“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” (v.1)
The Spirit repeats the blessings noted in the covenant to indicate the heaven and the earth are still the same as was in the day God created them. In order to emphasise the day that is decreed for the Son the same formula ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish’ is used,
The quality of the day is fixed and it is as God willed and how the Son shall fulfill it. The only blot on the landscape was the burden of sin and the remedy God exacted from the sons of Adam. His creation well knew the toll that was laid on them. St Paul tells how man’s sin did affect them. “ For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”(Ro.8:19-23)
In vv.2-3 the Spirit uses ‘fear’ in association with sin introduced into the world by one man’s disobedience. “ For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”(Ro.5:19)
In order to place this element of fear in proper perspective let us consider their earnest expectation. “ Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”(8:21). Adam’s stewardship did not disappear with sin. Sons of Adam and of God are all alike required to hope. “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”(8:23) Jesus Christ the Redeemer, the Good Shepherd represents His creation as well. For this reason at the end of the Book of Jonah we have this line, “Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:/ And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”(Jonah 4:10-11) God’s Salvation plan includes man after the likeness of Man and also his fellow creatures.
On one hand you have this verse, “ And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth.” They are delivered into the hands of man. On the other hand, “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” (9:3). Man is of God is made wisdom unto us. (1 Co.1:30)
Eating meat is an indication of man’s sinful nature. God’s commandment is to be treated as the saying of Jesus on divorce, “He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.”(Matt.19:8)
GuidetohisWord 