Sunday, February 12, 2023 PM

The First Commandment Before the Law of Moses

Well, we're going to come back to our study tonight on the Ten Commandments, and there's a lot of preparation work as we think about the Ten Commandments, trying to understand them in their location in the Scriptures, how they were originally given and why, and what their continued significance is today in the light of Jesus Christ.

So we've done a lot of that legwork, the large, sweeping themes, and we've read the Ten Commandments, and we're thinking about the First Commandment, and with the First Commandment being so primary to everything else.

There is only one God, and He alone should be worshipped. And we can easily see how every other instruction in the Scripture is going to have a relationship to that primary commandment, which of course is not unique to the life of Israel, but the reality that there was one God and only one to worship was present in the days of Adam and Noah and Abraham and so on.

So with this First Commandment, we are wanting to trace the idea of worshipping God alone before it was ever spoken in the Law of Moses. Where do we see that emphasis already in the Scriptures? And we've begun to talk about that, what happened in the Creation, what happened in the Fall, and we left off getting ready to talk about Noah.

And we talked about the image of God, and we talked about the concerns of being made in the image of God, that we're in this mediating position where we are to love God supremely, love one another rightly, and to exercise dominion over the created order correctly and righteously.

We stand in this three-way intersection of relationships between God and man and the created order. Nobody else, nothing else that God created is in that particular position. It was after the Fall, after the sin came into the world, after death became the primary identifying characteristic of the human existence, Genesis 5, and he died and he died and he died over and over and over again, that we begin to hear about covenants.

And we have a definition that we're working with in terms of covenant, and the goal tonight is to begin to look at where God begins to make redemptive covenants, first with Noah, then with Abraham, then with Israel, and then with David, leading up to the new covenant that we have in Christ.

As we do, seeing this first commandment, which would be an anachronism with Noah, because the law had not yet been given, there weren't ten commandments on a clay tablet yet for Noah, and it wasn't that way for Abraham either.

But it was still true. There's only one God to worship. So we're going to look at that beginning tonight and work our way through these redemptive covenants. So that's the goal. Let me pray for us and we'll get started.

Father, I thank you for the night, I thank you for the opportunity to fellowship around your word and rejoice in your truth. I pray that you would help us to do that, and I pray that you would help us to worship you and you alone.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Well let's open our Bibles over to Genesis, Genesis chapter 6. In Genesis chapter 6, we're going to think about the story of Noah. How were things in the days of Noah, by the way?

So we see where in the people, when we hear a description in chapter 5 of Genesis, when we read chapter 5, we begin chapter 4, Seth had a son. Adam and Eve had a third son named Seth, and verse 26 says,.

And as for Seth, to him also was a son born, and his name was Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord. And we hear this genealogy, but it is a lineage of one generation after another dying throughout Genesis chapter 5.

And death remains central to the story as we read through the first part of Genesis chapter 6 in the Lord's assessment of how things are going. And the Lord is not going to allow this to continue unaddressed, unchecked.

The Lord is going to address the problem. The problem, of course, is sin and all of the death that is occurring because of this sin. And so when we look in Genesis chapter 6, we see that Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord, and so God called Noah to live in a certain way.

And we read about his plan. God tells Noah, look, you're going to build a boat, you're going to build an ark, you're going to build a container ship, and here's how you're going to build it. And then he says in verse 17 of Genesis 6, Behold, I myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life.

Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall go into the ark. And he says you're going to go in there with your family and with a representative amount of all of these animals.

The Noahic Covenant and the Preservation of Creation

Okay, now let's review our definition for covenant. And again, we're not talking about any old covenant. There's a lot of different covenants that happen within the scriptures. One example is that which was between Jacob and Laban.

Okay, but we're talking about the covenants that God makes with man in the story of redemption, the story of salvation, where we have all these shadows and types of Christ that lead up into the new covenant.

So our definition is as follows. It is a restoring and revealing relationship the creator formalizes with man. The reason why it's restoring is something went wrong. God made man in his own image, according to his own likeness, male and female.

He created them. He gave him the creation mandate and blessed them. And so something went wrong. And then God starts making covenants. So there is a restorative aspect. It's a revealing kind of relationship because it's not simply about Noah.

It's not simply about Abraham and Isaac. It's not simply about Israel as a nation. Not simply about David and his heir to the throne, Solomon. It's revealing because it's about more. It's about who God is.

It's about his promises and the one he has promised to send according to his plan. It is indeed a relationship. This is not to say that there was no relationship before God made the covenant. God knew Noah and Noah knew God before God made a covenant with him.

