The Vision (12.22.23): Seven Applications from God's Covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:1-17)

 

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 9:1-17.

And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth (Genesis 9:1).

Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man (Genesis 9:6).

And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you (Genesis 9:8-9).

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth (Genesis 9:13).

Genesis 9:1-17 describes God’s blessing and commissioning of Noah and his sons after the flood, as well as God’s establishment of his covenant with them, including the “token” of the bow in the clouds.

What practical instructions do we take from this account? Here are seven:

First, the preservation of Noah’s family and the establishment of this covenant is a reminder that God was not finished with fallen men. He was working out his plan of salvation (see Genesis 3:15).

Second, God gave even to fallen mankind, after the flood, a renewed dominion mandate (Genesis 9:1, 7; cf. Genesis 1:27-28). It is good for men to marry and to have children and to be wise and faithful and compassionate stewards of the world and all its inhabitants. 

Third, God values the life of human beings above all other creatures. We are made in his image. Though that image has been tarnished by the fall, it has not been obliterated (see Genesis 9:6). What is more, the life of man is protected by God (Genesis 9:5). We should not, therefore, unjustly take the life of our brother. This means God abhors murder, and abortion, and infanticide, and euthanasia.

Fourth, capital punishment is a Biblically justified punishment for those who unjustly shed man’s blood as long as it is lawfully administered by the civil magistrate who does not bear the sword in vain (Genesis 9:6; cf. Romans 13:1-4).

Fifth, God will never again destroy the world by flood or by any other means before the final end of all things at the coming of Christ (Genesis 9:11; cf. 2 Peter 3:10). So, we need not fear any doomsday messages from climate alarmists or internet conspiracy theorists. God had made a covenant commitment to us. And every time we see a rainbow in the clouds, we can remember that covenant.

Sixth, just as God gave an outward token of his covenant with Noah, so he continues to give outward signs of spiritual realties. Baptism is one such sign and the Lord’s Supper another.

Seventh, we are reminded that after the flood, God brought about a renewed creation. We might draw a parallel to salvation. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul said that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”

In our unregenerate state, we believers were in ruins, but God saw fit to salvage us, and he made each of us a new creature in Christ, and he is continuing, by sanctification, to make us what we ought to be.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (12.8.23): Lessons from the Flood (Genesis 7)

 

Image: Edward Hicks, Noah's Ark (1846), Philadelphia Museum of Art

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 7.

“And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood” (Genesis 7:7).

“And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in” (Genesis 7:16).

There are many spiritual lessons we might draw from our text (Genesis 7); here are but a few:

First: Sin has consequences. Eventually our sin will find us out.

Second: God is just and right to punish sinners with death and destruction.

Third: God does exactly what he promises. He had promised Noah he would destroy the world with a flood in Genesis 6:17, and in Genesis 7 his word was fulfilled. God keeps his word.

Christ promised to honor to those who honor him and to put to shame those who deny him (cf. Matthew 10:32-33). Do you think he will keep his word?

Fourth: We see here the importance of obedience, modeled again by Noah (Genesis 7:5 “And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.” Cf. Genesis 6:22). We may suppose his obedience was prompt, full, and cheerful.

Fifth: We also see here our Lord’s great patience and longsuffering.

He gave men one hundred and twenty years to repent (see Genesis 6:3b). Once set on bringing the flood, he gave yet seven days more, as Noah made his preparations to enter the ark (Genesis 7:4, 10).

Noah is called by Peter in 2 Peter 2:5 “a preacher of righteousness.” Some have wondered if Noah might yet have preached in those last seven days. How hardened men must have scoffed or turned away in indifference to his sermons!

Sixth: We learn finally, with fear and trembling, that there are times when the door is closed, when the extended hand is returned, when the longsuffering is ended, and judgement comes.

There came a time when the door of the ark was shut (v. 16b: “and the LORD shut him in”). In shutting Noah in, the LORD was shutting others out.

In Matthew 25 Christ told a parable of wise and foolish virgins who awaited the bridegroom. Five wise virgins were ready, but five foolish ones were not, and the latter missed his coming. When they went to the wedding hall, we read, “and the door was shut” (v. 10). They cried, “Lord, Lord, open to us” (v. 11), but the answer came back, “I know you not” (v. 12).

