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From One Family to All Nations (Genesis 9:18–19) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed thinking. This is where we take passages
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of Scripture that you know, might seem brief or maybe a
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little familiar on the surface, and we try to uncover the
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theological architecture that's hidden just underneath.
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And today we're focusing our deep dive on 2 short verses.
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They're they're deceptively simple.
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In the book of Genesis, Chapter 9, verses 18 and 19, if you're
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reading straight through Genesis, you might just skim
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right past them. Yeah.
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You'd think they're just a transition.
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You would, but they are anything but.
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That's really the point, isn't it?
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These two verses, this little genealogical bridge, they
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actually function as a pivotal hinge in the whole biblical
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story. They're the mechanism connecting
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God's most gracious promises for a new world to, well, humanity's
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shattering an immediate failure. The structural role of these
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verses is you really can't overstate it.
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They answer a question that's just basic to all of biblical
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history that comes after How did we get from a single saved
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family, Noah, his son, their wives, all safe in the ark, to a
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global world full of scattered nations and cultures?
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Right. So our mission in this deep dive
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is to really investigate this text and show that in just these
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two lines, it defines 3 core realities that shape the rest of
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Scripture. The 1st is the absolute unity of
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the human race. Second, the universal
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persistence of sin even after a worldwide judgment.
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And 3rd, the precise scope of the global redemption that has
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to be centered in Jesus Christ. Let's let's hear the words in
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their context. Genesis 9 verses 18 and 19.
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It says the sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were
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Shem Ham and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan.
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These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people
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of the whole earth were dispersed.
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When I read that, I see those verses as just so strategically
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placed. They're like a narrative
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signpost, but right there to separate God's glorious promise,
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the Noahic Covenant, from the, I mean the heartbreaking reality
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of human corruption that follows almost immediately.
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That's a great way to put it, a signpost there, the transition
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point. It's the moment where history
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sort of takes a deep breath before it plunges into the next
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crisis. Yeah.
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And you know, these verses, they literally sketch out the
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theological architecture for the whole post flood world.
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If we were to use an analogy to kind of set the stage, imagine
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Genesis 9.18 and 19 as the landing of a great staircase.
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OK, God's grace has just descended in the form of the
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covenant. That's Genesis 9.1 to 17.
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It establishes stability. But then right after stepping
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onto this solid ground, the human family is about to just
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stumble. They're going to stumble further
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down into the corruption that starts in the very next verse.
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So these two verses are that brief moment on solid ground.
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That's it. The brief moment on the landing,
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the necessary pause before the story shifts, and it's just
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dramatically toward division, both in the family and later
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among the nations. OK, so let's establish that
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contrast, because I think understanding the before and
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after is what gives these two verses their real weight.
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So what came immediately before this list of three sons?
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Well, what came before is the theological high point of the
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entire Flood story. The Covenant.
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The covenant, God's gracious establishment of the Noahic
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Covenant, which covers Genesis 9 verses one through 17, and that
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whole section is defined by God's initiative, His grace, and
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a promise of stability, cosmic and cultural stability that
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affects every living thing on earth.
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It's a restoration. And when we talk about that
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restoration, that stability, that's the precondition for
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everything else, isn't it? I mean, the flood was an act of
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D creation. The waters of chaos rose up.
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It seemed like they were undoing the ordered world of Genesis 1.
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That's a perfect way to describe it.
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D creation. So now God is reestablishing
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that order, but he's not doing it through a new creation.
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He's doing it through covenant preservation.
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OK, unpack that a little. What does covenant preservation
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look like here? Well, the covenant provides 2
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main elements of order that we really need to grasp before we
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get to our hinge verses. First, there's the preservation
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of order itself. This is the doctrine of what we
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call common grace. God promises Noah, and through
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him all future humanity, that the cycles of the earth, sea,
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time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and
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night, all of these things will remain stable.
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They'll be reliable. And it's that reliability that
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allows culture to even exist, right?
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Especially among fallen people. Absolutely.
