18“Come now, and let’s reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land;
20but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”
18 “Come now, and let’s reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land;
20 but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”
KJVKing James Version
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
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JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land;
20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken.
Isaiah 44:22(v18)I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.
Revelation 7:14(v18)I told him, “My lord, you know.” He said to me, “These are those who came out of the great suffering.They washed their robes, and made them…
Deuteronomy 30:15-16(v19)Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil. For I command you today to love Yahweh your God, to walk in…
Psalms 51:7(v18)Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Micah 7:18-19(v18)Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger…
Show all 38 cross-references
Isaiah 43:24-26(v18)You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your…
Isaiah 3:10(v19)Tell the righteous “Good!” For they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.
Ephesians 1:6-8(v18)to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved, in whom we have our redemption through his blood,…
Joel 2:26(v19)You will have plenty to eat, and be satisfied, and will praise the name of Yahweh, your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and my…
Isaiah 41:21(v18)Produce your cause,” says Yahweh. “Bring out your strong reasons!” says the King of Jacob.
Isaiah 41:1(v18)“Keep silent before me, islands, and let the peoples renew their strength. Let them come near, then let them speak. Let’s meet together for…
Hebrews 5:9(v19)Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation,
Isaiah 55:6-7(v19)Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let…
Romans 5:20(v18)The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly;
1 Samuel 12:7(v18)Now therefore stand still, that I may plead with you before Yahweh concerning all the righteous acts of Yahweh, which he did to you and to…
Isaiah 55:1-3(v19)“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and…
Matthew 21:28-32(v19)But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’ He answered, ‘I will…
Jeremiah 31:18-20(v19)“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be…
Acts 17:2(v18)Paul, as was his custom, went in to them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
Acts 18:4(v18)He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded Jews and Greeks.
Jeremiah 3:12-14(v19)Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, you backsliding Israel,’ says Yahweh; ‘I will not look in anger on you;…
Jeremiah 2:5(v18)Yahweh says, “What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after worthless vanity,…
Hosea 14:1-4(v19)Israel, return to Yahweh your God; for you have fallen because of your sin. Take words with you, and return to Yahweh. Tell him, “Forgive…
Acts 24:25(v18)As he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was terrified, and answered, “Go your way for this time,…
Isaiah 65:12(v20)I will destine you to the sword, and you will all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you didn’t answer. When I spoke, you…
Isaiah 58:14(v20)then you will delight yourself in Yahweh, and I will make you to ride on the high places of the earth, and I will feed you with the…
Numbers 23:19(v20)God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and…
Isaiah 40:5(v20)Yahweh’s glory shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”
Micah 6:2(v18)Hear, you mountains, Yahweh’s controversy, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for Yahweh has a controversy with his people, and he…
Isaiah 3:11(v20)Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them; for the deeds of his hands will be paid back to him.
Isaiah 3:25(v20)Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war.
Leviticus 26:33(v20)I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a…
1 Samuel 12:25(v20)But if you keep doing evil, you will be consumed, both you and your king.”
2 Chronicles 36:14-16(v20)Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the nations; and they…
Micah 4:4(v20)But they will sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and no one will make them afraid: For the mouth of Yahweh of Armies has…
Titus 1:2(v20)in hope of eternal life, which God, who can’t lie, promised before time began;
1 Samuel 15:29(v20)Also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent.”
Hebrews 2:1-3(v20)Therefore we ought to pay greater attention to the things that were heard, lest perhaps we drift away. For if the word spoken through…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (18 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv18–19To know if I do accuse you without cause.
To know if I do accuse you without cause.
Lest sinners should pretend any rigor on God’s part, he only willeth them to be pure in heart, and he will forgive all their sins, were they never so many or great.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv18–20Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together,…
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Ver. 18. Come now, let us reason together.] In the Greek Church, at the beginning of divine service, the deacon cried out, Sacra sacris, Holy souls to holy service. {a} God will not treat with this people till purified, till resolved upon better practices; as when he is content, by a wonderful condescension, to make them even as judges in their own cause. The Vulgate rendereth it, but not so well, Et venite et arguite me {see Isa 5:3 Jer 2:9 Mic 6:1-3}
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Though your sin be of scarlet.] Blood red, {as Isa 1:15} and of a double dye; sins in grain, enormia et horrenda, such as ye may well think will never wash out. {b}
They shall be white as snow,] i.e., You shall be fully freed of the guilt and filth of your most heinous offences by the blood of my Son: sc., Not your peccadilloes only shall be remitted, but your many and mighty sins, quae coccini, quae vermiculi instar sunt. But what meant that mad philosopher, Anaxagoras, to affirm that snow was black? {c} "Purge me with hyssop" (wash me by the blood of sprinkling from the sting and stink of sin), "and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." {Psa 51:7} {d} Cleaner I shall be than the picked glass, whiter than the driven snow. The law, saith one, {e} is like a glass wherein we see our spots; but the gospel is like the laver {Exo 38:8} which was made of the women’s looking glasses, whereby they might both see their faces and also wash out their spots; for it was both a glass to look in, and a laver to wash in, and this typified Christ. {see 1Jn 1:7 Rev 1:1}
Though they be red like crimson.] Which is, say the Rabbis, of a deeper colour than the former.
They shall be as wool.] Which naturally is exceeding white in those countries. {Psa 147:16} Scultetus noteth that God here promiseth not only pardoning, but purging grace also.
{a} Chrysos., Basil., Liturg.
{b} Alludit ad habitum meretricum. - A Lap.
{c} Cicer., lib. iv. Acad. Quest.
{d} Galen., lib. ii. De virt. simp. remediorum.
{e} Ainsw. in loc.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv18–20Come now, and let us reason together; I am…
Come now, and let us reason together; I am willing to lay aside my prerogative, and to submit the matter to a fair and equal trial, whether I do not deal justly in rejecting all your services, which are accompanied with such gross hypocrisy and wickedness, and whether I do not deal very graciously in offering mercy and pardon to you upon these conditions.
Though your sins be as scarlet, red and bloody, as theirs were, Isa 1:15, great and heinous,
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they shall be as white as snow; they shall be washed and purged by the blood of the Messias, whereby you shall be made white and pure in God’s sight. It is a metonymical expression, as sins are said to be purged, Heb 1:3, when men are purged from their sins, Heb 9:14.
Shall be as wool; which for the most part is white, and is compared to snow for whiteness, Rev 1:14.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv18–20Come now, and let us reason, together, saith the…
Come now, and let us reason, together, saith the Lord,.... These words stand not in connection either with the preceding or following, but are to be read in a parenthesis, and are thrown in for the sake of the small remnant God had left among this wicked people, in order to comfort them, being distressed with sin. These, seeing their sins in their dreadful colours, and with all their aggravating circumstances, were ready to conclude that they were unpardonable; and, seeing God as an angry Judge, dared not come nigh him, but stood at a distance, fearing and expecting his vengeance to fall upon them, and therefore put away the promises, and refused to be comforted; when the Lord was pleased to encourage them to draw near to him, and come and reason with him: not at the bar of his justice; there is no reasoning with him there; none can contend with him, or answer him, one of a thousand; if he marks iniquity in strict justice, none can stand before him; there is no entering the lists with him upon the foot of justice, or at its bar: but at the bar of mercy, at the throne of grace; there the righteous may dispute with him from his declarations and promises, as well as come with boldness to him; and at the altar and sacrifice of Christ, and at the fountain of his blood: here sinners may reason with him from the virtue and efficacy of his blood and sacrifice; and from the Lord's proclamation of grace and mercy through him; and from his promises to forgive repenting and confessing sinners: and here God reasons with sensible souls from his own covenant promises and proclamations to forgive sin; from the aboundings of his grace over abounding sin; from the righteousness of Christ to justify, his blood to cleanse from sin, and his sacrifice to atone for it; and from the end of his coming into the world to save the chief of sinners: saying,
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Every sin is a transgression of the law, and hateful and abominable to God; no sin is venial in itself, but deserving of the wrath of God, and the curses of the law; all sin is mortal, the wages of it is death: but all are not alike; some are greater, others lesser; some are attended with aggravating circumstances, as when the persons that commit them have, besides the light of nature, also the law of Moses, or the Gospel of Christ; have had the advantage of a religious education; have sat under a Gospel ministry, and received much speculative light and knowledge; yea, have been under convictions of sin time after time, and yet have been ringleaders and encouragers of others in sin, guilty of very enormous crimes, which in themselves are comparable to "scarlet" and "crimson": and perhaps reference may be had to the sin of murder, since the persons, among whom these dwelt, their hands were full of blood; and may respect the crucifiers of Christ, among whom there were some savingly convicted and converted. Moreover, they may be signified hereby on account of the effects of them, they defile men, provoke God to wrath, and, through the law, work wrath in their consciences; and may signify, that they are sins of a deep dye, and which have such a place in their hearts and consciences, that nothing can remove them but the blood of Christ: and besides are open, flagrant, and notorious to all, and especially to God; yet these, through the grace and blood of Jesus, become as white as wool and as snow: not that pardon of sin takes sin out of the hearts and natures of men, nor changes the nature of sin, or causes it to cease to be sin; but this is to be understood of the persons of sinners, who hereby are made so white, yea, whiter than this, Psa 51:1 as they are considered in Christ, washed in his blood, and clothed with his righteousness, which is fine linen, clean and white; God, seeing no iniquity in them, has thus graciously dealt with them, and they being without fault, spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. It was with respect to this Scripture that the Jews in later times were wont to tie a scarlet thread to the head of the scapegoat, when he was sent into the wilderness; though at first they fastened it to the door of the outward porch, and then to the door of the inward porch, and, if it turned white, it was a sign their sins were forgiven them, but, if not, otherwise (k); and it is owned by them, that it belongs to future time, the time of the Messiah (l).
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(k) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 89. 2. (l) Gussetius observes, that signifies not "oppressed", but infected with leaven, and so means, reduce to a right way him that is corrupt with the leaven of vice, by hindering him that he may not go on to hurt the fatherless. Comment. Ebr. p. 265.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn v19If - If you are fully resolved to obey…
If - If you are fully resolved to obey all my commands. Shall eat - Together with pardon, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv18–20Verse 18. Though your sins be as scarlet] שני…
Verse 18. Though your sins be as scarlet] שני shani, "scarlet or crimson," dibaphum, twice dipped, or double dyed; from שנה shanah, iterare, to double, or to do a thing twice. This derivation seems much more probable than that which Salmasius prefers from שנן shanan, acuere, to whet, from the sharpness and strength of the colour, οξυφοινικον; תלע tela, the same; properly the worm, vermiculus, (from whence vermeil,) for this colour was produced from a worm or insect which grew in a coccus or excrescence of a shrub of the ilex kind, (see Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 8,) like the cochineal worm in the opuntia of America. See Ulloa's Voyage book v., chap. ii., note to page 342. There is a shrub of this kind that grows in Provence and Languedoc, and produces the like insect, called the kermes oak, (see Miller, Dict. Quercus,) from kermez, the Arabic word for this colour, whence our word crimson is derived.
"Neque amissos colores
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Lana refert medicata fuco,"
says the poet, applying the same image to a different purpose. To discharge these strong colours is impossible to human art or power; but to the grace and power of God all things, even much more difficult are possible and easy. Some copies have כשנים keshanim, "like crimson garments."
Though they be red, &c.] But the conjunction ו vau is added by twenty-one of Kennicott's, and by forty-two of De Rossi's MSS., by some early editions, with the Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic. It makes a fuller and more emphatic sense. "AND though they be red as crimson," &c.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn v18Isa 1:18-20. Come now, let us reason together —…
Isa 1:18-20. Come now, let us reason together — The word נוכחהis properly understood of two contending parties arguing a case; or, as Bishop Lowth translates it, pleading together; but here it seems to import also the effect, or issue of such a debate, namely, the accommodating their differences. Though your sins be as scarlet — Red and bloody as theirs were, mentioned Isa 1:15; great and heinous; they shall be white as snow — God, upon your repentance and reformation, will pardon all that is past, and look upon you with the same grace and favour as if you had never offended, your sins being expiated by the blood of the Messiah, typified by your legal sacrifices. It is a metonymical expression, by which sins are said to be purged, as Heb 1:3, when men are purged from their sins, Heb 9:14. If ye be willing and obedient — If you be heartily willing and fully resolved to obey all my commands; ye shall eat the good of the land — Together with the pardon of your sins, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings. But if ye refuse and rebel — If you obstinately persist in your disobedience to me, as hitherto you have done; ye shall be devoured with the sword — With the sword of your enemies, which shall be commissioned to destroy you, and with the sword of God’s justice, his wrath and vengeance, which shall be drawn against you; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it — And he will surely make it good for the maintaining of his own honour.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv18–20Come now - This is addressed to the nation…
Come now - This is addressed to the nation of Israel; and the same exhortation is made to all sinners. It is a solemn act on the part of God, submitting the claims and principles of his government to reason, on the supposition that men may see the propriety of his service, and of his plan.
Let us reason together - ונוכחה venivākechâh from יכח yâkach, not used in Kal, but in Hiphil; meaning to show, to prove. Job 13:15 : ‘Surely I will prove my ways (righteous) before him;’ that is, I will justify my ways before him. Also to correct, reprove, convince, Job 32:12; to rebuke, reproach, censure, Job 6:25; to punish, Job 5:17; Pro 3:12; to judge, decide, Isa 11:3; to do justice, Isa 11:4; or to contend, Job 13:3; Job 16:21; Job 22:4. Here it denotes the kind of contention, or argumentation, which occurs in a court of justice, where the parties reciprocally state the grounds of their cause. God had been addressing magistrates particularly, and commanding them to seek judgment, to relieve the oppressed, to do justice to the orphan and widow; all of which terms are taken from courts of law. He here continues the language, and addresses them as accustomed to the proceedings of courts, and proposes to submit the case as if on trial. He then proceeds Isa 1:18-20, to adduce the principles on which he is willing to bestow pardon on them; and submits the case to them, assured that those principles will commend themselves to their reason and sober judgment.
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Though your sins be as scarlet - The word used here - שׁנים shānı̂ym - denotes properly a bright red color, much prized by the ancients. The Arabic verb means to shine, and the name was given to this color, it is supposed by some, on account of its splendor, or bright appearance. It is mentioned as a merit of Saul, that he clothed the daughters of Israel in scarlet, 2Sa 1:24, Our word scarlet, denoting a bright red, expresses the color intended here. This color was obtained from the eggs of the coccus ilicis, a small insect found on the leaves of the oak in Spain, and in the countries east of the Mediterranean. The cotton cloth was dipped in this color twice; and the word used to express it means also double-dyed, from the verb שׁנה shânâh, to repeat. From this double-dying many critics have supposed that the name given to the color was derived. The interpretation which derives it from the sense of the Arabic word to shine, however, is the most probable, as there is no evidence that the double-dying was unique to this color. It was a more permanent color than that which is mentioned under the word crimson. White is an emblem of innocence. Of course sins would be represented by the opposite. Hence, we speak of crimes as black, or deep-dyed, and of the soul as stained by sin. There is another idea here. This was a fast, or fixed color. Neither dew, nor rain, nor washing, nor long usage, would remove it. Hence, it is used to represent the fixedness and permanency of sins in the heart. No human means will wash them out. No effort of man, no external rites, no tears, no sacrifices, no prayers, are of themselves sufficient to take them away. They are deep fixed in the heart, as the scarlet color was in the Web of cloth, and an almighty power is needful to remove them.
