God's Covenant With Creation
(being the substance of a sermon preached by Rev.
Ronald Hanko
at Covenant Reformed Fellowship, Ballymena, Northern Ireland
Sabbath morning March 17th 1996)
In our study of God's covenant we have on previous
Lord's Days spoken of different matters. We have seen that the covenant
is not a contract or agreement, but a relationship; that the origin and
source of God's covenant with His people is in the Divine Trinity and in
the relationship between the three Persons of the Trinity; that Christ
in our flesh is the Mediator of the covenant; that there is only one
everlasting covenant of God; and that the one covenant of God has
different revelations or dispensations throughout history.
We have also seen that
the first revelation of the covenant was to our father Adam in paradise,
a dispensation of the covenant that is sometimes referred to as
"the Covenant of Works." When Adam fell God revealed His
covenant faithfulness to Adam and Eve and their descendants in His
dealings with them and in the promise of Genesis chapter 3 verse 15. But
after that there was not another significant revelation or dispensation
of the covenant until the time of Noah.
Genesis chapter 8 verse
15 through Genesis chapter 9 verse 17 record the revelation of the
covenant that God gave to Noah. That covenant with Noah has some unique
features, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to see how it can be
a revelation of God's one everlasting covenant of grace. It seems at
first glance to be, as dispensationalism teaches, a separate covenant
altogether, especially because God speaks of this covenant being
established with "every living creature of all flesh" (Genesis
ch. 9 v. 15), "of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of
the earth."
I will, therefore, be
speaking of this revelation of God's covenant as His "Covenant
With Creation." In speaking of that covenant, I wish to show
you three things. First, I want to show that there is such a
covenant of God with the creation and that it is part of God's
one everlasting covenant of grace. Secondly, I would like to
point out some of the unique features of this covenant of God with
creation. Especially I want to connect this revelation of the covenant
with the work of Christ as the Mediator and Head of the covenant. And, thirdly,
I want to answer the question, "Why does Scripture speak of that
covenant?" It might seem to you and me, that even if there is such
a covenant of God with the creation, that it has nothing to do with US.
But if you keep this question in mind throughout our study, you will not
only see that Scripture has an answer for it, but perhaps you will even
come to the answer before I do.
In our study, then, we
will be looking not only at Genesis chapters 8 and 9 but also at some
other Old and New Testament passages that shed God's light on Genesis
chapters 8 and 9. Those passages are Jeremiah chapter 33 verses 19
through 26, Romans chapter 8 verses 19 through 22, Colossians chapter 1
verses 19 through 21, and Revelation chapter 21 verse 1. May God speak His
Word to us in them.
First: Turning to
Genesis 9:9-10, we read there what God said to Noah:
"And I, behold I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed
after you." That is not much different from what God said to others
with whom He established His covenant, to Abraham, (Genesis 17:7), to David (Psalm
89:3-4), to Israel (Exodus 6:4-5), or to us (Acts 2:39). However, in Genesis 9:10,
God adds "and with every living creature that is with you, of the
fowl, or the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you, from all
that go out of the ark ..."
God is saying: "I
will establish my covenant with the birds, with the cattle, and with all
the beasts of the earth." That is what we are referring to as God's
"Covenant With Creation." And God speaks of that covenant with
creation again in the verses that follow, especially in verse 13 (of
Genesis 9): "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for
a token of a covenant between me and the earth." And again
in verse 15 God shows us plainly that the covenant referred to is not
only His covenant with Noah and Noah's descendants. His covenant
embraces "every living creature of all flesh."
The rainbow is the sign
of that covenant. When you see a rainbow in the heavens, it arches over
the whole earth embracing, as it were, the whole order of created
things. Arching over God's world it is a sign that He has a covenant
with the creation.
Second: We should
see, that even though this covenant is established with every living
creature, it is not a different covenant from the covenant that
God establishes with His people. In Genesis 9:9-10
God does not establish one covenant with Noah and His descendants and
another with the creation. It is all one covenant. Not only that, but it
is the same covenant that God established with Abraham, with Israel,
with David and with us in Christ. The same language is used here in Genesis
9 that is used with every revelation of God's covenant in Scripture,
"I will establish my covenant with you and with your seed after
you" (cf. as above, Genesis 17:7, Exodus 6:4-5,
Psalm 89:4-5, and Acts 2:39).