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This promise of common grace means the world will not be
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destroyed by water again. No matter how sinful humanity
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becomes, God restricts his own wrath.
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He ensures that all of human history and culture, you know,
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farming, building, art, law, all that can unfold within a
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reliable, preserved setting. The sun shines on the just and
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the unjust. And it's not tied to our
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faithfulness. Not at all.
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It's tied to God's sovereign oath, which is symbolized by the
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rainbow, the one way promise from God to creation.
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That's so significant. But beyond just the natural
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order, the seasons and so on, there's also the restoration of
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dignity for humanity. That's the second big part of
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the. Covenant, indeed, God explicitly
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reaffirms that human life is made in the Imago Day, the image
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of God. This dignity had been well, it
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had been trampled on before the flood.
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That was part of the reason for the judgement in the 1st place,
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the violence. So God is re establishing that
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principle. He is he places the fear of man
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upon the animals, and he renews the original cultural mandate.
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OK, so help us unpack that mandate.
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We sometimes call Noah a second Adam.
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What does that mandate mean for him in this new world?
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The cultural mandate is that original command from Genesis 1
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and 2 be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and
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rule over it as God's representatives.
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It's the charge for humanity to be stewards to govern creation.
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The flood obviously interrupted this.
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A pretty big interruption. A very big one, but Genesis 9.1
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to 7 reinstitutes it. Human life, God says, has a
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special, a sacrosanct status because it bears His image and
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it must be protected. This is where the institution of
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capital punishment for murder comes in.
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It reinforces the dignity of the image bearer.
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So you have this magnificent theological backdrop.
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God has saved humanity. He's promised cosmic stability
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through common grace. He's renewed their mandate to
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build civilization, and He's secured their inherent dignity.
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And then Genesis 9.1819, it just stands right at the threshold of
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all that grace listing the three men who carried all of that
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potential into the new world. That list is the bridge between
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the promise and, well, the performance.
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Or lack of performance. Or lack thereof.
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Yes, and the structure is so jarring because the covenant
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promise is so magnificent. Because right after this brief
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factual list of names comes the narrative descent.
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It's immediate. If the covenant ceremony
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happened at the Elder worship Noah's sacrifice back in chapter
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8, what follows is the tent of shame in Chapter 9.
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And the speed of that failure is just incredible.
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The narrative moves from God's promise to human depravity.
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In the space of what, 2 verses? We get the story of Noah's
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drunkenness, which is a major moral failure, and then it's
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compounded by Ham's dishonor of his father.
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An act that violates the very command and to honor parents
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that would later be written into the 10 commandments.
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Exactly. It's a foundational failure.
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In this this shattering realism, it confirms A theological point
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that is so critical for us. The preserve family still
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carries the infection of sin into the New World.
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The Flood showed God's judgement on sin, but it did not, and it
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could not eradicate the Adamic infection inside the hearts of
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the survivors. That raises a huge question,
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doesn't it? If a global world ending flood
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didn't wash away the seeds of moral failure, what does that
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tell us about the nature of divine judgement versus the
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nature of human depravity? It tells us that judgement, even
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a universal physical judgement like that, is not enough to
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change the human heart. The doctrine of sin for the
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Reformed mind insist on total depravity, the saves people, the
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covenanted people, those eight souls in the ark.
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They are preserved by grace, absolutely, but they are not yet
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fully sanctified. They are still falling
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creatures. And the proof is right there.
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The proof is immediate, the fact that Noah, who was called the
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righteous man of his generation, immediately falls into
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drunkenness after becoming a farmer.
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It shows that the fallenness of the world is innate to the
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people, not just something external in the culture that was
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washed away. And that moral failure, it leads
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to an immediate fracture within what should have been this
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single, unified family. It does.
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The history of the new World immediately breaks apart into
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these trajectories of blessing and curse.
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Shem is blessed, Japheth has expanded, but the judgement
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falls specifically on Canaan. Ham, Son.
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So the ideal of universal stability and peace under the
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covenant is instantly broken by the reality of human sin.
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Our 2 verses then they bridge this gap.