Shall be as white as snow - That is, the deep, fixed stain, which no human power could remove, shall be taken away. In other words, sin shall be pardoned, and the soul be made pure. White, in all ages, has been the emblem of innocence, or purity; compare Psa 68:14; Ecc 9:8; Dan 7:9; Mat 17:2; Mat 28:3; Rev 1:14; Rev 3:4-5; Rev 4:4; Rev 7:9, Rev 7:13.
Though they be red - The idea here is not materially different from that expressed in the former part of the verse. It is the Hebrew poetic form of expressing substantially the same thought in both parts of the sentence. Perhaps, also, it denotes intensity, by being repeated; see Introduction, 8.
Like crimson - כתולע katôlâ‛. The difference between scarlet and crimson is, that the former denotes a deep red; the latter a deco red slightly tinged with blue. Perhaps this difference, however, is not marked in the original. The purple or crimson color was obtained commonly from a shellfish, called murex, or purpura, which abounded chiefly in the sea, near Tyre; and hence, the Tyrian dye became so celebrated. That, however, which is designated in this place, was obtained, not from a shellfish, but a worm (Hebrew: תולע tôlâ‛, snail, or conchylium - the Helix Janthina of Linnaeus. This color was less permanent than the scarlet; was of a bluish east; and is commonly in the English Bible rendered blue. It was employed usually to dye wool, and was used in the construction of the tabernacle, and in the garments of the high priest. It was also in great demand by princes and great men, Jdg 8:26; Luk 14:19. The prophet has adverted to the fact that it was employed mainly in dying wool, by what he has added, ‘shall be as wool.’
As wool - That is, as wool undyed, or from which the color is removed. Though your sins appear as deep-stained, and as permanent as the fast color of crimson in wool, yet they shall be removed - as if that stain should be taken away from the wool, and it should be restored to its original whiteness.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn v18Accuse me. If I punish you without cause.
Accuse me. If I punish you without cause.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv18–20God deigns to argue the case with us, that…
God deigns to argue the case with us, that all may see the just, nay, loving principle of His dealings with men (Isa 43:26).
scarlet--the color of Jesus Christ's robe when bearing our "sins" (Mat 27:28). So Rahab's thread (Jos 2:18; compare Lev 14:4). The rabbins say that when the lot used to be taken, a scarlet fillet was bound on the scapegoat's head, and after the high priest had confessed his and the people's sins over it, the fillet became white: the miracle ceased, according to them, forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, that is, exactly when Jesus Christ was crucified; a remarkable admission of adversaries. Hebrew for "scarlet" radically means double-dyed; so the deep-fixed permanency of sin in the heart, which no mere tears can wash away.
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snow-- (Psa 51:7). Repentance is presupposed, before sin can be made white as snow (Isa 1:19-20); it too is God's gift (Jer 31:18, end; Lam 5:21; Act 5:31).
red--refers to "blood" (Isa 1:15).
as wool--restored to its original undyed whiteness. This verse shows that the old fathers did not look only for transitory promises (Article VII, Book of Common Prayer). For sins of ignorance, and such like, alone had trespass offerings appointed for them; greater guilt therefore needed a greater sacrifice, for, "without shedding of blood there was no remission"; but none such was appointed, and yet forgiveness was promised and expected; therefore spiritual Jews must have looked for the One Mediator of both Old Testament and New Testament, though dimly understood.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn v1818-20. Revolting as the people’s acts have been, God…
18-20. Revolting as the people’s acts have been, God is here pleading to show that their ill condition is of their own causing.
Come now — This is a common formula of entreaty.
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Let us reason — Discuss the case together. The verb is reciprocal; hence, considering the parties, to secure their consent to examine the issue is to secure their own self-conviction.
Though your sins be as scarlet — As deep dyed as scarlet. This expresses a superlative degree of moral turpitude. “Scarlet,” or crimson, is made from a dye formed of insects found in excrescences on the oak, like our common cochineal. It is the firmest of dyes, and is the deepest symbol of blood-guiltiness. Yet such sins shall be washed out, and the souls of the people become cleansed to whiteness, if they will even now become obedient; but fearfully otherwise if they still rebel. On condition of obedience, land and city shall be preserved; on continued disobedience, the ruthless invader shall bring destruction, as sure as God liveth.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv18, 2018. let us reason together] more accurately, let us…
18. let us reason together] more accurately, let us implead one another (Act_19:38, A.V.). The idea is that of a legal process in which each party maintains his own case (see ch. Isa_43:26). It is felt by some comm. that the legal figure is inconsistent with an absolute offer of forgiveness in the two clauses which follow. The difficulty would be obviated by the subtle and attractive rendering (proposed, but now withdrawn, by Cheyne) “let us bring our dispute to an end”; but this is unsupported by grammar or usage. The second member of each sentence might be taken as an indignant question, “If your sins are … shall they be white …?”—or as an ironical concession, “Though your sins be … let them be white …!” The idea of pardon, however, may be retained, provided it be understood as conditioned by the alternative of Isa_1:19-20.
scarlet and crimson are really synonyms for one colour, properly “crimson.” The dye in question was obtained from the dried and powdered bodies of an insect (coccus ilicis, in Hebr. tôla‘ath shânî = “bright worm”). There is perhaps no other instance of red used as a general symbol for sin, though white is the natural emblem of innocence (Psa_51:7).
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18–20. Jehovah condescends to plead.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv18–19(18) Come now, and let us reason together.—The Authorised…
(18) Come now, and let us reason together.—The Authorised Version suggests the thought of a discussion between equals. The Hebrew implies rather the tone of one who gives an authoritative ultimatum, as from a judge to the accused, who had no defence, or only a sham defence, to offer (Mic_6:2-3). “Let us sum up the pleadings—that ultimatum is one of grace and mercy—‘Repent, and be forgiven.’”
Though your sins be as scarlet.—The two colours probably corresponded to those now designated by the English words. Both words point to the dyes of Tyre, and the words probably received a fresh emphasis from the fact that robes of these colours were worn by the princes to whom Isaiah preached (2Sa_1:24). To the prophet’s eye that dark crimson was as the stain of blood. What Jehovah promises is that the guilt of the past, deep-dyed in grain as it might be, should be discharged, and leave the character with a restored purity. Men might dye their souls of this or that hue, but to bleach them was the work of God. He alone could transfigure them that they should be “white as snow” (Mar_9:3). Comp. the reproduction of the thought, with the added paradox that it was the crimson “blood of the lamb” that was to bleach and cleanse, in Rev_3:4-5; Rev_7:14.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv18–20Come now, and let us reason together. God has…
Come now, and let us reason together. God has from time to time permitted man to reason with him; (Gen_18:23-32 Exo_4:1-17 Job_23:3-7 Mic_6:2) but it is difficult to see that there is any "reasoning" or "controversy" here. Mr. Cheyne translates, "Let us bring our dispute to an end." Though your sins be as scarlet... like crimson; i.e. "open, evident, glaring." Or there may be an allusion to their blood-guiltiness (see vers. 15, 19). They shall be as white as snow. Psa_51:7, which is completely parallel, whether it was written before or after. There can be no better image of, purity than snow. (comp. Job_9:30 Lam_4:7) As wool. A weaker illustration than the preceding one, but needed for the parallelism. (The resemblance of falling snow to wool is noted in Psa_147:16)
Vers. 18-23. Argument and conviction.
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I THE TRIAL OF THE CASE.
1. God is reason, otherwise he could not be God of justice. And if the nature can defend itself, clear itself from guilt, its plea will be allowed. Just Isa_43:19, the imagery of a court of justice is presented: "Let them bring forth their witnesses that they may be justified, and let them hear, and say, It is true." The question is Can the nation clear itself from the charges alleged against it? If so, the deep fixed stain that now seems to rest upon them shall be taken away, and they shall be white as driven snow or as undyed wool.
2. God appeals to fixed principles of right. These have long been known, are written in the conscience of the people. A willing spirit of obedience to Divine law is assured of blessing; rebellion brings about hostility, invasion, and all those calamities from which the people are now suffering. Have these curses come "causeless" upon the people? Or are they the just consequences of disobedience? Let them answer. A long pause and silence convey the admission of guilt. They have no argument to urge, no cause to show why judgment should be stayed.
II THE PROPHET"S LAMENTATION. He, as daysman, or go-between, mourns over the city thus convicted, unable to stand in judgment against Jehovah. He is compelled in this cause to turn witness against his own people. Once loyal and pledged as in the covenant of marriage to Jehovah, the city has become like her who "forsakes the guide of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God." Where once the splendid seat of justice and purity stood, there is now lawless bloodshed. The pure metal of her virtue has been debased; and "as water unto wine" is her moral feebleness now as contrasted with her moral strength then. They who, as rulers, were set for an example of obedience to God, integrity among men, are rebels and thieves" comrades. Instead of withholding their hands from bribes, they greedily clutch after them. Pity and mercy are extinct; the orphan and the widow are thrust aside. The guilt of guilt lies in the use of power without love. Christ, as the impersonation of humanity and of love, points out that the condemnation of evil conduct lies in this, that love is wanting, The splendid temple ritual was naught, because there was no love in it, as their conduct out of the temple so clearly showed. We may never miss a Sunday service or a celebration of the communion, yet for all that be undone. And many who have never been "professed" Christians will be, on other grounds, professed by Christ. J.
Salvation to the uttermost.
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." The previous verses show that the Jews had mistaken the ideal of Divine services; they had turned them into a correct ritual, to a multitude of sacrifices without purpose. And purpose or motive is the very heart of religion. They were devotional, but cruel. "When ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood." It was all empty ceremony. The solemn meeting even was iniquity. A change must come. And it must bean in character. "Cease to do evil." Yes; but that is not enough. Negation is not salvation. There must be life unto God as well as death unto sin. "Learn to do well." Then come the words of our text. They sound a strange note at first; they speak of what man cannot do and what God can.
I HERE IS THE GOSPEL IN ISAIAH. Free, full, perfect redemption. We see in these words Gethsemane and Calvary. There God"s purpose was fulfilled; but it is in his heart when these words are spoken, for "the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world." It is a glorious gospel God giving himself for the world. And now, as we read Israel"s sins in this record, we may see even then that, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
II HERE IS THE REASONABLENESS OF RELIGION. How condescending! Let us the Infinite and the finite, the immaculate and the evil. Yet so it is. God says, "While you are stained with blood and cloaked with hypocrisy, I can have nothing to say to you or to do with you." It cannot be that light should have fellowship with darkness. That is reasonable surely. But how can the sins of Judah and Jerusalem be purged away? Amendment is not atonement. And God is their Ransom, the high God is their Redeemer!
III HERE IS THE CHARTER OF THE CHURCH"S LIBERTY. These words will never be forgotten. They have comforted millions. It is not liberty to sin, but salvation from all sin, and from the punishment of sin. Not from punishment only, but from sin itself, in all its forms, all its depths, all its degrees! For the colors are chosen as the symbols of the most marked and malignant evil scarlet and crimson. Yet God is able to save to the uttermost. The words are best understood beneath the cross and in the history of redeemed men in every age. W.M.S.
The magnitude of the Divine mercy.
I THE FULNESS OF THE DIVINE MERCY. In estimating the fullness of God s grace to mankind, we must include:
1. His patience toward all men, both penitent and impenitent. From the beginning of sin until the present hour God has been forbearing to inflict penalty. He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." The times of long-continued ignorance God overlooked, or did not interpose with special penalty or redemption. (Act_17:30)
2. His pardon offered to the penitent and believing. In the Law we read that he is "the Lord God, merciful and gracious," etc.; (Exo_34:6, Exo_34:7) in the Psalms we read that he is "plenteous in mercy," etc.; (Psa_103:8, Psa_103:11, Psa_103:12) in the prophets we read that "he is merciful and will not keep anger forever". (Jer_3:12; and see text and Isa_55:7-9 Dan_9:9) In the gospel of Jesus Christ remission of sins is a cardinal doctrine. (Mat_26:28 Luk_24:47; Act_2:38 Act_5:31 Act_10:43 Act_26:18)
3. The thoroughness of his forgiveness.
(1) The breadth which it covers.
(a) The worst kinds of sin blasphemy, idolatry, all forms of impurity, murder, etc.;
(b) the most criminal condition long-continued forgetfulness, sin against multiplied privilege, persistent and obdurate rebelliousness of heart, etc.
(2) The depth to which it goes down.
(a) Penetrating to the most secret thoughts of the mind, to the most inward motives of the soul, to the slightest choices of the will;
(b) extending to the thoughts and things which have been overlooked and omitted, as well as to those which have been entertained and wrought.
(3) The height to which it rises.
(a) Leading to actual holiness for pardon is the fruit of penitence and faith, and with them in the soul, the scarlet becomes as snow, the crimson as wool, the mind is radically changed, the life is thoroughly transformed
(b) including full restoration, not merely the not exacting penalty, but the actual bestowal of the Divine favor admitting to the Father"s home and table, lavishing upon the accepted child every sign and proof of parental love.
II THE DIVINE ARGUMENT THEREFROM. God condescends to "reason" with us; he appeals to our sense of obligation, to our regard for our own interests, to our human affections, etc. The argument here is not stated, but it may be easily inferred. If such is the Divine mercy so large and full and free, then how wise to seek it at once! because of:
1. The blessedness of being right with God henceforth.
2. The uncertainty of the future. Between our souls and its possession may be interposed
1. sudden death;
2. hardening of the heart;
3. increased outward obstacles.
3. The immeasurable, issues which are at stake punishment or life eternal. C.
Reasoning with God about our sins.
Conceive a man responding to this appeal, what may we think he would say to God, and what may we suppose God would reply?
I FIRST PLEA. "Thou art revealed as the great God, inhabiting eternity, whose Name is Holy; who art of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. I am afraid thou wouldst not concern thyself about the sin, much less about the forgiveness, of such creatures as we are." What is God"s answer? "I have a great interest in that little world where you dwell. I have given you many proofs of it. I have hidden my great sun to shine on you, and quicken life and beauty everywhere around you. I am coming down continually in the rains and winds that provide food for you, coming down to attend your steps and ward off evils from you. It is quite true that by me even "the very hairs of your head are all numbered." If I take such interest in you, should I not concern myself about your sin, the worst of the evils that gather about you? Do you think I could temper the storms and the sunshine, keep away pestilence and blight, and not strive to take away sin? And there is something more: "I am merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and of great kindness." You know that I am Light, Power, Majesty, King, Judge. But you do not really know me till you know that I am Love, and love will spend itself until every stain is cleansed from those whom it loves. My love sends forth streams that wash away sins." When love opens the cleansing fountain, what can we do but Plunge rote the purple flood, And rise into the life of God.
II SECOND PLEA. "I read that thou hast given a great Law, by which thy creatures are to be judged. "The Law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." Thou hast said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." I do not see how thou canst keep thy justice and thy truth, and yet blot out my scarlet, my crimson sins." What is the reply? "It is indeed the mystery of mysteries, but love has solved it. I can be just and justifying. I have set forth my dear Son as your Sin-bearer, your Substitute, the Propitiation for your sin. In his righteous life, by his vicarious death, my Law is magnified and shown to be honorable. Not a stain can even seem to be upon it after such an obedience as Christ rendered, if I did gather every sinful creature into my love and heaven. I have myself put such an eternal honor upon Law by permitting my Son to submit to it, that none can ever doubt the transcendent glory of my justice.
