The Answer to the Double Rainbow Man's Question

Fascinated as I've been by astronomical and atmospheric phenomena this year, I've found a few wonderful sites online explaining some things I've seen, and some I never knew existed. Atmospheric optics is a treasure chest of knowledge. It was there that I first learned of the famous "double rainbow" youtube clip, and my life has never been the same since.



I love and laugh at his question, "what does this mean?" Our post-enlightenment reaction to this may tend toward scorn at his seemingly naive mystical view of nature, and though we do know much of how light reflects and refracts to produce the rainbow, the folks at atmospheric optics note, "Ray paths are something of a fiction and geometric optics is incapable of explaining many aspects of rainbows." 


According to Scripture, God has assigned a meaning to rainbows, and they prompt his memory every time he sees them; that means every time they occur, which is more often than they are seen by humans. In fact, it is every time sunlight hits water droplets. This is because "all raindrops refract and reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the observer's eye" and "the rainbow is a collection of rays with particular directions, it does not otherwise exist and it is not located at any particular point in space." But God sees unseen rainbows, since his eyes are in every place (Pr 15:3; 2 Chron 16:9; Zech 4:10). What do these always visible rainbows prompt God to remember? He tells us: 

When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. (Genesis 9:14-15)

What's more, as Tim Keller proposes, the rainbow is a physical image of the gospel of Jesus Christ. No wonder then, that in apocalyptic visions of God and His anointed one, He is surrounded by a rainbow (Ezek 1:26-28; Rev 4:3; 10:1).