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Studies in Genesis, The Noahic Covenant, Lesson XX, Genesis 9:1-17
Genesis 9:1-17, And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. 3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. 4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. 7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. 8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; 10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. 11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. 12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. In this passage we are introduced to a pattern by which God relates to his creation, mainly man but also including all living creatures, and that pattern is in the form of covenants. The word covenant literally means a coming together, a meeting or agreement of minds. It is a covering. Some Bible scholars speak of eight Biblical covenants, first the Edenic Covenant, then the Adamic covenant, the Noahic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, the Palestinian or the Land Covenant, and the New Covenant which covers the Millennium and the New Heaven and the New Earth. Bible believers are generally Dispensationalists and dispensations are based upon specific covenants and knowledge of these covenants will help in rightly dividing the word of truth. Covenants can be divided into two types, conditional and unconditional. A conditional covenant is a bilateral (bi meaning two sided) covenant in which a proposal of God to man is characterized by the formula: if you will do such and such, then I will do such and such. Whereby God promises to grant special blessings providing man fulfills certain conditions contained in the covenant. Man's failure to do so often results in punishment. So one's response to the covenant agreement brings either blessings or cursings. The
blessings are secured by obedience and man must comply with his conditions
before God will comply with His. This covenant is characterized by the formula: I will, which declares God's determination to do as He promises. Therefore blessings are secured simply by the grace of God. There
may be conditions in the covenant by which God requests the covenanted one to
fulfill out of gratitude, but they are not themselves the basis of God's
fulfillment of His promises. The covenant clearly described in our passage today is an unconditional covenant made between God and Noah, but like Adam, Noah stood as the representative for the entire human race for he was the beginning of the second beginning. So this covenant passes on to all descendants of Noah. We are all descended from Adam and because the flood destroyed all genealogical lines except Noah’s we are also all descended from Noah. If possible each one of us would find a DNA connection to one of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham or Japheth. God chose to repopulate the Earth for a purpose and included in that purpose are several provisions of the Noahic Covenant.
The first and foremost was to repopulate the earth.
Read Genesis 9:1, And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
God had chosen to destroy the entire human race, with the exception of eight souls.
It was a decision on God’s part because the wickedness of man was great and the rottenness was without recovery.
Ladies, while looking in their refrigerator fruit drawer engage in the act of separation of the ripe fruit from the rotten fruit and in doing so repeat what God did in flooding the earth, for the rotten fruit is without redemption and only worthy of casting in the trash for destruction.
So Noah and his sons were given the task of bringing forth life upon the Earth, and God blessed them in this task, but the command to subdue the earth is not given for man had lost his authority.
Satan had become the prince of this world with authority over all the kingdoms of the world and we know from scripture he can offer them to whomsoever he will.
Remember, he exercised that authority in offering the kingdoms to Christ which was his right to do being the god of this world.
He will again offer it to the wicked seed of Satan, the Antichrist who will not turn it down as did Jesus.
The second provision of the Noahic Covenant is the fear of man that was put into animals for man was to dominate them.
Man had lost authority over the earth, but he was still given to dominate and have authority over the animal kingdom.
For this reason, the fear of man was placed in animals and was therefore a means of self-preservation due to the third provision concerning man’s diet.
The third provision regarding man’s diet was that it included both every moving thing and the green herb.
It seems that the meat of animals was now added to Noah’s previous diet of the green herb for Noah had been a vegetarian up to this point and now all animals were to be included as fit for food.
Imagine such a change of mind that occurred, to now eat animal flesh.
The fourth provision of the covenant concerned the eating of blood for now that the eating of animal flesh was allowed blood had entered the picture.
The life of the flesh is in the blood and the shedding of blood is the symbol of death.
All man and animal life is sustained by blood.
The fifth provision concerns punishment for the shedding of blood.
Let us again read Genesis 9:5,6:
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
And reading this same passage from the Amplified Bible
5 For your lifeblood I will most certainly require an accounting; from every animal [that kills a person] I will require it. And from man, from every man’s brother [that is, anyone who murders] I will require the life of man. “Whoever sheds man’s blood unlawfully], By man (judicial government) shall his blood be shed, For in the image of God He made man.