III THIRD PLEA. "But my sins are so great, so aggravated, it seems to me as though such sins as mine cannot even be atoned for; even if atoned for, I think I should never be able to hold up my head for very shame." Some of us know what scarlet sins mean, crimson sins, sins of deepest die. What is God"s reply? "I have provided for the uttermost of sin in the infinite merit of my Son. His worth outweighs all sin; it can cover and blot out the deepest crimson stains. His sacrifice sends up such a fragrant incense to me that I can freely pardon all your iniquity. If his robe of righteousness cover you, I shall not see any of those stains; I shall accept you in him.
IV FOURTH PLEA. "But my sins are not just acts of willfulness and rebellion, they are the habits of my life, the neglectings and self-servings of my life. I hear of rolling sin as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and that is just the way with me. If I were forgiven, I fear I should just go on sinning still." But God answers, "I have provided also for this. I will pour out of my Spirit upon you; and to them that have no might he shall increase strength. He shall be Teacher, Guide, Comforter, Earnest, and Seal. He shall be with you always.
V FIFTH PLEA. "Even if my scarlet sins are made like wool, and my crimson sins like the snow, I fear I shall never be able to return anything for such grace abounding." What a wonderful reply God makes to you, closing up your mouth and humbling you in the very dust! "Not for your sakes do I this, O house of Israel, but for mine own Name"s sake." Truly that is a wonderful answer. It is like God coming to us, opening the fountain of his being, and saying, "Look in, look long, and peer into the depths. I am love." There is all the secret. Love saves. Love saves even those who never can hope to make worthy returns for love. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv18–19Come now, and let us reason together, saith the…
Isa_1:18
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord
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Further reasoning useless
You have nothing more to say; all that you have already said has no value; reasoning has done its work; if reasoning is to rule, the case must go against you--there can be no other issue; but if yielding to the force of My reasoning, admitting it is true and fair, you confess yourselves convicted and condemned, then My mercy shall have its free, triumphant exercise upon you; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
(W. Perkins.)
Reform and pardon
Cease to do evil, etc. Come now, etc. As early as the time of Isaiah we find the doctrine of the reformation of character dependent on forgiveness of sin distinctly taught. Gods remedy for sin is the same in all ages. More prominence perhaps was given to the observance of the law in the olden times, but not to the exclusion of grace; while in the New Testament grace appears the more prominent, but surely not to the exclusion of law. Neither in the one nor in the other was the law the condition of life. Both represent rather two different stages in the same covenant of grace--the one preparatory to the other.
I. THE DEMAND HERE MADE.
1. The nature of the demand. It is for reformation of practice. Wash you, make you clean, etc. This is the one Divine call to fallen man. In it everything is summed up. Made in sundry times and in divers manners, it ever remains substantially the same. The essence of moral beauty is goodness. Now goodness is not a quality deposited in the heart and there shut up; nor yet a something to put on as a garment at will. Rather it is the fruit of well-doing--the outgrowth of a righteous life. This is what God requires. This is to be the outcome of His redeeming love. But it cannot be accomplished without the cooperating activity of the human will. While the hands are besmeared with blood--the token of an immoral life--all natural refinements are of very little value in His sight. God is uncompromising here. Our greatest happiness is to do good. By doing good we shall find the highest good. This then is the great lesson of life--Cease to do evil; learn to do well.
2. The word learn suggests a further thought, namely, the ground of this demand for reform. Man is evil and does evil. Even those who take the most sanguine view of human nature admit that there is something wrong in mans moral constitution.
3. To estimate rightly, however, this cause, we must consider the justice of the demand. It is God who makes it. But He could not have made it unless it were just to do so; nor would He have made it unless it were possible for man to meet it.
II. HOW TO MEET GODS DEMAND. Where is the power to come from? Two answers only are possible: either it is inherent in man--this is the answer of nature or it is supplied from without--this is the answer of grace.
1. The answer of nature. The belief in the ability of man to reform himself is founded either on ignorance of the real nature of his moral condition, as was the case in the pagan world, or on a deliberate refusal to recognise the truth when it is presented concerning that condition, as was the case in Judaism, and is the case at the present day with those who persuade themselves to a belief in the infinite intrinsic capability of human nature. Such is the pride of man, that he is ever slow to admit his own weakness. No, says the modem enthusiast: I regret the new light, for the demands it makes upon me are far too humiliating; I see no reason why a man, given the necessary favourable environments, should not, by a little effort, become perfectly good. Neither the religion of the pagan world, nor the philosophy of the Greeks, nor the power and civilisation of the Romans afford much ground for this belief in human nature. Wisdom then, under the most favourable circumstances, has failed to supply the necessary power to reform the World. Neither the enactments of a Roman senate, nor the Acts of a modern Parliament, nor any power of law, can make man good or even moral. Justice by itself, no more than wisdom, can remove the evil. But nowhere is the inadequacy of wisdom and of law to draw forth the power there is in man to reform his own character, better illustrated than in the case of the chosen people of Israel. They could boast of a wisdom more divine than that of the Greeks, a system of law superior to that of the Romans; while in virtue of their peculiar privileges as a nation they were in an incomparably more advantageous position than any other people, to succeed in their own strength, since they had a will to it. The very possession of their superior privileges, when they abused them, brought upon them a severer punishment.
2. The answer of grace. A power from without is absolutely necessary to enable man to meet the demand for reform. This power is Gods forgiveness. Come now, let us reason together, or better, let us end the dispute: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Although the demand precedes the offer of forgiveness, we are not to suppose that the work of reforming is to precede the enjoyment of the Divine gift. That indeed were impossible. As every duty of man is summed up in the command to reform, so all the riches of grace are summed up in the gift of pardon. But what peculiar virtue or power does pardon possess for producing a change of life?
(1) It is an inducement to repentance, which is the first step in the reformation of character. It induces the resolution to referrer then becomes a power in the penitent man to help him to carry out his resolution. Pardon thus bridges the chasm which exists between a knowledge of duty and the doing of it..
(2) Another function of pardon, and, perhaps, the most important of all in the reformation of character, is that it removes, or rather is itself, as its name implies, the removal of sin. Pardon will convert the criminal into a saint. The pagan world knew nothing of this. It is the power of God unto salvation. (R. E. Morris, B. A.)
God reasoning with man
The gracious promise that God will make us clean follows immediately on a most distinct commandment that we make ourselves clean. Does this seem to you inconsistent? The Jews are here exhorted to make themselves clean,, by putting away from them the evil of their doings--ceasing to do evil, learning to do well. In fact, they are spoken to just as though it had wholly rested with themselves to acquire moral purity.
1. But I dare say they were ready with their objections: they would plead that it was really of no service to decry and exhort them in one and the same breath. Of what use, they seem to say, is it for us to make any effort, unable as we confessedly are to keep the law of God? And even were we able to obey for the future, is there not past disobedience for which we have yet to be reckoned with? It is much in this way that men still receive exhortations to repentance and amendment; for such exhortations belong to the Gospel as much as to the law. And what do men say in reply? The minister, teaching as he does the doctrine of human corruption and helplessness, it is absurd that he should tell men to repent. Is he not contradicting himself? It was, we may believe, in the face of such arguments as these, that God challenged me Jews to controversy in the words of our text. Is this the way, the Almighty seems to exclaim. in which you treat My urgent admonitions to amendment! Come now, let us reason together! But with what sort of reasoning are the objectors met? Perhaps you look for some subtle and ingenious argument. Yet you have no argument at all; you have only the promise--a most free and gracious one, but still only a promise--Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. But how does the promise do away with the objection? Only thus,--God states this to be His appointed way; He designs to save men in this manner, and therefore is this manner prescribed.
The parties to whom He will impart additional grace are those who, in obedience to His call, are straining every nerve to forsake evil ways. It is not that they are able of themselves to work out a moral amendment; but it is that God intends to bestow on them the ability whilst they are making the effort.
2. And, perhaps, the Jews raised more general objections. They may have murmured at Gods dealings, without selecting this or that particular instance, just as men are now disposed to arraign the appointments of Heaven as severe or unjust. The chapter in which our text occurs is full of indignant rebuke, and vehement threatenings, and it may not be imagined that a haughty people would fail to resent being so sternly addressed, and deny the equity of the judgments which the prophet foretold. If this be supposed, then God invites men to reason with Him on the goodness of His dealings. Come, let us clear the scene for the controversy. Come, all of you who think you are in any way hardly dealt with by God--that His dispensations are not such as might have been looked for--Come, let us reason together. You need not, therefore, hesitate to utter plainly what you think, and to make statement of your grievances. Well, what have you to say? You urge, it may be, that your lot is one of poverty, that troubles are multiplied beyond your power of endurance, and temptations beyond your power of resistance. Some of you, perhaps, plead that, born as you are with corrupt tendencies, and placed where there is everything to incite and strengthen them, you have really no chance of keeping out of vice; that you are summoned to duties which are manifestly too arduous, and threatened, if you fail, with punishments which are manifestly excessive. You expect that God will take your complaints one by one, and either show them to be groundless, or, if He admit certain evils, show them more than counterpoised by blessings. Or, again, you expect that, as far as you have dwelt on trials peculiar to yourselves, God win patiently weigh them, prove them not excessive, or trace out beneficial results which they are calculated to produce. Well, this is very natural; I think it is just what would be, if the debate were with a mere human reasoner. But you will hearken in vain if you expect from God this careful exposure of the fallacy or falseness of your statements. There is heard nothing but the beautiful promise: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The right use of reason
The occurrence of the word reason warrants my speaking to you on the right use of reason, and warning you against mistakes into which some are apt to fall.
1. If you hear some objections to Christianity which you are not able to answer, do not on that account conclude that they cannot be answered,--have the modesty to believe that others may be able to explain what is too hard for you. There is one evidence which I can promise you: if you read the Bible carefully and prayerfully the Bible will speak for itself.
2. And, besides the evidences of Christianity, reason has a great part to perform in regard to the doctrines. It would be as great a fallacy as could be alleged against the Gospel were it to be said that it does not commend itself to man as exactly what he needs, so that when he receives it it must be on the strength of external testimony and not at all in the consciousness of its meeting his necessities. I do not say that reason can trace in every point the connection between the death of Christ and the pardon of sin; but, at all events, reason can clearly make out that, because Gods honour is provided for by the sacrifice of Calvary, and that this sacrifice must have been of so stupendous a value as to render possible the salvation of every human being,--there is, therefore, nothing to shrink from in the challenge of our text. I am jealous for reason; I will not, indeed, bum an idolatrous incense before reason; as though I held it sufficient for mans guidance, wanderer as he is in a darkened world; but let reason keep her right province, and in place of jostling with revelation, she will put revelation on a throne, and then reverently and submissively prostrate herself before it. For it is quite wretched to think how many a man loses his soul because he will not humble his reason. The directions are very plain; do not puzzle yourselves with any difficulties; the directions are--Cease to do evil, learn to do well. Make a beginning. Many a man loses his soul by neglecting to act at once on some truth which has been brought home to his conscience. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Religion rational
I. Take that basal truth which lies at the bottom of all reasonable religion--THE BEING OF GOD. The doctrine of the existence of God is reasonable. To believe that there is no self-conscious power behind the world to account for it, is irrational. It argues nothing that all minds do not see God behind nature; all minds do not see the beauty of art; all ears are not ravished with music.
II. Again, we are living under A MORAL GOVERNMENT that is reasonable, one that can be defended and rested in. A moral government is here, which brings evil to its doom, and makes right safe and successful in the long run.
It is rational, and can be defended, as it can be understood. All sin is irrational and utterly indefensible.
III. Take again some of the FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS OF SUPERNATURAL RELIGION.
1. The doctrine of the incarnation is reasonable. Whether the incarnation is or is not reasonable depends upon your conception of God. If He is like men generally, a sort of incarnate selfishness, out of sympathy with suffering, indifferent to the miseries of the world, then the incarnation is unreasonable. But if God is love, and loves His children as we love ours, then the incarnation is reasonable, it is inevitable.
2. Then again His life in the flesh is rational The Gospels narrate just what we might expect God to do if He came here.
3. Then it was reasonable that He should die. The principle was in the heart of God from an eternity. The Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. Sacrifice was not foreign to the nature of God and suddenly invoked for a specific occasion or emergency; it was eternal with Him. The atonement is the most rational of all rational truths. The principle at its heart is at the heart of nature; it is at the heart of humanity. It is the condition on which rests the worlds best life.
4. And the same can be claimed for the resurrection. The resurrection of Christ is a rational doctrine. It is the fitting climax to the life behind it, to the mission upon which He came. It was not fitting in the nature of things that death should hold in its grip such a life. It was due to the majesty of truth and virtue that such vindication should be appealed to.
IV. Turn now to some of the PRACTICES REQUIREMENTS of the Biblical religion.
1. Take that initial requirement of faith. Faith is reasonable. The best things are out of sight. We rise toward our highest possibilities only as we live by the unseen.
2. Repentance is a reasonable demand.
3. Closely connected with faith and repentance is confession. Confession of sin is rational, but so is the confession of Jesus Christ.
4. The duties of Christianity are reasonable. Prayer is a rational exercise of the soul. If we have a Father in heaven it is reasonable that we should come into touch with Him. And so of the means of grace in their entirety. The use of the means of grace is reasonable and right. Effects come through well-defined causes always and everywhere. The use of the Church to the utmost of its power to serve us is a rational procedure. We have no great saints among those who ignore the Church of Jesus Christ. There is one conclusion: a set of opinions and beliefs that will not bear the test of reason had better be abandoned. A life that you cannot defend and justify had better be given up. We had better put our life on a basis that can be justified at every point. (S. H. Howe.)
Gods argument with man
It has been pointed out to us that in the opening verses of Isaiahs book we seem to be present in a Law Court, at some Assize, and it is a Crown case that is on. And the Crown is present in person to argue and plead its own cause. God and His people Israel are the parties concerned, and God is heard in argument establishing the charge He makes, sweeping away utterly the pleas and excuses that are offered, until in this verse He seems to sum up the position, and the case comes to a most wonderful and unexpected and Divine conclusion. The people are brought in guilty on every count. Any attempt at justifying their conduct but makes it worse, and covers them with darker guilt. The case has gone so clearly against them, their arguments have proved so utterly worthless, the verdict is so certain, that we are almost waiting in silence for the dread sentence to be uttered. But lo! instead of the sentence of condemnation and punishment, pardon, perfect and complete, is offered. I have given you the case of God versus Israel, but it is a typical one repeated from age to age. It is equally the Case of God versus man, God versus the sinner. It is a case in which we are not spectators, we are ourselves the defendants. God is here in argument with us, in argument against us, and He sums up the whole by the gracious declaration, Admit the force of My reasoning, yield yourselves to it, confess yourselves convicted and condemned, and My mercy shall have its free and triumphant exercise upon you. (W. Perkins.)
The reasoning God
God reasons with man--that is the first article of religion with Isaiah. God addresses mans mind, intelligence, conscience. There are two great falsehoods in the world about God.
1. That He is too great to reason with man; that He never gives any reason for anything He commands or does.
2. That God Himself is not a reasonable Being at all. It is a falsehood not openly declared in so many words, but a practice adopted in the lives of men. Men act as though they believe they could impose upon God. Let us try to follow Gods reasoning in this chapter. There is a threefold basis of reasoning laid down.
