Sometimes people make conditional commitments, and the word “if” is the dead giveaway. “If you do this, I’ll do that.” If the first person agrees but does not fulfill their end of the agreement, the second person has not broken their word by not doing what they said they would because it was conditional.
In Genesis 6-9 we read the story of Noah’s Ark (I think it should be called “God’s Ark,” but that’s another fun conversation). The world had become so overrun by evil disobedience that God’s heart was deeply grieved (Gen 6:6-8), and He said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land…But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” The fact that Noah found undeserved favor, or grace, in the eyes of the Lord is incredibly merciful for a Holy God, and something we should each be eternally grateful for, because we are all beneficiaries of God’s kindness.
Toward the end of the story, God creates a rainbow to remind us of His merciful promise, “Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the (whole) earth…This is a sign of the covenant…I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, …I will see and remember the everlasting covenant (unconditional promise)…” (Gen 9:8-17). Wikipedia describes a rainbow as “a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky.” A rainbow is God’s creative display that escapes our capacity for full understanding.
When God told Noah to build the ark, with very specific instructions, He told him to make it with one door—one entry to be saved from the coming flood of judgment. When God gave His Son, Jesus, He told us that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” There has always been one way for salvation from God’s coming judgment. The ark pictures the greater salvation fulfilled in Christ, and the rainbow reminds us that God is always faithful to remember and keep His promises.
When you see a rainbow, be reminded that God created and maintains it as His kind reminder to everyone that He is “merciful and gracious, slow to an anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8).
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