Genesis 9 Bible Study Lesson 2: The Rainbow Covenant and God’s Promise to Never Flood the Earth Again

In this study of Genesis 9:8 to 17 we look at God’s unconditional covenant with Noah, every living creature, and the earth itself. We examine the Hebrew word for covenant, why the rainbow was chosen as the sign of this promise, and how ancient Near Eastern flood accounts compare to the biblical record. We also consider what this covenant reveals about God’s character and how it points forward to His ultimate covenant faithfulness fulfilled in Christ. Join us as we continue our verse by verse journey through Genesis.

Transcript

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And welcome back. In our last lesson, we walked through the opening seven verses of Genesis chapter 9, and we we saw the recommissioning of humanity, the permission to eat meat, the prohibition on blood, the institution of capital punishment rooted in the image of God. And we saw the sanctity of human life is not a cultural preference. It is a creational reality grounded in the character of God Himself. Now, today we come to one of the most beautiful passages in all of the Old Testament. In Genesis chapter 9, verse 8 through 17, we see the rainbow covenant. And honestly, I've been so excited to share this with you. This is the first formally established covenant in all of Scripture. And we saw the covenant language with Noah in chapter 6, verse 18. But here in chapter 9, the covenant is established, it's defined, it's given a sign, and it becomes the template for every covenant that follows. And what God says in these 10 verses will surprise you because the covenant is much broader than most people realize, more unconditional than most people even know. And the sign that he chooses to mark it, the rainbow or the bow, carried a meaning in the ancient world that most modern readers have completely lost. We're also going to look carefully at whether the uh the one establishing the covenant might be the pre-incarnate Christ, because what we find in the New Testament about who appears in Acts in the Old Testament is one of the most important and least taught doctrines in the modern church. So let's read this together. In Genesis chapter 9, starting in verse 8. And then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, Now behold, I myself do establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, all that comes out of the ark, and even every beast of the earth. I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth. God said, This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between me and you, and every living creature that is with you for all successive generations. I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth. It shall come about when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant, which is in betwe which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh. And never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow was in the cloud, then I will look upon it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. And God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. Now in these ten verses we see one covenant, one sign, and a promise that has been kept without interruption for over four thousand years. So let's start with part one. Let's talk about the covenant in verse eight through eleven. The covenant here opens with one of the most emphatic constructions in the Hebrew text. Um, now behold, I myself do establish my covenant with you. The the Hebrew here is very important. It reads, I behold, am establishing my covenant. The word for I is really important. It is the same construction that we saw back in in Genesis chapter 6, verse 17, when God said, I, even I, am about to bring the flood. God is making it absolutely clear that this covenant has one initiating party. This is not by Noah's initiative. It's not based on humanity's request. It's not a negotiated agreement between two people, between equals. He says, I myself establish it. That means that the covenant wasn't earned. It means that it wasn't deserved. It was not the result of Noah's performance. Hey, you did well enough, so I'm going to give you something. It was the sovereign, gracious, unilateral act of God. And this is the pattern that we see in every biblical covenant that follows. We see God offering, God defining the terms, God providing a sign, and then God bears the obligation. For us, for you and I, we simply receive and we respond. But God establishes, it's always been this way, from Noah to Abraham to Moses to David, and ultimately to Jesus. Now, here's something that most people will completely miss about the covenant with Noah. Read carefully who the covenant is made with. He says, with you, talking to Noah, with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth. Again, and again in verse 12, between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all successive generations. And again in verse 15, between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. Again in verse 16, the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. Moses says it four times, every living creature. So the covenant is not just with humanity, the covenant is with every creature that came off the ark and every creature that descended from them. The entirety of the animal kingdom is included in that covenant. Now, what does that tell us? It tells us that God's covenant faithfulness extends beyond human beings to the whole world of his creation. He cares about his creation. Remember that it was God who told Noah to bring the animals into the ark. It was the same God who remembered all the beasts and cattle in Genesis chapter 8, verse 1. The same God who in Psalm 36 says preserves man and beast. He is the covenant God of the whole creation, not just humanity. And Paul picks up on this in Romans chapter 8, verses 19 through 21. It said, For the anxious longing of creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. That means that all creation is waiting for redemption. And the covenant with Noah