The Rainbow Covenant
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2019 · 2 June 2019
One of the most extraordinary and beautiful natural wonders is the rainbow. And rainbows have fascinated people throughout the ages. A rainbow is a curved line in the sky composed of seven colors: red, orange, green, blue, indigo and violet. More scientifically, a rainbow is an arc of concentric colored bands that develops when sunlight interacts with raindrops.
And the different wave lengths of visible light separate and become different colors. Longer wave lengths of light, such as red, are bent the least while shorter wave lengths of violet and blue are bent the most. And depending on the angle with which the sun goes through the raindrop, it refracts a certain color, somewhere between 40 degrees and 48 degrees angle creates the span of colors.
Rainbows have preoccupied cultures throughout the history of man. Even Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz said, "Somewhere over the rainbow there's a land where dreams really do come true." On a far less trivial note, the homosexuals have adopted the rainbow as the sign of the beauty of their perversion. What is the meaning in a rainbow if there is any? Well in the Bible it does have immense significance.
According to the Bible, there is really no message in the sun or the moon or in the stars. The constellations have become the basis of horoscopes, but they just are astrological pagan inventions. And there are people writing books on the constellations as if the gospel was preached there. There's only one thing that God has placed there to give a spiritual message, and that is the rainbow in Genesis 9:8-17.
Verses 8-11, “Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: 9 “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, 10 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. 11 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.”
Verses 12-15, “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: 13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud. 15 and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you.”
Verses 15-17, “and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 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.” 17 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.”
This is an important message from God. In fact there are three speeches from God to the family of Noah, the eight people that constitute the entire population of the earth humanly speaking. And so what God says in these three speeches to Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives is essentially God's promise to all humanity because all humanity was in those eight people.
Noah comes out of the ark. He enters into the new world at the beginning of Genesis 9. And in Genesis 9:1-7, Noah and his family are told what they were to do. They were to reproduce and fill the earth. They were to rule over the rest of God’s creation. They were allowed to eat all animals. And they were to execute those who took someone’s life, this is capital punishment from God.
So there is the instruction from God to Noah and his family about what they are to do in verses 1 to 7. And in verses 8 to 17, God says what He is going to do. Exhortation to Noah now becomes a promise from God. God says, I'm going to make you a covenant, a personal commitment made by God to man. From now on, God is known as a God who is always faithful in keeping His covenant.
It is like a legal document, and don't underestimate the value of the repetition. The word "covenant," is used seven times. Verse 9, "I establish," that means immediately I will establish this. Verse 11, "I establish," that's present. And then in verse 17, "I have established," shows I have done it. So the repetition is part of the character of this covenant and it’s for man's enjoyment from God's grace.
This was important news for Noah. There was no rain before the Flood. The earth was protected by a water-vapor canopy that made the entire planet uniform in its sort of semi-tropical climate so men lived to be almost a thousand years old and animals lived to be very old also, hence reptiles that grow continuously all their life became dinosaurs. At the Flood it rained for the first time.
The earth exploded with volcanoes and broke up the canopy, so it came down as water and the fountains of the reservoirs in the earth also came out and together deluged the earth for 40 days and 40 nights until literally covering 70% of the earth. Now in the new world it will rain regularly as God moves the water in a hydrological cycle, from evaporation into clouds, raining on land, and running back into the sea.
So this rain is going to fall from God as a blessing on the just and the unjust. It's going to make things grow. It's necessary for life, providing beauty on the earth and food. Rain is going to be common. But Noah didn't yet know that. His experience of rain was pretty severe. The thought of it was frightening. So this is not only a covenant with all of humanity, this is just good news for the only family that existed at that time.
Verse 8, "Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him." God speaks directly to the whole human race. Now I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do in verse 9, “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you.” This is precise, inspired language. And each phrase, each word, defines a specific feature of God's covenant.
First, verse 9 says, "And as for Me, behold, I”, the covenant is unilateral. That means it's a covenant made by one, a bilateral covenant would be made by two. This promise is singularly on the part of God. He is doing it without any consideration of man and his will, He is doing it without any consultation with man. He's doing it without any negotiation with man. This is not a mutual agreement.
God is not saying if you do this and that then I'll do this and that. If you don't do this and do that, then I won't do this and do that. It is not like that. Look at verse 11, "I establish My covenant." Verse 12, "This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you." Verse 17, "This is the sign of the covenant which I have established." Never we, always I. God determines to make this promise on His own.
Secondly, the promise is unconditional. He says, "I Myself do establish." Verse 11, "I establish." Again in verse 17, "I have established." The word "establish" ‘qumin’ in Hebrew means to erect, to make stand solidly. In other words, I set this in concrete. I establish. There are no conditions on the part of man to validate it or invalidate it. Nothing man does can cause Me to break it.
Thirdly, the promise is inviolable. It cannot be changed, it's fixed. And God repeats that in verse 9, verse 11, verse 15, and elsewhere, between Me and the earth, between Me and all flesh that is on the earth. It is inviolable because it is a covenant made by the eternal God who cannot change and cannot lie. Covenant is the word, and it is used in all but in verse 10. It's all through here.