I. God reasons with man ON THE BASIS OF MANS WHOLE LIFE. God said to man, Come, let us reason together. Very well, says man, let this be the ground of our reasoning. Look at my life as it lies within the circle of its religious action and exercises, the sacrifices I bring to you, the incense I offer, the fasts I make. Let us reason on that basis, let us take our stand there. And as you will see in this chapter, God utterly rejects reasoning like this, and says, No, no; I must deal with you on the basis of your whole life, not any limited and selected part of it which you choose to present and urge. Now there is great significance in this connection in the opening words of this chapter. God cries out to earth and heaven, and says, These are the only limits of mans life I can recognise--the earth on which he walks, on the surface of which everything is done, the heavens over his head, which look down upon every transaction of his life; that is the basis of My reasoning, and that alone. It is well for us to remember this, for today men are trying continually to reason with God on some narrow chosen ground of their own.
II. God reasons with men or THE BASIS OF HIS OWN FATHERHOOD. You will see how in this chapter He reminds all men of it, gives men proofs of it, tells men He has fulfilled it in relation to them. Admit, He says, My Fatherhood, and what does your life look like in the light of it? How unnatural and base it becomes. You sink below the brute. This is Gods reasoning, and who of us can stand against it?
III. God reasons with man or THE BASIS OF SINS RESULTS. He says, You have rebelled against Me. Has it justified itself in its success? And God gives the answer in searching and terrible words Why should ye be stricken any more? etc. (verses 5-8). He points them to the terrible and pitiful results which have come to pass for the Individual and the nation through their disobedience towards God; and He challenges them, and says, Now, look at it as I have reasoned it out with you. This is Gods argument still. If we would listen, we might hear His voice in His Word, and in our consciences, saying, Tell me, O men and women who are living without Me and in sin, what good has your sin ever done you! There is no answer. And so we are led to the crisis of my text. We seem to be in the presence of a great dilemma. Either God must abate His claims, lower rebellion, or else logic must rule, justice must have its way. The first of these we know God cannot do. It would wreck His universe if God declined from the absolute right, it would bring ruin and shame wherever created and finite beings are found. If that be impossible, what remains? Oh, there seems to be an awful moment between that first clause of the text and what follows. Come now, let us bring our reasoning to an end. There is nothing more to be said. The case has gone against you; all your arguments have fallen to the ground. What remains? We wait to hear, and instead of the dread sentence of wrath and judgment come the words of mercy: Though your sins be as scarlet, etc. Right in between the eternal and infinite righteousness and the sinners doom mercy breaks in, pardon perfect and complete. So great the change that when a man feels the pardon in his heart, he can turn his face and address himself hopefully to that great ideal of life which the law of God presents. Wash you, make you clean, etc. And then, the soul within us rises up and asks, Why is this, if God be infinitely reasonable, if He reasons with such force and conclusion, why does He not follow out His reasoning to its logical conclusion? Why does He spare and pardon the sinner taken red-handed in his sin? Why, simply because there is something more scarlet than the scarlet of a sinners sin, that covers the sinners sin, and makes Gods pardon a just and rightful thing. There is a fountain filled with blood, etc. (W. Perkins.)
Men invited to reason with God
1. God is a moral agent. That He has moral character is sufficiently manifest from the revealed fact that man is made in His image.
2. God is also a good Being--not only moral, but holy and wise. He always acts upon good and sufficient reasons, and never irrationally and without reasons for His conduct.
3. God is always influenced by good reasons. Good reasons are more sure to have their due and full weight on His mind than on the mind of any other being in the universe.
I. WHAT IS THAT TO WHICH THIS TEXT INVITES US? Come now, and let us reason together. But what are we to reason about? The passage proceeds to say, Though your sins be as scarlet, etc. In the previous context God makes grievous charges against men Now, He comes down to look into their case and see if there be any hope of repentance, and proceeds to make a proposals Come, etc. Produce your strong reasons why your God should forgive your great sin.
II. The invitation, coupled with the promises annexed, implies that THERE ARE GOOD AND SUFFICIENT REASONS WHY GOD SHOULD FORGIVE THE PENITENT. Sinners may so present their reasons before God as to ensure success.
III. The nature of the case shows that WE ARE TO ADDRESS OUR REASONS AND MAKE OUR APPEAL, NOT TO JUSTICE BUT TO MERCY. We are to present reasons which will sanction the exercise of mercy. (C. G. Finney.)
Reasons for pardon and sanctification
I. THE REASONS WHICH MAY BE OFFERED WHY GOD SHOULD PARDON OUR SIN.
1. You may plead that you entirely justify God in all His course. You must certainly take this position, for He cannot forgive you so long as you persist in self-justification. You know beyond all question that all the wrong is on your side and all the right on Gods side. You might and should know also that you must confess this, You need not expect God to forgive you till you do.
2. You may come to God and acknowledge that you have no apology whatever to make for your sin.
3. You must also be ready to renounce all sin, and be able in all honesty to say this before God.
4. You must unconditionally submit to His discretion. Nothing lees than this is the fitting moral position for a sinner towards God.
5. You may plead the life and death of Jesus Christ as sufficient to honour the law and justify God in showing mercy. Pardon must not put in peril the holiness or justice of Jehovah. The utmost expression He could make, or needs to make of His holiness and justice, as touching the sins of man, is already made in the death of Christ, whom God did Himself set forth to be a propitiation, etc.
6. You may also urge His professed love for sinners.
7. He has also invited you to come and reason with Him. Therefore He has fully opened the way for the freest and fullest communion on this point. You may also plead His honour; that, seeing He is under oath, and stands committed before the universe, you may ask Him what He will do for His great name if He refuse to forgive a repentant and believing sinner. You may plead all the relations and work of Christ. You may say to Him, Lord, will it not induce other sinners to come to Thee? Will it not encourage Thy Church to labour and pray more for salvation? Will not Thy mercy shown to me prove a blessing to thousands! You may urge the influence of refusing to do so. You may suggest that His refusal is liable to be greatly misapprehended; that it may be a scandal to many; and that the wicked will be emboldened to say that God has made no such exceeding great and precious promises. You may urge that there is joy in heaven, and on earth also, over every sinner pardoned and saved. You may urge, that, since God loves to make saints happy in this world, He surely will not be averse to giving you His Spirit and putting away your sins--it will cause such joy in the hearts of His dear people. You may also plead the great abhorrence you have of living in sin, as you surely will unless He forgives you. Tell Him, moreover, how wretched you are, and must be in your sins, if you cannot find salvation, and what mischief you will be likely to do everywhere, on earth and in hell, if you are not forgiven and renewed in holiness.
II. THE REASONS WHICH MAY BE URGED BY THE PARDONED SINNER WHO PLEADS FOR ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION.
1. You may plead your present justification.
2. You may plead your relation to Him, to the Church, and to the world--that, having now been justified and adopted into His family, you are known as a Christian and a child of God, and it therefore becomes of the utmost consequence that you should have grace to live so as to adorn your profession, and honour the name by which you are called. You may also plead your great responsibilities, and the weight of those interests that are depending upon your spiritual progress. Plead the desire you feel to be completely delivered from sin. Ask Him if He has not given you this very desire Himself, and inquire if He intends to sharpen your thirst and yet withhold the waters of life. Plead also His expressed will. Appeal to His great love to you, as manifested in what Christ has done, etc. Tell Him how you have stumbled many by your falls into sin, and have given great occasion of reproach to the cause you love; tell Him you cannot live so. Tell Him of your willingness to make any sacrifice; that you are willing to forego your good name, and to lay your reputation wholly upon His altar. Be sure to remind Him that you intend to be wholly disinterested and unselfish in this matter; you ask these things not for your own present selfish interest; you are aware that a really holy life may subject you to much persecution. You want to represent Him truly. Then tell Him of your great weakness, and how you entirely distrust yourself. Tell Him you shall go away greatly disappointed if you do not receive the grace you ask and need. Remarks--
1. Whenever we have considered the reasons for Gods actions till they have really moved and persuaded us, they will surely move Him. God is not slow--never slower than we, to see the reasons for showing mercy and for leading us to holiness.
2. Many fail in coming to God because they do not treat Him as a rational being.
3. Many do not present these reasons, because in honesty they cannot.
4. When we want anything of God, we should always consider whether we can present good reasons why it should be granted.
5. All who are in any want are invited to come and bring forward their strong reasons.
6. Of all beings, God is most easily influenced to save. He is by His very nature disposed to save the lost. (C. G. Finney.)
The cultivation of the reason
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! In this well-known panegyric on man the great dramatist puts the reason foremost: How noble in reason! and, perhaps, the reason is the prime dignity of man. It is by it, more than ought else, that man is separated from the inferior animals. It is by it that he rules over them. It is by the development of reason that one race outstrips another in the course of progress, and this is the accepted standard by which we measure greatness between man and man. Therefore the cultivation of the reason must be a subject of supreme and even religious interest to all who wish to attain to a noble and well-developed manhood. (J. Stalker, D. D.)
The reason
I. THE WORK OF THE REASON.
1. The reason is the faculty by which, from things already known, we advance to conclusions which these imply, but which, till the act of reason is performed, are unknown; so the work of the reason is a kind of creative work, and do you not think there is an inkling of that in the kind of exultation with which we complete any difficult act of reasoning, or even hear a speaker completing it? I think every schoolboy feels a touch of this exultation when he sees a sum at which he is working coming right, and every housewife feels it when she sees that the two sides of her accounts are about to balance exactly. In a court of law, at the conclusion of the evidence the facts often appear to the Jury a confused mass, pointing in no particular direction; but when a skilful advocate rises, and taking hold of the evidence, separating one thing from another, and laying this beside that, shows that from the confused mass there emerges a necessary, irresistible conclusion, how delightful it is to listen to that. The whole science of mathematics is deduced from a few simple axioms. To these an ordinary mind might give assent, without observing that anything might be implied; but the practised intellect deducts from them, step by step, a magnificent system of truth. Thus, the reason, bringing its forces to bear on the raw materials of knowledge supplied by the lower faculties, infers from them a more advanced and lofty knowledge of its own.
2. But now, I would like to give a clearer and simpler explanation of what its work is. The reason may be called the faculty of comparison, or the faculty by which we perceive the connections or relations of things. These relations between things with which the reason has to deal are of different kinds, but of whatever kind they are, the reason has to deal with them.
(1) One of them is that of means and ends. Something requires to be done, but how? It is the work of the reason to find that out.
(2) Another relation between things which is still more important for the reason, is that of cause and effect. The word why is a great word of the reason, and its sister word is because. Wherever why and because are coming into speech, there reason is at work.
(3) But this process can be turned the other way. Instead of looking at phenomena, and asking how they come there, we can say, Given certain things, what will be the consequence! Suppose there are certain conditions, what will follow from them? If fire and gunpowder are brought into contact, we know what will follow. If people live in a polluted atmosphere, we know what the result will be to their bodies. But we cannot deal much with such relations without this question arising, How do these relations come to subsist between things?
(4) One of the greatest triumphs of the reason is to find out the laws of nature, e.g., the law of gravitation. Newton discovered that law, and applied it first to some trivial things; then he and others applied it to more distant and sublime things, until we now know it to be a law prevailing in the whole system of things, and among the bodies that roll in space; but how comes it that all the bodies in earth and heaven are directed by this law? As the mind thus moves through nature it finds that it cannot go arbitrarily. The divisions which it makes are in nature before it finds them. In short, nature is intelligent--aye, and it is moral, because nature is seen to be so arranged as to encourage certain lines of action, and to discourage certain other lines of action. The stars in their courses, so to speak, fight against evil and on the side of righteousness. And does not that look as if behind nature there were some One who is intelligent, and who, because He orders nature so as to make for righteousness, is good?
II. THE CULTIVATION OF THE REASON. This faculty is bestowed on different individuals in very different degrees. To those intended by the Creator to be leaders of their fellows, it is given in liberal measure. There are multitudes of others whose ideas are habitually vague and feeble. Reason may be given in different forms, some of which are more conscious, and some more unconscious. Reason in the unconscious form, we call by such names as tact, or common sense. The science of logic has for its aim the making visible to the eye the process through which the mind passes in reasoning, whether it is conscious of this process or not, and at the same time it makes visible, so as to show their absurdity, the different kinds of fallacious reasoning; and there can be no doubt that the study of that science is one of the best means of cultivating the mind.
III. THE RELIGIOUS USE OF REASON. The marks of God are on all things that He has made, and by collecting these from all places where they can be seen, the reason apprehends His eternal power and Godhead, and never in the reason of man so nobly employed as when thus it is collecting the indications of God, so as to convert them into a correct and impressive conception of what He is, or when it is vindicating His existence and His character against the attacks of unbelief. Our text says, Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord, and one of the commonest complaints of the Bible is that people will not reason. Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider. That is the complaint all through the prophets. It is always taken for granted that if people only would think, they would love and obey God. One of the commonest names in the Bible for sin is folly. At the present time we have need of a reasoned Christianity, because Christianity is tending far too much to sentimentalism and sensationalism. Christian work is becoming so absorbing that men have not leisure to think, and if Christians do not think, Christianity will before long suffer the consequences, and they will be hard to bear. (J. Stalker, D. D.)
The Gospel of pardoning mercy as preached by the prophets of the kingdom
Analyse carefully the picture of the sins which the prophet sets before his people, as preliminary to his glorious, full and free offer of mercy.
1. A marked feature of the portraiture, here drawn, is that they are sinners under the light of Jehovahs special revelations and appointed ordinances.
2. These sinners are such in face of every obligation of love and gratitude to Jehovah, arising out of peculiar blessings and privileges.
3. Yet in the midst of all these mercies, sin everywhere abounds. The public men and the people alike are corrupt.
4. All this wickedness clothes itself in the garb of religion. Having considered to whom he speaks, let us consider what it is the prophet says to all such. It embraces three points chiefly.
I. A PROPOSITION TO STOP AND REASON THE MATTER WITH JEHOVAH. The proposition is very suggestive; both of the cause why men continue to live in sin; and of the means and process whereby Jehovah would bring them back to Himself. The grand cause of the continuance in sin is that men will not reason of the matter. It is not that they do not know enough; but they do not reason concerning what they do know.
II. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE PARLEY--sin and its consequences.
III. THE REMEDY FOR SIN--its effectiveness, certainty, and readiness. (S. Robinson, D. D.)
Pardon for aggravated sin
Though your sins be as scarlet, and red like crimson. The critics tell us that one of the terms here refers to the outward appearance, glaring, attracting and fixing the attention; the other, from a root signifying double-dipped, refers to the ineffaceable stain of sin upon the soul; a stain that no rain, nor sunshine, nor dew can ever wash out, or bleach. The meaning is, however aggravated your sins may be. What, then, are some of the circumstances that aggravate sin? Sins are aggravated--
1. When committed against special light and knowledge.
2. When committed against special obligations of gratitude.
3. From the social position of those who sin, or their relative position towards others, or their peculiar gifts and endowments which give them influence over others.
4. As committed against special covenants and vows. (S. Robinson, D. D.)
God reasoning with man
This text strikes at the root of the wicked notion that man is under an arbitrary government, that he is a mere slave, or a mere machine, and that he is controlled apart from principles that are moral. He is addressed almost as the equal of the Almighty. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God reasoning with man
The proposition comes from God. It does not arise from the human side at all.