So for the first time in history capital punishment becomes a part of human government.
We are to note that Cain’s punishment was among other things banishment but not death for his murder of Abel for there was no capital punishment prior to the flood.
Perhaps God allowed Cain to live so that we could see the consequences of allowing the murderer to go free.
Remember Lamech in the line of Cain could kill a young boy for what may have been a mere insult and then boast of it.
The men who died in the flood were men of violence and that violence certainly included murder.
God did punish sin, but He delayed the execution until the days of the flood so that we could learn the high price of allowing the murderer to go free.
We see now in God’s command that the life of man, his creation, his creature, was precious and belonged to God and it was God’s to give and His alone to take.
He degreed that men who willfully take the life of another must be put to death by man acting on God’s behalf.
But also note punishment by the shedding of blood includes animals who cause the death of humans and therefore animals are also to die who cause death.
Even one who sheds his own blood by suicide is included in God’s condemnation although the punishment is self-executed.
So if this is taken literally capital punishment must include the shedding of the murderer’s blood which does not happen with our current execution methods which are used very sparingly.
God institutes blood for blood punishment for man is created in the image of God and murder is not only an act of hostility against man, it is an affront to God whose image man projects.
Murder then is a degradation of God’s image apart from God’s will and therefore condemned by God.
So all mankind had perished in the flood because of sin and God is now bringing forth human government and within this system God will require that government to take the life of the murderer acting on behalf of God, reflecting the moral image of God, executing His indignation and sentence upon the murderer.
And blood is to be shed, God himself complying with his own command with regard to his only begotten Son, who shed his blood in payment for our sins.
Blood for blood is therefore a righteous act and in accordance with God’s command.
The sixth provision of the Noahic Covenant is God’s promise that humanity would never again be destroyed by a worldwide flood.
Certainly we always are reminded of floods for we have many local floods that bring harm to many people but God promises Noah and all of us including His animal creation that never again would there be a worldwide flood.
We know from scripture the earth will go through great upheaval and destruction of much of the earth’s present system but God herein promises it will never be by the washing of the earth with a universal flood.
Those who say the flood of Noah’s day was local are also denying God’s promise that there will never again be a universal flood for why would God promise such a thing if there never was one in the first place?
And lastly the Noahic Covenant includes a token of God’s promise, the token of a lovely rainbow.
Genesis 9:12-17, And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
God chose to provide a reminder to Noah and all creatures that would come after of his promise to never destroy the earth again by a flood.
Not every covenant came with a sign or token, but God chose to give the world the beautiful token of a rainbow.
Rainbows come in conjunction with rain which did not exist before the world wide flood when the earth was watered by a mist that came daily upon the vegetation.
So for the first time in human experience the rainbow appeared, and God's promise that humanity and all living creatures upon the earth will not be destroyed again by a flood, should come to remembrance every time a rainbow is seen.
What a beautiful token it is and it ought to bring your mind to remember that God keeps his promises and He will carry us through to the kingdom.
So in conclusion the Noahic Covenant became the basis for the dispensation of Human Government.
Prior to the flood chaos and confusion reigned and violence filled the earth.
Let all things be done decently and in order and therefore Human government was a must for men who are born with a sinful nature.
God brought to be what He calls an everlasting covenant and this covenant is still very much in place however its provisions continue to be challenged by Satan.
That arch enemy of Christ is busy promoting alternate life styles putting down marriage, neglecting fruitfulness in the matter of children, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, divorce, and the confusion of gender identity.
Even the dominance of man over animals is challenged as animals are thought equals in the doctrine of evolution.
In this, even the eating of meat is questioned for what right does man have to destroy equals.
And of course the devil is indeed having his way the world over regarding capital punishment as violence fills the earth as it was in the days of Noah.
God’s way is always good and the covenant with Noah is always good for it is an everlasting covenant.
Genesis 9:16, And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. |