OT Character Study - NOAH Genesis 9:8-17

Introduction  A poem about perspective…  It is always better to go back to the original source – the bible – to get God’s perspective about anything & everything

Genesis 9: Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you, the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you, every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Genesis 9: And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.

Genesis 9: Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” 17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Three stories…  The latest Hollywood blockbuster movie – Noah with Russell Crowe  The most common children story about Noah – animals & rainbows  The unbelievable story of God wiping out nearly everything in a fit of divine anger

The Hollywood story…  Written & directed by Darren Aronofsky  Its raking in around $100million in the US  It is a movie called Noah, but not about the Noah in the bible  This movie Noah is based on the kabbalah and not the bible

The Kabbalah…  An ancient Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible  It started as a collection of mysticism and grew to a movement known as Gnosticism  Gnosticism was declared a heresy by the Christian Church

Back to the Noah movie…  When you see the movie, you will start to feel – something is not quite right  Here’s a few examples:  The snake skin  The watchers or lava monsters  All from the kabbalah

The children story…  About God's love for animals  About remembering God's love each time we see a rainbow  Even about the bright side of every storm  But this is only part of the story

The angry God story…  God is so angered by human rebellion that God floods the whole earth  Wiping out nearly everything in a fit of divine rage  About a God whom you'd be crazy to want to have anything to do with  A God of wrath who is ready and willing to strike down sinners

The whole story…  A truer story is that God has many ways of calling us back to the harmony that God intended for us  Today’s text is where God establishes a covenant with Noah and his descendants, is putting aside forever the option of destruction and seeking us as God's own

The whole story…  The entire flood narrative (Genesis 6:5- 9:17) begins in Genesis 3  There is an increasing human sinfulness  The sin results in disharmony between humans and other creatures (3:15),  between male and female (3:16), and  between humans and their earthly labours (3:17-18).

The whole story…  Disharmony intensifies in chapter 4, in which the first murder, that of a brother no less, occurs.  The genealogy of chapter 5 draws the link from Adam's generation to Noah's in order to highlight the downward spiral of humanity.

The whole story…  Finally, 6:1-8 narrates the breaking of God's harmonious world. In the coupling of heavenly and earthly beings, the boundary between the two realms is shattered.  The entire cosmos is thus thrown into disorder, and humanity is so broken that God regrets having created it in the first place

The whole story…  The language of this divine regret in 6:5-6 is breathtaking  5 The L ORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The L ORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.

The whole story…  God is grieved  God is pained by the brokenness of creation.  God sends the flood, then, not as an act of revenge, but out of grief over the rending of right human relationship with God.

The whole story…  Human sin has issued in the corruption of all the earth (6:11), and therefore in its destruction  That destruction, of course, is not total  God doesn't wipe away the creation entirely and then walk away.

The whole story…  The flood is in fact the means of re- creation  God washes the earth clean and both God and the earth begin again  The re-creative nature of the flood is underscored by parallels between this narrative and the creation narrative of Genesis 1

The whole story…  Creation Genesis 1  All is good  Separation of water (1:6-11)  Be fruitful & multiply (1:28)  Created in the image of God  Noah’s time  All is evil (6:5-12)  The flood recedes (8:3-14)  Be fruitful & multiply (8:17, 9:1, and 9:7)  Still in the image of God (9:6)

The whole story… Thus all of creation is given a new beginning, a new opportunity to live in the harmony that God intended. Note, however, that this new beginning is also a continuation; God does not create new beings, but begins anew with a remnant of the beings created at the beginning.

The covenant…  The sealing of the newly-restored relationship between God and God's creatures  Note that this is entirely God's doing  God enters into an eternal covenant with all creation without requiring anything in return  Never again to destroy all creation with a flood

Application  The Easter story and its implications to us