Though the flood reset creation, sin survived, and the fall was repeated, yet God’s mercy proved more persistent than sin. (Genesis 8:15–9:29)

Last week, Marci showed us the chiastic structure of the flood narrative — how intentional and ordered God’s story is, even in judgment. Today we step into the aftermath of the flood, the re-creation, and we wonder: is this where relief finally happens? After all, Noah’s name means relief.

We are in the midst of a grand story, written by the Grand Storyteller.

In my small group, we often talk about how to feel the emotion of the text — to not just read it, but step inside it. At the start of our study this week, Jen Wilkin invited us to do that very thing — to recall natural disasters we’ve witnessed in our own lives.

As I reflected, my mind went to the floods in Texas this past year. Maybe yours did too.

It was devastating. Lives were lost, homes destroyed, and what remained was ruin.

At one girls’ camp, twenty-seven young women and counselors were swept away. It tempting to feel senseless and unfixable. People had to move forward carrying the weight of loss — of loved ones, of security, of home. And as a nation, we grieved with Texas.

Can you imagine the sorrow of survivors trying to reacclimate? Maybe you don’t have to — maybe you’ve lived it.

I wonder if that’s something of what Noah felt when he stepped off the ark onto the remains of the earth.
He didn’t walk into a world sparkling with new life, but into silence and ruin. The spread of sin had been slowed, but the world was still broken.

The ground that once sustained life was lifeless. The faces of people Noah knew and loved were gone.
He had spent months on that boat — long enough to remember every face he’d lost, and maybe long enough to feel unworthy of survival.
Locked in with his family and hundreds of animals, he must have seen his own impatience, frustration, and weakness. Perhaps he thought, They sinned and perished — and I sin, yet I am spared.

And that’s where we enter our passage today.

Noah may have been carrying grief over loss, awe over judgment, and humility over mercy all at once. And the very first thing he does when he steps off the ark? He worships. He builds an altar and makes an offering to God.

Noah is called righteous because he walks with God. Noah is called blameless not because he never sinned, but because he saw both sin and God rightly.

So will we see relief from sin and judgment in the aftermath of the flood?

This Passage Reveals Three Pillars

• Mercy That Meets Us in the Ruins
• A Promise That Holds Through the Storm
• Grace That Outlasts Our Sin

Mercy That Meets Us in the Ruins

Noah’s first act after stepping off the ark is to build an altar and offer a sacrifice. And how does God respond? With pleasure.

We saw something similar in the story of Cain and Abel: it isn’t the sacrifice itself that pleases God, but the humble, contrite heart behind it.

And here again, God’s mercy is on display. Noah offers — and God responds, not with a thumbs up, but with a promise:

“I will never again curse the ground because of man.”

Notice what God does not say:
He doesn’t say, “Because man’s heart isn’t really that bad. After all, look what Noah just did.”
Instead, He declares,

“For the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”

This isn’t God softening because Noah did something right. It’s God’s mercy despite knowing man’s heart is still bent toward sin.

Tim Keller once said our greatest fear isn’t being unknown — it’s being fully known and then rejected. Yet here, at the beginning of Scripture, we see we are fully known — every motive, every thought — and yet still pursued in love.

Believer, this is personal: there is nothing God could learn about you that would make Him turn away. He knows it all — the good, the bad, the messy — and still He draws near.

Like Noah, this should lead our hearts to worship.

God goes on to say:

“Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Almost as if to foreshadow Romans 8:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons,
nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This is who God has been from the start. Life will bring different seasons, but God’s commitment is steady.

These words from God start the echoes of Eden again. God “sees” — but this time, instead of saying, “It was good,” He says, “Man’s heart is evil.” And still, He blesses:

“Be fruitful and multiply.”
“Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.”

And then one restriction — one thing not to take:

“But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

I don’t know about you, but I feel like if I were there for that restriction, I might have said something like, “Definitely not tempted to drink blood, God, I think we’re good.”

But something big is happening right here. God is setting blood apart — revealing its sacredness. Blood represents life — and life belongs to God.

God takes a step further and declares that for unjust bloodshed, there will be a reckoning — whether that blood is shed by an animal or by another man.

And notice, God gives no qualifiers.

He doesn’t say, “If a leader’s blood is spilled, then I’ll require it,” or, “If a child’s blood is shed, then I’ll care,” or, “If the person costs more work than they contribute, then their blood doesn’t matter.”
He doesn’t add conditions about usefulness or status.

Why?
Because every person, no matter their ability or their social standing, bears the image of God.

These commands, paired with His promise, proclaim this truth:
Life is precious. Humanity is sacred. And God Himself is the protector of both.

A Promise That Holds Through the Storm

The Promise:

God takes this truth — His mercy toward sinners and His protection of life — and seals it with something unshakable: a covenant

A covenant is a special set of promises that defines a relationship. This is the first among more to come made by God.
And this one marks a turning point in redemptive history — a puzzle piece pointing toward the day God will make all things new.

