“And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon His head, and His face was as it were the sun, and His feet as pillars of fire” (Revelation 10:1).

This is the last reference in Scripture to the beautiful rainbow and a most majestic picture it is. A mighty cloud descends from Heaven enveloping the great Creator/Savior Himself, here called (as is often true in Scripture) an “angel,” but with a description applicable only to the glorified Son of man (note Revelation 1:7,13–16). The rainbow is above the cloud, crowning the head of the mighty one as He stands astride both land and sea, thus claiming possession of all the earth (Revelation 10:2).

There seems here to be a clear correlation with the first reference in Scripture to the rainbow and the cloud, neither of which had existed prior to the great Flood, “for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth” (Genesis 2:5) until that awful day of judgment. At the conclusion of the Flood when the vast “waters . . . above the firmament” (Genesis 1:7) had all condensed and poured down on the ground, then God had said: “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth” (Genesis 9:13), a sign of God’s promise never again to destroy the earth with water as He had just done. It has ever since been a beautiful reminder that God cares for His creation and that even in the midst of judgment He is the God of all grace. It also reminds us that He still rules the world He made.

The time is soon coming when once again there shall be no rain and no cloud and “no more sea” (Revelation 21:1), so there shall be no more need for the reminder of the rainbow. All of God’s judgments will be over and gone, and there shall “be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Ephesians 3:21). HMM