And Noah built an altar to Jehovah; and took of every clean animal, and of all clean fowl, and offered up burnt-offerings on the altar.
Noah steps out of the ark onto an earth just emptied by judgment. The first thing he does is not build a shelter but raise an altar. That choice raises three questions: why sacrifice at a fresh start, why only clean animals, and what did God see in the rising smoke?
Until this verse the Bible records offerings but never an altar.
The word "altar" is mentioned here for the first time in the Bible. The altar is for worship. Here then worship is for the first time revealed. We worship, having passed from the old into the new, standing on the ground of resurrection. We know that death and judgment are past, and therefore we worship in spirit and in truth. Christ is our altar, and the sacrifices Noah brought are a picture of Christ too. Only the person who knows Christ and the perfect work He has done is a true worshipper.
The ark had just carried Noah through judgment. He might have treasured it. Instead it vanishes from the story here.
Everything is simple obedience. There is the obedience of faith and the worship of faith: both go together. The altar is set up where, just before, all had been a scene of death and judgment... Superstition would have worshipped the ark, as being the means of salvation. The heart always tends to put God's appointed means in God's own place. The ark was a very clear and obvious appointed means. But Noah's faith passed beyond the ark to the God of the ark. So when he stepped out of it, he cast no lingering look back at it, and he did not treat it as an object of worship or reverence. He built an altar to the Lord and worshipped Him. And the ark is never heard of again.
Noah had taken these animals aboard to keep their kinds alive. He offered them up anyway.
Before the flood Noah had been occupied with building an ark for himself and his household. After the flood we find him intent on building an altar for God... He held back none of the small stock of acceptable animals that came out with him from the ark. They had gone in with him to keep their kinds alive on the earth, yet he felt it was right to offer some of them on the altar to God. So his offering shows the thankfulness of his heart. But in it we see something more: the ground on which all blessing could now rest — a sacrifice accepted by the Lord.
The verse assumes Noah could tell a clean animal from an unclean one. Where did that knowledge come from?
Before the flood Noah already knew this essential part of an acceptable sacrifice (Gen. 7:2), though there is no record of how he learned it. But in the law we read God's definition of clean beasts and clean birds, and we find moral teaching tied to the subject (Lev. 11). So we must conclude that no man could have worked out by his own instinct which creatures God would count clean, and which He would not.
The record mentions no prayer and no song at the altar — only what God perceived.
Yet as far as we know, no prayer was spoken on that solemn occasion, and the patriarch raised no hymn of praise... It may have been a silent service. We read of nothing that God had heard, but only of what He smelled. A silent service perhaps, yet how full of meaning to Him, and instruction to us.
The altar is built to the LORD — Jehovah, as some translations print the name. One writer says that name, and not God, is the exact one here.
"And Noah," it is written in verse 20, "built an altar." To whom? To God? Most fittingly it is to Jehovah now. The two names could not be swapped without loss... It is Noah's relationship that appears here. The sacrifice offered there bore witness to the special place in which he stood.
Noah's altar did more than express thanks. The whole future of the earth rested on it.
Noah acted on this after the flood. His first recorded act was to build an altar and offer up whole burnt offerings of every clean beast and of all clean birds. For the earth after the flood was held on the ground of sacrifice.
And the rising smoke pointed forward.
In this the patriarch acknowledged that atonement was his only possible ground for standing before a holy God. That is a striking lesson for people in every age. As that lone column of smoke rose to heaven, "the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma." His mind ran on from that altar to Calvary. There, in due time, the great sacrifice would be offered, and every other sacrifice pointed to it.
- Altar first. Once rescued, Noah builds an altar before he builds a house. Obedience of faith and worship of faith go together.
- Ground, not gratitude only. The offering thanks God for the past, but its greater meaning is the ground on which all blessing could now rest.
- Costly ground. He held back none of the small stock of clean animals entrusted to him to keep their kinds alive.
- Taught ground. No one could guess by instinct which creatures God counts clean. Noah offered what God had already marked out as acceptable.
- Lasting ground. The earth after the flood was held on the ground of sacrifice — and that lone column of smoke pointed on to Calvary.
And Jehovah smelled the sweet odour. And Jehovah said in his heart, I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man, for the thought of Man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will no more smite every living thing, as I have done.