This is His promise that He establishes into a covenant:

“Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood.”

And notice who He makes this covenant with — not just Noah, but his sons, future generations, and every living creature: animals, birds, and even the earth itself.

This is a promise we hold onto today — but could you imagine how tightly Noah and his family held onto it the next time it rained? Did Noah feel anxious, did flashbacks wash over him, and then did he call to mind the promise? Noah had to believe God when He said never, because rain would come, and it would be tempting to keep his eyes on the storm rather than the Promise Maker.

And friend, so too us.

Just as waters can rise quickly and recede slowly, so too do seasons of suffering. What promises from God are you holding onto when you can’t yet see the outcome?

The covenant wasn’t made with humanity alone — it extends to all of creation.
Animals and the ground had gone through devastation just like man. The difference is that they cannot willfully sin — they have no conscience, no soul — yet they are still affected by sin’s presence.

Animals and the earth are not working quite as they were designed.
And this reveals something profound about God’s saving covenant: He doesn’t just show mercy to sinners; He also shows compassion to the broken.

O believer, don’t you feel this?

Sometimes our suffering comes as the result of specific sin.
But other times, it seems to have no clear cause.
Sometimes we experience betrayal through human sin — when others wrong us, or when our own choices harm us.
Other times, nature betrays us, when disasters destroy what we love.
Animals betray us when they become harmful.
Our bodies betray us through disabilities, disease, illness, and decay.
The world itself groans under the weight of the fall.

And God knows this.
He knows there are trespasses — willful sins — and there is brokenness — the collateral damage of a fallen world.
And through His covenant, He promises to save us from both.

The Sign

With this covenant, like many of the others, God gives a sign:

“I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

In Hebrew, this word for “bow” is not a color or a light, although all of us automatically think “rainbow” because we’ve seen the rainbow. But this word is used in other parts of Scripture, and it refers to a weapon — a warrior’s bow.

God is literally painting a powerful image in the sky for us: He is hanging up His weapon. Not because judgment has been satisfied, but because God knows judgment through man cannot save man.

Charles Spurgeon comments on this. He says something like, “We should have known right then what His plan was — His bow not pointing toward the earth, but toward the heavens, toward Himself.”

It’s a sign that His wrath will one day be satisfied not by destroying us, but by bearing it Himself.
The bow is a sign in the sky that points forward to the sign of the cross — the fuller, deeper picture of His mercy. Romans 3 tells us that “in His divine forbearance He passed over former sins so at the right time He might show that He is both just and the justifier.”

This section of the passage where God establishes His covenant is beautiful. Just like the chiastic structure we saw last week, we see another one here. Hebrew literature does this — when you see repeated words or phrases, don’t skim over them, but think of them as brackets or a frame for the main point of that section.

You’ll notice verse 12 and verse 17 match up, almost word for word. Then similarly, verses 13 and 14 match verse 16. And what is right in the middle? Verse 15: I will remember.

God says, “I will set my bow… and I will remember my covenant.”
This is the same main point in the midst of the chiastic structure that we saw in the story of the flood.

This was big for me when studying this. For years, I’ve thought the rainbow was solely for man. God doesn’t forget things; He doesn’t need physical reminders. So what’s happening here?

Just like last week when Marci pointed out that God’s regret isn’t the same as man’s, neither is God’s remembering. When we regret, we only wish we could change the trajectory of life, but when God regrets, the trajectory changes.
When we remember, it’s passive — recalling something to mind because we had forgotten. When God “remembers,” it’s active. It always leads to action — to rescue, mercy, grace, renewal, and blessing.

We saw this earlier in Genesis when “God remembered Noah,” and the waters began to recede.
Here again, God says, “I will remember,” meaning His plan for mercy will not cease.

So every time a rainbow appears, it’s not only a reminder that He will never again flood the earth — though praise God for that — it’s a declaration for the believer that His plan for mercy still stands — that the storms of judgment have passed, and His covenant endures.

Thank God for the rainbow. You know what Tim Keller noticed?
He noted, “You’ll never see a rainbow on a bright, sunny day. There will always be nasty, dark storm clouds nearby.”
So in the promise of a rainbow, there’s also a promise of storms.

And I’ve felt this many times — how I wish we could skip the storm, the hardship, the waiting, the ache. But this isn’t the world we live in. Keller goes on to say, “Never do we find God’s grace unless something has gotten to us to see our weakness, our insufficiency, our flawedness, our sin, our neediness.”

And what is a rainbow except light refracting through rain?
The light of mercy and grace only appears against the backdrop of darkness and sin.

This is good news: storms will come, but they will not be storms of judgment — and you will never be left without mercy and grace in their midst. This was true for Noah and his family, and it’s true for us today — because God’s promise was made “for future generations.”

