Fear and Dread, Meat and Blood

The flood is over; the skies are clear. Since God remembered Noah a chapter ago (Genesis 8:1), we've been walking through creation all over again: the creative wind blowing over the deep, the separation of the waters, the return of dry land, and suddenly out from the ark come the flying and crawling and leaping and running things, and then human beings. So what we really want to know is whether this rewind will undo the exile of Adam and Eve, if this is a full do-over that undoes curse and fall. Sadly, a stow-away couldn't be kept off the ark: sin.¹ “The intention of man's heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). We cannot waltz our way back to the Tree of Life. “The restoration is not a return to paradise.”² See, we're just not that innocent. Instead, God is going to rebuild the world around what we've become. Such a redesign will not only acknowledge our darkness, but accommodate it and even try to harness it for something good.³

In the first creation, after “God created humanity in his own image” (Genesis 1:27), the very next verse sees that “God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth'” (Genesis 1:28). The exact same thing happens here, where “God blessed Noah and his sons, and he said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth'” (Genesis 9:1). So far, so good! But here the words diverge. In the first creation, God continued by urging original humanity to “subdue [the earth], and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the skies and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). The rewrite takes some liberties, ones which inject “a more sinister atmosphere” into the mood.⁴ In place of subduing the earth and exercising royal dominion in a peaceable kingdom, we hear the blessing fall flat.

Shifting from commandment to statement, God tells Noah and sons that “the fear of you and the terror of you shall be upon every living thing of the earth and upon every bird of the skies, in everything that moves on the ground and in all the fish of the sea” (Genesis 9:2). Now, the prophets invite God's people to have just one cause of fear and trembling: God himself (Isaiah 8:13; Malachi 2:5). But more often, 'fear and terror' is military language.⁵ When Israel invades the promised land, they should “not fear or be terrified” (Deuteronomy 31:8), because instead “the LORD your God will lay the dread of you and the fear of you on all the land that you shall tread” (Deuteronomy 11:25). So what is this saying about how we're relating to the other life on earth?

God is describing “animosity between man and the animal world.”⁶ The truce of the ark has expired,⁷ and they come out no longer as docile subjects but as combatants who look on us as invaders of their world, “enemy troops,”⁸ as though “war has been declared on animal creation.”⁹ Here “men are proclaimed to be a necessary terror to all the animals of the earth and the birds of heaven,”¹⁰ so that “all things were in dread even of man's shadow.”¹¹ In other words, most animals naturally “fear and shun man because of this regulation.”¹² And that's wise, because the darkness in us, whereby we so easily lapse from a “care mindset” to a “conquest mentality,”¹³ poses a danger to the creatures around us. So not only does this fear and terror clear the way for “a safe haven for Noah's descendants,”¹⁴ but it protects animals from us, encouraging them to stay clear as we rebuild.¹⁵

Now, when I look in my cat Bezalel's eyes, I certainly don't spy any fear, terror, or dread there; I'm not sure any animal has ever been quite so thoroughly domesticated as that one. But this verse went out of its way not to mention domestic animals like him.¹⁶ They're not the ones we're at war with; they're on our side. But when foxes get in the henhouse, when coyotes prowl the streets, when vultures circle and lions surround, they'll meet a firm human enemy ready to fight and conquer. And no sooner does God observe the conflict than he rules on its outcome: “Into your hand they are delivered” (Genesis 9:2), much as David taunted Goliath that “this day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down” (1 Samuel 17:46). As Luther points out, “the human being is endowed with reason, which has the advantage over all the animals.”¹⁷

And so we have no need to fight dirty. There's no call here to mistreat animals, no license to subject them to any needless cruelty, much less the lawless violence that filled the earth before the flood. Even when it comes to these wild creatures, God doesn't tell us to strike fear and terror into their hearts; he's describing a situation, not prescribing it.¹⁸ We can't read this verse right if we forget that, in just a few verses, God will make the same 'covenant of peace' with every animal that he makes with us (Genesis 9:10). To live in that peace, we first must tame ourselves. And if that's true of the wild animals newly in our power, much more for the beasts we already live with, of whom Wisdom says, “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast” (Proverbs 12:10). But with them as with the wild ones, this second creation will remain a struggle, an imperfection; they'll keep contesting our authority all the days of the earth, deferring true domestication and dominion to the end.¹⁹

Already, in rewriting chapter 1, we've gotten off-script. But here things go further afield. What came after the blessing of dominion there is God telling us what to eat: “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food” (Genesis 1:29). If Genesis 9 is following the same order, Noah and his sons should be hearing about their food in verse 3, and they do. Only it isn't salad that headlines the menu this time. “Every moving thing that lives, for you it shall be food. As the green herbs, I have given you everything!” (Genesis 9:3).

Does that mean that before the flood, nobody ever flipped a burger? Most Christians through the ages have read it exactly that way. In the fifth century, one commented that “in the beginning, God did not countenance the human consumption of flesh,” so the original humans “got their nourishment from the produce of the earth” alone.²⁰ Two hundred years earlier, another wrote that “humanity's first food was only seeds and the fruit of trees. Then later, guilt added the use of bread” at the fall, and now with Noah “the use of meat was added.”²¹

I'm not quite sold, myself. The animals most similar to us, chimpanzees, “clearly relish meat,”²² even more than the other primates, nearly all of whom “include some component of animals in their diet.”²³ Scientists recognize that the shortened human digestive tract seems designed to rely on meat,²⁴ that the shape of our leg bones is designed to give us endurance for persistence hunting,²⁵ and they suggest that the increase in brain size since earlier fossils may have been driven by the social complexities of hunters sharing meat after a kill.²⁶ So far as archaeology is concerned, “our ancestors were flesh-eaters from the beginning.”²⁷ Even sticking to the Bible, the story of the garden distinguishes wild animals from livestock (Genesis 1:24); Abel raised sheep and had the idea that God would like the flesh of one in sacrifice, which is a weird idea to come up with unless you already think of a sheep's flesh as food.²⁸ One commentary concludes that “people probably ate meat before, but now God gives a divine command saying it is fine to do so.”²⁹

It was said long ago that “divine grace grants to human needs the right kinds of foods suitable to the times,”³⁰ in general “to arrange things appropriate to specific times” and to “make new concessions.”³¹ God now, for the first time, explicitly authorizes eating meat, giving it the verbal go-ahead with gusto and extending to the human palate “a wider provision” than before,³² where “the freedom to eat what they please is broadened,”³³ “permitting the consumption of them all without hesitation.”³⁴ It would have been generous of God to offer us just one species, so “how much greater a blessing it must be considered that all animals fit for food are permitted!”³⁵ Now “human beings in general are allowed to eat any kind of meat,”³⁶ from “every animal whose food is shown not to be harmful to the body and human society admits as food.”³⁷ It isn't Israel's standards of cleanliness alone that count here, but those of any culture, with customs open to pig and pufferfish, bat and horse, dog and monkey, scorpion and tarantula – Noah gets no such limits. And so here we have “God's permission for humans to be hunters,” and not only hunters but ranchers and butchers and grillmasters.³⁸

Through the ages, some have speculated that the new gift of meat was so that Noah's family wouldn't starve before they could grow enough crops to subsist on,³⁹ or that God gave us meat “to provide more strength to the human body” now that we have to “develop the whole world,”⁴⁰ or that “the earth became less fertile and weaker due to the flood” and so meat compensates for that lower-quality produce.⁴¹ But still others wondered if meat was prescribed for us “in virtue of weakness, as a medicinal remedy” for our unhealthy bodies and spirits.⁴² And that might be closer to how to read this verse.

