Gen 9:8–17 — God’s Covenant Sign in the Clouds

The title of the sermon today is “God’s Covenant Sign in the Clouds.”

That is the emphasis of our text beginning in verse 12. This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you. Referring to the bow that is the rainbow. This is a key part of this covenant of common grace. We have been spending quite a bit of time in this section in Genesis chapter nine.

Also, not only nine, but also the last few verses of chapter eight. In chapter eight, at the very end, after Noah builds an altar and he offers the sacrifice of burnt offering on the altar, the Lord makes the first intimation of this covenant. Now, it is not called a covenant there in chapter eight, verse 21. But he makes the same basic promise that then he repeats in chapter nine, where in chapter nine he does call it a covenant.

But notice in chapter eight, verse 21, the Lord said, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. God then gives the renewal of the cultural mandate in chapter nine, verses one through seven.

And then in our text, he then repeats the same basic thrust of what he had said at the end of chapter eight, but now in the form of a covenant. This is the covenant of common grace. God is preserving humanity in spite of man’s sin. Did you notice that reference there to the sin of man in chapter eight, verse 21? He says, I will never again curse the ground because of man. Not because man is now righteous. Just the opposite.

For the intention of man’s heart is still evil from his youth, just as it had said at the beginning, before the flood. That was the reason why the flood happened, was because chapter 6 and verses 5 and following, every intention of the thought of man’s heart is only evil continually. And the earth is filled with violence. Then God sends the flood, destroys all mankind except for those within the ark.

And after they come out of the ark, God does not say, okay, everything is good now, I have cleansed the earth of all sin. No, he recognizes that Noah and his son still carry within them that original sin and that seed of sin that is going to burst forth continually in the history of the world. And yet, God says, in spite of that, in spite of man’s sin, In spite of the fact that man is still in a state of rebellion against God, God is promising never again to destroy the world through a flood. He is preserving this world. He is staying the judgment. He is withholding the judgment.

And amazingly, it is an incredible thing, God actually renews the cultural mandate. We looked at that last week in Genesis 9, one through seven. Be fruitful and multiply. Exercise dominion over creation. Man even continues to be made in the image of God. In spite of his sin, he still retains the image of God, and that royal image that he contains, that he has, is to be expressed in the form of the restraint of violence through civil government. Genesis nine, verse six. Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed. Why? For God made man in his own image.

So God is preserving these structures. The structure of the family, be fruitful and multiply. The structure of civil government. The structure of the ability for man to have a cultural progress and to have a history. He is going to sustain the world. He is going to allow mankind to grow and develop and build civilizations.

And he is doing this because he is restraining his judgment in order to secure an opportunity for his work of special grace to continue. God even formalizes this promise to withhold the judgment, to stay the judgment temporarily. In order to allow for mankind to have historical development. God even takes that promise that he made, which could just be viewed as pure clemency, as pure mercy, that God is just simply staying the judgment temporarily, but it is more than that.

He even turns it into a covenant. He even says, I am going to make a promise, a guaranteed promise. I am establishing a covenant with you to do this. And not only that, I am even going to give a sign of the covenant, which we are going to look at in this sermon, that is the sign of the rainbow, in order to show how serious God is about this.

God formalizes the basic promise of postponing the judgment, until the end, until the day of judgment, he is formalizing that basic restraint into a covenant and guaranteeing it as a lasting, it is even called an everlasting covenant in verse 16. Now, the word everlasting in Hebrew does not literally always mean everlasting, that is, without end, because obviously this will come to an end. This common grace covenant of restraining the judgment will come to an end at the day of judgment. But it does, this word everlasting in Hebrew does signify the idea of a perpetual covenant that is going to last a very long time because God is preserving the world until the day of judgment.

And why is he doing that? Why is he preserving the world for such a long time until the end of history? He is doing so in order to fulfill his purpose of special grace, not the common grace benefits that are for the wicked and the righteous alike, but his special grace, his covenant of special grace that was promised at the very beginning after Adam and Eve sinned in that first promise of the gospel concerning the offspring who would come. The rainbow that God now makes as the sign of this covenant, the rainbow reminds us of this two-fold aspect. So there is two aspects here to what God is doing in this whole process. On the one hand, we have this idea of God’s common grace benefits, restraining judgment, delaying the judgment to allow for mankind to be fruitful and multiply and populate the earth. And to build civilizations, and to grow, and to have the opportunity to have children, and to have families, and have even civil government. But he is doing that, that is part of it. He is restraining the judgment, but he is doing that for a specific purpose, which is regarding his saving purposes in Christ, in the offspring to come. The rainbow itself contains within it this two-fold significance, does it not? So, first of all, the rainbow signifies that first point, which is the restraint.

God’s common benefits to mankind in not judging all mankind right away, but allowing even wicked and evil men to continue to grow, to have families, to build societies, and so on. That is the first point. How do we see that first aspect of God’s general benevolence to mankind in staying the judgment for a time?

The Sign of the Covenant

Well, we see it in this fact of what is the rainbow called in our text. If you notice, it refers to the rainbow several times in our text, but it does not use the word rainbow. Did you notice that? We know it is a rainbow, but it does not use the word rainbow. Instead it uses the word bow. Did you hear that in the text?

The Bow in the Clouds

I will bring clouds over the earth and the bow will be seen in the clouds. The bow then is specifically called a bow because the Hebrew word that is translated bow is the same word that is used to refer to the war bow. When there is an army with their war bows and the arrows of judgment that are coming. So God is taking this sign of the war bow and he is placing it in the clouds, but notice that the position of this bow is now that it is in a position of being pointed up, not being pointed down upon humanity. In the flood, when God sent the waters of judgment against mankind, the war bow of God’s judgment and wrath was aimed at humanity. God was judging the world. He was giving us a prototype of the final day of judgment at the end. But now, God says, I am going to set my bow, my war bow, in a paused position.

Pointed upward, no longer pointed down at mankind. As a sign, as a symbol of the fact that God is making this covenant promise to sustain the world in spite of its sinfulness and its rebellion, to sustain the world so that seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. Although only until the end. It says, while the earth remains. So this is going to happen, God’s going to be gracious to mankind, he is going to send his reign upon the just and the unjust alike, he is going to allow even unbelievers to live and have families and build societies with civil governments and so on, but he is going to do so only until the end. The end, while the earth remains. And so the first thing that this bow symbolizes, the reason why it is called a bow, not a rainbow, is it symbolizes that God is suspending judgment until the end, until the appointed time.

This bow, this battle bow, was once used in judgment, but now God hangs it up in the clouds. The wrath is restrained. The bow is hung up. Although notice that although the bow is hung up in the clouds in paused position, like he is putting it on the wall and hanging it there, it is still there. It is still there for God to pull it down off the wall, to bring it down off the clouds and to aim those arrows again in judgment against mankind.

And we know that is in fact what will happen. We know that in fact at the end of history, The Day of the Lord, God is going to take that bow off of the wall, so to speak, and He is going to aim it once again at rebellious humanity. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. Jesus Himself explicitly said in His Olivet Discourse, His Eschatological Discourse, that The Day of Judgment, when He comes in glory on the clouds of heaven, is going to be very similar to, in fact, analogous to, when the flood came upon the earth and destroyed all of those that were outside of the Ark of Salvation.

So that is the first thing, that the bow is hung up in paused position, signifying God’s forbearance, putting up with a rebellious human race, patiently allowing the world to continue to live, to breathe, to develop, and to have some degree of societal peace and unity, he is doing so for a reason and for a time. He is doing so for a season until the end comes.

But there is a second element, there is a second aspect to what this rainbow signifies. It not only signifies that negative side of the restraint of judgment, but this threat that it could come back, and it will come back one day, but it also signifies that God is not finished with the world and that he is going to bring about his ultimate eschatological purposes for creation at the end. And how do we know that? How do we know that there is a second element here, a positive hope that is also foreshadowed and indicated in this rainbow?

The Rainbow in Redemptive History

For God’s people, for the people of God, the rainbow shows up several more times in redemptive history in a way that provides a sign of hope, an eschatological consummation. After Genesis 9, the rainbow is mentioned three more times in redemptive history. The next time the rainbow is mentioned is in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter one. Remember in Ezekiel chapter one it says that Ezekiel experienced a vision of God himself.

The heavens were torn open and he saw God or the glory of God. He saw God in some way sitting upon his throne and around the throne was these four living creatures, these cherubim of glory. They are like the praetorian guard who are guarding the holiness of God himself. And in addition to the four living creatures, we have this cloud of glory around the one who is seated upon the throne. And this cloud of glory is described in the language taken directly from our text.

