Rev. James Laning
[Source: “God’s Covenant with Noah” in The Standard Bearer, vol. 91, nos. 13, 19, and
vol. 92, no. 1]
And
the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not
again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s
heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing
living, as I have done. (Gen. 8:21)
Genesis 8:21—said
to be a promise of common grace
Wrong views
on God’s kingdom are related to wrong views
on God’s covenant. Whether you are talking about the cry to “redeem
culture” that is heard coming from some colleges (such as Dordt College), the
two-kingdom theology taught at Westminster Theological Seminary West (California),
or the dispensational views held by Baptists, these teachings are connected to
erroneous explanations of God’s covenant promises.
There are many,
for example, who base their earthly-kingdom position on what God said after the
flood. The covenant that God made with Noah is often said
to be a covenant of common grace, and this common grace is then said
to be the power by which sinful man has been building his kingdoms.
With this
article I begin a series on God’s covenant with Noah. Since
many base their view of common grace on what God said in Genesis 8:21, I have decided to begin by considering this
verse: “And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I
will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of
man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every
thing living, as I have done” (Gen. 8:21).
In our efforts
to counter various false teachings, it is good to remember that God in His
providence makes use of the errors of our day to prod us to go to the
Scriptures, not only to refute those errors, but also to grow in our own
understanding. Sometimes, for example, when we consider a false teaching and
then ask ourselves, “What would be the opposite of this false teaching?”, we
come up with a correct view of a passage that, up to that point, we had not
seen. This is one of the many ways in which all things work together for the
good of God’s people.[1]
Common explanations
of Genesis 8:21
After the flood, Noah offered
burnt offerings, and God smelled the sweet smell and said this in His heart: “I
will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of
man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every
thing living, as I have done” (Gen. 8:21b).
This statement,
many say, is a promise to give common grace. The phrase “common grace” has been
used to refer to a grace that is given to all human beings in common. That,
these people say, is what God was promising here.
Michael Horton,
currently a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary West (California),
views this text to be a promise to give non-redemptive, common grace:
The covenant most clearly related to common grace is that
which God made with Noah … It is a peace treaty with the whole creation.
We will not find here, however, a promise to redeem sinners or to reconcile
them to him through the gift of his Messiah.[2]
Michael D.
Williams, a former professor at Dordt College, explains Genesis 8:21 this way:
Though the creature, who was called to rule on God’s behalf,
employs his giftedness for that commission against God
and God’s cause, God steps in and declares that he will preserve the
created order in spite of man. Man’s godless way in the world will not thwart
the divine intent.
This is an expression of what is often called common grace. The term
does not refer to redemptive action toward man on God’s part but
rather God’s continuing providential care over human life in the
world even though “man is totally depraved, inclined toward self-destruction,
and worthy of judgment.” In other words, God does not allow man to become as
fully evil as his fallen heart would otherwise lead him to become.
… God’s merciful preservation of fallen man involves God’s restraining
the effects of sin upon man, his society, and the creational order. God
preserves man and the created order in the Noahic covenant … [3]
O. Palmer
Robertson, who was an associate professor of Old Testament theology at
Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, is the individual whom
Michael Williams was quoting in the passage above. First, Robertson says
that God’s promise not to send another flood is a promise to give
grace to all human beings. Then he goes on to say that this common-grace
promise is the platform from which we are to begin when preaching the gospel:
By the provisions of the Noahic covenant God committed
himself to a course of universal testimony. Creation’s witness of grace toward
sinful man still provides the platform from which the universal proclamation of
the gospel should be launched.
Robertson then
proceeds to explain in a footnote what he means when he says that this
so-called witness of grace to sinful man “provides the platform from which the
universal proclamation of the gospel should be launched.” In that footnote he
makes a reference to II Peter 3:3-10, and makes a connection between the
following two verses:
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept
in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of
ungodly men. (II Peter 3:7)
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count
slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance. (II Peter 3:9)
Putting these
two verses together, Robertson maintains that when God said in Genesis 8:21 that He would no longer curse the ground,
that meant that He was graciously going to delay the final judgment out of a
desire that all human beings might be saved.