Before the flood, the leading expression of our dark-heartedness was 'violence,' hamas, a lawless aggressiveness that filled the earth (Genesis 6:11). In effect, God's gift of meat aims to “drive out one passion with another, and cure a greater ailment with a lesser.”⁴³ Hunting, butchery, carnivory – God offers them as outlets for these predatory animal instincts lurking under the veneer of our humanity, “in the hope that man's ferocity would thereby be sated.”⁴⁴ In offering us this “means for controlling human impulses,”⁴⁵ God aims this development in diet to help our “progression toward holiness” in ways that will only be clear in hindsight.⁴⁶

For in the garden, the man had received a very open grant, that “of every tree of the garden, freely you may eat” (Genesis 2:16), just as now “as the green herbs, I give you everything” (Genesis 9:3). But on the mountain as in the garden, something had to be held back. Before, there was one tree off-limits, that “you shall not eat from it” (Genesis 2:17). Now, there's a type of eating that remains off-limits: “Only, flesh with its soul, its blood, you shall not eat” (Genesis 9:4).⁴⁷ The covenant here comes with a command, a law. But God's typical pattern holds true, that “first he bestows blessing... and then gives us commands that are light and easy.”⁴⁸

The limit God places, as a limit, reinforces “the absolute authority of God over all life,” lest we forget and think we're masters because we're conquerors.⁴⁹ No carnivorous animal can avoid eating flesh with the blood still in it, often still pumping and flowing as the devouring begins – “pieces of raw flesh and limbs that are quivering,” to borrow Luther's colorful phrase.⁵⁰ We aren't to ape chimpanzees “crunching on bones and tearing flesh,”⁵¹ too lazy or impatient or ignorant to lay our prey to rest and process its meat.⁵² Nor are we called to be scavengers,⁵³ like some early hominids who used tools to get at the marrow and brain of animals already gnawed up by lions and leopards.⁵⁴ Our instincts are mediated by intellects; we know, in a way no chimpanzee or hyena does, what each creature is, and that leaves us without excuse to revere the life we take.⁵⁵ The death of the smallest animal “should not be taken lightly,” even for our most basic needs.⁵⁶ And as a corollary, to avoid animalistic predation, “eating blood is put under a total ban.”⁵⁷ As though this rich substance were saturated with the animating spirit of the life it once sustained, God refuses to let it be consumed and instrumentalized.⁵⁸

For every creature, its meat is in principle handed over to us, to satisfy our irrepressible cravings; but the blood within is the forbidden fruit of every living thing, held back to put brakes on our predatory natures. But now God hammers home a promise: “Surely the blood of your souls I will require” (Genesis 9:5). He doesn't say that about any other animal, but he does about us, “for in the image of God he made humanity” (Genesis 9:6). Our highest and godliest qualities depend on our lowest animal functions, all of which are sustained through the circulation of blood.⁵⁹ In us, God has a vulnerable image. Cruelty to animals offends God deeply as an attack on his beloved work, but violence to a human being is a vicarious attack on God himself.⁶⁰

God implicitly acknowledges here that it's going to happen. We will be subject to violence; human blood will spill – such evil is part of the warp and woof of life in this second creation.⁶¹ God does not promise he'll stop it; what he does promise is that he'll 'require' our blood – keep a strict accounting of it, and not let anybody cook the books.⁶² If our blood is disturbed, detained, and in discord, he promises to redeem it all.⁶³

Not a drop is left to fall uncounted by God's extensive audit, his “relentless pursuit until punishment is meted out.”⁶⁴ That applies even in the case of an animal attack: “From the hand of every living thing I will require it,” he says (Genesis 9:5). In some mysterious way, “God will demand accountability from animals that kill people,”⁶⁵ a notion less alien to ancient thought than to ours.⁶⁶ Whatever harms human life must fall – be it animal or machine. And if even a grizzly isn't guiltless in mauling a man, how much guiltier those of us who hear and understand the law? “From the hand of every living thing I will require it, and from the hand of the human” (Genesis 9:5). Since “the same nature is the mother of all people..., we are all brothers... bound by the same law of parentage.”⁶⁷ Every act of human-on-human violence is a replay of Cain, and if God once let Cains off easy, no more: “From the hand of a man's brother I will require the soul of the human” (Genesis 9:5).

Whether animals acting on instinct out of fear and dread, or the knowing brother of the victim, God demands the shedder of human blood repay the debt they owe. That's hardly cheery news for our country, where we've succumbed to a strong delusion that the industrialized slaughter of unborn human beings is somehow healthcare, where we've been in one war or another for around 93% of our national history and still find time to lead the global weapons trade, where we can always retread the scenes of lynchings and massacres, where mass shootings and gang violence became background noise, we have tens of thousands of murders within our borders each year. God demands an answer from the hand of the guilty for all of it.

But how does God get his answer? By these six Hebrew words in perfect symmetry: “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall his blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6). And now, at last, we understand. On the one hand, being made in God's image was the source of our dignity, the reason our lives should remain inviolate and not subject to human disposal. But equally, God's image is a grounds of authority; and in a world where we're driven toward mayhem, being God's image is a call to subdue mayhem – to be instruments of divine justice, commissioned to redeem each other.⁶⁸ Were it not for these words of authorization, only God could validly respond to the wrongdoings of those who bear his image.⁶⁹ But here he entrusts to his image the likeness of the Judge, so that “like God, he has the power to grant life and kill,”⁷⁰ to follow in the footsteps of the Father of flood and flame.⁷¹ Only by policing ourselves can the covenant of Noah be a success.⁷²

And so we ourselves are called to be “God's agents for exacting compensation” for all these grave wrongs.⁷³ This law “employs human wildness in the service of avenging human bloodshed,” allowing our aggressive impulses to minister the justice of God rather than our own lawless desires.⁷⁴ God calls humans to sometimes redeem blood by blood, affirming human dignity and value thereby much the same as jailing kidnappers affirms human liberty.⁷⁵ That can't be a free-for-all; it requires a new structure in society. Up until now, we've heard of human dominion over other creatures, but the Bible's not yet given one man any rule over another – no kings or judges with “the right to exercise rule and government” – but now that becomes unavoidable.⁷⁶

These words of God are then “the source from which stem all civil law and the law of nations..., for here God establishes government and gives it the sword to hold wantonness in check, lest violence and other sins proceed without limit.”⁷⁷ Here we're witnessing “the beginning of divinely mandated political authority.”⁷⁸ Even pagan nations recognized that the basic principle of governance was authorized by the gods,⁷⁹ a divine assignment “to make justice prevail in the land, to abolish the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak.”⁸⁰ It's no surprise that in the oldest laws we've found, the first rules read: “If a man commits a homicide, they shall kill that man; if a man acts lawlessly, they shall kill him.”⁸¹ Paul confirms that “the governing authorities... that exist have been instituted by God,” established in a sinful world to administer law as “a terror... to bad conduct..., an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:1-4).

After changing our diet and habits, after affirming our lives and founding a government, God again bids us “be fruitful and multiply, and swarm on the earth and multiply in it” (Genesis 9:7). Now blessing is a command.⁸² Despite the lethal violence now baked into the world, in the face of fear and dread and blood, God wants the world to march on unterrorized, defiantly joyful and life-affirming. But “the natural good of life is now bound up with the legal good of right and the legal obligation to defend it.”⁸³ This is the new creation God covenants.

