Protective Judgments (2) - Rainbow Covenant

The basis for protective judgments is the covenant that God made with Noah. This covenant is different from other covenants, because it was not exclusive, but applies to all people and animals on the earth.

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth (Gen 9:16).

The rainbow reminds us of covenant with all people forever. The rainbow covenant is unconditional. No conditions are specified for fulfilling the covenant. No consequences were specified for failure to keep the covenant. The covenant with Noah is and unconditional promise to all the people of the earth through all time.

The common understanding is that God was just promising not to destroy the earth by another flood. This does not seem very likely anyway, so this view makes the covenant seem irrelevant. We do not see a rainbow and think, “Wow, I am glad that God is keeping his covenant”. Because Christians assume we have a better covenant and do not need this old one, we have missed the significance of God’s promise.

To understand the importance of the rainbow covenant announced to Noah, we need to know who holds authority on earth. When God created the world he gave dominion over the earth to man (Gen 1:26). This bold act transferred authority over the earth from God to man. This is confirmed in Psalm 115:16:

The highest heavens belong to the LORD,
but the earth he has given to man.

God has control over the heavens, but he has given full control of the earth to man. This means that God cannot act on earth without human permission. When humans sinned and let evil take hold on earth and got caught up in evil, God had the power to put things right, but he did not have authority to act, because he had given authority over the earth to humans. God could not just intervene to put things right, but had to wait until he is invited by the people on earth.

By the time of the flood, life on earth had gone on for nearly 2000 years. That was a long time, almost as long as the time from the time of Jesus until now. The population had grown and humans would have developed in many amazing ways. Unfortunately, for most of this time very few people knew God and served him. Enoch was an exception, but he was taken out before he had an impact (Gen 5:24). Most people ignored God, so God received very few invitations to act on earth. With very few people praying, the Holy Spirit was almost entirely shut out of the earth.

Under these conditions, evil advanced in a terrible way. All human developments were twisted for evil purposes.

The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (Gen 6:5).

The situation on earth terrible.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways (Gen 6:11-12).

The Hebrew word translated “corrupt” is “shachath”. This word is used through the record of Noah’s covenant. It means “destroy” or “ruin”. God looked upon the earth and saw that it was being ruined by the evil in human hearts. When Noah’s prayers gave him permission to act, he had no choice, but to destroy (shachath) the people of the earth by water to prevent the earth that he loved from being totally ruined (shachath).

Everything on earth will perish (Gen 6:17).

Prior to the cross, this was the only way to destroy rampant evil and prevent wicked men from destroying the earth.