Noah steps out of the ark onto a washed world and builds an altar. God is pleased — and the very reason He gave for sending the flood now becomes His reason for never sending another.
Older versions render the "pleasing aroma" as "a sweet savour." One writer gives a second rendering of the phrase, and shows what the offering secures for the one who brings it:
Here we have the sacrifice presenting a "sweet savour," or "a savour of rest," to God. It is what He finds His rest and delight in. And in its excellence the offerer finds the ground of his acceptance. The term burnt offering occurs here for the first time. We discover what it means in particular when we come to the book of Leviticus.
The flood did not improve anyone. Comparing God's words here with what He said before the judgment, one writer notes a small but sharp shift in wording:
Man had not improved, so there was no reason for God to deal with him differently. The Lord's estimate of man after the flood differed little, if at all, from that before it. Compare Genesis 6:5 with Genesis 8:21. Before the flood God spoke of evil as being constantly in the heart of His creature man. After it He declared it was innate. "The intention of man's heart is evil from his youth."
Notice the word "for" in the verse. One writer sets the reason God gives here beside the reason God gave for the flood:
It is interesting too that in Genesis 6:5 the reason for the flood was that "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Yet this same fact becomes a reason that God would not curse the earth again (v. 21). Since man's heart is evil from his youth, God would not again curse the earth or destroy every living thing out of it. The reason is that in the sacrifice of Christ there is a remedy for man's evil nature.
The altar changes what God's eye rests on, and the principle reaches far past Noah:
The reason God gave for not cursing is that He looks to Noah's sacrifice, not to the sin. God deals with us on the ground of what the Mediator is, instead of what we are. The sacrifice ought to be always in our hearts, but it is always before God.
But the offering did not win God over. The same writer is careful about what the sweet savour does:
There was to be no repetition of the curse. Otherwise the Lord might have been always at it, for every thought of man's heart was only evil, and that continually. But on the ground of sacrifice this was said: "the Lord smelled a sweet savour, and the Lord said in his heart, I will no more again curse." He would not again act as He had done. The effect of this sweet savour is very striking. It does not change God's mind; it reveals what He is — the source of peace.
God speaks this promise to Himself before He speaks it to anyone else:
When the Lord smelled the savour of Noah's sacrifice, He said in His heart that He would not again curse the ground. But that was just His own purpose and grace. For a time it was the secret of His own heart. In due time He made His purpose and grace known to Noah. Then Noah took the blessing in a way of special sweetness. He took it as coming from the deep, well-considered, and fully approved counsels and affections of the heart of the Lord Himself.
The pleasure was never in the dead animals themselves:
For God the sweet savour was in what the offerings meant: a new world brought in on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ, His own Son. God had no more pleasure in the actual death of Noah's animals than in those killed on Jewish altars. Hebrews 10:6 says as much: "In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure."
And what God rests in, the believer may rest in as well:
We must have a basis of approach to God. And more than this: we must be fully accepted, to be completely at rest there. If God finds a savour of rest in the death of Christ, we find our rest there too.
- Rest offered. The aroma is also rendered "a savour of rest." Scripture names the burnt offering here for the first time, and God finds His rest and delight in it.
- Rest despite man. The flood washed the earth but not the heart; God's verdict is now even sharper — evil is there from youth, innate.
- Rest instead of curse. The same fact that justified the flood becomes the reason for never repeating it. A sacrifice now stands between God's eye and man's sin.
- Rest revealed, not negotiated. The offering did not change God's mind. It showed what He is. He spoke the promise in His own heart before telling Noah.
- Rest shared. What God rests in at Noah's altar points on to Christ. Whoever trusts that sacrifice rests where God rests.
Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed [time] and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.
After the flood, God makes a promise that has ruled the world ever since. As long as the earth lasts, the seasons will keep their round. Two questions follow. Why is the promise safe when man's heart has not changed? And how long do the words "while the earth remains" run?
The promise comes straight after Noah's burnt offering. That order decides everything.
No one can deny that God in His sovereignty has blessed man unconditionally. On what ground have the millions of our race since Noah's day enjoyed seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, day and night? Have these been conditional blessings?… Genesis 8:20-22 makes it clear. We have these blessings only on the ground of sacrifice — Noah's burnt offering, a type of Christ. If God gave them on the ground of men's conduct, men would have forfeited them long ago.