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They do. They're the transition point
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from divine preservation to human depravity.
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It's like imagine the storm of water has passed, but the storm
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of sin remains, and it was carried in the very genes and
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hearts of the only people left alive.
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To go back to your analogy of the staircase, this is the
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moment on the landing before the big fall.
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Yes, or think of it like a movie.
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Genesis 9 point on 8/19 is like the closing credits of the
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disaster movie listing the survivors Shem, Ham, Japheth,
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but at the same time they serve as the opening scene of the
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sequel. The history of nations and
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corruption driven by these very same 3 characters.
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So their role isn't passive at all.
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They are the active carriers of both the covenant promises,
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which they just received, and the Adamic corruption, which
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shows up in the very next story. They carry both into the next
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era of history. That's it.
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Without those those two verses anchoring the story, the fall
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into family shame and global scattering would feel
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disconnected from God's immense act of saving grace.
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The author make sure we know who failed the people who had just
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received God's greatest act of mercy.
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OK, so let's drill down now into the identity of these three
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sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their collective role, just for
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a moment. Setting aside the sin incident,
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the text is very precise about their status.
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They are the fixed triad, the only ones who went forth from
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the Ark. And that phrase went forth from
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the Ark is incredibly loaded. It's a constant reminder that
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continued human existence is owed entirely to God's sovereign
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saving act. They are the human foundation
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stones of this reconstituted world, and they get their life
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not by some natural right, but by covenantal preservation.
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And the text makes their exclusivity absolute.
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Verse 19 repeats it. These three were the sons of
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Noah. And then it's says from these
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the people of the whole earth were dispersed.
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That's a deliberate theological move, isn't it?
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It is. It explicitly closes off any
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possibility of, you know, alternative families or some
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hidden branches of humanity that might have survived outside the
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Ark. No secret survivors on a
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mountaintop somewhere. No, this has monumental
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consequences. It means every single human
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being on earth today and in all of history traces their lineage
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back to this single household, to this one single moment of
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preservation. And this is where the
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theological realities established by the single family
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origin become so central to Christian anthropology.
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So what are those major realities?
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The first, as we touched on, is Adamic continuity.
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Right post flood. Humanity is absolutely not a
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fresh start, not in the way creation was in Genesis 1.
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It is the original Adamic race preserved by grace.
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Noah and his sons carry the original image of God, and they
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carry the original cultural mandate to fill the earth.
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This continuity of species, of soul, of mandate, it links the
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New World directly back to the Garden of Eden.
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So the judgement was universal, but the preservation was
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particular, and that preserved family took the full burden and
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the full glory of that original mandate forward.
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That's it. And the fact that they carry
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both the image of Dodd and the infection of sin is what creates
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all the tension of the stories that follow.
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And that continuity leads directly into the second, even
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bigger theological idea, double solidarity.
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Double solidarity. Explain that for us.
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Double solidarity just means that the unity of the human race
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is established in two non negotiable phases of history.
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First, all people descend from Adam by creation, we're all part
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of that original human family. Second, all people descend from
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Noah's sons by preservation. Adam gives us our nature.
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Noah gives us our post flood history.
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What are the immediate implications of that for you
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listening to this? The implications are ethical and
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doctrinal. This grounds the biblical
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teaching that humanity is fundamentally one race.
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The Greek word is genus, one family.
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We all share the same essential nature.
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We share the same image of God, the same cognitive abilities,
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and so, critically, the same fallen condition that requires
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redemption. So this concept just demolishes
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any attempt to create a theological basis for for ethnic
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hierarchy. It absolutely does.
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It demolishes any structural separation between peoples.
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If a person tries to use the Bible to justify racial
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superiority, Genesis 9.19 becomes the axe that just cuts
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that argument off the knees. Because everyone, whether their
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lineage is traced to Shem, Ham or Japheth.
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Came from the same single save but still sinful family.
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There is no biological branch, no spiritual branch that stands
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apart is superior. That single family origin is a
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declaration of universal kinship.
