Every time we see the rainbow we should remember God’s covenant faithfulness in sending the Redeemer to save a people for himself. Just as God had placed a rainbow in the sky to show his steadfast covenant fidelity, so there is a rainbow around the throne of Jesus Christ in glory (Rev. 4:3). We, like Noah, are beneficiaries of the mercy established in the Noahic Covenant in Jesus Christ.

The Noahic covenant was the first covenantal administration after God’s initial covenant promise to redeem and restore humanity (Gen. 3:15). It is also the first time that the word בְּרִית (Berith, translated Covenant) is used in the Scripture (Gen. 6:18). What has not been frequently observed, however, is how the Noahic covenant falls squarely in the realm of redemptive history.
Consider the following ways in which Noah and the Noahic covenant play a part in redemptive history:
1. The Redemptive Role of Noah as a Type of Christ
Noah was a type of Christ. He was a typical second Adam, a typical redeemer, and a typical rest giver. Like Adam, God gave Noah similar instructions with regard to being fruitful and multiplying, filling the earth and subduing it. He was not the second Adam but was a type of the second Adam who pointed to Christ.
Jesus is the second and last (eschatological) Adam who redeems his people and fulfills the creation mandates. Noah was a typical redeemer. Everyone with Noah on the ark was saved. Everyone in Christ is saved. Noah was not “the Redeemer.” He was a typical redeemer, providing typical redemption for all those who descended from him. Jesus came to redeem all those he represented spiritually.
Noah was a typical rest-giver. Noah’s name meant ‘rest.’ His father had named him ‘Rest,’ saying, “This one will give us rest from the ground which the Lord had cursed.” Noah only gives typical rest, as the remainder of the Bible bears witness to the ongoing need for redemptive rest.
Jesus is the one who finally and fully gives rest to the people of God and to the creation that was brought under the curse at the fall. He is the one who said, “Come unto me and I will give you rest for your souls.” He is the one who takes the curse on himself when he wears the crown of thorns—the symbol of the curse on the ground.
2. The Redemptive Foreshadowing of the New Creation
The book of Revelation tells us that the “new heavens and the new earth” will be the new Temple where God dwells fully and permanently with the redeemed. Noah and all of creation were together in the ark, as in a typical temple. This was foreshadowing the new creation-temple. Interestingly, the ark and Solomon’s Temple had three levels. It seems that the biblical data substantiates that the ark was a temple where God dwelt with his creation.
Noah also led the way into a typical new creation when he and his family stepped off of the ark and into a world that had been typically cleansed of pollution. Jesus brought about the new creation through his death and resurrection.
Noah knew that the flood had not really made “all things new,” because he sacrificed when he stepped off of the ark. The flood waters could never cleanse the evil out of the heart of man. God had destroyed the earth with a flood because “every intent of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).
God promised never to destroy the earth with a flood again because “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21).
Read More

Related Posts:

.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{align-content:start;}:where(.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap) > .wp-block-kadence-column{justify-content:start;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);row-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);padding-top:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);padding-bottom:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd{background-color:#dddddd;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-layout-overlay{opacity:0.30;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}
.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}

Subscribe to Free “Top 10 Stories” Email
Get the top 10 stories from The Aquila Report in your inbox every Tuesday morning.

We would like to offer a solution that could bring the deconstructors right back to their senses if they will only accept it. They should put aside their rage, ask God’s forgiveness, and call on the One who purchased and provided redemption for all of us at His own expense. Deconstructionism is really just another version of an age-old story. It’s really the same angry conclusion that many ancient Israelites and Judeans followed.