Dear friends, last sermons are heard, last invitations are extended, last calls are made. The door is open now, but it will soon be shut when we breathe our last in the flood of death, or when Christ comes in glory.

Will we not enter that ark of faith in Christ before the end should come upon us?

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (12.1.23): Noah was a just man

 

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 6:9-22.

These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God (Genesis 6:9).

In Genesis 6:9 there are three descriptions of Noah, the man who “found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8):

First, “Noah was a just (or righteous) man.”

He was a godly man in an ungodly generation. This will be a hallmark description of Noah. Twice in the book of the prophet Ezekiel Noah is listed alongside Daniel and Job as men outstanding for their righteousness (Ezekiel 14:14, 20).

Paul, in the great faith chapter of Hebrews 11 will write, “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith” (v. 7).

How indeed is one made righteous or justified in God’s sight? It is by faith. As the apostle Paul will put it in Romans 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It will later be said of Abraham that he believed in the LORD and it was counted to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6). And yet even before Abraham there was Noah. Not only is he described in Scripture as being a just man, but he is also described by Peter as “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5).

Second, Noah was “perfect in his generations.” This did not mean morally perfect or sinless, because all mankind after Adam born by ordinary generation has inherited a sin nature from him and committed actual transgressions. The KJV offers an alternative translation for the word “perfect” as “upright.” What this tells us is that though Noah had remaining corruption within, he was yet the most upright man of his generation.

Third, “Noah walked with God." This recalls the description of godly Enoch (Genesis 5:24). Noah enjoyed a level of deep communion and fellowship with his Creator. He was a spiritually minded man, a man who was not a spiritual hypocrite, but one who intimately knew the LORD.

It was this man whom the LORD set apart to build the ark, to save a remnant, to accomplish a life-preserving mission, “to keep them alive” (Genesis 6:20).

Noah was the greatest man of his day, but he was still a fallen man.

In the fullness of time, there came one greater than Noah, the Lord Jesus Christ. When he died on the cross Luke tells us there was a centurion there who when he “saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man” (Luke 23:47).

The apostle Paul said God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that “we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The apostle Peter said that he “once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

This one who is greater than Noah has raised up an ark in our day that saves men  not only from temporary destruction but from eternal destruction, and you enter into this ark, which is Christ himself, only by faith in him.

So, let us believe, and let us be saved.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (11.24.23): But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD

 

Image: Noah icon, sixteenth century, Mt. Athos, Greece.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 6:1-8.

Genesis 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Genesis 6:8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

In light of the fact that “the wickedness of man was great” (Genesis 6:5), the LORD made a solemn declaration of his intent utterly to destroy “man whom I have created” (v. 7a). Note that this destruction would entail “both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air” (v. 7b). All creation must pay the price for man’s sin! Again, we hear that God “repented” (cf. v. 6), meaning that he was grieved, disturbed at the mess fallen humanity had made of the world he once looked upon and declared to be very good (Genesis 1:31).

Imagine if you took the time to build something or prepare something of great value. And then one rogue actor came in and, in a few moments, destroyed all that you had so carefully made. It is so much easier to destroy than it is to create and build!

What a terrible state things were in! God would have been completely justified to do just as he here declared.

The breaking light comes, however, in v. 8: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” This is one of the great “adversative conjunctions” statements in the Bible. Think of 1 Corinthians 6:11, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” Or, of Ephesians 2:4, “But God, who is rich in mercy….”

Notice it says that Noah found grace. It does not say that Noah earned grace, or that he deserved grace, or that he won grace, or that he merited grace. No, he found it, which means he was given it by God. God’s response to man’s sin was grace!

God’s promise of the gospel in Genesis 3:15 would not fail.

We are reminded here of how God works. When he came to us and looked upon us and saw our sinful state, he might well have snuffed us out, as he might have the whole world in the days of Noah. And yet he gave grace.

The story is told of a mother of many children who had one of them sneak off and get into an oil barrel. When she found the wayward child, after much searching, he was covered head to toe in black goo. She exclaimed, “Lord, it’d just about be easier to have another one than it would be to clean you up!”

The Lord did not give us over to what we deserved. He saved us, and he is cleaning us up. We found grace in his eyes through Christ.

All praise, glory, and honor be to him.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (11.17.23): And Enoch walked with God

 

Image: Elijah and Enoch, 17th century icon, Historic Museum, Sanok, Poland

Note: Devotion is taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 5.

