Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Sermon preached on Genesis 9:8-17 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 05/28/2023 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Our God is a covenant making God. If we could expect anyone to keep their word, it is God. If there is anyone where we could trust that there yes was yes and their no was no, it is God. Yet, our God is pleased throughout Scripture to interact with his creation through the means of a covenant. Back in chapter 2, we spent some time discussing covenant theology, as we saw its framework there. We defined a covenant as a formal agreement or contract between parties, often accompanied by oaths, signs, and ceremonies. We discussed how all of history can be divided up as falling under one of two covenants. There was the covenant of works with Adam and all his offspring. That covenant was based on human merit and so in Adam as our covenant head, all of us have earned death by that covenant. The other overarching covenant we identified was the covenant of grace. That covenant is not based on human merit but on the gracious promise of God received by faith. It is a covenant made with Christ as the second Adam and in him with all the elect as his offspring. What is particularly special about that covenant of grace is that there have been several different expressions or administrations of it in history, starting with the promise of Genesis 3:15. That’s when God promised to crush Satan through one of the offspring of Adam and Eve. That covenant promise was most recently renewed in different terminology with Noah back in Genesis 6:18, where God promised to save Noah and sons from the Flood judgment through the Ark, but the substance is of the same sort. So then, we come today to another passage where God is again making a covenant. We will study then today God’s establishment of this covenant and its significance for our salvation.
Let us in our first point observe the parties and stipulations of this covenant which is commonly called the Noahic Covenant. Let us first observe the parties of the covenant. The parties are listed in verse 9. The list is actually pretty long. This Noahic Covenant is made with Noah and all his offspring. Sound familiar at all? That is the same sort of scope that God made with Adam in the covenant of works. At the start of creation, God covenanted with Adam and all his offspring. Here, God covenants with Noah and all his offspring, as a sort of second Adam. Interestingly, we see that there are additional parties to the covenant named in verse 10 too. God also is making this covenant with every living creature that is with Noah, every land based animal that came out of the Ark with them. When we think of an individual as the head of a covenant, we sometimes refer to this as federal headship. In this case, this seems to have an application then even to the animals in the Noahic Covenant. God placed humans above all these land animals as having dominion over them, so they too are being included with Noah and his offspring as named beneficiaries of this covenant. All these same parties of the Noahic Covenant are again named in verses 16 and 17. Verse 16 says the covenant is with every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. Verse 17 describes the covenant as between God and all flesh that is on the earth. So, the parties of this covenant are abundantly clear.
So then what does this covenant promise? What are the stipulations? Look at verse 11. God says that he will never again cut off all flesh from the earth through a flood. He repeats this again in verse 15. As a side note, this would be another argument against seeing the Flood as merely a local flood, because what would this Noahic Covenant then really be promising, given how many local floods have happened since then. But I digress. The point is that in the Noahic covenant God is here stipulating that he will never again destroy the earth and all flesh like he did in the manner that he did with Noah’s Flood.
This surely is the specific clarified understanding of what God promised at the end of last chapter, 8:21-22, after they exited the Ark and built that altar. There God spoke of how going forward that he would not curse the earth again and would also preserve the normal days and seasons on earth. He also said that this would be the case as long as the earth remained. Reading that in light of the further explanation here in chapter 9, and the rest of Scripture, we come to some important conclusions. There will be an end of this new world that Noah had come upon. But it will not be by another flood. Elsewhere we learn that it will one day come via fire on a final day of judgment, when this world and all the wicked are destroyed by fire. God’s elect saved under the covenant of grace will be saved from that final judgment by grace through faith in Jesus.
So then, in this first point, we have observed that the Noahic Covenant is made between God and all humanity, and even all the animals. In it, God stipulates that he will never again fully destroy the earth and these inhabitants by a flood. God does not require any stipulations of the humans or the animals. This leads us then to come now to our second point to assess the overall nature and significance of the Noahic Covenant.
In summary, I believe we should see this as what we might call a common grace covenant. Earlier I reminded you that we typically look at all of human history falling under the covenant of works or an outworking of the covenant of grace. But in this case, the Noahic covenant doesn’t quite fit right in either category. It is certainly not a covenant of works, because there is absolutely no requirement put upon man for its fulfillment. There is no work for humans to do for it to come to pass. Actually, the opposite is quite the case when you read this with the end of chapter 8. There, it said in verse 21, that even though man’s heart is so depraved, still God is swearing via covenant to not give another Flood-type judgment. So it is certainly a covenant full of grace and not work.
