Covenant in Noah (Genesis #20)

Covenant in Noah

Text: Genesis 6:17-19

Days of Noah

  • His spirit will no longer strive with man’s vile flesh. Genesis 6:3, 5-7
  • ...he also is flesh… Also? Who else is flesh?
  • Carnal angels
    • Genesis 6:1-4
    • Genesis 18:2, 16-22 then 19:1-5, Joshua 5:13-15, Luke 24:4, Acts 1:10
    • Jude 6-7, 2 Peters 2:4
  • Everything about their culture was carnal.
    • Celebrity of fallen angels 6:4
    • Immersion into evil – …EVERY imagination of the thoughts of his heart was ONLY evil CONTINUALLY… In 10 generations man has gone from paradise, to a knowledge of good and evil, to ONLY EVIL CONTINUALLY.
    • 6:11,13 describes the world culture as violent. People loving death, sex, drunkenness, partying, fornicating, and corruption. All flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth (vs 12).
  • How many people on the earth in Noah’s day? Just taking current growth rate there would’ve been just under a billion people on the earth. But considering people were living much longer and having children for much longer time frame there were many more than this. If you just add 1/1000th of a percent to the current growth rate you end up with 4 billion people on the earth. Realistically though we’re looking at 19 or 20 billion people.

Covenant in Noah

  • Purpose of the covenant is to save life!
    • …to keep them alive… (vs 19)
    • …to keep them alive… (vs 20)
    • …to keep seed alive… (7:3)
  • Preacher of righteousness
  • 2 Peter 2:5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
  • Noah saved by grace through faith. (Genesis 6:8, Hebrews 11:7)
  • Noah is perfect in his generations and a just man.
  • Noah walks with God. Enoch walked with God.
    • God will establish his covenant with Noah after Noah has put the grace of God to use by faith (6:17-18).
    • Grace of God is the ark which Noah will build by faith. So Noah is saved by works? No, Hebrews 11:7 is clear that Noah builds the ark by faith, it is not a work of the law, God defines it as faith. There is a difference between trying to establish your own righteousness by works of the law and listening to God’s instruction about how to avoid His coming wrath. Noah is NOT trying to establish his own righteousness using a law, Noah is simply obeying God.
  • Grace of God will be found in the ark of salvation (Genesis 6:14-16)

Righteous inheriting the world

  • Only those who are included in the covenant by grace through faith are saved alive.
  • 1 Peter 3:18-22 – baptised into his death and resurrection is what gives life
  • Inheritance of the earth because of the man God made a covenant with
    • The covenant (Genesis 9:9-17) is that God would never destroy all flesh again by a flood (Genesis 9:11). It is an everlasting covenant (Genesis 9:16). The token of the covenant is a rainbow (Genesis 9:12).
    • 2 Peter 2:1-9 – the Lord knows how to deliver the righteous while judging the wicked
    • 2 Peter 3:1-12