That language, "I
will establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you,"
is the usual language of the covenant, and identifies this revelation
with every other revelation of God's covenant in Scripture. Only, here
in Genesis chapter 9 the covenant is also "with every living
creature that is with you." That makes this revelation of the
covenant unique. It is not the revelation of a different covenant, but
it is a new and different revelation of that one everlasting covenant of
God.
Third: Nor is
Genesis chapter 9 the only passage that speaks of this covenant of God
with the creation. Jeremiah 33:19-26 also refers
to it. In turning to Jeremiah 33, I want to remind you of that
question I asked at the beginning; "What does this covenant of
creation have to do with us, and what profit is there for us in speaking
of it?" To some extent Jeremiah 33 answers that question
and so we will be coming back to Jeremiah 33. Now, however, I
want to show you that Jeremiah does speak of such a covenant.
In Jeremiah 33:20-21, God speaks of His covenant of the day and of the
night: "Thus saith the Lord, if ye can break my covenant of the
day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and
night in their season, then may also my covenant be broken with David my
servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne."
God refers to that covenant again in verse 25.
There is, then, a
covenant of God with day and night—a part of God's creation. What is
more, the Word of God tells us in the rest of Jeremiah 33 that
the covenant with day and night involves God's appointing the ordinances
of heaven and earth (v. 25). In other words, when God appointed the law
(ordinance) that sets the sun in its place in the heavens, and the moon
and stars also, then He was making a covenant with the day and night.
And so it is with all the so-called "laws of nature." They all
belong to God's ordinances of heaven and earth and are part of His
covenant with creation, just as His moral laws are part of His covenant
with His people (Deuteronomy 5:2-3).
We see, too, from
Jeremiah 33 that this covenant with creation was not first made
with Noah, but goes all the way back to the beginning when God first
appointed those ordinances of heaven and earth. It was to Noah, however,
that God first revealed this part of His covenant, and He revealed these
things to Noah because at the time of the Flood He changed some of the
ordinances of that covenant, sending the seasons for the first time,
giving the animals to man for meat, lifting the curse from the ground,
but promising that He would not again change these ordinances
"while the earth remained."
Romans chapter 8:19-22 also speaks of the covenant with creation, but it takes us
a step farther. These verses do not use the word "covenant"
but the idea is there. The covenant comes into Romans 8:19-22 when the Word of God in those verses speaks of the final glory
of believers in terms of sonship. In glory we will be "manifest as
the sons of God" and will "enter into the glorious liberty of
the children of God." The manifestation of the sons of God is the
final realization and perfection of God's covenant, the highest glory of
that covenant relationship in which God is our God and we are His
people.
But if you read Romans 8:19-22 you will see that the creation also shall
participate in that glory of God's people: "The earnest expectation
of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God!"
The "creature" here refers to what we sometimes call the
"brute creation"—sun, moon, stars, planets, flowers, trees,
grass, beasts and birds. The brute creation "was made subject to
vanity (emptiness, uselessness)" (v. 20), that is, it no longer
served the purpose for which God had created it, and that as a result of
man's sin. This happened, "not willingly, but by reason of him who
hath subjected the same in hope." In other words, this did not
happen to the brute creation by its own act of wilful disobedience, but
came about as a result of Adam's sin (cf. Genesis 2:17-18).
Nevertheless, even the
creature is not without hope. Its hope is, as Paul says in verse 21,
that "the creature also itself shall be delivered from the bondage
of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
That will be the final realization of what God was talking about when He
spoke to Noah in Genesis 8 and 9. The creature itself also
shall be renewed and glorified with God's people. Then God's covenant
with creation will be consummated! That covenant, too, is sure and
everlasting!
