GOD'S COVENANT FOR OUR GOOD


THURSDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Gen 9:1-13; Ps 102:16-21,29,22-23; Mk 8:27-33

God’s Covenant with Men and Creation

The failure of the natural system through the destructive flood reaffirmed the faith of the good and faithful men in God’s total control of the natural order and other subordinated orders. Their belief in God was reaffirmed when they witnessed the deliverance God worked for them from the forces of nature. The sacrifice offered by Noah and his sons was an act of worship, rededication, and thanksgiving to God for their lives, for by delivering them from the supposed natural calamity, the occurrence of which God revealed, warned, and spared their lives. The events convinced them of the Lordship of God over the whole creation. Their new mindset established a new starting point for the dialectical journey with Yahweh, the God of heaven and earth. Thus, he blessed them as he blessed Adam and Eve after their creation. “God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. Be the terror and the dread of all the wild beasts and all the birds of heaven, of everything that crawls on the ground and all the fish of the sea; they are handed over to you.” In these words, he re-established the dominion he gave man over all his material creatures from the beginning, for the word of God remains the same for all times. The divinely established order remains true for all who believe and obey God's will. For those who do not have faith, order and dominion are non-existent for them.

Yahweh again gave them directives on what they were to eat. Just as in the Garden of Eden, he forbade certain things to train them in God's ways. There is no evil in what is restricted but in disobeying the word of God, for there lies the cause or source of darkness in our lives. “Everything living and crawling thing shall provide food for you, no less than the foliage of plants. I give you everything, with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say, blood, in it. I will demand an account of your lifeblood. I will demand an account from every beast and from man. I will demand an account of every man’s life from his fellow men.” By these words, the Lord made them stewards of his creation and their fellow men.” These were the terms of the covenant he made with them and with the whole of his creation that obeys his will. The divine nature necessitates a covenant between him and his creatures, for God does not fail. The only fallible factor in his relationship with his material creation is man. The covenant he made with Noah, his sons, and descendants, and with all living creatures that were victims of the flood, contains conditional and unconditional things. The unconditional is that he will never destroy the living things in the whole world with water again. The conditional is that a part may fail whenever man fails in his moral obligation to God; when men fail to keep his ordinances.

God created us and willed our salvation eternally. His desire to save and establish us is in all his covenant relations. The constant divine desire to save us becomes conditional at our end because he made us to be free. His gift of free will allows us to accept his salvation or reject his gift of communion with him. God constantly condescends to the earth to save us from our fallen state and prepare us to enter his covenant relationship. The Psalmist testifies to this: “The nations shall fear the name of the Lord and all the earth’s kings your glory, when the Lord shall build up Zion again and appear in all his glory. Then he will turn to the prayers of the helpless; he will not despise their prayers.” The greatest condescension of our God is in the Incarnation of his Son, Jesus Christ, for our salvation. The evil one always attempts to prevent our understanding of God’s goodness revealed in the many deliverances granted to us. Our Lord revealed the presence of Satan using Peter to obscure the wonderful designs of God for our salvation through the physical suffering and death of the Son of Man. “Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’” The intention of God in establishing covenants with us is to train our minds to think in God's terms.

Let us pray: O God, who created us for yourself alone, teach us to understand how you work through the failures of our systems to call us back and reestablish your covenant relationship with us, so that your presence and grace may fashion us into a dwelling place for you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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