was God's pledge that he will not abandon it before redemption comes. And then the content of the covenant is stated clearly, and I want you to catch this. Without condition, he says, All flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth. Never again. But notice there's no conditions attached. There's no word if, if you obey. No, unless humanity sins again attached. No, never again. Full stop. And this is what makes this covenant with Noah unique amongst all the biblical covenants. It is entirely unconditional. All the other covenants have the word if. The Mosaic covenant has conditions. If you obey, I will bless you. If you disobey, I will curse you. The covenant with David had conditions on individual kings through the dynasty. Um there was an unconditional promise that his line would be preserved, but there were conditions. But the covenant with Noah, there were no conditions. God does not say, I will never flood the earth again as long as you behave or as long as you make sacrifices, as long as your religion is good. He says, I will never flood the earth again, period. And we saw in Genesis chapter 8, verse 21, why? Because God acknowledged that the intent of man's heart was evil from his youth. And so God knew another flood wouldn't fix the problem. So he promised never to try that again. The covenant with Noah is God's committing to the stability of the created order, despite the ongoing sinfulness of the creatures in it. This is extraordinary grace from God. Now, there's also a possibility, and this is one of the things that I kind of specialize in and look for. There is a possibility that there is a Christophany here in the one who is making the covenant. It comes in the question of the angel of the Lord found all throughout the Old Testament, Genesis and Exodus and so on. As we established at the beginning of our Genesis 9 series, I want to watch for possible Christophanies, appearances of the pre-incarnate Christ as we move through the text. Genesis chapter 9 does not feature the angel of the Lord specifically. God speaks directly here, but the question of who is speaking deserves a careful theological overview. It requires our attention. You remember in John chapter 1, verse 18, it says, No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him. No one has seen God, the Father, at any time. This is a very significant statement in the New Testament. Because if no one has ever seen the Father, then every time in the Old Testament where God appears visibly, speaks audibly, and enters into direct personal interaction with people, the consistent testimony of the early church fathers was that this is the pre-incarnate son. It was Justin Martyr in the second century who argued extensively that every visible appearance of God in the Old Testament was an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ, the Word, the Son. He wrote, God the Father of all, has no name given to him since he is unbegotten. But the Son who came forth from him and was born has received a name, and it is the Son who appeared to Moses and to the Patriarchs. It was Irenaeus in the second century that agreed with Justin and taught that the Son was always the one who made himself visible and audible to the patriarchs, that the Father remained unseen, and the Son was the face of God toward all of humanity. Tertullian in the late second century was explicit. He said the Father is invisible. It is always the Son who appears, who speaks, who acts in the Old Testament narratives of the divine encounter. Now, this doesn't mean that we can be dogmatic about every specific passage. But what it does mean is that when God speaks directly to Noah in Genesis chapter 9 and establishes this covenant, we have strong theological reason from the New Testament and from the early church followers to understand that this is the pre-incarnate son who is making this covenant with Noah. And if that's true, then the one who promises never again to destroy the earth with a flood is the same one who will one day bear the wrath of God against the sin of the earth on a cross. The covenant made in Genesis chapter 9 and the covenant sealed in Christ's blood in the upper room are not unrelated events. They are the same person keeping his commitment to the creation he made and the creation he loves. Now let's move on from that. Now God gives a covenant sign. When you understand what a bow meant to the ancient Near Eastern reader, then the sign becomes one of the most staggering acts of divine condescension in the entire Old Testament. In the ancient world, the bow was the primary weapon of war, the battle bow. In Hebrew, it's the same word used here. It was the instrument of destruction. Armies carried bows. Warriors were defined by their bows. And so a bow in the sky was not a decoration, it was the weapon of a warrior, the weapon of a divine being. In the ancient Near Eastern iconography, storm gods were frequently depicted as carrying bows. The Babylonian god Marduk carried a bow as his weapon of power. The Assyrian gods were shown drawing their bows against enemies. Divine bows in the ancient world meant divine warfare, the gods aiming their power at the earth. And here, after the flood, God sets his bow in the clouds. Now read this carefully. The Hebrew says, I set my bow in the cloud. The verb set here, the verb set means to place down, to put aside, to hang up. So what it's saying is that God is hanging up his weapon. The God who just sent the flood, the greatest act of divine warfare against sin in human history, is hanging up his battle boat. He is saying the war conducted through the flood is over. I am putting down my weapon and it will remain there as my pledge. Many biblical theologians have noted that this is one of the most dramatic disarmament declarations in all of ancient literature. A warrior God who put down his bow was making a statement about the most fundamental change in his relationship with his subject. And the bow in the cloud is not just beautiful, it's the most powerful symbol of divine restraint ever given. The significance of this becomes even clearer against the ancient Near Eastern backdrop. Think about this one. In the Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Elish, the god Marduk, uses a bow to kill the chaos monster to Mot. And after his victory, his bow is celebrated as a constellation. The bow remains a weapon of ongoing cosmic power. In Canaanite mythology, the storm god Baal uses his weapons in an ongoing battle against Mott and against the sea. The divine bow is always in use. These mythological gods never put them down. And then there's Genesis chapter 9. We have the God who sent the flood, who used the waters of judgment against a corrupt world, and now he puts down his bow. Not because he's defeated, but because there's nothing left to fight. Because he's chosen to restrain himself out of the covenant of faithfulness, out of grace toward his creation. The gods of Babylon and Canaan never put down their weapons. The God of Genesis hangs up his bow in the sky and says, This is my pledge to you, and I will remember it every time I see the bow. Look at what God says about the bow in verse 15 and 16. I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, I will look upon it to remember the everlasting covenant. God will remember. We discussed uh the Hebrew word for the word to remember back in Genesis chapter 8, verse 1. But God remembered Noah. It means to turn attention toward with the purpose of acting. And so here, God says, When I see the bow in the cloud, I will remember my covenant. And so the rainbow is not primarily a sign for human beings to remember God's promise. It is a sign for God, a self-reminder of his own covenant faithfulness. This is extraordinary. God builds a memorial into the sky, not for our benefit, but for his own. Not in 4,000 years of human sin and rebellion and corruption. That means the God who makes covenants keeps them. That's who he is. Verse 16 uses a phrase that that deserves careful attention. When he says, the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. Everlasting. In the Hebrew, that means eternal, without end, belonging to the age to come as well as the present age. This is the first time in Scripture that a covenant is described as everlasting. And it sets the template for every subsequent covenant that carries this designation. The covenant with Abraham is an everlasting covenant in Genesis chapter 17, verse 7. The covenant with David is an everlasting covenant in 2 Samuel 23, 5. And then the new covenant with Jesus is an everlasting covenant. And we read about that in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 20. Everlasting. And every everlasting covenant in Scripture traces back to the language that is introduced here in Genesis chapter 9, verse 16. The God of the Bible is the God of everlasting covenants, not temporary arrangements, not trial periods, not provisional commitments. When God commits, he commits without end. And so Genesis chapter 9 is the first place that he says so. Now, let me show you how this covenant fits in the ancient Near Eastern treaty pattern. We mention this in our Genesis chapter 6 lessons that biblical covenants broadly follow the structure of ancient Hittite, Susarian vassal agreements and treaties. Let us apply this framework to the covenant with Noah because it fits remarkably well. If you notice, first you have in verse 8, you have the preamble. It's who is speaking. We read, then God spoke to Noah. So what's happening is the great king identifies himself. And then comes the historical prologue. This is what the great king has done and has preserved, he's preserved Noah through the flood. It's talking about what he's done to deserve this recognition, to deserve this power. Next, you have the stipulations, what is required. And again, interestingly, Noah's covenant has no stipulations on the human side. The only stipulation is entirely on God obligating himself to the covenant. And then after that, after the stipulations, come the promises, what the great king commits to do. Never again shall flesh be cut off by the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. So that's the promises. And then the last thing would be to sign the agreement. And so the bow in the cloud is the visible, perpetual marker of the covenant commitment. And the absence of human stipulations in this covenant is theologically significant. Every other major biblical covenant has conditions on the human side, but this one has none. This is God binding himself alone to himself, not to humanity, but to all of creation without condition. And this makes it the most purely gracious covenant in the entire Old Testament. And it sets the tone for the new covenant where God again takes the full obligation on himself in Christ. Now, here's a simple apologetic question that's worth asking. Has God really kept the covenant? Over 4,000 years of time has passed since Genesis chapter 9. Countless floods have occurred in that time. Devastating local floods, regional catastrophes, but no global floods that destroy all flesh on the earth. Not one time. In the face of every atrocity, every corruption, every generation worse than the last, in some ways, God has kept. His word. And the covenant with Noah is one of the most empirically testable promises in the entire Bible. It makes a specific claim that is observable. No more global flooding ever. And for 4,000 years, history confirms it. The God who made the promise is the God who keeps it. Now, there's something else worth addressing here that is pastorally and apologetically relevant. The rainbow has been adopted as a symbol by various cultural and political movements in recent decades. And I want to say something very carefully here. The rainbow sign belongs to God. He defined it. And when people use the rainbow without reference to God, they are borrowing a symbol whose deepest meaning they have either forgotten, never learned, or reject it totally. The Christian response to this should not be anger and it should not be a political reaction. The Christian response