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In this lesson, we begin studying God's plan to redeem the world. This plan is the Covenant of Grace, and the foundations of this covenant are laid with the promise to Adam and the covenant with Noah. Bible passages: Genesis 3:15, 8:20-9:17
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In this lesson, we begin studying God's plan to redeem the world. This plan is the Covenant of Grace, and the foundations of this covenant are laid with the promise to Adam and the covenant with Noah. Bible passages: Genesis 3:15, 8:20-9:17
Listen to The Covenant of Grace: Adam & Noah by Edward Joyner MP3 song. The Covenant of Grace: Adam & Noah song from Edward Joyner is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 44:49. This high-quality MP3 track has 622.402 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 20 Jun 2024. Stream and download The Covenant of Grace: Adam & Noah by Edward Joyner for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
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The lesson is about the Covenant of Grace and the difference between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace. The Covenant of Works was between God and Adam, where Adam had to obey in order to earn eternal life. Adam failed and Christ became the second Adam, fulfilling the Covenant of Works and establishing the Covenant of Grace. The Covenant of Grace is entered through faith alone and was present in the Old Testament as well. The difference between the Old and New Testaments is like the difference between a child and an adult or a caterpillar and a butterfly, with the New Testament being the full development of the Covenant of Grace. So last week, last week, actually I'll give a recap. So today's lesson is about the Covenant of Grace and specifically about Adam and Noah. Now, for those of you who are new and don't know what we're talking about with Covenant of Grace, stop talking please. For those of you who haven't been here and don't know what we mean by Covenant of Grace, I'm going to do a recap slide in a second, so just hang on. But last week we covered the Covenant of Works, which is the deal God made with Adam where he said, Adam, donate of this tree and you won't die. Which means if you obey that, you will live forever, you will earn eternal life for yourself and all of your descendants. Adam failed that. So, someone else had a covenant to earn eternal life forever, and that was Christ. Christ was the second Adam, or the last Adam, as 1 Corinthians 15 calls him. So, the Covenant of Works is where you earn eternal life, and none of us can do that because we're sinners. Christ had to come and do that, and he did it perfectly. And he did that in order to establish the Covenant of Grace. Now, let me recap real quick. So, this whole series is how do we study the Bible, and it's looking at the Bible as a story, because the Bible is primarily a story. It is not primarily a rule book, or a book of commandments, or a book of life advice. All that stuff is in there, but that is not what it is primarily about. Most of the Bible is narrative, it is story. It is a story of God redeeming the world through Christ. Now, covenants give structure to the story of Scripture. All stories are built around something. The Bible is built around covenants, built around promises that God makes to people. And there's really three of these overarching covenants that are apparent in Scripture. First is the Covenant of Redemption. The Covenant of Redemption is a covenant made within the Godhead, made between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. And it's an agreement that they're going to create the world, they're going to allow that world to fall into sin, and they are going to redeem that world for the glory of God, for the glory of each other, since they are all members of the Godhead. Then the first covenant God makes with humanity is called the Covenant of Works. Like I was saying, this is the agreement between God and Adam that promised eternal life in exchange for obedience. Adam was supposed to earn eternal life by obedience, he didn't do that, and so now we are all falling into sin. Yes. It is the Covenant of Grace, colon, Adam and Noah. Because the Covenant of Grace, we're going to be talking about this for the next several lessons, and I'll get to why that is in a second. So, Michael, we have a soda for you. We all did a toast to Elliot. You want to try to catch it with one hand? It's a Coke. It is a Coke, sorry. All right. All right, so, but what's the difference between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace? So, like I said, in works, the Covenant of Works, Adam was required to obey God perfectly. He needed to obey God perfectly in order to gain eternal life for him and his descendants. This means this covenant was potential. It had to be fulfilled. Something had to be done in order for it to be enacted and for the blessings to be given out. Now, Christ fulfilled this covenant by obeying God perfectly. He earned eternal life on our behalf. The way we often approach it is that in the Garden, God was trying out works, and then when Adam failed, he's like, OK, well, I'm going to ditch works and just try this thing called grace. No, no, no. Eternal life for humans always had to be earned. Adam failed to do it, but Christ succeeded. Christ worked for your salvation. So, in a sense, we are saved by works. We're just not