Looking back, people suggested that, based on this primeval law, “Noah began to command his grandsons with ordinances and commandments and all of the judgments which he knew,”⁸⁴ an idea that, in later Jewish thought, bound every human society to uphold certain universal laws.⁸⁵ But atop those laws, as Noah was the Moses of all humanity, so Moses would become the Noah of a new creation called Israel, the kingdom of God. And Moses brought them a covenant and a law, which granted them food, that “whatever your soul desires, you may slaughter and eat flesh, according to the blessing of the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 12:15) – except that for this kingdom, many animals were withdrawn from the menu, creatures “unclean to you” so that “you shall not eat any of their flesh” (Leviticus 11:8). And “you shall eat no blood whatsoever in any of your dwelling places, whether of bird or beast; every soul who eats any blood, that soul shall be cut off from his people” (Leviticus 7:26-27). For “the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul” (Leviticus 17:11). The animating blood of an animal becomes, as it were, a ransom for the living soul of the human who offers it on the altar.⁸⁶ For “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22).

When it came to human life, though, Israel was warned from the first that they mustn't be predators of fellow human beings (Exodus 20:13), “lest innocent blood be shed in your land... and so bloods be upon you” (Deuteronomy 19:10). For if they did, “blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it except by the blood of the one who shed it” (Numbers 35:33). To that end, God laid down a criminal justice system, ordering judges to try cases by standards of evidence and inquiries into motives so that justice could be done (Numbers 35:30-31).

But, sadly, the prophets found Israel's justice wanting. “There is no faithfulness..., no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the skies and even the fish of the sea are taken away” (Hosea 4:1-3). Only in the distance could they imagine a new “covenant of peace” that would banish predators from the land (Ezekiel 35:24) or even turn predators into friends who “shall not hurt or destroy” on the mountain of God's peace (Isaiah 11:9).

To bring that day's answer to humanity's long and bloody story, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son..., born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). Jesus, the Son of God, foretold how he'd “be delivered into the hands of men, and they would kill him” (Mark 9:31). True to his word, he was arrested in a garden, and Israel's own council of elders “all condemned him as deserving death” (Mark 14:64). Turned over to Gentile governing authority, he released a murderer but, “having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified” (Mark 15:15). It was a judicial process, but a gross abuse of the authority granted to Noah and sons. They administered their capital punishment to him, condemning themselves as murderers (Acts 7:52). For on that cross, God the Son in human flesh was “put to death” (1 Peter 3:18), “killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23).

And yet their evil was harnessed for good by the Father's saving will, which “put him forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 4:25) by the sons and daughters of Noah, whether American or Iranian, Chinese or Haitian, Russian or Ukrainian, Israeli or Palestinian. “In him we have redemption through his blood... according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). Whether our failings are measured by the law of Moses or the law of Noah, “the precious blood of Christ” has “ransomed us from the futile ways inherited from our forefathers” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

Proving his resurrection by eating broiled fish in front of his bewildered disciples (Luke 24:42-43), he sent them with good news for all the children of Noah. And as they transcended the limits of Moses, Jesus' lead apostle Peter had a vision while dizzy with hunger one day while waiting on his lunch; he saw all creatures, was told to “rise and kill and eat,” and though he objected they weren't all kosher, thrice he was told not to reject “what God has made clean” (Acts 10:14-15), even as Jesus had already subtly “declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19). The apostles determined together, by the Holy Spirit in their council, that Gentile believers, though free from the law of Moses, should at least “abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality” (Acts 15:29).⁸⁷

Within these boundaries, like Paul said, “food will not commend us to God: we are no worse off if we don't eat and no better off if we do” (1 Corinthians 8:8). He had no problem eating meat, kosher or not, but “if food makes my brother stumble, I'll never eat meat” (1 Corinthians 8:13). The Apostle Matthew, according to an old tradition, was a vegetarian.⁸⁸ But Scripture condemns those who “require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Timothy 4:3), so “let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food” (Colossians 2:16). And so we may “eat meat with the blood drained off,” a symbol (some say) of repentance, “so that the earlier life may not be retained on their conscience... but may be poured out as if by confession.”⁸⁹

And this all leads to the new covenant's grant of food, something better by far than what Noah ever heard: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:53-54), when God's reckoning will restore all things and “the saints will judge the world” (1 Corinthians 6:2).⁹⁰ For then “the kingdom of the world [will] become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15), and the laws of the nations will become “the law of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:21), and we will feast with God forever in a world finally at perfect peace (Isaiah 25:6)! Hallelujah! Amen.

I Saw the Sign

When we left off last Sunday, we saw Noah at the scene of sacrifice. The flood that broke down the world is over; the storms are a painful memory. Slowly, slowly had the seas drained back to their places; the land was dry again. Noah had stepped forth, releasing creation back to itself. He'd gathered some from each kind of clean animal, a sampler platter of the creatures of land and air, and made them a gift, blazing and smoldering before the LORD whose wrath had seemed so relentless (Genesis 8:20). Before the flood, God had reacted in his heart to what he “saw” in the earth (Genesis 6:5). Now “the LORD said in his heart” as prompted by what he “smelled,” this “restful aroma” of Noah's gift of gratitude, this labor of love atoning for all the world (Genesis 8:21).

What follows in these next lines of Scripture is a snapshot of God's “interior monologue,” a matter kept totally (for now) between God and his own heavenly heart, as it were.¹ And since over these past weeks we've been holding Genesis up alongside pagan parallels to the story of the flood and its aftermath, this is an instructive spot. What happens among the pagan gods after they smell (and eat) their man's sacrifice? Well, naturally, they begin to bicker. The mother goddess “arose to complain against all of them,” accusing the flood-sending god Enlil of wanton destruction: “Your mouth issued a final verdict,” she says, “now their bright faces are dark!”² Enlil hadn't shown up on time to dinner, but when he does, he's filled with utter rage to see the boat. “How did a man survive the catastrophe?” he wants to know.³ “No one was to survive the slaughter!”⁴

Out of mortal earshot, the gods of the pagans are in bitter conflict after the sacrifice. But out of the earshot of Noah and his family, the heart of the one true God is in no conflict at all; he's perfectly at rest within himself. Unlike the kindly mother-goddess, the LORD doesn't take a sentimental, weepy view of his creations. “The forming of humanity's heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21) – to be sure, that's a milder statement than what God saw before the flood, that “every forming of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).⁵ But what prevailed before the flood, humanity's youth in its inaugural steps east of Eden, differs only in degree, not in kind, from what you'll find in every neighborhood.⁶ Without God's grace keeping a tight leash on our inherited animal instincts, our wills are wibbly-wobbly as a bike with a bad chain. So we're not merely tender darlings, innocent victims of divine caprice. Our bright faces still conceal hearts of midnight, factories that manufacture misshapen things. “The heart of man addictively hastens to sins.”⁷

So the LORD differs from the mother-goddess, but he also isn't like Enlil, outraged at human life. Oh, he could justifiably take the Enlil path, striving in fury to abolish humanity altogether. Or he could let the problem build back up to where it was before, and solve it with a sequel flood. But “even if he punished the race of men again, punishment leads more to fear of the law and the knowledge of discipline than the transformation of nature, which can be corrected in some respects but cannot be changed in all.”⁸ A flood can hit the reset button on human population, but not human nature. And so “when it was over, they would again entangle themselves in vices and crimes.”⁹ Thus, “if God were to deal with man according to his deserts, a regular flood would be needed.”¹⁰ That would create a continual cycle, where every few millennia God would have to find a new Noah to build a new ark to save the seed of life as God yet again reset creation to zero.

