Excerpted from Donald Grey Barnhouse’s “Timeless Illustrations”
The prism is a light breaker. The pure, clear light passes through the varied facets of the prism and is broken into red, orange, yellow – all the shades of color. Science has studied it all out and found that it all works according to cold law. The sun shines through the warm spring rain; the drops of water catch the light, break it to pieces, and throw it across the sky in the glory of a rainbow.
The rainbow is more than the mechanics of physical law, though. God set it as the sign of a covenant and the surety of His promise. Man has made the rainbow a symbol of hope.
In the Scriptures we learn to realize the full meaning of hope. Man is born in sin, with his face turned toward the lake of fire. One of the most terrible phrases in the revelation that God has given us is that man is “without hope”. Draw the shades of night. The sun is gone, the moon is blotted out, the clouds have curtained out the stars; no light seeps through to show the way to the lost wanderer. Man is without hope. And then “in due time” Christ appears. “The light of the knowledge of the glory of God (is) in the face of Jesus Christ” ( 2 Cor. 4:6). What does that light reveal? “His visage is so marred, more than any man” (Isa. 52:14). It shows us tears, the tears of God, running down His face like rain, and mingling with His blood. What a prism for God’s eternal light! All the colors of Heaven were broken up in those tears when the hours of darkness were over and the light of God’s holiness broke forth anew; out of the blackened sky was flung a rainbow. Hope for the lost was won by the cross. Hope for the past- the blood has washed it away; hope for the present – the Lord is risen to reflect His light in us; hope for the future – blessed hope. He has won the right to return as conqueror and to bring His myriads with Him. This rainbow reaches from the solid rock of the cross to the eternal abiding place, and man is forever secure.