"And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24).

Genesis 5 presents us with “the book of the generations of Adam” through the line of Seth (v. 1).

One name that stands out is Enoch the seventh in this line (cf. Jude 1:14-15). The name Enoch means “dedication” or “consecration.” This was also the name of Cain’s son, after whom he named the city he had built (4:17).

The distinctive thing about Enoch is first noted in v. 22: “And Enoch walked with God.” He did not just live, but he walked with God. He had not only natural life, but also spiritual life.

The language of walking with God is figurative for one who shares in an intimate communion with God. Enoch was a peculiarly godly man, a spiritual giant among the men of his times.

Matthew Henry explains that “to walk with God” means, “to set Him before us, and to act as if we were always under His eye… It is to make God’s word our rule and His glory our end in all our actions. It is to make it our constant care and endeavor in everything to please God, and in nothing to offend him.”

Matthew Poole said of Enoch: "He lived as one whose eye was continually upon God; whose care and constant course and business it was to please God, and to imitate him, and to maintain acquaintance and communion with him; as one devoted to God's service and wholly governed by his will. He walked not with men of that wicked age, or as they walked, but being a prophet and preacher…. with great zeal and courage he protected and preached against their evil practices, and boldly owned God and his ways in the midst of them.”

The description of every other man in the line of Adam ends with the statement, “and he died,” but it does not say this of Enoch. Instead, we read in v. 24: “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”

The meaning of what happened to Enoch is explained in Hebrews 11:5, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.”

Enoch was, thus, one of the two men who are mentioned in the OT who did not taste death but were taken by God before experiencing its pain and terror. The other was the prophet Elijah (see 2 Kings 11:11-12). The theologians call this experience an apotheosis.

This account gives hope to all of us, who, like Enoch, have remaining corruptions within us, that we may still seek holiness of life and communion with God as did righteous Enoch.

As Paul exhorted believers in Colossians 2:6, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.”

So, let us join ourselves to Christ and walk in him.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (11.10.23): The Line of Cain or the Line of Seth?

 

Image: Lamech, Mosaic, 12th-13th century, Monreale, Sicily.

Note: Devotional based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 4:16-26.

And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch (Genesis 4:17).

And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call on the name of the LORD (Genesis 4:26).

In Genesis 4, two distinct lines are traced. One is the line of Cain (vv. 16-24), who was “of that wicked one” (1 John 3:12), and the other is the line of Seth (vv. 25-26).

We are left to ponder: Are we part of the line of Cain or the line of Seth? Do we take the broad way to destruction or the narrow way to life (Matthew 7:13-14)?

Will we build our city (our empire), as did Cain (v. 17) trying to make a name or leave a legacy for ourselves?

Will we lead a life with only secular strivings, as did those in Cain’s line, even if we do become skilled at amassing cattle, making music, or becoming a skilled artisan (vv. 19-22), but doing it all apart from any relationship with Christ?

Will we only be able to give our children a material inheritance when we leave this earth, or will we leave them something more?

Will we cast aside the original good design of God, as Cain’s descendent Lamech did when he took two wives (v. 19; contra Genesis 2:24)?

Will we live to have men fear us, as did Lamech (v. 24), vowing to pay back any slight with seventy-seven times the force, breathing out threats, and boasting, living by the creed, “Mess with the best and get burned like the rest”?

Or will we go the way of Seth and be weak and humble before the LORD, asking him to remember that we are but dust.

Will we call upon the name of the LORD (v. 26), seeing the worship of God as the true end of man, and will we pass this truth on to our children and grandchildren?

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (11.3.23): What hast thou done?

 

Note: Devotional based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 4:1-15.

And [the LORD] said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground (Genesis 4:10).

We see the same pattern here as in Genesis 3. Just as God came and walked in the cool of the day and found out Adam’s sin, so he comes and finds out Cain’s sin.

We can run from God, but we cannot hide. As Moses said to the Israelites in Numbers 32:23, “and be sure your sin will find you out.”

To Adam God said, “Where art thou?” (3:9). To Cain he says, “Where is Abel thy brother?” (4:9).

If Genesis 3 shows the breaking of the first table of the law (man’s duty to God), Genesis 4 shows the breaking of the second table of the law (man’s duty to his fellow man). We are all, in truth, guilty of trespassing both!