Just as the rainbow arcs across the sky where light meets rain, grace always meets us where sorrow, sin, and suffering intersect. And every time, it declares: God’s steadfast love is more persistent than human sorrow, sin, and suffering.

The Fall: Again

Oh, how I would love to end our story here. If we pause here, it does feel like relief from sin and judgment came. But Noah’s story doesn’t stop here. We see sin survived the flood, and it shows its persistence.

We pick back up our echoing scenes of Eden. Noah has planted a vineyard — his own garden. He worked the ground, tended it, and waited for the fruit to come. But when it did, what did he do with it?
In Eden they ate the fruit, but in this garden he will drink the fruit — drank so much that his intoxication left him naked and ashamed, just like Adam and Eve.

And again, we see humanity’s nakedness exposed — this time not by God, but by man, Noah’s son, Ham.
Unlike God, Ham sees his sin, exploits it, and covers him in shame by inviting his brothers to revel in their father’s sin.

This is a picture of our natural heart. When we see sin, we either excuse it or exploit it. God never excuses sin, and He also never exploits our sin. He honors us by covering us in forgiveness and love.

Notice what Shem and Japheth did. They didn’t just not partake in Ham’s evil, but they pursued their father in love and covered him. They honored him even in his sin.

Noah then awakes, realizes what’s happened, and repeats the next part of the garden scene — he speaks both blessing and curse.

Which really surprised me as I was reading. It seems really bold of Noah to wake from a drunken night, probably still in a haze, and approach his sons with blessing and cursing. If Noah hadn’t sinned, Ham never would have had the opportunity.

This moment teaches us three important truths:

1. Sin affects more than just the sinner. Your actions ripple out, impacting those around you.
2. You are responsible for your own sin. Even if your sin is a reaction to someone else’s, you remain accountable.
3. Our authority to call out sin comes from God, not ourselves. We are not righteous by our own merit, but God grants us the authority to speak truth in His name.

So Noah gives his blessing and cursing. And notice how Moses records this:

Cursed be Canaan;
a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem;
and let Canaan be his servant.
May God enlarge Japheth,
and let him dwell in the tents of Shem,
and let Canaan be his servant.”

Canaan’s line is cursed; Shem’s is blessed.
Noah doesn’t curse all of Ham’s line, just part — just Canaan. Even in this judgment, there is mercy.

This is no random detail — Moses uses “Canaan” three times. Remember our original audience here: Moses is telling this story to the Israelites wandering in the desert toward the Promised Land — that is, Canaan.

Jen Wilkin says, “Canaan’s descendants are who Moses is preparing the Israelites to subdue as they go into the Promised Land. What is being established here [through this blessing and curse] is their right to the land.”

And then, quietly, the story ends:

“Noah lived 350 years after the flood, and he died.”

Grace That Outlasts Sin

After so much of God’s presence and power and voice, we’re left asking: What is God doing in the midst of sin’s survival of the flood? I don’t know about you, but this isn’t really the relief that I was hoping for in the aftermath of the flood.

I think we are supposed to be asking these questions at this point in the story: What is God doing? And if it’s not Noah, then who?

God, in the midst of this story with Noah, was weaving the story of redemption.
God knew Noah wasn’t the relief of salvation we were looking for. So He began to make signs that would point to the One who is.

God restricted eating the flesh with its blood of animals, because that blood could never save — could never give us new life. On the night before Jesus was crucified, He said something startlingto His disciples. He said —

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” (John 6:53–55)

The flood foreshadowed baptism, and the aftermath foreshadowed communion. Every Sunday we partake in communion, we are remembering that God required a reckoning for shed blood, and what He required He supplied through His perfect Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus’s blood is the payment and the life source. In Genesis, God revealed the sacredness of blood because He knew that one day, His own blood would cleanse and renew the world.

This is what the rainbow was pointing to — grace and mercy meeting judgment and wrath.

Conclusion

The plan for mercy will not cease.
Someone dear to me years ago pointed out 2 Thessalonians 1:7:

“…and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels.”

And this was their comment:

In this verse, “Paul describes the feeling believers will experience at Christ’s return in one word: Relief. The complete unburdening of a lifetime’s worth of stressors, sorrows, sins, illnesses, and suffering in a single moment. That decompressing exhale our souls long for, but never seem to manage.”

One day, just like the flood, judgment will recede for all — and mercy will be the thing that remains.

How I long for that day when, like John in Revelation 1, we see Jesus’ blazing, fiery eyes — and all at once, sin and all its effects will be burned away. And we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).

Friend, see sin as it truly is. See God as He truly is.
And let that draw you into humble, repentant worship.

Let His faithfulness — the God who remembers His promise — steady your trust and awaken your hope in the relief He is preparing for you.