Finding Security
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Key Verse: “I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh … that is upon the earth.” Selected Scripture: |
OUR LESSON BEGINS after the great flood had destroyed all life on earth except Noah and his family. God had determined to destroy all life because of the extreme wickedness of humanity. (Gen. 6:5-7) Further we read, “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.”—vs. 11
Noah was righteous in God’s sight. (vs. 9) God determined to save him and his family—eight souls in all—instructing him to build an ark and to come into the ark, bringing animals in by twos and by sevens, male and female. Also, fowls were brought in, male and female by twos and by sevens, as well as creeping things.—Gen. 6:18-7:3
After the Flood, Noah built an altar offering clean animals and fowls as a sacrifice to God. (Gen. 8:20) This is the first instance after the flood of a blood sacrifice. God remembered Noah, and said he “smelled a sweet savour,” and “said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.”—vs. 21
We turn now to the ninth chapter of Genesis. After the waters had abated and man came out of the ark, God reiterated the command he gave to Adam in the Garden, saying to Noah, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish [fill] the earth.”—vs. 1
We find a great change had come over the earth after the deluge. Now the animals were to be used for food as well as the fowls and fishes. Meat could be eaten instead of just the green herbs. The only prohibition to eating meat was not to eat blood, because the life is in the blood. (vs. 4) Another command was that “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”—vs. 6
Next, God tells Noah that he is to establish a covenant with him. (vs.9) This covenant would be between man and all living creatures, and God says that he will never again destroy all flesh. (vs. 11) Now when it rained there would be a bow in the cloud, and this bow would be the token of the covenant between all flesh “for perpetual generations”—forever.—vs. 12
This peculiar covenant, the Rainbow Covenant, is everlasting. This rainbow was to reestablish the peace and order of physical nature, a sign of God’s love and a witness to his promise. The colors of the rainbow seem to indicate the various features of God’s love for humanity. White is universal of all color, the union of all the rays of light, and is a good symbol of truth and purity. Where many colors are manifest there is portrayed the manifold glory of sunlight from which all colors are derived. Herein lies the appropriateness of the scriptural symbol of the rainbow.
“The bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” (vs. 16) God’s Rainbow Covenant assures us that the end of the present order of things, although culminating in a great time of trouble, will not result in the destruction of all flesh prior to the establishment of Christ’s righteous kingdom here on earth, for he will say, “Peace, be still.”—Mark 4:39