So then, many theologians have instead wanted to see this as another administration of the covenant of grace. As we’ll see later in Genesis, the Abrahamic covenant is an administration of the covenant of grace, which that covenant gets reaffirmed to the other patriarchs of promise that descend from Abraham. Later the Mosaic Covenant and the Davidic Covenants will also administer God’s overarching covenant of grace. The New Covenant instituted by Jesus is the administration of it that we are under. Some have understood the Noahic covenant to be of the same sort. Yet, if we want to do full justice to the details of this covenant, it does pose challenges to think of it in that way. The reason why is simple. It’s because of what we observed in our first point today about the parties and the stipulations. Who is in the Noahic Covenant doesn’t match with who is in the covenant of grace. The parties of the covenant of grace are God and the elect who are saved in Christ. The parties of the covenant of grace are not all humanity like we find with the Noahic Covenant. We know the Bible doesn’t teach universal salvation, so because of the parties it would seem difficult to see the Noahic Covenant as an administration of the covenant of grace in any simple sense. As for the stipulations, the covenant of grace has God promising salvation and redemption and thus ultimately eternal life in a restored paradise and new creation without the ongoing problems that this world currently has. So its about eternal life in an final glorified world. But the Noahic Covenant is actually about preserving this temporary life in this current sin-frustrated world. We know the Bible doesn’t teach that this world or that this life is all that there is, so because of the different stipulations it would seem difficult to understand the Noahic Covenant as an administration of the covenant of grace in any simple sense. So then, because both the parties and the stipulations are different, it would seem best to treat the Noahic Covenant in a category different than the covenant of grace.
The solution then is to recognize it for what it is. It is a covenant of common grace. Since it is clearly a gracious covenant, we need to recognize the grace. Sinful, fallen man, does not deserve any good gift from God after the fall. We fell dead in Adam and God would be just giving us what we deserve if he were to wipe us off the face of the earth. That God promises to sustain our lives in any capacity in this world is a measure of his grace. But to call this common grace in the Noahic Covenant is to distinguish it from saving grace. Saving grace is what is given through that one overarching covenant of grace that we’ve been talking about. Saving grace is what will bring us everlasting life in the world to come. The Noahic Covenant’s grace isn’t that. So it is a common grace not a saving grace. And when we call it common, we also have in mind that it is common to all humans. Both the elect and the reprobate get to enjoy common grace. Both the righteous and the wicked get to enjoy common grace.
I remind us that common grace comes in various forms, not only in the explicit form described here in the Noahic Covenant. The common grace in the Noahic Covenant is most specifically about this world’s protection from a worldwide flood. There are various graces that God gives to this world. Jesus mentioned how God brings rain to fall and sun to shine on everyone, whether they acknowledge God or not. That is an expression of common grace. When someone gets sick and then recovers, that is common grace, and is not unique to Christians. That we humans can learn many things and create many technologies and overcome many obstacles, that is common grace. When the government does what it is supposed to do and we all benefit from it, that is common grace. So many examples. And yet, while there is this more specific sense of common grace here in the Noahic Covenant about mankind not being destroyed by a flood, remember how last chapter ended describing how God promised that all the seasons and days would operate normally while this world remained. I’ve been saying that what is at the end of last chapter after they got off the Ark is a complementary description of this Noahic Covenant. In other words, when you add in that detail from the end of chapter 8, there is a sense in which we could put all common grace in this current world as an outworking of the Noahic Covenant.
Let me give you an additional way to think about all this. At the first creation with Adam, there was a covenant of works made with him and all humanity after him. That governed life in that world, but we sinfully broke it. So with Noah here he comes into this new creation in this new world. He’s like a second Adam. So God again makes a covenant with him and all humanity after him. And like Adam had received that creation mandate on how to live in this world, so too we studied last week Noah’s similar mandate. But while Adam was given a covenant of works for all humanity, it makes sense that Noah as a fallen creature couldn’t be given a covenant of works. So, God gave a human-wide covenant of common grace to govern humanity in this age in this new world. So then, it is fitting that we can think most broadly in this sense to see that all expressions of God’s common grace to mankind is an expression of the Noahic Covenant in its broadest sense. The Noahic Covenant is a gracious covenant to govern all of human life in this present age.
So, while the Noahic Covenant doesn’t promise eternal life through a redeemer, it does give us many benefits, and that should encourage us. It should also promote gratitude from us to our creator. It’s why it is so fitting for us to have, say, a national Thanksgiving holiday. It’s why, for example, we should care about seeking to have an orderly society and government and have hope that we can even achieve a measure of it. It’s why we can learn about our world through scientific study, and its why such study should ultimately seek to credit and glorify God.
