Genesis 9 Mysteries of Genesis

Genesis 9 Mysteries of Genesis

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Gen. 9:1-7. And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens; with all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it: and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

Noah (the consciousness), with his sons (states of mind), after the Flood (his purification) is very closely related to God.

Of what does "the flood" cleanse man?

The "flood" cleanses man of certain cloudy states of mind, and he begins to see that he lives on three

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planes of consciousness, represented by Noah's three sons: Ham, whose name means "hot," typifying body mind; Shem, whose name means "renowned," typifying Spirit-mind, and Japheth, whose name means "extended and wide," typifying the intellect. He also sees that his body mind organizes a fourth plane, that of the visible flesh, Canaan.

Explain the statement "Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."

The matter of food is also to be solved. "Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all." The wording implies that green herbs are to be the food of both man and animal. But the next command is "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." The importance of the living element in blood is its soul (Hebrew nephesh), which becomes part of man's soul when he eats the blood of animals. This is forbidden, hence to this day orthodox Hebrews drain the blood from the animal flesh before it is offered for food. It is also significant that green herbs are now recommended for food for both animals and man. When we eat of the flesh of animals as popularly prepared we appropriate the soul of the animal as well as the body, and our soul is mentally impregnated with animal tendencies. As Byron said, "the eating of meat makes me savage."

God covenants or agrees to bless the purified consciousness and its realm of ideas (seed). Every idea (living creature) that is illumined of Spirit--even an idea relating to the body consciousness (earth)--is blessed when man knows the creative law and operates in accord with it.

Once the consciousness has been cleansed and man has awakened to his spiritual nature how is he saved?

Once the consciousness has been cleansed and man has awakened to his spiritual nature, he is saved

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through obedience to divine law and is no longer subject to dissolution through negative means. This "covenant," which is eternal, is with those who give up mind and body to the keeping of divine law. The "bow" signifies the orderly arrangement of ideas in Divine Mind and their perfect manifestation. One who is poised in Truth rests in the consciousness of God's presence even in the midst of error (the cloud).

Gen. 9:8-19. And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed 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, even every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow 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; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These three were the sons

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of Noah: and of these was the whole earth over-spread.

Of what is the rainbow a symbol?

God made a covenant with Noah that the earth should not again be flooded, and the rainbow was given as a sign of this covenant. The rainbow as a token of the covenant between God and the earth involves the law of obedience. It is also symbolic of the human race and of the law of unity. The rainbow is formed of many drops of water, each of which acts as a prism, receiving light from the sun and transmitting it by refraction. Each drop represents a human being and the whole race. Only as the drops refract the sun's rays do they become visible and only as man "refracts" God does he make his demonstration.

The seven colors of the solar spectrum are produced by different rates of vibration of a universal energy that in its myriad activities makes the visible universe.

When man is like Noah, obedient to the guidance of God, he is never flooded by negative conditions. When the whole race enters into this obedience, the perfect principles of unity and God refraction and reflection will be forever established. The rainbow is the sign of this state in which we shall all form with our obedient mind a circle of natural perfection. As the rainbow connects the heavens and the earth, so the state of perfect obedience and unity in Spirit brings the earth and the kingdom of the heavens together as one.

Gen. 9:20-29. And Noah began to be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan,

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saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him. And he said,

Cursed be Canaan;
A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
And he said,
Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant.
God enlarge Japheth,
And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant.
And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty
years. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty
years: and he died.

What does the drunkenness of Noah symbolize?

Noah had planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine: took into his physical nature the juice of the grape. This is symbolical of the new spiritual life that is still contaminated by the sense consciousness. Noah had given his attention to the cultivation of the vineyard (earth consciousness) rather than the cultivation of the spiritual consciousness. More thoroughly to explain what the drunkenness of Noah signifies we must resolve the allegory into its spiritual elements.

What state is denoted by the nakedness of Noah?

Noah became "uncovered" or naked (lost his garment of Truth) because he mixed sense (artificial) stimulants with the new wine of life, Spirit. His cultivation of the life force in this physical manner is like the work of some of our physical scientists. Athletes cultivate the physical in an effort to increase the flow of life force and imagine that the physical side is

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the whole thing. Instead of illuminating Noah or giving him life the wine put him to sleep. He was intoxicated with error thought, and this opened his consciousness to negation. The higher man saw at once that he was not expressing spiritual Truth.

What do the three sons of Noah represent?

Although the sons of Noah were supposed to be on a higher plane than he, yet they were also in sense consciousness in a measure, and this is especially true of Ham. Now there is a higher and lower physical consciousness, and the name of Canaan, Ham's son, is introduced to symbolize the lower physical thought, the organized body. Ham saw the ignorance and the nakedness that sense thinking had produced in his father but did nothing to remedy it, nor did he try to extenuate the uncovering in any way. To Ham the thing was more or less a joke, and he told his brothers about it, evidently in a scandalous way. This reveals that man cannot get spiritual life out of material thought.

Shem, representing the Spirit in man, and Japheth, representing the intellectual nature, have pity on their father (man) because of his exposure of his nakedness and sensuality and try to cover it up without seeing it as a reality. They put a garment over their shoulders and walk backward and spread it over their father's nakedness. They do not view the occurrence as a reality.

What is meant by the "curse of Canaan"?

When Noah awoke from his wine--that is, returned to his spiritual consciousness--his first words were "Cursed be Canaan." Canaan means "lowland" and represents the body consciousness. "A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren," he said, thus placing the stamp of materiality upon the body consciousness

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and showing that it cannot give spiritual life.

But Noah said to the God of Shem, "Let Canaan be his servant"; that is, let the flesh come under the dominion of the spiritual man. Of Japheth Noah said, "Let him dwell in the tents of Shem"; that is, let the intellectual man dwell under the protection of the spiritual man, not as a servant but as a younger brother. Thus the physical mind (Ham) and the body (Canaan) come under the dominion of both the intellectual man and the spiritual man, the I AM itself.

The sons of Noah represent the positive, permanent thoughts that rise above the negative, wicked conditions, even the catastrophe of death (the Flood), and come down to earth again. In other words, they are carried over and reincarnated when the soul again takes on a body of flesh.

How do we get the most from physical man?

In order to get the most from physical man we must seek to develop him along spiritual lines. When the spiritual man (Noah) begins a new cycle, a new evolution in physical consciousness (after the cleansing of the "flood") he must give attention to the impact of the ideas put into the body consciousness, select carefully his food and drink, and refuse to give himself to the sense consciousness in any way.