The flood washed the earth clean. What did it do to the heart inside man?
The cleansing of the waters of judgment had made no change in the imaginations of the thoughts of man's heart. They were still evil, and only evil. The heart was uncured, for "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," though there be water to cleanse or fire to refine. It was no change there which gave the Lord thoughts of peace and not of evil towards men.
Something new starts here. Compare it with the earlier blessing of paradise.
With the new method of dealing with men, God would bring in a stability unknown before… To man in innocence God made no such announcement. Whether the blessing of paradise lasted depended on his obedience. The flood broke the natural order of the seasons: seedtime and harvest stopped for a year. Because of the sacrifice, nothing will break that order again as long as the earth remains. Man can count on this; and man has proved it. God has often held back the earth's full crop, but the seasons have kept running their round.
Three pairs cover the whole year between them.
When God created the lights in the sky He said, "Let them be for signs and for seasons." It is well known that the different seasons on the earth come largely from the days being longer or shorter, so the earth gets more or less of the sun's heat. After the flood, God declared that while the earth remained the seasons should continue, Genesis 8:22. They fall roughly like this: seedtime, cold and winter run from October to March; harvest, heat and summer run from April to September.
The promise holds the seasons steady. It does not lift the curse on the ground.
Then after the flood God secures seedtime and harvest. Farming is blessed in a way. The curse is not gone, but man is comforted. So I should think it takes less work to get things out of the earth now than it did before the flood.
The promise has an end date. One writer traces the whole span.
The sign or token of this covenant with creation is the rainbow in the cloud. Under it the earth has continued until the present time, and it will continue throughout the millennial period. Then Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father. The heaven and the earth will pass away and give place to the new heaven and the new earth — the everlasting state, in which God shall be all in all.
Anyone can test the promise by looking at the record:
Few things show the divine perfection stamped on the Bible more than its unfailing accuracy about what has already been fulfilled. More than four thousand years ago, Jehovah said, "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest … shall not cease" (Gen. 8:22); and do they not continue to this day?
One writer carries the verse beyond farming, into the way God deals with what we sow.
The reaping does not come as soon as the seed is sown. So we need patience. But reap we shall — in due season, and God, not we, is Judge as to when the fitting season arrives. Still, arrive it certainly shall. Genesis 8:22 stands true even in this connection.
- Cause — The seasons keep going on the ground of Noah's burnt offering, a type of Christ. They do not rest on human conduct.
- Contrast — The flood left man's heart uncured. God's promise rests on the sacrifice He accepted, not on any change in man.
- Gift — Adam never had this. The seasons now run in a fixed order that no longer hangs on man's obedience.
- Limit — The curse on the ground is eased, not lifted. The promise runs only "while the earth remains" — through the millennium, up to the new heaven and new earth.
- Lesson — Seedtime and harvest never fail. So sowing and reaping hold good in the moral world too: the harvest is delayed, never denied.
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
The flood has ended and the ark is empty. God now speaks the first words to a re-started human race: a blessing, and a command to fill the earth again. But the wording is not quite what Adam heard in Eden, and the difference tells us where mankind now stands.
The earth has been cleared by water, and God now sets man in it on fresh terms.
Water has washed the earth clean. That gives a whole new set of conditions for people and animals. God now sets man in a new order of things. He blesses Noah and his sons, promising that they will be fruitful and will multiply to fill the earth, which had lost so many of its people.
That blessing does not come because the survivors were better than those who drowned. God had already said in His heart what man is, and He says the blessing anyway.
The new world, like the old, began its course with blessing from its Creator. "God blessed Noah." But first God gave a solemn witness. Before He spoke the blessing and the commands that came with it, He showed that the survivors of the flood were unchanged. They had the same nature as those whose sin had ruined them (Gen. 8:21). God had declared man completely corrupt before He judged the world by the flood. He says it again as the second father of the human family starts out. But now it was for mercy, not for judgment, that God spoke these words.
The command is to spread out, and the emphasis falls on the whole globe.
Notice God's command to man as he entered the restored earth. It was to refill that earth — not parts of the earth, but the earth. He wanted men spread out across the world. He did not want them clustered together, relying on their own gathered strength. We will see in Gen. 11 how man ignored all this.
Man refused this command outright.
After the flood, His word to Noah and his sons was still, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." But mankind, though awed by that judgment, had no desire to do His will. They wanted to stay together... their aim was to set themselves up as a universal republic without God.
