{"id":77157,"date":"2020-04-24T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T09:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/\/uk\/?p=77157"},"modified":"2020-04-23T13:32:48","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T12:32:48","slug":"the-meaning-of-the-rainbow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.banneroftruth.org\/uk\/resources\/articles\/2020\/the-meaning-of-the-rainbow\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meaning of the Rainbow"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re out for your permitted daily exercise (in the UK) these days, you can\u2019t help noticing the pictures of rainbows children have painted and put up in their windows. The idea started in Italy and spread to many different countries as a symbol of hope in dark times — the message seems to be that although we\u2019re in a storm at the moment, it will pass. There is light at the end of the tunnel.<\/p>\n

Lovely sentiments, no doubt. Very positive and nice. But what if there is no light at the end of the tunnel? What if the storm doesn\u2019t blow over? What if the situation just gets worse and worse until things fall apart completely? There are plenty of apocalyptic projections in the press about how the economic aftermath of the virus will leave us with a world that faces far bigger problems than anything we\u2019re dealing with at the moment. Are we just \u2018whistling in the dark\u2019 with our rainbow pictures?<\/p>\n

Actually, the symbol of rainbow is far more appropriate for these days than many people who have them in their windows may realise. Because the first person to use the rainbow as a symbol of hope was God himself! We read about it in Genesis 9:12-16, where God speaks to Noah after sending the Flood to destroy a world that had become utterly corrupt.<\/p>\n

In Genesis 9 God makes a covenant. A covenant is a solemn promise — the most solemn promise there is. Sometimes when children want to emphasize they are in earnest about a promise they are making they will say \u2018cross my heart and hope to die\u2019. That captures something of the weight of a covenant. It\u2019s a life and death promise. God is effectively saying, \u2018May I die if I break my promise.\u2019<\/p>\n

He makes his covenant promise to Noah and to all his descendants — in other words, to the whole human race. Not just with religious people, not just with Jews or Christians, but with every human being. You and I (whoever you are) are part of this covenant! In fact, God makes this promise not just with human beings but with every living creature — even with the planet itself!<\/p>\n

So what was the promise? It\u2019s repeated several times, but the first announcement of it is in Genesis 8:21-22: ‘. . .never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.’<\/em><\/p>\n

As a reminder of this promise — a \u2018sign of the covenant\u2019 (Gen 9.12), God put a rainbow in the sky. We don\u2019t know if this was the first time a rainbow had ever appeared in the sky or not, but it doesn\u2019t really matter. God usually took things that already existed to be covenant signs, filling them with new significance. From this moment on the rainbow reminds us that God is faithful — he keeps his promises.<\/p>\n

And now here we are in 2020, thousands of years later and the world is still standing. That really is miraculous, when you think of all the threats to life on earth that exist! God has kept his promise. The human race won\u2019t be wiped out by a virus–\u2013 whether by covid-19 or any other, or nuclear war, or climate change, or an asteroid. Why not? Because God has promised to preserve the world.<\/p>\n

The rainbow is the ideal symbol for this promise, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n