Covenants: Noah and Adam

Intro:

As we look forward into this new year, I thought it may be a good idea to look back on God’s faithfulness.

Share 1 thing that God did in your life over the last year to that showed you His faithfulness.

The Bible, from start to finish, is a testimony that God is indeed faithful.

One of the ways God constantly reminds people, specifically the Israelites throughout the Old Testament, of His faithfulness is through mention of His covenant promises.

So as we look forward to this new year, we can do so expectantly because we can look back on God’s faithfulness to keep His promises

What is a covenant?

Based on what you know or have heard about the story of the Bible, what is a covenant?

According to 2 scholars much smarter than me:

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for covenant is berit. The same word is used in Scripture for a wide diversity of oath-bound commitments in various relationships.

-Gentry & Wellum, God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants, 47.

Other scholars, who have studied ancient covenants in depth agree that the common denominator in covenant agreements is that they are elected (not coerced) commitments that the parties involved are obligated to keep by the oath taken.

Are there any of these types of “commitments” today that work in some kind of official sense? (your example doesn’t need to actually be called a covenant, but it can be!)

Types of covenants we see in the Bible (between people):

International treaties (Israel and the Gibeonites in Joshua 9:1-15)

Clan/Tribal alliances (the 5 kings vs. 4 kings in Gen. 14)

Personal agreements (Jacob and his uncle Laban in Gen. 31)

Loyalty agreements (David and Jonathan in 1 Sam. 18 and 23)

Marriage (Prov. 2:16-17)

What is the common denominator underneath each of these agreements? [Relationship // Peaceful dealings between those involved]

God makes covenants with man to establish a relationship with us.

Some other scholars have summarized the significance God’s covenants with man this way:

At its most basic, covenant presents God’s desire to enter into relationship with men and women created in his image… Covenant is all about relationship between the Creator and his creation.

- Alistair Wilson and Jamie Grant, The God of Covenant: Biblical, Theological, and Contemporary Perspectives, 12.

Can anyone name one of the covenants God makes in the Bible?

*So, let’s look back to the first place where we see mention of God making a covenant with mankind. Any guesses where? (Genesis 8).

The Noahic Covenant (Gen. 8:15-9:17)

Who knows the story of Noah? Give me the highlights.

What does God promise to Noah in this passage?

We almost exclusively focus on God’s promise to not flood the earth again when we read this story, but I’d like to propose that the real focus of the story should be WHY He makes this covenant.

Look back again at Genesis 8:15-17 and Genesis 9:1

Genesis 8:15–17 CSB

Then God spoke to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out all the living creatures that are with you—birds, livestock, those that crawl on the earth—and they will spread over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

Genesis 9:1 CSB

God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Does this sound familiar? Where have we heard this command before? [Gen. 1:26-31]

While the word “covenant” is first mentioned here in Gen. 8, I’d like propose that this is not the first covenant that God makes with mankind, and I’m going to get a little nerdy to show you what I mean. Look at Gen. 9:11

Genesis 9:17 CSB

God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and every creature on earth.”

The Hebrew word here and throughout this chapter (hēqîm) translated as “established” carries with it a sense of affirming an already valid covenant versus the other word used (kārat // “to cut”) for making a covenant which refers to creating an entirely new agreement.

So, if this covenant is re-establishing a covenant already made, what would God be referring back to?

Well, if we look at the command God repeated from earlier in Genesis, we’ll get our answer!

Turn back all the way to Genesis 1.

The Creation Covenant (Genesis 1:26-31)

Now, admittedly this passage does not directly mention God making a covenant with man, but the language used by the author here alludes to this heavily because of the relationship that God establishes with mankind from the very outset of creation.

We can see most of this in Genesis 1:26

Genesis 1:26 CSB

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

There are two specific words here that point towards covenant, and I’ll help explain as we go:

Image - representative

How could man made in God’s image represent God to the rest of the created world?

To be made in the image of God is both physical and functional, but also more than that. Here’s what the scholar Hans Walter Wolff says about this:

In the ancient East the setting up of the king’s statue was the equivalent to the proclamation of his domination over the sphere in which the statue was erected… man is set in the midst of creation as God’s statue. He is evidence that God is the Lord of creation… [but] His rule and his duty to rule are not autonomous they are copies.

Quoted in God’s Kingdom Through God’s Covenants, p.84

To bear God’s image means that we were created to rule over God’s creation and represent His character and nature to the rest of the world. He established us as what we can call “servant kings”

*The second word that points toward a covenant here is also in verse 26, and it is:

Likeness - not identical, but of a similar kind

There’s the idea with likeness of similarity yet distinct. Somewhat the same, but separate.

What is the most common way that someone today has the likeness of someone else?

A parent and a child!

There is a level of intimacy that mankind has with God that no other creature has, and it is like the relationship between a parent and a child.

Luke even gives mention to this in giving the genealogy of Jesus by tracing Him all the way back to Adam. He starts Luke 3:23-24

Luke 3:23–24 CSB

23 As he began his ministry, Jesus was about thirty years old and was thought to be the son of Joseph, son of Heli, 24 son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi, son of Jannai, son of Joseph,

and he finishes this list when he gets to Adam and writes Luke 3:38

Luke 3:38 CSB

38 son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.

All this is to say that God, at creation, intended to make man as His sons and daughters to rule His creation. Why? For the sake of creating relationship with His creation, and namely, you. Here’s what some of those same scholars say about these roles that God created us to fulfill:

In the ancient Near East, both the context of the family and the relationship of king and people is covenantal, requiring loyal love, obedience, and trust.

-Gentry & Wellum, God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants, 92.

If you know the story, mankind sins, and that loyal love, obedience, and trust in God, this covenant relationship, is broken. And with the breaking of the covenant relationship the Image of God in mankind is damaged.

So, getting back to Noah now, the promise and commission that God makes to Noah is His re-establishment of this relationship with His people despite the fact that we were the ones who broke the covenant in the first place.

While we are unfaithful to Him, God will prove to us that He is forever and always faithful to us.

Noah would go on to sin against the Lord, and so does every person after him until there is One who perfectly remains in covenant relationship with Him...

And it is in Him, Jesus, that we are reborn, adopted in to God’s family, and called to fill the earth with His disciples, fulfilling God’s initial command to Adam and Eve to fill the world with worshippers, and rule with Him as God intended in the first place.

God’s desire for relationship with us through Christ invites us into His plan of redemption to bring about His re-creation of the world that is even more glorious than His first creation that was marred by sin.