Working on Noah

[mfblume]

I have a thought, brethren. And it is ministers from whom I would like to get some feedback.

Gen 9:1-6 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. (2) And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth [upon] the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. (3) Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. (4) But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. (5) And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. (6) Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

The above passage indicates very similar thoughts to what God said to Adam.

(1) Adam can eat of all fruit.

(2) The only fruit he cannot eat of, is the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil lest he die.

(1) Noah can eat of all flesh.

(2) The only flesh Noah cannot eat of is flesh without shed blood.

(Sounds like the Gospel, doesn't it! -- Fruit of Life is akin to flesh shed of its blood).

Here is my thought. There are two ways to consider the last part of the passage concerning shedding MAN'S BLOOD!

I got the thought today how that a PATTERN is seen in the thought of mentioning shed animal blood followed by shed man's blood. Notice the specific way it is read. Noah cannot eat animal flesh without its blood already shed. And then instead of saying, "And Noah, you cannot kill man and shed his blood," it says the same thing only in a certain way from which we can see a message.

HOW it is written is amazing.

It then says, in effect, "And surely your blood will be shed if you shed another man's blood."

Now, my thought is this. It was certainly negative to Noah's thinking. But from our standpoint, considering the Gospel, it is positive! We must eat flesh that has its blood shed. This speaks of the Lord who shed His blood that we might have eternal life. A man whose blood was shed by others, demands the other's lives be taken in death! We were crucified with Him. He died AS us! So we could resurrect again!

That corresponds to Adam's allowance to eat fruit of life. Eat flesh whose blood is shed, not flesh without it's blood shed. And MAN'S blood that is shed, who is the image of God (see this reason in verse 6), counts as one's own blood being shed. SUBSTITUTION. The "image of God" reagrds Jesus!

In other words, as soon as Noah shed a man's blood, he might as well count it as his own blood shed, for he will surely die. And this is the Gospel! Christ's shed blood counts as our shed blood, for we are crucified with Him! He died in substitution as us! And that is a good thing.

But my dillemma is that there is a parallel with Adam's command and this command to Noah, that sort of breaks the type.

"Adam, you can eat of any fruit of the garden. Just do not eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. You will die if you eat of it."

"Noah, you can eat any flesh. Just do not eat flesh without its blood shed. (AND WATCH THIS...: ) You will die if you shed MAN'S blood."

The dying in Adam's case is bad. But, by type only, it is good in Noah's case. It is not good by type in Adam's case.

God is trying to tell me something here. Is anyone out there catching something about this?

Maybe they're both right and I simply have to preach them as different messages. I was just wondering how the two thoughts of Adam's death and Noah's death might go together --- somehow!

[Adoniyah]

Brother Blume:
Very interesting.

These are contradistinctions that I have never really thought about to any great extent. Certainly, they are worthy of consideration. I can see where there would be much good food for thought here.

[mfblume]

Hi brother Strange!

I preached a message in 2001 about the fruit of death being akin to the flesh not shed of its blood. Amongst all the comparisons between Adam and Noah, such as the note to be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth, both were told to be careful what they ate.

Life is compared to Noah's allowance to eat flesh whose blood was shed. The fruit of death is the knowledge of good and evil, and was compared to flesh without shedding of blood.

I had a great time dwelling on the thought that much christianity is without the teaching of the shed blood of Jesus. It is more akin to the knowledge of good and evil! Stress upon works of man and what we can DO or NOT DO, is simply acting upon having knowledge of what is good and what is evil! There is no life in that! It's SPIRITUAL DEATH being administered, making the comers thereunto even worse!

One does not need the Holy Ghost if one simply requests a list of do's and don't's in order to make it to glory! My, my! One does not even need Jesus' shed blood! See the drift?

Anyway, I stopped as far as Genesis 9:5 back then, and held the rest on reserve for later. I recognized this before when God was coming on my spirit with something. There is something here I am not quite getting. But God is faithful! He will show it in time!

But here is some I got yesterday.

God gave Noah some terms to live by and included some thoughts that form a pattern of the Gospel.

Noah was not to eat certain flesh.
- It was the flesh that still retained blood in it.
- The blood of beasts must be shed before Noah could eat it.
- No preparation of shed blood in the meat meant the meat could not be used for food.

But then Noah is immediately told that to shed man’s blood would mean the shedding of his own blood.

He is not told to NOT SHED MAN’S BLOOD in that manner.
- Of course that is what is implied.
- But the way it is worded is interesting.

So, we know he was not meant to shed man’s blood.
- However, because God simply said, “And if you shed man’s blood you must have your own blood shed,” that manner of speaking leaves the picture open for us to catch something about the Gospel of Jesus.

Speaking of shed blood in verse 4, we read next that should Noah shed a man’s blood in verse 5 and 6, then Noah’s blood must be shed.
- In other words, it’s just as good as Noah being killed if he killed another man.
- Substitution is the principle at work here.
- That was a bad thing in Noah’s day.
- Who would want to slay a man and die because of it?

And God’s reason in verse 6 is that a man is the image of God.

