“Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life.” Genesis 9:12-15 NLT
The complete and total destruction of all creation is a powerful, but risky move. It’s is extremely hard for us, as humans, as created beings, to grasp the full extent of God’s right and ability to do what he wants. What is even more mind-blowing is the fact that God, being PERFECT, precise, right, true and just can both make life and destroy life in complete supremacy, and it is justified!
While on earth, I doubt I will ever understand the mystery of risk God took in creating free-will creatures. Since God is so far above and beyond my thinking, it’s even harder to imagine him obliterating an entire batch of bad characters and sparing just a small fraction of human life as we see with Noah and his immediate family. There are so many questions surrounding the discussion in Genesis 2:1-9. Who were the “Nephilites – Sons of God?” They were mass producing giant warriors! Maybe they were reproducing much faster than the descendants of Adam and Eve? All we know God said he favored Noah and said he was righteous, blameless and walked in close fellowship with God. Noah was not perfect, but his faith in God clearly stood out.
We get past the flood and total destruction of the rest of humanity and we come to the contract, the covenant promise God made with Noah. God loves covenants and absolutely ALWAYS keeps his promises. The symbols of promise are reminders of contracts. These symbols and token reminders move us to memory of the promises made. Our modern world is filled with contracts, NDA’s, Pre-nups and mountains of paperwork stating that both parties are held to KEEP their promise for the contract to be reliable and dependable. Normally, when one of the parties in the contract fail to keep the promise made, the contract becomes null and void. However, there are lots of instances where one party might keep the promise even when the other breaks from the agreement. You sign a written contract when borrowing money or purchasing something of value. When you fail to make a payment, you break the contract and the bank or lender can take back the item in question. That may be a car, house, land or anything of worth. A wedding ring is a powerful symbol of promise, a contract or covenant – not with the state but with God and each other. Why would the government care if a couple stays together or not? The system does not care. God cares, people care.
God gives Noah the most famous, sustainable symbol humans have ever known – a rainbow in the sky. And it comes in its amazingly beautiful array of color when sunshine strikes water molecules sustained in the air. Oh sure, it can scientifically be explained, but science (physical explanations of natural phenomenon) is a recent discovery that didn’t happen in ancient times. The rainbow precedes our understanding of modern scientific explanations! The rainbow shows up in ancient texts! Oh, we’re so smart to be able to explain the mystery now, but we still can’t explain why it’s so amazing. How awful to reduce such extravagance down to a evolutionary anomaly that is treated as nonsensical coincidence!
The rainbow symbol has been used and abused to represent something it was never intended to represent. When the symbol is separated from the promise, it becomes worthless to help us remember what it is for. The rainbow still occurs as a reminder, but now it’s lost luster and beauty. Search it for yourself. What does the rainbow symbolize? Here’s the top result: “Rainbows symbolize good luck, wellness, happiness, and health, [and] could indicate a positive shift in vibration and positive energy.” What a nonsensical pile of 💩. Next time you see a rainbow, remember it’s a promise that God keeps his word! He didn’t flood the whole earth again. However, next time it will be another “natural” phenomenon… FIRE.
Prayer
Dad,
First of all, I love rainbows! Great job on that. However, I have seen your consistent love and grace to keep your promises in many more tangible ways in my life and in others. You are THE promise keeper! And, I am grateful that you are trustworthy.