Session 8 Noah

 

I.   Noah in real time & Space

II.  Post-Adamic world had come full circle Matthew 24:38-39

A. Noah's flood as an epoch divider?

1. The Adamic age comes to an end

a. Noah = "rest"

b. The Sumerian Kings List

2. An historical flood?

a. The Gilgamesh Epic

b. The Story Atrahasis

c. The Sumerian Flood Story

III. Judgment comes in the form a "de-creation" event

A. Genesis 7:11-12

B. The great tehom bursts open and the earth is returned to a watery chaos

IV. Restoration comes in the form of a "re-creational" and universal covenant

A. Genesis 9:1-7

1. Edenic mandates repeated, but this time in a fallen world

2. Made with all flesh and even with the planet itself. re-establishing contact between God and man in a fallen world

3. Oath promise of the rainbow

B. Genesis 9:24-27

1. Canaan = "to be subdued"

2. Japheth = "to increase"

3. Shem = "name"

4. An etiological map of the holy land

V. Where does the Noahic covenant leave us?

A. The people of God: the offspring of Shem

B. The presence of God: with Shem's offspring

C. The place unidentified

Tehom is a Northwest Semitic and Biblical Hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss". It is used to describe the primeval ocean and the post-creation waters of the earth. 

Session 7 God's Final Intent

Heaven From the book The Epic of Eden:

 Revelation 21-22 reveals that God's final intent is to restore humanity to a state of fellowship with Him, free from the consequences of sin and death, in a New Jerusalem that embodies a perfect dwelling place with Him.

The Tree of Life, which reappears in the New Jerusalem, symbolizes eternal life, healing, and the restoration of access to God's presence, akin to its role in Eden.

Originating in the throne room of God the Holy of Holies it brings life back to a fallen earth. Ezekiel 47:12 by the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail they will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing. Hmmm...when did we last encounter a tree of life?

The New Jerusalem 

• This brings us at last to Revelation 21- 22 the end of the story. The biblical author is describing heaven as a new earth. The garden has been restored, the primordial deep (“chaos”) has been defeated, and Ezekiel's City/Temple is being lowered from the heavens to serve as the residents of the redeemed. Hear the voice from the throne ringing out into the silence and grief of Adam's wasted world: “I am making all things new!” Revelations 21:5 The Creator speaks and the earth and its inhabitants are finally free.
• Healing has come; mourning is past; death is no more. This is the New Jerusalem purified and whole. And with the New Jerusalem comes the presence, and God himself shall be among them.
• Then he showed me a river of the water of Life clear as Crystal coming from the throne of God and of the lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond servants will serve him and they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads and there will no longer be any night and they will not have need of the light of the lamp nor the light of the sun because the Lord God will illuminate them and they will reign forever and ever.
• The New Jerusalem (what we know as “heaven”) is all that the city of the man in Eden was meant to be. In fact it is Eden a fruit-filled paradise animated by a cosmic River and graced by the tree of life.

God's original intent is his final intent. Eden was the perfect plan, and God has never had any other. His goal was that the people of God might dwell in the place of God, enjoying the presence of God. This is all our heavenly father has ever wanted for us. And everything that lies between Eden's gate and the new Jerusalem, the bulk of our bibles, is in essence a huge rescue plan. In fact, we could summarize the plot line of the Bible into one cosmic question: " how do we get Adam back into the garden? " In Genesis 3 humanity was driven out; and Revelation 21 through 22 they are welcomed home.

Rock Climber Metaphor

In the Climber Metaphor, the climber represents humanity's fallen state, needing a series of rescues and interventions to restore him to health. This metaphor illustrates how God acts through covenants and ultimately Jesus to redeem humanity from sin.

Although designed to live out their lives in Eden, humanity chose rebellion instead. The result was the fall with all of its horrible repercussions. Like a rock climber having fallen from a great height, Adam now lies broken and bloody on the ledge of a cliff - too far from the top or bottom for a simple rescue it will take a series of rescues to bring this climber to safety. Let's pursue this metaphor for a moment. A climber who has experienced this sort of accident is too injured to do anything to help himself; he is probably unconscious. So someone is going to have to repel down that precipice to reach him in his need. That someone will need to do emergency first aid, brace the climber's neck and strap his battered body into a litter so that he can be hoisted back up or down the face of the cliff. But this is only the beginning of the rescue. An airlift will be needed to get this man to a hospital. Emergency surgery will be necessary to stop the bleeding, remove the irreparable organs and splint the bones. And now the real vigil begins. Placed in ICU on a respirator and IV, will our climber recover? the rescue of Adam is much the same as this metaphor. The Bible teaches us that redemptive history did not happen in one fell swoop. Rather, God has been leading humanity back to Eden by means of a sequence of steps, a series of rescues, a series of covenants. To mix metaphors, with a covenant of Noah the paramedic successfully reaches the fallen climber; with the covenant of Abraham triage is done and the climber is lowered down the cliff; with the covenants of Moses and David the airlift is accomplished and surgery begins; with a covenant of Jesus the surgery is successful and the vigil begins dash will our rescued climber endure to the end? The rest of this book is dedicated to detailing each of the covenantal administrations of this great rescue plan. Each step of the story, each state of the rescue may be organized under one of six covenants. Figure 5.6

Even in the New Jerusalem are the bookends of redemptive history. God's original intent is his final intent and everything that lies between is one extraordinary rescue plan.