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If we're all one race, then sin is universal, and the solution
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has to be universal too. Let's talk about the ordering of
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the names. The text lists them Shem, Ham
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and Japheth. That's deliberate, isn't it?
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It signals the theological priority of Shem, yes.
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Shem is listed first, not necessarily because he's the
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oldest son, though some traditions argue that he's
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listed first because his line is going to be the carrier of the
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special covenant promise. This subtle arrangement gives
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the reader an early clue about where the central story of
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salvation is going to go. It's like the camera of
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salvation history is starting to zoom in.
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The wide angle shot of the world is already beginning to focus.
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While the world expands from three Suns into all these
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nations, God's redemptive purpose is already zeroing in on
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one particular stream. The line of Shem, The line of
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the promise. And that narrowing through Shem
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becomes critically apparent just a little later in Genesis 11.
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That chapter ends with the Toledo, the generations of Shem,
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and it traces his lineage relentlessly down to Tara, who
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is the father of Abram. So shem is the thread.
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He's the thread that connects the universal history of Genesis
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One through 11 to the particular history of Israel that starts in
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Genesis 12. So even as we affirm the unity
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of all three sons, we have to acknowledge that God chooses a
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particular line through which His special redemptive grace
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will flow. They are the three seeds planted
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in the New World, but only one is chosen to be the channel of
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special revelation that leads to the Messiah.
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Right. The others receive the benefit
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of common grace, the stable world, the ability to build
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cultures, but they have to await the special grace that flows
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through the line of Shem. It's the beginning of a biblical
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pattern We see over and over God chooses one man, Noah, then one
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son Shem, then one man from that sun's lion, Abraham, then one
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nation, Israel, and then one person, Christ, to bring
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salvation back to the many. OK.
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Now we have to get to the detail that causes a lot of readers to
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stop and scratch their heads. The very specific parenthetical
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note in verse 18, Ham was the father of Canaan.
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It's just inserted right into the list and it completely
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changes the tenor of the narrative.
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This note is a narrative signal of the highest order.
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Its placement is absolute critical.
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It's put there before the sin incident, before Noah's
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drunkenness, and before the curse that follows.
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In verse 25, the author interrupts a simple list of the
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Suns to insert this one genealogical fact.
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Which he didn't have to do. If the point was just genealogy,
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he could have waited for the big table of nations in Genesis 10.
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So why this specific grandson? Why single out Canaan and only
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Canaan right here, right now? Because it functions as a storm
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warning flag for the reader who knows the story, the author is
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preparing the audience for what's about to happen and for
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what its long term consequence will be.
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Remember, the judgement in verse 25 falls specifically on Canaan,
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not on Ham himself. This little note prepares the
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reader for why the long term consequence skips the immediate
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offender Ham and lands on his son's lineage.
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So this moment of private shame and a tent has an expansive long
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term covenantal effect on a specific line of people, and
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that line is identified before the action even happens.
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That's correct, but the real weight of this little
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parenthetical note comes from how it foreshadows covenant
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history. Who were the Canaanites in the
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rest of the Bible? There's the people living in the
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land God will later promised Abraham.
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Right. By linking Ham to Canaan before
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Abraham is even born, the text signals that the conflict that
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will define Israel's future, the possession of the Promised Land,
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is not some random political or territorial aggression.
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It connects a moment of private family shame to a national
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destiny of conflict. Precisely.
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The conflict over the Promised Land is the working out of a
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trajectory of judgement that was set right at the beginning of
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the post flood world. For the original Israelite
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audience reading Genesis, this note would trigger an immediate
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recognition. They would think, ah, This is
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why we fight the Canaanites. Their trajectory of curse began
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with her ancestors dishonor. This detail also introduces the
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pattern of differentiation as you called it.
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The lines of Noah's sons are not spiritually neutral after this
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tent incident. Not at all.
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This moment introduces the pattern of blessing that's Shem
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and eventually Japheth and curse, which is Canaan, and that
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pattern will divide humanity into covenantly significant
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groups from this point forward. And the curse is very specific.