… the “desire” of God that “all” should come to repentance should be
interpreted universally. The fact that God may “desire” what he has not
explicitly “decreed” simply must be taken as one of those areas
of God’s purposes that cannot be comprehended by the finite mind. The
context would not favor the limitation of this desire to the “elect,” despite
the possibility that “longsuffering to you” could be interpreted as meaning
longsuffering to the believing recipients of Peter’s letter. The point of the
text is not that God is longsuffering toward the elect, not willing that any of
the elect should perish. The present delay of judgment on the world indicates
his longsuffering to the whole of humanity, despite the fact that ultimately
not all shall be saved.
Summary of these statements
To summarize,
there are those who teach that common grace, including the well-meant offer of
the gospel, is taught by what God says in Genesis 8:21. Some maintain that in this verse God is
promising the following:
1. Not to curse
but rather to bless creation and all of human society, even though man by
nature remains sinful;
2. To preserve
human society by preventing man from becoming fully evil;
3. To delay the
final judgment out of a desire that all human beings might be saved. (As a
consequence, it has been added that when we go forth to preach the gospel we
should begin by proclaiming that God desires that every human being be saved).
That God
promises these things is said to be proven by what God said after He
smelled Noah’s sacrifice.
This summary
serves to bring out how important it is that we understand Genesis 8:21 properly.
*
* * *
* *
In Genesis 8:21 we
read that God said this in His heart: “I will not again curse the ground any
more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth;
neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.” Many
say that God, in this word, is promising to give some grace to all human
beings, so that there will be at least some good in unbelieving man and, thus,
human society will be preserved. Some go a step further and say that when God
said, “I will not again curse the ground,” He meant, “I will delay the final
judgment because I desire that all human beings be saved.”
It is true that to refute these teachings we simply need
to refer to the manifold passages that teach that God desires to save only some
people, and that there is no good in the natural man. But it is one
thing to say what a passage does not teach, and another thing to say what it
does.
The
sweet savour of Christ
What was quoted above was only part of Genesis 8:21. When we look at that entire verse as well as
the verse before it, we see that the two verses together direct our attention
to the sacrifice that Noah offered:
And Noah builded
an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl,
and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
And the Lord smelled a sweet
savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any
more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth;
neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done (Gen. 8:20-21).
It is after God smells the sweet smell of Noah’s
sacrifice that He makes this statement about not cursing the ground.
What God smells is the sweet savour of Christ. Noah’s
sacrifice pointed to the sacrifice of Christ, the Seed of the woman, who would
suffer and die to pay for the sins of His people. Noah,
in offering this sacrifice, confessed that he believed God’s promise
and looked to Him for forgiveness. By faith, he offered his sacrifice,
confessing his own sinfulness and requesting that God would show mercy to him
and his seed and forgive them for Christ’s sake. God says He will show mercy to
His people in Christ, and in that connection makes this statement about no
longer cursing the ground.
The sacrifice of Christ that would one day be offered
would deliver God’s people
and the entire creation from the curse. Going through the accursed death,
Christ would deliver from the curse not only His people but also the earth
itself. That helps to explain why God speaks of the ground no
longer being cursed. God cursed the ground because of man’s sin. Now, after
smelling Christ’s atoning sacrifice, God says the ground will be cursed no
more.
God’s everlasting covenant
As we read on in the passage, we see that God explains
more what He means by no longer cursing the ground. Going into chapter 9, we
find another statement about what God would not again do to the earth: “… neither
shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth” (Gen. 9:11). From the context, we see that not again
cursing the ground is explained to mean not again destroying the earth with a
flood.
Yet there is more. We read that God is making a covenant promise
regarding the earth: “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token
of a covenant between
me and the earth” (Gen. 9:13).
