Genesis 9:1-17 Covenant

Genesis 9:1-17 Recap: * Will they trust God, or seize autonomy and define good and evil for themselves. * God magnificently created the heavens and the earth and us. He did so intending for us to dwell in joy and intimacy with Him. But we sinned. We said not your will God, but mine. That may seem small to us sinners, but this revolt has brought death and destruction. Adam and Eve sinned. Cain killed Abel. Mankind came to where they did evil all the time. * Against the due judgment of vile and sinful man there is another story being woven, an unlooked for success. A success carried out by God. No man could do this. And yet God gives Noah things to do, to participate in God's redeeming. Sharing in the divine work of healing through letting God move in His life and obeying. Sharing in the divine work as we worship and obey. o Hope comes because God has resolved. It is unlooked for, unwarranted, undeserved, and yet present. Because God. * We have this same invitation to intimacy with God. Sin is not just doing wrong, it is losing ourselves found in Jesus. But God has established, and we can obey and find ourselves in His intimacy which brings life, breath, and spirit. * For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. We will see this beautifully today. Being saved doesn't leave us empty of participating in the kingdom of heaven coming, it winds us up so we can participate today in heaven coming. Grace also allows us a seat in the theatre of the majesty, holiness and beauty of God. He is frightfully faithful at keeping His covenants. * Intro: * Today we will see the new ordinances, as well as a promise that God will keep His word and withhold or rather transfer judgment. Judgment is not avoided, it is transferred. 9 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." * And God blessed Noah. This is unlooked for, undeserved. God not only allows mankind to continue in Noah, He blesses Noah. This is not just an undeserved neutral stance. It is blessing. Think of the prodigal son here. * This is very similar to Genesis 1:28-30. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29 And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. * Be fruitful and multiply happens here in verses 1 and 7 of chapter 9. This discussion is cased in God's blessing. * Capital punishment comes here. Adam and Eve had not dealt with murder when God spoke these words to them, but Noah and His family have. Genesis 4 highlighting Cain's line has blood vendettas. God is both taking the original promises, and coming along side them to do a new thing. o It is quite powerful that here where judgment is set aside, the punishment is also addressed. This punishment that we know Jesus has taken on the cross. * Our sin before the flood was instilled into the animals. They fear and dread humans now. This is a military term. It is not peaceful. Isaiah 11:6-9 highlights this. The way things are now is not how things were, and it is not how things will be. The blood of Jesus is that powerful. * God makes no distinction with clean verses unclean in the diet plans here. Verse 3 begins an ends with everything. o But there is a huge caveat. Blood is equated with soul, and vitality. The deep innards. The nephesh. Meat is food. It is not some way to consume animal souls. We are not sucking their spiritual power out when we eat them. They are a blessing from God, like all the plants of Eden. We are not to pursue some knowledge from them apart from God like the forbidden fruit. o There is something powerful happening with the almost awkward life blood wording. Passover. Remember this for next week when we get into grapes too. o It is perhaps like the ark was like Noah protecting the Garden of Eden? This of course only can come out of obedience to God's Word. o If animal life is valued by God, how much more human life which bears the image of God? o Blood flows to compensate for human life killed. For human life broken. Numbers 35:31 teaches us that money can't be a ransom for murder. Only death will do for the murderer But who among us hasn't broken our own life with sin? * Somehow God would keep His image on depraved, broken, sinful humans. But God. He has resolved such a countenance. * In Genesis 9:1-7 God has surrounded a decree of the death of the murderer with be fruitful and multiple. He says this to those who will soon be shown broken. Those who would break the image of God. This is a tension that only God himself can work through. God himself must bear up the covenant. 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." * I myself establish my covenant with you. God says I, gives a reflexive verb form, and gives a special word that calls attention. Usually translated behold or look. The orchestra melodies are flowing off His word here. I behold, myself establish my covenant. * To put some context here because we don't relate well to covenants. How many people does it take to get married? Marriage is a covenant. It takes 2 to make a covenant. This is unreal. God promises the blessings, but accepts all the punishments of the covenant being broken. We have no skin in the game. * Every covenant that God makes with us pertains to God saving. * Perhaps Noah's worship from the last chapter is even attached to these words here. Worship to God and covenant with Him go hand in hand. * This covenant applies to all people, every animal, all the earth. God is not denying justice. He has resolved a different outpouring of justice. The cup of God's wrath will still be finished. This mercy that applies to everything we like to call common grace. Perhaps this common grace even allows the sun to obey so well we read psalm 19 and worship God. * This is not salvation or redemption. It is underserved. For God to make this covenant with Noah, Jesus here had to fix His eyes on the cross. The destruction which is due to all creation must be dished out be it cleansing floods or fire from heaven. I, myself will make this covenant with you. Romans 8 dives more into how the Noetic covenant has creation waiting for more from God. * God gives us signs of His work to bolster us in distress. Imagine Noah next time it rains. What a PTSD moment! Through the storm though Noah can see God's faithfulness. Often we don't wish to ride through the storm to be grown by God more and more into His image. We don't like the potter messing with us. But may we trust God especially in difficulty and also in delight. * Interestingly covenants are usually cut. We see this in Genesis 15:18 with Abraham. You cut a covenant with animals because the one who breaks the covenant is going to be cut off. God is saying I'm making the covenant that I will not cut you off into death in the floods. Usually a covenant cut with animals bleed out in ditch is enough of a sign, but God adds more to the covenant ritual. He gives signs. Not only does he make the covenant alone to bless and not hurt, he gives signs so we could remember it when we grow weak. Some of these signs are a little more difficult to participate in. Genesis 17 gives circumcision as the sign of the covenant. We celebrate this with baptism today. Baptism which remembers the flood and cleaning of it. But here, what is the sign of God's covenant with Noah? If you are thinking rainbow you are close, but not far. It is a bow in the skies. It is a bow pointed up at God that he might be shot if he breaks this covenant. Just like Angels with fiery swords stand out of the Garden of Eden, a bow stands against God so he wouldn't forsake the world with this destruction again. * Down the road from here though, we know the rainbow is stretched between heaven and earth. What else is stretched between heaven and earth? Noah's righteousness wasn't enough to save us. Ezekiel 14:12-20. He is a sign of one to come. One who will be stretched between heaven and earth, and be sufficient. One who will take on fire from heaven. One whose righteousness does more than postpone judgment, rather in love He will drink the cup of God's wrath to the last drop. God alone has made this covenant too! * God will remember His covenant. He will fulfill it. * Not only will we see the bow, God will too. God will see the bow and I think Genesis 6:12 is at play here too. "God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways." God will now see the bow and remember His covenant. * This is the sign of the covenant. So when we see rainbows, I don't want us to think liberties from societal oppression. I want us to think of the bow that has been shot, and the crushed heel is for those who believe in the name of Jesus. The water and the blood. 1 John 5:6-12. 6 This is the one who came by water and blood-Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept human testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. * Through Noah's obedience, God begins this for those who believe in Jesus. It is better to say as Noah obeys, through God's great mercy, God begins this for those who believe in the name of Jesus.