Whoever Sheds Man's Blood

Call to Worship

Psalm 29 NKJV

A Psalm of David. Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones, Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters; The God of glory thunders; The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, Yes, the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them also skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; The Lord shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth, And strips the forests bare; And in His temple everyone says, “Glory!” The Lord sat enthroned at the Flood, And the Lord sits as King forever. The Lord will give strength to His people; The Lord will bless His people with peace.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God.

Intro

Last week, we looked into some of the details of the Great Flood

We had a timeline of the events,

Duration of the rain

When the water started receding

When the ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat

When the tops of mountains were visible

Sending out the Raven, and then the Dove

And finally, when Noah was able to get off,

over a year after first embarking

In all this, our encouragement was to take steps of faith, to pursue action, even when God’s specific directions are not clear or have not been given, but we know the bigger picture.

Also, after disembarking, the first thing Noah did was build an altar and sacrifice to the Lord.

In whatever we do, give thanks.

Especially when it is clear to us that God has done a work.

Genesis 9:1-17

Genesis 9:1–4 NKJV

So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.

God blesses Noah.

God, who is rich in mercy, is also gracious.

He blesses Noah and his sons

our forefathers.

Everyone alive today is descended from at least one of these three sons.

This is our family history

Echoing God’s charge to Adam

Be fruitful and multiply

Once again, humanity is commanded to fill the earth

But this time, humanity is not set in a garden paradise, but in a wilderness,

just beginning to recover from destruction.

Unlike with Adam, fear is now involved in this dominion mandate.

The fear of humans is upon all animals

“man by innocence rule by love, fallen man rules by fear.” Henry

In the original creation, there was no death, no fighting, no killing.

There was no threat from the animals.

Since the fall, corruption had changed the animal

While weeds and thorns infest the ground, teeth and claws became a danger in the animal world

When Adam walked the Garden, there was no threat from any of the creatures

Now, in this fallen world started a new, many of the animals were deadly.

Today, what keeps lions, tigers and bears from entering into villages and killing all the humans?

What keeps wolf packs from coming into towns and terrorizing?

This “fear” that God has put into them, as part of this blessing.

Even with sharks, one of the things divers are instructed is to maintain eye contact.

Animals the could easily kill a human, very rarely do because of this.

but there are some rebellious ones that still do.

They are given into your hand

Even in the fallen world, man is to exercise dominon over the creatures

Every moving thing shall be food for you.

As mentioned already, there was no death in the beginning.

Adam was a vegetarian.

There is no indication that meat was a normal part of humanities diet before the Flood, nor does it seem like it was permitted.

But here, after the flood, God gives his blessing to humanity and allows them to eat meat.

Why?

Perhaps in this restart of creation, the nutrients needed to survive were no longer readily available in the plant based food.

In part, this seems to tie in with the dominion mandate.

Since it was now normative for the animals to eat and be eaten, humans needed to participate in this to take their place at the top of the hierarchy.

All of creation; plants, animals and humans, had fallen from innocence

Man was becoming less like God, and more like the animals.

However, Man was not supposed to eat meat with blood still in it.

Though man had become more like the animals, he was not an animal

He was to have hire standards.

Life is in the blood, so instead of eating animals while the life remained in the flesh, like many animals do, man was to eat meat that was dead.

This is not talking about eating a rare steak; that is not blood.

Henry- “That though they were lords of the creatures, yet they were subjects to the Creator, and under the restraints of his law. That they must not be greedy and hasty in taking their food, but stay the preparing of it;.. That they must not be barbarous and cruel to the inferior creatures. They must be lords, but not tyrants; they might kill them for their profit, but not torment them for their pleasure. nor tear away the member of a creature while it was yet alive, and eat that.

Later on in Leviticus, blood is to be poured out to God as a sacrifice, representing the life of the animal, in place of the life of the sinner

All life belongs to God

God gave man permission to kill and eat, but the blood still belonged to God, as Creator and Author of life.

Blood is not to be viewed as a common thing; ultimately, the blood was pointing to the blood of Christ, which would be shed for our sins.

Genesis 9:5–7 NKJV

Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth And multiply in it.”

Lifeblood is so important to God, that whoever intentionally sheds a man’s blood shall be put to death

whether man or beast.

Even though man has fallen and is closer to animals, there is still a huge difference.

Man is superior.

Man is allowed to kill and eat animals, but if an animal kills a human, that animal needs to be killed.