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Very, verse 25 says, cursed to be Canaan, a servant of servants
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shall he be to his brothers. This judgement announced right
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at the dawn of the New World. It frames Israel's later
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conquest of the land. It presents it as a judicial
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sentence, a working out of generational consequences for a
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trajectory of wickedness that started right here.
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We have to just pause and think about the sovereignty of God at
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work here. Even a small, seemingly random
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parenthetical clause is being used by the author under
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inspiration to signal God's preordained order for history
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and for judgement. It confirms that even as God
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grants common grace and the cultural mandate to all of
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humanity, he's at the same time exercising his special specific
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judgments on particular lines based on how they respond to
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him. The existence of the Canaanites
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as antagonist is woven into the narrative from the moment the
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ark landed. Our hinge versus ensure the
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reader understands that all the division that follows is the
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result of human failing, which is then judged by divine
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Providence. The implication for us is pretty
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clear, then. The history of Israel and the
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nations isn't just a random collision of empires, it's a
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structured history. Every conflict, every covenantal
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promise has its ancient root right here and the generation
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that stepped off the ark. So we need to pull back now and
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see the massive scope of what Genesis one through 11 is doing.
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Up until Genesis 12, there's no Israel, there's no Abrahamic
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covenant, no nation set apart. The focus is completely on
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universal history. That's the key context.
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Genesis 1 to 11 is the story of all humanity, creation, the
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fall, a global judgment, and the origin of the nations.
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It's the theological introduction to the entire
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Bible. It establishes the nature of
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God, the nature of man, and the scope of the problem that needs
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solving. And our hind verses 9.18 and 19
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are the bridge that links this huge universal canvas to the
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very specific, particular call of Abraham in Genesis 12.
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They move us from the preservation of one family to
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the preparation for one chosen man.
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To really appreciate this connection, we have to look at
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the narrative structure around the history of the nations.
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Genesis 9.19 gives a summary. It states the fact of global
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population growth and the eventual division from these.
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The people of the whole earth were dispersed.
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That's the theological headline. And the next, the Glow chapters,
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are the detailed explanation of that headline.
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They provide the structure that explains that summary fact.
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That's right, the shape of Genesis 9 through 11 is very
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deliberate. Genesis 9.19 gives the summary
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statement of dispersion. Then Genesis 10, the table of
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nations, provides the map. A chapter a lot of people skip
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because it's just a long list of names.
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And they shouldn't. It's dense, but it's the
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detailed catalog of the 70 families that came down from
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Shem, Ham and Japheth. It anchors the theological claim
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of universal dispersion and specific traceable lineages.
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It's not just a myth. It's presented as history.
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OK so 9.19 is the fact chapter 10 is the map.
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What about Chapter 11? Chapter 11, The Tower of Babel,
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explains the cause. That famous story details the
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divine judgement that scattered the proud, rebellious builders
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who were trying to resist God's command to fill the earth.
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Instead, they wanted to consolidate their own fame and
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security in one place. So a perfect sequence, the fact
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of dispersion, the map of dispersion and the cause of
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dispersion. Exactly.
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And this sequence demonstrates God's Providence over the
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nation's The dispersion isn't just a random geographical
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migration. It's not an accident of history
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or politics. God repopulated the earth from
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one family, and He purposefully ordered the nations.
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He determined their distinct existences and their boundaries.
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That concept, God sovereignly determining the existence and
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boundaries of peoples, is a huge idea that has implications all
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through Scripture. It connects directly to the New
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Testament. Think of the Apostle Paul in
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Acts 17 when he's speaking to the philosophers in Athens.
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Paul confirms that God made from one man every nation of mankind
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to live on all the face of the earth, having determined
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allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling
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place. He's quoting the logic of
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Genesis. He's summarizing the theology of
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Genesis 910 and 11. He's showing that the original
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dispersion from Noah's sons was not KS.
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It was divine ordering. It was a way to restrict human
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sin from consolidating in one place like a Babble, and to
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force global expansion according to his original mandate.
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So this grounding and divine Providence, it just removes the
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idea that nations are purely human constructs or accidents of
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geology. They arise from specific lines.