saved by our works. We're saved by the works of Christ. Now, Christ then gives this thing that he earned. He gives this eternal life to those who have faith. These are the spiritual offspring of Christ. These are those who are in the Covenant of Grace, and so that means the Covenant of Grace only requires faith. It's not something that's entered into simply by birth or by working your way into it. It is faith. It is looking at Christ, seeing what he did, and saying, I trust in him. He has done everything necessary. I have failed in every regard. My only hope is to trust in him because he's done all the work. He has paid for all of my sins. So, grace, the way you enter into the Covenant of Grace is by faith and faith alone. And faith in and of itself is a gift from God. It's not something you just figure out on your own as well. Now, obviously, there was a lot of time between Adam and Jesus, right? About 4,000 years, give or take. So, this naturally leads people to wonder, how did the Covenant of Grace work for those in the Old Testament? Right? This is a classic question. Maybe you've asked it before, you've heard it been asked. How were people saved in the Old Testament? Because Jesus hadn't come and died and risen again, right? And that's the central pillar of the Gospel, right? And it is. But how were people saved in the Old Testament? Well, the same way they were saved in the New Testament, by grace through faith. Okay. Sorry if I'm talking too fast. Whenever I feel like I have to get through a lesson quickly, I talk very fast. Yeah, I know. All right. You can't write as fast as you talk. No, I can't. I'm a very slow writer. That's the other option. I can write you slow, and I'll just turn it in. Yeah. So, are you good, Michael? Second to last, or the grace only requires faith? I'm almost there. I'll let you know. Okay. So. About that. Very good. All right. So, the New Testament makes it clear that the believers in the Old Testament were saved by the same way we are now, by faith. This means that the covenant of grace was present in the Old Testament before Christ ever came in the flesh. And we see both of those examples here, right? Romans 4, Paul says, For if Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. But what does Scripture say? Abraham believed God, who has counted him as righteousness. And then later on in Galatians, the poem makes it clear that those who are the true offspring of Abraham are those who have the faith of Abraham. So Abraham was saved by faith, even though he lived and died far before Christ ever became incarnate. And then same thing down here, Hebrews 11, 1-2, talking about faith. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, faith, the people of old received their commendation. So it's saying, those before Christ received their commendation, their salvation, by faith, just like you, New Testament church. So those in the Old Testament were saved in the same way. And the mistake many people make is that they believe the Old Covenant was, oh, you're saved by law. And in the New Covenant, you're saved by grace. But people who, yes? That's interesting though, Hebrews 11. I memorized the verse, and then like a year later, I asked Mr. Josh what the definition of faith was. And he was like, okay, the verse is in line. I didn't even get the meaning of the verse. No, faith is good. It's one of the few terms the Bible gives us a very clear definition of. But growing up, I heard this often, is that, oh, in the Old Covenant, I guess you were kind of saved by obeying the law. There's always this vagueness about it, because no one read the Old Testament. It's a very long and very weird book, or collection of books, I should say. But you should read the Old Testament, because it's great, and it's the Word of God. And without it, you won't have as much of an appreciation of the New Testament. But people who, well, like I said, people who think that have not read the Old Testament. Because you read the Old Testament, all of the Old Testament saints, all the great men and women of the Old Testament, all of them sin, and some of them sin in grievous ways. Ways that would make us just, like, distance ourselves from them. I mean, just go through and read, just read through Genesis, and that's good enough. Like, you get enough gossip and drama just from that. But God saved them anyway. And that's what grace is. They were saved by their faith in the promises of God. We are saved by our faith in the fulfillment of those promises, which is in Christ. Now, does this mean there is no difference between the covenant of grace in the Old Testament and how it's portrayed in the New Testament? No, there is a difference. There are differences. But the difference is, it's not like apples and oranges, which is how many people approach it. They treat the Old Testament and the New Testament like they're apples and oranges. It's more like the difference between a child and an adult, or a caterpillar and a butterfly. In essence, they are the same, but there are different stages of development. One is the full development, the New Testament. One is the more immature development, which is the Old Testament. And how is the baby one the Old Testament? The baby was one baby. No, but it's the Old Testament. I started to think about how many times does the writing of the Old Testament happen now? They sent everybody to school to learn about the Old Testament. The first five books of the Old Testament. Yeah, they