SermonStudio

This passage contains what is known as the Noachic Covenant - God's covenant with Noah. It forms the first of the series of covenants that make up the Priestly history in the Old Testament. The Priestly Writers (P) envisioned Israel's history as proceeding in a series of covenants with God, each covenant characterized by a covenant "sign," and all leading toward the climax of God's dwelling in the midst of his people when his glory descends to the tabernacle on Mount Sinai (Exodus 40:34--38). First, there is this covenant with Noah, accompanied by the sign of the bow in the clouds. Then there is the covenant with Abraham, marked by circumcision (Genesis 17), and finally there is the covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:1-40:38), of which the Passover is the sign. At the end of Exodus, then, the Lord dwells with his people, and they are his people, and he is their God, which is the covenant formula.

In a sense, however, this Noachic covenant is misnamed, for it is not simply a covenant with Noah and his family. Rather, it is a covenant with every living creature on the face of the earth (vv. 8--11, 15--17). God promises here in our text that the waters will never again cover the earth to destroy all living creatures, as they did in Noah's time. And the rainbow in the clouds is a sign to all flesh that God will keep his promise.

This is entirely a covenant of grace. Unlike the other covenants of the Lord in the history of Israel, this covenant in Genesis 9 makes no demand upon Israel or upon other living things. God simply graciously promises that he will not again destroy them by the waters of the flood.

To understand the merciful dimensions of that promise, we must understand how the Priestly Writers view the flood in the time of Noah. In P's account, it is said that "all the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heaven were open" (Genesis 7:11). That contrasts with the Yahwistic account (J), woven together with P, that simply says that it rained forty days and forty nights (Genesis 7:12). P is much more radical than that. Those writers say, "the great deep burst forth."

To understand what the "great deep" is, however, we must turn back to Genesis 1. The Priestly Writers say in that chapter that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." In other words, before God made everything there was nothing but void, darkness, chaos, absence of life, all symbolized by the figure of the "deep" or chaotic waters. And God's action in creation was to bring forth order and life, goodness and light, by ordering the chaos and keeping it in check. "Who shut in the sea with doors," asks God of Job, "and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed?' " (Job 38:8, 10--11). In his act of creation, God banished the forces of darkness and chaos, lifelessness and evil. And he then held them in check, so chaos would not return to engulf the earth.

In the story of the flood in the time of Noah, however, P reports that "the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence" (Genesis 6:11). And so God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh" (Genesis 6:13), and God followed through on that determination by allowing the waters of chaos to burst forth and once again to cover the world.

But now, here in our text, God's mercy prevails, and he promises Noah and his descendants and all living creatures that he will never again allow the earth to return to its chaotic state, unillumined by light or swallowed up by the void of death. In other words, the Priestly Writers are telling us in this story that the very structure of our world, the life of every living thing including us, and the processes of all of nature continue only because God made a promise to preserve them, and he is keeping that promise. God did not wind up the universes like a clock and then leave them to themselves. No. God sustains and preserves it all, and you and I know order on the earth only because of the grace of God. So our meteorologists can tell us on television exactly when the sun is going to rise and set, can't they? And our astrologers can tell us the exact positions of all the stars at any time of year. You and I can count on the force of gravity holding our feet to the ground so that we don't fly away when we step out the door. We can be certain that the position of the sun will mark the seasons, and yes, we can pinpoint on our calendars each year when Christmas and Easter are going to come. There is order on the earth, because God preserves it, and all living things are recipients of that gracious order. A "common grace" will be preserved by God for all flesh. That is the promise God makes to Noah and all his creation here in this Noachic covenant. And so we can praise our God for that grace he bestows and glory in his faithfulness, not only when we see a rainbow in the clouds after a shower, but every day as we enjoy the goodness of God's creation.

The Priestly Writers are very realistic, however. No pious stuffed shirts unacquainted with the ways of the world are they! Throughout the history of the Old Testament, P is also very conscious of the fact that chaos is still out there, threatening. Beyond our circle of light, there is darkness still; beyond our goodness, evil. Death still stalks around the edge of every life, and chaos can return. Job put it in the figure of a dragon: "Leviathan can be roused," he wrote (Job 3:8). And the prophet Jeremiah, for the sins of his compatriots, saw God loosing chaos once more, in his wrath against an earth that is still violent and corrupt (Jeremiah 4:23--26). Do we have any plea or excuse before the Lord our God for our corruption of ourselves and his earth, any more than all humankind had in the time of Noah? Do we too not deserve the destruction by chaos that God loosed in Noah's flood?

We have only one plea, don't we, that the Son of God has taken all our corruption upon himself on the cross and died in our place to forgive us our constant sins, and so counted us always righteous in the eyes of our God? That's what our epistle lesson in 1 Peter 3:18--22 is about this Sunday morning. And that, too, is the incredible gift of the grace of our merciful God.

So we have a lot for which to thank God at the beginning of this Lenten season, don't we, for the mercies of order and life that surround us on every side and that are new every morning? But above all, we thank God for the gift of his only Son, full of the grace of the Lord.