And I establish My covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." Sermons
I. It is a COVENANT OF LIFE. It embraces all the posterity of Noah, i.e. it is - 1. The new foundation on which humanity rests. 2. It passes through man to all flesh, to all living creatures. 3. The sign of it, the rainbow in the cloud, is also the emblem of the salvation which may be said to be typified in the deliverance of Noah and his family. 4. The background is the same element wherewith the world was destroyed, representing the righteousness of God as against the sin of man. On that righteousness God sets the sign of love, which is produced by the rays of light - the sun being the emblem of Divine goodness - radiating from the infinite center in the glorious Father of all. "And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud." II. GOD'S REVELATION SET BEFORE OUR FAITH. 1. It is waiting to be recognized. When we place ourselves in right relation to the revelations and promises of Jehovah we can always see the bow on the cloud of sense, on events - bright compassion on the darkest providence. 2. There is an interdependence between the objective and subjective. The rainbow is the natural result of an adjustment between the sun, the earth, the cloud falling in rain, and man, the beholder. Take the earth to represent the abiding laws of man's nature and God's righteousness, the falling cloud to represent the condemnation and punishment of human sin, the sun the revealed love and mercy of God sending forth its beams in the midst of the dispensation of judgment; then let there be faith in man to look up and rejoice in that which is set before him, and he will behold the rainbow of the covenant even on the very background of the condemnation. III. TRANSFIGURED RIGHTEOUSNESS IN REDEMPTION. The cross at once condemnation and life. The same righteousness which once destroyed the earth is manifested in Christ Jesus - "righteousness unto all and upon all them that believe." IV. UNION OF GOD AND MAN. God himself is said to look upon the sign of the covenant that he may remember. So man looking and God looking to the same pledge of salvation. "God was in Christ reconciled," &c., Their reconciliation is complete and established. - R.
God blessed Noah and his sons. I. PROVISION FOR THE CONTINUANCE OF ITS PHYSICAL LIFE. This divinely appointed provision for the continuance of man upon the earth —1. Raises the relation between the sexes above all degrading associations. 2. Tends to promote the stability of society. 3. Promotes the tender charities of life. II. PROVISION FOR ITS SUSTENANCE. The physical life of man must be preserved by the ministry of other lives — animal, vegetable. For this end God has given man dominion over the earth, and especially over all other lives in it. We may regard this sustenance which God has provided for man's lower wants — 1. As a reason for gratitude. Our physical necessities are the most immediate, the most intimate to us. We should acknowledge the hand that provides for them. We may regard God's provision herein — 2. As an example of the law of mediation. Man's life is preserved by the instrumentality of others. God's natural government of the world is carried on by means of mediation, from which we may infer that such is the principle of His moral government. That "bread of life" by which our souls are sustained comes to us through a Mediator. Thus God's provisions for our common wants may be made a means of educating us in higher things. Nature has the symbols and suggestions of spiritual truths. 3. As a ground for expecting greater blessings. If God made so rich and varied a provision to supply the necessities of the body, it was reasonable to expect that He would care and provide for the deeper necessities of the soul. III. PROVISION FOR ITS PROTECTION. 1. From the ferocity of animals. 2. From the violence of evil men. IV. PROVISION FOR ITS MORALITY. V. PROVISION FOR ITS RELIGION. 1. Mankind were to be educated to the idea of sacrifice. 2. Mankind were to be impressed with the true dignity of human nature. 3. Mankind must be taught to refer all authority and rule ultimately to God. (T. H. Leale.) 2. At the successive periods of the unfolding of God's great promise, we find one individual representing the history of the race, and foreshadowing in brief the essential character of large phases and long periods of human development. Hence it is that here Noah becomes the representative of the patriarchal families in covenant with God. He is the individual with whom God enters into covenant, in relation to the successive generations of the human race. 3. And in this respect Noah is a retrospective type of Him who, in the eternal ages, consented to be the representative of redeemed humanity, and with whom the Father made an everlasting covenant; and a prospective type of that same Representative who, in the fulness of time, received the Divine assurance that in Him should all nations of the earth be blessed. (W. Adamson.) 