Piper's Notes

November 27, 1983

Bethlehem Baptist Church

John Piper, Pastor

GOD'S COVENANT WITH NOAH

(Genesis 8:20-9:17 ESV)

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and

some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the

LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again

curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his

youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,

day and night, shall not cease.”

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. Every moving

thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you

everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your

lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man.

From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds

the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own

image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it.” Then

God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with

you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the

birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of

the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that

never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall

there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the

covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you,

for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of

the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the

bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you

and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a

flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember

the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on

the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have

established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

If you aim to build a road from Minneapolis to some other city, you don't buy any right-of-

way or cut down any trees or dig one inch of roadbed until you know what city the road

is intended to reach. Your destination influences all your decisions from the start. The

things you do at the beginning make sense because of your goal at the end. If someone

asks you, "Why are you buying farmland in Prior Lake?" you answer, "Because I'm

building road to Mankato not Milaca."

One of the basic doctrines of Christianity is that history is God's highway to an

appointed future.

God himself is the state highway commission and the chief engineer and the head

foreman on the job. History is not a random path cut through the countryside by people

without a compass. It's a highway that leads from creation to consummation engineered

by God who directs everything from his sovereign standpoint in the future. History is

going somewhere. God appointed the goal before the foundation of the world and under

his over-arching providence all events serve that goal.

The psalmist says, "Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written

everyone of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of

them" (139:16). Before you get up tomorrow to make your little contribution to God's

highway of history, he has already written in his book what you will accomplish. And

when he writes it down he is not guessing. According to Isaiah 46:9,10, God says, "I am

God and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from

the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall

stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose."' At the beginning of history God saw the

end of history. He saw what he aimed to perform and he knew what had to be done to

achieve it, and he decreed that it be: "My counsel shall stand, I will accomplish all my

purpose!" (See also Acts 2:23; 4:28; Mt. 25:34; Eph. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8; 17:8.)

In a very real sense, then, God runs history from the future. He stands, as it were,

already at the destination and guides the road crew so that his highway reaches

Mankato instead of Janesville or Sleepy Eye. This means that when you want an

explanation for some historical event you don't just look at the past like most historians;

you also look to the future. If the ultimate cause of things is running history from the

future, then the ultimate explanation of things is found in the future. If the road crew

builds a sweeping curve to the west, the ultimate explanation may be that there was a

swamp ahead to the east.

If you don't believe in a God who is powerfully involved in history then the only

explanation of events you will look for are past causes, not future purposes. But as soon

as you reckon with the God of the Bible tomorrow will always be part of today's

explanation.

This means that when we meditate on the acts of God in the Old Testament we should

include questions like: How does this turn in the Old Testament highway lead on to the

decisive New Testament events where God's Son joins the highway work crew for thirty

years? If God runs history from the future, and if the coming of the Son into history is a

foretaste of the future, then the experiences of Noah and Abraham and Moses and David

are all preparations for the coming of Christ. God made a covenant with each of these

saints; covenants always contain promises; and "all the promises of God find their Yes

in Christ" (2 Cor. 1:20). Therefore, the coming of Christ was the future which guided all

God's work in Old Testament times.

What I want to do in the four Sundays of Advent is look with you at God's covenants with

Noah, Abraham, Moses and David with a view to how they prepared the way for Christ.

And I pray that our confidence in God's planning and engineering skills will be

strengthened.

Today we look at God's covenant with Noah.

I remember hearing John Hoeldtke say one time in a sermon on the flood, "Noah and the

ark is not a children's story!" It is one of the most terrifying and tragic stories of God's

wrath in the Bible. Gustave Dore, the French artist, captures the mood of the story in his

engraving of a huge expanse of empty sea with one lone rock protruding a few feet above

the waves. There are three terrified children on the rock and slipping into the sea are a

mother and father trying desperately to push a fourth little baby to safety. On the rock

sits a giant tiger. Bodies are floating in the water and overhead circle the exhausted

vultures. Whatever else we may say about this story, it is not cute.

The message of this story is threefold.

First, the wickedness of man is very great and his heart is full of evil continually.

Second, God's patience does come to an end and he destroys unrepentant sinners in

judgment.

