The Co-opted Rainbow

Everybody loves a rainbow. Young and old alike will stop to revel in the colorful display. There was a time when most people knew that the rainbow was originally assigned meaning by God as the token of His promise to Noah that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood. In that context, the rainbow became a symbol of hope. In ancient Irish folklore that idea was bastardized to mean a hope for wealth: the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That connection is probably more well-known today than its original biblical meaning.

I am writing this in June which has become gay pride month for many. The LGBTQ+ community has also coopted the rainbow and given it a significance of their own. When the gay pride flag was originally designed in 1978, each of the colored stripes was assigned a value. If you ignore the LGBTQ+ context, most of the values are innocuous: sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic/art, serenity, and spirit. Two raise some concern: magic and spirit. Magic is clearly off limits for Christians, and one assumes that “spirit” does not refer to God’s Holy Spirit.

I heard a teaching recently that suggested a more sinister relationship between the rainbow and homosexuality. When Ezekiel saw God’s throne in his vision at the river Chebar, there was a rainbow above it. When Satan’s pride drove him to attack God, he wanted that throne with its rainbow for himself. Look back at the values symbolized in the gay pride rainbow; except for magic, each of them might be employed in a way to glorify God. However, you can also see how each one has been perverted by the enemy of our souls and turned into an idol.

First of all, ever since the Garden of Eden, Satan has taken the good things of God’s creation and twisted them to serve his purposes. Sex is the most obvious one, and perhaps the most odious especially in June. I believe that God created sex to be a bonding agent for a man and a woman in marriage. In that context, it is a beautiful thing. Very early in human history, Satan began enticing men to fulfill their lust in ways that were not only damaging to themselves (AIDS, STD’s, etc.) but destructive to the purpose God had intended. De-sanctifying marriage and its restriction of sexual pleasure to one-man/one-woman for a lifetime has resulted in personal and social tragedy of mammoth proportions.

The other values represented in the gay pride flag have been similarly distorted or perverted. Life is certainly to be valued, but Christians recognize that true life comes from God and returns to Him; true life has a deeply spiritual component. The “life” Satan encourages is selfish and hedonistic. The Psalms teach us to glorify God for His creation of the sun and all nature. Satan leads men to worship creation in defiance of the Creator. Magic is simply the devil’s attempt to mimic God’s miracles; practicing it is plainly forbidden in Scripture. It is sad to see what the enemy has done to art. It was once a way to magnify God with beauty and order. Now, the atonal disturbing modern “music” and the emptiness of modern “art” reflect the hollow men who search for meaning in all the wrong places. Augustine was right when he said that there is restlessness in every man that can only be satisfied by God – a God of beauty and order, not ugliness and chaos.

Serenity is promised in God’s Word. We are counselled to meditate on the Word and recall God’s promises; as a result, we can have peace that passes understanding. The enemy’s brand of meditation encourages either completely emptying the mind or turning inward to focus entirely on oneself ignoring the divine image we bear. Finally, I suspect that the gay flag’s reference to “spirit” may have similarly twisted the truth. Satan, the prince of evil spirits, would have us elevate our own spirit and discount the Holy Spirit who represents the very presence of God in us when we give our lives to Christ.

A rainbow is visible because light is refracted, broken down into its parts. To me, this signifies the many aspects of God’s holy character spread before us in awe and wonder. There are some other physical aspects of light that I think are interesting to consider. God Himself is said to be light and to dwell in unapproachable light. The first thing God is said to have created is light. Throughout Scripture, light symbolizes goodness and knowledge. Darkness, represented by the Prince of Darkness, is evil and deceptive. What we call color is the reflected portion of the light spectrum. God’s creation is bursting with color. If his followers are any indication, Satan’s favorite color is black – the absence of color via light.

The Father sent Jesus to the world because “In him was life, and the life was the light of humanity.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Jesus said His followers were to be the light of the world. John said if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another and forgiveness of sin. Paul told the Corinthians that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. It looks to me like that is exactly what he has done with the rainbow he tried to steal from God. Don’t be fooled by him. Jesus said that true life, the true light of humanity, was found in knowing God. Study His Word; meditate on it; get to know God intimately. Then you can take back the rainbow.

Related Posts: More about the nature of light: And the Light was Good; E=mc² in Genesis