Understanding God: God of Accountability
Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” – Genesis 9:9-11
Another attribute we can learn from God is that, in addition to learning from His own processes and making amends using insights gained from His evaluation, He also holds Himself accountable to ensure that the process does not fail again. He is a God of accountability.
You may wonder why this is so since we are talking about an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-sufficient God here. Well, while God is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, and knows the end of all things from their beginning, He pretty much gives the power of agency to His creatures, particularly humans, to manage the proceedings or do things their own way by making choices and decisions or taking steps and actions, that will either ensure their predestination or have it turned out differently, by their own doing or undoing.
This statement will perhaps answer one of the questions that believers, non-believers, scholars, philosophers, scientists, and others have asked across the ages about God’s influence and role in terrestrial outcomes.
The LORD is the God of the beginnings and is the God of endings. But He does not meddle much in the proceedings and the dynamics that ensue between those two ends. Otherwise, we might as well all be puppets controlled by the whims of a puppeteer up there, not the free moral agents that He created us to be.
The truth is we are all creatures of will, with the ability to decide how our outcomes and ends would be through the choices, decisions, and actions we make ourselves.
It was because of this freedom that the human race turned into something else, contrary to the original design of God when He first created them, which thus necessitated the need for a wipeout. Now, having done that with the flood and seeing how the clear-out played out, God felt He could do better next time in His management of the human race:
And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.” – Genesis 8:21
With this declaration, God resolved to correct two decisive actions He had taken before then. First, He was reversing the curse He placed on the earth’s surface after Adam and Eve’s mistake. Second, He was never going to destroy all lives on the earth again in a wholesale fashion as He did during Noah’s time—not with the flood, not at all.
Now, this passage was a product of God thinking to Himself. He made a new resolution about humans and what the new world order would be. But He had not communicated that to anyone yet. However, He needed to commit Himself to this. Therefore, He voiced out His thoughts to Noah and his family:
Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” – Genesis 9:8-9
It gets more interesting because God did not just get Himself accountability partners in Noah and His sons, He also instituted a memento that would help both Him and them to remember His promises:
And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.” – Genesis 9:12-17
This shows us that accountability, as a value, was first exhibited by God. He had to commit Himself to not destroying humanity again, as there was no guarantee that they would live in accordance with His standards since they are free moral agents. Also, this passage shows us that the practice of having accountability partners was first instituted by God when He made a promise He was bound to keep to Noah and his sons.
Lastly, God also created the very first reminder, accountability tool, visual cue, motivational trigger, or commitment device that would make it hard for Him to break His promise to the earthlings. This He did in the rainbow, which He made an everlasting ordinance that would remain even when His initial accountability partners are no more.
Now, isn’t this the classic way we ought to approach accountability?
Selah!
Also read:
- Understanding God: He Starts Afresh
- The Ordinance of Firstfruits (3): Debunking A Rather Dangerous Myth
- We are Nothing Without Each Other
- What to Give up for Lent
- Working in A Call Center, Trusting God
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