New arrangements for a new era.
I. PROVISION FOR THE INCREASE OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.
1. The procreate instrumentality—the ordinance of marriage (Genesis 9:1, Genesis 9:7), which was -
2. The originating cause—the Divine blessing (Genesis 9:1, Genesis 9:7), without which—
II. PROVISION FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.
1. Against the world of animals.
2. Against the world of men. Ever since the fall man has required to be protected against himself. Prior to the Flood it does not appear that even crimes of murder and bloodshed were publicly avenged. Now, however, the previous laxness, if it was such, and not rather Divine clemency, was to cease, and an entirely new arrangement to come into operation.
III. PROVISION FOR THE SUSTENANCE OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.
1. The rule. It is not certain that animal food was interdicted in Eden; it is almost certain that it was in use between the fall and the Flood. At the commencement of the new era it was expressly sanctioned.
2. The restriction. While the flesh of animals might be used as food, they were not to be mutilated while alive, nor was the blood to be eaten with the flesh. Note the bearing of the first of these on the question of vivisection, which the Divine law appears explicitly to forbid, except it can be proved to be indispensable for the advancement of medical knowledge with a view to the healing of disease, and, in the case of extending a permission, imperatively requires to be carried on with the least possible infliction of pain upon the unresisting creature whose life is thus sacrificed for the good of man; and of the second of these, on the lawfulness of eating blood under the Christian dispensation, see Expos. on verse 4.
3. The reason.
(a) a concession to the moral weakness of man's soul, and
(b) a provision for the physical infirmity of man's body.
(a) to prevent cruelty to animals;
(b) to fence about man's life by showing the criminality of destroying that of the beast;
(c) to assert God's lordship over all life;
(d) because of its symbolic value as the sign of atoning blood.
Lessons:—
1. God's clemency towards man.
2. God's care for man.
3. God's goodness to man.
4. God's estimate of man.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD