Genesis 8:20-9:17
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. And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse 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. 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. 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. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 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.
And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 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. 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.” 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: I have set my bow in the cloud, 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 in the clouds, 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. 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.” 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.”
So this all happens just after Noah gets off the ark. Now, if you're like me, you probably remember the story of Noah and the ark from Sunday school. Animals going in two by two. There's a big boat, lots of rain. There's the dove with the olive branch and a rainbow at the end of the story. But there's actually way more happening here than just a nice story about God saving the animals. So let's jump in.
So here we see Noah just stepping off the ark and the ground is finally dry. And the first thing he does is he builds an altar and makes sacrifices on it. And you've got to ask yourself, wasn't the whole point of the flood to deal with the sin of the world? So how is it that straight after God refreshes and washes clean the earth that we're back to sacrifices already?
Well, the thing is that God's judgment for the sin that had filled the earth up until that point might well have passed. He did actually judge the creation at that point and wash it clean through this flood. His judgment has passed, but human nature hasn't actually changed. Noah's burnt offering is essentially saying, we're still here, we still need your help, we still have sinful hearts. And in fact, that's what we see in our text, isn't it?
God himself says in verse 21, I will never again curse the ground because of man. Why?
For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. The nature of humanity has not changed because of the flood. And so these sacrifices point us to the fact that even though God has dealt in judgment with the sin of the earth, the heart of humanity hasn't changed. We still need a greater sacrifice, a greater change to come into the hearts of people. Basically, this is saying we need Christ, the ultimate sacrifice, who is going to ultimately satisfy the need for redemption completely.
But we also see in this story the beautiful picture of the rainbow in the clouds. Now, I used to think of rainbows as a kind of a beautiful, peaceful symbol of God having restored his relationship with the earth. But the word the Hebrew uses here is the same word that is used for a warrior's bow, a bow and arrow. God is essentially saying here that I am hanging up my weapon, but he doesn't point it down towards the earth.
The rainbow is pointing up. He's putting down his bow of judgment, but he's putting it up ready to shoot into heavens, ultimately shooting into himself. This foreshadows that this solution to the human heart problem is coming, but it's coming not in judgment upon mankind. It is coming on God's wrath being poured out on himself.
In fact, on Jesus Christ, the son of God.
And so this already points us to Jesus. And I think that's a pretty powerful image. Now, because things have now changed, there is now a new relationship between God and mankind and creation. There are some new ground rules. So just like Adam and Eve were allowed to eat from every fruit that was in the garden, now God says to Noah and his sons that they can eat, but they can also eat meat.
But there is a catch. You are not allowed to have any of the blood of the animals because this blood represents life. It belongs to God alone. Again, another sign pointing to the blood of Christ that is going to be poured out for us. And here we also see the first foundation for human government systems. God says that whoever sheds human blood will have their blood shed because humans are made in the image of God.
The old reformers looked at this and said, well, this is where civil authority comes from. This is where government exists to protect life and uphold justice. God is instituting in a very early kind of way a justice system to exist in the world. And so already in this passage, we see multiple signs pointing towards Jesus coming in the future to ultimately deal with mankind and our heart problem. We see a picture of government being formed. And then we see finally this picture of God upholding creation, continuing it, maintaining it so that salvation may come. That's why he's talking about a world that is stable, where the seasons shall not pass away until his task begins.
Now, what does this all mean for us?
Well, first off, every single morning, the sun comes up, doesn't it? Every time winter turns into spring, it is again reminding us that God is preaching a kind of sermon about his patience. He could have hit the reset button long ago. Jesus could have come in judgment already long ago. But our hearts, you know, are still evil from youth, as the text puts it. Ours included, mine included. But God continues to hold back his judgment to give us time to turn to him. And so God maintains all of these seasons.
He upholds the world with his own hand so that we may turn to him.
And I think this also matters because we live today in a very climate anxious kind of world. But this passage reminds us that actually creation is ultimately safe in God's hands. The world will end when God is well and truly ready for it to end. When his purposes are completed.
Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that we are free to trash the planet however our heart that is inclined for all evil feels like. No, we're still called to be good stewards of creation. But this does free us from this paralyzing fear that so much of particularly the Western world seems to be suffering from. We don't have to be afraid that we're just going to destroy everything. Our environmental efforts can probably be quite helpful, but they don't need to be hysterical.
We don't need to stand up in front of the UN and demand an accounting from the leaders of the world “How dare you?!” We are safe in the hands of God and the earth will keep going until he is well and truly ready to bring it to an end for his purposes.
And so in this passage, we see this beautiful tension between judgment and mercy. Yes, God sees sin clearly. He knows exactly what we deserve, but he still chooses restraint until his purposes are complete. He chooses patience. He chooses to work within the mess of human history to bring about redemption and salvation.
Every rainbow we see is a reminder of that choice of God to hold on to this tension until time is ready for him to bring it to an end. That is the gospel right there, friends. Not that we're, you know, it's not the story that we're basically good people who sometimes make a mistake. It's actually that we are bad people who totally deserve God's judgment.
And yet God chooses mercy until he is ready to bring things to an end. And that's ultimately what the cross is about. God's justice and mercy meeting together in the person of Jesus.
Let me pray.
Oh Lord, you are the Lord of all mercy. Thank you for hanging your bow in the sky, holding back what all of our sin deserves, instead pouring it out upon yourself, upon Jesus, our Lord. We pray that in this world that is so obsessed with rainbows, that the rainbow would remind us daily of the work that Jesus has done on our behalf.
Help us to be thankful and grateful for this. We pray this in his mighty name.
Amen.