God said almost the same words to Adam. But He added something for Adam that Noah never got.
"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth," God had said to Adam. "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth," He also said to Noah and his sons. But to Adam He added what He did not add to Noah — "and subdue it." Was this omission accidental? To subdue the earth was God's original design for man on earth. By the fall he lost that place, and can never regain it. Another Man will do it — the Head of the new creation.
Noah gets more at the table than Adam did. He gets less authority. His standing is different.
He is "blessed," as Adam was in his day, and told to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." (Gen. 1:28; Gen. 9:1) ... God put the earth under Adam, and the creatures of the forest, the field, the sea and the air recognized him as their master... Now the creatures of the earth only stand in dread and fear of Noah... Yet Noah's table was better spread than Adam's had been at first... For Adam's was the food fitting an innocent one, Noah's is the food of a ransomed one.
With the blessing comes a job: Noah is to hold the earth for God, not just enjoy it.
God commands him to fill the earth, as He had commanded Adam at the beginning. He is to order and govern it. He is to carry on his religious service and keep up his testimony to God in it. Government is his, and in company with priesthood too.
The failure comes at once.
The first thing Noah does after God had blessed him is to get drunk.
So the blessing points past Noah to someone who will hold it without failing.
Here we see Christ, the true Noah, Heir of the new earth. Of that earth we read, "no longer will there be anything accursed." All things in it are handed over to Him.
- Mercy first. God gives His verdict on man's heart before the blessing, not after. So the blessing comes from mercy, not because man had improved.
- Blessing given. The new world opens just as the old one did — with the Creator's blessing on fruitfulness and increase.
- Reach commanded. The charge covers the whole earth, not parts of it. In Genesis 11 man refuses to scatter and stays gathered around himself.
- One word withheld. "Subdue it" is absent. Adam lost that place at the fall. One writer points ahead to another Man, the Head of the new creation, who will do it.
- Result foreshadowed. God blesses Noah as a ransomed man and gives him government. Noah fails almost at once. The blessing holds in the true Noah, Heir of a new earth where nothing is accursed.
And let the fear of you and the dread of you be upon every animal of the earth, and upon all fowl of the heavens upon all that moveth [on] the ground; and upon all the fishes of the sea into your hand are they delivered.
Noah steps out of the ark onto a washed but still fallen earth, and God hands the animal world over to him. The terms are new: fear and dread, not the willing subjection Adam knew.
Adam met the animals as their namer. Noah meets them as the man they run from. One writer traces the change to how God acts in each scene.
What a different dominion from Adam's! God there, as Creator, puts all living animals under Adam's power; he names them. Here, God is a preserver, a saviour. But He only places the animals in Noah's power, and fear marks the relationship. Noah is their destroyer, and they fear him… This clearly sets the whole thing on a new system and footing.
The world God now speaks to is not the world of Eden. He deals with it as it is.
Now it was a fallen world. God blessed these men and charged them to fill the earth, and the fear and the dread of them were to be upon every beast and bird, with reptile and fish. God delivered the creatures into men's hand. Sin was everywhere, and God took it into account as a fact that could not be ignored.
This fear is not only a loss. Set against the strength of animals, it is a protection.
This is a great mercy. Beasts are stronger than man, and if they had no fear of him, they could all but wipe out the human race. So God has planted that fear in them. They no longer have a nature that submits to man of its own accord, as they did in the garden of Eden.
Noah does not receive this gift where Adam stood. One writer contrasts the two men and the ground each of them stood on.
God created Adam alone, and in "His own image," and made him the responsible head over an unfallen creation. But "Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord." God led him into the ark, through it, and out of it on the other side of death and judgment, as a redeemed man. He was to begin a new history in another world, under God's promises and covenanted blessings… It is on this new ground that God gave the world out afresh to him.
Something lost is handed back here. Notice what the gift includes.
Then their authority over the lower creatures is restored. The fear and dread of man is to be upon every beast of the earth, and upon all that moves, and God delivers them into his hand. All things are his, and even death itself is now to furnish him with food. This fact carries the deepest meaning. It is death serving life, and God would keep us always mindful of that principle.
Noah on a renewed earth points beyond himself. Commentators see in him a picture of Christ ruling the world to come.
