability of nature. In this predictable order, people will flourish, and an arena will exist for Him to enter history via the incarnation of Christ and save His people (John 1:14).
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.
The blessing, the command to be fruitful, the establishment of a boundary
Genesis 9:3–4 (ESV)
3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
The ability to eat meat, to eat everything.
5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
The image of God, the requirement of death for acts of intentional murder
7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.
11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
(2) The second fall in the second garden (Genesis 9:18-29)
In writing Genesis, Moses creates for us a return to the garden. While it is not the perfect paradise of the Garden of Eden, Moses shows us many similarities.
The Lord speaks directly to Noah and his family
There is the command to be fruitful and multiply
There is the promise of life
Noah is tending the garden.
But sin is in the garden, the fallenness and depravity of men has not been destroyed by the flood.
And then there is the mention of nakedness
Noah is drunk. He is uncovered and unlike Adam and Eve, who were naked and unashamed, something shameful happens.
7 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness.
The drunk Noah was galah, exposed, uncovered, laid bare
Ham saw the ervah, the nakedness of his father.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.
Ham may have wanted to humiliate his farther
Or, if we look at Leviticus 18, Ham may have taken advantage of his father’s drunkeness and lay with Noah’s wife. To uncover the nakedness of Noah is a euphemism for laying with Noah’s wife.
Notice that Noah curses the son of Ham, Canaan. Could Canaan be the son of Noah’s son Ham and Noah’s wife?
What can we say?
God demanded obedience of Adam, and He demands obedience of us. However, our obedience as sinners is not what secures for us the new covenant blessing of eternal life. Instead, the obedience of Christ on our behalf is why we will live forever when we believe in Him. We are still called to obey, but now it is not to earn eternal life but as an act of love to the one who redeemed us.
And why do we need grace? The disobedience of Adam in the garden, the sinfulness of men before the flood, the sinfulness in the world even after they had seen the Lord’s deliverance.
All this points to our need for grace.
We are incapable of saving ourselves. We need grace. We need the Lord to intervene on our behalf. We need a Savior. And Jesus, in his perfect obedience is able to be our savior, our obedient second Adam, our sinless and unashamed second Noah.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.