The rainbow is a special symbol of God, as it surrounds His throne. Also, it confirmed the covenant with Noah. Chapter 10 of Revelation is Christ revealed, and this message looks at the rainbow, the glory of Christ, and the way the rainbow has become perverted.
THE PERSON OF REVELATION 10:1
Revelation 10:1 “I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud; and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire.”
This verse will happen about the middle of the Tribulation after the end of the sixth trumpet judgment. The vision John saw was of this figure descending from heaven. Before we look at the description, I suppose we are curious about who this unnamed person is.
He is called an angel and “ἄγγελον (angelon).” The word means messenger, so this is a messenger from heaven. We know in Revelation that the word refers to an angel proper and to persons and messengers. Also, we know in scripture that the word angel can (often) refer to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Between the sixth and seventh Seal judgments with the sealing of the 144,000, we read Revelation 7:2 – “And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God; and he cried out with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea.”
That was the Lord, for no one else is worthy to carry the seal and to seal people. There He was called an angel. Without a doubt, the strong angel of Revelation 10 verse 1 is the Lord. A few of the commentators are not sure who it is, with a couple suggesting the Lord is a possibility, but most commentators just bypass any reference to the identity of the angel.
THE DESCRIPTION OF THE PERSON OF REVELATION 10:1
(a). “Clothed with a cloud.”
Jesus is clothed in glory, for He is The King of Glory, and the Glorious One, and has ascended into glory. Moses was not permitted to see the glory of the Lord on Mt Horeb, and the whole mountain shook and was covered with clouds. Jesus was with His disciples on the day of the ascension, and this is what we read: Acts 1:9 – “After He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”
Jesus left earth and ascended into the cloud and was entering the glory of heaven. That was obscured from the disciples. As He went in a cloud, so He appears here in Revelation in a cloud, and the description Jesus gave for His Second Coming is this one: Matthew 24:29-30 – “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.”
(b). “His face was like the sun.” Revelation 1:16 – “In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. Acts 26:13 – “At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me.”
(c). “His feet like pillars of fire.” Daniel had a vision, one we call a theophany, and it was of the Lord, which is what that word means. Daniel 10:5-6 – “I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, there was a certain man dressed in linen, whose waist was girded with a belt of pure gold of Uphaz. His body also was like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a tumult.” The vision Daniel had was of the Lord.
(d). Now I want to do the one I left out – “and the rainbow was upon his head.” Jesus is described as having this rainbow upon His head, but what was the significance? We have to go back to a previous reference in Revelation, this one of a green rainbow: Revelation 4:3 – “And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance.” From that, we understand that the throne of God is surrounded by a rainbow. Without a doubt, the rainbow is a VERY special symbol of God.
Let us go to Genesis, where we read this: Genesis 9:11-15 – “I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.’ God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations. I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.”
The rainbow was the sign of God’s covenant made with Noah; in fact, a continual covenant because it appears so often. The Noahic covenant, by the way, has never been withdrawn or changed, but what we want to see is that a rainbow confirmed the covenant. It suggests to me that the symbolism of the rainbow is connected with God’s power and glory as in Revelation 4 and with the God of covenants as we see in Genesis. The reference in Revelation 10 connects with the contents of the “little book,” and they are God’s promises. The Lord Jesus Christ is at the center of all the revelation of glory.
THE PRISM AND THE PURE LIGHT
When white light is passed through a prism, it breaks the light up into its component spectrum parts. In fact, this is how a rainbow is formed. The most pure and perfect light has to be the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what John wrote: John 1:9 – “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” John 1:4 – “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Jesus Himself proclaimed Himself as “The Light of the World,” so it is absolutely fitting that the true, pure light should have all the component parts that make a rainbow. It is all on display for us to see. I think this is deliberate so that we can appreciate the blessed Lord a lot more. God is so holy and majestic that a description of God is beyond us in our earthly existence, but the symbols help us understand a little bit.
When pure light is broken up, the following colors are seen: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
(a). Red is the color of redemption, as it is the color of sacrifice. Jesus is the Redeemer.
(b). Yellow is associated with the color of gold. The Hebrew seems to support that. Gold is the divine metal, considered eternal and untarnished. Gold was presented to Jesus by the Magi, and that spoke of His divinity. The yellow in the rainbow symbol is God the Son, the Divine One.
(c). Green. One quote I saw involving green is this one from Madeline Kalu, a Christian writer: “Green, being the color of vegetation, symbolizes life, restoration, and new beginnings (Psalm 1:3). Green is also the color of resurrection, which we experience in Spring.” Green pastures where God rests us is the Shepherd’s provision. We then have Christ as The Resurrection and the Life and as the Shepherd of the Sheep.