Third, nevertheless, God does not surrender his purpose in creating man. Even in

judgment God does not leave off building his highway. His counsel shall stand and he

shall accomplish all his purpose: "All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord"

(Num. 14:21). Judgment is real and horrible, but it will not be the last word. The story

points forward to an unknown remedy.

Let's look at these three lessons one at a time. First, the story of the flood teaches us

that the human heart in its natural condition is very wicked. Now and then the Old

Testament makes explicit pronouncements about human depravity. For example, Psalm

51:5, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." But

usually the incorrigible evil of the human heart is simply portrayed in its results. After the

fall in Genesis 3, Adam passes the buck to Eve, Cain kills his brother, Lamech kills a

boy, commits bigamy and boasts, and when you get to Genesis 6:5 the writer says,

"The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every

imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Verse 11 shows that

all this inward evil was breaking out everywhere: "Now the earth was corrupt in God's

sight and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was

corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth."

So the first lesson of the flood is the doctrine of sin.

Advent season makes no sense without sin, because Jesus Christ came into the world

to save sinners (1 Tim. 2:5). The first point of the flood is that we are sinners and

deserve judgment. But I suppose someone might say, "That was the condition before

the flood. But that has been purged away and we are descendants of righteous Noah

who was not condemned." But the writer builds three roadblocks to that view. First in

8:21, after the flood, God says in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because

of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." God's assessment of

our moral condition is not improved by the flood. He is not so naive as to think Noah and

his descendants are without sin.

In fact -- and this is the second road block -- after the flood Genesis 9:20f says, "Noah

planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk and lay uncovered in

his tent." And his own sin leads to the sins of his son. Just as the first man after

creation led the way into sin for all of his posterity, so the first man after the flood led the

way into sin for all of his posterity. Before the flood and after the flood human nature is

corrupt.

The third roadblock to thinking Noah began a new sin-free population is Gen. 6:8. The

reason Noah was spared was because he "found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Noah

was not without sin, but he found favor with God because "he walked with God" (6:9): he

agreed with God about the evil of his own sin, turned from it and trusted God for grace.

He is called righteous and blameless in Gen. 6:9. But blameless in the Old Testament

doesn't always mean sinless. A man is blameless if he does not persist in his

blameworthy actions, if he hates them, turns from them and comes to God seeking

mercy (cf. Job 1:1). Neither does righteous mean sinless. In the Old Testament, a

righteous man is a sinner who hates his sin, turns from it, trusts God, pursues

obedience and enjoys acceptance by grace. (See Psalm 32:1-2, 10-11.) This is

confirmed by Hebrews 11:7, "By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as

yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; by this he

condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith."

Noah was not an exception to the rule of universal sinfulness. He had experienced what

the Old Testament calls the "circumcision of the heart" (Deut. 30:6) and what the New

Testament calls new birth (1 Pet. 1:23). That gave rise to repentance and faith.

Therefore, the doctrine of sin stands as the first lesson of this story. Apart from new birth

and faith it may be said of all men and women and children "every imagination of the

thoughts of their heart is only evil continually" (6:5). If that doctrine is rejected the

meaning of the flood collapses and the advent season becomes the prelude to a pretty

fairy tale.

The second lesson of the flood is that God's patience does come to an end and

he destroys unrepentant sinners.

According to Genesis 6:7, "The Lord said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from

the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am

sorry that I have made them."' Then in verse 13, "God said to Noah, 'I have determined to

make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will

destroy them with the earth."' And in verse 17 God says that his wrath will come as a

flood: "I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the

breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall die." Then after

these three hammer-blow statements of God's intention comes the headlines in Gen.

7:21: "Aquatic Holocaust" -- "And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, birds, cattle,

beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm upon the earth, and every man; everything on

the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died."

In a sense this is a children's story, because its lessons are plain enough for a child to

understand: God hates sin and punishes unrepentant sinners. When Jesus came into

the world he taught the same thing about sin, only he made the punishment eternal.

Matthew 18:8, "If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it from

you; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to

be thrown into the eternal fire." God's flood and God's Son teach the same lesson: God

hates sin and punishes unrepentant sinners with unspeakable judgment.

But there is a third lesson from the flood, namely that in spite of man's

intolerable sinfulness God does not surrender his purpose in creating man.

God created man in his image and aims for man to fill the earth with God's glory

reflected in man's faith and righteousness. Therefore he preserves one righteous man

and his family and gives him the duty and blessing of filling the earth again. Notice how

Genesis 9:1 is the same mission given to Adam in 1:28: "God blessed Noah and his

sons, and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.'" In verse 7 the

command is repeated: "And you be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly on the

earth and multiply in it."

God is prepared to start over with a new "Adam." But this time the beginning is not in

paradise. So the new "Adam" must reckon with three real threats against him and his

mission to fill the earth: a threat from animals, a threat from man, and threat from God.

So God makes three special provisions to protect the life of man in the new world where

sin and corruption will again soon abound.

First, God gives to man new rights over the animals so that they will not threaten him

but serve him even as food. Genesis 9:2-3 says, "The fear of you and the dread of you

shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the air and upon everything

that creeps on the ground and the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered.

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I

give you everything." So God supports man in his mission to fill the earth with the

knowledge of his glory by removing the threat of animals: man now has the right to put

them in dread and even use them for food.

Second, God gives man a portion of the divine prerogative to take human life and thus

guard society against murder. The mission to fill the earth is threatened by men as well

as animals. Hence verses 5-6: "For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning; of

every beast I will require it and of man; of every man's brother I will require the life of

man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made

man in his own image." Before the flood God kept for himself the whole prerogative to

take life. You recall God threatened sevenfold vengeance on anyone who slays Cain,

even though Cain was a murderer (4:15). But now God makes a provision for murder to

be at least partly restrained by man. He makes murder a capital offense.

Man is created in God's image. God's purpose is that people in his image fill the earth

with his glory. Therefore, when a man presumes to snuff out the potential of that glory,

he attacks God in such a way that his own execution by men becomes a part of God's

purpose. Later on God reveals some of the practical legal implications of this (e.g., Rom.

13:1-6); but here the point is that a special provision is made by God to protect his

mission from the threat of men.

Finally, there is the threat from God himself. How shall the earth ever be filled with his

glory if his wrath overflows again in a flood against sin? To protect men against this

threat God makes a covenant with Noah and his sons in Genesis 9:11, "I establish my

covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and

never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." The same promise is stated

positively in Gen. 8:22, "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,

summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." In other words, I give you protection

from the animals, I give you protection from man, and in my own covenant promise I give

you protection from me. I will uphold rather than destroy the natural world processes on

which you depend for life. As long as the world lasts I will withhold universal judgment

like this and preserve the order of creation.

These, then, are the three lessons of the flood:

1) the wickedness of man is very great and his heart is full of evil continually;

2) God hates sin, his patience has an end, and he destroys unrepentant sinners,

3) yet God does not surrender his purpose in creation to fill the earth with men and

women who reflect his glory in their faith and obedience.

But notice what this implies.

Sin is just as much a problem after the flood as before.

The flood of judgment did not eradicate sin; the covenant of grace did not guarantee

righteousness. If God's purpose was to fill the earth with the glory of his righteousness

then we must conclude one of two things: God is a failure, or God is preparing for

something greater in the future. God is not a failure! And therefore the New Testament

writers see the flood as a foreshadowing of the final judgment with fire (2 Pet. 3:5-7) and

the ark as a foreshadowing of final salvation (1 Pet. 3:20-21) and the days of Noah as

typical of the last days before the coming of the Son of Man (Mt. 24:37ff). The story of

Noah and the flood is incomplete in itself. God still hates sin and no remedy was found.

The story cries out for an epilogue.

And there is a final clue in the story about the epilogue to come. It's found in Genesis

8:20. At the end of the flood and before God had made his covenant "Noah built an altar

to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt

offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his

heart, 'I will never again curse the ground because of man."' God's gracious covenant

with Noah was a response to a pure sacrifice. Is not this, too, a foreshadowing that God,

who must find a remedy for sin, will find it in another greater sacrifice, namely, the

sacrifice of his Son?

There is an epilogue to this story, and it begins with advent.

The final remedy for sin has been found. As Hebrews 9:26 says, "Christ appeared once

for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." God still hates

sin. We are still sinful. But God will never surrender his purpose to fill the earth with his

glory. The final remedy is Jesus Christ. So come to him this advent season and discover

the purpose for which you were made.

Added note: For further study notice how the Noahic covenant is used to give certainty

to God's other promises (Jeremiah 31:36; 33:17-26; Isaiah 54:9; 2 Peter 2:5; 3:5-7.