The idea of a covenant is very unfamiliar today. About the only place there is a vestige of the covenant idea is in marriage. Most people in our society are clueless about what that means. A covenant was something binding. A marriage covenant is binding for life. And when you made a covenant, everything about your character hinged on whether you kept your promise, your covenant.
Marriage now is descended to a temporary agreement with conditions for compliance sometimes written into a pre-nuptial agreement. But in Scripture, covenants were the foundation of society. People knew what a covenant was. When you made a covenant with somebody, you bound yourself to that promise and your character and your integrity and your life and your reputation was at stake.
So people in the Old Testament time, in Noah's time, and throughout biblical times, understood what a covenant was. It was a binding promise. And most covenants were bilateral and most covenants were conditional. And most covenants would have some kind of an out clause in the case of some violation. But here's God making a unilateral, unconditional, inviolable covenant.
That is why when you go through the Old Testament, one of the attributes of God that is celebrated over and over is that God is faithful. And that attribute of faithfulness is linked to the fact that God kept His covenants. And that's how a man proved his faithfulness, he kept his covenant. Now people do everything they can to break contracts, to break promises, to violate agreements that just goes on all the time.
A person proves he's a faithful husband by never violating the vow he made to his wife. And the way a wife proves that she's a covenant-keeping and faithful wife is by never violating the vow she made to her husband. And that vow that you made at your wedding is that you would be her husband and she your wife for life. And faithful men keep the covenant, and faithful women keep the covenant.
The covenant God made with Noah is still in effect. The covenant He made with Abraham is still in effect, with David is still in effect, with the priests, still in effect, with the New Covenant that the one He made for the forgiveness of sins, Jeremiah 31, still in effect. The reason the Mosaic covenant was nullified was because it was a conditional covenant, since no man can meet the condition of fulfilling the Law.
All the covenants are permanent covenants, God is faithful. Numbers 23:19, "God is not a man that He should lie." 1 Samuel 15:29, "The strength of Israel will not lie." Psalm 146:6, "He keeps truth forever." And repeatedly throughout the Scripture, "The Lord is faithful." Isaiah 49:7, Lamentations 3:23, "Great is Thy faithfulness." Psalm 89, several times, Psalm 119:89 and 90, and so it goes.
Fourthly, the promise is also universal, verse 9, "I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you,” that is with all humanity. No other covenant in force applies to all humanity. The Priestly Covenant, the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the New Covenant only apply to believers. This promise is the basis of common grace for all humanity.
This promise is universal. Look at verse 10, "With every living creature." Verse 11, "With you and all flesh." Verse 12, "Between Me and you and every living creature that is with you for all successive generations." Verse 15, "With you and every living creature of all flesh." And verse 16, "Between God and every living creature of all flesh." And verse 17, "Between Me and all flesh that is on the earth."
Fifthly, this promise is perpetual. Verse 12 says, "For perpetual generations.” And verse 16, “the everlasting covenant." Not eternal, but in the sense of lasting throughout all of time. And we know how long it will last. Back in Genesis 8:22, “I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done while the earth remains.” That defines the everlasting, it lasts as long as the earth remains.
So you have here a covenant that is unilateral, unconditional, inviolable, universal and perpetual. Sixthly, this is a covenant is also physical. We know this is not a covenant that's going to go on in the new heavens and the new earth. No. Look at verse 10, the fact that all the animals share in this covenant indicates that this covenant is a physical temporal covenant.
The Abrahamic Covenant is a spiritual one. The Priestly Covenant is a spiritual one. The Davidic Covenant is a spiritual one. The Mosaic Covenant was a spiritual covenant demonstrating the sinfulness of man. The New Covenant is a spiritual covenant. But this is a temporal, physical covenant. And this is so far-reaching that it physically covers all living beings.
When God gave Abraham a covenant, the sign was circumcision. When He gave Moses a covenant, the sign was the Sabbath. Verse 12-13, “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: 13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.”
When you see a rainbow that is God's bow. He put it there because this is not the time of judgment, this is the time of peace. So God created His rainbow as a sign of His mercy toward a world of sinners. This is a symbol of His promise, never to destroy the world again as He did during the flood, until the whole universe will be destroyed by fire, as 2 Peter 3 describes it.
The only time you see a rainbow is after a storm when it has passed and the sun shines again. A rainbow is a picture then of grace after judgment. Every time you see a rainbow, it represents the victory of grace over judgment. What does this world deserve? Judgment. What does it get? Grace because this is the age when God has stopped judgment for a time.
God said to Noah in verse 17, "This is the sign of the covenant, this rainbow, which I've established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth." The Flood story is a revelation of God's wrath. But the rainbow is a sign that God is also a God of mercy, grace, patience and peace. There will be a final wrath to come, but for now God is gracious to sinners. Let us pray.