all had to learn and memorize Genesis by the age of their age. So, get that little box on your forehead with all the books in it. No, but God doesn't show the entire covenant of grace at once, right? It's not like as soon as Adam and Eve stand, he's like, okay, here's the whole plan. No, he gives them just a little bit, and then he reveals a little more, and a little more, and a little more. So he slowly reveals these pieces throughout the scripture until you get to Christ, until you get to the New Testament. And that's why we're taking our time going to the covenant of grace, because they are built, it's developed throughout the Old Testament. It starts with Adam, and then we... This one? Are you copying down the verses? They're in your Bible, dude. Did you do that exactly? Did you write down the verse address, and then write it down? Sorry, I mean all the addresses. Yeah. Yeah. That's the address. Verse address. Alright. So, these are... The covenant of grace is developed throughout these different covenants in the Old Testament. So it starts with Adam, and we get Noah, then Abraham, then Moses, then David, then finally Christ. Okay? So, you see, it starts foundational and works its way up and up and up. It gets more and more specific until we get to Jesus. Okay? And don't worry about writing all this down right now, because it's going to be up here every single lesson for the next couple weeks. So each of these covenants reveal a new element of the covenant of grace. So, with Adam, we receive the promise of salvation. Okay? The basis of the covenant of grace was the promise of salvation. Okay, and we find this... Does anyone know where we would find this promise of salvation to Adam? From Genesis 3. Absolutely. Genesis 3.15. Otherwise known as the Proto-Evangelium. Which means first gospel. It does sound like an element, yeah. Gospel bacteria. It's either Evangelium or Evangelium. I've heard both. But, Genesis 3.15. I'll go ahead and read it here. It says, this is God talking to... Jack's talking to Satan here. He's not talking to Adam, but Adam's there. He's hearing this. And God says, I will put enmity. Enmity. Has it always been enmity? I've always said enmity. Wow. Look in your Bible. Is it spelled this way? Is it E-N-M-I-T-Y? Because I've always said it E-M-N-I-T-Y. Not N-M-I-T-Y. This is the butterfly effect? Not the butterfly, but the... Mandela effect. Mandela effect. Well, I'll get into that because that's what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to keep going. Enmity. Okay, well now I'm probably going to mispronounce that. So, God tells Satan, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. So, this is while God is giving the curse, which is rather ironic, that he gives the promise of the gospel during the curse. And it's the promise for destruction to Satan, but it's the promise of salvation to Adam. And Eve, right? This is often called, like I already said, it's often called the Proto-Evangelium, means the first gospel, because it's the first mention of Christ's redeeming work in the scripture. Okay, so three chapters into the first book, and we already have the promise of Christ's work. That shows you that this is one story God is playing out throughout all 66 books of the Bible. Right? He did not start something new in the book of Matthew. That was the plan the whole time. Now, let's look at the pieces of this promise. First, we have the promise of enmity between Satan and the woman, right? Between you, that's the servant, and then the woman. But she's not technically called Eve yet. Adam doesn't name her Eve until after the curse is given. She's just called the woman. But Adam also just means man, so they're just called man and woman. So, enmity can be defined as mutual hatred or animosity. Okay? So God is saying that he will cause this war, this animosity, this hatred, between Satan and the woman, as well as between their offspring. Okay. As well as between their offspring. Guys, grab up the snack tray quickly. Now, it specifically highlights the woman. It doesn't say anything about Adam, though. We can assume Adam is saved as well, and that Adam is not going to be on the side of Satan. But he highlights the woman. Why? Why does he highlight the woman and not both of them, or the man? Because the woman was tempted. Okay, the woman was tempted. The one that's dangerous. Okay, that is true. Yes? Christophe says women are not easily deceived. Okay, but why is he causing enmity between Satan and the woman? Yes? Guys. That's part of it. Also, there's a division between God and man. I read somewhere that Mary is the best picture of God and the church. Oh, okay, I see what you're saying. Does that make sense? I think you're reading a little too much into this. I was just going to say, it's a foreshadowing of Mary. Because Jesus didn't have a human biological father, so that's why he highlights the woman's offspring, literally talking about the offspring of only a woman and not a man. Right? I appreciate you guys overthinking that. You're just like me. What she's talking about is different, but it's true. It's true. It's just not exactly what I was going after here. So he highlights the woman and their offspring. Now, this enmity, this war, God is bringing the woman and her offspring to his side, despite her being the one who rebelled against him. Grace is being shown right here. He had every right to cast Eve and Adam into outer darkness and just be done with them. But instead, he closed them, he forgave them, and he said, you're going to be on my side. You're not going to be on Satan's side. You are going to be on my side, Eve. Yes. Do you think they went to heaven? I do. I do think they went to heaven. They fell into darkness. I don't think they went to heaven. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. I believe they did, yes. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. They fell into darkness. Second is the promise of offspring. So Adam and Eve were commanded to fill the earth, and God will still allow them to do that. The fall did not change that creation mandate to go and be fruitful and multiply. But the serpent will also have offspring, meaning that humanity will be split between Satan and those of the woman. So clearly this is not Satan's going to somehow go have his own kids. If you read Paradise Lost, though, you'll see that Satan actually does have children, and it's very weird. Well, we're going to get to them in a second, actually. So clearly this is a spiritual offspring, not necessarily physical. It is those who will have the faith in the offspring of the woman who are the woman's offspring. And those who reject that faith will be Satan's offspring. So those who are true offspring of the woman are those who believe in God for eternal life. This is why Adam names Eve, or sorry, this is why Adam names the woman Eve, which means mother of all living. Not only because she is literally the mother of all human beings, but also because she is the spiritual mother of all those who have faith, all those who will truly live. And then lastly, is Satan's promise of destruction at the hands of Eve's offspring. Now notice that the offspring, so here you could maybe interpret this as plural, but then here it's clearly singular. He, not they, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Meaning there's only one offspring who will bring salvation. There's only one who can do it. It's not something that's going to be worked up to by successive generations. It's not a collective effort. It is the work of one man who is also God. But in the process of destroying Satan, this offspring will also be wounded. Okay? And we all know what that's referring to. Okay? And this promise, right here, this one verse, becomes the basis of the book of Genesis. Because the book of Genesis is really just following how God preserves the line of the offspring, or for the offspring, from Satan's attack. Okay? It starts here, and it goes to Genesis 4, to the flood, and then Abraham comes in, which we'll talk about in a future lesson. But then, even then, it continues out throughout the rest of the Old Testament. Right? All based on this promise. Okay? Now, what are Satan's attacks? What is Satan's offenses? So Satan tries several things to try and thwart this plan. Satan's offenses. He is offensive, but that's not what I mean here. I mean a tactical offensive. I think we probably can write it that way anyway. So, immediately after this promise to Adam and Eve, Satan begins his offensive to thwart the plans of God. So, what's the first thing he tries to do? Murder. He murders Abel. He entices the murder of Abel. Genesis 4, 8. So the promise, guys, the promise is for an offspring. Right? Physical offspring. Because that means it must come through Adam and Eve's children since they're the only humans. The firstborn sons of Adam and Eve are Cain and Abel. Or at least we know Cain was the firstborn. Abel is highlighted as the righteous one of the two, or the more righteous one, I should say. Obviously, Abel is a sinner because he gives sacrifices. But he is highlighted as the more righteous one. Okay? And Satan attempts to destroy the line of the offspring. But when he assumes it will come through Abel, given that Abel is more righteous, he says, it's going to come through him. I'm going to entice Cain to murder Abel. Yes? So, Cain and Abel was one of the Bible lessons. So, this past week, we did our own, like, devotion on it. And the written statement on it said that Cain's sins have reduced, like, him being, like... It means I have gotten, I believe. What? I believe it means I have gotten because Eve says I have gotten a man from the Lord. Yeah. So, like, he speculated, and then Abel would be named as something, like, useless or something like that. So, I don't know. I don't know. He had sacrifices, but he basically was speculating that he thought that Cain would be the Savior. But, got to find out. So, when Satan makes Cain, or makes Cain to kill Abel, and then Cain is banished, that Eve would look, like, helpless because that wasn't the Savior. Right. That certainly could be one way, because when Cain is born, she does say, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And that, I believe, is where Cain's name comes from. But then, when Seth is born, I believe it's either Adam or Eve that says... I think it's Eve that says, Behold, the Lord has given me another man since Cain killed Abel. I'm paraphrasing that. But, right. So, Satan believes that if he kills the more righteous brother, the line will be cut off. Or, if they think it's from Cain, if he corrupts the firstborn, the line will be cut off. Either way, he's going to try to nip this in the bud. Right. Just cut it off immediately. But, God gives Eve another son, Seth, and it's from Seth that the Messiah will come. Now, since murder doesn't work, Satan tries a different strategy. If he cannot kill