Smelling Christ’s sacrifice, God is also promising that
one day the land of God’s covenant people
will be fully delivered from the curse. The land itself shall be delivered from
the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom. 8:21).
God’s covenant spoken
of here is indeed everlasting: “… That I may remember the everlasting covenant between
God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth” (Gen. 9:16). It is an everlasting covenant—one
that refers to blessings we begin to enjoy now but that will not be fully
enjoyed until the age to come.
Some deny that this covenant is
everlasting. They say the word “everlasting” here means merely “for a very long
time.” But the word used in Genesis 9:16 is the
normal word for “everlasting.” It is precisely the same word used later to
refer to the everlasting covenant that
God made with Abraham (Gen. 17:7). It
does not make sense to say that the covenant with
Abraham is everlasting while the covenant with Noah is
temporary, when God uses the same word (rightly translated “everlasting”) to
describe both.
Isaiah’s
reference to “the waters of Noah”
When considering the explanation of a verse, it is
important not only to look at the verse in its immediate context, but also to
search the Scriptures to find other places where the same subject is discussed.
One such place is found in the prophecies of Isaiah.
Isaiah prophesied about how the Babylonians were going to
be brought like a flood against God’s people,
and that after God had chastened His people in this way, He would no longer be
wroth with them and would bring them back again to their own land. It is in
that context that we find the following reference to God’s promise
not to send another flood:
In a little wrath I hid my face
from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on
thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto
me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should
no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee,
nor rebuke thee (Is. 54:8-9).
In this passage God is speaking about delivering His
people from Babylon. For a moment, God hid His face from His people and gave
them over to the Babylonians, who kept them captive for seventy years. But
after this was over, God would “not be wroth” with His people any more, but
rather with everlasting kindness would show them mercy.
Both the one flood of waters and the one flood of
Babylonians pointed forward to the one judgment upon Christ. The waters covered
the earth once, and then God said He would no longer curse the ground. There
was one Babylonian captivity, and then God said He would be wroth with His
people no more. Yet neither of these events satisfied the demands of God’s justice.
They did, however, both point forward to the one judgment that came upon our
Lord, by which we are forever delivered from God’s wrath
and freed from the curse.
God did, of course, show mercy to His people also in the
days of the Old Testament, before the sacrifice of Christ. But in various ways,
He showed them that the basis upon which they received the blessings was the
one perfect sacrifice that would one day be offered. The day would come, God
was saying, when Christ would experience the baptism to which the flood
pointed. Under the waves of God’s wrath,
our Lord would willingly go. Yet He would emerge victorious and make us
partakers of the blessings that He would purchase as our Head.
“for
the imagination of man’s heart …”
That brings us to a consideration of the reference that
God makes in Genesis 8:21 to
man being depraved from his youth. The Scriptures make two similar statements
about man’s depravity—one before the flood and the other after it. Let us take
a look at those two statements together:
And GOD saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made
man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will
destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth … (Gen. 6:5-7a).
And the Lord smelled a sweet
savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any
more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth;
neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done (Gen. 8:21).
First, God sees man’s wicked deeds and depraved nature
and says He will destroy man. Then after the flood He says that man’s nature is
still evil, yet He will not again curse the ground. What explains the
difference?
The difference has to do with Christ and His sacrifice.
The first statement is what God says about man as he is outside of Christ. His
nature is evil and his thoughts are only evil continually. The second statement
is what God says about the mercy He will show to His people who are in Christ
and yet still have a sinful nature. God looks at His people, knows that they
still have a sinful nature, and for Christ’s sake has mercy on them.
The flood did not change the nature of man. His nature is
still evil and God would not be unjust if He sent a flood repeatedly. Yet for
the sake of His people in Christ, God says He will not do this. He will show
His people mercy and will not again destroy the earth with a flood.
