If you read Genesis 9 carefully, you will see a shadow of the kingdom. What is a kingdom? A kingdom is a rule, a reign. There, in Genesis 9, we see the shadow of the kingdom of God on earth among men. The ruling with God-given authority among men on the new earth signifies the reigning of God's kingdom in resurrection life.
What was the situation on earth before the time of that kingdom? Firstly, the earth was filled with violence (6:11, 13). Why was the earth filled with violence? Because there was no deputy authority, no one who was authorized to rule over others. There was no deputy authority over man before the flood. Suppose that today there were no local, state, or federal government. Would we still be able to live peacefully? No, the land would be filled with violence. No one could sleep well at night, for all would fear that their possessions would be stolen. Because there was no government before the flood, the earth was filled with violence. As we shall see in the next message, the government during that time was man's conscience. In the garden, before the fall, man was directly under the rule of God, the divine government. After the fall, man was under the rule of his own conscience. However, the government of the conscience, or we may say self-government, did not work well. The result of this self-government was that the whole earth was filled with violence. Thus, after the flood, God authorized man to rule over other men and human government began.
Secondly, before that kingdom, man did not care for God's interest. According to Luke 17:26-27, before the flood, men were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage. No one cared for God's interest. Eventually God's judgment came upon them.
Things were different after the flood. Under the ruling of God's deputy authority, which was a shadow of the kingdom of God, the situation was different.
After the flood the earth was filled with peace. We know this because 9:20 says that Noah planted a vineyard. Micah 4:3-4 indicates that when the people of God have a vineyard, it means that there is peace on earth. These verses in Micah, which refer to the coming kingdom, tell us that men shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks because there will no longer be war, and that every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree. This means that there is peace. That Noah planted a vineyard proves that he was enjoying peace in the kingdom. At that time there was no violence. The proper church life today is a real vineyard where there is no fighting but rest.
In that kingdom, man was recovered back to the purpose that God had for man at the beginning: to express and represent God (9:1-7). It is very interesting to see that some of the words spoken in 1:26-28 are repeated here in Genesis 9. This means that after the flood man was brought back to the beginning to fulfill God's purpose, to have the one goal of expressing God and representing Him.