Title: God Blessing Noah / Genesis 9:1-17
Contents Lesson 17
God who blessed Noah (Genesis 9:1-17)
“God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth” (Genesis 9:1).
Last time, we talked about God who remembers Noah. God did not forget Noah, who lived by faith despite the times, but came to him, looked after him, and gave it for him.
Today, He received Noah's sacrifice and blessed them and promised them.
We pray that it will be a time to deeply receive the God of love who gives blessings and covenants through the text of the text.
I. God Blessing Noah (1-3)
Noah, who was saved from the flood, was grateful for his grace, so he built an altar, took the cleanest and finest animals and birds, and offered burnt offerings to God. Then the LORD God will accept his sacrifice, and he will no longer curse the earth for man's sake, and he will not destroy living things; while the earth remains, planting and harvesting, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease. 8:20-22), and then God blessed Noah in 9:1-3. This blessing is the same blessing that was given to Adam (1:28) when he created mankind before the flood.
The blessing is like this.
“God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and every beast of the earth, and every bird of the air, and every creeping thing of the earth, and every fish of the sea, fear you and are afraid of you. For these have been delivered into your hands. Every living animal shall be your food, and I give it to you like a vegetable” (1:29).
1) First, He said to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
God blessed Noah with the same words that blessed Adam. God wanted people of faith like Noah to multiply and fill the whole earth. God wanted mankind to prosper and fill the earth again. The common translation says, “Be fruitful and multiply in all the earth.”
2) Second, He has established you as the main character to rule and rule over all living things.
See verse 2.
“Every beast of the earth, and every bird of the air, and every creeping thing on the ground, and every fish of the sea will fear you and dread you, for they have been delivered into your hand.”
These are the words of God's promise to protect humans from wild beasts. Prior to the fall of man, man ruled animals, was close to people, and was vegetarian, and there was no need for a gluttonous diet or competition for survival. However, due to the fall of man, the earth was cursed and the order between nature and man was destroyed.
The beasts became wild and ate and ate among ourselves. Also, wild beasts attacked people.
Seeing this, God planted fear in the heart of the beast and made it live in the depths of the mountains or far away from humans. That's why tigers and lions are deep in the mountains.
Look at verse 2 again.
① beasts of the earth ② birds of the air ③ creeping things on the ground ④ fish of the sea
In all things, God put fear in their hearts, so that when they saw people, they became afraid. And our God has given them to our hands. This God is a God of love.
But look. Our God planted fear in beasts, birds, and even fish of the sea to fear man, and gave it into our hands to rule over them, but there are those who worship and worship it (Romans 1:23). It is a crime that destroys the laws of nature established by God and worships creation (Exodus 20:4,5).
We praise God for instilling fear in the hearts of all beasts, birds, and fish, and putting them into our hands.
3) Third, He gave living animals as plants.
See verse 3.
“Any living animal shall be your food, and I give them all to you like vegetables.” In the beginning, in 1:29, God allowed humans to plant all seed-bearing vegetables and all seed-bearing trees on the whole earth as plants. But now, God has officially permitted meat-eating. Therefore, based on the words of verse 3, Buddhism prohibits eating meat is only a human thought, not God forbids it. God allowed it. Also, there is no distinction between the food prescribed in the law and the unclean food. (Leviticus 11) Paul said that through prayer, we are made holy and can be eaten.
According to scholars, the earth has changed significantly since the world before and after the Flood Judgment. In particular, it is said that the human lifespan has been shortened rapidly as the water above the firmament pours out onto the ground and cannot block infrared rays, so cells age quickly and become worn out. Perhaps our God took these things into account and allowed us to eat meat. After all, our God is a God of love.
II. God who established the spiritual order (4-7)
After the flood, God allowed us to eat meat.
When he allowed meat to eat like this, he gave two commands.
1) First, he said, “Eat the meat of an animal, but do not eat it with its lifeblood.(4)
This means that you should not eat meat alive. If you kill an animal and eat its meat, there is a possibility that you will become cruel.
Also, blood symbolizes life. If you eat meat, you will kill animals recklessly, and it is easy to lose your fear of life. Therefore, it was commanded to prevent the trend of downplaying life.
2) Second, not to shed human blood.
When God allowed meat to eat, he was most concerned about whether the dignity of human life would be destroyed.