So long as the human heart remains a corrupting presence on the earth, it seems as though there are only two ways forward: the Enlil option or the endless cycle. But where before God resolved to “blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground” (Genesis 6:7), now he determines to “never again diminish any more the ground because of man” (Genesis 8:21).¹¹ The earth has been baptized in the flood, and a baptism can't be repeated in a cycle.¹² Nor will God become an Enlil: he now commits himself to this world, and not another.¹³

“As long as all the days of the earth,” he decides, “seedtime and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). The words cover all the seasons and all the times of day. Both the daily and the seasonal cycle were irrelevant on the ark: everything's the same dreary darkness, no season has a monopoly on wet or dry, and there can be no sowing or harvesting.¹⁴ During the flood, for all practical purposes, “time effectively ceases to exist.”¹⁵ That's what God decides against again.

The cycles our lives depend on will keep going. They won't stop or stagnate. Admittedly, some years things might still get weird. Thanks to a couple years of volcanic eruptions before hand, 1816 became the 'year without a summer,' many places seeing frost and snow through June and August.¹⁶ But despite however we could corrupt the climate, God ensures an underlying “fixed order of seasons for the perseverance of the world,”¹⁷ for “the ongoing stability and the fertility of the world.”¹⁸ And this fixed order will testify to his all-pervasive providence. Like we sang earlier, “Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest, sun, moon, and stars in their courses above, join with all nature in manifold witness to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.”¹⁹

Now, at this point in the pagan story, Enki or Ea, the god of wisdom who saved the boat-builder, is called on by Enlil to, in essence, defend his actions. He comes back with three arguments. First, he says, he did it “for your sakes,” since (as we heard last week) the gods would starve without human service.²⁰ Obviously, the Bible has no need for that argument, since God cherishes us out of love and not need. Second, argues Ea, the flood was a hasty move “without deliberation,” one the other gods were effectively bullied into authorizing.²¹ In the Bible, God doesn't second-guess whether the flood was right and wise; he knows it was.²² But third, argues Ea, mass collective punishment isn't the way to go: “Only culprits should bear the crime, only the guilty should bear the guilt!”²³ And here our God goes even further. Even if guilt again is universal, “never again will I any more strike down every living thing, as I have done” (Genesis 8:21). Even when we're most begging for it, in God's global will, “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13), adding unearned millennia to the calendar.²⁴

At this point, though, this is still that interior monologue in God's heart. Noah can't hear any of this. From his perspective, he's made his sacrifice, and there's yet been no reaction. And oh, does Noah ever need a reaction. Put yourself in his shoes. To hear about the flood is one thing; to experience it is another. Outside his walls, every person in the world he knew except seven was killed in a cataclysm. The remaining eight people have been cooped up in a dark, dank, reeking zoo for a whole year. What are the odds Noah doesn't have PTSD after this? He and his family have been through maybe the most traumatizing possible experience.

So what happens the first time Noah sees a cloud in the sky? What happens when a raindrop hits the bridge of his nose? One old saint speculated, and I think he had to be right, that “it was likely that, if some light shower were to happen to fall, he would be bound to become distraught... The odds were that this blessed man would be utterly terrified at even a passing shower.”²⁵ And even without a cloud in the sky, after enduring that year in the ark, how could Noah or Mrs. Noah or the kids not step out on the mountain terrified that, if God had been willing to go that far once, he'd do it again if they slipped up – maybe even “annually inundate the earth?”²⁶

If God means for human life to go on, that climate of constant fear and terror can't stay. We can't live like that. We'd never achieve anything; we could never commit to a world we dread will melt away beneath our feet at any moment.²⁷ If Noah and his family are to build up a world again, they need to know it stands a chance, that it will make a difference, that their works can have some lasting meaning.²⁸ To believe in purpose and hope, that we won't ultimately be crushed to dust, is “absolutely indispensable to all higher human possibilities.”²⁹

So, in chapter 9, God goes public with what he's told himself in private – as if to say, “Do not fear, O Noah, I am with you!”³⁰ God “wanted to deliver us from the fears of floods, that we might not think, each time we see violent rains, that the utter destruction will happen again.”³¹ The next cloud Noah sees will be suitably met, not with an ark, but with an umbrella – that's what God wants Noah to know. But the amazing thing we read next is that “God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them” (Genesis 9:1), that “God said to Noah and to his sons with him” (Genesis 9:8). For the first time, Noah's not alone in hearing the voice of the Lord. Up until now, if Japheth wanted to know God's word, he had to ask Dad. But for the first time, Shem and Ham and Japheth are included in receiving revelation. God's call is no longer to one man alone; now it refracts out, split like light through a prism, to this diverse rainbow of families headed by Noah's sons.³²

In the original creation, no sooner had God made humanity than “God blessed them” (Genesis 1:28). And now, despite the impending failures of some of those to whom he's speaking, “God blessed Noah and his sons” too (Genesis 9:1). In the beginning, God blessed the first humans to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Now, in this second world, God offers Noah and his sons “the blessing which the first Adam had received,”³³ bidding them “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1).

And you might think that's totally natural, but here's where Genesis just wrecks the pagan versions of this story. Remember, to the pagan mind, our multiplication was the problem solved by the flood. To the pagan mind, even the god who rescued us agreed that the human problem needed a solution, just not a final one. In one version, he suggested lions, wolves, famines, and wars as suitable methods to thin the human herd.³⁴ In another version, he comes up with celibate priestesses, infertility, and infant mortality – all ways to divinely fight human fruitfulness.³⁵ Sadly, this pagan view of natural human fertility as an evil has seen a major resurgence today. Yet even after the flood, Genesis offers a “conscious rejection” of that entire idea.³⁶ Even after seeing what the human heart is like, God is still eager for Noah's family to begin filling the earth with God's image again. Our conservation efforts were never meant to exclude ourselves. So God blesses us, that a new world might see a new human race dancing in every field, pracing through every forest, singing from every mountaintop, starry-eyed in every valley, to “fill the earth like a school of fish multiplying in the waves.”³⁷ God loves human life!

We'll return next week to the meat of God's first speech, but for his second, “God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 'And I – behold!'” (Genesis 9:8-9), the exact phrasing he used to tell Noah: “And I, behold, will bring a flood of waters upon the earth” (Genesis 6:17). That's meant to get our attention. But this time, building on his earlier promise (Genesis 6:18), he says: “I, behold, establish my covenant with you and your seed after you” (Genesis 9:9). It's “an agreement or promise that binds together that which is naturally... separate and apart.”³⁸ A covenant is more than mere words; it's a legal commitment with “a firm guarantee.”³⁹

This here is the first of four major covenants in the Old Testament, the others being those of Abraham, Moses, and David.⁴⁰ But this one is specifically a grant covenant, one that, in response to some display of merit (say, Noah offering a soothing aroma of sacrifice), promises unconditional blessings that will be shared not just with the original recipients but with their heirs after them.⁴¹ And this has no parallel in any of the pagan versions of this story.⁴² They have no covenants. Only Genesis knows about this.

As a grant covenant “between me and you” (Genesis 9:15), “with you and your seed after you” (Genesis 9:9), neither Noah nor his sons have anything to do with setting it up. There's nowhere for Ham to sign. Shem's yes isn't required. They all become parties by God's solemn say-so.⁴³ And if that's so for them, how much more for us? As Noah's seed after him, we receive this covenant in full by the mere fact of existing where and when we do. If that weren't enough, it even goes beyond humanity.⁴⁴ This covenant is made “with every living being that's with you: birds, beasts, and every living thing of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark” (Genesis 9:10), “every living being that is with you” (Genesis 9:12). God gives himself no wiggle room: “It is for every living thing of the earth” (Genesis 9:10), “every living being of all flesh that is on the earth” (Genesis 9:16). A covenant is here made, not just with me, but with the cats who are undoubtedly snoozing safely on my sofa.