1. God having made this proposition proceeds upon the assumption that He knows Himself to be right in this case. The man who knows himself to be in the right is always the first to make the noblest propositions, and to offer as many concessions as are possible without impairing the law of absolute right, truth, and propriety. If amongst ourselves we do so, it is in an infinitely higher degree true in the case of Almighty God. He makes the proposition to His rebel. This proposition is not only the proof of the grace of God; but that grace itself is the vindication of His righteousness. He knows He is right in the court of reason; that if the case be fully stated the criminal will convict himself, he will burn with shame, and cry out for the judgment that is just. We are not wrong partially, not wrong here and there, with little spots of light and blue, between the errors, but we are wrong altogether,--shamefully, infamously wrong!
2. Yet God knowing this, asks us to reason the case with Him. Showing us, in the next place, that God proceeds upon the assumption that man ought to be prepared to vindicate his conduct by reasons. God says, Why do you do this! Let Me know your reasons for having done so. Will you state your case to Me! I give you the opportunity of stating your own casein your own terms. Observe how wonderfully influential, when rightly accepted, is a proposition of this kind. If men would think more they would sin less. Logic is against you as well as theology. Common sense is against you as well as spiritual revelation. This is the strength and the majesty of the Christian faith, that it challenges men by the first principles of reasoning to defend themselves, as sinners, before the Almighty.
3. But there is something to be remembered at this point. If God could trifle with righteousness in making a case up with us, His own throne would be insecure, His own heaven would not be worth having. In taking care of righteousness He is taking care of us. Herein do men greatly err. Talking upon religious questions, they say, Why does not God come down and forgive us all! That is precisely what God Himself wants to do. Only even God cannot forgive, until we ourselves want to be forgiven.
4. With all this before me I am driven to this conclusion, that now the sinner is left absolutely without excuse. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God reasoning with man
I. THE PARTIES INVITED. Who are these? They are those of whom it is said, their sins are as scarlet, and red like crimson--terms which clearly convey the idea that there are no sins so heinous that they may not be forgiven, and no men so wicked that they may not be saved. These terms designate bright, glowing, easily-seen colours, teaching most explicitly, in their present connection, that sin, though so large as to fill the public eye, nevertheless may be pardoned. Indeed, I cannot help thinking that the language of the prophet here has also a symbolical meaning, and that as crimson is the colour of the blood, there is set before us the thought that not merely the flagrant transgressor, but the atrocious criminal--the man whose hands have been imbued in the blood of his fellow man--is declared to be within the reach of the Divine mercy. And I am fortified in this persuasion by the words of the Master, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
II. THE INVITATION GIVEN THEM. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. What forcibly impresses us in this statement is not only the all-embracing sweep of the Divine mercy, but the singular way in which this mercy is offered. The usual manner in which a superior makes known his will to an inferior is by a command. The master gives his orders to his servant. The parent commands his child, and the language of royal personages is never the language of solicitation. But we have here the King of kings, and Lord of lords, very unlike man, not employing force, authority, command, but condescending to reason with His creatures, and trying, as it were, by argument and persuasion, to induce them to accept His grace.
III. THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH THE INVITATION RESTS. When good news is brought to us we sometimes hesitate about receiving it. And why? Because we think it too good to be true, and are not satisfied of the entire truthfulness and fidelity to fact of the person who brings it when it was told Jacob that Joseph, his beloved son, whom he had long mourned as dead, was alive and well, and governor of Egypt, his heart fainted, for he believed them not. But here, the authority is as unassailable as the invitation is cordial, and it is issued on the authority of God Himself.
IV. THE PERIOD WHEN THE INVITATION IS GIVEN. All privileges urged upon your acceptance in the Bible are strictly applicable and limited to the very time when they are offered to you. That mental and moral inaction, so fatal to our spiritual prospects, gets no countenance from the Word of God. On the contrary, it is always denounced as fraught with the greatest dangers to our souls. (J. Imrie, M. A.)
Reasoning with God
From this passage we infer--
I. THAT MAN, THOUGH DEPRAVED, HAS STILL A FACULTY TO REASON WITH GOD.
1. This power exists as an unquestionable fact. It is a fact--
(1) Involved in the existence of a revelation. Would Infinite Reason appeal to us unless we had the power of appreciation?
(2) Implied in the considerations addressed to our reason. The Bible abounds in considerations addressed to us as to the wisdom and the folly, the right and the wrong, of our conduct.
(3) Attested by the universal consciousness of humanity.
2. This power exists as the chief glory of human nature. What is the chief glory of human nature in itself considered? Not its faculties of contrivance and logical investigation, as you see them developed in the arts and sciences. But mans power to reason with the Infinite--to take the thoughts of God and to feel their power.
3. This power exists, notwithstanding the devastations of depravity.
II. THAT MAN, THOUGH DEPRAVED, HAS NOW AN OPPORTUNITY OF REASONING WITH GOD. Whilst all sinners forever will have the power of moral reasoning, only now on earth are they invited to a merciful conference with God. This invitation implies--
1. The existence of an extraordinary principle in the Divine government of God. Antecedent reasoning would lead us to conclude that whenever a creature rebelled against the righteous government of his Creator, banishment from His holy presence would be the result. The angels that kept not their first estate, etc. God governs humanity through the mediation of Christ.
2. It denotes the astonishing condescension of God.
III. THAT MAN, THOUGH DEPRAVED, BY RIGHTLY AVAILING HIMSELF OF THIS OPPORTUNITY, MAY BE ENTIRELY CLEANSED OF HIS SINS. Though your sins be as scarlet, etc. Notice--
1. That sin has taken a very fast hold on human nature. How closely and firmly attached to human nature is sin! It has coloured not only the complexion, but the vital current, of mans life. Every thought, feeling, and expression, is tinged with the stain of sin.
2. That though it has taken this fast hold, it can be separated. The scarlet is not a part of the texture. So of sin. Though closely identified with human nature, it is not of it. Human nature can exist without it, has existed without it, will exist without it. There is a moral chemistry that can take the scarlet and the crimson from the texture of human nature.
3. That right attention to Gods reasoning will certainly and effectively remove the stain of sin. (Homilist.)
Desperate characters
I. I have to PUBLISH THE LORDS INVITATION TO DESPERATE CHARACTERS. The invitation is to those whose sins are double-dyed scarlet and crimson in colour.
1. You have had pious parents.
2. You were once a member of a Christian congregation or Church.
3. I have to give the invitation to those whose sins have made them worse than beasts.
4. And to those who are laden with iniquity.
5. And to those who are corrupters of others.
6. This all-embracing invitation is to those who have forsaken the Lord.
II. I am to give REASONS WHY DESPERATE CHARACTERS SHOULD ACCEPT THE INVITATION.
1. You say, It is impossible for me to accept of it because my heart is perfectly hardened. Impossible! If your heart is hard, come and accept the invitation, because God has promised to take away the stony heart and to give you one of flesh.
2. Again, you say, I cannot accept it, because I am so wicked. If you feel wicked it is Gods Spirit showing His light in your soul in order that you may be led to the Cross of Jesus and have your sins washed as white as snow.
3. Then somebody else answers, Well, I would accept it, but I have always failed. Though you have failed, yet come again, for our heavenly Father is noted for receiving sinners.
4. But another says, Before I came tonight I said I would not be converted. Two men were bidden to do their lords will. One of them said, I will do it; but he went away, and did it not. And the other was angry and exclaimed, I will not do thy will, but after he had gone away he repented and went and did it. Copy the example of the latter.
5. Perhaps, somebody still answers, You have not put your hand on me, for I am sunk in sin. The Bible tells me that no man can be sunk lower than the reach of the everlasting arms of God. Though you have lost your character, your honour, and your self-control, yet God invites you to be saved.
III. AN EARNEST ENTREATY FOR YOU TO COME AT ONCE. (W. Birch.)
The Lord reasoning with sinners
Let us regard these words--
I. AS ADDRESSED TO THOSE WHO ARE LIVING IN SIN. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Sinner, bring forth thy strong reasons; then hear the reasons of God. What plea will you make for not turning to God?
1. You say, perhaps, This world is all I desire. I am well content with what it gives. Its gains and pleasures suit me well. I wish for nothing beyond. Why not leave me to follow my own way? What says God in reply? The world passeth away, and the lust thereof.
2. Or, wilt thou reason thus: I have years yet before me. At a more convenient season I will seek God? What does God answer? Thou fool, this night, it may be, thy soul shall be required of thee
3. Or, dost thou say in thine heart--I hate the knowledge of Gods ways Religion is a weariness to me. I will go on as I am, and take the consequences? Dost thou know the end of the terrors of the Lord?
4. Or, is it in thy thought to say to God, Wherein have I sinned so much against Thee? Behold, He answers thee: I made thee, O man, and every power thou hast should be devoted to Me--thy life, thy health and strength, thy body and soul. Have these been devoted to Me? Has thy body been kept in soberness, temperance, and chastity? Hast thou always been led by My Spirit?
II. But the text is addressed, in its latter part more particularly, TO THOSE WHO KNOW THAT THEY HAVE DEEPLY SINNED AGAINST GOD, AND WOULD WILLINGLY, IF THEY DARED, RETURN TO HIM. What is the feeling of such? It may be, you are tempted to say, There is no hope. My sin is too great to be forgiven. Gods answer is, Come now, and let us reason together, etc. Is it not well suited to your case?
III. THE TEXT IS NOT WITHOUT ADMONITION AND COMFORT TO THE BELIEVING CHRISTIAN. (E. Blencowe, M. A.)
Forgiveness of sin
I. THE GRACIOUS CONDESCENSION AND BOUNDLESS LOVE OF GOD, IN ADDRESSING THIS INVITATION TO SINNERS. Even among friends, the offended party does not first display a disposition to be reconciled. He usually deems that the first overture should proceed from the offender. But behold the infinite condescension and compassion of the most high God toward sinful man. He does not wait till men come to a sense of their delinquencies.
II. THE IMPORT OF THE INVITATION. What is this to which God calls you? He says, Let us reason together. It seems to be an expression borrowed from courts of justice, and is tantamount to saying, Let us hear the cause of the defendants.
1. The sinner must listen to the charge--to the grand indictment, that he may know both the extent of his guilt and feel the hopelessness of his case. This charge is indeed heavy, but it must be heard. The law is holy. Let it operate on you as it did on Saul of Tarsus.
2. Observe, God is willing to hear your defence, if you can make one honestly and truly; but if not He will hear your confession. Which shall it be?
III. GOD MAY BE CONSIDERED AS ADDRESSING THOSE WHO, WITH A CONVINCED AND BROKEN HEART, ARE AFRAID TO VENTURE BEFORE HIM, and who have the sentence of condemnation and death in themselves.
IV. Let us complete the whole of this glorious theme of salvation, by calling upon you to observe, and admire, the great principle established by this text, that, WHATEVER THE MAGNITUDE OF OUR SINS MAY BE, THEY DO NOT EXCLUDE US FROM THE BENEFITS OF THE DIVINE MERCY. (The Evangelist.)
Pardoning mercy
The pardon of sin has been justly called the life blood of religion. It is this which runs through all parts of the Scripture, like the blood in our veins, and is the foremost object in the glorious Gospel.
I. The first thing in the text is A CHARGE IMPLIED, and more particularly expressed, in the former verses of this chapter. The charge is sin--sin the most aggravated. Scarlet and crimson are colours far remote from white, which is the emblem of innocence, or righteousness. (Rev_19:8.) But here sinners are represented as in garments stained with blood. The bloody, murderous, destructive nature of sin may be intended. Sin has slain its millions. (Rom_5:12.) Some understand by the word scarlet, double-dyed; as deeply tinctured by sin as possible; as when any garment has been twice dyed, first in the wool, and again in the thread or piece. So great sinners are twice dyed, first in their corrupt nature, and then again in the long confirmed habits of actual transgression. It is absolutely necessary that each of us should personally know that this is his own case.
II. THE INVITATION. True religion is the most reasonable thing in the world.
1. Is not self preservation highly reasonable? We account it the first law of nature, and should blame the man who neglects it. Is a house on fire? Let the inhabitant escape for his life.
2. Is it not reasonable for a man to do well for himself? Yes; Men will praise thee when thou doest well for thyself. We commend the honest, ingenious, industrious tradesman. Is it reasonable for a man to mind his own business? Well, one thing is needful; the care of thy soul is the business of life (Luk_10:42). Is it reasonable to improve opportunities for business, as fairs and markets? Redeem then the time, and catch the golden opportunities of gain to thy soul. Is it reasonable to make a good bargain? The Christian makes the best in the world. Is it reasonable to cultivate friendship with the wise, the good, and the great? Oh, how wise to make Christ our Friend.
3. Is it not reasonable to believe the God of truth? The Word of God has every confirmation we could wish.
4. Is not love to God and man perfectly reasonable? This is the whole of our religion. Is it reasonable or not to love the Best of beings better than all other beings?
III. THE GRACIOUS PROMISE. Though your sins, etc. The pardon of sin is the first thing in religion. It was the great business of Christ upon earth to procure it. The pardon of sin originates in the free mercy and sovereign grace of God, without respect to anything good in the creature. But we are not to expect pardon from an absolute God. Pardon is an act of justice as well as of mercy. Mercy on Gods part, but justice on account of Christ. Another thing is, that it is by faith alone we are made partakers of pardoning mercy. Notice, too, the perfection of pardon, which is expressed by making scarlet as snow, and crimson like wool. We are to understand this of the sinner, not of his sins. Pardon does not alter the nature, or lessen the evil of sin. (G. Burder, D. D.)
The reasonableness of the offers and terms of the Gospel
I. THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. The Almighty here proposes completely to take away the guilt of sin, and consequently to remit the punishment due to it. There are various kinds and degrees of sin; sins of different colours and complexions, more or less aggravated, more or less strengthened by habit and indulgence. But the offer of pardon extends to all alike. Is not this a blessing peculiarly adapted to our need? Nothing but a gratuitous remission of sin can suit our case. God deals with us in the most reasonable manner, and leaves us without excuse, if we attend not to His offer.
II. THE TERMS OF THE GOSPEL.
1. With respect to faith. Is not this a perfectly reasonable requisition? Since God has provided a salvation for you, has He not a right to stipulate the means by which you shall apply to yourself the benefit of that salvation? And what easier, simpler way could He have devised?
2. As to repentance. Is there anything unreasonable in this requisition? Can it be considered as a hard condition that we should relinquish those practices which cost the Son of God His life; and which, if He had not died for them, would have cost us our souls? If religion be in itself so reasonable a service, how can you act so unreasonably as not to choose and follow it? (E. Cooper.)
Self-scrutiny in Gods presence
I. THE DUTY OF EXAMINING OUR MORAL CHARACTER AND CONDUCT ALONG WITH GOD. There are always two beings who are concerned with sin--the being who commits it, and the Being against whom it is committed. Such a joint examination as this produces a very keen sense of the evil and guilt of sin. When the soul is shut up with the Holy One of Israel there are great searchings of heart. Another effect is to render our views discriminating. Objects are seen in their true proportions and meanings.
II. THERE IS FORGIVENESS WITH GOD. We deduce the following practical directions.
1. In all states of religious anxiety, we should betake ourselves instantly and directly to God.
2. We should make a full and plain statement of everything to god. (W. G. T. Shedd, D. D.)
Forgiveness
In this passage--
I. THERE IS ASSUMED THE EXISTENCE OF ENORMOUS GUILT. The aggravations of sin are to be found in their highest form where there are instituted powerful means to deter from its perpetration, and where yet it is committed in spite of restraints eminently calculated to direct the soul to goodness. We turn at once to the country in which we dwell, to find the sins which are as the scarlet or the crimson dye. Ours is a country, signally favoured with means the best adapted to lead from transgression, and excite to obedience.
