The Re-Creational Covenant

Photo Credit-https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/noah-flood

    Noah.  His story is familiar to even non-christian believers. The cutesy depictions of the 2x2 animal train, the gray-haired man hammering away on his boat, the brightly colored rainbow splashed across the final two page spread of children's bibles.  All easily recognizable by most of western society. And once these primary, basic images are stamped into our modern brains and then reiterated by Sunday school classes,VBS songs, and countless coloring pages, it's hard to realize there is so much more depth and incredible treasure hidden within this terribly tragic yet redemptive story.  Let's peel away some of those layers now.

    Let me preface by saying, there are way too many amazing points to cover all of them in this single post.  You could spend months fleshing out all of the nuance, typology, prophecy, etc. if you so desired.  My goal today is to hit some high points and hopefully inspire you to do more digging on your own and see how the Spirit will lead you into His truth.  But for now let's start with defining our terms.

    Covenant- (Hebrew bėrit) In its native context it was an agreement enacted between two or more parties in which one or more make promises under oath to perform or refrain from certain actions stipulated in advance.  The ideological foundations for the concept of covenant making in the ancient near east was an idea known as "fictive kinship."  Being a patriarchal society- this was a big deal.  The closer the blood relation the more responsibility you held.  If you needed someone to act like a family member, you would invite that individual, tribe or nation into a covenant which created this fictional kinship.  It was legally binding.  Two common treaties 1) Parity 2) suzerain/vassal (this is what we will focus on)

    Supremacy over the gods (and therefore the created order) was dependent on the defeat of the Sea.  This idea was deeply imbedded in the mind of the ancients.  Examples are woven throughout scripture.

    1) Creation

    2) The Flood

    3) The Plagues

    4) The parting of the Red Sea

    5)  Moses in the nile

    6) Sea of Galilee

    7) Revelation 

    Yahweh continues to rescue His people from the sea/waters throughout biblical history until His final act in Revelation when the "sea will be no more."  The evil and corruption of God's good world will meet its ultimate end there for good.  The Noah story is but a shadow of what is to come.  A physical representation of a spiritual truth.  God will cleanse His world of anything that stand against Him and His people.  He will always rescue His remnant- those who endure to the end and remain in relationship to their Creator.  

    Enough time had passed from the initial fall of man that evil had spread into the hearts of nearly every human on earth.  When Adam and Eve left the presence of God and the place of God, bloodshed starts almost immediately to fill the earth.  It doesn't take long for their first son to align with the Nahash.  By killing his brother, Cain's spiritual father has now become the enemy of God due to his flagrant rebellion. 

     Our next character we read about is Lamech, a man who sings songs of murder and builds a city bent on corruption.  Instead of God's people being fruitful and multiplying like God commanded, evil spreads and taints nearly every inch of God's creation and those meant to image Him.  And this deeply grieved our Creator.

   Gen 6:5- "5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord."

    Every intent of every thought was evil.     

    We can compare this story to one told to us in Matthew 24:36-

        " 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. "

    Just as the world had corrupted itself so far that judgement was the only option, so will humanity reach that level of deprivation again.  

    The flood was a de-creation event.  It undoes everything set up in the account of creation.  The habitats are wiped out and those that filled them along with it.  The world is now in its original state, "formless and void."  The chaos that God had placed into order has now been unleashed.  This is complete destruction.  God has started again but within a fallen world.

    God reestablishes his relationship and trust that was broken in Eden through His covenant.  This is now with ALL creation and He seals it with a rainbow.

   Genesis 9:20 "Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse[a] the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”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.

    “Whoever sheds the blood of man,  by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

7 And you,[a] 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.”

    God now has to legislate murder because even in their fallen state humanity is made in the image of God and this image cannot be violated without consequences.      

    "for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done." - God knows that even though evil is now a part of fallen creation He has a plan to redeem and save them.  He knows that humanity will fail in their covenant and He is already preparing for that.  He has already committed to His redemption plan within these covenantal terms.  He will not completely destroy His creation again.  He is going to continually step in and reveal Himself to His stubborn people.  He is going to take on humanity's deserved destruction in the form of sending His only Son to die on a cross.  He will take our place and love us through the mess we continually create.