In Genesis chapter nine, it says that the bow will be seen in the clouds. Now in Genesis 9, it is referring to a literal rainbow that you could see in the clouds. But in Ezekiel’s vision, this apocalyptic vision when heaven is open and he is seeing God himself on his throne, he sees again this idea of the bow that is in the clouds. So in Ezekiel 1 verse 28, it says, he saw God himself. He saw the glory of God, then in verse 28 it says, like the appearance of the bow, and it is that same word that could also mean battle bow, the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud. So notice that reference to the cloud. On the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. This cloud that is surrounding the throne and surrounding God himself is a cloud of glory that we have seen throughout the Bible.

And it is mentioned, for example, in the time of the Exodus when God’s people were confronted by, they were hemmed in on one hand by the sea in front of them and Pharaoh’s army behind them. And it says that the glory cloud came and stood between them. And just as we see in our text, is what I am trying to communicate in this message today, that we see this two-fold dimension to this glory cloud. On the one hand, it is signifying judgment on the wicked, but on the other hand, it also signifies God’s grace for his people. So also, we see that glory cloud in Exodus, coming between the people and the army of Pharaoh. Towards the army of Pharaoh, that glory cloud is a cloud of judgment, where God himself is, as it were, staring down from his throne on high and looking down at the enemies of God’s people and throwing them into panic and causing them to perish in the waters of the Red Sea, just like the flood that came and destroyed all of humanity in Genesis 7. But on the other side, towards God’s people, it was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night that was God’s protective covering to guard the people and to save them and to deliver them. It was a sign of God’s grace and judgment towards the wicked, but a delivering judgment that saves the people.

Now it does not mention the word rainbow in the book of Exodus, but we clearly see in Ezekiel’s vision that is what is part of this glory cloud. This idea of the symbol of God’s promise back in Genesis nine, the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain is also placed within this vision of the glory of God surrounding the throne.

The Rainbow in Ezekiel

Now in Ezekiel, in Ezekiel’s story, this moment where Ezekiel is seeing God himself, and seeing the glory of God, and seeing the angels around the throne, and seeing the rainbow around the throne, this vision is happening right at the moment of the exile. As God’s people are about to be sent into captivity, actually, part of them have already been sent there. There has been an initial wave, and Ezekiel himself is part of that initial wave. And he is already in Babylon, and he is seeing this vision of the glory of the Lord departing from Jerusalem, departing from the temple in Jerusalem, because God is judging his people, and God is leaving The presence of God is leaving Jerusalem in order to symbolize that Israel is going into exile. But as they go into exile, they go into exile in hope. They go into exile with this confidence that the rainbow is over the throne, and that even though there is now judgment happening upon God’s people and upon the earthly temple, God is going to bring them back one day, and he is going to restore Israel, not in a nationalistic, earthly sense, but there is going to be a glorious New Jerusalem, a glorious eschatological temple that Ezekiel even talks about at the end of the book.

That same hope that is placed within the text in Ezekiel chapter one, which reaches all the way back to Genesis nine, is then picked up again in the two last occurrences of the rainbow in the Bible. So Genesis nine is the first occurrence, Ezekiel one is the second, the last two, three and four, are in the book of Revelation.

The Rainbow in Revelation

In Revelation chapter 4, just like Ezekiel saw the heavens opened and he saw these visions of God, so also in Revelation 4 verse 1, John says that he saw, he looked and he saw a door standing open in heaven. The heavens were parted. And he heard a voice saying, come up here and I will show you what must take place after these things. And at once he says, I was in the spirit. And behold, a throne stood in heaven, just like Ezekiel saw, one seated upon that throne.

And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. And around the throne were 24 thrones, and seated on the thrones were 24 elders, clothed in white. And from the throne came flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder. And before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God.

And before the throne there was, as it were, a sea of glass, like crystal. I did not mention it, but that reference to the sea of glass is also mentioned in Ezekiel, in Ezekiel’s vision of God. Clearly, Revelation chapter four, which mentions the rainbow, it mentions the throne, it mentions the angels, it mentions the sea of glass like crystal, is alluding back to Ezekiel chapter one. And there is a reference again to the rainbow.

This is at the very beginning, after the seven messages to the seven churches of Asia Minor. In Revelation chapter four, this is the beginning of the visionary sequence in the book of Revelation, where John sees a series of visions. That point to the end, point to the final judgment.

There are a series of seven trumpets and seven seals and so on, seven bowls of judgment. And each one of those seven judgments coincides with each other. So there is a recapitulation of these sevens. It is not seven and then seven and then seven. It is going through this same process of leading up to the end three different times. And when we get to the seventh trumpet, The seventh trumpet, we are told that the rainbow appears again in Revelation chapter 10. In Revelation chapter 10, so this is the fourth reference to the rainbow image in the Bible.

Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud with a rainbow over his head. So the rainbow that was over the throne is now over the head of this angel. And this angel is pictured as if it were Christ himself. This angel is not Christ literally, but it is a picture of Christ.

With a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. And he had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land. So he is like this colossus who is standing over the whole world, this whole creation. Even the land and the sea belongs to him. He set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land.

And he called out with a loud voice like a lion roaring. And when he called out, the seven thunders sounded. And when the seven thunders sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, seal up the seven thunders. And do not write it down. And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven.

So the angel is putting up his hand like in an oath stance, right, like taking a vow. He puts his right hand to heaven and he swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it. Notice how he is swearing by the creator.

That ties us all the way back to Genesis 9, does it not? Because Genesis 9 is about the renewal of the cultural mandate, reminding us that God is the creator, and that although man has sinned, and man is falling short of God’s purpose, God is going to sustain and renew creation, and bring about the purpose that he has for it.

So he swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay. But that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets. Back in the days of Noah, God is saying there is going to be a delay.

The Mystery of God Fulfilled

He is putting the bow in pause position, but now when we get to the very end of the Bible, there is no more delay. Now God’s purposes will be fulfilled. And not just simply now there is going to be wrath upon the wicked, but in the positive sense, that God’s purpose for creation, for which he had initially created the world, the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them, would now be fulfilled. That in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled. The mystery of God means God’s purpose, God’s eternal purpose for which he created all things would be fulfilled. The focus of the rainbow then is not merely that the pause of judgment is over and now judgment is coming, but rather there is a positive side to it as well. That God is not merely going to end the delay, but he is also going to complete his redemptive purpose. The mystery of God. The whole purpose and plan of God. What this is all about. Why God created the world in the first place. It is now going to be brought to its culmination and completion.

Remember at the very beginning in Genesis 1, we talked about this, that the very purpose for why God created the world was that it would be a cosmic temple to be filled with the glory of God, populated by image bearers that reflect God’s glory. That was God’s purpose. Of course, Adam failed to achieve that purpose because he sinned against God and broke the covenant of works.

But God promised, even in that moment of failure and sin, in Genesis 3:15, that He would bring about that purpose in spite of man’s sin. Through the offspring of the woman to come, who is described in the text in the language of being a second Adam. Even though it does not use that word, that the offspring is going to be a second Adam, that is what the narrative context is trying to explain for us, that the offspring of the woman would come, defeat the serpent, and bring in God’s eschatological cosmic temple, that the world be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. Here in Genesis 9, we have this statement that God is still preserving this fallen world and allowing sinful man to enjoy the blessings of this world for a purpose, for a goal, that is, for that rainbow promise to be finally fulfilled. At the return of Christ. Genesis 1 gives us God’s purpose for creation.

Genesis 3:15 tells us that in spite of man’s failure and sin, God is going to accomplish that purpose through a second Adam who will obey and who will defeat the serpent and do what Adam failed to do and will bring us to the tree of life and restore us to the presence of God. Then we have the flood, which is a prototype of judgment. It is a picture of the day of judgment at the end.

But after the flood, God says, mankind is still wicked and rebelling against me, but I am going to preserve this world and sustain it in my common grace delay of judgment and postponement of judgment in order to provide for the opportunity for that initial promise of the offspring back in Genesis 3:15 to be fulfilled.

That is why in a few chapters, we are only a few chapters away from Genesis 12, we see how God now returns back to that purpose, the offspring promise. He is going to call Abraham, and he says to Abraham, I am going to make you a great nation, and you are going to have a multitude of offspring, but you are also going to have an individual offspring who is going to be like Isaac, and he is going to be the one who is going to fulfill everything and bring about God’s purpose for creation. And even then, in Genesis 12, do you recall that it says that in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Even in Genesis 12, when God is calling Abraham, and you could think, well, that sounds like it is just all about the Jews, just about the nation of Israel.

Even there at that moment, when he is focusing in upon the special people of God to come, he already has in view the nations. He already has in view the salvation of the nations. There is already this hope that God’s rainbow purpose will be fulfilled through the coming offspring and that will bring about the salvation of all of God’s elect, not only from the people of Israel, but from the nations in order to populate the new Jerusalem, to populate the new creation at the end.

