Paul Taylor of Answers In Genesis reminds us of Gods covenant

Prism

Rainbows are beautiful. Even our scientific understanding of them does not detract from their beauty.

Isaac Newton showed, in his famous experiment, that white light is a mixture of colours, which can be separated. Because different coloured lights have different wavelengths, they can be refracted, or bent, when travelling into or out of a glass prism ("Toblerone" shape).

Red light is bent, or refracted, more than blue or violet light. Although we talk about the so-called "seven colours of the rainbow" (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet), in fact the spectrum or rainbow produced is a continuum of colours - it is not possible to work out where red ends and orange begins.

Rainbows are spectra produced by the light being refracted by spherical drops of water instead of triangular prisms. If we face a rainbow, then the sun is always behind us. This is because the light is being bent back towards us, by a combination of refraction and reflection.

Although the Physics behind how a rainbow is produced is well understood, it is easy for us to overlook something in the description of the rainbow in Genesis 9:13 "I have set My rainbow in the cloud". The rainbow belongs to God. And the reason He has placed it there is given in the second part of the verse: "it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth."

Rainbow

God has set up a covenant - an agreement - with everyone on the earth, whether we realise it or not. Every time we see a rainbow, it should remind us, and remind God, that "the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh." (Genesis 9:15) This is good news for us, and indicates the care that God has for this world.

We have seen before in these columns that the Flood was God's judgment on the pre-Flood world. It was the judgment of God for sin. The rainbow is symbolic of God's good news that He was able to rescue some people - Noah and his family - from the Flood. The rainbow as a symbol is especially significant, given that I suspect there was no rain prior to the Flood. Genesis 2:5 says "The Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth". While not all creationists would agree that this eliminates rain from the entire time before the Flood, to me it suggests that if there was no rain then there would be no rainbows. Therefore, the rainbow becomes a real and actual reminder of a real event. If we believe that the Flood was just a localised event, blown up out of proportion, then God's promise never to send another Flood becomes hollow - because there have been many local floods since Bible times. God's covenant is an agreement, which He has chosen to be binding on Himself. The rainbow covenant reminds us of punishment for sin, and also the great mercy of God.

2 Peter 3:10-13 reminds us that there is a judgment to come - a judgment this time, not by water, but by fire. Yet God still gives us the good news that we can be rescued through that judgment. His sign for this New Covenant is not the Rainbow - it is the Cross. Jesus, the sinless Son of God, shed His own blood on the Cross, to pay the price for our sins, and to reconcile us to God.