(d). Blue is the color of the sky, loosely, of heaven, the heavens above. The Lord came from heaven. This color represents His Lordship.
Two colors I did not do; but in the four above, where we have the wonderful rainbow surrounding the Lord Jesus, we see Jesus as Redeemer, God the Son, the Divine One, the Resurrection and the Life, the Shepherd of the Sheep, and the Lord of heaven.
ONE ADDITIONAL RAINBOW REFERENCE
We have this wonderful description that Ezekiel saw in his vision: Ezekiel 1:27-28 – “Then I noticed from the appearance of His loins and upward something like glowing metal that looked like fire all around within it, and from the appearance of His loins and downward I saw something like fire; and there was a radiance around Him. As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.”
That description fits in nicely with the comments just done. Ezekiel’s description mentions the appearance of His loins and downwards, where he saw something like fire, and that there was a radiance around Him. That is what John was seeing when he wrote Revelation 10:1, and this in particular – “and his feet like pillars of fire.”
THE GREAT PERVERTED TRAVESTY
The homosexual community has taken hold of every institution of God for human living and inverted it. It is a satanic destruction of God’s order. And the rainbow, which belongs to God and His covenants, has been seized by those of a reprobate nature and totally made into a satanic icon. The same thing was done to gender and marriage and the right to life. The degraded people introduced a flag to promote their perversion. They call their movement Pride, but God has used other terms for it.
Why would the homosexuals take over God’s symbol to destroy it? I post this as a purported reason, and it comes from one of the Readers’ Digest sites:
As demand for the flag increased, its original eight colors were narrowed down to six: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Fewer colors kept production costs low and made the flags easier to display.
Today, “the rainbow flag has become one of the most ubiquitous and universally recognized flags in the world,” Tatchell said. “Unlike other flags, it transcends national borders and unites people of different cultures. It symbolizes the global LGBTQ+ family and our worldwide freedom struggle.”
In addition to the iconic Pride flag, many other versions of the flag—with different color combinations and symbols—have been created to honor different orientations of the LGBTQIA+ community. You can find flags that celebrate those who identify as asexual, gender fluid, bisexual, non-binary, and others. Read more about the meaning behind these LGBTQ flags and what LGBTQ stands for.
From the above, this is what we can note:
- All the colors chosen by homosexuals are found in the rainbow, God’s symbol. Indigo has become purple. Purple is a precious color in biblical symbolism. It stands for royalty, and it identifies Jesus as the King. The homosexual people do not recognize Jesus, much less Jesus as THE King. They have set up their own kingdom.
- They speak about uniting people of different cultures, a global family, and a freedom struggle. They may unite people in sodomite sin; that may be true, but the sad thing is that the whole world is falling deeper into sin. They talk about a freedom struggle, but it is actually the opposite. It is not a struggle for freedom but a struggle for the implementation of bondage, including bondage to sin. It is the bondage of Satan.
BACK TO REVELATION CHAPTER 10
We looked at verse 1, but here are the next 5 verses: Revelation 10:2-6 – “And he had in his hand a little book which was open. He placed his right foot on the sea and his left on the land, and he cried out with a loud voice, as when a lion roars; and when he had cried out, the seven peals of thunder uttered their voices. When the seven peals of thunder had spoken, I was about to write; and I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Seal up the things which the seven peals of thunder have spoken and do not write them.’ Then the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things in it, and the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it, that there shall be delay no longer.”
Some pointers from those 5 verses:
Remember this “strong angel” here is the Lord Jesus. It is He who has the book.
- The little book is something like a booklet, but it is opened, so it is not hidden or a secret. The book is important to what is to progress from that point, and it has to be the prophecies of the Old Testament that are going to come to fulfillment. There are so many prophecies about the Second Coming and The Day of the LORD, and these are going to progress very quickly in the second half of the Tribulation.
- His feet were placed, one on land and one on the sea. The right foot was on the sea, and in prophecy, the sea is always a symbol of the Gentile nations. The left foot was on the land, and the land always represents Israel. What we have is the Lord now taking control of the whole world to bring things to a swift conclusion. If this vision John saw happens exactly in the middle of the Tribulation, then 1,260 days will remain before the whole kingdom of man becomes the Kingdom of the King of Kings, the King of Glory.
- What the peals of thunder spoke, we do not know. I don’t know if we will ever know.
- Jesus speaking in verse 6: “and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things in it, and the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it, that there shall be delay no longer.” There we are, no more delay. From that point, things will rush along until the Second Coming.
The whole Book of Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ, and if we just look at Revelation as prophetic events only, we are missing the great purpose of the Book; and that is, Jesus Christ is revealed in all His glory. God bless every one of His people bought by the blood of the Lamb.