The Divine Covenants

The Noahic Covenant (Part 1)

The story of Noah is an amazing one and loaded with importance for us as the further revealing of God’s plan included in the everlasting covenant. Noah is the connecting link between the “world that was,” that was flooded, and the earth which now is “reserved for fire.” Noah lived in both worlds and was saved from the judgment that destroyed the old world.

A period of sixteen centuries passed between the covenant of works which God entered into with Adam and the covenant of grace which He entered into with Noah. Based on what Scripture tells us, we know of no other covenants during this time. But during those centuries sin was rampant until Genesis 6:11-12.

· Gen. 6:11-12, Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on the earth had corrupted their ways.

What an indication of God’s longsuffering; waiting for people of the earth to turn from their wicked ways. Noah was a righteous man and warned those who heard him of God’s wrath, but they did not listen. Evil continued to increase until God’s patience was at an end. The punishment that had been promised came and the ungodly were swept from the earth and the first great period of world history came to an end in judgment.

These are briefly stated facts that led to the Noahic covenant. The background of the covenant was divine judgment. Every individual of the ungodly race was destroyed. The great flood completely cleared the earth of their presence and their crimes. In due time the flood receded and Noah and his family came out of their place of refuge to re-people the earth. If we let our minds go to work on this situation it is hardly possible to imagine the feelings of Noah in this situation. As he observed the total power and destruction of God, he must have been overcome with the sinfulness of sin and of the holiness of God in a way he had never before felt them.

Just think of the situation Noah faced. The flood had totally changed everything. When Noah and his family first left the ark, as they looked around they soon realized that they were the only people on the earth; they had no emblems of their past and nothing to encourage them about their future. The paradise of Eden no longer existed. The only life that existed was the eight members of Noah’s family and the animals that he had loaded into the ark. There must have been an eerie feeling of “being alone.”

In Genesis 4 we are led to believe that there was a certain place where God was to be worshipped. As Noah reviewed his situation he must have strongly sense that God had done something miraculous in the lives of his family and that he was therefore moved to express the emotions of his heart in some appropriate way. So his first act on taking possession of the new earth was to worship God.

· Gen. 8:20, Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of the clean animals and birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.

Nothing could have been more appropriate. It was a recognition of his debt to God and an expression of gratitude for the grace that had been shown him.

However amazing the deliverance he had just experienced, whatever conclusions he might draw regarding the divine favor shown him, and however ardent his gratitude in view of the great mercy he had received, he was still just a man, and his novel situation had to create a certain anxiety in his mind. He and his family were faced with building a new world with very limited resources. He must have felt very insecure.

Why insecure? Well, think about it. He had an ark full of animals that he would release into the land and they would no doubt revert to their natural wildlife condition. Some would become ferocious. They would multiply, much faster that the eight humans would, and how would he and his family be able to cope with this animal kingdom?

Beyond this, he knew that mankind, what was left of it, was in a fallen condition, and that sooner or later temptation would come to some of them. After all, in the old world before the flood, he had seen the evil that existed in man and he had to assume that their nature had not permanently changed just because they had been delivered from the effects of the flood. In short, his anticipation of the future necessarily was based on his experiences of the past.

Outside of his own family, the worship of God had ceased to exist. What assurance did he have that the evil tendencies of men would be any different in the future as they re-populated the earth? And if the future would be much like the past in time, would not God find it necessary to bring a judgment on mankind again? There was only one answer to his concerns and that answer was God. So it is only as we consider the concerns of Noah’s heart that we can really appreciate the relevance of the assurance that God was now to give him. But God had given him a ray of hope.

· Gen. 6:17, “I am going to bring flood waters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark---you and your sons and your wife and your son’s wives with you.” 

This gracious promise provided great consolation for his unsettled heart and maybe even gave him reason to have some cheer in his heart as he viewed the desolate earth all around him. Even so, Noah’s faith must have been stretched as he viewed his gloomy situation.

How would you have felt and what would you have been thinking if you were in Noah’s position?  Would we have had any of the concerns that we have described? (Discuss) Well, listen to what God said to Noah.

· Gen. 9:1-4, 8-11, Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its life blood in it. ….Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: I now establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you 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. 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.”

Did you notice that God controls all the wild animals so that they will fear Noah? What spiritual quality do you think was most important to Noah at this very time? Answer: His faith in God’s word!