If Adam is a picture of Christ as the Head over all things, and as the Head of the Church, then Noah, stepping onto a renewed earth, is a picture of the Lord Jesus as the Governor of the world to come… This is very similar to what God says of man in Psalm 8. It shows that Noah, as well as Adam, pointed forward to the coming Son of Man, with all things put under Him.
That kingdom will be settled and at rest. A sacrifice stands behind it.
All this was very significant, telling us of the character of that kingdom which is to arise in the last days, when the true Noah takes the dominion. Then the earth and its creatures will be established in the covenant of lasting rest and certainty… And then the Lord God will rest in His full delight in it all. It will all stand in the sweet savour of the sacrifice which the Son of His love has offered.
- Cause. Adam named the animals; Noah is given their fear. Sin made the difference, and God deals with the world as it is.
- Gift. Noah receives it as a redeemed man, brought through death and judgment on the ground of an accepted sacrifice.
- Mercy. Animals are stronger than we are. The fear God plants in them guards the human race.
- Reach. The gift covers beasts, birds, creeping things and fish. Even death now feeds life.
- Result. Noah on a renewed earth pictures the true Noah, the Son of Man. Under Him the earth will rest in lasting peace.
Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you as the green herb I give you everything.
After the flood God blesses Noah and sets the terms for a new world. One of those terms is a wider table, which raises three questions: why God widened it, what it now costs, and what He kept back.
Before the flood, man and beast lived on plants. Commentators read this as a real enlargement, given with no restrictions attached:
Besides this, mankind was no longer limited to a vegetarian diet (v.2). God allowed him animals, birds and fish as food, just as fully as herbs and fruits. There were no restrictions like the ones God later gave Israel under law (Lev. 11), and then set aside after the death of the Lord Jesus (Acts 10:11-16; 1 Tim. 4:4-5). Of course, if someone finds that a food gives him physical trouble, it is only wise to avoid it. But God does not forbid the use of any.
Did animals eat one another before this? Commentators differ. One writer holds that every beast, bird and creeping thing first fed on green plants, "and they may not have become carnivorous until after the flood, when flesh was given to man to eat." He allows the other view too: that sin had already changed them, and God held them in check in the ark. (Morrish Bible Dictionary)
This gift works through death. Man's food now comes from creatures that die for him, and one writer finds deep meaning in that:
All things are his, and now even death itself supplies him with food. This fact carries the deepest significance. It is death serving life, and God would keep that principle constantly before us. Almost every meal testifies to us of the very basis of all real gospel, which the Lord's supper declares in full and formal terms.
The very next verse forbids eating flesh with its blood. One writer shows why that single limit matters so much:
God now gave every moving thing that lives to be food for man (Gen. 9:3), as freely as He had first given green plants to beast and bird and reptile (Gen. 1:30). But He placed a clear restriction on the blood. Man was not to eat it (Gen. 9:4). The blood was the life, and God reserved it for Himself. Giving man the freedom to eat animals made God's claim stand out all the more. Life belonged to God, and it will go badly for those who despise or defy His rights... This is no longer the dominion given by the Creator. Now He gives permission, and He forbids.
One writer adds that Christians are given more than Noah was:
Only after we know deliverance, and in the new place with God, can this be rightly understood. We now go farther than the type and past the restriction imposed here: we drink the blood also. What is God's alone as atonement is ours to sustain and cheer us, as atonement now made.
Later God told Israel which animals they could and could not eat. One writer asks why, and finds the answer in standing, not diet:
After the flood, God gave man a grant of every moving living creature for food (Gen. 9:3). Here, under the law, He brings in restrictions... But why these restrictions? Because the law puts man at a distance from God and makes him feel it. It is also meant to teach him the great difference between standing on the ground of keeping the law and standing on the ground of grace... How free was the grant to Noah and his sons! How strict the restrictions placed on Israel!
Some would make holiness a matter of avoiding certain foods. One writer names where that idea comes from, and answers it from this grant:
Demons play on man's sense of defilement. As the cure they suggest staying away from certain foods and from marriage — the very things God has provided for His creature's good. So they make God out to be the author of man's lack of piety... Nothing that God has provided for His creature defiles. Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, because the word of God and prayer sanctify it — that is, God's grant to Noah (Gen. 9:3-4) and the thanksgiving of the one who receives it.
