2.2 The Noahic Covenant

Adam and Eve continued to be fruitful and to multiply, but sin was so pervasive that all new life ended up in a downward spiral. Generations were born without knowing and honoring God. They performed every kind of sin imaginable, but the worst was the sin of idolatry. They magnified their imaginations and vain repititions againt all that honors God. We cannot begin to imagine the pain and sorrow that God must have felt being rejected by his creation.

We cannot begin to imagine the pain and sorrow that God must have felt being rejected by his creation. God was sorry that he made man, so He punished the rebellion by destroying the earth and all living things with a flood, except of course for one man and his family.

Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He found divine favor and mercy in the eyes of the Lord. After the flood, Noah worshipped and honored God by making a sacrifice to Him. As a result, God responded with a series of covenantal promises and blessings beginning in Genesis 8:20-21:

2 Genesis 8:20-21

20 Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

21 Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake because the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.

There are two important components to this. First, God reversed the curse that was spoken over the ground because of Adam’s rebellion. Secondly, God promised never to strike every living thing again, which forms the basis for Enduring Covenant. Verse 22 provides the basis for Enduring Earth.

1 Genesis 8:22

22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

To this day we should recognize that evil persists because God chooses to show mercy, but there were still individual consequences. God gave very specific directions, commandments, and conditions as described in Genesis 9:1-6. He also made it clear that He wanted them to continue to repopulate the earth.

7 Genesis 9:1-7

1 God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth.

2 The fear of you and the dread of you will be on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the sky. Everything that moves along the ground, and all the fish of the sea, are delivered into your hand.

3 Every moving thing that lives will be food for you. As I gave you the green herb, I have given everything to you.

4 But flesh with its life, that is, its blood, you shall not eat.

5 I will surely require accounting for your life's blood. At the hand of every animal I will require it. At the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, I will require the life of man.

6 Whoever sheds man's blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in his own image.

7 Be fruitful and multiply. Increase abundantly in the earth, and multiply in it."

The Lord knows that after six months of being cooped up on the ark that the women might have already conceived. They would have been desperate for stable ground. The full details of the covenant are found in Genesis 9:8-17 (talk about stating the obvious).

10 Genesis 9:8-17

8 God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying,

9 "As for me, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your offspring after you,

10 and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the livestock, and every animal of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ship, even every animal of the earth.

11 I will establish my covenant with you: All flesh will not be cut off anymore by the waters of the flood. There will never again be a flood to destroy the earth."

12 God said, "This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

13 I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth.

14 When I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow will be seen in the cloud,

15 I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters will no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 The rainbow will be in the cloud. I will look at it, that I may 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 token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

A new day dawned. Since then, rainbows provide a view of God in the "clouds" at the intersection of heaven and earth. The earth continued with both righteous and unrighteous men. However, after all that, the families of the earth rebelled again by attempting to construct the Tower of Babel to reach heaven while leaving God out of the picture.

The concept of the earth enduring forever conflicts with a literal interpretation of the heavens and earth being burned up with fire. However, other Old Testament scriptures attest to an enduring earth.

Psalms 78:68-71 speak about the earth which was established forever while alluding to King David as the progenitor of the New and Enduring Covenant.

4 Psalms 78:68-71

68 God chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved.

69 He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever.

70 He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds;

71 from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.

Psalms 104:5 describes the longevity of the earth.

1 Psalms 104:5

5 He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved forever.

Ecclesiastes 1:4 talks about the continuity of generations that come and go while the earth endures forever.

1 Ecclesiastes 1:4

4 One generation goes, and another generation comes; but the earth remains forever.