#desiringgod

In the olden days, people tied a piece of string around a finger to recall the commitments they have made. Today’s forgetful people are more likely to use an alarm on their smartphone’s productivity app.

How God sets up reminders for himself -  John describes God’s throne as surrounded by “a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald” (Revelation 4:3). God’s throne is surrounded with color to remind himself of something. But what?

The Rainbow from Earth’s Perspective

The Bible’s first book — Genesis — where the rainbow first appears in chapter 9. After using an ark to bring Noah, his family, and the animals through the flood, God made a covenant with them. As a part of that covenant, he gave them a sign: a bow. God said, “I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Genesis 9:13). This rainbow signifies that “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh” (Genesis 9:15).

When the Bible describes the Lord hanging up his bow, it pictures God putting away his weapon of war and committing to peace with his people

By hanging up his bow in the cloud, God reminds himself of his commitment at the very boundary that he has newly promised to uphold.

The Rainbow from Heaven’s Perspective

While God’s people can take comfort from seeing a rainbow, the Bible tells us that the purpose of the sign is actually to remind God. “When the bow is in the clouds,” the Lord said, “I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (Genesis 9:13–16).

Here, in the very place God dwells and rules, he has surrounded himself with this reminder. Like us, God has surrounded himself with a reminder of the commitment he has made to the people that he loves.

This clarifies passages in the Bible where it says that God will “not remember” believers’ sins (Isaiah 43:25, Psalm 79:8). How can an omniscient God “not remember” the sins of his people? It is because God does not “forget” sin in the same way that we forget things. We forget things when our neurological synapses fail, but God does not forget things because of failure. When the Lord chooses to “not remember” our sin, he is instead choosing to remember his covenant not to destroy his people. He sees his colorful reminder and remembers.

The Rainbow and the Lamb

As Sally Lloyd-Jones wrote in The Jesus Storybook Bible, “God’s war bow was not pointing down at his people. It was pointing up, into the heart of heaven” (47). When God saw the sin of his people and considered the wrath that sin deserved, his war bow pointed at his own heart, his Son.

The Bible describes this mighty Christ representative as having “a rainbow over his head” (Revelation 10:1). This should encourage God’s people. Like the story of the exodus, the angel of death has come to judge the world. But because of the blood of the Lamb, because of the rainbow reminder of God’s promise over his head, God’s people need not fear. God the Son has paid the penalty for our sin, so God the Father will not remember our sin. He remembers his covenant with us — his promise to do us good — instead.