That leaves our part. God has spoken; the thanks are ours:
In Genesis 9:3, we find how the word of God put an ample supply of food at man's disposal. It is sad if Christian households do not complete this sanctification by prayer as they use the food He has so mercifully provided.
- Granted — after the flood man is no longer limited to plants. Animals, birds and fish are food now, as fully as herbs and fruit, with no forbidden list.
- Purchased — food now comes by death. Nearly every meal says the same thing: life kept alive by another's death.
- Reserved — God kept back the blood, because the blood is the life. The wider the freedom, the clearer His claim.
- Contrasted — Israel's food laws taught distance under law. Noah's free grant shows what grace looks like.
- Received — nothing God provides defiles. Rules that ban His food attack the Giver, and thanksgiving at our table completes the grant.
Only, the flesh with its life, its blood, ye shall not eat.
God had just given Noah and his sons a new freedom. Every moving creature could now be food. But God kept one thing back. Man must not eat the blood, because the blood is the life.
The gift and the limit come in the same breath. Man gains a wide new freedom at the table, and God marks off one thing as His.
God now gave man every moving thing that lives for food (Gen. 9:3), as freely as He had first given green plants to beast and bird and reptile (Gen. 1:30). But He put a clear limit on the blood. Man was not to eat it (Gen. 9:4). The blood was the life, and God kept it for Himself. Letting man use animals for food made God's claim stand out all the more. Life belonged to God, and woe to those who despise or defy His rights.
The words "flesh with its life, that is, its blood" are packed tight. One writer works through the Hebrew behind them. The verse does not name two separate things, flesh and life. It means flesh while the life is still in it.
From Genesis 9:4 it is clear, I think, that the expression means flesh in its living state; that is what must not be eaten. And that state — of ruined flesh — lies in its blood… The verse comes in to show that the term means flesh with the life in it — flesh in its living state — which is the blood.
Behind the rule lies a question of ownership. Man may kill an animal for food, but the life in it is not his to take.
To eat blood denied the rights of God the Creator. Even though man forfeited his own right by sin, the LORD kept His title over life untouched. God set up human government in the first place to deal with death by deliberate violence. Shed blood is the sign of that death, and it belongs to God alone. Man has no right to take it for himself.
One writer sets the ban against Eden, where God closed the way back to the tree of life. To eat life would be to seize by force what sin had already lost.
To eat the blood would have been a bold taking back of what he had lost through sin — an attempt to win life again by forcing the way that the cherubim's sword guarded. This rule told the sinner that he had lost his right to the tree of life and can never return to it in his own strength. The life has gone back to God. The blood is His. And the gospel comes to tell us how He has used it, even providing with it and through it new, eternal life that cannot fail for the sinner who is dead.
God kept the blood back from man's table because He had His own use for it. One rule teaches man three things about himself, and ends in a gift.
Life belongs to God, so no one of the human race was to eat blood. The sinner has also forfeited his life. He can only live before God on the basis of the death of a sacrifice in his place… So the ban on eating blood reminds us of three important truths. We are creatures, and must remember it. We were sinners by nature, and are to acknowledge it. We owe atonement by blood entirely to God, and are always to own it. The One to whom life belongs has given it to be poured out for our everlasting blessing.
God spoke this word to Noah centuries before Moses, and through him to the whole human family. That timing shapes how the apostles later handled it.
This law pressed on Israel what God had already laid down for Noah after the flood, in Genesis 9:4. So when the apostles and elders gave the same command to Gentile believers in Acts 15:20 and 29, they were not loading them with a mere item of the law of Moses. They were repeating a ban that applies to everyone. We do well to keep it, though we need not copy the extreme carefulness of the Jews, as the instruction of 1 Corinthians 10:25 shows.
- Gift — God handed over every moving creature for food, as freely as He once gave green plants. The limit sits inside a gift.
- Reserve — He keeps back one thing: the blood. The wider the freedom to eat, the clearer His claim.
- Reason — The blood is the life, and life belongs to God. Leaving it alone is how man admits he is a creature, not the owner of life.
- Meaning — Man forfeited his life by sin. To eat life would be to seize back what he lost. The blood goes to God, and God uses it for atonement.
- Reach — God gave this word to Noah for the whole race, long before the law. He pressed it on Israel, and the apostles gave it again to Gentile believers in Acts 15.