II. THERE IS PROMISED THE BESTOWMENT OF PARDONING MERCY.
1. It might indeed have been imagined, that, after such repeated accusations of iniquity, there would succeed only a threatening of doom. Is God not just? Is He not jealous of His glory?
2. Such a promise as this is made in perfect consistency with the immutable justice and holiness of the Divine nature.
3. It will be proper to observe the manner in which the promised blessing is bestowed. God communicates forgiveness through the atoning sacrifice of His Son.
4. In order to secure the personal application of the sacrifice of Christ, there must be, in yourselves, the production of certain emotions and principles, by the operation of the Spirit of God.
5. Let us further observe, the sufficiency by which this promised blessing of forgiveness is characterised.
III. THERE IS DESIRED THE EXERCISE OF WISE CONSIDERATION. (James Parsons.)
Divine expostulation
I. THE CHARACTERS WHO ARE HERE ADDRESSED. We see the Jews charged--
1. With a gross departure from God.
2. With carrying their abominations into the religious services of the sanctuary.
II. THE CHARACTER IN WHICH GOD IS HERE REPRESENTED BY THE PROPHET--that, namely, of the most amazing condescension. Various are themethods in which God may be said to reason with us.
1. By family afflictions.
2. By personal inflictions.
3. By awful providences.
4. Through the ministry of His Word.
For what does God condescend to reason with us? For the bestowment of pardon. Your reason, in its highest powers, is challenged. (J. Gaskin, M. A.)
The silver trumpet
I. Our text is addressed to SINNERS OF THE DEEPEST DYE.
1. In the second verse you will perceive that the text was addressed to senseless sinners--so senseless that God Himself would not address them in expostulation, but called upon the heavens and the earth to hear His complaints.
2. The text is given to ungrateful sinners. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. Oh, how many of us come under this description!
3. By reading in the third verse, you will perceive again that the text is addressed to men who are worse than beasts. None of us would keep a horse for twenty years, if it never worked but only sought to injure us; and yet there are men whom God has kept these forty and fifty years, put the breath into their nostrils, the bread into their mouths, and the clothes upon their backs, and they have done nothing but curse at Him, speak ill of His service, and do despite to His laws.
4. They were a people laden with iniquity.
5. They were not only loaded with sin themselves, but they were teachers in transgressions. Children that are corrupters.
6. The blessed text we have on hand is addressed to men upon whom all manner of afflictions had been lost and thrown away. It is a great aggravation of our sin when we sin under the rod.
7. The invitation is sent to men who appeared to have been totally depraved from the sole of the foot even to the head.
II. The text presents us with REASONING OF THE MOST PREVALENT POWER.
III. The words of this text contain a PROMISE OF PARDON OF THE FULLEST FORCE. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. These colours are selected because of their exceeding brilliancy. Now some sins are striking, glaring sins; you cannot help seeing them; and the sinner himself is compelled to confess them. But the Hebrew word conveys the idea of doubly dyed--what we call ingrained colours--when the wool has lain so long in the dye that it cannot be got out; though you wash or wear it as long as you please, you must destroy the fabric before you can destroy the colour. Yet here is the promise of full pardon for glaring and for ingrained lusts. And note how the pardon is put--they shall be as snow--pure white virgin snow. But snow soon loses its whiteness, and therefore it is compared to the whiteness of the wool washed and prepared by the busy housewife for her fair white linen. You shall be so cleansed, that not the shadow of a spot, nor the sign of a sin, shall be left upon you. When a man believes in Christ, he is in that moment, in Gods sight, as though he had never sinned in all his life.
IV. THE TIME mentioned in the text, which is of the MOST SOLEMN SIGNIFICANCE. Now. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Reasons for parting with sin
It is the great joy of our heart that we do not labour in vain, nor spend our strength for nought. Still, there is a bass to this music: there are some, and these not a few, who remain unblest where others are saved. It is obvious that something hinders. What can it be? The real reason why men who have an earnest desire to be saved, and have sincere religiousness of a certain sort, do not find peace, is this, because they are in love with sin. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Let us have this matter out, and hear what is to be urged in favour of Gods demands.
I. IT IS A REASONABLE THING THAT SIN SHOULD BE RENOUNCED.
1. Because it is most inconsistent to suppose that pardon can be given while we continue in sin. How could the Judge of all the earth thus wink at iniquity? Only fancy what the effect would be upon our country if a proclamation were issued, that henceforth all manner of offences against the law would be immediately forgiven, and men might continue still to perpetrate them. And what would be the effect Upon the sinner himself if such could be the case? Say to a man--you are not to be punished for your sin, and yet you may live in it still, and what worse turn could you do him? Here is a bleeding wound in my arm; the surgeon says he will allow it still to bleed, but he will remove my sense of faintness and pain. I would decline to have it so. It is unreasonable that you should expect that God will allow you to remain impenitent, and yet give you the kiss of forgiving love. It would be neither honourable to God, nor good to your fellow men, nor really beneficial to yourself.
2. Is it not reasonable, too, that we should part with sin, because sin is so grievous to God?
3. Should it not be given up because of the mischief it has already done to man!
4. Remember, also, that unless sin is repented of and forsaken no act of yours, nor ceremony of religion, nor hearing, nor praying can possibly save you.
II. Let me now go further, and declare that IT IS MOST REASONABLE THAT MAN SHOULD SEEK PURITY OF HEART. You ask for forgiveness, and in return God says to you, Wash you, make you clean; put sway the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow. Is there not reason in this command! You practically say, Lord, enter into amity and peace with me. The Lord replies, There is no peace to the wicked: only as you become renewed in nature can there be any peace between us. Do you dam to ask God to commune with you while you are a lover of sin?
III. IF THE SINNER REMAIN IMPENITENT IT IS MOST UNREASONABLE FOR HIM TO LAY THE BLAME OF HIS NOT BEING FORGIVEN UPON THE CHARACTER OF GOD, FOR GOD IS READY TO FORGIVE.
IV. IT IS A REASONABLE THING THAT GOD SHOULD DEMAND WITH THIS PARDON OBEDIENCE TO HIS COMMAND. And what is that command? It is, If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel the sword shall devour you. Obedient to what? Obedient to all Gospel precepts. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Scarlet sinners pardoned and purified
It is a wonderful instance of Divine compassion that God should be willing to hold a conference with man. Of course, the first person to ask for such a conference ought to have been the offending party. But, instead of man seeking God, and pleading, with bitter tears, Lord, pitifully hear me; graciously listen to me, and forgive me; it is God who comes seeking man. Surely it should be a great joy to a man to hear that God invites him to a conference; he should take heart of hope from that fact. God meets man in two ways: first, by the perfect pardon of sin, and, next, by a clean deliverance from the power of sin.
I. First, I will suppose that I have before me someone who says, MY SINS ARE AS GLARING AS SCARLET. How can I ever be the friend of God as my sins are so prominent? Some peoples sins are of a drab colour, you might not notice them; other peoples sins are a sort of whitey-brown, you would scarcely perceive them; but my sins are scarlet, that is a colour that is at once observed. What sort of sins may be called scarlet?
1. The filthier vices.
2. The universally condemned sins, those sins which are offences against the State, and against the well being and social order of the community, such as dishonesty, theft, peculation in all its forms, knavery, cheating, lying.
3. The louder defiances of God. Some men dare to contradict Scripture, to express their disbelief in it, nay, to contradict God Himself even to express their disbelief in His existence; and, disbelieving in God, they dare to cavil at His providence, to judge His words, and to utter criticisms and sarcasms about the acts of the Most High.
4. Scarlet sins may consist, again, in long-continued dissipations.
5. In repeated transgressions.
6. In any act of sin which is distinctly deliberate. Do you want to know how this can be done? It is through the great atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
II. But there is a second difficulty. The man of whom I first spoke also says, MY TENDENCY TO SIN IS DEEPLY INGRAINED. He says, If all my scarlet sins were forgiven, yet I am afraid I should not be all right even then. Why not? Because I feel impulses within me towards evil which, I think, are stronger than in anybody else. Well, I will take you on your own ground; I do believe that there are some persons who have a greater hereditary tendency to some sins than others have. Still, though your sins be red like crimson, they shall be as wool God knows how to effect this transformation by the working of the Holy Spirit. Oh! says another, I should not mind about hereditary tendencies; but my difficulty is that I have been habitually committing sin. The Holy Spirit will help you to break off every sinful habit at once. You know that scarlet and crimson are colours very hard to get out of any fabric. Neither the dew, nor the rain, nor any ordinary processes of bleaching, will get out the scarlet. But God knows how, without destroying the fabric, to take out a fifty years crimson habit, and not leave a stain behind. I heard a third person say, The trouble with me is that I have such feeble mental resistance to evil, I am so weak, such a poor fool. Well, you are not much of a fool if you know you are; the biggest fools are those who never know that they are fools. Still, there are people of this kind. Now, if you will come and reason with God, and yield yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit, He will put a backbone into you. Still, perhaps, I have not quite hit the nail on the head with all of you. Some are entangled by their circumstances. But Gods grace can deliver you. There is nothing like making up your mind that you are coming right straight out from everything that is wrong, let it cost whatever it may. What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? The ship is going down, and if your little boat is tied to it, you will go down too. Up with the axe, and cut the rope! I think I hear another say, But I am a man of such strong passions. They must be got rid of; and I do not know of any surgical operation that can do it; you will have to be born again, that is the only real cure. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Dyeing and bleaching
All men can dye their souls, but, as saith a quaint divine, only God can bleach them. It is in our power to dye ourselves into all colours, but only God can make us white. The idea is that there is no human condition too desperate for Divine treatment. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The theology of colours
There is a philosophy of colours; there is a theology of hues; and it hath pleased God to represent purity by whiteness. The saints above are robed in white; they who love God are clothed in white raiment now, and it is the harlot of the earth that is scarleted and that lives in her significant redness. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Scarlet and crimson sins
Sins are here likened to scarlet and crimson dye, and with good reason, indeed. For, first of all, scarlet and crimson are the most glaring and flaunting of colours; and sin is the most audacious as well as self-delusive appearance, under which man affronts the majesty of God in the sight of heaven and earth. Scarlet and crimson, also, are the blush of shame. And what so shameful as sin, or rather what can be shameful but sin! Scarlet and crimson are also the colour of blood; and blood is on the head of every sinner, as St: Paul, told the unbelieving Jews when they refused to be converted from their sins: Your blood be upon your own heads And scarlet and crimson were (whatever they may be now) colours which it was beyond all mens power and skill to discharge from the cloth which had been ones dyed with them. And is it not equally beyond all mans power to cleanse his own soul from the dye of sin? (R. W.Evans, B. D.)
Almightys white
A preacher admired the whiteness of a washerwomans clothes. There they hung upon the line, beautifully white, as compared with the dark slates of the roof of the house behind them. But after a snow storm had come on, which covered the roofs and streets with a mantle of unsullied purity, they seemed to have lost all their whiteness. And when he said to her, The clothes do not look quite so white as they did, she replied, Ah, sir! the clothes are as white as they were, but what can stand against God Almightys white? (Life of Saith.)
Come now
Do you know, that as I live, wrote James Smetham, I become more and more impressed by one word, and that word is Now!
Scarlet sins
We have some little difficulty, said a scientific lecturer, with the iron dyes; but the most troublesome of all are Turkey red rags. You see I have dipped this into my solution; its red is paler, but it is still strong. If I steep it long enough to efface the colour entirely the fibre will be destroyed; it will be useless for our manufacture. How, then, are we to dispose of our red rags? We leave their indelible dye as it is, and make them into red blotting paper. Perhaps you have wondered why our blotting pad is red; now you know the reason. What a striking illustration of the fitness and force of this figure of Gods Word, and of the power of the precious blood of Jesus to change and cleanse is furnished by the above explanation! The Spirit of God led the prophet Isaiah to write, not though your sins be as blue as the sky, or as green as the olive leaf, or as black as night. He chose the very colour which modern science, with all its appliances, finds to be indestructible--though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Roses speaking of sin and forgiveness
One night in June, a few years ago, Sister Margaret was going home from her work in the streets, sad at heart because of the sin and misery about her, and somewhat disappointed at what seemed a night of fruitless toil. She had taken with her a bunch of flowers, and now they were all withered except two roses that had kept their freshness--the one a deep red, the other a pure white. As she looked at them, the words occurred to her mind, Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Suddenly looking up, she saw in the shadow of a doorway in Piccadilly a young girl, a picture of utter despair. The sister came to her and held out the roses; but the girls face at once hardened scornfully, and she turned away. Quietly the sister followed her, when the girl turned and said angrily, Why do you come to me with flowers? Do you want to torment me? Do you know what these roses seemed to say to me--this white and this red rose? said the sister, kindly. The message they spoke was this: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Yes, said the girl, that is all very well for you, but I am not fit to touch them. Oh, but the message is meant for you as much as for me, and again the sister held out the flowers. Then the girl burst into tears, I will take them and keep them for my mothers sake. She sent me two roses in her last letter. I have got them now in the Bible she gave me when I left home to come to London. It was an easy thing now to urge the message of love. That night the girl left her life of sin and came simply to the Saviour. She was soon restored to her home in the country, and her new life has been a blessing to many. Frequently there comes from her a box of flowers to Sister Margaret, with the message: Give these to the girls; a flower saved me. It may do as much for somebody else. (M. Guy Pearse.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn vv18–19Isa_1:18. Come now, and. let us reason together, saith…
GOD’S GRACIOUS INVITATION TO SINNERS
Isa_1:18. Come now, and. let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
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It is scarcely possible to conceive of a more interesting and delightful exhibition of the love and mercy of God than is presented to us in these words; unless they had been found in the volume of eternal truth, we might have justly doubted their veracity. For the speaker is Jehovah, a Being infinitely happy and glorious in Himself. He needs not, on His own account, the return of the sinner to Himself. Besides, He is the offended party. How marvellous, then, that He should stoop to ask reconciliation with poor wretched man, the rebel and traitor against heaven. Notice—
I. The characters addressed. Not such as excel in moral excellency, but the vilest and most degraded of sinners. How apt we are to think that such are past reclamation. Yet it is to these that the invitation of our text is addressed—those whose sins are as scarlet and crimson. This description includes—
1. Those whose sins are glaring and manifest. In the heart of men there is much evil that man or angel never sees. External circumstances act in the moral world as the shore to the ocean, limiting and bounding its waters. The control thus exerted upon men is well for them, for society, and for the Church. But numbers cast it off, sin in open day, and glory in their shame. Their sins are as scarlet or as crimson.
2. Those whose iniquities are specially productive of much evil and misery—ringleaders in sin; ridiculers of piety, who labour to throng the road to hell; ungodly masters; ungodly heads of households, &c.
3. Those who have sinned against great privileges and mercies (Mat_11:20-24.) As it is with nations and cities, so it is with individuals [382] How many have had privileges of a high character—pious parents, religious society, a faithful ministry, special providences, &c.
4. Backsliders, who by their fall have hardened others in iniquity, and caused them to scoff at religion.
5. Aged transgressors.
[382] All our sins are of a “crimson dye, for remember, it is not needful to have steeped our hands in a brother’s blood to make our guilt “scarlet.” God measures sins by privileges. One evil thought in one man is as much as a thousand crimes in auother man.—Vaughan.