Colossians 1:19-20 takes us even further into this truth. Verse 19
tells us that it is the eternal good pleasure and purpose of God that
"in Him (that is, in Christ) should all fullness dwell. Verse 20
makes it clear that the all fullness does not only include the fullness
of God's elect people, but the fullness of all things on earth and in
heaven: "And, having made peace, through the blood of his cross, by
him (by Christ) to reconcile ALL things unto himself; by him, I say,
whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven."
Now, you might say, Is
not that a reference to God's elect people and to the elect angels? Are
not they the "all things" to which the Word of God refers? But
the next verse makes it clear that God's elect people are not even under
discussion in verse 20! It is not until verse 21 that Paul begins to
speak of God's elect people: "And you," he says,
"that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath he reconciled ..." You too! but not only
you! God's purpose encompasses all things in heaven and in earth!
And that this purpose
has to do with His covenant we see from the word
"reconciliation." That is very much a covenant word in that
implies a relationship, first established, then violated, and finally
restored again. So, when God speaks of reconciling all things to Himself
by the blood of Christ's cross, He is no doubt speaking of the fact that
He will keep covenant with them forevermore.
Revelation chapter 21
verse 1 also speaks of these things. In the last chapters of Revelation
the Word of God takes us beyond the history of this present world to
those things that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard" (1 Cor. 2:9), things that God has prepared for those who love Him. In
speaking of such things Revelation
21 speaks first of a new heaven and a new earth. When John sees the
new Jerusalem (according to verses 9 and 10, the Church, the Bride, the
Lamb's wife) he sees also a new heavens and earth. The purpose and
covenant of God, you see, have to do not only with the church, that holy
city in which God dwells with His people and is their God, but with all
things. His covenant embraces not only the new Jerusalem and all
those who dwell therein, but the whole of the created order, cleansed,
renewed and glorified!
Revelation 21:1 is an important verse because it explains something that puzzles
a lot of people and leads them astray. They look at passages from the
Word of God, especially in the Old Testament, passages like Isaiah
11, that speak of the lion lying down with the lamb, and the bear
with the calf, and they conclude that there must be some future earthly
kingdom which we are still waiting for—a kingdom in which some of the
effects of sin will be overcome in this present world. But
Revelation 21 reminds us that such passages are not talking
about this present earth, but about the new heaven and the new earth—that heaven and earth "wherein dwelleth righteousness"
(II
Peter 3:13). In that new heaven and earth the lion will indeed
lie down with the lamb, for "the creature also shall be delivered
... into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
That, very briefly, is a
review of what the Scriptures teach concerning God's covenant with
creation, first revealed in all its splendour to Noah in Genesis8 and 9—not a second or third covenant, but part of the one
everlasting covenant of God, a covenant that embraces the whole created
order.
So then, by way of
continuing to look for an answer to the question, "Why does
Scripture speak of this covenant of creation?" we must see first
several other truths that Scripture teaches concerning this covenant. We
begin by going back once more to Genesis chapters 8 and 9.
From the last verses of
Genesis 8 we learn that this covenant is most emphatically in
Christ. You would expect that, of course. If this covenant is simply
another facet of the one everlasting covenant of God, it must be
in Christ. We learn that this is so from Genesis chapter 8:20-21: "And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every
clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the
altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his
heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake ..." And please understand that everything that God says and does in
revealing this covenant of creation follows from the fact that God
smelled a "sweet savour" in those sacrifices of Noah.
I hardly have to tell
you that the sweet savour God smelled in the sacrifices of Noah was not
the savour of burning flesh, but the sweet savour of Christ who was
pictured in those sacrifices. All the promises and revelation of God
concerning this covenant result from that. This covenant of God with
creation is, therefore, is as firmly established in Christ, as those
aspects of God's covenant that concern us.
Colossians 1
says the same thing. I did not say much about those verses when they
were under discussion earlier on, but Colossians 1:20 says
something that is not only difficult to understand but most amazing.
Remember now that Colossians 1:20 is not talking
about God's elect people, but about all other things in heaven and in
earth. Only in verse 21 does Paul begin to talk about us. In verse 20 he
is talking about everything else, angels, the brute creation—everything else but us, and he says, (please notice this) that all those
things, too, are reconciled to God by Christ and by the blood of the
cross! Not an easy passage to understand, is it?