So what are the terms of this covenant? Only this: “that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to ruin the earth” (Genesis 9:11). God commits himself equally here to “the preservation and care of all living species on the earth.”⁴⁵ In giving this covenant, God “gives a fundamental 'yes' to earth and creatures.”⁴⁶ It's like how the United Nations Charter commits all the member states to “settle their international disputes by peaceful means.”⁴⁷ Just so, in the Noah Charter, God drafts a treaty with the world, a “covenant of peace” as Isaiah calls it (Isaiah 54:10). But this one is unilateral. “God thus bound himself beforehand by this promise so that, even if mankind were constantly to follow the evil thoughts of their inclination,” still God “would never again bring a flood” to ruin the earth or cut off all life from the earth.⁴⁸ No matter how much our corruption stabs at creation or Creator, God will not let go of his “voluntary and permanent self-restraint.”⁴⁹ He reserves the right to lesser judgments as needed by individuals or nations, but each will target only some flesh, not all flesh.⁵⁰ And they'll always be in service of God's “plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). God hereby obligates himself to further the goodness of this world, working with us despite our many flaws.⁵¹ And so, in effect, God “swore by his own great name” not to wage total war on the inhabitants of earth again.⁵²

Now, at this point in the pagan story, there's one more thing the gods do. After the sacrifice, as the mother-goddess is mourning her human children who died like flies, she lifts up this necklace which Anu, father of the gods, had given her when wooing her.⁵³ It's a necklace of jeweled beads carved to look like flies. Lifting it, she shouted that these flies around her neck would be her reminder every day of the grief the flood had brought.⁵⁴ “Gods! I will hang these flies like beads around my neck, to remind me of these days – I must never forget!”⁵⁵

A similar trigger for divine remembrance shows up in the Bible, but instead of a goddess's jewelry, it's God's manly war weapon – his bow. The psalms aren't shy about imagining God storming in with a storm, wielding his bow as a weapon whereby “the Most High... sent out his arrows” (Psalm 18:13-14). Babylon's favorite story of creation, where the god Bel used his bow and arrow to defeat the chaos-goddess Tiamat so that he could carve up her body to make the world, says that afterwards, Anu “lifted [his bow] up in the divine assembly; he kissed the bow... Then he called the names of the bow... With the third name, 'Bow Star,' he made it to shine in the sky; he fixed its heavenly position along with its divine brothers.”⁵⁶ Just as Anu put Bel's bow in the starry sky, so the LORD here declares, “I set my bow in the clouds” (Genesis 9:13).

When Bel's bow became a star, it was a tribute to his triumphant might. But as Isaiah says, “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts..., they go into captivity” (Isaiah 46:1-2). In that very same chapter, the LORD announces, “I am God, and there is no other! … My salvation will not delay!” (Isaiah 46:9, 13). Then a young prophet, exiled to Flood Hill in Babylon's hinterlands, saw a marvelous vision: fiery creatures with the sky over their heads, and over this sky a lapus-lazuli throne on which he saw “the likeness of the glory of the LORD..., and there was brightness around him: like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of brightness all around” (Ezekiel 1:26-28). This rainbow is God's true triumphant glory. Before, God “saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt” (Genesis 6:12); now, whenever he'll “see” his “bow in the clouds” (Genesis 9:16), he'll take his eye off our earthly corruption to behold his heavenly coloration; he'll look on his own splendor in place of our shabbiness, his own grace in place of our grossness.⁵⁷

But why a bow, of all things? Well, if it were a literal bow resting on the clouds, is it aimed at us, ready to fire? No! It's turned backwards, which is how ancient archers signaled that they meant no further harm – it was a showy display of good trigger discipline.⁵⁸ Again, it's like with the UN, where we have treaties aimed at control of nuclear weapons. Well, God's bow is a weapon of mass destruction, and this is a one-sided disarmament treaty: God binds himself to turn back his weapon of mass destruction away from us, to never use it like that.⁵⁹ His very weapon of war becomes thus “a token of reconciliation between God and man” and every creature.⁶⁰

Earlier, the turning point of the story came when “God remembered Noah” (Genesis 8:1). Until then, the storm raged, the flood prevailed, death and chaos were winning the night. But when God remembered, creation began anew, the winds of salvation blew, the love of God became the light of day. And this bow puts us all under the same stoplight. When he sees it, he'll remember us like Noah, and for us creation will be made fresh, for us the winds of salvation will blow, for us the love of God will become our light of day (Genesis 9:15). Storms die when God remembers, when God's hand of love won't let go! This sign isn't to cause him to remember, but to show us that he'll remember, “that, when we see the sign, we may take heart at God's promise, especially as it is impossible for God's promises to fail.”⁶¹ God is more gracious than we are vicious; his mountain of mercy more than plugs our pits of despair; and so “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

Something as pretty and ordinary as a rainbow is thus invested with an almost sacramental significance, one that outstrips its nature. Who can take a rainbow for granted once it's made “the sign of the Creator's commitment” to his creation?⁶² And that commitment isn't just a treaty with a 25-year term, like the nuclear non-proliferation agreement. It's an “everlasting covenant” between God and the whole living creation (Genesis 9:16), “a pledge of faithfulness between [God] and them forever, as long as heaven is above the earth,”⁶³ “coterminous with the duration of the world.”⁶⁴ And it holds good for us all whether we live well or not, whether we believe or not.

But imagine if it didn't. Isaiah had to imagine; he had a terrifying vision that “the earth lies defiled under its inhabitants, for they have... broken the eternal covenant; therefore a curse devours the earth” (Isaiah 24:5).⁶⁵ It would be terrible for this covenant to fail: “The earth is utterly broken..., its transgression lies heavy upon it; it falls and will not rise again” (Isaiah 24:19-20). That's what we could expect, if the mercies of God depended on us. But later came a voice of hope. These days of Israel's desolation, said God, were “like the days of Noah to me: As I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you” (Isaiah 54:9). “In overflowing anger, for a moment I hid my face from you; but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you” (Isaiah 54:8). “For the mountains may depart, and the hills may be moved, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed” (Isaiah 54:10). God's faithful love and compassion, here and now for his faithless people, is as trustworthy each moment as the time-tested reliability of the covenant with all creation.⁶⁶ “For your Maker is your Husband; the LORD of Hosts is his name..., the God of the whole earth” (Isaiah 54:6).

Ezekiel saw that the covenant of Noah would be made something new, something bigger and better: “I will make a covenant of peace with them,” God says, “an everlasting covenant..., and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 37:26-27). And to make that happen, God sent forth his Son, since “all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Corinthians 1:20). The covenant of Noah could overlook the darksome inventiveness of the human heart; only the gracious covenant of Jesus can heal it. That's why Jesus is “the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 9:15), bringing about an “eternal covenant” between “the God of Peace” and this world of war (Hebrews 13:20). Better than the rainbow, the covenant sign of remembrance is that “as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup... in remembrance of [the Lord Jesus]... you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).⁶⁷

The covenant of Noah stands firm “until the appointed times are fulfilled; but when the years appointed for the world are fulfilled,”⁶⁸ then “by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:7). For then, from the Enthroned God ringed by his rainbow, “earth and sky flee away, and no place is found for them” (Revelation 20:11). So long shall the covenant of Noah last. But where the covenant of Noah has no power to reach, the covenant of Jesus does: into “a new heaven and a new earth..., and the holy city... prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” where “the dwelling place of God is with man!” (Revelation 21:1-3). For what the covenant of Noah whispers, the covenant of Jesus shouts in glad acclamation, that the Love of God that seeks and stalks and stands us up again from death will not let his creation go!⁶⁹ Then “the Lord their God will be their light,” an eternal rainbow of glory 'round us all, as we, the Christ-saved seed of Noah reborn in the gospel, shall “reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5). Hallelujah! Amen.