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Shem, Ham, Japheth, and their diversity, while it often leads
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to conflict, exists under God's sovereign decree for His
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purposes. And we have to at this point
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just reiterate the consequence of this universal ancestry for
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our theology, the universality of sin.
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Because all nations spring from this single sin stained
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household that immediately fell into shame and Noah's tent, All
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the nations that follow inherit that same corruption.
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The shattering realism of Noah's sin right after the Covenant
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proves depravity wasn't gone. So what does this mean for how
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we should view cultures and nations outside of Covenant
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history? It means that every subsequent
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culture, every race tracing back to this origin, stands under the
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biblical verdict of sin. This guards US against
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romanticizing any nation, past or present, as if it has some
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innate moral superiority or stands outside the need for
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redemption. Every nation, every culture,
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every lineage carries the stand of the fall through Adam, which
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was preserved through Noah and then demonstrated immediately by
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the actions of Noah's family. So no nation is intrinsically
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good. No nation is.
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All of them stand in need of rescue.
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Genesis one through 11 gives us this universal scope.
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It shows us the whole landscape, a unified human race,
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universally fallen, dispersed into nations and desperately
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needing a divine solution. The hinge of 9.1819 is that
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exact point of dispersal defining the full scope of the
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human family, the families of the earth that the covenant with
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Abraham in Genesis 12 is meant to eventually bless.
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And this brings us to the ultimate question for the
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believer. How does this deep dive into
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Genesis 9.1819, this hinge point of genealogical history?
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How does it connect directly to the grand story of redemption?
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We in Jesus Christ. This hinge is where the
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universal scope of God's redemptive intention is first
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defined. It lays the groundwork for the
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promise to Abraham in Genesis 12.3, when God promises Abraham
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that in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
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Those families are not just an abstract concept.
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They're the actual descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth who
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were dispersed from the Ark, whose family tree Genesis 10 is
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about to detail for us. So the promise to Abraham, the
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specific solution through 1 chosen line, is explicitly
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targeted at the global reality, the universal problem that was
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defined by Noah's sons in this hinge verse.
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Precisely, and the connection is secured through the particular
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lineage, while humanity expands globally through all three sons.
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The narrative lens, as we said, it quickly narrows.
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It passes over the non covenantal lines and it focuses
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on the line of Shem, the line of promise which leads directly to
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Abraham, then to David and then to Christ.
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Which confirms that Christ doesn't just enter history as an
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outsider or some detached divine figure who's disconnected from
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the human story. Not at all.
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He comes as the true son of Shem.
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His connection to humanity is organic.
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It's rooted in the very race that was preserved in the Ark,
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and this connection is meticulously affirmed in the New
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Testament genealogies. Think of Luke's genealogy.
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It traces Christ's ancestry all the way back through Shem to
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Noah and then to Adam the Son of God.
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Why is that organic connection to the save grace so critical
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for our theology of the Redeemer?
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Because it establishes His qualification to be our Savior.
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Since he is a true biological descendant of the race preserved
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in the ark, the same race that carried the sea of sin, He is
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fully qualified to act as the representative and the
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substitute for that saved yet fallen race.
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The unity of humanity in Adam and Noah makes the singleness
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and the sufficiency of the Redeemer Christ possible.
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He can stand in for that unified fallen humanity.
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So his ability to redeem the whole world rests on the fact
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that the whole world traces back to this one family in Genesis
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9.19. Yes, and Genesis 9.19 speaks
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explicitly of dispersion. The people of the whole earth
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were dispersed, but the gospel, which is the climax of
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redemptive history, speaks of gathering a.
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Reversal. A total reversal.
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The whole arc of redemption is the reversal of the consequences
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of sin, starting with that dispersion.
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The scattering trajectory established in Genesis 9.19 and
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then intensified by the judgment at Babel in Genesis 11 is
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systematically undone by the work of Christ begins at
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Pentecost, and it culminates in the Great Commission.