It must, however, refer
first to the fact that sin has dragged all things out of their proper
relationship to God. The sin of Satan certainly affected the whole
heavenly order (especially if Satan, as some believe, was the chief of
the angels before his fall). The sin of man, too, had consequences for
the whole world in which he lives, so that even the ground was cursed
for his sake (Genesis 3:17). If you ever doubt the horror of sin,
then you should remember that. For the sake of Adam's sin even the very
ground on which he walked came under the terrible curse of God. That was
true, of course, because Adam was Head and King of the earthly creation
(Genesis 1:26).
Only through Jesus
Christ and through the blood of the cross are all things brought back
into their proper relationships to God and to the place God created for
them. They are all reconciled to Him through Christ. That does
not mean, of course, that Christ had to make atonement for birds,
beasts, trees, and angels. The word reconciliation is not the same as
the word atonement. It only means that because of man's sin and God's
curse all things needed to be brought back into a proper relationship to
God—they needed to be reconciled to Him and are reconciled in
Christ.
We should notice, too,
in this connection that "all things" in these passages has to
be understood in the same way as the references in Scripture to
"all men." In neither case does "all" mean "all
without exception" but means "all without distinction."
In other words, the "all" of Colossians 1:20
does not mean every individual thing that God created. In fact there is
no ground at all in Scripture for believing that the individual trees
and animals we have around us now will be in the new creation. But the
"all" does mean that all things that God has created will be
represented in the new heavens and earth.
There is a hint of this
in Revelation 4:8, where John sees the throne of God in
heaven in the midst of the four and twenty elders (the church), the
seven spirits, the four beasts, and the angels. Those four beasts, the
first like a lion, the second like a calf, the third like a man, and the
fourth like a flying eagle suggest the same thing as Colossians 1:20. Wild beasts (the lion), domestic beasts (the calf), man
himself, and flying fowls (the eagle) are all symbolically represented
before the throne. It must be so in order that God may be ALL AND IN ALL
for the glory of His Name.
All of this reminds us
that God who created all things and put the whole earthly order under
man's dominion, does not allow man, by his sin, to take ANYTHING away
from Him. All shall be renewed and have its place in the new heavens and
earth. All, in the end, will serve the purpose for which it was created.
"The creature also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God"
(Romans 8:21) and in hope of this it groans and travails together
even until now" (v. 22).
This, by the way, is
true Biblical universalism. Not every person shall be reconciled to God
and glorified, but God will gathers "together in one all things
in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even
in him" (Ephesians 1:10). Thus, God's world, His Cosmos,
will be saved, even though not every individual person or every thing in
it will be saved.
That brings us to our
last point and to the question we asked at the beginning.
Why does Scripture speak
of these things to us? What does all this have to do with you and with
me? Is there any profit for us in knowing these things? Is not our only
concern our own place in God's covenant and in the new heavens and
earth? Why should we care that God has made a covenant with His
creation and that in fulfilment of the covenant all things will
be gathered in one in Christ?
Starting with Colossians 1:20, we see that Scripture speaks of these things to
humble us. Colossians 1 reminds us that we are not everything
in the covenant of God. We have a place in that covenant, a very high
place as God's own children, but we are not everything and must not
think we are everything. God is so great, so high in glory, that His
glory is revealed finally in the ingathering of all things. He
must be ALL AND IN ALL. That, then, is first reason for speaking of
these things, that by them we may learn humility before God.
The second is to assure
us of God's covenant faithfulness.
Turning from Colossians
back to Jeremiah 33, we learn from that passage that God reveals His unchangeable faithfulness in His covenant with creation!
Jeremiah tells us that God is faithful in His covenant of the day and
night. Day and night have come in their turn for thousands of years
because God is faithful. He keeps His covenant with the day and night so
that those ordinances do not cease. Genesis 8:22 tells us
the same thing: "While the earth remaineth," God said to Noah,
"seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter,
and day and night, shall not cease."
