Missing The Rainbow

In Mrs. Willis’ second grade Sunday School class, the story of the Flood did not sit well with any of us. It was just too scary. Admittedly, it did accomplish at least a little of what our church seemed to hope that it would. Whenever I and my buddies were tempted to hold back something from our offerings those mornings for a treat at the candy store, the divine wrath the story had revealed to us almost always proved an effective dissuader. 

Later, however, I stopped being scared by this story, and started getting angry instead. What kind of a god is this God anyway? Somehow, I and my fellow sufferers kept missing what is in fact the story’s happy ending: “…Never again will I put the earth under a curse because of humankind, however evil their inclination may be from their youth upwards…” (Genesis 8:21)

Missing this point has played a far too important role in Jewish and Christian history from at least the time of the Exile. Helpless and hopeless following their captivity in Babylon, a lot of Jews began to write off not only their own history, but everyone else’s as well. They took perverse comfort in calculating when, where, and how a thoroughly disgusted deity would bring thoroughly disgusting people (themselves excepted, of course) to their thoroughly deserved end. Their malady proved contagious, eventually spreading out to infect Christian scriptures as well. A case in point: the thousand year prelude to divinely wrought world destruction depicted so smugly at Revelation 20:2-3.

For many Christians today, this case in point is not just one case; it is the really BIG case for telling the Flood story all over again just like too many of us heard it told by other teachers who also knew no better. The imagery is different this time: after the thousand year lock-down of Satan, everybody gets judged by their deeds (Rev. 20:13) inscribed in a book of life, and those whose accounts are deficient will be flung into a lake of fire. But the message is still the same: that graceless, morally outrageous, and yes, disgusting message of a mocking deity who will jerk the rug of salvation out from under you no sooner than he seduces you to see it as your magic carpet headed straight for the throne of grace. 

Clearly, third generation Christians had a harder time with persecution than their mentors and role models did. From his cross, Jesus asked forgiveness for all his persecutors. I think that St. Paul forgave his, too --- from upside down on his own cross. But the Johannine community of 30 years later got so peeved with theirs that instead of praying for them, they consigned them to an anti-Christ of their own devising. Its deforming of the Gospel should make you want to do with The Book of Revelation what Martin Luther and John Calvin actually did do with it --- throw it out or ignore it.

Almost. For there are also those overwhelmingly beautiful verses that speak of a New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, with God dwelling in it and putting an end to death, mourning, crying and pain. (21:1-6) I can almost see a rainbow spanning the sky above it, as the glorious city descends to meet us here on a glorious new earth.

Oops, though, the scene changes again, and we are back to salivating over all the bad things about to happen to all those who have done so many bad things. (vs.8) One striking ingredient in this particular dispensation is the indiscriminateness of the divine fury. For instance, cowards and liars come off just as badly as murderers do. Whatever happened to God’s sense of fairness and proportion?

The doctrine of plenary inspiration that millennialists share, to the effect that all of the words of scripture together constitute the Word of God, has the virtue of preventing us from resting content reading only those biblical passages that we like. The problem with the doctrine is that it leaves us with one contradiction after another to resolve, across both Testaments. One that millennialists of the Left Behind variety have yet to resolve is between God’s gracious promise at Genesis 8:22 and John of Patmos’ petulent vision in Revelation 20.

What makes contradictions like this one so intractible is the otherwise well-meaning notion that every text of scripture must somehow be held equally authoritative for any and all situations whatever. In the whole of the scriptures there is indeed the Word of God, but not every image in every passage within the scriptures expresses that Word equally well. For an image of our future with God, I’ll take the rainbow over the lake of fire anytime.