God knew Abram and called him out of the land of Ur, Genesis 12, before God made a covenant with him in chapter 15. And gave him the sign of the covenant in chapter 17. God knew the people of Israel and rescued them from Egypt before he made a covenant with them in Sinai.

And the same with David, who was a man after God's own heart. And he made a covenant with him after he was king. You see, so this relationship is one that is formalized. Something happens and in the formalizing of this relationship, we have, there's worship, often there's sacrifices.

The signs are given in these covenants and promises are given by God. God calls those he's in covenant with to act and live in certain ways. To make certain things their priorities and calls them to faithfulness in the covenants that he makes.

So we see this and this is the definition we're working with and we want to test it against what we read in the covenant that God makes with Noah and with Abraham, with Israel and with David. And then ultimately, of course, most significantly, the new covenant that God makes.

So let's think about the story of Noah. There was a great flood. All living earth, all living beings on earth died. Only those who were inside the ark and all the animals died. All the birds died outside the ark.

All the people died outside the ark, but those who are in the ark, they lived. And it was after the prevailing worldwide flood that we see that God makes his covenant with Noah. We see that in chapter 8 and the formalizing of this restoring and revealing relationship that the creator makes with Noah and with creation.

Again, Noah being in the place of Adam, right? We start seeing this in Genesis 8. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. Chapter 8, verse 20. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake. Although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

While the earth remains, see time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. This covenant that God makes, this promise that he makes is referenced again throughout the scriptures as the covenant that God made with day and night.

A creation covenant. So God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. Well, that sounds familiar. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth and all the fish of the sea.

Why?

They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. It doesn't mean that they're all going to be equally tasty. But I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.

But you shall not eat flesh with this life that is its blood. Surely for your lifeblood, I will demand a reckoning from the hand of every beast. I will require it from the hand of man, from the hand of every man's brother.

I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed for in the image of God, he made man. As for you, be fruitful, multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it.

So you see how this covenant that God is making with Noah. He says, I will make my covenant with you. He goes into the ark. The flood happens. He comes out of the ark and God starts laying these things out.

Do you see how God is referencing everything that happened in the garden? He's bringing all of that forward, right? You are made in my image. I have made you in my image. This flood was sent by the Lord to address the problem, which was all the violence and the death and the killing of those who were in the image of God.

He's now addressing that issue right here and putting a hampering stop to it by saying, if any man starts killing another person, if one made in the image of God starts shedding the blood of somebody else, murder, violence like that, then they themselves will be subject to the capital punishment, execution.

So God is putting a stop. When you look later on at the Ten Commandments, you're going to find that, as we talked about early on, that there is a pattern of concentric parallels in the Ten Commandments.

And at the heart of it, at the very heart of that pattern is the commandment, thou shalt not murder. And remember that the covenants that God makes are in the pattern of and addressing the image of God, loving him supremely, loving others rightly, and stewarding creation responsibly.

Here in this creation covenant, in this covenant, he is saying, do not murder. So we're going to come back to that later on.

But why?

Because of who God is and the fact that he has made us in his image. Verse 8, then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him saying, and as for me, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.

Thus I establish my covenant with you. Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. So he's saying, he's establishing a covenant with him.

There's something formal here. He's saying, these are my promises. This is what I promise to do. This is who I make my promises to, to Noah, to your descendants, to all of humanity following. Because we're all coming from Noah and Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

And then he says also to all of the creatures, he says, this is my promise. I'm not going to destroy the whole earth with a flood again. And he formalizes this even further by giving a sign of the covenant.

And what is the sign of the covenant? Right, so he says, I set my bow in the cloud, right? And so it was interesting, it was May 31st, 2014, when I first came in view of a call here. Beautiful, deep gray clouds over on one side of the city and a very perfect rainbow.

It almost got one of those double rainbows going, you know. It's beautiful, isn't it? And so he says, this is a sign. Verse 14, it shall be when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember.

Remember when God remembers something? It's not that he's recollecting the information that he forgot, but he's acting on a promise that he has made. So he remembers, he says, I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.

The water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.

And God said, this is the sign of the covenant, which I've established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. Just a quick question, when do you see the rainbow in the cycle of the storm?

What?

Yeah, at the end of the storm, right?

All right.

There's a break in the storm. There's a break in the rain. There has to be in order for you to see that rainbow, right? Now, every time that happens, every time that happens, what should we be saying to ourselves?

God keeps his promises. He is remembering his covenant that he made with Noah and all of his descendants, which means me. And the covenant that he made with all these birds I hear twittering after the fresh rain, with all the creatures that God has made.

