Green is connected with life on earth

 

Look up:

Genesis. 1:30; 9:3 

Revelation 8:7; 9:4

 

It is always used in relation to herbs, trees, grass and the like. The one exception is Esther 1: 6 where it is present in the hangings of a pagan king’s palace garden.

 

What is green is vibrant, full of life and flourishing. Thus “he maketh me to lie down in green pastures” (Ps. 23: 2). It speaks of a time of prosperity: “for if these things are done in the green tree, what shall take place in the dry?” (Luke 23: 31), and the removal of what is green is a sure sign of judgment (see Exod. 10: 15; Rev. 8: 17).

 

 

Light itself is described as white (see Matt. 17: 2). Like the Pink Floyd album cover, a prism can be used to split white light into all the colours of the rainbow.

 

White is the combination of all the colours, and is connected with purity

 

Look Up:

Isaiah. 1:6

Daniel 12: 10

Revelation. 3:4-5; 19:14

 

The clothes of the Ancient of Days is described as “white as snow” and the hair of his head “like pure wool” (Dan. 7: 9), while the garments of Christ on the mount of transfiguration became “shining, exceeding white as snow”, such as fuller on earth could not whiten them” (Mark 9: 3).

 

The manna, which typified Christ in His walk down here, was also white (see Exod. 16: 31).

 

Solomon advised us to “Let thy garments be always pure” (Eccl. 9: 8) – that is, keep apart from defilement.

 

The final throne of judgment is “a great white throne” (Rev. 20: 11), indicating that its pronouncements are utterly pure and holy.

 

The believer shall not be there for though his sins were as scarlet, “they shall be as white as snow” (Is. 1: 18)—a perfect cleansing (see also Ps. 51: 7; Rev. 7: 14). Of course there is a false kind of purity which looks good but is only superficial as typified by the Pharisees being described as “whited sepulchres” (Matt. 23: 27). There is also a “whited wall” (Acts 23: 3) - a wall of separation that outwardly looks good, but is really evil in character.

 

There is a more negative side though to this colour! Leprosy (which speaks of sin) was white (see, for example Exod. 4: 6; Lev. 13; Num. 12: 10), and here, the point is probably the absence of healthy colouration in the flesh. It is being close to death, and death, as we read elsewhere, is the wages of sin.

 

White is also associated with military power—the first rider in Revelation 6 sat upon a white horse and “went forth conquering” (Rev. 6: 2). The Lord Jesus Christ will come again to this earth on a white horse (see Rev. 19: 11), and the armies which are in heaven shall follow him “upon white horses” (v 14).

 

Grey is associated with old age:

“Now also, when I am old and greyheaded”

 

Look Up:

1 Samuel 12:2 

Psalms 71:18

Proverbs 20:29 

 

It implies wisdom (and invites respect. Job observes “What knowest thou that we know not? [what] understandest thou which is not in us? Both the greyheaded and the aged are with us, older than thy father” (Job 15: 9, 10).