Saints: Life & Times

Lesson 1: Holiness

Rainbow Promises

For Noah, the just and perfect man who walked with God, (Gen. 6:9) that Someday seemed very near. Evil had spread throughout the world. Hearts turned from God and consummate wickedness became the preferred lifestyle. Only Noah and his family sought God, offering acceptable sacrifices and remembering the generations of Adam which came before them. God so loathed the rest of mankind that He would destroy them, and all living things upon the Earth, except for a tiny remnant which He commanded Noah to save. (Gen. 6:5-22)

Was Noah going to be a new Adam? The earth would now be peopled by his descendants, and God would make a promise to him. Noah had reached perfection, by the grace of God overcoming the effects of Adam’s sin. But there would be no Garden, no return to Eden. Men would sin and sin again would bring down on them God’s displeasure. The punishments of painful childbirth and hard labor would not be lifted, and all creation would still cry out, awaiting the redemption of the Sons of God. (Rom. 8:22-23) Yes, Noah was a new Adam, but the paradigm had changed. God blessed Noah and his sons, and told them to be fruitful and multiply (as He had blessed Adam). He gave Noah and his sons dominion over all animals and all plant life (as He had given Adam). He stipulated that no man owned the life of another man and must not kill him, for “man is made in the image and likeness of God.” (This was a new clarification, not given to Adam because sin had not yet entered the world when Adam came to be.) Then something completely new happened. For the first time, God made a covenant. (Gen. 9:1-10)

A covenant is an agreement, bound by formal oaths, between two unequal persons, in which the greater person grants a specific benefit to the lesser person. The lesser person also binds himself by oath to fulfill a specific requirement in order to receive the benefit. There must be human witnesses to the covenant and an enduring physical object, such as a stone, which would also witness the covenant. (Presentation given by Rev. John Quinn, OCDS, at Regional Carmelite Retreat in Hampton, VA, April 30-May 3, 2004) In what is probably the most charming covenant ever made between God and His people, God sealed His promise with a rainbow.

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “I will establish my covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every wild animal with you: all that came out of the ark, even the wild animals. I establish my covenant with you. Never again shall all flesh be destroyed by the waters of the flood: never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." And God said: “This is the token of the covenant; I set it between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all generations to come. I will set my bow in the clouds and it shall be the token of a covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. Never again shall the waters become a flood to destroy all flesh." (Gen. 9:8-15)

I guess we really are Rainbow People (or Rainbow Creatures, since the promise is made to all living things on earth)!

  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9