For in the image of God He made man.
As for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”
Noah was spared, but God determined that things would be different. Mankind would be the same, and he reminds us that we are created in the image of God, and our purpose would be the same, to be fruitful and multiply.
This is the sign of the covenant
which I have established between Me
and all flesh that is on the earth.”
The creation of the rainbow was the sign of the first covenant between God and mankind. He would never destroy the earth through flood again. Can you imagine their wonder as they saw the first rainbow – it’s brilliant color floating above the earth, so real but so imagined? Roger and I still pull off the road when we see a beautiful rainbow, amazed at this floating, ethereal creation.
But then, by the end of the chapter, we’re back to the old: sin. It doesn’t seem like much, giggling about someone’s nakedness, especially after the sin of the culture that drowned a generation before. But that’s how sin starts, a giggle here and a selfishness there. It was enough to get God’s immediate attention. Noah knew his children needed to be reprimanded and took the lead of a father in disciplining his children.
Noah knew how devasting sin could be, and how he never wanted anyone to go through judgement again.
Nor should we.
