Is the rainbow a sacrament to us today?

[chuckd]

WCF 27

1. Sacraments are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ and His benefits; and to confirm our interest in Him: as also, to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the Church and the rest of the world; and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ, according to His Word.

4. There are only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord: neither of which may be dispensed by any, but by a minister of the Word lawfully ordained.

Only two ordained by Christ in the Gospel. Is the rainbow a third to be a sign to all men? It does not "put a visible difference" between the church and the world.

Calvin Institutes Book 4, Ch. 14.18

18. The term sacrament, in the view we have hitherto taken of it, includes, generally, all the signs which God ever commanded men to use, that he might make them sure and confident of the truth of his promises. These he was pleased sometimes to place in natural objects—sometimes to exhibit in miracles. Of the former class we have an example, in his giving the tree of life to Adam and Eve, as an earnest of immortality, that they might feel confident of the promise as often as they ate of the fruit. Another example was, when he gave the bow in the cloud to Noah and his posterity, as a memorial that he would not again destroy the earth by a flood. These were to Adam and Noah as sacraments: not that the tree could give Adam and Eve the immortality which it could not give to itself; or the bow (which is only a reflection of the solar rays on the opposite clouds) could have the effect of confining the waters; but they had a mark engraven on them by the word of God, to be proofs and seals of his covenant. The tree was previously a tree, and the bow a bow; but when they were inscribed with the word of God, a new form was given to them: they began to be what they previously were not. Lest any one suppose that these things were said in vain, the bow is even in the present day a witness to us of the covenant which God made with Noah (Calv. in Gen. 9:6). As often as we look upon it, we read this promise from God, that the earth will never be destroyed by a flood.

 

[travstar]

No, because the promise, sign, and seal of the rainbow (a truly remarkable and eternal sign at that in Rev. 4 and 10) because it does depend upon the piety or intention of him that doth administer it, contra Heading III.

 

[Jack K]

Certain things may be "sacramental" (that is, they have some of the nature of sacraments) even though they are not sacraments proper as the confessions would define them. Calvin may be acknowledging this when he speaks of things that were "as sacraments" to Adam and Noah.