♰ Bible Study by Abouna Angelos Noah Last time: The corruption entered through the heart. St. Isaiah the Solitary on the guarding of the intellect as the door to the heart. Go hold your weapon. Stand at the door of your heart (which is your mind). Read this until you learn it. You will not get angry with sin in your heart until you give up your will. This time: We are going to look into the bigger picture of the book of Genesis. Genesis: • 50 chapters • 4 major events that shape eternity • 3 covenants • 4 patriarchs Events • Creation ... 1-2 • Fall ....... 3 • Flood ...... 6-9 • Babel ...... 10ff (*) -- • Abraham and Isaac 12-24 -- • Jacob and Joseph 25-50 (*) division into nations; no mixing again Covenants • Adam & Eve (couple, man & wife, household of garden and earth) • Noah (patriarch, big family) • Abraham (three promises -> 3 + 3 covenants) Patriarchs • Abraham • Isaac • Jacob • Joseph (his 2 sons become 2 tribes) Now back to ... The flood and the covenant of Noah “Take drink of it all of you, this is the blood of the new covenant.” Covenant = blood relationship created by a binding oath between non-family members. Example: David and Jonathan. Promise and swear that you will not hurt my children and treat them as yours. This is exactly what David did. Abimalek asked Abraham for a covenent to end the fighting over wells in Beersheba (“well of the seven”, translated “well of the oath”). In Hebrew “seven” is a homonym for “swear,” so “seven” and “oath” is the same thing in Hebrew. Bathsheba (sheba = seven = oath). When they seven themselves they are putting themselves under an oath of God. What does this mean? I cross my heart, hope to die, poke my eye. What does it mean? If I am lying, let God curse me and let me die. So swearing an oath is the fundamental item in a covenant. In marriage, the husband and wife are swearing an oath not to betray, not even in their dreams, not even in their fantasies. Genesis 21:22-34 22 And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech and Phichol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in all that you do. 23 “Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me, with my offspring, or with my posterity; but that according to the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me and to the land in which you have dwelt.” 24 And Abraham said, “I will swear.” 25 Then Abraham rebuked Abimelech because of a well of water which Abimelech's servants had seized. 26 And Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, nor had I heard of it until today.” 27 So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. 28 And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. 29 Then Abimelech asked Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs which you have set by themselves?” 30 And he said, “You will take these seven ewe lambs from my hand, that they may be my witness that I have dug this well.” 31 Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there. 32 Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba. So Abimelech rose with Phichol, the commander of his army, and they returned to the land of the Philistines. 33 Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. 34 And Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines many days. What is difference between covenant and contract? Contract = binding mutual exchange of goods and services. Covenant = exchanging of persons = usually involves sacrifice. That’s why there were lambs and oxen in that covenant with Abimelech. When a covenant is broken, there is curse. When a contract is broken, there is loss of goods. A covenant is between a higher and a lesser party. I’ll give you the promised land; in return, come out of your family and come to mine. A contract can be between two lesser parties. The covenant is the swearing, the number seven. The creation is an implied sevening, swearing. When it comes in Noah, he is renewing that covenant in the rainbow of seven colors. In the first two covensnts, Adamic and Noahic, they are simple. Adamic don’t eat the tree. Noahic nothing; I’m going to protect man. Abraham gets more complicated. Covenant, family bond of flesh and bones. Genesis = relationships between fathers and sons. The whole story is looked at as father son relationships. First one: God+Adam: son, you have to listen to me; son breaks it; not loyal. First son of Adam, Adam, Cain, Abel, Seth. Cain was the epitome of the anti-Christ, a horribly evil person. The first-born of Noah? We’ll talk about him now. The story of the flood Genesis 6:3 3 And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” James 4:1-6 1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? 6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Proverbs 3:34 34 Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble. So the human problem is: 1. Lust and 2. Violence God is going to take these sins personally. We belong to him. Our bodies, minds, spirits are his temple. Genesis 6 ... And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.... Covenant: Noah will build the ark and be God’s son. God will protect Noah. A recurring theme of male + female. This is about marriage, love, family. Eight persons, four couples. St. Peter is going to mention this. Genesis 7 Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.... Notice the emphasis on the male and female, husbands and wives. 1 Peter 3:18-22 Complex. Let’s break it down. 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through (or by) water. 21 There is also an antitype which now saves us: baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him. Jude brings an interpretation from the prophecy of Enoch. Jude 12-15 12 These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; 13 raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. 14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, 15 “to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” Enoch was the first person to prophesy the flood. What kind of people could stand this lust and violence? Could the eight people stand it? If God left this family alone, what would happen to the human race? What would God do? To produce a family for God, to eventually end up with the Israelites in the promised land, to prune them, to train them, until you actually have people who could respond to God in a profound way? How can God give a chance to a Holy Family to survive? “I’m going to give them a chance by taking them out of their flesh, to send my Son, to deal with them later. I am going to give Noah and his family through water.” He saved them from the sin that permeated the whole world. By cleansing them. He is going to do it again: take the Isarelites out of Egypt, clean them, bury the Egyptians in the water. Type: Anti-type: Baptism is not the cleaning of flesh. It is the answer of good conscience toward God. What is the main question in Baptism? Did you believe that the Father had sent His Son and that he died on the cross and that the Father raised him up again? If Yes, I will SURVIVE the water. Otherwise, I’ll be KILLED by it! We were buried with him and risen with him by baptism in the water, with the faith in the resurrection. Beliefs: 1. Trinity 2. Mission of the Son (Paschal Mystery) God says to Noah: do you believe that I will save you? Noah says Yes. So build yourself an Ark; I will save you. The water saved him from sin, the ark saved him from death. The main agent that God is sending is the water. That is our Baptism. All the mysteries are faith in action. Our faith is not words. It is action. (See 1 Cor 4:20.) Baptism is an act not just a belief. “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead” (James 2:26) and “the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power.” (1 Corinthians 4:20) Matthew 12 38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” 39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 “The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. Next, beginning of the covenant with Abraham. Homework: The covenant with Noah • Who falls under it? • What are the promises? • What are the stipulations?