the bloodline, he will poison it with demonic interbreeding. Now, this is where we're going to get into some weird stuff. But, this is the fun part. Okay. Turn to Genesis 6, so you guys know what I'm talking about. Oh, that's not a Bible. There's Bibles back there on the table. Hang on. Because you have them now. Alright, yeah. Michael, you can read it. Alright. So, Genesis 6. So. Yeah, I said Michael. Yeah. Go ahead, Michael. Okay. Okay. So, there are different views on this passage. There are... Well, I'm not going to speak for everyone here. So, there are different views on what this means. So, it says, the sons of God, the daughters of man. So, one view is that sons of God refers to men from the line of Seth, and daughters of men refers to women from the line of Cain. And that there's interbreeding between these two, and that God does not like that. But my problem with that is I don't know why that would produce Nephilim, which means giant. I don't know why that would produce giants if it's just normal humans breeding with each other. So, I think I think the better view is that sons of God refers to fallen angels. Demonic beings. And that these beings either possessed human men or they took on physical form themselves and married these women. And from this unholy union the Nephilim were born. Now, it does say they were on the earth before the flood and after. I'm not going to get into how that works because I don't even know entirely myself. I have ideas but nothing certain. But the point is Satan is trying to poison the bloodline. He's trying to have this demonic demonic genetics infecting humanity. By the way, this is a bit of a side note but it is interesting. So, according I think it's according to the book of Enoch which is not scripture. Not scripture. None of it is not scripture. But according to the book of Enoch the wives of these fallen angels were cursed for their sin into becoming sirens. A.k.a. mermaids. So, mermaids are demonic. Um, actually. Mermaids are not mermaids. Sirens were not mermaids. They were cursed creatures. Not mermaids. I believe in the book of Enoch he describes them in a way we would describe a mermaid. So, maybe they actually are mermaids. So, when your little sister wants to watch Little Mermaid rebuke her. No, no, no. That wasn't a demon. That was a mermaid. I think it was a pirate sister at the end. Yeah. So, they were kind of like sirens though. They kind of were. Anyway, that's a side note. So, the view I'm taking is that the sons of God refer to fallen angels. And so this union produced the giants and this was to corrupt the bloodlines of humanity so that the holy seed cannot be born. Now, this demonic interbreeding leads to a massive increase in wickedness. Okay. Now, this could have probably happened without the demonic interbreeding but it certainly helped quite a bit. It was gasoline on the fire. And this evil is so universal and so intense that God decides to wipe it all out with the flood. System reset. System reset. Almost the system reset. But guys, this is what Satan wants. Okay. Satan wants God to destroy every last man, woman, and child on the earth. Because then God would have failed to keep his promise. That is what he wants. But we think, oh, Satan wouldn't want the world to be destroyed. Well, Satan would want the world to be destroyed if it meant God breaking his promise. God going back on his word. Right? Because that's what he wants. He can't beat God through sheer power. So he's going to try to trap God in his words. But Satan underestimated the grace of God. God will keep his promise by preserving the human race through Noah and his family. And so we have Adam. Now with Noah, we get what's called common grace. Right? Common grace. Common grace is grace that God shows to all people, both saved and unsaved. Okay? As Jesus says, God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Okay? So, even unsaved people, you know, can enjoy things about life, they can have a family, they can, you know, laugh and enjoy things. Right? Even though they're not saved. That is called common grace. Right? They don't deserve that. Neither do we. But God allows them to have that joy anyway. So God sends the flood, wipes everyone out except for the eight evil on the ark. And then after the flood subsides, God makes a covenant with humanity through Noah. Okay? And it's called the Noahic Covenant. Okay? And this covenant... I'm sorry, I already said that. It's made with covenant. Now God makes this covenant to all of humanity because there's no humanity left besides Noah and his family. So Noah is now like the new federal head of humanity. Right? The new representative of humanity. But there are differences between Noah and Adam. Okay? So the first promise that God makes in this covenant God promises to never curse the earth. And I'm including the promise not to flood the earth in this as well. Even though that comes a little later. He says the earth will continue along its normal pattern of seasons and cycles and everything until God decides to end it when Christ returns. Now notice if you're still up in the Genesis you can turn to chapter 8 and you'll notice this in verses 21 and 22. Notice that God says he will do this despite man's heart being corrupt. Right? He says, you know, seed time and harvest, winter and spring, they will continue for man's heart is evil from his youth. Those two things shouldn't follow each other like in a covenant of works kind of