Genesis 9:8-17

Hey everybody, welcome back to Bible Study.
Good to see you.
Thanks for joining us.
We are kind of finishing the Noah narrative,
at least the, I think the classic Noah narrative,
the flood narrative, we are finishing today.
We’re in the ninth chapter and we jump in at the eighth verse.
There is a lot going on today,
lots of some interesting language stuff, some interesting
reference kind of stuff.
And so let’s look at this and then we’ll stop and talk about it a little bit.
“Then God said to Noah and his sons with him, ‘As for me,
I’m establishing my covenant with you
and your descendants after you,
with every living creature that is with you,
the birds, the animals, every animal of the earth with you,
as many as came out of the ark.
I will establish my covenant with you,
that never again shall flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood,
and never again shall
there be a flood to destroy the earth.'”
So this is the first time we’ve seen covenant language.
You may know this,
but in both Greek and Hebrew,
the word covenant is also the word promise,
which is also the word testament.
You can reasonably translate that word with any of those three alternatives.
And really,
I think it takes all three of them to kind of get the
full sense of this word.
And testament,
yes,
like new and old testament,
but more like will and
testament, the idea of a binding agreement.
So God says,
“Here’s my covenant.
I’ve done this thing.
You’re back on the land.
Be fruitful and multiply.” And for my part,
this was a one-time event.
I am never going to repeat this flood,
this cataclysm that I’ve sent to the earth.
I’m not doing that again.
You have my word on that,
and there’ll be a little bit more than the word.
But
this is kind of that classic scene that we know about.
And it’s not—I think we have to be
careful.
It’s not that God is saying he made a mistake.
It’s not that God is saying he’s sorry.
It’s that God is saying,
“I don’t think this is the right answer,
and I’m not going to repeat
this pattern every time the world fills up with sin.”
And make no mistake here that in the first case,
God makes a decision in response to Adam and Eve’s sin,
which is necessitated by the choice that they make.
In other words, when they reach for
something that doesn’t belong to them,
the consequence of that choice must be metered out
in order for the creation to remain as God intended it.
They must be separated from the
source, is what we
saw in the third chapter.
Here is something entirely different.
Here, God is now
following this great reset.
God is now making a promise about what God will continue to do in
the future.
We didn’t see an exact analog to this.
We didn’t see God making the same kind of
promise that we now see God making.
And Clint’s right to point out that this is the beginning
of this very critical language,
which is just really a seed germinating here.
This is going to grow—this covenant testament language—it’s going to grow in significant ways in the book,
and then later the entire nature of the scriptures,
actually.
And so what we see here is God
making this promise.
This is the way it’s going to be from here on out.
I give you
more than my word.
As the one who created,
I promise it will be this way.
And there’s a sense in which that sets off this new creation with a new kind of note,
a new step forward.
And this, unlike the covenant that we’ll see down the road in the Old Testament that is specific to
a group of people,
this is a universal covenant.
God says this covenant is for all humankind,
all animal kind.
This is a covenant that is overarching.
It’s not specific in the way we
will see the covenant with Israel made.
This is for everyone.
Everyone is included in it.
And then let’s move on here.
This is the sign of the covenant—I’m sorry,
verse 12.
God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I’ve made between me and you and every living creature
for all future generations.
I’ve set my bow in the clouds,
and it shall be a sign of the covenant
between me and the earth.
When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen,
I will remember my covenant
is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh,
and the water shall never
again become a flood to destroy the earth.
When the bow is in the clouds,
I will see it.
Remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of the flesh that is on earth.”
God said to Noah,
“This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me
and all the flesh that is on the earth.” Pretty typical language—culturally, historically,
scripturally—the idea of a sign,
something to seal a promise when a promise is made,
when a covenant is made,
that there is something tangible that goes with it.
And in this case,
it is what we call the rainbow,
which we sort of miss the point because rainbows are beautiful,
and because we grow up with this story and this narrative,
we kind of miss.
The idea here is that
bows should be seen as bow and arrow here.
This is a weapon.
The idea is that God has set down his rain weapon.
Not only set it down,
but if you think about how a bow points,
the bow is pointing up and not toward the earth.
The bow is set down so that it is not ready for
war.
It’s not ready to be used as a weapon.
So God says, “I’m setting down my rain weapon.” We
sometimes miss that because rainbow in English doesn’t carry that same kind of sense of a
hunting tool or a weapon that it does in the language.
But I’m done with this.
I’m not going to use this again.
That’s essentially what God is saying here.
Yeah, this is good news at a much
deeper level than what we get in our Sunday school Bible lesson, probably.
There’s a sense in which
the cataclysmic reality of what has happened here is now framed by the distinct and eternal promise
that God is making in the same way that this was a horrible thing that happened because of the
nature of rampant human sinfulness.
On the other side,
this God is saying in even equal measure,
“This is a promise that I am keeping,” and that this sign is for you the promise of that thing.
And what, of course, we know as those farther down the line or as those who know the entire story of Scripture,
this is just the beginning of God’s willingness to make promises on behalf of that creation.
So this is really the first,
the pillar, the universal kind of foundation
of what God has set God’s face to do.
And so it’s a substantial start,
but it’s just that.
It’s just a start.