Now I’ve made a big point today to distinguish the Noahic Covenant from the covenant of grace. But let me now clarify that the Noahic Covenant is not devoid of any significance when it comes to the covenant of grace. You see, the Noahic Covenant ultimately serves the covenant of grace. What I mean is that Noahic Covenant provides the environment by which God will in his right timing bring about the fulfilment of the covenant of grace. Remember that promise of the covenant of grace from Genesis 3:15. If God here did not promise to maintain humanity, then the promised seed of the woman would never have been born. The common grace given through the Noahic Covenant provides the environment for Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Such common grace also provides the environment for the evangelism of the world so that all the elect can come to know Jesus in faith. So it is common grace that yet today gives opportunity for the church to be about that work of the Great Commission. The Noahic Covenant ultimately provides a great service to the covenant of grace.
Let us turn now in our third point to consider the sign of the Noahic Covenant as described in verses 12-17. I refer to the rainbow. Covenants often have signs attached to them. Those signs tend to be symbolic references to some aspect of the covenant, and can often serve as regular reminders of the covenant. In this case, God chose the rainbow. Let me note that this doesn’t say that it was only at that point that God created rainbows, as if they didn’t exist prior to that time. While it is certainly something we could imagine, it is not strictly required to understand things that way. God very well may have been selecting some existing phenomenon of the natural order which he had already created and now endowing it with special significance. He could have taken the existing rainbow and coopted it to be used as well for his covenant sign.
But it is a fitting sign. First off, the rainbow most commonly appears during times of rain. So, it becomes an assuring reminder to us that God won’t wipe out that earth with that rain storm. Indeed, God says here that it will serve even to remind him of this covenant promise. Now, surely, God doesn’t forget like humans do, so there is some more anthropomorphic language going on here. But this is a common way of speaking with covenant language. Like how we might say lawyers write contracts with a bunch of legalese, so this way God speaks is the formal and technical language of covenants and especially signs.
A second reason why this is a fitting sign is to understand that the language for rainbow in the Hebrew is about the bow as a weapon, as in bows and arrows. Maybe in English we don’t think about this, but in Hebrew it’s a term describing combat. This is not a hairbow but a battle bow. But notice the position of the rainbow as a bow. It is not aimed vertically as if toward an enemy, nor it is aimed so as to be a bow pointed at earth. No, it is positioned in a place of rest, like if an archer is holding the bow down along his side. In other words, that would be an archer at rest, at peace, not looking to take anyone out. And so following the Flood judgment, God chooses a sign that convey peace. Elsewhere in Scripture God is painted as the divine warrior who can wield his bow to execute judgment against his enemies. So then, the sign of the rainbow it would signify God is at certain state of peace with humanity post Flood.
As an aside, I would note the ironic fittingness of the gay pride movement using a rainbow for their flag (and, yes, I know their rainbow flag colors aren’t exactly the same as a natural rainbow). There, you have a group of people openly wanting to celebrate sin. It is God’s rainbow sign of the new covenant that explains why us sinners are still here on earth. All of us, and I’m not speaking of just gay people, deserve God’s judgment to fall upon us. His rainbow sign speaks of his divine forbearance and mercy. Yet, such ought not be to taken for granted. We should not make a mockery of his grace. As the gay pride movement flies a rainbow flag it heralds God’s tolerance but ultimately I believe it mocks it, whether that is their intention or not. As we head into the month of June which is for them their so-called Gay Pride Month, we will be seeing a lot of rainbows. May our sermon today providentially remind you of its true meaning. And may this spur us on with compassion for such lost and confused souls who fly a flag of God’s mercy even to their own condemnation.
Well, as we’ve thought about signs of covenants in this third point, I remind you that we also have a sign of the covenant given to us under the new covenant. It’s baptism. In light of how Peter compared our baptism with the Flood of Noah’s day, the sign of baptism reminds us both of God’s judgment and our salvation. We deserve to be washed away in judgment, sinners that we are. But God instead cleanses us and has declared us forgiven. This he made possible by Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.
Trinity Presbyterian Church, we are reminded today of God’s great common grace to the world. That is the environment we find ourselves in, living in a world governed by the Noahic Covenant. Every rainbow reminds us of this. But we also remember today that as Christians we have been baptized into a new better covenant with better promises. God looks upon us baptized into Christ and remembers his covenant promises for us. While this world continues to operate under the Noahic Covenant, I hope you see that this really serves us. It may not seem like it. But ultimately the world still exists for the sake of God’s redemptive works. He is having us to continue to bring people into his new covenant through the gospel. The Noahic Covenant will protect this world so we can keep doing that, until that work is complete. Since we are still here, that work must not yet be complete. Let us live on in this life for the Lord until that work is complete and our Lord returns coming in the clouds.
Amen.
Copyright © 2022 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