Back to Earth

This certainly has been a long flood we've ridden out with Noah. In bitter judgment on a world of heartbreaking evil, God had unleashed the waters of chaos, blotting out the creation with forty days of torrents from below and above, until no flesh was left alive – save what was in the life-saver, the ark, with Noah. The rain had stopped, the wind began to blow, and after many months the waters had settled this life-saving ark to rest atop one of the mountains of Ararat; from there, Noah had tenderly tested by birds the progress of the world outside.

Between the olive branch and the dove's fond farewell, Noah had boldness by New Year's Day to cast off the ark's roof and greet the world unfiltered. By that day, “the waters were dried from off the earth...; and he looked, and behold, dry was the face of the ground!” (Genesis 8:13). That is, when he surveyed what he could see of it – you know, from who-knows-how-many thousands of feet up – he couldn't spot any visible pools that remained from the flood. But Noah doesn't at this point jump out of the ark, Noah doesn't now swing open the door. He doesn't at this point even let all the birds out of their coops to soar the sky, even though he has every reason to believe it'd be safe to do so. Instead, Noah waits... nearly two more months in the open-air ark.

Eventually, “by the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out” (Genesis 8:14). This here's a different Hebrew word for 'dry' than before; it means withered, parched, dried through. On New Year's, there may have been no visible pools, but that doesn't mean the ground down there wouldn't yet be as squishy as a sopping sponge underfoot.¹ Now, though, Genesis tells us that – though Noah can't see a change – the land is dried through, it's back to normal. Once again it's “dry land” (Genesis 1:9). And would you look what day it is? Month 2, day 27. The flood started “in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month” (Genesis 7:11). But Israel counted by lunar months. This is “the appointed time, a complete year,”² “three hundred sixty-five days” after the flood began,³ “an entire solar year” which brings the earth back to the same position around the sun where judgment began.⁴

And as we round out a year since the world started coming undone, we read some long-lost words: “then God spoke to Noah” (Genesis 8:15). The last time Noah heard a word from God was when “the LORD said to Noah, 'Go into the ark'” (Genesis 7:1), which was seven days before the rains began to fall (Genesis 7:4). God hasn't spoken to Noah the entire time he's been on the ark, as though the walls blocked out his voice.⁵ But Noah has endured patiently, waiting for the word of God. After all, it was the LORD who sealed the ark's door against the flood (Genesis 7:16), and not without God's word will Noah dare open what God has shut. Perhaps Noah reasoned that “one who had entered by a heavenly command should await a response from heaven that he exit.”⁶ Besides, Noah has no way to know, until it's revealed to him, that the earth is truly ready.

But now God speaks: “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you! Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh – birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth!” (Genesis 8:16-17). This structure, this ark, had always been “a means, not an end,” a shelter for the year, but always meant to deliver life back into the world.⁷ Noah doesn't waste another minute in complying (Genesis 8:18). As one Jewish author pictured it a couple thousand years ago, “Noah took courage and jumped to the land from the ark, and his sons with him, and his wife and daughters-in-law, and serpents and birds, the species of four-footed animals and all the other creatures went out of the wooden house in one place; and then Noah, most righteous of men, came out eighth.”⁸ It was their exodus.

And I don't say that lightly. Compare the two stories. Under Moses, Israel was faced with a mass of water they couldn't cross, until “the LORD drove back the sea by a strong east wind all night” (Exodus 14:21), just as here “God made a wind blow over all the earth, and the waters subsided” (Genesis 8:1). For Moses, the LORD “made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided” (Exodus 14:21), just like on Noah's New Year's Day “the waters were dried from off the earth” (Genesis 8:13). The parting of the sea exposed “dry ground” (Exodus 14:22), using the same Hebrew word as now where “the earth had dried out” (Genesis 8:14). And just like “the Children of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea” (Exodus 14:29), so “Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him” (Genesis 8:18) – their exodus story! Moses' exodus took him from Egypt through the sea until he set foot atop the mountain of God. So Noah's exodus takes him from the world through the flood until he set foot atop this mountain in Ararat – a Sinai before Sinai, holy ground!

What's more, we heard last week that the flood was a story of God rewinding to the Bible's second verse, before the world was more than darkness and a deep; but then God hit the play button again, and we've been tracing our way forward through the days of creation, with the wind over the waters, the return of light, the confinement of waters above and below, and only now, at the end of the flood year, can we say we've finished revisiting Day Three. Once again we have “dry land” (Genesis 1:9), and we've already seen that “the earth vegetated vegetation” (Genesis 1:12). The world is no longer formless. The trouble is, it's still void. But now God aims to fix that.

In answer to God's command, out comes “every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth” (Genesis 8:19). Out fly the birds of Day FIve (Genesis 1:21)! Out creep the things that slither and hop and creep, out walk the beasts, out come all the land animals of Day SIx (Genesis 1:25)!⁹ I wonder how long it took Noah to get them all out. In the beginning, God had blessed those creatures to “be fruitful and multiply... on the earth” (Genesis 1:22, 28). Now, God restores their blessing, calling them to “swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth” again (Genesis 8:17). It's in answer to his summons that the animals “went out by families from the ark” (Genesis 8:19), “not in the same manner in which they entered.”¹⁰ This is the only time the Bible applies this word – 'family' or 'clan' – to animals; but after the exodus, the Israelites registered in a census “by families, by fathers' houses” (Numbers 1:24). Now, like a Moses before Moses, Noah leads them all forth, acting almost as “God's partner in restoring the world to what it was.”¹¹

And when Noah steps out for the last time, along with his own family, there stands a second Adam, feeling the terra firma beneath his feet. What must that have felt like, to stand at last in a new world? An old Jewish book, imagining what Noah might have written, has him say: “Then I, Noah, went out and walked through the land, through its length and through its breadth.... The entire land was full of grass, herbs, and grain. Then I blessed the Lord of Heaven, whose praise endures forever, and to whom be the glory!”¹² With the reintroduction of the human being into the world, the replay of Day Six can finish, as “the whole of creation recovers its proper order.”¹³ And now we know why Noah waited to open the door to the ark. In the first creation, the earth didn't make a move to bring forth living things until it first received God's word (Genesis 1:24) – so neither, in new creation, will Noah bring forth living things until he, too, receives God's timely word (Genesis 8:15-19).

The world is neither formless nor void now. It's a new creation. So what's the first thing a person should do in a world made new? How does Noah react to his finished salvation? You might think that, finding himself in an unfamiliar land, he'd promptly start to build a house. Or maybe, with time running out, he'd hurry to sow some crops. But that's not what Noah does. He blesses the Lord of Heaven. He begins with worship.¹⁴ For “then Noah built an altar to the LORD” (Genesis 8:20), making it “from what lay at hand.”¹⁵ It's a public monument, standing in front of the ark and bearing witness to salvation accomplished, proclaiming the kingdom of God over this new world he sees before him.¹⁶ What he builds is “the first altar in Scripture,” the prototype after which every later altar is modeled, and serving at it makes Noah the “archetype” also of every priest to follow.¹⁷

Now, you'll remember from other weeks that, as we've been hearing the flood story, we've been eavesdropping also on other ways of telling it, pagan ways, since some of Israel's neighbors also spoke about the man who built the boat that saved life in the flood. They also knew that worship comes after the flood. At this point, one popular Babylonian version imagines the flood survivor Atrahasis saying: “I brought out a sacrifice to the four winds and offered incense to the mountain peak; I laid out seven offering bowls and seven more, with sweet reed, cedar, and myrtle underneath.”¹⁸ And a broken Sumerian version fleshes this out by mentioning how “the king was butchering oxen, was being lavish with the sheep, barley cakes, crescents,” and that “juniper, the pure plant of the mountains, he filled on the fire.”¹⁹ Genesis doesn't spend time detailing things like fragrant wood, sweet incense, baked goods, bowls, ritual implements – though in early Jewish retellings, they added in such things, kneaded dough, heaps of frankincense.²⁰ Genesis shines its spotlight on one thing only: the animals.

