The Covenant of the Sword: Reconstituting the World Text: Genesis 9:1-7
Introduction: God's Common Grace
The world has just been washed clean. The fountains of the great deep and the windows of heaven have closed, the waters have receded, and Noah and his family have stepped out onto a pristine, but silent, earth. The judgment was total, a complete de-creation. And now, on this new earth, God establishes the terms of engagement for all of post-Flood humanity. This is what we call the Noahic Covenant, and it is the foundation of what theologians refer to as common grace.
This is not the covenant of redemption. This is the covenant of preservation. God is not, in this passage, laying out the terms of salvation, but rather the terms of survival. He is establishing the basic, foundational structures that will keep the world from immediately spiraling back into the kind of universal violence and corruption that necessitated the Flood in the first place. This is God's holding action. He is setting up the civil and natural order, a framework within which the covenant of grace can later unfold. Without the Noahic covenant, there would be no stage for Abraham, no nation for Moses, and no world for the Son to enter.
We must understand that God is here speaking to all mankind. Noah is the new federal head of the human race. The commands and provisions given here are not just for Israel, not just for the church, but for every tribe, tongue, and nation that would descend from his three sons. This is the basis for all human government, all civil justice, and the fundamental relationship between man and the rest of creation until the end of the age. To misunderstand Genesis 9 is to misunderstand the nature of politics, justice, and culture.
The Text
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; as with the green plant, I give all to you. However, flesh with its life, that is, its blood, you shall not eat. Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every living thing I will require it. And from every man, from each man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man. As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Swarm on the earth and multiply in it.”
(Genesis 9:1-7 LSB)
The Mandate Reissued (v. 1, 7)
The covenant begins and ends with a familiar command.
"And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth'... As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Swarm on the earth and multiply in it." (Genesis 9:1, 7)
This is the cultural mandate, first given to Adam in the garden, now reissued to Noah on the clean earth. This is God's great purpose for mankind, stated at the beginning and restated at this new beginning. It is a command to build. Build families, build towns, build cultures, build civilizations. Fill the earth not just with people, but with the glory of God reflected in the works of His image-bearers. Notice the intensification in verse 7: "Swarm on the earth." This is a picture of teeming, vibrant, irrepressible life. God does not want a barren planet with a few scattered people huddled in fear. He wants a world overflowing with life.
This is a direct rebuke to every anti-human, anti-natalist worldview. It is a rebuke to the kind of environmentalism that views man as a cancer on the planet. It is a rebuke to the selfish individualism that sees children as a burden rather than a blessing. God's command is clear: have babies, build families, and take dominion. This is the fundamental engine of history. And it is a blessing. The passage begins with "God blessed Noah." The fruitfulness is the outworking of that blessing.
A New Order with Creation (v. 2-3)
The relationship between man and the animal kingdom is now formally altered.
"And the fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky... into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; as with the green plant, I give all to you." (Genesis 9:2-3 LSB)
Before the Fall, man's dominion was one of perfect, harmonious stewardship. That harmony is now gone. The rule of man over the beasts will now be maintained by "fear and terror." This is not a curse, but a grace. It is a necessary structural change for a fallen world. It establishes a buffer, a distance that protects man and maintains the created hierarchy. Man is still king, but his reign is no longer entirely peaceable.
Along with this, God grants a new provision. Whereas Adam was given the green plants for food, Noah and his descendants are now given "every moving thing that is alive." Man is now permitted to be carnivorous. This is a significant shift. It places the power of life and death over the animal kingdom squarely in man's hands for the purpose of his own sustenance. This grant is a further confirmation of man's unique place at the pinnacle of the earthly creation. We are not just another species in the ecosystem; we are the appointed rulers of it.
The Sanctity of Life (v. 4-5)
But this new authority comes with a critical prohibition, a fence around the principle of life.
"However, flesh with its life, that is, its blood, you shall not eat. Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every living thing I will require it. And from every man, from each man’s brother I will require the life of man." (Genesis 9:4-5 LSB)
God gives man the flesh of animals, but He retains the blood. Why? Because the blood represents the life. As Leviticus 17:11 says, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood." By prohibiting the consumption of blood, God is teaching humanity a crucial lesson: life is sacred. It is a gift from God, and it must be treated with reverence. You may take an animal's life for food, but you must acknowledge the gravity of what you are doing. Draining the blood is a ritual act, a symbolic returning of the life-principle to God, its author. To consume the blood would be to treat life as a mere commodity, to act as though it belonged to you.
This principle is then immediately elevated. If God requires an accounting for the lifeblood of an animal, how much more will He require an accounting for the lifeblood of man? "From every man, from each man’s brother I will require the life of man." God Himself is the ultimate avenger of blood. The murder of a human being is an offense that cries out to heaven, and God promises that He will answer.
The Foundation of Government (v. 6)
God then delegates the authority for this vengeance to mankind itself.
"Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man." (Genesis 9:6 LSB)
This verse is the institution of human government. It is the establishment of the principle of capital punishment for the crime of murder. This is the foundation of all civil justice. The authority for the state to wield the sword is given right here. This is not a license for private revenge. The phrase "by man" signifies a corporate, judicial process. It is the basis for what the Apostle Paul would later describe in Romans 13, where the civil magistrate is God's deacon, an "avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil."
And the reason given is the most profound in all of political theory: "For in the image of God He made man." Murder is not simply a crime against society. It is not just the ending of a biological process. Murder is high treason against the throne of Heaven. It is an assault on a creature uniquely stamped with the image of the creator. To deface the image is to insult the King. Therefore, the punishment must fit the crime. The one who willfully destroys an image-bearer of God forfeits his own right to live as an image-bearer of God. Any government that refuses to enforce this principle has abdicated its most basic, God-given responsibility. It has declared that the image of God is not infinitely precious. It has, in effect, sided with the murderer against God.
Conclusion: From Common Grace to Saving Grace
The Noahic Covenant provides the guardrails for human civilization. It establishes the sanctity of life and institutes the power of the sword to protect it. This is God's common grace to all men, believer and unbeliever alike. It is why we can have societies that are not completely consumed by chaos. It is the reason we have laws, courts, and a shared, intuitive sense that murder is the highest crime.
But these guardrails cannot save us. The state can punish a murderer, but it cannot cleanse a murderous heart. The law can restrain evil, but it cannot produce righteousness. The prohibition of blood points to a deeper reality. All of us, because of our sin, are under a sentence of death. Our lifeblood is forfeit. The problem of shed blood and blood-guiltiness runs through the entire human race.
This covenant, with its focus on blood, prepares the world for the only final solution. The blood of animals in the Old Testament sacrificial system could cover sin, but it could never take it away. They were all promissory notes pointing to the one, final payment. The only answer to the problem of man shedding man's blood is the shedding of the blood of the God-man.
On the cross, wicked men shed the blood of Jesus Christ, the perfect image of the invisible God. And in that ultimate act of injustice, God accomplished the ultimate justice. The blood of Jesus was shed "by man," and in that shedding, the blood-guilt of all who believe in Him is washed away forever. The Noahic covenant preserves the world so that the gospel can go forth. The government of man restrains the evil of man, so that the grace of God can save man. And the cultural mandate to fill the earth with our children is ultimately fulfilled in the Great Commission, as we are called to fill the earth with disciples of Jesus Christ, the new and better Noah.