Each of the covenants that we will study has a particular aspect to them that reveals a special feature of the everlasting covenant. All of them revealed God’s purpose, each adding something to what was previously known. In the Adamic covenant, what God said to the serpent, while announcing his doom, clearly intimated mercy and deliverance to the woman’s “seed”---an expression which was not limited to Jesus personally, but which pertains to Jesus “mystically”, that is, to the head and His body, the church.

You will remember that Lamech was the father of Noah and he was divinely led to give Noah his name. And the name “Noah” means “comfort” or “rest”. We cannot escape the significance of the Noahic covenant as it further reveals God’s plan in the everlasting covenant.

One of the first things that Noah did after leaving the ark was to build an altar and offer a sacrifice. So the divine institution of sacrifice provided a means of hope for the repentant sinner. And the sacrifice of Jesus, the “Mediator” of the everlasting covenant, was the provision of our “rest.” So the Noahic covenant pictured for us the coming of the One who would be sacrificed for our eternal rest.

· Gen. 8: 20-21, Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in His heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.”

Notice in verse 21 that the “pleasing aroma” that God smelled was the sacrifice of Jesus, because it was a sacrifice offered to God. A very revealing verse is Matt 23:19.

· Matt. 23:19, You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar which makes the gift sacred?

These were words of Jesus Himself and help us to understand the “pleasing aroma” that God smelled. The altar of Noah hinted at the One who offered the sacrifice of His perfect soul on the cross.

In the sacrifice of Jesus, God sensed the “pleasing Aroma” that not only met every requirement of His (God’s) holiness, but also satisfied His heart. Now notice the rest of verse 21. This seems to have no relation to what has just been said. But let’s look closely. There is a reference to the fact that mans heart is evil and here God is showing that the flood did not change the nature of man. He was still a fallen creature. So it was not because of any change in the nature of those that had been saved from the flood that God promised not to destroy the world again by flood. It was on the basis of the sweet smelling sacrifice that He dealt in grace. We should detect the difference between what God did in the covenant with Adam and what He did in the covenant with Noah. One was on the basis of works (Adams) and the other on the basis of Grace (God’s).

But now back to the covenant with Noah; God’s response to Noah’s offering on the altar was a pleasing aroma to God, pointing to the offering of Jesus. But Jesus’ sacrifice was not yet offered and it was over two thousand years away. So the satisfaction which Noah’s offering gave to God was a look back to the everlasting covenant in which the great sacrifice of Jesus was agreed upon.

Noah and his family safely passing through the flood, in the ark, is a type of salvation itself. And here we have an even higher truth in connection with the new creation as the inheritance of the saints as their blessing as heirs of Jesus.

· Gen 9:1, Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.

This is the first time we read of God blessing anyone since the Fall. Adam and Eve received blessing on the basis of their creature purity, that is, they were created pure. Noah and his sons (as representatives of the elect by grace) received their blessing on the ground of their acceptance and perfection in Jesus.

· Gen 9:1-3, Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

These verses introduce us to the beginning of a new world. It was similar in some respects to the first beginning. But there was one great difference: all now rested on the covenant of grace.

This was a radical and fundamental change. Adam was made lord over the earth on the ground of the covenant of works. His position was totally dependent on his own conduct. As a result, when he sinned he lost his position of dominion over the creation. A further result was that he was expelled from the Garden of Eden and became nothing more than a laborer.

In the present case we see man reinstated over the inheritance that Adam forfeited, not on the basis of his own merits, but on the basis of God’s grace.

· Gen 6:8, But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

And this favor was on the basis of the excellency of the sacrifice which pleased God. Therefore, it was as the children of faith that the heirship of the new world was given to Noah and his descendents.

It was Noah’s faith and his obedience to God’s instruction to build the ark and to fill it according to His instructions that led to his being saved from the destruction of the flood.

· 1 Cor 15:45-47, The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.

Here we have a cardinal principle in the ways of God in the way He works out His plan. These words have direct reference to the worldly bodies of the saints. God’s grace is not fully apparent until it is contrasted with the sin of natural man. Therefore it was necessary for the covenant of works with Adam to precede the covenant of grace with Noah.

The failure of the first man provided the contrast for the Second Man---whom Noah clearly foreshadowed, as his name prophetically announced. REST. The more clearly we grasp this concept the better we will understand the deeper meaning of the Noahic covenant.

In order to understand the various covenants which God made with different men, it is essential that we distinguish between the literal and the figurative. In doing this we can separate the local from the comprehensive. Each of the covenants had a literal or material meaning, and also a mystical or spiritual meaning. Literalists and futurists sometimes fail to look at the deeper meaning of the covenants.