Mercy
shown to God’s people
Though it is commonly denied, the mercy spoken of here is
promised only to those who are in Christ. This is evident from the following:
1. The promised mercy is based on Christ’s sacrifice (to
which Noah’s
sacrifice pointed), and Christ died only for His people.
2. The promise is to Noah and
his family, who were the church at this time. Since the flood was a picture of
baptism, those, who went through the flood, picture those who have been
baptized (i.e. the church).
3. The prophecy of Isaiah that we have looked at says
that no more flood means that there will be no more outpouring of God’s wrath,
and it can be said only of God’s people
that they have been delivered from the wrath of God.
4. God says He will look at the bow in the cloud and
remember the everlasting covenant between
God and every living creature (Gen. 9:16). The
only people who are in God’s everlasting covenant are
those who have been chosen to be so in Christ.
“But,”
someone might say, “God’s act
of not sending another flood is a blessing to all human beings.” That, however,
is not the case. Only to God’s people
is it a blessing. But we will now consider that subject.
*
* * *
* *
Only
believers profit
God’s everlasting covenant is
first of all with Christ. Whenever we read in Scripture of God’s everlasting covenant,
we must remember this. The promises to Abraham were promises to Christ.
The same is true of the promises to Noah.
What God promised Noah,
He promised to Christ and thus only to those who are in Him.
Many, however, maintain that God’s covenant with Noah and
His covenant with
Abraham are not the same. They insist that God’s covenant with Noah was
a covenant not
only with the elect, but also with all those who are outside of Christ. They
argue that Noah and
his house constituted the entire human race, and that God’s promise
not to send another flood benefits all human beings.
Yet such is not the case. First of all, the promise to Noah and
his seed is a promise not to all the descendants of Adam, but to the new human
race of which Christ is the Head. Noah and
his house were the church at this time, and the promise to them is a promise to
Christ’s church.
Secondly,
what God promised Noah and
his house is beneficial not to all human beings, but only to those who believe
in Christ. We will now consider that point in more detail.
Only
believers profit from what God gives them each day
Unbelievers do not benefit from God’s promise
not to send another flood. The longer that an unbeliever lives, the greater the
punishment that he receives, both in this life and at the final judgment.
Consider, for example, Judas Iscariot. Christ said about
him: “but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been
good for that man if he had not been born” (Matt. 26:24b). Every day that Judas Iscariot lived,
the worse it was for him. With each day he became more hardened in his sins,
and the punishment he would receive at the final judgment became worse.
This is
true not only of Judas Iscariot, but also of all those who hate God and His
Son. Every day their judgment becomes heavier: “But after thy hardness and
impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and
revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom. 2:5). Therefore, it simply is not true that all
human beings benefit from the fact that God does not send another flood.
When an
unbeliever receives bodily health for another day, he is receiving from God
something good, for which he should give thanks to God. But what he receives
does not profit him, because he makes use of it only to sin more.
Believers,
and believers only, profit from what God gives them each day. They alone are
receiving the words that God speaks. And it is only when we receive God’s Word
along with His good gifts that we benefit from what He gives to us.
Only believers profit, as they see the fulfillment of God’s promise
God’s promises benefit only those who truly
believe what He promises. The promises do not benefit the blatant unbeliever,
nor do they benefit those who merely acknowledge intellectually that what God
says is true. It is only those who genuinely believe that benefit from what God
says.
God’s promises always direct us to think
about the kingdom of heaven. This is
true also of the promises to Noah.
Yet only the believer thinks about and embraces what God says about that
kingdom, and thus profits from it.
Contrary to
what many say, the covenant with Noah is
about the kingdom of heaven. Scripture tells us that when we consider what God
said to our father Noah,
we are to think about how our God in heaven has set the ordinances of heaven
and how He directs all things precisely as He has promised, always
accomplishing His will.
God said to Noah:
“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer
and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22). In the prophecies of Jeremiah, this is
referred to as God’s covenant of
the day and of the night:
Thus saith the Lord; If ye can
break my covenant of
the day, and my covenant of
the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may
also my covenant be
broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his
throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers (Jer. 33:20-21).
