God’s covenant with earth (Genesis 9:8-17)

What’s the significance of the Noah covenant?

God’s world has been ruined (Genesis 7), rescued (Genesis 8), and reconfigured (Genesis 9). After the flood, God addressed the matter of violence by giving humans authority over each other’s lives for the first time. If God handed over authority like that, has he abdicated?

Absolutely not! The heavenly sovereign clarifies that point by making a covenant with his earthly realm. God commits to keep reigning over us forever, regardless of how difficult we are to manage. That’s the point of the first covenant in Scripture.

A covenant formalizes a relationship. From the first verse, Genesis has asserted the relationship between heaven and earth. Our heavenly sovereign gave shape and significance to the earth by decreeing how things were to be. There was an implied covenant, an obligation for humanity to recognize God’s sovereign authority, but the relationship was based on faith[fulness] rather than law (Hosea 6:7).

But humanity had broken faith with God. So as he reconfigures the world after the flood, God formalizes the relationship between heaven and earth with a covenant:

Genesis 9:8-17 (NIV)
⁸ 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.”
¹² 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. ¹⁶ 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.”

In the Ancient Near East, almost every nation had a covenant with their ruler. None of the other nations had covenants with their gods. The point of this covenant is God’s kingship, his sovereign authority over all the peoples of the earth.

This covenant defines earth as a kingdom of heaven. All its people, all its creatures, and the earth itself live under the one who reigns in the heavens, and the heavenly sovereign commits to managing his earthly realm regardless of how difficult that proves to be.

This covenant is good news, immediately and forever.

Just imagine how terrified people may have felt next time the rains set in. When they saw a rainbow in the clouds they saw a sign of the light of heaven beyond reaching the earth, reminding them of God’s covenant commitment to care for us forever.

In the generations that followed, God affirmed his faithful commitment to reign over the earth with other covenants also:

The Abraham covenant promised a nation that would restore the blessing of heaven’s reign to the nations (Genesis 15, 17).
The Sinai covenant founded a nation under God’s reign (Exodus 24).
The David covenant promised God’s reign forever through his anointed (Psalm 89:3).
And when the nations exiled God’s nation, God promised a new covenant in the Messiah (Jeremiah 31:31; Mark 14:24).

So it’s in the Messiah that all God’s covenant promises come to pass. God fulfilled the David covenant when he raised up the crucified king of the Jews. God fulfilled the Sinai covenant by restoring heaven’s reign to the earth in the Messiah. God fulfilled the Noah covenant by extending the Messiah’s reign to the nations. In him, all peoples, all creatures, and the earth itself are restored to God’s reign. The new covenant fulfils them all by reconfiguring the earth in Christ as a kingdom of heaven.

That’s the significance of the Noah covenant. As the light of heaven’s reign breaks through the clouds and shines on the earth, the Noah covenant is foundational for all the promises that follow, the promise of a world where all people, all creatures, and the earth find peace in God’s reign.

Seeking to understand Jesus in the terms he chose to describe himself: son of man (his identity), and kingdom of God (his mission). Riverview Church, Perth, Western Australia View all posts by Allen Browne