Mercy's Rainbow

Genesis 9:13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

The skeptic may look at this verse and reply, “The rainbow is simply a product of sunlight refracted in air-born water molecules, it is created by rain not God.” Well... the first part is correct, but the second betrays a misunderstanding of the text.

The key to understanding this passage is sunlight. There shouldn't be any, at least not enough for a rainbow. In fact, God's justice requires that the earth be covered by rainclouds until life is drowned out. Sunlight peeking through the clouds creating a rainbow is evidence God's justice is being withheld by God's mercy.

The story began in Genesis 6:1-8. God was finished with the earth and mankind, His justice seemed to have overridden the mercy He had extended to Adam, Eve, and their children. In 6:7 He declared the final, absolute destruction of all mankind including Noah and his family. Justice destined all to die in a cataclysmic flood with no rainbows visible. No sunlight would pierce these clouds.

But then in Genesis 6:8, just as in the Garden Of Eden, God allowed mercy to peek through the foreboding clouds of justice and lifted this judgment from Noah and his family. Noah had been condemned with the rest of humanity, so Noah wasn't freed from justice because of his goodness, he was freed by God's grace purchased on his behalf by Jesus' gospel work. Jesus future death was symbolized by the offerings in Genesis 8:20-22. Mercy withheld justice.

Noah and his children were lawbreakers just like the people who drowned in the flood, and the people who would come after them... us. Justice demands a flood again. Every moment of everyday since Noah, God's stormy justice has been withheld by His mercy in Jesus Christ. The sun always shines through the storm clouds somewhere on earth, so there is ever a bow in clouds on the mercy side of the storm... our side of the storm. These rainbows send us the mixed message of justice and mercy: we deserve destruction, but Jesus has secured mercy for us.

One more thing... when hurricanes hit our coasts I periodically hear the inland preachers of doom point the finger of judgment at us coastal dwellers and say our judgment is deserved. They are right, at least as far as they go. But the rest of the story is (and this is when the preacher of doom becomes a gospel preacher) that if justice had its way the storm would extend from the coast to them, and then past them to the whole earth... because they are cut from the same cloth we are... Adam's cloth. We all deserve the storm, but when the storm stops short the message is mercy. Mercy in Jesus Christ. The rainbows surround us, everyday, every moment. Thank God for His covenant of Mercy! Genesis 9:8-17

Why Didn't God Do What He Said He Would Do?

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Adam's use of the garden of Eden was conditional. Like any conditional covenant, there was a clause detailing what will happen if the conditions are not met. In this case the penalty for breaking the covenant was immediate execution.

Some may say this is a difficult verse because, they observe correctly, Adam did actually break God's law, but the penalty of death was not executed as stated. To answer this glaring problem we might assume that “day” in verse 17 means a long period of time because Adam did die later (roughly 339,449 days later). But there are those who will argue that the word day used in the previous chapter for the seven day creation is a 24 hour period. They would be right and it is the same with this usage. Adam, using the language definitions God placed in His mind, would have believed he would die within the 24 hour period surrounding his disobedience. That is the common biblical usage of the word day, especially in the book of Genesis.

Perhaps we could hypothesize that Adam only died spiritually in that 24 hour period. Hmmm – Putting “spiritual death” (and any combination of those words or related words) into my Bible program search function finds no place in the Bible where it says that Adam exclusively died spiritually on that day. A. W. Pink said, “It is not said, “thou shalt die physically,” nor “thou shalt die spiritually,” but simply thou shalt surely die. The absence of any modifying adverb shows that the term death is here taken in its widest scope, and is to be defined according to whatever scripture elsewhere signifies by that term. It is the very height of presumption to limit what God has not limited.” The verb translated “die” appears in 64 verses in Genesis and every use is exactly as Pink said.

So the real question becomes: why did God not do what He said He would do? If we look carefully throughout the Bible we find this same cycle repeated over and again. God's law with its penalties is communicated clearly to someone by various means. They break the law. God declares their guilt. But the penalty required by justice is not immediately executed. Sometimes, we are told, people are permanently freed from their guilt and its penalty. How does that work?

The reason justice was stayed is Gospel mercy entered the scenario. God didn't do what justice demanded for Adam because another person committed to fulfill the demands of justice on behalf of Adam. Another person, Jesus the incarnate Son Of God, would by His death, burial, and resurrection secure forgiveness and grace for Adam. So Adam lived to see another day because Jesus would secure mercy on his behalf.

The reason Adam and Eve didn't die the very day they disobeyed God is because forgiveness was introduced into the world on that same day. God forgave Adam and Eve based on an everlasting Covenant which included Jesus Christ's gospel work on behalf of sinners. The reason we, Adam and Eve's children, are allowed to live is because this mercy of God in Jesus Christ still rules the earth, so justice is withheld by mercy. But this common grace, by which all sinners live on God's earth, gives way to eternal justice and death unless personal faith has laid claim to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

God Walked In The Garden

I was standing in waist high grass when I took this shot

Genesis 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day:

I recently had the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks in a tropical rainforest that can receive up to 300 inches (25 feet) of rainfall a year. This and other factors make the forest explode with vegetation. A tropical rainforest is home to 1,000s of plants, insects, birds, and other animals. The flowers and fragrances can be amazing.

I realize the method for watering the pre-flood earth was different from today, but all the species, plus thousands of extinct species, grew on the earth and, I expect, in the garden. But this creation without physical controls, enforced limits, and oversight can become virtually uninhabitable to humans. Just getting to the beauty in an overgrown rain-forest is tough.

Some tropical trees are measured by the acreage they cover

Many tropical rainforests are overwhelmed by tall, large trees, which means the ground is wet, covered by roots, saplings, plants, vines, debris, insects, seeds, and it is always dark. Open areas are soon taken over by vines, bushes, grasses, and bamboo (which is in the grass family and can grow up to a few feet per day) making human travel very difficult. I walked for at least a mile in matted, tangled, waist to chest deep grass and each of my steps was cradled by the tangled grass at least a foot off the ground. It was similar to walking in deep snow.

Rainforest Bamboo

It is clear in this passage that God chose to physically enjoy His creation, but He required a special creature to enhance its beauty and productivity. This creature needed to have the senses to experience the beauty and value of this garden, and understand what it was experiencing. It needed to have the intelligence to recognize beauty and productivity derived from orderliness. The creature also had to have the functional ability to maintain a complex, fast growing garden so this beauty and fruit could be enjoyed and used.

Man was God’s solution. He created him with the senses to see, touch, smell, taste, and hear the garden. He gave him the intellect to appreciate the information his senses deliver. He was given the intellectual ability to understand change and its effects on his environment, and to plan these changes. He was given the physical ability to execute the plan, and then assess the result. Humans were not created to simply survive and reproduce. Mankind was created to make a beautiful, bountiful creation more fruitful by giving it order and making it accessible.

Accessible, it seems, primarily to God… God used man to maintain His garden for His own pleasure. He walked in the garden. I wonder if He still walks earth’s gardens?

In The Beginning God...

These are the biggest, deepest, and most basic words in human language, and they are the first words in the Bible. These words place God in transcendent existence at the first comprehensible moment. He was not in that moment, He is the Creator of that moment. Time does not contain Him. He created this measured existence called time when the first particle came into being.

The Apostle John said it this way, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

The Apostle Paul said, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”

And Moses prayed, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”

Amen.