By the flood God brought emphasis to his original intention for creation. What he said to Noah was not that different from what he said to Adam:
Be fertile, then, and multiply;
abound on earth and subdue it.
This "subdue it" was now necessary, not because man was meant to dominate creation, but because the wildness and futility introduced by sin meant that it would not easily yield to the purposes of man. This external world was a reflection of the inner world of man which would similarly need to be tamed in order to bear good fruit. On its own it would tend toward chaos and disintegration.
If anyone sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
For in the image of God
has man been made.
Humans were always meant to live lives based on their dignity as creatures made in the image of God. But they had made clear their readiness to forget this dignity, and so God had to become more explicit, both about declaring laws, and about establishing consequences for breaking them. The good of virtue could no longer be expected to function as sufficient reward in and of itself.
Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat;
I give them all to you as I did the green plants.
Only flesh with its lifeblood still in it you shall not eat.
The green plants were good, but now yielded nutrition only with difficulty. There was need to supplement them with createures of the ground, the air, and the sea. But as there was a natural reason for this so too was there a supernatural one. Every animal they killed for food had to be drained of its blood, because the blood represented the life of the animal, and the life of the animal belonged to God. This was a reminder that all life was from him and in his hands. It served as a warning against shedding the blood of one's fellow man, because God would demand an accounting for that which was not the proper prerogative of man. This idea that the life belonged to God provided a sacrificial overtone even for meals that were not specifically sacrifices, that what was God's in all things ought to be rendered back to him, be it the life of animals or the life of man.
I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign
of the covenant between me and the earth.
God established a peace with his creation that would persist in spite of sin and infidelity. Yet we know too that God would not allow sin and infidelity to persist. The bow was therefore also an implicit promise of mercy. Humans would not forever have to continue to live in their degraded status. There was hope that the full goodness of the original creation would one day by restored. And indeed we as Christians hold even more firmly to this hope, a hope in the time when the bow will again be seen, revealed in the fullness of its meaning.
And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald (see Revelation 4:3).
The idea that the life of man was meant to belong to God and to be rendered faithfully back to him was an idea that human creatures seldom approximated and never completely attained. It would only become a reality in the fidelity and obedience of Jesus himself.
He began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and rise after three days.
The idea of offering God our entire lives seems like an invitation to defeat and destitution, as Peter seemed to infer. It seemed like a concession to the worst aspects of the world, from which no good could come. But this was to think as human beings do. And this, without the Holy Spirit, was all even Peter could manage. But the Spirit has been given to us in virtue of the death and resurrection of Jesus. His resurrection serves for us as a promise, like a rainbow, that no matter how much our offering seems to entail our destruction, God will not abandon us, and, on the far side, life will thrive and be renewed.
When the LORD has rebuilt Zion
and appeared in his glory;
When he has regarded the prayer of the destitute,
and not despised their prayer.
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