The DoveSample

The Bow

In so many ways, these scriptural stories, these cycles of sin and grace, mirror our lives. We may as well get off our high horses now: we’ve grabbed that apple more times than we can count, we’ve planted that metaphoric vineyard just five minutes after we swore we’d do better. We’ve blown it over and over again. We are sinners, and we need saving.

Eden didn’t last, and the flood was hardly a permanent solution. So what is? Well, we need Genesis 9 if we’re going to appreciate Matthew 4 and the Passion of Jesus.

Remember the covenant signs: animals rent in two (Genesis 15), circumcision (Genesis 17:1-14) – the rainbow seems far less brutal, but we miss something that, once it’s pointed out to us, seems so obvious. Etymologically, it’s right there in the word. What is the rainbow? It is a bow. As in, a bow and arrow. In Hebrew, it is clearer: God sets a ‘bow’, קֶ֫שֶׁת (qe.shet), in the sky; it is an archery term. The flood narrative is where God essentially went to war against humanity's sin: he fired his divine bow in a limited moment in history to bring about justice and judgement against sin. And so when God puts his bow in the sky as a covenantal symbol, he is essentially saying, ‘I’m hanging up my bow, my weapon. I will not go to war against you again.’

But take this image further: which way is the bow pointing?

This promise has a duality, a foreshadowing that must have seemed incomprehensible to Noah, Moses and other Yahweh-worshippers throughout history.

God would not war against humanity because the arrow now pointed heavenward instead, where Heaven’s own son would be pierced. He would war for us, not against us, and that meant that he would take the shot, he would be struck down, he would be struck dead. For our transgressions, he would be pierced.

To remake creation, the Creator himself would be un-made, un-created. He would descend into death and rise again into life.

When Jesus descended into the waters of baptism and the sign of the Spirit alighted on him as a dove, we see a picture of re-creation. This is only possible because at Calvary, there would be an act of un-creation.

The covenant promise is upheld by God for us, as he himself took the penalty and the punishment, that we might have unearned, unmerited, unrelenting grace all because he took our place.

As in Eden for Adam and Eve, Jesus was banished from the Father’s presence so that we could be called friends; as in the flood, he was overcome by death so that we could take shelter in the ark; as foreshadowed by the bow, he was pierced for our transgressions so that we could be made whole by grace.

This is the wonder of the gospel and the unfathomable goodness of our God.

If you are attached to the vine, a Christian today, you know life because Jesus chose death. You are a new creation because he was un-created. God’s bow pierced his own son, and now we who were enemies are called friends of God.

Take some time to consider how you have experienced God's covenantal faithfulness in your life. In the micro and the macro, God is so faithful. We can be quick to forget, but once we begin to count the ways we have encountered his kindness, it becomes hard to stop.