So, in Jeremiah
33 the prophet says to us, "Do not you see that if God is
faithful in such things He will also be faithful to you? How can you
doubt the unchangeable faithfulness of your covenant God if He is
faithful even in His covenant of the day and night? Do you not
understand that though you are often unfaithful to Him, He will never be
unfaithful to you? No more than you can break His covenant of day and
night can you break His covenant of grace with you!"—"If ye
can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that
there should not be day and night in their season; then may also my
covenant be broken with David my servant ..." (Jeremiah 33:20-21). That is the second reason why we must know these things,
that we may be assured of and trust in God's faithfulness and grace and
not in our own works or strength.
In Romans 8 Paul
looks at the matter a little differently. There Paul wants to show us
how great the glory that shall be revealed in us really is. In verse 18
he says: "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in
us." Not worthy to be compared! It is not, however, always
so easy to believe that, is it? We have only heard of and not seen that
glory? How can we be sure it is really so great—worth everything? It
is no so easy to believe that all "the sufferings of this present
time," added up and weighed together, are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that is coming—not when you think of all the suffering
that is in the world at this moment!
Knowing our doubts,
therefore, Paul sets out to prove that the glory God has prepared is
indeed as great as he says. To prove it he speaks of a three-fold
groaning. Beginning with verse 23 he speaks of our own groaning in hope
as we wait for the "adoption" and "redemption of our
body." That is one evidence or proof that the glory is very great.
By the grace of God we desire that glory so strongly we groan while we
must wait for it. You do desire and groan for it, do you not? The
grace of God which makes you groan is one proof of the greatness of that
glory that shall be revealed in you! In verse 26 Paul also speaks of the
groaning of the Spirit as further proof of the greatness of that glory.
Even the Spirit of God prays for that glory for God's people with
unutterable groanings!
But here in verses 19-22 Paul gives another evidence of that great glory, the groaning
of the creation. Speaking as though the creation is alive like we are,
he describes it as groaning and travailing in hope for that glory that
shall be revealed in us. That glory is so great that even the creation
shall have a part in it and now groans for it. That is the proof,
therefore that the glory to be revealed is indeed incomparable. You
believe that, do you not? You must if you are to have hope in this life
and patience in suffering.
Finally, and above all,
the purpose of this revelation of God's covenant with the creation is to
magnify our Lord Jesus Christ, to exalt Him, and to show (as Paul says
in Colossians 1) that He has the preeminence in
everything. He is the One through Whom the whole purpose of the Father
is realized. He is the "for whom and by whom all things were
created," the One in Whom all fullness must dwell, and the One in
Whom all things are gathered in One. Who, then, is like HIM? And being
so exalted can we doubt that He also accomplishes the Father's purpose
with us? Will we not also someday dwell in Him in whom all things must
dwell? He who reconciles all things to God, is He not able also to
reconcile us? Doubt Him not. He is exalted as a Prince and a Saviour also
by those Scriptures that we have studied this evening. Put your faith
and trust in Him and you shall not be ashamed!
But it is not only
Christ who is exalted and magnified by this covenant of creation. His
blood is also—that blood of the cross of which Paul speaks in
Colossians 1:20. If you understand what Paul is saying in
that verse—that His blood is the means of reconciliation and peace for
ALL things, for you also who believe in Him, then you will understand
that there is NOTHING so precious as that blood of Christ. It is, as
Peter says (1 Peter 1:18-19), more precious than gold and
silver. Understanding that, you will see what power and value there is
in the blood of Christ to reconcile all things unto God, and you also!
Seeing that, you will smell what God smelled in the sacrifices of Noah,
the sweet savour of Christ crucified, and that savour will never cease to
be sweet to you.
That blood of Christ,
the "blood of the cross" stands, therefore, as the focus and centre
of everything, not only of our redemption, but of the
reconciliation of all things to God, to Whom alone be glory. May that
blood be the focus of our faith, that upon which we depend today and
always for life in the midst of death and for the hope of glory that eye
hath not seen nor ear heard!
AMEN