What’s really interesting about this language is that God doesn’t say,
“So you will remember it, but so I will remember it.” And several times here,
a couple times in this
passage, that when I see the bow,
I will remember the covenant.
And that’s not God thinking I need
to remind myself because I’m forgetful.
We’ve talked before, this word “remember” is deeper
in Hebrew than it is in English.
And this means that I will honor,
I will reconsider,
I will re-remember.
In other words, I will abide by that.
And this isn’t a bow like a string around the
finger because you’re tempted to forget something.
This is every time I look at that,
I will again honor the covenant I’ve made not to bring this kind of destruction.
And you can count on it.
And then these final words here,
we’ll see this again in the book of Genesis
at least once and maybe twice.
This is the sign of the covenant that I’ve established between me
and the flesh of the earth.
So both parties here are reminded of this agreement, of this,
of God’s insistence that he’s not going to repeat this cataclysm.
And it happens each and every
time we see the rainbow.
There’s maybe a sense in which we can gloss over a promise like this,
but consider for a moment standing in the face of an ancient culture looking at nature surrounding you.
The force of water today remains one of the most powerful forces on earth.
The ability for water to shape and to change and to destroy flood tsunamis.
Think of all the ways in which
water continues to have a massive impact.
When you read the text from the frame of an ancient
viewer and you think of this idea of the floodgates opening,
the windows of heaven literally
being released and all of this coming down,
the absolute power and sovereignty of God is undeniable.
The idea that God would put down the bow,
put down this weapon of war,
put down this instrument of
judgment is not slightly good news.
It’s not sort of a good idea.
It’s not a metaphor of something
that would be nice.
Let’s be clear,
this powerful force God is promising will be held in check.
It’s an eternal promise that God is on your side,
that God will not allow this thing to happen and to
devastate and overrun and overpower you.
That is an unbelievable promise and in the face of something
that is beyond human control,
even in our own context,
to one who recognizes the severity of
water and its ability to destroy,
this paints God in the most ultimate almighty sovereign light.
God is so far above and beyond that we might even miss the substantial
reality of that and then the fact that God promises,
“Yeah, I’m putting that down.”
That’s good news.
It’s subtle.
It’s not explicit, but there is a sense here in which as God says
this, you almost hear the subtext,
“Even if I want to.” Even if we return again to the wickedness of
the earth.
In other words, God says,
“I’m not going to do this again,
though there may be a day when I
would be tempted to.” There’s a kind of note of restraint in it.
It’s not that God is saying,
“We won’t get back where we were.” It is God saying,
“When we get back to where we were,
I’m going to handle it differently.
I’m not going to use…
I’ve done this and I’m not going to do that again,
though I may want to.” There is an element in which it is an act of acceptance for God.
It is an act
of restraint for God.
And I think we’re going to see as we continue through Genesis that
the path, unfortunately, leads back to brokenness and the inclination of the human heart to do evil.
We’re not done with those themes.
In fact,
they dominate the rest of the Scripture.
So, I’m going to quick bring up here, Clint,
just another thing that you’ve already mentioned,
but look at it from another perspective here really quickly.
I’m looking here at verse 16,
sort of middle of our screen here.
“When the bow is in the clouds,
I will see it and remember the
everlasting covenant.” You mentioned this word “remember.” You said it’s bigger than what we might
think.
I just want to sort of point out another advantage.
Think about how odd it is that God says
“remember.” Because when most of us think of God,
we don’t think of God as needing to remember.
We think of God as being omniscient,
or that word that means that God knows all,
that God can transcend time, that God was before all things,
God stands outside of all things,
God doesn’t need remembering,
God doesn’t forget to pick up the milk.
So, what’s interesting about this is the Scriptures’
frequent use, especially as we see God described in the Old Testament,
then we see ultimately God described in Jesus Christ,
that God has these innately relatable
human descriptions.
It’s not that God is out forgetting things,
but the biblical writers
are comfortable talking about things like God grieving.
We saw that earlier in this story.
They’re comfortable talking about God putting a thing as a reminder for God.
And I don’t want
to make too much of this other than just to say that there’s a long tradition of being able to
see God in a nuanced way,
in a way that allows God to be more than just one thing.
God remembers things, God’s grieves things, God is overjoyed by things.
These are innately human emotions,
but yet we see that already in the Old Testament before we see God revealed in the person of Jesus
Christ.
So, there’s actually in these subtle ways historical biblical precedent for what we see
ultimately later in what we would call the New Testament,
we see those kinds of descriptions of
God here in the Old Testament.
I think that’s a really amazing kind of note that you see here.
It is certainly good for us to remember that language of God always exists outside of its ability to convey.
So, the reality of God lives beyond our language.
We do not have the right words.
And so, we use those words as equivalents.
We use those words as signposts.
We use those words to try the best that we can to capture what it is that we’re trying to say.
And in a word like
remember, we also hear abide by and honor.
And it is interesting that the Scriptures allow us
to encounter God’s story through our own limitations and in spite of our own limitations.
And so, yeah, that’s a good word, Michael.
Well, friends, thanks for being with us today.
We now, tomorrow, turn to Noah’s story
that you might find very,
very different than some of the very classic Noah’s story we’ve had
before.
So, I certainly hope you will join us.
We look forward to seeing you then.
Take care.