II. The invitation presented. “Come and let us reason,” &c. He wishes to have your state and condition tested by reason. He gives you opportunities of self-defence; he is willing to hear all your motives, arguments, &c. Now, will you come to God, and reason with Him? What will you say?
1. You cannot plead ignorance. You have seen the evil of your way, and yet have chosen it.
2. You cannot plead necessity. The Jews of old declared that they were not free agents, and that they could not help committing the sins of which they were guilty (Jer_7:10). This is the grossest self-deception. It cannot be the will of God that you should do evil (1Th_4:3; Jas_1:13; 1Pe_1:16). To attribute our sins to Him is the most outrageous impiety. You have sinned freely; it has been your own act and choice.
3. You must plead guilty. Cast yourself on the mercy of God, pleading guilty, you shall not be condemned, if—
4. You plead the merits of Christ. He is “the propitiation for our sin.” Here is your hope, your plea. In availing yourself of this plea, all that God requires is repentance and faith.
III. The gracious promise.—Jabez Burns, D.D., Pulpit Cyclopœdia, iii. 161–165.
CLEANSING FOR THE VILEST
Isa_1:18. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
We are informed by the Rabbins that the high priest bound a scarlet fillet round the neck of the scapegoat, and that when the priest confessed his own sins and the sins of the people, the fillet became white if the atonement was accepted by God, but that if it was not accepted, the fillet remained scarlet still. The Rabbins further say that the goat was led about twelve furlongs out of Jerusalem, where it was thrown down a precipice, and was mangled to atoms by the fall. In case of the sacrifice being received by Heaven, a scarlet ribbon which hung at the door of the temple changed from scarlet to pure white. They affirm that it is to this changing of the fillet and ribbon from scarlet to white that Isaiah refers in our text. While we regard these as fictions, and not as facts, they serve to illustrate the nature and greatness of the change spoken of in it.
I. Scarlet and crimson represent sins of excessive and glaring notoriety.
1. The soul has been steeped in the dyeing element.
2. It has carried away as much of the dyeing quality as it can hold. It is twice dipped in the dye-vat.
3. The sins glare and arrest the eye like scarlet in the sun. As the uniform of the British soldier is most conspicuous, so these sins glare in the eye
(1) of society
(2) of conscience,
(3) of Divine justice.
II. Scarlet and crimson symbolise the fast and permanent hold of these sins upon the soul.
1. The sins are not a stain but a dye.
2. The sins are not superficial: they have penetrated into the fabric, every thread of which has been dyed. The faculties are the threads: the whole man the web.
3. The sins are not typified by any dye, but by scarlet and crimson, which are as permanent as the fabric they colour. They resist sun, dew, rain, the wash.
III. Scarlet and crimson becoming white as snow represents the perfect removal of the greatest sins. The colouring element is removed. The soul is restored. The power that removes the sin yet saves the soul. Application.—There is hope, then, even for the vilest. The most desperately sinful need not despair [385]J. Stirling.
[385] In nature there is hardly a stone that is not capable of crystallising into something purer and brighter than its normal state. Coal, by a slightly different arrangement of its particles, is capable of becoming the radiant diamond. The slag cast out from the furnace as useless waste forms into globular masses of radiating crystals. From tar and pitch the loveliest colours are now manufactured. The very mud of the road, trampled under foot as the type of all impurity, can be changed by chemical art into metals and gems of surpassing beauty; and so the most unpromising materials, the most worthless moral rubbish that men cast out and despise, may be converted by the Divine alchemy into the gold of the sanctuary, and made jewels fit for the mediatorial crown of the Redeemer. Let the case of Mary Magdalene, of John Newton, of John Bunyan, of thousands more, encourage those who are still in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. Seek to be subjected to the same purifying process; lay yourselves open to the same spiritual influences; yield yourselves up into the hands of the Spirit to become His finished and exquisite workmanship; seek diligently a saving and sanctifying union with Christ by faith, and He will perfect that which concerneth you, and lay your stones with fair colours (Psa_68:13).—Macmillan.
COMFORT FOR THE DESPONDING
Isa_1:18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Some are kept in a desponding state—
I. By the views they entertain of the sovereignty of God and the doctrine of election. But—
1. The election of God, whatever it is, is an election unto life, and not unto destruction. It should therefore be a source of encouragement, not discouragement: it should awaken hope and joy, rather than despondency.
2. God’s election is His rule of action, not yours: yours is the Bible [388]
3. The thing you are required to believe in order to salvation is not your election, but God’s truth.
4. In your present state you have nothing to do with election [391] but if you will entertain the question, the evidence is much more in favour of your election than against it.
[388] Whatever the decrees of God be concerning the eternal state of men, since they are secret to us, they can certainly be no rule either of our duty or comfort. And no man hath reason to think himself rejected of God who does not find the marks of reprobation in himself—I mean an evil heart and life. By this, indeed, a man may know that he is out of God’s favour for the present; but he hath no reason at all from hence to conclude that God hath from all eternity and for ever cast him off. That God calls him to repentance, and affords him the space and means of it, is a much plainer sign that God is willing to have mercy upon him, than anything else can be that God hath utterly cast him off. For men to judge of their condition by the decrees of God, which are hid from us, and not by His Word, which is near us, is as if a man wandering in the wide sea in a dark night, when the heaven is all clouded, should resolve to steer his course by the stars which he cannot see, but only guess at, and neglect the compass which is at hand, and would afford him much better and more certain direction.—Tillotson, 1630–1694.
[391] We have no ground at first to trouble ourselves about God’s election. “Secret things belong to God.” God’s revealed will is, that all who believe in Christ shall not perish. It is my duty, therefore, knowing this, to believe: by doing whereof I put that question, whether God be mine or no? out of all question, for all that believe in Christ are Christ’s, and all that are Christ’s are God’s. It is not my duty to look to God’s secret counsel, but to His open offer, invitation, and command, and thereupon adventure my soul. In war men will venture their lives, because they think some will escape, and why not they? In traffic beyond the seas many adventure a great estate, because some grow rich by a good return, though some miscarry. The husbandman adventures his seed, though sometimes the year proves so bad that he never sees it more. And shall not we make a spiritual adventure, in casting ourselves upon God, when we have so good a warrant as His command, and so good an encouragement as His promise, that He will not fail those that rely on Him?—Sibbes, 1577–1635.
II. By the views they take of certain isolated passages of Scripture (Mat_12:31-32; Heb_12:17; Pro_1:24-31). Not one of these passages, rightly understood, need quench your hope. Where there is one obscure passage that seems to make against you, there is a hundred which plainly and positively tell you that if you turn you shall live, if you believe you shall be saved.
III. By an apprehension that their repentance has not been deep enough. But—
1. The genuineness of your repentance is not to be estimated by the pungency of your feelings [394]
2. It is not the depth of your feelings that is your warrant to come to Christ.
3. Your penitential feelings will not be likely to be increased by staying away from Christ.
[394] I see no reason to call in question the truth and sincerity of that man’s repentance who hates sin and forsakes it, and returns to God and his duty, though he cannot shed tears, and express the bitterness of his soul by the same significations that a mother does in the loss of her only son. He that cannot weep like a child may resolve like a man, and that undoubtedly will find acceptance with God. Two persons walking together espy a serpent; the one shrieks and cries out at the sight of it, the other kills it. So is it with sorrow for sin: some express it by great lamentations and tears, and vehement transports of passion; others by greater and more real effects of detestation—by forsaking their sins, by mortifying and subduing their lusts; but he that kills it doth certainly best express his inward enmity against it.—Tillotson, 1630–1694.
IV. By the fear that they have gone too far and sinned too much to be forgiven. But, admitting the very worst you can say of yourself, there is everything in the character of God, in the work of Christ, in the power of the Spirit, in the experience of other sinners [397] in the promises of the Bible, to inspire and sustain your hope.—John Corbin.
[397] Oh who can read of a Manasseh, a Magdalene, a Saul, yea, an Adam, who undid himself and a whole world with him, in the roll of pardoned sinners, and yet turn away from the promise, out of a fear that there is not mercy in it to serve his turn? These are landmarks that show what large boundaries mercy hath set to itself, and how far it hath gone, even to take into its arms the greatest sinners that make not themselves incapable thereof by final impenitency. It were a healthful walk, poor doubting Christian, for thy soul to go this circuit, and oft see where the utmost stone is laid and boundary set by God’s pardoning mercy, beyond which He will not go.—Gurnall, 1617–1679.
SIN AND GRACE
Isa_1:18. Come now, and let us reason together, smith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
For an exposition of the symbolism of this verse, see note [400]
[400] Jehovah here challenges Israel to a formal trial: nocach is thus used in a reciprocal sense, and with the same meaning as nishpat in Isa_43:26 (Ges. § 51, 2). In such a trial Israel must lose, for Israel’s self-righteousness rests upon sham righteousness; and this sham righteousness, when rightly examined, is but unrighteousness dripping with blood. It is taken for granted that this must be the result of the investigation. Israel is therefore worthy of death. Yet Jehovah will not treat Israel according to His retributive justice, but according to His free compassion. He will remit the punishment, and not only regard the sin as not existing, but change it into its very opposite. The reddest possible sin shall become, through His mercy, the purest white. On the two hiphils here applied to colour, see Ges. § 53, 2; though he gives the meaning incorrectly, viz., “to take a colour,” whereas the words signify rather to emit a colour, not colorem accipere, but colorem dare. Shâne, bright red (the plural Shânim, as in Pro_31:21, signifies materials dyed with shâni) and tolâ, warm colour, are simply different names for the same colour, viz., the crimson obtained from the cochineal insect, color coccineus.
The representation of the work of grace promised by God as a change from red to white is founded upon the symbolism of colours, quite as much as when the saints in the Revelation (Isa_19:8) are described as clothed in white raiment, whilst the clothing of Babylon is purple and scarlet (Isa_17:4). Red is the colour of fire, and therefore of life: the blood is red because life is a fiery process. For this reason the heifer, from which the ashes of purification were obtained for those who had been defiled through contact with the dead, was to be red; and the sprinkling-bush, with which the unclean were sprinkled, was to be tied around with a band of scarlet wool. But red, as contrasted with white, the colour of light (Mat_17:2), is the colour of selfish, covetous, passionate life, which is self-seeking in its nature, which goes out of itself only to destroy, and drives about with wild tempestuous violence: it is therefore the colour of wrath and sin. It is generally supposed that Isaiah speaks of red as the colour of sin, because sin ends in murder; and this is not really wrong, though it is too restricted. Sin is called red, inasmuch as it is a burning heat which consumes a man, and when it breaks forth consumes his fellow-man as well. According to the biblical view, throughout, sin stands in the same relation to what is well-pleasing to God, and wrath in the same relation to love or grace, as fire to light; and therefore as red to white, or black to white, for red and black are colours which border upon one another. In the Song of Solomon (Isa_7:5), the black locks of Shulamith are described as being “like purple,” and Homer applies the same epithet to the dark waves of the sea. But the ground of this relation lies deeper still. Red is the colour of fire, which flashes out of darkness and returns to it again; whereas white, without any admixture of darkness, represents the pure, absolute triumph of light. It is a deeply significant symbol of the act of justification. Jehovah offers to Israel an actio forensis, out of which it shall come forth justified by grace, although it has merited death on account of its sins. The righteousness, white as snow and wool, with which Israel comes forth, is a gift conferred upon it out of pure compassion, without being conditional upon any legal performance whatever.—Delitsch, Commentary on Isaiah, vol. i. pp. 98, 99.
A subordinate point in the imagery is, that scarlet and crimson were the firmest of dyes, least capable of being washed out.—Dr. Kay.
I. THE WONDERS OF DIVINE CONDESCENSION.
1. How marvellous that God should condescend to “reason” with sinful men! Not thus do human governments deal with rebels against their authority. The stern proclamation goes forth, “Submit, or die.” To admit helpless rebels to a conference on equal terms (such as “reasoning” implies) is an idea that never occurs to earthly sovereigns; but (Isa_55:8-9)—
2. How marvellous that God should invite sinful men to reason with Him, with a view to reconciliation with them! The result of such an investigation of their conduct could only be their condemnation; but this is not God’s ultimate design. He does not desire to humiliate sinners, but to bring them to repentance and confession, in order that it may be possible for Him to pardon them. According to human standards, it would have been a great thing had God been willing to be reconciled to those who have offended Him so grievously; but how astonishing is this, that He, the offended party, should seek to reconcile the offenders to Himself. (2Co_5:18-19; Joh_3:19).
II. THE POSSIBILITIES OF HUMAN SIN. “Though your sins be as scarlet … though they be red like crimson.” Sins that take complete possession of a man, and that are conspicuous to the public eye, may be described as crimson and scarlet sins. How common such sins are! What a spectacle the human race must present to angelic eyes! Scarlet and crimson sins are more common than we are apt to suppose, because responsibility is in proportion to privilege. In proportion to the sinner’s light is the sinner’s guilt. Consequently that which is a trivial fault in one man may be a crimson sin in another. When an offence is contrary to a man’s whole training, though it may be a small matter in the sight of man, it may be as scarlet and crimson sin in the sight of God. In these possibilities of human sin we have—
1. A reason for universal watchfulness. Taken even in its most obvious sense, the possibility of which our text speaks is the possibility of every man. There is no human being who may not fall into crime. Many men, after living half a century blamelessly in the sight of men, suddenly yield to temptation, and are consigned to felons’ cells. David was no stripling when he committed his great transgression. Said Hazael, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” Yet he did it! (2Ki_8:13, &c.) Peter rejected Christ’s warning as incredible. Therefore (Rom_11:20; 1Co_10:12) [403]
2. A reason for universal humiliation and prayer. Just because our privileges have been so great, God may put a very different estimate upon our transgressions than we are disposed to do. Therefore let us humbly seek pardon for the past, and preventing grace for the future (Psa_19:12-13).
[403] The strong men are fallen; even Solomon himself, and David, and Noah, and Lot, and Samson, and Peter, the lights of the world, fell like stars from heaven. These tall cedars, strong oaks, fair pillars, lie in the dust, whose tops glittered in the air; that “they which think they stand may take heed lest they fall.” Can I look upon these ruins without compassion? or remember them without fear, unless I be a reprobate, and my heart of flint? Who am I that I should stand like a shrub, when these cedars are blown down to the ground, and showed themselves but men? The best man is but a man: the worst are worse than beasts. No man is untainted but Christ. They who had greater gifts than we, they who had deeper roots than we, they who had stronger hearts than we, they who had more props than we, are fallen like a bird which is weary of her flight, and turned back like the wind, in the twinkling of an eye. What shall we do then, when we hear of other men’s faults? Not talk of them as we do, but beware by them, and think—Am I better than he? Am I stronger than Samson? Am I wiser than Solomon? Am I chaster than David? Am I soberer than Noah? Am I firmer than Peter? There is no salt but may lose its saltness, no wine but may lose its strength, no flower but may lose its scent, no light but may be eclipsed, no beauty but may be stained, no fruit but may be blasted, no soul but may be corrupted. We stand all in a slippery place, where it is easy to slide and hard to get up.—Henry Smith, 1592.