Lesson 6 God's Original Intent

EPICALLY PROFOUND 

The following bullet points are taken from the book The epic of Eden.

•  If humanity would simply acknowledge the innate authority of the Creator, would recognize that they were tenants and stewards in God's garden, they would live in paradise forever. But if they had to have access to every part of the garden, if they had to "be free" to choose their own rules and decide for themselves what was "good and evil," if they had to be autonomous of the authority of the great King, then they would die. The choice was autonomy, the covenant was broken and the curse was enacted. 
• Adam is the collective Hebrew term for "humanity."
• Adam and Eve are free to do anything except decide for themselves what is good and what is evil. Yahweh reserves the right (and the responsibility) to name those truths himself.
• This was Adam and Eve's perfect world. An entire race of people stretching their cognitive and creative powers to the limit to build the society of balance and Justice and joy. 
• The blessing of this gift? A civilization without greed, malice or envy; progress without pollution, expansion without extinction. A world in which Adam and Eve's ever expanding family would be provided the guidance they needed to explore and develop their world such that the success of the strong did not involve the deprivation of the weak. Here government would be wise and just and kind, resources plentiful, war unnecessary, achievement unlimited and beauty and balance everywhere. 
• Yet, as with all covenants, God's perfect plan was dependent on the choice of the vassal. Humanity must willingly submit to the plan of God. The steward must choose this world; for in God's perfect plan, the steward had been given the authority to reject it. 
• The first aspect of Eve's curse involves childbirth. The second aspect of Eve's curse: Genesis 1 makes it clear that Eve was designed as Adam's co-regent. In every fashion Eve is presented as Adams equal in Genesis 1. But with the fall, this mutuality is shattered. 
• With the fall this ideal partnership was transformed into the competitive grappling of two hungry souls. They still desperately need and desire one another, but they are no longer able to live their lives together with the same mutuality. Rather, they are now locked into a competitive relationship, each vying for control of the other, contending for the resources that now appears so transient.
• As Adam had the advantage of size and strength, and Eve was still constrained by her desire for hearth and home, the centuries testify to the fact that Eve's longing for her husband will too often result in her willing participation in her own oppression and abuse. A relationship that should have been characterized by mutual self-sacrifice, productivity and joy will create instead the deepest of frustration and pain. 
• There is not a marriage on this planet that has not felt the Aftershock of this curse.
• Adam's curse: Adam was a farmer. He was meant to have full Joy in this role because every plant he touched, every inch of soil he tilled, bore exactly the harvest he desired, and more. But with the fall, Adam's authority over the cultivatable land was shattered. Adams careful and creative tilling of the Earth became toil, that at times was more than he could bear. And worse, the land could be fruitless. Adam's curse was not work, it was fruitless work.
• The Earth rebelled against humanity as part of the fall. 
• Genesis 3 we see that because of the rebellion of the earth and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from God's presence, humanity will now live their lives in an adversarial world with a constant, knowing undercurrent of dread that there will not be enough, that their labor will not meet the need. This is the curse of Adam - limited resources an insecure future in a world that no longer responds to the commands of humanity.
• The ones made to rule the cultivatable Earth will now become fertilizer for it. That's perfect order has been turned upside down.
• The loss of the presence: Genesis 3:23-24 therefore the Lord God sent [Salah] him out from the garden of eden... so He drove man out; and at the East of the garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
• The final scene of this heartbreaking drama is that Yahweh drives his children from his presence, and the place that Adam and Eve were privileged to protect is now protected from them. 
• Adam has lost yahweh, and now the people of God will live in exile from both his place and his presence. The verb in verse 23 salah is the same verb one uses to divorce a wife or disown a child. By their own choice, Adam and Eve are separated from their creator.
• The seven days turned upside down: what we've seen in the curses of Genesis 3 it's not merely the spewing of random penalties in response to a bad decision, but the reversal of intended benefits. Those made in the image of God and designed to live eternally will now die like the animals; the earth, which was designed to serve will now devour; the bringing forth of life will now produce death. In other words, the perfect seven-day structure of Eden has been turned upside down, thrown into a tailspin by the treason of God's stewards. 
• Romans 8:19-23 for the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of god. For the creation was subjected to fertility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of god. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the spirit, even we are selves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
• This text is reiterating what Genesis won through three has already taught us, that God's first perfect plan was cast into futility by Adams choice. Therefore the entire creation (over which humanity had been given) "not of its own will" but because of Adam's. 
• In sum, when the stewards of Eden are returned to their proper place in God's perfect seven-day structure by means of the recreative power of redemption, when their treasonous choice is reversed, so too will the cosmos be" freed from its slavery to corruption," and returned to its pre-fallen state.
• We are not merely waiting for our personal deliverance, we wait for the day when all of creation will be" born again." 
• And what is the "freedom of the glory of the children of God"?  The passage tells us it is "our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body." In other words, the sign that our redemption is accomplished is the moment that our death-ridden bodies are resurrected into the ongoing state of eternal life. 
• According to Dr. Meredith Kline, this text in Romans communicates that the adamah (ground or Earth) is as repelled by Adam's presense within it as we are. Adamah is groaning in childbirth even now, longing for the day when the child is delivered, when Adam is raised up from the dirt" our adoption as sons the redemption of our body." Romans 8 makes it clear that the goal of redemption is far broader than the simple salvation of the individual. Redemption is a cosmic plan of cosmic proportions. God's plan is that all creation will be "saved" from the effects of sin.