pilgrim people

The Noahic Covenant (con't)

At the Flood, God's common grace stopped. It was as if God pressed the pause button on his patience and providential kindness on the world. The flood was an expression of his righteous judgment and wrath. It was an in-breaking, an intrusion of the consummation into history. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, the ten plagues on Egypt, and the conquest of Canaan, the Flood was a like movie trailer of the Last Day: a preview of his vengeance unleashed at the the end of the age. The Flood was anticipated eschatology. The seed of the serpent was destroyed and the seed of the woman was delivered, namely, the eight souls on the ark with whom God identified his name (1 Pet 3.20).

The Flood ordeal reveals God's faithfulness to his promise. The seed of the woman is a very tiny remnant in this scene, yet, God is faithful to his promise and his people. Noah's family upon the ark represented the continuance of the hope of humankind's salvation through God's promise to send the Seed, the One who would crush the serpent's head.

Noah's family is brought through this judicial ordeal. Noah is vindicated as his family passes safely through God's eschatological judgment. This scene will be recapitulated in Israel's safe passage through the Red Sea; Israel was vindicated while her enemies perished in the waters of God's judgment. (Germane here is the observation that the New Testament identifies both the Flood and Israel's exodus through the Red Sea as baptismal events [1 Pet 3.20ff; 1 Cor 10.1ff]. Accordingly, baptism is to be understood as a passage through the judgment-ordeal waters of death.)

God then makes a covenant. We should understand, however, that this covenant is NOT redemptive. It is a covenant with all creation. Notice the identical mandates given to human beings in the Garden and after the Flood:

In the Garden (Gen 1.28): "And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

After the Flood (Gen 9.1,2, 7): "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...And you, be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it.'”

In the post-Flood covenant scene, there is a recapitulation of creation. The line of Shem recapitulates the line of Seth, and leads to Abraham, the central character in the Book of Genesis and the man with whom God made his covenant of grace.

We should also see in the post-Flood re-creation of the earth a pointer to that cosmic re-creation which will come at the Last Day (Rom 8.18-25; Rev 21-22). Just as Noah's family was gathered in safety and brought safely through God's judgment ordeal, so too will the elect be gathered together on the Last Day as they are spared from God's eschatological wrath.

Until that day, however, the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman dwell side by side in a world that exists under a common curse and common grace. A common (read: not holy) culture is developed. The city of man expands through common means such as politics, economics, the arts and sciences. The city of God, however, does not advance through these means. It advances through faith in God's promise. In the New Covenant, it is advanced through Word and Sacrament and the making of disciples.

But as good as God's common grace is (who does not like things like good food, good music, and good relationships?), it falls short of God's saving grace. The gospel must be preached! Though we share so much in common with our neighbors as fellow human beings, they still need to be brought from darkness to light. Those who don't repent and believe ultimately twist God's common kindness and patience into false evidence that there is no final judgment and they can go on living in their rebellion (2 Pet 3.1-9). God's common grace is used by the unbeliever to suppress the truth declared to him in creation and in his conscience that he is created in the image of God and accountable to him as God's creature.

Nevertheless, we have God's promise in word and the attached sign (the rainbow) that he will never destroy the earth again until the Last Day. The rainbow is in the shape of a stretched-out bow pointing its arrow toward heaven, giving us the picture of God calling judgment on himself if he does not remain faithful to his promise. Therefore, until that day at the end of the age, the seed of the woman, the church, is to remain faithful to the Great Commission (which is something quite different than the Cultural Mandate given to all human beings) and bring the gospel to the ends of the earth, making disciples of all peoples.

Abraham is up next...