He is remembering his promise that he is not going to destroy and flood this earth again, even though we still are sinful. And boy, do we ever deserve it, right? That promise, that covenant, that sign of grace, every time we see that.

And so, in this fashion, God is saying and proving he is creator. He made it all. He's the judge of all mankind and all of creation. He proved that by judging all of creation and judging all of mankind through the flood.

And then God restarts and refreshes the entire thing and talks to Noah like he had talked to Adam. And as he speaks with Noah, once again, we notice that there is no room for any other God to operate.

Right?

There is the creator and then there's all of creation. He owns it all and he has declared what he's going to do with it. Because we are made in the image of God, therefore, there shall be, no one should murder somebody else because we're made in the image of God.

And this is the covenant that he makes. So he makes these promises and what is he addressing in this covenant?

Okay.

Well, he's saying, you are to adhere to me. I am your creator. Because of who I am, now you know who you are.

Right?

So you see that in the Noahic covenant, God is establishing this vertical relationship and saying, this is who I am, therefore, you know who you are. And here's how you're going to operate. Because I am creator and you are creation.

Because you're made in my image, here's how you're going to operate. And how we operate is going to be a certain kind of justice towards one another. You know, Cain murdered Abel. And God put a mark upon Cain to stem the violence and stop the violence.

Well, we see what happened with Lamech descended from Cain. He's accelerating the violence. So he takes God's good gift of grace and mercy. And he says, well, if Cain be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech be avenged 77-fold.

And he's twisting the goodness of God and trying to accelerate the sin and the violence, which we, of course, see in the beginning of chapter six of Genesis. So God, in making this Noahic covenant, covenant with Noah and his descendants and all the created order, he says, here's how you're going to relate to one another.

Do not murder. And if anybody murders, they need to be killed. And that's how we're going to stop and stem the violence. And also, he says more than once to Noah, you are going to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it.

You're going to have dominion over not just the plants, but also the animals. The animals are food for you. But not to do whatever you want. Okay, you are going to properly prepare the food. And if there is an animal that sheds the life of a man, then you're going to have to execute that animal, kill the animal.

So you see how in the covenant, what does God address? He addresses the relationship between himself and man, between man and man, and man and the created order. Because that's what all was messed up and broken.

So that's what he begins to restore in this covenant that God makes with Noah. And particularly, we're thinking about the first commandment. We see God being highlighted as Noah's everything, right? Declaring everything that Noah needs to know.

How every way that Noah needs to think. Noah is offering worship to this creator, to this God, and this God alone. And even later on throughout the chapter nine, you see that that worship continues. Now, of course, this covenant is dealing with the issue of sin in the world, violence and death in the world, stemming the tide of the problem.

So we see that the problem yet remains. God says, I flooded the whole earth and still the heart of man is unchanged. It's still wicked from his youth, he says. It's filling up his heart. But he has a promise here that the future is not going to be one where he's going to destroy everything again.

In fact, his promise is one of preservation and one of life. We also see an emphasis on the sacred nature of blood. You're not going to eat the blood with the animals and then later on that becomes a platform for later things that God reveals in his covenant with Israel.

And he deals with the matter of justice.

All right.

If a man sheds the blood of another man, then that man deserves to die. And we see the beginning of that eye for eye, tooth for tooth principle that later on gets elaborated on. But we get an idea of what God's justice demands.

And if there's going to be any satisfaction of God's justice, it's going to have to be one for one.

All right.

So, we begin to see some of these principles of ultimately the hope that we have in the gospel being set forth. So, we see this restoring and revealing relationship that the creator formalizes with man, with Noah.

And we see that there's to be worship of God and God alone. What would happen if Noah's descendants stopped worshiping this one true God in whose image that they are made? What if they worship other gods?

What would happen?

And they're going to experience punishment. But what would happen to this principle? Whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed for in the image of God, he made man. What if they don't worship that God anymore?

Then where's the restraint from murdering each other?

Right?

If Moloch is your God, then you offer your kids to the fire. Same with Chemosh. Whatever it takes to impress the God of our land. To beat the God of the neighboring land. And let's go kill each other and consume each other.

Survival of the fittest God.

Right?

But as long as God remains our God, then we see things his way. And I restrain my hand from murdering my neighbor because of who God is, not because of who my neighbor is. After all, didn't God say he's restraining his hand from flooding the earth again, even though we deserve it?

And since my neighbor is made in the image of God and I am too, maybe my neighbor deserves to be beat to a pulp. He's made in the image of God. I'll restrain my hand. That's not my job. That's the creator's job.