In the late 1990s, I was asked by a professor at a local community college to teach a class on Christianity in their Religion 101 course. I agreed and spent nearly an hour explaining the reliability of the Bible, the claims and some of the evidences regarding Jesus, His life, death, and physical resurrection. Of course, it was just an overview. Only so much can be done in an hour. Before we finished, I invited questions. An adventurous student raised his hand, certain he was going to stump me with something I had never heard. He asserted, “You can‘t trust the Bible. It has been translated over and over, and it is full of mistakes.” I thanked him for expressing his concerns and proceeded to hand him my Bible, asking him to provide us with a few examples of the errors. He was caught off guard a bit and sheepishly responded that he hadn’t actually read the Bible. I asked how it was, then, that he was so sure it was full of mistakes? He replied that he had heard that was the case. I pressed a bit more for the source of his knowledge on this topic. He didn’t know. I followed up, wondering who he had heard it from. Again, he had no recollection. I then posed a different question.
“Doesn’t it concern you that you are gambling your eternal destiny based on information that you picked up from a source you can’t recall, and from someone who may or may not be reliable? Doesn’t that bother you even a little bit?”
He and the group became more animated as I began pointing to very popular  seeming inconsistencies in the Bible and demonstrated how context resolves the alleged contradictions. I don’t know if any of them have come to the faith since those days, but it was a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate that asking questions is a good thing – and that there are solid answers for those who will take the time to investigate honestly. I have recalled that opportunity many times over the years when I interacted with those who know little about the Christian faith, as well as many who had been raised in the church and walked away. Perhaps they had been in an authoritarian group led by a false teacher like Bill Gothard and their view of Christianity was skewed. Many times, when we have interacted with “Gothardites” who have left the faith, we have to start with, “Just because God and Gothard both begin with “GO” and end with “D,” that doesn’t mean they are the same person. In many of these cases, they are unwittingly rejecting a caricature of Christianity and not the biblical faith itself.
There are now several new and “cool” names for those who have abandoned the church and left the faith. They are presently “deconstructing” – and call themselves “#exvangelicals.” But what are they deconstructing from? That is unclear. Even answering that question is difficult because, as Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett point out in their book, The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive, and How to Respond, it could mean anything from someone trying to sort out the true from the false to those who reject the Scriptures entirely and look for a “personalized” faith separate from the Bible. The way Childers and Barnett describe it is:
Faith deconstruction is a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without regarding Scripture as a standard.1
Read More
Related Posts:

We, too, will be glorified, because of Jesus. The day of true and final rest with God in heaven is coming. The day when we will experience complete freedom from sin and its consequences, the day when we will know full joy with God forever is our promised inheritance in Jesus. This life really is but a moment of time which quickly vanishes away.

One of the main themes in the Gospel of John is the full consecration of Jesus to do His Father’s will. Jesus was fully devoted to say and do only what pleased His Father. What brought glory to the Father, what the Father wanted Him to experience, what the Father wanted Him to accomplish or not accomplish—this was the wholehearted desire of Jesus.
Consecration to God, giving ourselves to God as living sacrifices, is what Christian living is all about. It is knowing God’s will and doing it. It is willingly giving each aspect of our lives to God in grateful devotion for the great salvation that He has given to us through Jesus (Rom 12:1-2). Previously, we wrote about this need for consecration, and specifically about the need to consecrate our health, security, and safety to God.
As we pursue greater dedication to God, we find encouragement through the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. To be like Jesus is our goal for daily life. Let’s consider together how the apostle John shows us Christ’s example of consecration in his Gospel.[1][2]
Jesus voluntarily accepted the Father’s will.
The Father’s will for God the Son was to experience shame and suffering for the sins of the world in ways far beyond our comprehension. The Son knew this, knew all of what He would suffer before He came to the earth. And yet, He completely accepted the Father’s will. He voluntarily did His Father’s will, trusting His goodness, sovereignty, and plan in everything.
3:14-16 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
3:34 For he whom God has sent utters the words of God.
8:42 Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
10:17-18 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.
12:27-28 Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”
Just as Jesus was sent to do the will of the Father, so are we. Jesus was completely committed to doing the Father’s will, and our ambition must be to do the same. This includes when His will means hardship and suffering. We must place our trust in the Father and purpose to do His will, even if He requires us to experience trials that we previously feared would ever take place. Job said, “For the thing which I fear is comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me” (Job 3:25).
Jesus did the Father’s will in all of life’s circumstances.
4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.”
Read More
Related Posts: