There is a rainbow as the brightness around the man sitting on the throne in Ezekiel 1 and also around the throne in the New Jerusalem; our God is faithful to not only save us from eternal perdition but also make us His glorious expression for us to become a rainbow reflecting the brightness of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory, forever testifying that God is righteous and faithful.
Lord Jesus, we enthrone You in our being. We want to have a clear sky between us and You. Shine on us and shine through us. We open to You to enjoy You as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption to us from God. Work Yourself into us. Make us the reflection of the Man on the throne! Amen, Lord, we want to cooperate with You to become the glorious expression of God! Hallelujah, we are becoming a rainbow reflecting the brightness of God’s righteousness, holiness and glory! Praise the Lord, our God is righteous and faithful! Amen!
This week we have been prayerfully considering the Lamb-God on the throne within the city. The One on the throne of God in the New Jerusalem is the Lamb, and He rules and reigns with God; God is in Christ, and the Lamb-God is on the throne.
God in Christ is ruling and reigning, and the Spirit as living water flows out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
The throne is the centre of our Christian life. This means that, beginning from the time we wake up, we enthrone the Lord in our being.
We bring everything under His headship. As we enthrone Christ and give Him the preeminence, there’s a flow of life with the supply of life and the way of life; in the flow of life we serve God, we see God, and we reign with Christ.
The highest point in our spiritual experience is having a clear sky with God’s throne above it. This requires that we maintain a pure conscience without any offense toward God and man, and we daily live under the ruling presence of Christ.
We live in spirit and according to the spirit, always exercising our spirit to live under the Lord’s rule. He rules in us in all things.
The One sitting on the throne has the appearance of a man and has the appearance of the glory of Jehovah; He is the mingling of God and man.
Christ is on the throne, and He is leading us, the many sons of God, into glory; at the same time, God is working on us to bring us all the way to the throne.
He shines on us, searches us, burns in us, and removes by judging anything that does not match Him.
He wants to make us the same as He is. Praise the Lord, all the negative things in us are being burned out of us by the Lord as the consuming fire so that we may become the same as Christ, even to be like electrum, the radiant expression of the redeeming God! Wow, Amen!
The Rainbow Around the Man Sitting on the Throne: God’s Righteousness, Holiness, and Glory as a Testimony of God’s Faithfulness
In Ezekiel 1:28 we se that, like the appearance of the rainbow that is in the cloud on a day of rain, such was the appearance of the brightness all around the man on the throne.
There is a rainbow around the man who is sitting on the throne, signifying the splendour and glory around the Lord on the throne.
This is also seen in Revelation 4:3, where we are told that the One sitting on the throne was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne. Very interesting.
What is this rainbow? What is its significance, and how does this apply to our experience?
At the time of Noah, we see that God gave him a sign; the rainbow in the cloud was a sign of God’s faithfulness in keeping His covenant with man and every living creature (Gen. 9:13).
When we look at the rainbow in the cloud, we know that God promised never to destroy mankind with a flood.
The One on the throne has a rainbow as the brightness around Him; the splendour and glory around the Lord on the throne is a rainbow. Wonderful!
God judged the earth once by a flood, and He promised never to do that again. God promised He would never again destroy all living things by a flood, so He set a rainbow in the cloud as a sign of this covenant.
If we look at a rainbow, we see many colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
The basic colours of the rainbow are only three: red, yellow, and blue; when these are shining and blending, they produce other colours, such as orange, green, and violet.
The throne looks like a blue sapphire stone, the electrum is yellow, and the fire is red.
When these three colours shine and refract, they combine to make a rainbow. What do these colours signify and how can we apply them to our Christian experience?
The blue colour signifies the throne; Psalm 89:14 tells us that the foundation of God’s throne is righteousness.
The blue throne (the sapphire stone) signifies God’s righteousness. Red signifies the sanctifying, separating, and consuming fire; red, therefore, refers to God’s holiness.
Yellow signifies God’s glory in the glowing electrum and in His shining. In other words, red as the colour of fire refers to God’s holiness, yellow as the colour of electrum signifies God’s glory, and blue as the colour of the sapphire throne signifies God’s righteousness.
These three can be seen in Genesis 3:24 where God, after casting man out of the garden of Eden, put a cherubim with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life.
The cherubim signifies God’s glory, the sword signifies God’s righteousness, and the flame signifies God’s holiness.
God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory are three divine attributes that keep sinners away from God. God had to keep the way to the tree of life closed, for if man eats of the tree of life in his fallen state, he will live forever and remain fallen forever. Oh Lord!
But praise the Lord, Christ came and died on the cross to satisfy the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness and glory, and He was resurrected, and even more: He is now our righteousness, holiness, and glory (1 Cor. 1:30).
It is of God that we are in Christ Jesus, who became righteousness and sanctification and redemption to us from God. Praise the Lord!
On the cross, He paid the highest price and fulfilled all the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory.
In His resurrection, He became righteousness, holiness, and glory to us from God. He became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification (that is, holiness) and redemption (that is, glory).
Now by faith in Christ not only are we saved from eternal perdition but we also enjoy God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory dispensed into us! Praise the Lord!
Lord Jesus, thank You for dying for us on the cross to fulfil all the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory. We love You, we believe into You, and we open to You! We want to enjoy Christ as wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Hallelujah, even though we cannot fulfill the righteous, holy, and glorious requirements of our God, Christ died in our stead, and we can now believe into Him! Praise the Lord that, through His death, Christ satisfied the requirements of God, and now in His resurrection, He is our righteousness and holiness and glory! Amen, Lord, we thank You and we praise You. We stand on Your faithfulness today. Thank You for Your promise to never destroy man by water; we look at the rainbow and we praise You! Hallelujah, our God is a covenanting God who is faithful in His word and to His promise! Praise the Lord, our God is working on us and within us to make us His glorious expression, the rainbow around the throne, to express God in a glorious way! Praise the Lord!
The Christian Life and Church Life Consummates in a Rainbow Reflecting the Brightness of God’s Righteousness, Holiness, and Glory and Testifying Forever that God is Righteous and Faithful
The rainbow has a deep significance in the Bible, for the Bible consummates with the New Jerusalem where the One on the throne has a rainbow around Him, and the entire city is a rainbow displaying God’s righteousness and faithfulness for eternity.
As usual, Satan came in to usurp and misuse the matter of the rainbow; today the rainbow is used in an improper way by men usurped by the enemy, but we believers in Christ need to come to the divine revelation concerning the rainbow.
God’s righteousness (signified by the colour blue), God’s holiness (signified by the colour red) and God’s glory (signified by the colour yellow) are three divine attributes that keep the sinners away from God.
In ourselves, we are short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23) and are under God’s righteous judgment, being kept away by God’s holiness.
But the Lord Jesus came and fulfilled all the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory, and by faith in Him, we receive Christ as our righteousness, holiness, and glory.
The very attributes of God that excluded us from God’s presence are now being wrought into us to be lived out of us and expressed through us. Wow!
Because we are in Christ, we now bear Christ as righteousness, holiness, and glory.
As we daily turn to the Lord, enjoy Him, have a clear sky, enthrone the Lord, allow Him to judge anything natural in us, and allow Him to work Himself into us, we bear His appearance, and others see in us the righteousness, holiness, and glory of God.
Because we’re in Christ, in God’s sight, we look like righteousness, holiness, and glory.
Also, when others see us, they sense that we have a clear sky, that we have a throne, and that we are righteous and proper, not careless or loose in any way.
There’s an electrum shining in us, glowing in us, and being weighty in our being. And our appearance is that of a rainbow, for we do not display our own righteousness but God’s righteousness, His holiness, and His glory.
This is our reality in our Christian life when we exercise our spirit and live in the spirit; the world, the demons, and Satan see the rainbow being expressed and manifested in us.
We were those fallen who have been saved and are becoming a testimony of God’s faithfulness in saving us.
We bear the appearance of a rainbow as a testimony of God’s faithfulness in sparing us and saving us, the fallen ones, from His judgment on sinners.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we are becoming God’s masterpiece, His poiema, the work of art that expresses God’s infinite wisdom and divine design.
This is what the church is: the church is God’s masterpiece, expressing the infinite wisdom and divine design of God.
Right now, it may seem we are a mess-terpiece, for we fail so many times, we have many weaknesses, and we live in the natural man so often.
But we keep turning to our spirit to allow the Lord to work in us and on us to make us the same as He is. We are becoming His masterpiece.
We are being constituted with the riches of Christ so that, through the church, the multifarious wisdom of God may be made known to all the angelic rulers and authorities and to the whole universe.
The church is the wise exhibition of God and of all that God is and is doing.
As we enjoy Christ as the wisdom of God to us, both righteousness and sanctification and redemption, these attributes of God are wrought into us to become our expression, making us the reality of the rainbow, God’s shining corporate testimony in the universe.
In the New Jerusalem, a city whose foundations have the appearance of a rainbow (see Rev. 21:19-20), we will be a rainbow reflecting the brightness of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory, and testifying forever that God is righteous and faithful.
When you look at the New Jerusalem, which is a corporate person and not a physical city, you see the appearance of a rainbow.
The spiritual reality of this rainbow should be manifested in the church today.
We need to allow God to fill us with His presence of righteousness by giving Him the full opportunity to work in us as the fire of holiness for His splendour of glory through us.
We live under the covenant of God and we do not believe in any failure, weakness, or darkness; we do not believe in any negative thing. We are the covenant people, having a covenanting God, and we have a verse of promise to meet every situation.
We believe that the God of peace will Himself sanctify us wholly, making our spirit, soul, and body holy and preserving them complete and without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thes. 5:23).
We believe that faithful is He who called us for He will also do it (v. 24).
He is able to guard us from stumbling (Jude 24). Praise the Lord, as portrayed in Ezekiel 1 and seen in Revelation 21-22, the Christian life and the church life will consummate in a rainbow, and at that point, God’s eternal plan will have been accomplished. Praise the Lord!
Lord Jesus, we believe into You and we remain in You. Hallelujah, we are in Christ, and in the sight of God we look like righteousness, holiness, and glory! Praise the Lord, Christ is wisdom to us from God, both righteousness and sanctification and redemption. We come to You, Lord, and we want to enjoy You and experience You. We want to have a clear sky with a throne above it. Bring us all the way to the throne and make us proper human beings who have God shining out of us. May Your righteousness, holiness, and glory be wrought into us little by little, day by day, until we become Your masterpiece, expressing You to those around us! Lord, constitute us with Your riches so that, as the church, You make Your multifarious wisdom known to all! Amen, Lord, gain the appearance of the rainbow in us and among us. May our Christian life and church life consummate in the rainbow, the glorious corporate expression of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory, and testifying of God’s faithfulness in keeping His covenant! Praise the Lord!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ed Marks on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Ezekiel, msg. 12, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (4) (2025 December Training), week 47 (msg. 11), The Lamb-God Being on the Throne within the City – day 6.
- Hymns on this topic:
– We, once dead in our offences, / Walking in the worldly course, / Lusts of flesh and mind fulfilling, / Satan and his hosts their source, / God with Christ has resurrected, / Seated in the heavenlies; / We, His masterpiece, created / In Christ Jesus, Him to please. (Hymns #823 stanza 3)
– With the Man, with the Man is a rainbow fair; / Glorious bow, ’round the throne, faithfulness declares: / We deserved to be served with God’s judgment sore, / But we have been spared to praise Him more and more. (Hymns #1189 stanza 5)
– As Thou art faithful to perform / Thy promise and Thy call; / So, feeding on Thy faithfulness, / I take Thyself withal. / The rainbow round about Thy throne / Thy faithfulness declares; / This attribute forevermore / The holy city bears. (Hymns #18 stanzas 7-8)
