A New Beginning – Genesis 9:1-17

A New Beginning: God’s Covenant with Noah

What were Adam and Eve doing after they left the garden? They were raising Cain. That was my riddle. Before we start, I need to correct something I said the week before. I said there were seven billion people on earth during the flood, and someone kindly texted me that it was closer to seven million, with only eight rescued. It is still sobering. This passage is the Noahic covenant, and to help us understand what a covenant is, I will tell you how I met my wife.

In 1983 I was an officer in my society at a very strict Christian college, and part of my job was to help choose the cheerleaders. We had assigned seating, and talking to the opposite sex before breakfast earned demerits. A young, gorgeous blonde woman tried out, and she is now my wife. Two years later I asked her to marry me, and we stood in a church and made a covenant to be faithful until death. This summer we will celebrate 37 years. A covenant is “a chosen relationship in which two parties make binding promises to each other.” It is more than a contract. It is about relationship. It is by choice, and it includes binding promises. Not all covenants are between equals. Some are conditional, and some are unconditional, and this one is unconditional. The first time the word covenant appears in the Bible is Genesis 6:18, and here in 9:9 God says, “I establish my covenant with you.” I think there are at least five: Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the New Covenant in Christ. “No one forced God to enter into a covenant with Noah.”

Remember the context. Coming out of the ark after death and destruction, Noah did not shake his fist at heaven. He built an altar and worshiped. And Noah found grace, which was unearned. Romans 5:8 says God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God Gives Instructions About the Value of Life

God tells Noah and his sons to be fruitful and multiply, as he did to Adam and Eve. He wants life. Then verses 2 through 4 say how life is to be protected, starting with animals. The fear of man falls on every beast, and God gives them everything for food as he gave the green plants. But verse 4 says you shall not eat flesh with its blood. Do you realize that when you eat today, God has provided it? One commentator said that forbidding blood instills respect for the sacredness of life. I have watched hunters on my land, and I’m in awe of the reverence they have for the animal. “We don’t kill animals just to kill animals.” Proverbs says a righteous man cares for his beast.

Verses 5 and 6 prohibit taking life. Three times God says he will require a reckoning, and the last is for man: “whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” That is not a task for individuals but for society and government. And the reason is not deterrence. It is that man is made in God’s image, and “taking someone else’s life is a sin against God himself.”

God Promises to Preserve Life

In verses 8 through 11, God establishes his covenant with Noah, his offspring, and every living creature. Never again will a flood destroy the earth. Genesis 6:5 says every thought of man’s heart is evil continually, and that is true in 2023 too. But God says he will not do this again. Instead he will bring fire and a new heaven and a new earth. And he gives a sign: the bow in the cloud. A bow was a weapon of war, and God hangs it in the sky. “He’s literally hanging up his bow,” pointed away from man, not at him. Verse 16 says, when the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant. It reminds God, too, of his promise.

What the Covenant Teaches About God

A covenant is a testimony of how God deals with his people. “How he dealt with people in the past is how he will deal with us in the future.” First, God has a plan. He told Noah before the flood what would happen and how to be rescued, in Genesis 6. He is not rash. When it comes to the end of the world, he has a plan and a warning, and rescue is by grace, not by works.

Second, God reassures. Noah had seen devastation, and no doubt heard people beating on the ark. Verses 12 through 17 repeat the covenant, the sign, and the promise, so that Noah could trust his words. What do you need to be reassured about?

Third, God is kind and merciful. Isaiah 54:9-10 uses the days of Noah: “my steadfast love shall not depart from you.” He cares for every living creature, a phrase repeated eight times here. He cares for cattle in Jonah 4, the nest of the mother bird, and the ox treading grain, and he cares for the earth. Even cat lovers can take heart. Fourth, God keeps his word. Noah must have wondered when he felt the first raindrop. “We have a god that doesn’t do take backs.”