Episdoe 254 - "Humanity is made in the image of God" - Genesis 9:1-7 - part 2

Gen. 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

Gen. 9:6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man,

by man shall his blood be shed,

for God made man in his own image.

Gen. 9:7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

Last week, I focused primarily on the first three verses of chapter 9 and the LORD's curious and perhaps disturbing proclamation regarding the relationship between humanity and animals. What should be obvious to all readers is that through the flood, God has not reset things back to the perfect condition in which he created the earth. He’s already made it clear that the evil tendencies of humanity will continue. Yet, he still blessed Noah and his sons and gave them the same command that he’d given Adam. In other words, life is going to continue for some time, and it will not be easy or perfect. In fact, one of the sources of sustenance for humanity would be meat. There is somewhat of a paradox in that proclamation because God had created the animals and pronounced them “good.” When God made Adam and gave him responsibility for naming the animals, we get a picture of harmony between beast and man. However, after the flood, that relationship significantly changed. As we continue looking at this narrative, perhaps we can better understand what God is doing in light of what else is revealed.

After we read in verse three, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything,” God provided a severe qualification for this provision that required they not eat the flesh with its blood. (v. 4) If I understand this correctly, the idea is that a living being’s life force is in the blood. If someone was going to kill an animal for meat, the blood must be drained from the flesh. It would be hung up, and the blood allowed to drip into the ground. The picture is that of the people respecting the animal's life and God’s provision enough to give the life force back to God.

So, as we are trying to piece together an explanation of why God is allowing this, it would make the most sense to understand this allowance or provision as a gracious act of provision for humanity. Indeed, this is not the ideal from what we know about God’s creation in Genesis 1. But absolutely nothing else is ideal anymore. The sin of people has had a devastating effect upon every aspect of life and has led God to bring this great act of judgment upon a great rebellion, and now this “reboot” of sorts is not a new creation with perfect people. God already knows that. But we haven’t yet encountered the seed of the woman that will crush the head of the serpent. Things are still messed up. Yet, the LORD is not treating Noah and his sons with contempt but mercy. He blessed them. So, he offers this proclamation as a means of mercy, grace, and provision for survival in the still-broken world.

As I suggested last week, I even suspect the LORD understood or intended this act of gaining food by the killing of an animal to remind them that it was man’s sin that brought this about. By requiring the blood to be drained would be a reminder of the cost for that person to eat the meat. It’s an act of acknowledgment that this provision came from the LORD and the life force was being given back to God.

Verses 5-6, then make a subsequent qualification. While animal life is permitted to be taken, one cannot take the life of a person except in the case where that person has taken the life of another person. Later, when the Law was given, there were stipulations that allowed capital punishment. However, the primary point of our text is the distinction between animal and human lives. Humans are made in the image of God. In other words, there is a God-designed value of human beings that distinguishes them from animals.

This section concludes with a repetition of God’s blessing upon Noah and his family to reproduce and fill the earth.

This text is not about the justification for a barbeque. This text reveals that God wants us to understand his value for us. This section begins and ends with God blessing Noah and his sons. There is a strong emphasis on the value of humanity because they are made in God’s image. If we really believed that all humanity was highly valued by God, as explained in this section, how would this world look? I think it would be radically different.