Genesis 9:14

THE BOW OF HOPE

‘It shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.’

Genesis 9:14

We have before us, in this record, a memorable example of the adaptation of Prophecy—another word for Revelation—to the circumstances and wants of mankind. And what is this but to speak of the thoughtfulness of God Himself towards the family which he has brought into being, and which, for all its sins and backslidings, He has never disowned and never forsaken?

If the terms of the charter of restoration are so many examples and evidences of the Divine consideration, how much more the sanction with which the text closes it!

I. It has been suggested that the idea which has been supposed to lie in the words, and which has been a stumbling-block to many—that of the postdiluvian creation of the rainbow—is no part of the record. The statement before us is quite consistent with the supposition that God for the first time consecrates to a spiritual use a natural phenomenon already existing. Like the consecration of the element of water into a type of spiritual regeneration—like the consecration of bread, the support of natural life, into a type of Him who came down from heaven to be the food and nutriment of souls—may be the conversion of the loveliest feature of the natural sky into a token and sacrament of Divine mercy towards those who have been troubled and chastened by reason of their sins. That ‘clear shining after rain’—that special brilliancy which cannot be without the foregoing darkness—that wonderful contrast of light and cloud which seems to shape itself into a mystic bridge between earth and heaven, between the sinner and the sinless—who shall say, in the silence of Scripture—‘I do set,’ or rather ‘I have set, my bow in the cloud’—whether it was, or was not, a phenomenon of the antediluvian sky? Who shall speculate upon the possible changes wrought in Nature herself by that stupendous judgment, or take count of such matters as affecting at all the truth and the significance of this record, which consecrates one of creation’s glories into a perpetual monument of the Creator’s love?

II. ‘It shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.’ Who has not had experience of the thing signified? Who amongst us, as he looks back upon the history of a life and of a soul, cannot bear witness to that union of mercy and judgment—more especially to that development of mercy out of judgment—which is the very point of the similitude? No cloud, no bow—no darkened sky, then no lustrous reflection. Is it not thus always? Who that knows himself, who that knows God, would dwell always in mirth and gladness? Who shall not rather, if not at the moment, yet in the retrospect, rejoice and praise God for bringing the cloud over the sky, in which alone He doth set His bow?

III. What shall heaven itself be, but the interpretation of the parable? ‘There was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.’ They who shall be ‘counted worthy to obtain that world,’ shall enter it after storm and tempest, after the submerging of earthly joys and the extinction of human lights, not to forget the past, but to see it and feel it forgiven, the bow illuminating the cloud and transforming it into a memorial at once of love and light.

And therefore it is, that the moments on earth most like to heaven are those spent before the Cross of the great sacrifice, there to behold sin not overlooked but atoned for—there to behold the cloud charged with judgment irradiated by a mercy ‘rejoicing against’ it, telling of a redemption mighty to save, and a love which sin itself could not overwhelm nor do away.

—Dean Vaughan.

Illustration

‘Perhaps the rainbow in the cloud, the element of comfort in the darkness of trial, is a promise of Scripture, which never seems to speak home to my heart until I need it most. Perhaps it is the worship of the Lord’s House, bringing soothing and succour and calm into my tempestuous days. Perhaps it is the potency of a little time spent in secret prayer. Perhaps it is the grasp of a neighbour’s hand, or a word in season spoken to me by a brother in the household of faith, or the friendliness of a young child letting me know that I am not forsaken. All these, and other things as well, are remembrancers that my God thinks on me.

You recollect the twenty-ninth Psalm? It is the Psalm of the thunderstorm. From north to south, over the whole land, the storm sweeps in its tremendous march. But how soft and musical is the closing word!—“ The Lord will bless His people with peace.” Yes, before the tumult, and during the tumult, and after the tumult, and by means of the tumult, God will do me good. “I see the rainbow in the rain.” ’