Man is of greater value than the animals, because man was created in the image of God.

Man was created with the ability to reason, to love, to create

Though the image has been damaged and distorted, it is still there

Genesis 9:8–11 NKJV

Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

God establishes a covenant with all of creation, Noah, his sons, and their descendants down to us and our children’s children.

God will never again destroy the earth with water.

This does not mean that He will not destroy the entire earth again,

He will, with Fire

2 Peter 3:5–7 “For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

But he will not destroy the entire earth with water.

This also supports what we taught a few weeks ago; that this was a global flood

If Noah’s flood was regional, then God did not keep his promise, since there have been pretty major regional floods.

No, Noah’s flood was global.

God will never send a global flood.

Genesis 9:12–17 NKJV

And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

God sets his sign of the covenant in the sky for all to see, even to this day.

The word in the original language is “bow” like a “bow and arrow”

It is a bow in the sky, but without string or arrow and pointed to heaven, rather than towards earth in judgement.

God is faithful to his promises

Whenever we see the rainbow, it should remind us of his goodness and mercy

It should remind us of the judgement we deserve for sin

the mercy God shows by sparing us from another flood

and a reminder that judgement is coming, to those who don’t trust in Christ,

The ark of our salvation.

Conclusion/Application

There are 2 main things I want to discuss in a little more detail from this portion of Scripture:

Imago Dei - latin for image of God

Imago Dei is an abused term

It is used to allow for almost every leftist political position:

Universal medicare? Don’t you care about Imago Dei?

Universal Welfare? Don’t you care about Imago Dei?

Immigration, illegally or legal, Immigrants are made in the Image of God

How can you deny an image bearer?

Support endless War in Ukraine/Palestine: what about the Imago DEI?

LGBTQXyZ+, if you deny their sexual orientation, you’re denying them as a human, you’re denying the IMAGO dei.

How can you deny their right to sexual expression?

And probably the funniest one, is opposition to Capital Punishment.

How can you kill an image bearer?

Funny, because one of the few times that term is used in Scripture, it is specifically used commanding the use of Capital Punishment.

Romans 13:4 “For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.”

Sword are not known for being non-lethal.

So as was mentioned earlier, after the Fall, man became more like the animals;

The IMAGO dei was damaged and distorted

Furthermore, Scripture is clear that we become more like what we worship,

Psalm 115:4–8 “Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; Eyes they have, but they do not see; They have ears, but they do not hear; Noses they have, but they do not smell; They have hands, but they do not handle; Feet they have, but they do not walk; Nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them; So is everyone who trusts in them.”

So through idolatry, one can lose and distort the Image of God

Christians are made more perfectly into the image of God

Romans 8:29 “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

So in one sense, yes. Everyone is made in the image of God

We are human, we have an eternal spirit.

But if we worship God, that image is restored

If we worship idols, that image is further destroyed.

So when “imago dei” is used to justify sin, that needs to be challenged.

“Imago Dei” is not an excuse to sin.

“Imago Dei” is not an excuse to break the law, or a pass to freely immigrate to any country you choose.

“Imago Dei” does not get one out of the hot seat for murder.

The other thing I want to discuss is: The Rainbow

The rainbow, a sign of God’s promise, a reminder of his mercy and grace in judgement

has become the symbol to celebrate all sorts of perversions.

Pride Flag

Named after the sin that Satan was cast out of heaven for.

Satan, unable to create, can only corrupt, pervert, and destroy.

So that is what he has done with God’s symbol of the Noahic Covenant.

He has turned it to represent all kinds of sexual sins.

Just because Satan takes and perverts good things does not mean those things are not good, or cannot be used by Christians anymore.

Don’t just give territory to the enemy.

If something is good, it’s worth defending and fighting for.

Communion

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 NKJV

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

Just as the Rainbow is a sign and a remembrance of the Covenant God made with Noah and all his descendants, the bread and the cup are a sign and a remembrance of the new covenant in Christ’s blood for all those adopted into the family of God.

Right before giving this sign, God made it clear, that the lifeblood of animals belonged to him. The lifeblood of man was special; The one who shed it was owed death, whether man or animal.

But at this Table, Christ invites us to come; take and eat the body that was broken for you. Come, drink the lifeblood that was poured out for your sins. Instead of dying for shedding innocent blood, Christ invites us to drink of his blood shed in innocence, so that we may live.

So come, and welcome to Jesus Christ.