The rainbow begins as a sign that history will not end prematurely, that God is going to sustain this world in spite of man’s sin, but it ends in Revelation 10 as a sign that history will not just simply drift on endlessly, but it will lead to a consummation. The mystery of God will be fulfilled. Judgment is restrained so that mankind may have a cultural history as the backdrop for God to fulfill His saving purpose, His plan of redemption. God will not allow this world to simply drift aimlessly with no purpose and no conclusion.

It may seem like that from our point of view. It does sort of seem like that sometimes. It has been over 2,000 years since the first coming of Christ and there has been a lot that has happened in this world. A lot of wars and sin and weird things that do not make sense. It just seems like chaotic and meaningless. But the world is not chaotic and meaningless. The world is being sustained with a purpose. We kind of experience this, I think, even just ourselves, just right here in Southern California.

Hope while Creation Groans

My favorite time of the year is this time of the year right now, in the spring, when everything, all the hills are all green. That is so rare. Most of the year the hills are brown and ugly. But right now in the springtime, right after the rains that we have just had, everything is turning green and it is beautiful. And the contrast between the green hills and the blue sky and the clouds, it just makes you fall on your face and worship God.

Well, that is a little sign, like the rainbow, is it not? It is a little sign that this world is not careening out of control into chaos and meaninglessness. God is still in control. God is still sustaining this world. And he gives us these little hints, these little moments of like a little picture of do not worry, everything is going to be okay. Even though there is a lot of bad things happening and then we will get to the summer and we will get wildfires and everything is going to be gross with the air polluted with the ash and we are going to be thinking about, again, the downsides and how everything seems to be chaotic and uncontrolled. But God does not let that continue indefinitely.

He provides us these moments. When we hear, we see, we feel God’s reminder, God’s encouragement to us. Now you can tell, right, that it depends on whether you are a believer or an unbeliever. If you are an unbeliever, it means nothing to you. The green grass. You just use it as, well, now it is an opportunity for me to go and have fun and do what I want to do. Just use it for your own selfish purpose.

But for the believer, the one whose heart has been changed by grace, the one who sees the glory of God in creation, who believes in God’s promise to sustain this world until the end and to bring about his full consummation at the second coming of Christ. For the believer, these things are just filled with joy and they cause us to fall down on our face and to worship the Lord and to thank Him for His grace.

Let us be careful about that, even as believers. Even as believers, we sometimes lose sight of that. Even as believers, we sometimes forget that God is in control of this world and He is going to sustain it until the end. And we sometimes use these common grace benefits, the air that we breathe, the jobs that we have, the families that God gives us, these blessings in this life, we sometimes misuse them and think about them only in terms of what we want and our own pleasure and desires in this life. Let us not do that. Let us have hearts filled with gratitude and thanksgiving. We do not deserve to breathe another breath of air apart from Christ.

And how wonderful it is that he sustains us and gives us life, he gives us some measure of life. It is not perfect, there is always the tragedy, there is always the downside, there is always the thing that reminds us that we live in a fallen, sin-cursed world. But yet, in spite of that, he does give us these wonderful blessings and benefits. And those should then cause us to be full of thanksgiving and gratitude to the Lord for what he does give us and to sustain us in our service to him even now as we pilgrim on the way to glory.

To sustain us even through the times that are hard and through the tribulations and the sufferings of this fallen world. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8, verse 18 and following, he says, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. He uses this analogy of not only creation, but we ourselves groaning. And that word groaning is perfect because it captures the duality. On the one hand, the groaning because it is not good, and we are waiting for all of these bad things to be reversed. But groaning also has a positive side to it, because we are expecting the second coming of Christ.

We are expecting that day when we are raised from the dead, or if we are alive, when Christ comes back, our bodies are transformed, and we are brought into the new creation. And it is amazing how Paul, in Romans 8, even talks about the creation itself. Even the creation is experiencing this groaning. He says that the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

We have the Spirit within us as the down payment, as that rainbow sign, guaranteeing that it is all going to be changed one day, it is all going to be reversed, we are going to be transformed. And in the meantime, that sustains us and helps us to live in a way that pleases the Lord, even as we live in the midst of this world that is under the curse, where we do struggle with sickness and pain and difficulty and job loss and financial hardship and all of the things that go along with this fallen world side by side with all the common grace benefits of God’s goodness. But we do so not as those who have no hope. We do so as those that know that God will sustain us and bring us to the end. We were saved in hope, Paul says. Meaning, when we were converted and brought to saving faith in Christ, we were saved in hope. We are saved in the hope of the glorious resurrection of the body and the new creation that awaits us.