THE SIGN FOR MAN AND
THE REMEMBRANCER FOR GOD
by Alexander Maclaren '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; And with every
living
creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the
cattle,
and of every beast of the earth with you; from
all that
go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
And I
will establish my covenant with you; neither
shall all
flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a
flood;
neither shall there any more be a flood to
destroy the
earth. And God said, This is the token of the
covenant which I make between Me and you and every living
creature
that is with you, for perpetual generations: I
do set My
bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of
a
covenant between Me and the earth. And it shall
come to
pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that
the bow
shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember
My
covenant, which is between Me and you and every
living
creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no
more
become a flood to destroy all flesh. And 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. And
God said unto Noah, This is the token of the
covenant,
which I have established between Me and all flesh that is upon
the earth. -- GENESIS ix. 8-17.
The previous verses of this chapter lay down the
outlines of the new
order which followed the flood. The blessing and the
command to be
fruitful are repeated. The dominion over animals is
confirmed, but
enlarged by the permission to use them as food, and
by the laying on
them of 'the terror of you and the dread of you.'
The sanctity of
human life is laid down with great emphasis.
Violence and bloodshed
had brought about the flood. The appalling
destruction effected by
it might lead to the mistaken notion that God held
man's life cheap.
Therefore the cornerstone of future society is laid
in that
declaration that life is inviolable. These blessings
and commands
are followed by this remarkable section, which deals
with God's
covenant with Noah, and its token in the rainbow.
1. The covenant is stated, and the parties concerned
in it
enumerated in verses 3-11. When Noah came forth from
the ark, after
the stupendous act of divine justice, he must have
felt that the
first thing he needed was some assurance as to the
footing on which
he and the new world round him stood with God. The
flood had swept
away the old order. It had revealed terrible
possibilities of
destruction in nature, and terrible possibilities of
wrath in God.
Was any knowledge of His intentions and ways
possible? Could
continuance of the new order be counted on? The
answer to such
questions was--God's covenant. Now, as then, when
any great
convulsions shake what seems permanent, and bring
home to men the
thinness of the crust of use and wont roofing an
infinite depth of
unknown possibilities of change, on which we walk,
the heart cries
out for some assurance of perpetuity, and some
revelation of God's
mind. We can have such, as truly as Noah had, if we
use the
Revelation given us in Jesus.
In God's covenant with Noah, the fact of the
covenant may first be
noted. What is a covenant? The term usually implies
a reciprocal
bond, both parties to which come under obligations
by it, each to
the other. But, in this case, there are no
obligations on the part
of man or of the creatures. This covenant is God's
only. It is
contingent on nothing done by the recipients. He
binds Himself,
whatever be the conduct of men. This covenant is the
self-motived
promise of an unconditional mercy. May we not say
that the 'New
Covenant' in Jesus Christ is after the pattern of
this, rather than
after the manner of compacts which require both
parties to do their
several parts?
But note the great thought, that God limits His
freedom of action by
this definite promise. Noah was not left to grope in
dread among the
terrible possibilities opened by the flood. God
marked out the line
on which He would move, and marked off a course
which He would not
pursue. It is like a king giving his subjects a
constitution. Men
can reckon on God. He has let them know much of the
principles and
methods of His government. He has buoyed out His
course, as it were,
on the ocean, or pricked it down upon a chart. We
have not to do
with arbitrary power, with inscrutable will. Our God
is not one who
'giveth no account of any of His matters.' To use a
common saying,
'We know where to have Him.'
The substance of this covenant is noteworthy. It is
concerned solely
with physical nature. There is nothing spiritual or
'religious'
about it. There are to be no more universal deluges.
That is all
which it guarantees. But consider how important such
an assurance
was in two aspects. Note the solemn light which it
threw on the
past. It taught that the flood was an exception in
the divine
government, which should stand unrepeated for ever,
in its dread
pre-eminence testifying how awful it was as a
judicial act, and how
outrageous had been the guilt which it drowned out
of existence and
sight. A wholesome terror at the unexampled act of
judgment would
fill the hearts of the little group which now
represented mankind.
