Why is it that God is so patient with the hard-heartedness of mankind after the flood? In short: the Noahic covenant! Yahweh is clear that post-flood mankind still has the same heart problem that has wreaked havoc on the earth since the original transgression in the Garden. So, the fear and dread he puts in the animals towards humanity, combined with the death penalty for murder,[9] as well as the command to be fruitful and multiply, are all concrete expressions of God’s common grace, whereby he promises to not wipe out humanity again in his wrath, and he curbs the effects of sin so that humanity does not destroy itself (see Gen. 9:1–7).

In last month’s theme on Genesis 1–11, I dealt with the Noahic covenant in some detail by engaging David VanDrunen’s teaching on it in relation to the covenant of creation/works/human nature/law. I made the case there that I found his interpretation and application of the Noahic covenant to be far too modest, insofar as he teaches that it holds out no hope of attaining the new creation and is merely a stopgap for sin which preserves the first creation. In essence, he singles the Noahic covenant out so that it alone accounts for how God rules over creation universally post-fall until new creation, and in so doing he is guilty of counting the limited word count of the Noahic covenant, without weighing its role within the larger narrative of Scripture.
In this essay, I aim to briefly highlight the Noahic covenant’s placement and role within the larger metanarrative of Scripture from a Progressive Covenantalist perspective. I believe VanDrunen would largely agree with the first three points to be introduced in this article, but would have significant reservations on points four and five, which I will unpack in part two. This is because he sharply demarcates common and redemptive grace and sees the Noahic covenant as non-redemptive. I however believe it brims with the promise and hope of the protoevangelium (“first gospel” promise) from Genesis 3:15.
As I stated in the previous essay, we must read each biblical covenant on its own terms and in keeping with its placement within the biblical storyline. In the words of Stephen Wellum, “By tracing out the covenants in this fashion, we are able to see how the entire plan of God is organically related and how it reaches its culmination and fulfillment in Christ . . . we will rightly see how the parts of God’s plan fit with the whole.”[1] To that end, I contend a proper understanding of the Noahic covenant is that it: (1) reaffirms the creation covenant, (2) reminds God and man of Yahweh’s promise to never destroy the earth in judgment again, (3) remains in force until Christ’s return, (4) renders two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man, and (5) reveals Yahweh’s covenant faithfulness while anticipating the greater glory of the new covenant. Again, in today’s essay I will discuss the first three points, and in tomorrow’s followup essay I will unpack points four and five.
The Noahic Covenant…
…Reaffirms the Covenant of Creation
The word covenant does not appear in the opening chapters of Genesis until Noah enters the scene (Gen. 6:18; 9:9). Peter Gentry has highlighted the important difference between “creating a covenant” (karat berit) and “renewing/establishing a covenant previously created” (heqim berit). He also rightly observes that only the latter phrase heqim berit is used for the Noahic covenant (Gen. 6:18; 9:9, 11, 17) as opposed to the normal expression for the creation of a covenant (karat berit). For example, karat berit is invoked when Yahweh initiates the Abrahamic covenant, but by using the language of heqim berit in the Noahic covenant God’s means “to affirm (verbally) the continued validity of a prior commitment—that is, to affirm that one is still committed to the covenant relationship as established or initiated previously.”[2]
This logic raises the question: if the first time(s) the word “covenant” is used in Scripture is Genesis 6 and 9, how can God speak of reaffirming a previous covenant? It is here that the Reformed tradition has rightly affirmed an original covenant of works/Adamic covenant, or what we Progressive Covenantalists would rather call the Creation covenant. A crucial prooftext for understanding the Noahic covenant to be a reaffirmation of a creation covenant is Hosea 6:7, which reads: “But like Adam [Israel and Judah] transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.” Passages like this one give sound biblical and theological grounds to conclude God made a covenant with Adam as the vice-regent of creation, one that Adam failed to keep.[3]
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If we recognize the Biblical foundations for human value while ignoring what the Bible says about human teleology, we have understood only half the story. And if we tell sinful people that they have dignity and worth without pointing them away from their sin, we are telling them only half the truth.

Is religion good for society? Increasingly, people are answering “yes” even if they might once have answered “no.” Regardless of whether they’re religious themselves, they have to admit that religion has given them a lot of nice things—specifically, Judeo-Christian religion. Do you like science? Do you like women’s rights? Do you like human rights, in general? Go thank a Christian!
In a nutshell, this is the thesis of British historian Tom Holland’s long 2019 book Dominion, subtitled How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. It was recently and notably cited by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in her head-turning announcement that she now considers herself a Christian. After seeing the evil of fundamentalist Islam up close as a child, then pivoting to New Atheism as a young adult, Ali now believes that “Christianity has it all.” Everything she holds dear as a citizen of the West traces back to a Judeo-Christian ethic, whether she always admitted it or not.
Or does it?
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“Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13–14). The glory of God himself is at stake in our prayers (even our seemingly small or insignificant prayers), and God will not surrender or violate his glory. That means no prayer is insignificant to God. He will answer your prayers in Jesus’s name because he’s fiercely devoted, with all his sovereign might, to the exalting of that name. For God to disregard requests made in the name of Jesus would be to abandon his reason for creating the universe: his glory. Our prayers, then, aren’t just in the name of Jesus, but for the name of Jesus.

As a child, I had an unhealthy fear of voicemails.
Since voicemails now are something of an endangered species, this may require some explanation. When I was in school, most phones were still attached to walls and didn’t have caller ID. So, if you called and no one picked up, no one would know that it was you who called — unless you left a voicemail. Seems easy (and safe) enough, right?
One day (I was probably ten), I called to see if a friend across the street wanted to play, but no one picked up. I hung up. A few minutes later, I called again. No answer, I hung up. I did this a few more times over the next hour. My mom noticed my strange behavior and asked what I was doing.
“I was just calling to see if my friend wanted to play, but no one’s home.”
“Well, why don’t you just leave a message?”
I tensed up. “Oh no, no. . . . I’ll just try again in a few minutes.”
“No, Marshall, that’s rude to keep calling like that. You really should leave a voicemail.”
“No, really, Mom, it’s not a big deal. They don’t mind.”
“No,” she said firmly, “you’re going to pick up that phone right now and leave a voicemail.”
I waited to see if she was serious, then slowly lifted the instrument of terror from the wall. There was something about being recorded — with no opportunity to delete, or try again, or call timeout — that made me feel exposed. It certainly didn’t help that my (female) friend could be a bit of a bully and relished just about any opportunity to laugh at my expense.
Again, no one answered. The dreaded beep came. My mom stared at me intently. “Hi, uhhh, Jenna. . . . This is Marshall. Umm . . . just wanted to see if you were home and wanted to play. So . . . give me a call when you get back. . . . Umm . . . in Jesus’s name, Amen.”
My mom’s eyes widened, and she covered her mouth. Her cheeks strained to fight back laughter. My young, insecure blood boiled. She made me do that. How could she!
It’s funny, but my (tiny) humiliation plays out a common paradox in prayer: Those three words — in Jesus’s name — were already so deeply ingrained in my mind through countless prayers in our home that they instinctively poured out. At the same time, they had become so familiar that they had begun to lose their weight and meaning (so that I blurted them to the 10-year-old girl across the street). Many of us have forgotten, through lots of meals and bedtimes, services and Bible studies, what we hold in these three staggering words: in Jesus’s name.
Six Facets in the Name
Where do we learn to pray in Jesus’s name, anyway? The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t end that way. In fact, when you go looking, you realize that we don’t have any actual prayers in Scripture that end with those words.
We hear people baptize in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38), heal in the name of Jesus (Acts 3:6), teach in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:18), exorcise demons in the name of Jesus (Acts 16:18), and perform wonders in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:30). The apostle Paul goes as far to tell us to do everything we do, in word or deed, “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). The clearest teaching on praying in Jesus’s name, though, comes from Jesus himself, on the night he was betrayed.
In John 14–16, we have Jesus’s last words to his disciples before he goes to the cross, and in all three chapters he mentions the power of praying in his name: “Whatever you ask in my name” (John 14:13) . . . “Whatever you ask the Father in my name” (John 15:16) . . . . “Whatever you ask of the Father in my name” (John 16:23). In the repetition, we see how critical this kind of prayer will be for followers of Jesus, and we learn at least six reasons for Christians to pray in his name.
1. Access: God Listens to You
When we pray in Jesus’s name, we rehearse our only reason for believing God will actually hear our prayers. We dare to bow before the Father only because the Son chose to bow upon the cross. Before he encourages his disciples to pray this way, Jesus says to them, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). No one comes except in me — but everyone who comes in my name will be received, heard, and loved. His life, cross, and resurrection lift our prayers into heaven.
Jesus goes as far as to say (really listen to what he says here), “I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God” (John 16:26–27). In other words, I don’t have to ask him anything for you anymore. No, in me, you can ask the Almighty yourself.
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