Cain famously replies, trying to hide his sin, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (v. 9b). John Currid writes:

This is a figure of speech used here to emphasize a sense of indignant refusal. What a bold, defiant, and rebellious response! Instead of fearing God, Cain questions him. The irony is that the true answer is positive: one is indeed to keep one’s brother (Genesis, Vol. 1, 147).

This same commentator notes that seven times in this passage, Abel is referred to as “brother” (vv. 2, 8, 9, 10, 11), but the term is never used of Cain (147).

The LORD then confronts Cain with another question in v. 10a: “What hast thou done?” This is similar to God’s question of Eve in Genesis 3:13, “What is it thou hast done?” Is God ignorant of what has happened? Of course not. He does not ask to furnish his own knowledge but to prick the conscience of the transgressor.

 This is the question of a righteous God to sinful man, “What hast thou done?” He continues to ask this question of each of us, pushing us to the end of ourselves so that we might find refuge in Christ alone.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (10.27.23): And there shall be no more curse

 

Note: Devotional taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 3:15-24.

“cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Genesis 3:17)

“and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).

“and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life” (Revelation 22:2).

“and there shall be no more curse” (Revelation 22:3).

Genesis 3:14-24 details the “curse” that comes upon all creation due to the fall of our first parents. Here are some gleanings we might take from this passage:

Sin has consequences. There were consequences for Adam’s sin that we bear in our bodies and minds to this very day. We need also remember there will be consequences for our actual transgressions as well.

The good and beautiful design that God made for man and woman in the institution of marriage has been damaged and tarnished by sin.

We need to examine ourselves: What sinful tendencies have I demonstrated and how, by God’s grace, might I fight this corruption so as to live in such a way as is fitting of a follower of Christ?

When Christ was asked by the Pharisees why Moses allowed a “writing of divorcement” (Matthew 19:7), Christ responded by saying he only did this because of the hardness of their hearts. He then added, “but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8). The standard for Christians is not Genesis 3, but Genesis 1-2.

By the grace of God and the love of Christ, let us stive to restore what has been tarnished.

Because of Adam’s sin we all know our mortality. The way to the tree of life has been blocked. Yet Christ promised life, abundant life, which begins in the here-and-now for all who trust in him, and extends beyond this life to eternal life (John 10:10, 28). See the classic declaration in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Through Christ, the second Adam, a new way of access has been made to the tree of life. By the tree of death (the cross), we may eat of the tree of life.

If we turn from the first book of the Bible (Genesis) to the last (Revelation) we read of John’s vision of “a pure river of water of life” which proceeds “out of the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1). John tells us that on both sides of the river there is “the tree of life” (v. 2), adding, “And there shall be no more curse” (v. 3).

Because of Christ, there is a land that awaits the saints of God, where we might eat again of the tree of life, and where there shall be no more curse.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (10.20.23): Where art thou?

 

Image: Adam and Eve Mosaic, Late 5th-early 6th century. Cleveland Museum of Art.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 3:8-15.

And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? (Genesis 3:9).

As we read the account of the LORD God’s confrontation with the first man and the first woman after they had fallen by sinning against God and by eating the forbidden fruit, we are meant to sympathize with our first parents. We should be moved to acknowledge that we too have fallen, that we are naked, exposed before a holy God, and we have only tried to hide ourselves from him, as did they.

Yet the LORD God comes to us even today, even also had come to them, with the voice of his Word. He seeks us. He confronts us, and he places us under a spiritual investigation or interrogation. He asks us questions, not because he is ignorant of the answers, but because he is probing our conscience. So, he asks:

Where art thou? (v. 9).

Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded that thou shouldest not eat? (v. 11).

What is this that thou hast done? (v. 13).

Will we cast or shift blame, as did the first man and woman, or will we acknowledge and confess our faults (1 John 1:9)?

Will we also come to know the one about whom God himself spoke in Genesis 3:15, in that first prophecy of the Gospel. God himself acting as the Prophet declared that from the seed of woman shall come one who will crush Satan’s head through Satan shall bruise his heel (Isaiah 53:5: “he was bruised for our iniquities”).

In Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia he will describe the Lord Christ in this way:

Galatians 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

And in Galatians 3:13 Paul says that the Lord Jesus Christ “was made a curse for us.” He is the only hope for fallen men.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (10.13.23): Satan's Tactics

 

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 3:1-7:

Genesis 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Satan, “the great dragon” and “the old serpent” (Revelation 12:9), tempts the first man and woman to disobey God’s command and to eat the forbidden fruit.

We learn here of his devises and tactics, which include twisting God’s words, telling lies (see John 8:44 where Christ called him, “a liar and the father of it”), making false promises, and appealing to man’s pride.

Satan here pitches sin as a kind of “enlightenment,” the opening of one’s eyes. This lie strikes at an ancient weakness in man to desire to throw off the one true God and make himself to be a god. He wants to rule his own life, to make up his own rules.

Satan even pitches sin as some kind of moral achievement. Man can know good and evil. But man in the state of innocence knew only the good and was not tainted even by the knowledge of evil. It was not an improvement for man to know evil, as Satan falsely suggested, but a degradation.

Satan is like a conman, a snake-oil salesman, a flim-flam artist. He uses the old bait and switch method:

He promises enlightenment and gives spiritual blindness.

He promises freedom and gives bondage.

He promises wisdom and gives foolishness.

He promises warmth and gives icy coldness.

He promises community and gives loneliness (I bet the prodigal had loads of friends in the far country till the money ran out!).

He promises satisfaction and gives starvation.

He promises drink and gives a parched throat.

He promises wealth and gives poverty.

He promises life and gives death.

He promises a party and delivers a funeral.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (10.6.23): The Creation of Woman

 

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 2:18-25 in our Genesis series.

Genesis 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her to the man.

The LORD God did not leave man in the state of loneliness or incompletion, determining to make woman as the perfect companion and complement to man.

He does this through an act of what one might call “spiritual surgery.” He causes the man to fall into a deep sleep, and took from his side a rib, closing up the flesh (v. 21). Then from this rib he made the first woman (v. 22a).

There has been much attention given over the years as to the reasons for the creation of the woman in this way, though it must mostly remain speculative, since no clear inspired explanations are given.

The Puritan commentator Matthew Henry famously observed,

… woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side, to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.

He later adds a much more allegorical Christ-centered interpretation, writing:

Adam was a figure of him that was to come; for out of the side of Christ, the second Adam, his spouse the church was formed, when he slept the sleep, the deep sleep, of death upon the cross, in order to which his side was opened, and there came out blood and water, blood to purchase his church and water to purify it to himself.

Notice then in v. 22b how the LORD God brings the woman to the man. Here is his presentation of this special gift to Adam.

Maybe as a parent you have sometimes gotten a special gift for your child, perhaps at a birthday or Christmas. You made or got for him something you know that he will really love and delight to see and have. You may have become almost more excited to see him get the gift than he was to receive it. We can imagine God as like that here.

One commentator notes, “God is like a father who presents his son with a valuable gift that is bound to please him and be cherished by him. ‘See, he says, what I have prepared for you’” (Currid, Genesis, 112).

Woman was indeed a good gift given to man to complete the creation of God’s special image bearers.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (9.29.23): Man in the State of Innocency

 

Image: Map of the four rivers of Eden from a reprint of the Calvin Translation Society Commentary on Genesis.

Genesis 2 ¹⁵ And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

¹⁷ But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The LORD offers a commandment to the first man in the state of his innocency that included a most generous provision for him, a most clear prohibition, and most ominous warning (vv. 16-17).

This is sometimes called the covenant of creation, or the covenant of life, or the covenant of works.

Calvin called it “a test of obedience” (commentary on Gen 2:16).

First, there is the most generous provision, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.” What an incredible variety of trees God gave to man in his innocence to enjoy! You think the fruit of trees in this fallen world taste good now, imagine what they were like before the fall! And notice they were not barred from eating from the tree of life. A way was opened unto man to live forever (see 3:22)!

Second, however, there was the clear prohibition: “But, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat it” (v. 17a).

We get a clue here as to how sin operates. We know it from our fallen selves. God provides for us a vast array of things that we might pursue that are wholesome, right, good, and soul-satisfying. And what is the thing we crave? That which he in his wisdom forbids.

The parent says, Don’t touch the stove, and the child thinks, I wonder what it would feel like to touch the stove! And very often the hand reaches out to touch the stove and gets burned.

