As those who have been following my Twitter feed will know, I started reading 'Kingdom through Covenant' by Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum this week to kick off my sabbatical.
At 800 pages it's a doorstop of a book and exactly the sort of theological volume I don't have the time or mental capacity to get into while immersed in pastoral ministry and study for sermon prep. I'm now around 200 pages into it and loving it!
It's basically an overview of the big story (the meta-narrative) of the Bible focusing on the various covenants in redemption history. The authors' view is that not only is it impossible to understand the big message of the Bible without understanding how these covenants fit together, but it's also impossible to come to a cohesive view on some of the more contentious issues that have divided Christians over the years (Israel, baptism, end times etc).
It's stimulating and stretching stuff. However any study of the theme of 'covenant' in the Bible should also be heart-warming. And it succeeds in this department as well. I am being reminded again and again of God's faithfulness and committed love for his people, despite their failings and rebellion.
One excerpt from this week's reading illustrates this beautifully.
Each of the 6 covenants in the Bible came with accompanying 'signs', physical reminders of the covenant. I've just finished the chapter on the covenant God made with Noah (actually, the whole of creation, us included).
The covenant sign God gave after the flood was the rainbow. Whenever we see the rainbow we're to be reminded of God's promise never to flood the world again.
But why a rainbow?
'There is in fact no word in Hebrew for 'rainbow'. The word used here is the ordinary word for an archer's bow.
I like the comment from Warren Austin Gage: 'The bow is a weapon of war, an emblem of wrath. God will now set it in the heavens as a token of grace. The Lord who makes the bow of wrath into a seven-coloured arch of beauty to ornament the heavens, is the one who will finally command the nations to beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruninghooks (Micah 4:3), for the Prince of Peace takes pleasure in mercy (Micah 7:18) and the Righteous Judge delights in grace.'
The rainbow, then, is a physical picture that God has 'laid his weapons down', as indicated in the promise, 'never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.' It is interesting that the bow set in the clouds is always aimed or pointing up to the heavens, and never downward at us on the earth.'
In the upturned bow we see a signpost towards the type of solution God would ultimately provide for human sin.
The bow points upward to heaven, because God put himself in the crosshairs of sin: he faced the judgement we deserve.
Ultimately, God's bow points us to Jesus cross, where the sin that brought judgement in the flood was dealt with once and for all.
