Articles
A Reminder of God’s Faithfulness
Reading: Genesis 9
Noah and his family received the same commission from the Lord that Adam and Eve received at the beginning of creation: “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (v. 1). This was a soft restart to the human race; God took this moment to reestablish His own providence for mankind’s needs as well as the inherent value each person carries as an image-bearer of God Himself (6).
Here again we see the God of covenants making promises for the goodwill of His creatures. As an assurance that the same devastating judgment wouldn’t come upon the world again, a God set a rainbow in the sky to be a recurring sign of His own faithfulness to His promises (vv. 8-17). Yet despite their deliverance and blessings, Noah and his sons were not the final solution to the ongoing dilemma of sin. Noah gets drunk (21), and his youngest son shames him by telling his brothers of his compromised state (22).
This chapter serves as a stark reminder that if there is any cure to the broken state of human affairs, it cannot and will not come from human will, insight, or strength. Only God shows Himself to be perfectly faithful in His promises; as for us, we all know that it only takes a moment of weakness to fall short of God’s glory and His designs for us. In fact, it is not God who forgets of His own promises to do us good. The rainbow is there to remind us that He not only makes good promises, but keeps them perfectly.