You see how that works? So the same follows for when we think about the other covenants. Just a quick review. Where did Abraham come from? In Joshua 24, it says he was an idolater. He came from Babylon and he was worshiping idols just like everybody else was.

When God grabbed a hold of him and told him to come to a new country, he promised Abraham that all the nations would be blessed in him, in his seed. And Abraham had a little hard time believing that since he didn't have any heirs.

Even his nephew Lot split from him in chapter 13. But we see God's blessing on Abraham when he goes to war in chapter 14 of Genesis. And he worships God and God alone, does he not? After he defeats Chedder-Laramore and the other mercenary armies and brings back the captives and the spoils from Sodom and Gomorrah, Adam, Zeboiim, and Zoar, they bring it back and they stop by the city of Salem where Melchizedek, king of righteousness, priest of God most high reigned.

And they stop there because Abraham worships God and God alone. And God comes to him in chapter 15 and says, I will be your reward and your shield. And he's like, I don't have any children, so who am I going to leave that reward to?

And the word of God came to him and made promises to him about his descendants and his place and brought him out to look at the stars, as many as the stars of the heavens, so shall your descendants be.

And Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And then they have a covenant ceremony in which animals are cut in two and Abraham chases the birds off and God walks alone by symbol through the middle of the torn animals, making a solemn promise to Abraham that this was going to come to pass.

All his promises to Abraham about descendants and a land and so on would be fulfilled. And also gives a sign in chapter 17 of Genesis, the sign of circumcision. So the sign of the Noahic covenant is the rainbow.

The sign of the Abrahamic covenant is that of circumcision. The rainbow saying, I'm not going to destroy all life again. Life is going to continue by the grace of God. Sign of circumcision pointing back to Genesis 3, 315.

There's a seed coming. There's going to be a child heir, a son who will reign.

Who is it?

Is it this one? Is it this one? Which son will it be? And they live with that hope in that Abrahamic covenant. And Paul says that the seed is Christ. The seed is Jesus, born of a woman, born under the law.

Jesus the Christ was the one who was promised. Now, we see Abraham worshiping God alone, even to the point of believing that God would raise his son from the dead by obeying the Lord and offering his son Isaac upon the altar and killing his own son by the instructions of God.

Knowing that even if that's what God told me to do, I'm going to do it. Even if he does die, I know God can raise him back from the dead. We see Abraham's priority, his commitment to worshiping God. God and God alone and to worship no one and nothing else.

Now, right before Abraham, we have the story of Babel. The nations separate. The table of nations in chapter 10. How is what God said to Noah and to his descendants even going to work if all of the peoples are separated from one another?

That's why God comes to Abraham and makes him a promise. All the nations, all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and your descendants. So the problem was separation, but here is an idea of the gathering back in.

But the problem remained, did it not? The problem remained as we move forward because we see that there is a constant cleaving between Gentiles and Jews, Gentiles and Israelites. There's the children of Abraham, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and there's everybody else.

And there was a great divide there. So in a sense, the problem remained. But even as the sin problem remained and the covenant of Noah is resolved in Christ, even as the separation problem that was addressed remains in the Abrahamic covenant, that is resolved in Christ because he's the seed in whom all the nations are blessed and he gathers them together.

We see Abraham worshiping God and God alone, and it does address the image of God. We have God saying to Abraham, the idolater, I will be your God, you will be my people, trust my promises, believe in me.

We have God telling Abraham how he is to relate to everyone around him from Pharaoh to the to conquering foreign nations in chapter 14, telling him, you know, this land, walk it. So not only the people and also, of course, promises of his descendants.

But then God telling Abraham, walk the length and the breadth of the land that I have promised.

You.

I'm going to give it to you and to your descendants. Walk it. And Abraham did. And he went and wherever he went, he built altars to the Lord. Everywhere he went in the whole land, the whole land of Canaan.

And so he walked by faith. He didn't possess the land for himself, but he did worship God wherever he went throughout the land. So we'll have to talk a little bit more about Abraham next time. But the idea that God should be worshiped alone and nobody else was not new in the law.

The uniqueness of the Lord and worshiping him alone was an emphasis in the days of Noah, an emphasis in the days of Abraham. And it was still sin to worship anybody else. As Romans 5 says, there was sin before there was the law.

And it was a sin for those made in the image of God to worship anybody or anything else. Okay, so we'll leave it there and we're going to come back next time as the Lord wills, finish up our talk about Abraham and then look at Israel and David and the new covenant.

Okay.

All right, let's close with the doxology.