thing. Right? You would think, oh, mankind's so righteous we're going to keep this thing going. No, it's mankind's evil. I'm going to keep this going. That is grace. That is grace. Mankind's evil Mankind's evil but I will choose to preserve them on this earth anyway. At least for now. Okay? So God is showing remarkable grace by doing so and he preserves the earth for the Messiah to come. Okay? God also renews the creation mandate with Noah and his family. Like this. Noah is sort of a new Adam in a way. Right? God ordered Adam and Eve to multiply and take dominion and now he gives that same charge to Noah and to Noah's children. Right? And so this shows that the creation mandate to be fruitful, multiply, and take dominion that is something that still applies to us today even in a fallen world. And it still applies to us even after we're saved by the gospel. The gospel does not contradict the creation mandate. In fact, it actually redeems it. Okay? Even though creation mandate applies to everyone Christians are able to live it out to its fullest extent because they understand who gave it. We're able to appreciate that. Now there is one addition maybe not just one but there is an addition God makes to the creation mandate and that is the establishment of human government. Alright? If you look in verse 5 and 6 God tells Noah that needless bloodshed must be paid back. Okay? If someone kills their neighbor's animal they are to pay it back monetarily. If someone kills their neighbor they are to be put to death. Right? This is called this is the principle of justice called eye for eye. Right? And unfortunately people only ever know that phrase eye for eye from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount where he says you've heard it said eye for eye tooth for tooth but I say to you if someone slaps you on the right cheek turn to him the other one also. What Jesus is talking about in the Sermon on the Mount is personal vengeance. He is not saying never use the principle eye for eye because then that would contradict what Jesus himself wrote in the Mosaic Law and right here in Genesis. Okay? Eye for eye is meant to apply in courts of justice and law which is why I am saying God establishes human government here even though he is not making Noah president or anything. He is saying here is the principle for justice now as you go and spread out do this in the nations that you found. Okay? And it's never said explicitly but I think the reason he does this here is to keep the world from becoming as bad as the pre-flood world was. Right? We can conclude that there maybe was no system of government before the pre-flood world at least not a just one. So lastly after all of this God gives them a covenant sign to remind humanity of this promise and that is the rainbow. Now this likely isn't when God created the rainbow because all the stuff to make a rainbow would have existed already. But he chose to give it new significance by attaching it to the Noahic Covenant just like how baptism actually existed before the new covenant but it has new significance now. Circumcision existed before Abraham but it had new significance with Abraham. Right? So the rainbow could have existed long before Noah but now it has new significance because it's tied to this promise. Okay? So that is the Noahic Covenant and the biggest difference between Noah and Adam here is that Noah is not told okay now keep everything in order or else I'm going to come flutter again. Right? I'm going to come flood this world again. No, God says I'm not going to flood the world again. Right? There is nothing demanded of Noah in order to keep the covenant. Now God does tell him to do things but he doesn't say if you fail to do this I'm going to flood the world again. So it's a covenant of grace. Right? It's purely God saying I will do this. I will do this. I will do this. Nothing is demanded of Noah or his children in terms of keeping the covenant. So key takeaways. God did this lesson very fast. But I actually wanted to so you guys can get out of here sooner and you can rest up for tomorrow. So what are the key takeaways from these covenants with Adam and Noah and how they relate to the covenant of grace? First one no amount of evil can overcome God's plan. That is something you should learn not just from the first nine chapters of Genesis though they make it very clear but throughout all of Scripture. Things get very bad in Scripture. There's a lot of depressing moments in Scripture. There's a whole book of songs about how depressing things are. Okay? So the Bible does not shine away from evil. But what it is always clear about is that no amount of evil disrupts God's plan or disrupts God's sovereignty or makes the gospel ineffective. Right? Adam and Eve sin but God clothes them and promises an offspring who will correct their error. Satan tries to eliminate the offspring by murder and corruption but God keeps a faithful family with Noah. Right? Satan tries to have God destroy the world because of sin but God preserves humanity and the earth allowing the Messiah to come. So no matter how much Satan tries to up the ante God is already leagues above him. He's way out of he's 10,000 steps ahead of him because God is outside of time in general. And Satan we don't exactly know how he works with time but he is not on the same level as God when it comes to that. Second God shows that he cares about his creation even after it has fallen. Right? We often