Here, for purposes of an offering, Noah had gathered “clean animals” and “clean birds” (Genesis 8:20). As St. Augustine pointed out, “after the flood, Noah did not offer to the Lord a sacrifice from the unclean animals.”²¹ It goes without saying that an “unclean animal... may not be offered as an offering to the LORD” (Leviticus 27:11). In fact, so much as touching an unclean animal could have distanced an Israelite from communion with the peace-offerings of God (Leviticus 7:21). So Noah knows somehow to “separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean” (Leviticus 20:25). Noah excludes, leaves alone, any and every creature that, while having a rightful place in the world, in some way falls short of the beauty of the Lord.

Going further, Noah “took of every clean animal and of every clean bird” (Genesis 8:20). In fact, early readers wondered if the very reason God “gave orders for the preservation of more clean animals” on the ark was for the sake of giving Noah the option, though not the demand, “to offer him sacrifices.”²² Some Jewish retellings count up no more than “a calf, a goat, a lamb..., a turtledove, and a young dove,”²³ and some early Christians thought that list sufficed.²⁴ But I just don't know if that does justice to what Noah's up to. In the Law of Moses, there's no exhaustive list of clean animals; it's the unclean ones that are listed, implying that every other animal out there counts as 'clean' (Leviticus 11:3-8, 13-19). So far as livestock and birds are concerned, if it could be given to God, Noah puts at least one in the sacrifice pile. This is the only time in the whole Old Testament when every clean creature of earth and sky is combined in one single sacrifice; one scholar suggests it's because, through the flood and its end, effectively “the whole creation had been killed and resurrected.”²⁵

Having essentially assembled a sampler platter of everything in creation that's simple and pure, Noah thereafter “offered burnt offerings on the altar” (Genesis 8:20) – or, as somebody else put it, Noah “roasts up large numbers of his animal former roommates.”²⁶ Given the sheer scale of the offering, that's no light time commitment; just ask the teams who came to the barbecue competition last weekend how quick it is to roast whole animals. Noah's worship isn't easy-breezy; he labors at this for hours and hours, maybe days on end.

This was not a kind of offering that left anything over for Noah to enjoy – not flesh nor bone nor skin nor fur. Noah received no tangible benefits as a byproduct of what he was doing. In a whole burnt offering like this, “the most potent form of sacrifice,”²⁷ “nothing fell to the use of those making the offering.”²⁸ That makes it all the more stunning that Noah gathers and gives up to God, in a single act of surrender, at least 7% of all the livestock animals in his world; it's mathematically the closest he can get to an exact tithe of every clean species.²⁹ And this comes after Noah has just been told to ensure that the animals can “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 8:17). Yet his first act, three verses later, is to round up a bunch of them and light them on fire on the altar.³⁰ Is that really on-script, Noah? Well, in a deep and mysterious way, it is. Never is a creature more fruitful than when burning up for God. Never is the earth greater or vaster than when it rises to heaven.

For what we call a 'burnt offering' is, in Hebrew, literally 'that which ascends,'³¹ referring to the way the whole flesh of the offering is turned into fire and smoke that rise up, up, and away toward the sky. That's why I prefer to translate it, not as 'burnt offering,' but as 'ascension offering.'³² Essentially, to the ancient mind, this was a way of sending mail to heaven – and, just like mail, such sacrifice was a way of “establishing communication” and “nurturing the bond between humans and God.”³³ Beyond that, an ascension offering was a sort of all-purpose type of sacrifice, not tied down to one specific aim.³⁴ So what's Noah up to?

The oldest Jewish readings emphasize that Noah's idea was to “make atonement... for all the sins of the land, because everything which was on it had been blotted out.”³⁵ Thus, by this sacrifice, Noah “atoned for all the earth in its entirety.”³⁶ And it makes sense: Noah is effectively humanity's high priest in this moment.³⁷ In the wake of all that corruption that's been washed down the drain, Noah aims to cover over the residue, completing what the flood accomplished. But ascension-offerings also tended to be joyful occasions, voluntary outpourings of delight in the Lord (Leviticus 22:18).³⁸ Early Christians said that, after such a profound salvation, righteous Noah “thought it right to offer the firstfruits in gratitude to the Giver,”³⁹ “a token of gratitude for all that God had done.”⁴⁰ So naturally Noah “offers thanks to his Lord both for what happened and for what lay ahead..., giving thanks as far as possible.”⁴¹ 'Twas “true thanksgiving,” through and through.⁴²

But here we have a massive difference between what Sacred Scripture shows us, on the one hand, and the pale pagan myths, on the other. Like I said, in the pagan versions, Atrahasis – like Noah – picks this point to make an offering; but the function and reaction are very different. The thing about the pagan gods is, they're pretty needy. Instead of self-sufficient, they exist in a “great symbiosis” with their creatures.⁴³ They made humans to be, in effect, their plantation slaves – farmers, chefs, butlers. Now, what befalls a spoiled rich family when the help goes on strike? The pagan gods, in their story, drowned the hand that fed them, and realized all too late that “the gods could not do without humankind to bring them sacrifices.”⁴⁴

As a result, not only do the gods spend the flood being terrified of the storm and its dangers, but “the great gods were sitting in thirst and hunger,”⁴⁵ “their lips were dry with distress, they were unceasingly convulsed from hunger.”⁴⁶ And, needless to say, these 'hangry' gods have emotional breakdowns, crying in grief, turning on each other and themselves in blame.⁴⁷ Then, all of a sudden, “to the four winds [Atrahasis] offered sacrifice, providing food.”⁴⁸ A dinner bell rings; they sniff what's cookin'! “The gods smelled the scent, the gods smelled the sweet scent, the gods swarmed to the sacrifice like flies.”⁴⁹ Just think about that picture, the way flies get all over a summer barbecue. When I was in Africa some years ago, I happened across a pride of lions settled down after a very raw lunch, and their gory faces were coated thick with flies attracted to the blood. That's the picture this pagan story gives of their supposedly 'great gods' who, frenzied by a ravenous hunger and thirst, drop their dignity to the level of mere insects at the alluring aroma. How anyone could've told that tale and still worshipped a pantheon as low as buzzing bugs is beyond me. But in the pagan yarn, this is no mere metaphor; the gods actually ate and were nourished by what Atrahasis fed them.⁵⁰ Not only is the pagan sacrifice a bribe of angry gods who wanted Atrahasis dead,⁵¹ but it's an emergency medical intervention for starving gods.⁵²

