Previous passage
ends the long chiastic structure
Gen
9:1-7 (ESV) And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be
fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2
The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the
earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the
ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food
for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you
shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your
lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and
from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by
man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.
7
And you, be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it."
- This is what is called the
stewardship (or age or dispensation) of human government
- Title is because God gives
man authority over the life of other men
- What are the aspects
associated with this age?
- Be fruitful,
increase, & fill the earth
- Fear of man in animals
- All things are food, not
just the green plants
- Previously,
implication was vegetables
- Now, all meat is okay
- In the Mosaic covenant,
only certain meat is okay
- In the New Covenant, all
meat is okay
==>
This is not contradiction but rather a confirmation of different rules for
different periods of time
- Cannot eat /
drink blood
- Can execute capital
punishment (but vss 4,5 show that life is sacred)
- Life has changed; the
environment has changed; the rules & commands have changed
- What are the typical
responses to change in life?
- Complain
- Wish for the good old days
- Bitterness
- Accept
- While acceptance is the
right response, sometimes it does take people some time emotionally to
respond
- Dispensations
- Defn: A dispensation is a
distinguishable economy in the outworking of God's purpose
- Salvation is always by
faith
- NT word, seen in Eph 1:10;
3:2; and Col 1:25-26
- Eph 1:10 (ESV) … as a plan
for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven
and things on earth.
- "plan" is Greek
oikonomian, strong's 3633, meaning dispensation
- Eph 3:1-3 (ESV) For this
reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—
2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that
was given to me for you, 3 how
the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written
briefly.
- "stewardship is
Greek word for dispensation
- Col 1:24-26 (ESV) Now I
rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up
what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that
is, the church, 25 of which I
became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given
to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and
generations but now revealed to his saints.
- Each time, it either
references a plan or a mystery now being revealed, which carries the
idea of something different
- Characterization of a
dispensation
- Chief person
- Man's responsibility
- Man's specific test
- Man's failure
- Man's judgment
- God's display of Grace
- 7 Main Stewardships
- Dispensation of
Innocence or Freedom
- Responsibility:
Care for earth, subdue it, replenish it
- Test: Tree of knowledge of
good and evil
- Failure: Could not keep
one rule
- Judgment: expelled from
the garden -- couldn't eat of the tree of life
- God's grace: the promise
of a redeemer (Gen 3:15)
- Dispensation of Conscience
or Self Determination
- Respond to God
as prompted by conscience (as seen in Abel)
- Responsibilities: Adamic
covenant continued. Speculate that there were other things not
mentioned in the text, since Cain and Abel understood sacrifice. Even
Noah understood clean and unclean animals. Also Faith in the coming
Messiah
- Test: Obedience to the
knowledge of good and evil (God pretty much states that much to Cain
before his murder of Abel)
- Failure: Cain failed to
bring the right sacrifice. The people of the world continually sinned,
even though they knew right and wrong
- Judgment: worldwide flood
- God's grace: Salvation of
Noah and his family
- Dispensation of Civil
Government (SAVE FOR DISCUSSION LATER ON)
- Responsibilities
- Capital
punishment (compare 4:14,15) -- implies submission to governing
authorities
- Can eat meat
- Told to spread out and
fill the earth
- Test: Requirement to fill
the earth
- Failure: Tower of Babel
and refusal to spread out
- Judgment: confusion of
tongues. Now people are forced to disperse to avoid turmoil, confusion,
and conflict
- God's Grace: God's
preserves a remnant through the line of Shem, the Semitic groups, that
would one day produce the Messiah
- Dispensation of Promise or
Patriarchal Rule
- Dispensation of the Law
- Dispensation of Grace
- Dispensation of the Kingdom
or Millennium
Genesis 9:8–17 (ESV) —
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after
you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you,
the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as
came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be
cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to
destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant
that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for
all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a
sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring
clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every
living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood
to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and
remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all
flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is
the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that
is on the earth.”
- What type of covenant is
this one?
- Unconditional and a
suzerainty covenant (higher with lower)
- While the age / stewardship
has stipulations, the covenant does not have any on man, only God
- Promise of the covenant
- Flood will not destroy the
whole earth
- Rainbow as a reminder
- Possibly first existence
of a rainbow since the earth was watered by a mist from the ground
- Now rain came from the sky
and so the rainbow would be a natural result of that change
- Or, rainbows existed
before and now received a new significance (not my belief)
- Once again, we see God
"remembers" indicating two things
- Communicating to
man in terms that man will understand
- God will directly intervene
- Does God need a rainbow to
remember?
- No, the rainbow reminds us,
not God of what he has done, and
- What he will do, and
- What he won't do
- So far there has been a
common pattern in the dispensations, what are they?
- Specific rules
- Failure on the part of man
- Judgment
APPLICATION:
Recognizing that
life is sacred
Genesis 9:18–29 (ESV) —
18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and
Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These three were
the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.
20 Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and
told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and
Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward
and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward,
and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24 When Noah
awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,
“Cursed be Canaan;
a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”
26 He also said,
“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem;
and let Canaan be his servant.
27 May God enlarge Japheth,
and let him dwell in the tents of Shem,
and let Canaan be his servant.”
28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.
- Two examples of failure, and
two examples of "doing the right thing"
- Scripture never glosses
over men's fault. Noah was a godly man but he failed here, Why?
- He lost self-control
- He overindulged in alcohol
- What is Ham's mistake?
- Constable:
- Ham’s gazing on Noah’s
nakedness represents an early step in the abandonment of the moral
code after the Flood.
- Ham dishonored Noah not
by seeing him naked but by his outspoken delight in his father’s
condition
- Allen P. Ross (Bib Sacra,
1980): It is difficult for someone living in the modern world to
understand the modesty and discretion of privacy called for in ancient
morality. Nakedness in the OT was from the beginning a thing of shame
for fallen man [Gen 3:7] . . . the state of nakedness was both
undignified and vulnerable. . . . To see someone uncovered was to bring
dishonor and to gain advantage for potential exploitation.”
- Ham could have acted
differently, but he acted shamefully. Instead of protecting his Father,
he seem to enjoy his Father's failure
- The other two protect their
Father's honor. Apparently, Shem takes the lead
- Sin is not to be taken
lightly
- Sin is not to be laughed
at
- Sin is not to be reveled
in
- The importance of this
passage is that once again we define two different approaches and two
different lines
- One line laughs at and
enjoys sin
- The other line takes action
in opposition to sin
APPLICATION:
- God still judges
sin today. Emphasizes the
importance of repentance and reliance on God's mercy
- What is our
reaction to sin?
- How can we live in a way
where we are not enjoying humor about sin?
- Constable: The general
lesson of the passage is that God blesses those who behave righteously
but curses those who abandon moral restraint.
