Dispensation of Human
Government
Genesis 8:15-11:9
Steward:
Noah and his sons (Gen 9:1)
Test:
Man has now seen the goodness and
severity of God. God gives man complete dominion over all creatures and
over one-another. What will man do now? Will he learn from the prior dispensation
or will he still rebel? How will he use his new responsibility and power?
Character of Environment:
-
Noah and his sons and their wives
come through the flood and thus have the experience and knowledge of the
prior dispensation. They know of the utter depravity of man and they know
that God's Word is final and His judgment severe!
-
God adds the following new commands:
"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you ..." (Gen 9:3), They
were not to eat the blood though, (Gen 9:4).
-
Fear and dread of man was upon
every living creature (Gen 9:2)
-
Death penalty and man ruling over
man was introduced (Gen 9:5-6)
-
God reminded them of one of the
first commandments: be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth (Gen
8:17, 9:1, 9:7)
-
Noah offered blood sacrifices of
every clean beast and fowl after the pattern of Abel. This was a sweet
smelling savour to God (Gen 8:20-22). (We also see somewhat
of God's character, He responds to Noah's offering in a very interesting
way ...)
-
God made a covenant between himself
and man (Gen 9:8-17). God gave the rainbow as a perpetual token of this
covenant which would last all dispensations from then on.
-
Human government was then seen
in the huge multiplication on the earth and the many cities and lands which
were built and ruled by the families which built them (Gen 10:5, 10:10-32,
also 1 Chron 1:5-27).
-
Something divided the earth (Gen
10:25).
-
Whole earth was of one language
(Gen 11:1)
-
Man did not learn from the prior
dispensation and quickly forgot their creator.
-
There is no record of any walking
with God or pleasing God in this dispensation.
The Failure of the Test:
-
Noah got drunk on the wine of his
own vineyard and was naked in his tent and thus began the next roller-coaster
ride to destruction.
-
Ham disgraced his father by revealing
his nakedness to his brothers and Shem and Japheth had to cover him (Gen
9:21-23).
-
Noah then cursed Ham, the father
of Canaan and blessed Shem and Japheth (Gen 9:25-27).
-
Ham began the next evil line. One
of his descendents, Nimrod is claimed to be the founder of cults and idolatry
which are still practiced widely today, such as the wafer god offered on
the altars of millions of Roman Catholic churches every Sunday (Gen 10:8).
-
Men then banded together and with
pride announced that they wanted to make a name for themselves (glorify
themselves) and make a city and a tower which may reach Heaven (this sounds
like us today who leave God out of the picture wanting only to glorify
and make a name for ourselves) (Gen 11:4).
-
Note also that the command was
to replenish the earth and yet these people banded together to avoid this
(Gen 11:4).
-
They had forgotten God!
The Judgment:
God confounds (confuses) their
language and scatters them over the whole earth (Gen 11:6-9).
Grace and Salvation:
God did not destroy man but simply
scattered them over the earth for their own good (only their pride was
injured).
What can we learn from this dispensation?
Even after we know of the goodness
and severity of God, we will still forget Him and go our own way. We learn
that from one generation to the next, there is no remembrance. God declares
man evil from his youth (Compare Gen 8:21 with Eccles 12:1).
We also learn that God will
not share His glory with another. There was nothing inherently wrong with
man building a tower or cities, they had built plenty of cities already.
The thing which was wrong was that they did it without God in their lives.
They had utterly left Him out and instead of glorifying Him, they sought
to glorify themselves and the work of their own hands.
J Stephen
-
Home | E-mail