When we see that the cycle of day and night continues the
same, day after day, we are supposed to think about how our heavenly Father has
set the ordinances of heaven. What man claims happens by “natural causes” is
actually what He is causing to happen in fulfillment of His covenant promise.
Only a believer profits from this promise. Only he looks
to the Scriptures to find the explanation of this promise and finds comfort.
Unbelieving man thinks he can explain why there is this day/night cycle, and he
explains it in such a way that God has nothing to do with it. It happens, says
man, due to the laws of nature.
Man prides himself on thinking that he has discovered and
now knows the ordinances. But God says the only one who truly knows the
ordinances is the one who has set them. Consider the question that our Lord
asked of Job: “Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the
dominion thereof in the earth?” Only God knows the ordinances. He alone has set
the dominion of them in the earth. Only the child of God believes and humbly
confesses this, finding comfort in knowing that his God in heaven is directing
all things.
The prophecies of Jeremiah go on to say that when we see
the day/night cycle continue just as God has promised, then we are also to be assured
that all that God has promised to us in Christ will certainly take place.
Notice how the verses below connect the promise to Noah,
the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the promise to Israel, and the promise
to David:
Thus saith the Lord; If my covenant be
not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven
and earth; Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so
that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob … (Jer. 33:25-26a).
Thus saith the Lord, which
giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the
stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar;
The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith
the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before
me for ever (Jer. 31:35-36).
Throughout
history, it is one and the same everlasting covenant that
God has made with His people in Christ. When we behold and consider the
fulfillment of God’s covenant promise
concerning the ongoing cycle of day and night, we are to be assured that the
same God who has set these ordinances will certainly fulfill all that He has
promised to us in Christ.
Only
believers are comforted by this. They alone consider this, confess this, and
are drawn by God’s Spirit
closer to the living God.
Only
believers profit when they see the rainbow
Unbelieving man looks at the rainbow and thinks he can
explain it only by “natural causes.” Yet it is God’s rainbow, and He
put it there, as He Himself declares: “I do set my bow in the cloud” (Gen. 9:13a). Man has come to understand under what
conditions an individual will see a rainbow in the sky, but God is the one who
has set the ordinances so that a rainbow appears under those conditions.
When God spoke to Noah,
He made a promise about the ordinances of heaven and then gave us a sign that
would appear in the heavens. This promise and this sign are to remind us that
just as the sun, the moon, and the bow in the clouds appear in the sky
precisely as God willed it, so our salvation will be fully accomplished
precisely as God has planned.
It is when we hear this promise, see this sign, and
believe in our heart, that we profit from what God has said. Then with joy in
our heart, we praise God and say: “But our God is in the heavens: he hath done
whatsoever he hath pleased” (Ps. 115:3). The
ones who by faith truly sing this song, these are the ones who have profited
from the comforting promises our Lord made unto Noah and
to all His people.
==========
FOOTNOTES:
1. In
Scripture we see an example of this in the story of the man born blind whom
Jesus healed. After this man’s bodily eyesight was restored, the Pharisees told
him that Jesus was a sinner. At first, the man responded that whether that was
the case or not, he did not know. But then, as he gave some more thought to
this, he recognized and confessed that the very opposite of what the Pharisees
were saying was actually the truth (John 9:24-33).
2.
Michael Horton, Introducing Covenant Theology (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2006), p. 113.
3.
Michael D. Williams, Far as the Curse is Found:
The Covenant Story of Redemption (Philippsburg, NJ:
P&R Publishing, 2005), p. 91. Michael Williams was a professor at Dordt
College for six years before joining the faculty
of Covenant Theological Seminary in 1996. This book has often been
required reading for students at Dordt College. In this section he quotes from
O. Palmer Robertson’s book, The Christ of
the Covenants, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), p. 115.
No comments:
Post a Comment