God created an order because he feared that if he shed blood to eat an animal, he would despise human life.
See verse 5.
“I must seek your blood, the blood of your life, and if it is an animal, then in the beast, either a man or a brother of a man, in him I will find his life.”
He said that he would surely kill not only the beast, but also the person who killed it. (Numbers 35:7, Leviticus 24:17)
See verse 6.
“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, because God made man in his own image.”
Then why does God respect human life so much?
“Because God made man in his own image.”
Because the dignity of human life, the image of God is engraved in our hearts. Man's great reason is not because he is more intelligent than animals, nor because he is strong or bulky. Because they were created in the image of God. Therefore, our being is noble, sublime, and irreplaceable. Each person is an absolute being born on this earth with absolute dignity before God the Creator.
However, we humans betrayed God the Creator and fell. As a result, they lost the image of God and were reduced to beings like ugly and dirty animals. However, God loves humans unconditionally. Why? Because they were created according to God's law.
The reason that God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth to save me and you is so that we may be clothed with the image of God through Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29, Ephesians 4:23,24, Colossians 3). :10)
Therefore, Jesus said that a person's life is more precious than the world (Mark 8:36,37).
What profit is it to gain the whole world and lose one's life? Because one life is precious to even giving up his life on the cross, and being made in the image of God is precious, Jesus loved him even to the point of giving himself. If you bleed such a human being, you are committing a great crime.
Ⅲ. God who loved Noah and established the rainbow covenant (8-17)
After the flood judgment, Noah was afraid whenever it rained.
I was worried that such a flood would happen again, even if there were only black clouds. He made a covenant for Noah and his descendants and for all living things on the earth.
God Himself established a covenant to wash away the fear of the flood.
The word covenant is repeated seven times in the text (9,11,12,13,15,16,17).
Covenant (hi, berit) means to cut, to split.
If you break the covenant on God's side, it means that God will be cut apart and God will be cut apart. This is a testament to the faithfulness of God.
With the word of this covenant, God removed the fear of judgment from Noah's heart and gave him hope to live anew.
Also, the most important thing in the text is the word “I”.(8-17)
The word “I” appears 9 times.(5,9,11,12,13,14,15,16,17)
This “I” means that the subject of the covenant is God. God's covenant to stop judging humans with water is not a result of consultation or compromise with humans, but is a one-sided event of God and a sovereign promise of God. This promise is God's unconditional mercy to man, and it will be based on God's mercy.
After all, this covenant is an expression of God's kindness, and the supreme covenant of God's covenant is Jesus Christ rather than the rainbow (cf. Ephesians 2:7, 1 John 4:10).
See verse 9. God said, “I am my covenant.”
“I will make my covenant with you and with your descendants and with every living creature that was with you, the bird and the livestock with you, and with every living creature on the earth, to everything that came out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.”
The “rainbow” that God gave as a covenant not to destroy humans and all living things on the earth. The rainbow is proof of that. God called that rainbow, “I am my rainbow.”
See verse 13.
He said, “I have put my rainbow in the clouds, and this is the evidence of my covenant with the world.” The word rainbow is repeated 3 times.(13,14,16)
God established it as a sure proof. Because of the high pollution in Yosai, the rainbow is hard to see, but the rainbow has the most beautiful colors and is embroidered in a circle between the sky and the earth. Every time they saw a brilliant rainbow after the rain, Noah and his descendants feared judgment. I believed the rain would stop now.
And whenever Noah sees this rainbow, he will remember God's faithfulness and God's ultimate love. Also, whenever Noah saw this rainbow, he seemed to see God, and he must have been convinced that God was alive once more.
In verse 12, it is said that the rainbow covenant will continue “up to eternity”.
In other words, He said that the covenant will continue until the day that man dwells in the world.
Dear saints,
Every time we see a rainbow, we feel mysterious. Whenever I see the rainbow, I remember God's covenant, and I think so, whether it is a believer who believes that the rain will stop or an unbeliever who does not believe. As we look at the covenant cross that is bigger than the rainbow, we pray that we will become believers who can fully enjoy God's love while looking at the cross while remembering God's faithful covenant.
I hope that you will become believers who enjoy the forgiveness of sins while looking at the covenant of the cross.
That covenant is forever, everlasting.
1996. 1. 14. Sunday daytime worship sermon.