Consider the effect of the covenant in encouraging
hope. We have
said that the one thing needful for Noah was some
assurance that the
new order would last. He was like a man who has just
been rescued
from an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. The
ground seems to reel
beneath him. Old habitudes have been curled up like
leaves in the
fire. Is there to be any fixity, any ground for
continuous action,
or for labour for a moment beyond the present? Is it
worth while to
plant or sow? Men who have lived through national
tempests or
domestic crashes know how much they need to be
steadied afterwards
by some reasonable assurance of comparative
continuity. And these
men, in the childhood of the race, would need it
much. So they were
sent out to till the earth, and to begin again
strenuous lives, with
this covenant to keep them from falling into a
hand-to-mouth style
of life, which would have brought them down to
barbarism. We all
need the same kind of assurance; and then, when we
get it, such is
the weakness of humanity, we are tempted to think
that continuity
means eternity, and that, because probably to-morrow
shall be as
this day, there will never come a to-morrow which
shall be quite
unlike to-day. The crust of cooled earth, on which
we walk, is thick
enough to bear man and all his works, but there
comes a time when it
will crack. The world will not be flooded again, but
we forget, what
Noah did not know, that it will be burned.
The parties to the covenant must be noticed. Note
how frequently the
share in it, which all living creatures have, is
referred to in the
context. In verse 10 the language becomes strained
(in the
original), in order to express the universal
participation of all
living creatures; and in verse l3 'the earth' itself
is spoken of as
one party. God recognises obligations to all living
things, and even
to the dumb, non-sentient earth. He will not
causelessly quench one
bright, innocent life, nor harm one clod. Surely
this is, at least,
an incipient revelation of a God whose 'tender
mercies are over all
his works.' He 'doth take care for oxen'; and man,
with all the
creatures that are with him, and all the wild ones
that 'come not
near' him, and all the solid structure of the world,
are held in one
covenant of protecting and sustaining providence and
power.
2. The sign of the covenant is described at great
length in verses
12-17. Note that verses 12, 13 state the general
idea of a token or
sign, that verses 14-16 deepen this by stating that
the token to man
is a reminder to God, and that verse 17 sums up the
whole with
emphatic repetition of the main points. The
narrative does not
imply, as has often been supposed, that the rainbow
was visible for
the first time after the deluge. To suppose that, is
to read more
into the story than is there, or than common sense
tolerates. If
there were showers and sunshine, there must have
been rainbows. But
the fair vision strode across the sky with no
articulate promise in
its loveliness, though it must always have kindled
wonder, and
sometimes stirred deeper thoughts. Now, for the
first time, it was
made 'a sign,' the visible pledge of God's promise.
Mark the emphasis with which God's agency is
declared and His
ownership asserted. '_I_ do set _My_ bow.' Neither
Noah nor the writer
knew anything about refraction or the prismatic
spectrum. But perhaps
they knew more about the rainbow than people do who
know all about
how it comes, except that God sets it in the cloud,
and that it is His.
Let us have the facts which science labels as such,
by all means, and
the more the better; but do not let us forget that
there are other facts
in nature which science has no means of attaining,
but which are as
solid and a great deal deeper than those which it
supplies.
The natural adaptation of the rainbow for this
office of a token is
too plain to need dwelling on. It 'fills the sky
when storms prepare
to part,' and hence is a natural token that the
downpour is being
stayed. Somewhere there must be a bit of blue
through which the sun
can pierce; and the small gap, which is large enough
to let it out,
will grow till all the sky is one azure dome. It
springs into sight
in front of the cloud, without which it could not
be, so it typifies
the light which may glorify judgments, and is born
of sorrows borne
in the presence of God. It comes from the sunshine
smiting the
cloud; so it preaches the blending of love with
divine judgment. It
unites earth and heaven; so it proclaims that
heavenly love is ready
to transform earthly sorrows. It stretches across
the land; so it
speaks of an all-embracing care, which enfolds the
earth and all its
creatures.
It is not only a 'sign to men.' It is also, in the
strong
anthropomorphism of the narrative, a remembrancer to
God. Of course
this is accommodation of the representation of His
nature to the
limitations of ours. And the danger of attaching
unworthy ideas to
it is lessened by noticing that He is said to set
His bow in the
cloud, before it acts as His remembrancer.
Therefore, He had
remembered before it appeared. The truth, conveyed
in the childlike
language, is that God has His covenant ever before
Him, and that He
responds to and honours the appeal made to Him, by
that which He has
Himself appointed for a sign to men. The expectant
eyes of the
trustful man and the eye of God meet, as it were, in
looking on the
sign. On earth it nourishes faith; in heaven it
moves to love and
blessing. God can be reminded of what He always
remembers. The
rainbow reminds Him of His covenant by its calm
light. Jesus Christ
reminds Him of His grace by His intercession before
the throne. We
remind Him of His plighted faithfulness by our
prayers. 'Ye that are
the Lord's remembrancers, keep not silence.'
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