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And the command to make disciples of all nations is
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directed specifically to the very peoples who were scattered
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from the three sons of Noah. It's a mission aimed at
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reversing the curse of division. And this leads to the ultimate
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resolution of those divided lines.
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Historically, the Bible separated humanity into the line
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of Shem, the recipient of the special covenantal blessing
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leading to Israel, and the lines of Ham and Japheth, who
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generally represented the Gentile nations.
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But in the Gospel, those who are Gentiles, who are historically
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associated with Japheth and Ham's lines, they are
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spiritually grafted into the blessings that belong to the
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tents of Shem. What does that mean to be
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grafted into the tents of Shem? It refers to the theological
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truth that Paul explains in Romans 11 and Ephesians 2.
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When Paul discusses the relationship between Israel and
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the Gentile believers, he talks about the Gentiles, the wild
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olive branches being grafted into the cultivated olive tree
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of promise, and that tree springs from Abraham, who is the
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son of Shem. The special blessing that was
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originally narrowed to Shem expands again through Christ to
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embrace all the scattered families of the earth, no matter
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their ethnic origin. So the original unity of the
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race, the unity that was established in Genesis 9.18 and
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19, is what makes this universal invitation possible and
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coherent. Absolutely.
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The God who repopulated the earth from one family has
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provided 1 Redeemer from that very same stock to create a new
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Holy Family drawn from every single branch of the old one.
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The vision of the redeemed multitude in the Book of
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Revelation, drawn from every tribe and tongue and people and
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nation, is the final, glorious resolution of the dispersion
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that began with Shem, Ham and Japheth.
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The universal problem introduced here is met by a universal
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solution in Christ. Who is the rightful heir and
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ruler over all those scattered nation?
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And the fact that we can trace the unity of the human family
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back to these three men, it just confirms that the missionary
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enterprise isn't optional for the church.
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It's the natural consequence of God's plan to save the very
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people he dispersed. So our deep dive into Genesis
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9.1819 really shows that it's not a footnote at all.
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It's a powerful pivot. It establishes the theological
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framework for the unity of the human race, for the persistence
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of sin, and for the universal scope of God's redemptive plan,
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all, all before the specific history of God's chosen people
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even begins in Genesis 12. And this passage carries huge
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doctrinal and ethical application for believers today.
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The biblical assertion of the unity of the race are double
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solidarity in Adam and Noah. It just destroys any
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intellectual or theological basis for ethnic separation or
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pride. If every single person traces
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their ancestry back to the same three men who left the Ark, then
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we are all by blood kin. That unity should really instill
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both humility and hope in US. Humility because our races first
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act after being saved was immediate sin, but hope because
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God preserved all those branches for a reason.
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And knowing that God sovereignly ordered the nation's from the
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single source gives believers great hope and a sober
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perspective on world events. International chaos, cultural
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upheaval, borders changing, none of it escapes God's control.
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The nation's exist under His Providence and they are
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accountable to Him. They were ordered specifically
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to facilitate the spread of the gospel to the very peoples
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scattered from the ark. So the scattered condition of
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humanity is not the final word. Christ is actively gathering His
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people back into one new family. Let's close with that image.
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We started with the prism analogy because now we can see
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its full dimensions just as a single beam of humanity entered
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the Ark and was then dispersed into a spectrum of nations
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through the three Sons. Christ's work is the ultimate
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focusing mechanism. He brings the entire scattered
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spectrum of peoples, the descendants of Shem, Ham and
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Japheth, back into the pure, unified light of a single
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redeemed people, the Church. Where there is neither Jew nor
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Gentile, but all are one in him. All are one in Him.
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The hinge of Genesis 9.18, Die Nineteen, opened the door to the
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nations and defined their origins, and the gospel flowing
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through the line of Shem opens the door to the redemption of
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every single one of those nations.
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We appreciate you joining us for this deep dive into the hidden
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structure of Genesis. Consider how your own ancestry,
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wherever it traces back on Noah's family tree, is now
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invited to dwell in the spiritual blessings flowing from
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the tents of Shem through faith in Jesus Christ.