Gen 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

The way it is worded here obviously implies Noah should not kill a man.
- But we do not read “And you shall not shed a man’s blood.”
- The way it is worded simply states that he must not eat flesh without it’s blood shed, and also that God will require his life if he sheds man’s blood.

Because man is God’s image and is killed, then the killer must die as well.

But think of it in terms of Jesus as IMAGE OF GOD.
- Because Jesus was the image of God that He was, HIS DEATH causes us to die in a positive way!
- It must be understood that mankind killed Jesus Christ.
- Although the Jews and Romans directly slew Him in rejection of Him, all humanity slew Him.
- The human race slew him in the sense that we became sinners and it drove Christ in His love to die for us.
- He had to die if He was going to redeem us due to His love.
- So in that sense we caused His death.
- If it were not for our sins, He would never have died.
- He would not have been required to die.

Noah’s command was similar to Adam’s commandment.

Gen 2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: (17) But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

But God told Noah, “Of all flesh you may freely eat. But of the flesh whose blood has not been shed, thou mayest not eat of it. When you shed man’s blood, then you shall surely die.”

God even used the term SURELY as he did to Adam…

(5) And surely your blood of your lives will I require

It’s almost as though it were saying… “You must eat flesh of a beast whose blood has been shed, because it’s a picture that you will die if you shed man’s blood.”

That’s bad for Noah… but the Gospel message makes that a good thing for us!

We even read that the man’s blood must be shed who sheds another man’s blood because man is the image of God.

Because a man is killed, the image of God is killed.
- Man is on a higher level than all other creatures.
- Man is God’s image.
- Shedding a beast’s blood does not give cause for one to die.
- But shedding man’s blood demands death!

Speaking of BLOOD and the IMAGE OF GOD… we read.

Col 1:13-15 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated [us] into the kingdom of his dear Son: (14) In whom we have redemption through his blood, [even] the forgiveness of sins: (15) Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

We have REDEMPTION through the substitution!

Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God!
- His blood was shed.
- THAT REDEEMS US by SUBSTITUTION.
- And Noah’s law said that the one who sheds a man’s blood is just as good as having his own blood shed.
- He might as well count himself as dead as soon as he slays another man.
- He will die, as well.
- Substitution.
- The cause for the other man’s death means one’s own death.

Jesus’ death does indeed count as our deaths far more than one might assume in reading it into this law to Noah.
- It was a negative thing that was spoken to Noah.
- Noah would not want to shed blood of another man, lest his own blood be shed.
- However, this pattern is seen in Christ’s death and is a positive death!
- Our lives are taken because His life was taken!
- And that is a good thing!
- Because He is the true image of God, His death counts as our deaths.
- It’s as good as though we were dead!

Rom 6:6-7 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (7) For he that is dead is freed from sin.


Heb 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

Through death, Jesus destroyed the devil who had the power of death.
- He destroyed the devil’s hold on us.
- Death had to come upon man, so God took that doom and made salvation come from it.
- The devil had the power of death and had it hanging over man’s head.
- So God used that very principle of death to save man.
- Man had to die because of sin, so God used that and said “Then, once man dies, he’s free from sin.”
- Satan might say, “Sure! But his life is gone and it will be said he lived a life of sins and he will burn in hell because of them!”
- But God responded, saying, “Not if I SUBSTITUTE my death for their’s. That makes them free from sin and able to enjoy a life afterwards without sin. And ‘life without sin’ means no hell!”

And He used SUBSTITUTION to work and came in flesh and DIED as us, to take care of the deaths we had to die.

Let me play on the words of a chorus we sing…

He paid a DEATH He did not owe.
I owed a DEATH I could not pay.

God had to have Christ slain in order for us to be saved from sin.

Everyone who proudly refuses to accept that we have sin, and that our faith in Christ’s death “as us” causes God to remove our sins, will not see the need for Jesus Christ’s death.
- That death, therefore, will not count as their own deaths.

We required that death because our sins deserved death.
- When we say Christ had to die for us, we are saying we agree we had sin, and a death had to be offered for it.
- And if we do not claim Christ’s death as our own deaths, then we will actually die in sin ourselves one day, and be lost forever.
- Either way, there has to be a death!
- Take His death as your own, or die for yourself and be lost.

I would rather have His death’s substitution for my death instead of direct death itself.

Direct death is what Noah would experience for shedding man’s blood.
- However, the pattern and the manner in which it is written shows us the Gospel truth!
- We need substitutionary death of Jesus to occur.
- Noah would directly die should he shed man’s blood.
- But we believed in Jesus’ shed blood as offered by us through claiming it as so, and are dead by substitution only.
- It’s just as good!
- The pattern allows us to see a positive note in this when we consider Jesus’ death.

God took advantage of that law, and turned it around so it would work out for the good for us!

God took a wrong people and turned them, who believed, back up right through the Gospel!

[Adoniyah]

Brother Blume:

You need to put that on your web-site if you have not already. This is very good. I do not know of a thing that I could add to what you have said here, without giving it a great deal more thought.

I wouuld have to add only a hearty "amen," and "preach it, brother."

With Love...

[mfblume]

Wow, brother. It's actually incomplete, so I left it so far. I was going to preach on it yesterday morning, but feel there are more loose ends yet to be tied.