RAINBOW COVENANT
Genesis 9:8 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." 12 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 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."
It is generally believed that in the Antediluvian world it did not rain, or that at least it was a very rare event. This comes from the creation account where it is noted that the earth was watered by a mist coming up out of the ground.
Genesis 2:5 . . . For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
In other words the world was created with some kind of automatic sprinkler system. And since rainbows are produced by the refraction of light passing through raindrops, in a world with no rain there would have been no rainbows.
Now after the flood Noah and family were about to discover that things were going to work a little differently than what they were used to. Now the earth would be watered, not by a mist, but by rain, and Noah and family would soon discover that this rain would fall quite frequently. Having just passed through a global flood this repeating pattern of rain might have become a cause of concern for them. When will it end? How bad will it be? Is this going to be another flood? To allay any fears Noah and family might have, God now makes the Rainbow Covenant with them. Yes, God says, rain clouds will appear in the sky again, and yes, it will rain again . . . and again -- but never again will there be a flood such as the one you just went through, and never again will all living things on land be destroyed by a flood. And as a visible sign to Noah and family and their descendants after them, God now points to the rainbow as His personal signature to this promise.
Now this Rainbow Covenant was not a promise that there would never again be a flood. There has been many floods since. It only promised that there would never again be a global flood destroying all life on earth. Nor was the Rainbow covenant a promise that God would never again destroy all life on earth - only that He would not destroy the earth by a flood of water. The next time, scripture tells us, the earth will be destroyed by fire.
2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
And this brings us another point. The Rainbow is not just a promise that there would never again be a global flood. It is also God’s reminder to the world that there really was a global flood. A reminder to the world that God really does bring judgment on the earth. A reminder to the world that the God who destroyed the earth with a flood of water will again destroy the earth by fire. A reminder to the world that just as the unbelief of the Antediluvians did not delay by a single day the coming of the flood, even so, the unbelief of the world today will not delay by a single day the coming of the Lord.
2 Peter 3:3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." 5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
And so, in a manner of speaking, every rainbow is to us, and to the world at large, a promise of judgment to come and of the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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