Christians seem to talk this way where we think that because of the fall we almost have this assumption that God kind of hates the world like hates the earth itself which isn't true. Right? God could have annihilated this planet and just started over on a new one. But instead he chose to cleanse the earth of evil through water. Right? So the world was destroyed in the flood but the planet wasn't. We're still on the same planet that the flood happened. The giant baptism. And 1 Peter corresponds baptism to the flood. So you're right on the money with that one. And when Christ returns he's going to cleanse the earth with fire. Right? Because growing up whenever we talk about Noah it's always like the teacher was like I don't know what it was but they were always eager to jump to the fact that when Jesus comes back the world is going to be burned up. Which is a little weird. But they just had this fascination with the fact that oh this world is going to just be like completely atomized and then God is just going to make a new one. And they think the new earth is literally like Earth 2.0. It's a different planet. But with the fire fire itself is not always a disintegrating agent. It's a purifying agent. Right? And so when 2 Peter talks about fire being poured out on the creation it's still talking in the way of purification. That what is good will still remain because God will preserve it. God's going to renew this earth this earth because God made this earth. For him to just blow it up in the end would kind of undercut the whole point of the Bible because the whole message of the Bible is God can take something that's been corrupted and renew it. That's what he does with each and every one of us. Right? He doesn't he doesn't disintegrate us and then make a new person. We are a new creation in Christ but we are also still us. Right? That's that's the glory that's the glorious thing about the gospel. Right? That God can do that where no one else can. So if he can do that to individuals why can't he do that to the world? Next. God will be the one to fulfill the covenant of grace. Right? God shows us he is the one who will do the work for this to be accomplished. All the work is placed on him all the requirements are placed on him. None of it is on us. There are things we need to do but they're not things we need to do in order to make in order to fulfill this covenant. Right? God's doing all that work. All that is required of us is to trust in God's work. Trust in what he has said he will do. And we'll we'll see this truth unpacked even more in the following lessons but we see it clearly here as well. And then lastly the gospel has been preached since the beginning. Adam and Noah and the rest of the Old Testament shows us that the gospel has been preached since the very beginning of the Bible. We don't have to wait until Matthew for the gospel to be present. You don't have to wait until like Isaiah 53 for the gospel to be present. Right? We see it in Genesis and it's carried throughout the rest of the Old Testament. The difference is that the gospel for these people for Adam and Noah and and people who especially lived before Abraham their gospel was incredibly simple. It was there will be someone who will destroy the serpent. That's it. That was their gospel. And to us that almost sounds like nothing. Right? Just like someone destroy the serpent, what would that even mean? Like yeah, that isn't that isn't the full gospel. But it was enough of a gospel for them to trust in and to believe in. That was all they had to go on. But if they trusted in that they would be saved. If they had faith in the promises of God they would be saved. And the same thing goes for us. Yes, our gospel is more fleshed out now and that's a good thing. Hebrews 11 says that the people of old wanted what we have now. They wanted the clarity that we have now. But not only the clarity they wanted the spirit that we have now. Right? The Holy Spirit was not given to everyone in the Old Covenant or in the Old Testament. In the New Covenant it is. Right? If you have faith in God it's not just that the Holy Spirit changes you. It's that the Holy Spirit lives in you. Right? He's present with you and by Him being present with you Christ is united to you. He is present with you. Okay? And just be reminded that when you are thinking and pondering about your own sin and the own thing that you struggle with okay it's very easy to buy into the voices in your head that always say you are not worthy of the gospel you are not good enough to receive the gospel you are not this, you are not that and all of those voices are actually correct. You are not good enough. You do not deserve the gospel. That's the whole point of the gospel. That you don't deserve it. That I don't deserve it. That no one deserves it. Right? The only one who did deserve it was Christ. And then Christ chose to give us the gift of eternal life. Purely by faith. Purely by trusting in Him. Which in and of itself is an ability given to us by God. And so when you are struggling with those voices you can say to them yes, that is true but Christ has done the work. Christ has done the work. I have failed to do the work. I am not good enough. Christ was good enough for me. Right? And Christ has been good enough for everyone since Adam. If He can save Adam if He can save Noah if He can save Abraham and David and so on and so forth He can save me.
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