2. The second point to be noticed here is the heirship given of this new world to Noah and his seed — given to them expressly as the children of faith. A change, however, appears in the relative position of things, when the flood had swept with its purifying waters over the earth. Here, then, the righteousness of faith received direct from the grace of God the dowry that had been originally bestowed upon the righteousness of nature — not a blessing merely, but a blessing coupled with the heirship and dominion of the world. There was nothing strange or arbitrary in such a proceeding; it was in perfect accordance with the great principles of the Divine administration. Adam was too closely connected with the sin that destroyed the world, to be reinvested, even when he had through faith become a partaker of grace, with the restored heirship of the world. Nor had the world itself passed through such an ordeal of purification, as to fit it, in the personal lifetime of Adam, or of his more immediate offspring, for being at all represented in the light of an inheritance of blessing. 3. The remaining point to be noticed in respect to this new order of things is the pledge of continuance, notwithstanding all appearances or threatenings to the contrary, given in the covenant made with Noah, and confirmed by a fixed sign in the heavens. There can be no doubt that the natural impression produced by this passage in respect to the sign of the covenant is, that it nowfor the first time appeared in the lower heavens. The Lord might, no doubt, then, or at any future time, have taken an existing phenomenon in nature, and by a special appointment made it the instrument of conveying some new and higher meaning to the subjects of His revelation. But in a matter like the present, when the specific object contemplated was to allay men's fears of the possible recurrence of the deluge, and give them a kind of visible pledge in nature for the permanence of her existing order and constitution, one cannot perceive how a natural phenomenon, common alike to the antediluvian and the postdiluvian world, could have fitly served the purpose. In that case, so far as the external sign was concerned, matters stood precisely where they were; and it was not properly the sign, but the covenant itself, which formed the guarantee of safety for the future. We incline, therefore, to the opinion that, in the announcement here made, intimation is given of a change in the physical relations or temperature of at least that portion of the earth where the original inhabitants had their abode; by reason of which the descent of moisture in showers of rain came to take the place of distillation by dew, or other modes of operation different from the present. The supposition is favoured by the mention only of dew before in connection with the moistening of the ground (Genesis 2:6); and when rain does come to be mentioned, it is rain in such flowing torrents as seems rather to betoken the outpouring of a continuous stream, than the gentle dropping which we are wont to understand by the term, and to associate with the rainbow. (P. Fairbairn, D. D.) People Ham, Japheth, Noah, ShemPlaces Tigris-Euphrates RegionTopics Agreement, Covenant, Cut, Deluge, Destroy, Destruction, Establish, Established, Flesh, Flood, Henceforth, WatersOutline 1. God blesses Noah and his sons, and grants them flesh for food.4. Blood and murder are forbidden. 8. God's covenant, of which the rainbow was constituted a pledge. 18. Noah's family replenishes the world. 20. Noah plants a vineyard, 21. Is drunken, and mocked by his son; 25. Curses Canaan; 26. Blesses Shem; 27. Prays for Japheth, and dies. Dictionary of Bible Themes Genesis 9:1-17 1347 covenant, with Noah Library Capital PunishmentEversley. Quinquagesima Sunday, 1872. Genesis ix. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. . . . Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you . . . But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require … Charles Kingsley—All Saints' Day and Other Sermons Noah's Flood Death. Covenanting Enforced by the Grant of Covenant Signs and Seals. That the Ruler Should Be, through Humility, a Companion of Good Livers, But, through the Zeal of Righteousness, Rigid against the vices of Evildoers. The Doctrine of Non-Resistance to Evil by Force Has Been Professed by a Minority of Men from the Very Foundation of Christianity. Of the Book "What Original Righteousness. The Sixth Commandment Being Made Archbishop of Armagh, He Suffers Many Troubles. Peace Being Made, from Being Archbishop of Armagh He Becomes Bishop of Down. Mosaic Cosmogony. Mount Zion. Covenanting According to the Purposes of God. Covenanting Predicted in Prophecy. The Promise to the Patriarchs. Discourse on Spiritual Food and True Discipleship. Peter's Confession. Genesis Links Genesis 9:11 NIVGenesis 9:11 NLT Genesis 9:11 ESV Genesis 9:11 NASB Genesis 9:11 KJV Genesis 9:11 Bible Apps Genesis 9:11 Parallel Genesis 9:11 Biblia Paralela Genesis 9:11 Chinese Bible Genesis 9:11 French Bible Genesis 9:11 German Bible Genesis 9:11 Commentaries Bible Hub |
    |