to this misuse should be us telling people what the rainbow actually means. Going out and telling the world that the rainbow in the sky is God looking at his own bow, hung up after the judgment of the flood. It is the sign that he has chosen restraint over destruction. It is the pledge of a God who loves you, loves his creation so completely that he wrote his covenant faithfulness into the sky itself. And every person who sees the rainbow, whatever meaning they've attached to it, is actually looking at a promise that God made, a promise that God has kept, and a promise that will stand until the new creation comes. Now that's a story that I believe is worth telling. Now, I want you to see that the covenant with Noah is the theological foundations for what theologians call common grace. Common grace. Common grace is the undeserved goodness God extends to all human believers and unbelievers alike, simply because he has committed himself to the preservation and stability of creation. The sun rises on the evil and the good, as stated in Matthew chapter 5, verse 45. The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous. The seasons come, the harvest produces, life continues. None of that is because humanity deserves it. God acknowledged in Genesis chapter 8, verse 21, that the human heart is evil from its youth, and he sustains creation anyway because of this covenant. Every breath taken by someone who has never acknowledged God, every harvest that feeds people who have never thanked the one who made it is the covenant with Noah in full operation. That's common grace. Now, common grace is not the same as saving grace. The covenant with Noah does not save anyone. What it does is sustain everyone, giving every person who has ever lived time and space to encounter the God who made them. Second Peter chapter 3, verse 9 says, The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. And so the covenant with Noah is the infrastructure of that patience. God is sustaining a world that does not deserve sustaining, to give every human being the opportunity to come to him. Now, let's look as we start to wrap this up a little bit. Let's look at the New Testament fulfillment here. The rainbow does not disappear in the New Testament, it appears again and again. And where it appears, it's pretty amazing. We see it in Revelation chapter 4, verse 3. It says, And he who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a and Sardis in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance, a rainbow around the throne of God, the sign of the covenant, the bow laid down as a pledge of restraint. It surrounds the throne of God in the final vision of Scripture. And it's still there. It's still a sign that the God who judges is also the God who restrains. And then again in Revelation chapter 10, verse 1, I saw another strong angel coming down out of the heaven, clothed with a cloud, and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire. The rainbow on the head of this angelic figure, who many scholars identify again as a Christophany, carries the covenant sign of Genesis chapter 9 all the way to the final pages of the Bible. The bow that God hung in the sky after the flood appears on the throne of God and on the head of the one who will consummate history. Genesis chapter 9 and Revelation are book-ended by the same sign. And here's the deepest connection between Genesis 9 and the New Testament. God made an everlasting covenant in Genesis 9. He committed himself to never destroying the earth again with a flood. But sin still demanded a response. Justice still required satisfaction. If God was not going to judge sin through another flood, how would the justice that the flood represented be fully satisfied? And the answer to that is the cross. The God who hung up his bow after the flood did not abandon justice. He absorbed it. At the cross, the wrath of God against sin that the flood represented, fell on the Son of God. The bow was not broken. The judgment was not canceled. Simply redirected onto the one who bore it so that the creation he loves could be spared. This is what Paul writes about in Romans chapter 3, verse 25 and 26 say God displayed him publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. In the forbearance of God, he passes over sins that were previously committed. Note the covenant with Noah, the forbearance of God was expressed by the bow in the clouds. And then came the cross, where the justice that forbearance had been holding back was fully satisfied. The rainbow of Genesis chapter 9 and the blood of the cross in Romans chapter 3 are the same theological reality expressed in the two great acts of the same covenant-keeping God. Now, here's what I want to leave you with today. Every time you see a rainbow, you're seeing a promise that God has kept for over 4,000 years. And he has every reason to break his promise. The human heart is evil from youth. Generation after generation, we've seen rebellion against God, and he has continually kept his word every single time. And this isn't a small thing. This is the character of God on display in the sky. The God who keeps a 4,000-year-old covenant about rain can be trusted with your life, with your future, with the things you have brought before him in prayer, the things that you're still waiting on. He is the God of everlasting covenants. He does not break what he has promised. He never has and never will. We're going to talk about Noah getting drunk, about Ham seeing Noah's nakedness, the curse of Canaan, and one of the most misused passages in the entire biblical interpretation. And we will handle it carefully and honestly, and with full historical awareness of the harm that misreading the scriptures has caused. Now, if you've enjoyed today's lessons, please consider sharing this with others, subscribing on both our YouTube and Facebook channel, and maybe the actual podcast on either Apple or Spotify. And we hope that you would consider becoming a supporting partner with this ministry. Now, until next time, I hope you have a blessed day.