This week’s “Wednesday Word” is a summary of Dr. Wellum’s exposition of Genesis 9:9-9:29 from Sunday March 2, 2008.

This passage tells the story of a righteous man—Noah—who walked with God (6:9) in a perverse generation (6:1-7); who was delivered from divine judgment (7:1-8:12); and who was then commissioned, like Adam before him, to take dominion over the now fallen creation (8:13-9:7).

The first episode of the story reveals the extent and intensity with which the sin of Adam had become the sin of the majority of mankind: “the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (6:5, emphasis added). God’s pre-Fall, good and structured universe had become so distorted that even the “sons of God” (probably angels) had exceeded the boundaries of God’s structure, taking wives for themselves from “the daughters of men” (v. 2). Because of the state of His creation, the Lord determined to judge His creatures: “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals” (v. 7).

But, as is the case throughout the storyline of the Bible, God remembers mercy when He judges, and devises a plan in which a remnant of mankind and other of God’s creatures will be saved and in which man will be commissioned once again to rule creation as Adam was intended to do. In this instance, God’s judgment included devastating amounts of water (from both “the fountains of the deep” and “the floodgates of the sky” [7:11]), and God’s plan included the building of a large ark that served to preserve the remnant.

After the flood subsides, God covenants with Noah, stating, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man…and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done” (8:21). The Lord then commissions Noah, in a way reminiscent of Genesis 1:28-30, to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (9:1); also stating that all animals and plants are given “into your hand” (v. 2). By the end of chapter nine, however, one finds that Noah has not ruled well. In fact, he has allowed the fruit of the vine—one of the plants over which he was to have dominion—to rule over him instead (i.e., he got drunk).

As righteous as Noah might have been, he was definitely not the promised seed of Eve (Gen. 3:15) who would crush the head of the serpent, reverse the curse of sin, and rule properly over God’s created order. But while this particular story does not end well, it does serve—through God’s preservation of Noah’s family—to keep the larger story of God’s redemptive purposes going. In addition to this, a pattern is established in these chapters that will appear later on in the larger story of the Bible—a pattern in which people will once again be saved through a baptism of water; “not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21).

Audio from this week’s lesson: Genesis 6:9-9:29.

~DGG