There is finally also the ominous warning: “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (v. 17b). Man cannot say he was not warned. Paul will write in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death. God said it first in the garden. Adam and Eve will not immediately drop down dead, but spiritual death and eventual physical death will come the moment this commandment is disobeyed and the covenant is broken.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (9.22.23): “And all the host of them”: The Magnitude of Creation

 

Image: The Milky Way

Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 2:1-3.

Genesis 2:1 declares, “Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.”

The language here echoes that of Genesis 1:1 where the phrase “heaven and earth” also appears. This is simply a way of saying God made “everything.”

Moses adds, “and all the host of them.” This is meant to emphasize the totality and magnitude of the complete, divine work of creation. One commentator notes that the word “host” “normally only refers to luminaries” like the sun, moon, and stars (see Deut 4:19; 17:3), but here its application is extended to all things within the world, everything between and beyond the heavens and the earth (Currid, Genesis, 90-91).

The immensity of the creation is truly breath-taking. We, as puny human beings, will never be able to grasp with our finite minds its enormous scope. I was reading about this last week in a book titled The New Creationism by a Christian apologist in the UK named Paul Gardner. Gardner wrote about the stars to illustrate the immensity of the world that God made. He notes,

Our Sun is one of about 100 billion stars that make up our galaxy. The Milky Way. Our galaxy is one of about thirty galaxies in a cluster called the Local Group. This cluster is about ten million light years across… (34).

He then adds,

One recent estimate suggests that, in total, there are ten times more stars in the observable universe than all the grains of sand on the world’s deserts and beaches (34).

Get this also, stars are apparently like snowflakes. “No two stars are absolutely identical” (34).

With that in mind, consider again the statement in 2:1, especially its conclusion, “and all the host of them.” The magnitude of creation staggers the mind. It makes David’s statement in Psalm 8 completely reasonable, “3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”

Genesis 2:1 compels us to wonder in worship and awe at the vast magnitude of the world which God created in the space of six days and all very good.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Vision (9.15.23): The Special Creation of Man

 

Image: Scene from the London Zoo "Human Exhibit" in 2005.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 1:26-31.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them (Genesis 1:27).

Back in 2005 the London Zoo made headlines around the world when for a short time it hired eight persons (three men and five women) to live in an exhibit under the title “Homo Sapiens.” Other signs described their diet and typical activities. Another described them as “the most dangerous animal of all.” Are human beings simply like all the other animals? If not, what exactly is it that makes us different?

The answer to those questions is given to us in Genesis 1:26-28.

Genesis 1:26 begins, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The Hebrew word for “man” here is adam. It is also the name of the first man. He is a special creature made in a special manner and given a special name. He is not listed alongside the other land creatures in v. 24 (cattle, creeping things, and beast of the earth). He is set apart. He is unique.

The primary evidence of his uniqueness is that the triune God purposed to make man “in our image, after our likeness.” Those two statements are essentially saying the same thing in classic Hebrew parallelism.

The first statement is perhaps best known by the Latin phrase, “Imago Dei.” Man has an imprint upon him that makes him different than the rest of the creation. He is not God, but he is made after the likeness of the thrice Holy God.

Perhaps the key to what this image means is given in the remainder of v. 26 which begins, “and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea…” (v. 26b). God who is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Master of the whole cosmos gives to man as the crown of his creation a measure of limited sovereignty. He gives mankind to be his stewards and to rule over and provide for all the other creatures of firmament, sea, and land, and even “over all the earth.” This is indeed what David stresses in Psalm 8:4-8, when he declares that God made man “a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour … to have dominion” over the works of his hands.

One more fact about man is provided in v. 27b: “male and female created he them.” God declares here that human beings are made in two basic flavors, or in two distinct styles, or in two kinds. God made man to be male and female, men and women. Human beings are, according to the good design of God binary. This is why we as Christian say there are only two genders. What does it say about the state of confusion in our world today when such a basic claim is somehow controversial?

This was and is God’s original, good design made before man’s fall into sin. This statement affirms the spiritual equality of men and women. We are both made in the image of God. We are both image bearers. We are both made in God’s likeness. We are both made to have dominion over all creatures and all the earth. Men are not spiritually superior to women; women are not spiritually superior to men.

This is not to say, however, that we are the same. We are fundamentally different. Made by an all-good and all-wise God for different tasks, roles, and functions in this world. We are not interchangeably the same, and this is good.

Who is man? A special and unique creation by God.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle