Highpoints of the Bible: The Covenant with Noah

 * Part of a series of Bible studies on the significant pieces of the biblical storyline.

Part One: Creation

Part Two: Fall into sin and its effects

Highpoints of the Bible: The Covenant with Noah

 

1.    Genesis 6.11-22: Sin, judgment, and covenant

 

a.    Corruption and violence—vv 11-13

 

b.    Judgment by flood—v 17

 

c.     Promise of a covenant—v 18

 

2.    Genesis 7-8: Narration of flood

 

3.    Genesis 8.20-22

 

a.    Sacrifice and worship

 

b.    God’s promise—vv 21-22

 

4.    Genesis 9.1-7

 

a.    “Be fruitful and multiply” (vv 1,7)

 

b.    Noah is like Adam 2.0

 

c.     “In chapter 9 Noah becomes a kind of second Adam, and he receives the same command as was given in Genesis 1:28, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,’ with the creatures of the air, earth and water once again mentioned. But there is something different. Noah is not told to subdue the earth and have dominion over all those creatures.  He is told that they will fear him and that they are now given to him for food.  There is a new start, but we have not been brought all the way back to the clean slate of Genesis 1.”[1]

 

5.    Genesis 9.8-17

 

a.    Language of “covenant” is used 7xs in nine verse (vv 9-17)

 

b.    Covenant—“A bond in blood sovereignly administered.”[2]  O. Palmer Robertson

 

                                               i.     “Bond”—God binds himself (ties himself) to his people

 

                                              ii.     “In blood”—“The serious, public nature of a covenant is symbolized in rituals involving sacrifice and the shedding of blood (as in Genesis 8:20-22).”[3]

 

                                            iii.     “Sovereignly administered”—Not between two equals; the Lord is the sovereign one who sets the terms of the covenant.

 

c.     Every time covenant is mentioned here it is in reference to all of creation

 

d.    Shows God’s commitment to all life on earth!

 

                                               i.     “In the context of God’s radical judgment on the comprehensive nature of human sin (repeatedly portrayed as ‘violence and corruption’), God still commits himself to the created order itself and to the preservation of life on the planet.  Although we live on a cursed earth, we also live on a covenanted earth.”[4]

 

                                              ii.     “This Noachic covenant provides the platform for the ongoing mission of God throughout the rest of human and natural history, and thereby also, of course, the platform for our own mission in participation with his.  Whatever God does, or whatever God calls us to do, there is a basic stability to the context of human history.”[5]

 

                                            iii.     This is a framework that gives security and scope to all our mission: security because we operate within the parameters of God’s commitment to our planet, and scope because there is nothing and no place on earth that lies outside the writ of God’s covenant with Noah.  The rainbow promise spans whatever horizon we can ever see.”[6]

 

e.    Christopher Wright speaks of an “ecological dimension to mission”[7]

 

                                               i.     See my blog post “Habakkuk and God’s Concern for the Environment”[8]

 

6.    New Testament 

 

a.    Romans 8.19-22

 

                                               i.     Creation “groans and suffers the pains of childbirth”

 

·     “If you are in a hospital, and you hear groaning, it makes a big difference whether you are in the burn unit or in the labor and delivery unit.  The groaning in the labor and delivery room signals a good outcome.  There will be a birth.  It will happen, one way or another.  So it is with God's creation.  It groans now--in labor, but because of the power unleashed by the death and resurrection of Jesus, the creation that is now groaning (all of it) will be liberated and brought into glory.”[9]

 

                                              ii.     Creation will be “set free”

 

b.    Creational goodness to all people: common grace

 

                                               i.     Matthew 5.45—sunshine and rain to all peoples

      ii.  Acts 14.17—“… and yet he did not leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”  (cf. Psalm 104.15)

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     [1]Roy Ciampa as quoted in Keith A. Matthison, From Age to Age: The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology(Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2009), 31.

     [2]O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants(Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 4.

     [3]Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2004), 51.

     [4]Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2006), 326—bold-face added.

     [5]Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2006), 326.

     [6]Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2006), 327—bold-face added.

     [7]Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2006), 327.

     [8]“Habakkuk and God’s Concern for the Environment” White Rose Review(November 28, 2011)—online: https://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2011/11/habakkuk-and-gods-concern-for.html.

     [9]Ted Hamilton, “The Prototokos Paradigm,” in On Global Wizardry edited by Peter Jones (Main Entry Editions, 2010), pp. 256-257.

 

Living in an Alien Culture: Daniel 9 (part one)

Living in an Alien Culture

Daniel 9 (part one)

·     Focus for tonight: Daniel 9.1-19

·     Verses 1-3: Spiritual disciplines of scripture, prayer and fasting

·     Scripture

o   Textual indicators of Scripture

§  v 2: “the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet”

§  v 6: “your servants the prophets”

§  v 10: “the voice of the Lord our God,… his teachings which he set before us through his servants the prophets.”

§  v 11: “… your law… your voice… the oath which is written in the law of Moses the servant of God…”

§  v 12: “his words which he had spoken…”

§  v 13: “As it is written in the law of Moses…”

o   Daniel is immersed in Scripture

§ “[T]he Bible’s storyline is, in a sense, a tale of two cities—Jerusalem and Babylon. The issue is not so much what city we live inbut what city we live for.  Daniel lived in Babylon; but, in an ultimate sense, he lived for Jerusalem and all that it stood for.  Like Abraham before him, he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God (Hebrews 11:10).  While he served Babylon faithfully, the centre of gravity in his life was his faith in God, and all that he did was an expression of that trust and commitment.

“One of the evidences of this was Daniel’s interest in the books.  The exiles had brought with them precious scrolls of Scripture that were a vital life support for Daniel.  As we have already seen, he was a man of regular prayer.  He was also a man of the books.  Indeed, Daniel’s prayer in this chapter shows that he had immersed himself in what we call the Old Testament—as much as was so far written and available to him.”[1]

§ This is what keeps Daniel faithfully balanced

·     He had been immersed in the culture and writings of Babylon (Daniel 1.4-5, 17, 20)

§ We will not have the resources to resist and navigate our culture without a continual reading, meditation, memorization, and study of God’s Scriptures!

·     “We should read the Bible for various reasons.  It should be read for facts, and it should be read devotionally.  But reading the Bible every day of one's life does something else--it gives one a different mentality.  In the modern world we are surrounded by the mentality of the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, but as we read the Bible it gives us a different mentality.  Do not minimize the fact that in reading the Bible we are living in a mentality which is the right one, opposed to the great wall of this other mentality which is forced upon us on every side--in education, in literature, in the arts, and in the mass media”.  He Is There and He Is Not Silent in Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy (Crossway, 1990), p. 334.

·     Attributes and Actions of God in Daniel’s prayer (vv 4-19)

o   Great and awesome (v 4)

o   Keeps covenant and lovingkindness (v. 4)

o   God gave commandments and ordinances (v 5)

o   God has servants called prophets (v 6)

o   “Righteousness belongs to you” (v 7)

o   “You have driven them…” (v 7)

§ Judgment

§ Sovereignty

o   Compassion and forgiveness (v 9)

o   Law = God’s voice (v 11)

o   Confirmed his words (v 12)

§ Faithful to promises; true

o   “Bring on us this great calamity” (v 12)

§ Judgment and sovereignty

o   “The favor of the Lord our God” (v 13)

o   “Kept the calamity in store and brought it on us” (v 14)

§ Active

§ Faithful to his holiness

§ Righteous

o   “Brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for yourself” (v 15)

§ Exodus event!

§ Powerful

§ Miracles

o   Righteous acts (v 16)

o   Anger and wrath (v 16)

o   Your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain, your people (v 16)

§ Covenant-making and covenant-keeping

§ Relational

o   “Great compassion” (v 18)

·     Deep theology embedded in a wide covenantal framework of redemptive history is the foundation of prayer!

o   Deep theology

§ Q: How deep theologically are your prayers? What attributes of God do you most often appeal to and mention in your prayers? 

o   Wide Redemptive history—the Bible’s narrative storyline

§ Abraham—not mentioned but Judah and Israel are mentioned

·     Men of Judah… and all Israel” (v 7)

§ Moses and the Exodus (vv 11, 13, 15)

§ David and Solomon

·     “your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain” (v 16)

·     “the city which is called by your name” (v 18)

o   1 Kings 8. 44, 48

§ Prophets—including Jeremiah (vv 2, 6, 10)

·     Sinfulness of people described in Daniel’s prayer

o   v 5: sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly, rebelled, turned aside from your commandments and ordinances

o   v 6: we have not listened to your servants the prophets

§ Note: who was spoken to—everybody!  “… our kings, our princes, our fathers, and all the people of the land…”

o   v 7: open shame—again, to everyone

o   v 7: unfaithful deeds which they have committed against you

o   v 8: open shame, we have sinned against you

o   v 9: we have rebelled against him

§ cf. Psalm 51.4—“Against you, you only, I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight…”

o   v 10: nor have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his teachings

o   v 11: transgressed your law, turned aside, not obeying your voice, sinned against him

o   v 13: “… yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our iniquity and giving attention to your truth.”

§ Even in the exile they are sinning and not seeking God!

o   v 14: we have not obeyed his voice

o   v 15: “we have sinned, we have been wicked”

§ Note: Judgments in the New Covenant are worse; rejecting Christ is the worst kind of idolatry—Hebrews 2.1-4; 10.26-31 (esp. vv 28-29)

o   v 16: our sinsand the iniquities of our fathers 

§  v 20: “… confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel…”

§ Both current sins and historical sins

§ Personal confession and corporate confession

§ Q: How might this apply to day?  What corporate sins have we have as the church committed?  What about our country’s corporate sins?

§ Q: How is this similar and different from Critical Theory?

·     Similar: Recognizes that groups can sin and even institutionalize that sin.

·     Different: Objective moral standard tied to God and his commandments by which to accurately judge a person’s or group’s sin.

·     “[T]exts such as Ezra 9:6-15, Nehemiah 1:4-7, and Daniel 9:1-19 that indicate corporate repentance have to be understood in the light of texts like Deuteronomy 24:16, 2 Kings 12:20-21 c.f. 2 Kings 14:5-6, and Ezekiel 18:1-32 which explicitly deny that either wickedness or righteousness will be imputed from father to son, let alone from one person to another unrelated person… While we can sin through actively engaging in injustice or through passively neglecting our moral duties, we are not guilty of sins we didn’t actually commit, nor are we morally tainted by merely belonging to some demographic group.”[2]

·     Appealing to God’s glory and covenant in prayer (Daniel 9.15-19)

o   “Your”: 18 x’s  (“yourself”: 1 x’s)

§ See also Exodus 32.11-13 for a similar kind of praying from Moses

o   Cf. Ezekiel 36.16-23; Isaiah 48.9-11

o   Daniel 9.18 “for we are not presenting our supplications before you on account of any merits of our own, but on account of your great compassion.”

1 John 1.7, 9; 2.1-2: we can confess and be cleansed by God only because of the work of Christ and his b

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     [1]John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Monarch Books, 2015), 281.

     [2]Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer, Engaging Critical Theory and the Social Justice Movement(Ratio Christi, 2019), 18-19—online: https://ratiochristi.org/engaging-critical-theory-and-the-social-justice-movement/.