No wonder the Bible says that “all the gods of the peoples are good-for-nothings, but the LORD made the heavens” (Psalm 96:5). Early Christians preached that it's mere demons who are actually “greedy for the savor of fat and the blood of the sacrifices.”⁵³ Neither we nor Noah may comply with their greed, for “we who are living do not sacrifice to dead gods!”⁵⁴ But our God, the God of Noah, is alive! In fact, he's the Source of Life itself; he is Life, he is Existence. And because he's completely complete in himself, fully full with his infinite fullness, “the eternal God shall neither hunger nor thirst.”⁵⁵ So he doesn't actually “eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats,” like the pagan gods would if they could (Psalm 50:13). But “the Master is in need of nothing... and craves nothing from anyone.”⁵⁶ Like God tells the psalmist, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all its fullness is mine” (Psalm 50:12). Therefore, God “has no need of sacrifices or whole burnt offerings or regular offerings.”⁵⁷ But he invites us to “offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving... I will deliver you, and you will glorify me” (Psalm 50:14-15). God “made no demand for the sacrifices offered, but for that on account of which they were offered: the honor of God.”⁵⁸

It's in that spirit that, in response to Noah's sacrifice, “the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma” (Genesis 8:21). It isn't that God's just a really big barbecue fan, tantalized by the delicious smells of smoked meat like I am.⁵⁹ But “the Lord smelled, not the smell of the flesh of animals or the smoke of wood, but... the simplicity of heart with which [Noah] offered the sacrifice from all and on behalf of all.”⁶⁰ It's Noah's total devotion, Noah's sincere self-surrender, Noah's faith working by love, his interior worship seen through his exterior worship, that God smells and finds so absolutely appetizing, so savory and satisfying.⁶¹

Now, your Bible might say that God smelled a 'pleasant aroma.' Perhaps more accurate would be 'soothing.' It's literally 'restful,' 'rest-bringing' – and it comes, once again, from the same root as Noah's name.⁶² Noah's dad hoped that Noah would somehow bring rest to creation (Genesis 5:29); instead, God gave Mr. Rest's ark a rest on the mountain, and now Noah returns the favor when his worship sends a restful fragrance to the Creator. He thereby appeases God, gratifies and satisfies God, pacifies and soothes God's (apparent) wrath.⁶³ In other words, Noah's worship brings this new creation to Day Seven, to a state of sabbath. And in that, we see again what creation is for. The creation is made for the sake of worship. Creation was made to be given back to Love by love, to rise to God, to be transfigured into a peace that transcends the gulf between Creator and created.

Later, on another mountain, God will meet with a new Noah named Moses, teaching him and all Israel how to follow in Noah's footsteps. They'll built an “altar of burnt offering” (Exodus 27:1-8), lit by a continuous fire that's never allowed to fade (Leviticus 6:13). Every morning and every evening on that altar, they'll give a lamb as a “regular ascension-offering throughout their generations” (Exodus 29:38-42), which will reproduce every day Noah's “soothing aroma... to the LORD” (Exodus 29:41). But God warned them that, if they closed their hearts and ears to his voice, he'd have to judge them like Noah's neighbors, “and I will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas” (Leviticus 26:31). Tragically, that judgment came to pass, and they were dispersed into foreign lands, a stench before the Lord.

But already through Moses, God promised that even then, they could apply the spiritual cologne of repentance; turning back to God, they could receive mercy once again (Deuteronomy 30:1-3). And so, God promises by his prophet, “when I bring you out from the peoples,” then “as a soothing aroma I will accept you” (Ezekiel 20:41), returning them to the holy “mountain height” from which God would receive their “sacred offerings” (Ezekiel 20:40). When it was fulfilled, they gathered bulls and lambs, goats and rams, as a great “ascension-offering to the LORD” (Ezra 8:35), after the example of Noah. But even as the temple was being rebuilt, God indicted their worship, how “with every work of their hands..., what they offer there is unclean” (Haggai 2:14).

And so, in eventual answer to the hopeless impurity of the world, God sent his own Son. When pure divinity and pure humanity were united, the seed was sown for a new creation. “On the altar of the holy cross,”⁶⁴ Jesus “offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins” (Hebrews 10:12), “the whole burnt offering of his flesh which was offered through the wood of the cross.”⁶⁵ Now that Christ has “cleansed [people's] hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9), St. Peter says, we “should no longer call any person common or unclean” (Acts 10:28), for “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

The Apostle Paul proclaims that “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a gift and sacrifice to God for a pleasant aroma” (Ephesians 5:2). The faithful obedience and limitless love of Jesus, all the way to that cross, is far more potent in the nose of God than if Noah had the help of every angel to sacrifice more clean beasts than there are atoms in the universe. To the Father, there's simply nothing that smells as good as Jesus' love-unto-death. Nothing is so savory as the sabbath of the Savior; nothing is sweeter to secure peace for the world.

Christ then rose from the dead so that he could ascend into heaven and present this gift there (Hebrews 9:11-14). But first he appointed his apostles, and those who came after them, to baptize into Jesus' own holy word naming Father and Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19), for “you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you” (John 15:3). Rising from the waters marked by that word, the creatures of this new creation could leap forth to “enter into the earth's new face.”⁶⁶ The apostles and those who followed were then to “teach my people... how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean” (Ezekiel 44:23), in other words, “to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20), so as to “increase and multiply by the constant augmentation of spiritual virtues.”⁶⁷ “You are my friends if you do what I command you,” our Lord told us (John 15:14), and “if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love” (John 15:10).

For the sake of our abiding in his love, “he established a new altar and a new rite of sacrifice,”⁶⁸ such that “we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat” (Hebrews 13:10). There we make “a pure offering... among the nations” (Malachi 1:11), prophetic words the first Christians knew meant “the sacrifices which we offer to him at every place, namely, the bread of the Eucharist and the chalice of the Eucharist.”⁶⁹ Having been washed clean in the flood, it's only fitting that, as one medieval monk put it, “we are renewed at the sacred altar by the offering of holy communion.”⁷⁰ For our first reaction to salvation must be worship, if we're to honestly profess that “my heart shall rejoice in your salvation” (Psalm 13:5).

So long as we thus abide in Christ's love, so long as we reek of Jesus, “we are the aroma of Christ to God” (2 Corinthians 2:15). “A sweet fragrance to the Lord is a heart that glorifies the One who made it.”⁷¹ And the Apostle Paul adds that our deeds of truthful love and loving truth are not only “a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God,” but that they produce “a pleasant aroma” (Philippians 4:18), one which spiritually overwhelms what one early Christian called “the stench of the teaching of the ruler of this age.”⁷² In this way, by our words and works and witness of love rooted in the sacrifice of Christ, “through us God spreads the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere,” perfuming all the earth (2 Corinthians 2:14). To those whose spiritual sniffer is burnt and dead, Paul grants that Jesus' goodness “an aroma from death to death” for them; but to those who smell as God smells, a life in Christ is “an aroma from life to life” (2 Corinthians 2:16).⁷³ And to the extent we surrender our lives as disciples who deny ourselves for the sake of his sacrificial cross (Mark 8:34), we become “a whole burnt offering at the altar of God,” rising fragrantly toward the Lord in heaven.⁷⁴

But hark, already we hear the Father calling, pledging, “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17)! One day, we'll fully leave this ark that sails the stormy seas of this world. All at once, at our Savior's shout, everyone aboard will disembark into “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). And when we step foot on that new world the first time, as we begin to understand what it means that “the dwelling place of God is with man” there (Revelation 21:3), what will we do first? What will eternity mean? Nothing but what Noah showed us. To set foot in a new creation, to finish the exodus to the promised land, to stand upon the mountain height of God as all things give way to fire and glory, is to worship by offering up the whole new creation. “His servants will worship him; they will see his face..., and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:3-5). Hallelujah!