III. THE CERTAINTIES OF DIVINE GRACE. “They shall be as white as snow.” Where sin abounds, grace shall more abound. In God there is mercy to pardon every sin [406] and grace to cleanse from every form and degree of moral pollution. Here, then, we have—
1. A reason for repentance. There is no argument so powerful as this: God is ready to forgive. Many a prodigal has been deterred from saying, “I will arise and go to my father,” by a remembrance of his father’s sternness, and by a doubt as to whether his father would receive him. But no such doubt need deter us. We are not called to the exercises of a sorrow that will be unavailing. Our Father waits to be gracious [409] Hear His solemn and touching message (Isa_55:6-7; TEXT).
2. An encouragement for those who are striving after moral purity. Many who try to live a Christian life grow discouraged. There are discouragements that come from without: the constant recurrence of temptation, the unfavourable spiritual atmosphere in which they live, the glaring inconsistencies of some of the professing Christians by whom they are surrounded, the low tone of the spiritual life of those whose conduct is not so open to censure. Still sorer discouragements come from within: the faults that will not be shaken off; the evil tendencies that will manifest themselves; the evil thoughts that will keep welling up from the fountain of the heart, revealing its intense depravity. These things are carefully hidden from men, but God knows them, and the believer knows them, and because of them is apt to grow discouraged. It seems to him that he can never be “made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.” But God has declared that he shall be: God has undertaken to perfect him in purity. “Be of good courage, all ye that hope in the Lord.” God is able to make all grace abound toward you, and He is faithful to all His promises. See what He has promised in our text. He has already fulfilled this promise in innumerable cases (Rev_7:9), and He will fulfil it in yours. Be not discouraged because your moral progress is so slow. How long does the sun shine on the fruit seemingly in vain! All the summer the peach remains hard as a stone. But the sun is not shining in vain. Some week in the autumn this is seen. All at once it softens and becomes ripe; not as the result of that one week’s sun, but of all the sunlight and warmth of the preceding weeks. The chestnut opens in a night; but for months the opening process is going on. In a moment many chemicals seem to crystallise, but the process of crystallisation goes on long before it becomes apparent. So there is a ripening, a crystallising, a cleansing process going on in the heart of the believer: though we see it not now, Yet we shall have ample proof of it by and by. In this matter walk by faith, not by sight. Be of good courage! We shall yet be “white as snow.”
[406] Man may be willing to forgive a mite, the Lord a million; three hundred pence and ten thousand talents are all one to His mercy.—Adams, 1653.
[409] Joy is the highest testimony that can be given to our complacency in any thing or person. Love or joy is a fuel to the fire; if love lay little fuel of desires on the heart, then the flame of joy that comes thence will not be great. Now God’s joy is great in pardoning poor sinners that come in; therefore His affection is great in the offer thereof. It is made the very motive that prevails with God to pardon sinners, “Because He delighteth in mercy,” “Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His anger for ever, for He delighteth in mercy.” God doth all this, “because He delighteth in mercy.”
Ask why the fisher stands all night with his angle in the river; he will tell you, because he delights in the sport. Well, you know now the reason why God stands so long waiting on sinners, months, years, preaching to them; it is that He may be gracious in pardoning them, and in that act delight Himself. Princes very often pardon traitors to please others more than themselves, or else it would never be done; but God doth it chiefly to delight and gladden His own merciful heart. Hence the business Christ came about (which was no other but to reconcile sinners to God) is called “the pleasure of the Lord” (Isa_53:10).—Gurnall, 1617–1679.
Many people get a wrong idea of God by thinking of Him as infinite only in justice and power; but infinite applies to the feelings of God as much as to the stretch of His right hand. There is nothing in His nature which is not measureless. Many think God sits brooding in heaven, as storms brood in summer skies, full of bolts and rain, and believe that they must come to Him under the covert of some apology, or beneath some umbrellaed excuse, lest the clouds should break, and the tempest overwhelm them. But when men repent towards God, they go not to storms, but to serene and tranquil skies, and to a Father who waits to receive them with all tenderness and delicacy and love. His eye is not dark with vengeance, nor His heart turbulent with wrath; and to repent towards His justice and vindictiveness must always be from a lower motive than to repent towards His generosity and love. When you wish to please God, treat Him as one who feels sorry for sinners; treat Him as one who longs to help those who need help; go to Him confidingly. No matter how bad you are—the worse the better. Old Martin Luther said, “I bless God for my sins.” He would never have had such a sense of the pardoning mercy of God if he had not himself been sinful. By as much as you are wicked, God is glorious in restoring you to purity. Let Him do for you those things which are the most generous and magnanimous, and that will please Him best. He is a Being whose feelings and affections move on such vast lines of latitude and longitude, that the more you presume upon His goodness, and cast yourself before Him saying, “I need a miracle of grace and mercy,” the better He is pleased.
Now I beseech you to kindle up a thought of what your mother would do if you were a sinful, heart-broken, discouraged man, but repentant, saying, “I have trod the thorny way of life, and learned its mischief, can you, mother, help me to begin anew?” What mother would cast away such a son? What father would not receive a son on such terms? And if earthly parents can lift themselves up into feelings of holy sympathy for a repentant child, what must be the feelings of God when His children come to Him for help to break away from sin, and to lead lives of rectitude? Read the 15th chapter of Luke, and find out what God’s feelings are; and then say, “I will arise, and go to my Father.”—Beecher.
He is rich in mercy, abundant in goodness and truth. Thy sins are like a spark of fire that falls into the ocean, it is quenched presently; so are all thy sins in the ocean of God’s mercy. There is not more water in the sea than there is mercy in God.—Manton, 1620–1667.
Why dost thou not believe in God’s mercy? Is it thy sins discourage? God’s mercy can pardon great sins, nay, because they are great (Psa_25:11). The sea covers great rocks as well as lesser sands.—Watson, 1696.
Like some black rock that heaves itself above the surface of a sunlit sea, and the wave runs dashing over it, and the spray, as it falls down its sides, is all rainbowed and lightened, and there comes beauty into the mighty grimness of the black thing; so a man’s transgressions rear themselves up, and God’s great love comes sweeping itself against them and over them, makes out of the sin an occasion for the flashing more brightly of the beauty of His mercy, and turns the life of the pardoned penitent into a life of which even the sin is not pain to remember.—Maclaren.
SELF-SCRUTINY IN GOD’S PRESENCE
Isa_1:18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
The outflow of holy displeasure contained in the earlier portions of this chapter would prepare us to expect an everlasting reprobacy of the rebellious and unfaithful Church, but it is strangely followed by the most yearning and melting entreaty ever addressed by the Most High to the creatures of His footstool.
I. The text represents God as saying to the trangressors of His law, “Come, and let us reason together.” The first lesson to be learned, consequently, is the duty of examining our moral character and conduct along with God. When a responsible being has made a wrong use of his powers, nothing is more reasonable than that he should call himself to account for this abuse. Nothing, certainly, is more necessary. There can be no amendment for the future until the past has been cared for. But that this examination may be both thorough and profitable, it must be made in company with the Searcher of hearts. For there are always two beings who are concerned with sin: the being who commits it, and the Being against whom it is committed. Whenever therefore, an examination is made into the nature of moral evil as it exists in the individual heart, both parties concerned should share in the examination. Such a joint examination as this produces a very keen and clear sense of the evil and guilt of sin. Conscience, indeed, makes cowards of us all, but when the eye of God is felt to be upon us, it smites us to the ground.
1. When the soul is shut up along with the Holy One of Israel, there are great searchings of heart. Man is honest and anxious at such a time. His usual thoughtlessness and torpidity upon the subject of religion leave him, and he becomes a serious and deeply-interested creature.
2. Another effect of this “reasoning together” with God respecting our character and conduct is to render our views discriminating. The action of the mind is not only intense, it is also intelligent. The sinner knows that he is wrong, and his Maker is right—that he is wicked, and that God is holy. He perceives these two fundamental facts with a simplicity and a certainty that admit of no debate. The confusion and obscurity of his mind, and particularly the queryings whether these things are so, begin to disappear like a fog when disparted and scattered by sunrise. Objects are seen in their true proportions and meanings; right and wrong, the carnal mind and the spiritual mind, heaven and hell—all the great contraries that pertain to the subject of religion—are distinctly understood, and thus the first step is taken towards a better state of things in the soul [412]
[412] Man is not straitened upon the side of the Divine mercy. The obstacle in the way of his salvation is in himself; and the particular, fatal obstacle consists in the fact that he does not feel that he needs mercy. God in Christ stands ready to pardon, but man, the sinner, stands up before Him, like the besotted criminal in our courts of law, with no feeling upon the subject. The Judge assures him that He has a boundless grace and clemency to bestow; but the stolid, hardened man is not even aware that he has committed a dreadful crime, and needs grace and clemency. There is food in infinite abundance, but no hunger upon the part of the man. The water of life is flowing by in torrents, but men have no thirst. In this state of things nothing can be done but to pass a sentence of condemnation. God cannot forgive a being who does not even know that he needs to be forgiven. Knowledge, then, self-knowledge, is the great requisite; and the want of it is the cause of perdition. This “reasoning together” with God, respecting our past and present character and conduct, is the first step to be taken by any one who would make preparation for eternity. As soon as we come to a right understanding of our lost and guilty condition, we shall cry, “Be merciful to me, a sinner; create within me a clean heart, O God.” Without such an understanding—such an intelligent perception of our sin and guilt—we never shall, and we never can.—Shedd.
II. The second lesson taught in the text is, that there is forgiveness with God. If mercy were not a manifested attribute of God, all self-examination, and especially all this conjoint Divine scrutiny, would be a pure torment and a pure gratuity. We have the amplest assurance in the whole written revelation of God, but nowhere else, that “there is forgiveness with Him, that He may be feared.” The text is an exceedingly explicit assertion of this great truth. The very same Being who invites us to reason with Him and canvass the subject of our criminality, in the very same breath, if we may so speak, assures us that He will forgive all that is found in this examination. And upon such terms cannot the criminal well afford to examine into his crime? The Divine pity outruns and exceeds the crime. Paradoxical as it may appear, self-examination, when joined with a distinct recognition of the Divine character, and a conscious sense of God’s scrutiny, is the surest means of producing in a guilty mind a firm conviction that God is merciful, and is the swiftest way of finding Him to be so. Abhorrent as iniquity is to the pure mind of God, it is nevertheless a fact that that sinner who goes directly into this Dread Presence with all his sins upon his head, in order to know them, to be condemned and crushed by them, and to confess them, is the one who soonest returns with peace and hope in his soul. For he discovers that God is as cordial and sincere in His offer to forgive as He is in His threat to punish; and having, to his sorrow, felt the reality and power of the Divine anger, he now, to his joy, feels the equal reality and power of the Divine love. And this is the one great lesson which every man must learn, or perish for ever.
From these two lessons of our text we deduce the following practical directions—
1. In all states of religious anxiety we should betake ourselves instantly and directly to God; there is no other refuge for the human soul but God in Christ. Are we sinners, and in fear for the final result of our life? Though it may seem like running into fire, we must, nevertheless, betake ourselves first and immediately to that Being who hates and punishes sin (1Ch_20:1-3).
2. In all our religious anxiety we should make a full and plain statement of everything to God. Even when the story is one of shame and remorse, we find it to be mental relief, patiently, and without any reservation or palliation, to expose the whole, not only to our own eye, but to that of our Judge. For to this very thing have we been invited. This is precisely the “reasoning together” which God proposes to us. God has not offered clemency to a sinful world with the expectation or desire that there be, on the part of those to whom it is offered, such a stinted and meagre confession, such a glozing over and diminution of sin, as to make that clemency appear a very small matter. He well knows the depth and the immensity of the sin which He proposes to pardon, and has made provision accordingly. In the phrase of Luther, it is no painted sinner who is to be forgiven, and it is no painted Saviour who is offered. The transgression is deep and real, and the atonement is deep and real. The crime cannot be exaggerated, neither can the expiation. He, therefore, who makes the plainest and most childlike statement of himself to God, acts most in accordance with the mind and will and gospel of God. If man can only be hearty, full, and unreserved in confession, he will find God to be hearty, full, and unreserved in absolution.—W. G. T. Shedd, D.D., The American Pulpit of the Day, vol. i. pp. 829–842.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv18–19General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues to speak to the people of Judah.
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Come now, and let
Yahweh graciously and lovingly invites the people to listen to what he is about to say. "Please listen to me. Let" or "Pay attention; I want to help you. Let"
let us reason together
"let us think about this together" or "we need to discuss this" or "what are we going to do?" Yahweh invites the people to discuss the future. Here the word "us" refers to Yahweh and includes the people of Judah. (See: Inclusive "We")
though your sins are like scarlet, they will be white like snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool
Isaiah is speaking of the people as if they were wearing clothes that were supposed to be white wool and of their sins as if they were red stains on the clothes. If Yahweh forgives their sins, it will be as if their clothes become white again. (See: Metaphor)
like scarlet
Scarlet is a bright red color. AT: "bright red" (See: Simile)
white like snow
White is often a symbol for holiness or purity. "Snow" refers to something like frozen rain that is very white. Since this simply describes something as very white, you could replace it with something else that is white: "white as a seashell" or "white as a dove." This means that their sins will be forgiven. (See: Simile)
red like crimson
Crimson is a dark red color. AT: "dark red" (See: Simile)
like wool
Wool is the hair of a sheep or goat. How they will be like wool can be made explicit. AT: "white like wool" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information and Simile)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv18–201:18 God called his people to come and settle…
1:18 God called his people to come and settle their dispute so that he could restore his covenant relationship with them. This required Judah to make a decision between obeying or turning away (1:19-20). Isaiah says their sins are like scarlet . . . they are red like crimson, the color of blood, which Judah had unjustly shed (1:15). • white as snow . . . white as wool: The people would be radically transformed—cleansed, purified, and made holy (see also Ps 51:7; Dan 7:9).
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv18–19 To know if I do accuse you without cause.
To know if I do accuse you without cause.
Lest sinners should pretend any rigor on God’s part, he only willeth them to be pure in heart, and he will forgive all their sins, were they never so many or great.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together,…
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Ver. 18. Come now, let us reason together.] In the Greek Church, at the beginning of divine service, the deacon cried out, Sacra sacris, Holy souls to holy service. {a} God will not treat with this people till purified, till resolved upon better practices; as when he is content, by a wonderful condescension, to make them even as judges in their own cause. The Vulgate rendereth it, but not so well, Et venite et arguite me {see Isa 5:3 Jer 2:9 Mic 6:1-3}
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Though your sin be of scarlet.] Blood red, {as Isa 1:15} and of a double dye; sins in grain, enormia et horrenda, such as ye may well think will never wash out. {b}
They shall be white as snow,] i.e., You shall be fully freed of the guilt and filth of your most heinous offences by the blood of my Son: sc., Not your peccadilloes only shall be remitted, but your many and mighty sins, quae coccini, quae vermiculi instar sunt. But what meant that mad philosopher, Anaxagoras, to affirm that snow was black? {c} "Purge me with hyssop" (wash me by the blood of sprinkling from the sting and stink of sin), "and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." {Psa 51:7} {d} Cleaner I shall be than the picked glass, whiter than the driven snow. The law, saith one, {e} is like a glass wherein we see our spots; but the gospel is like the laver {Exo 38:8} which was made of the women’s looking glasses, whereby they might both see their faces and also wash out their spots; for it was both a glass to look in, and a laver to wash in, and this typified Christ. {see 1Jn 1:7 Rev 1:1}
Though they be red like crimson.] Which is, say the Rabbis, of a deeper colour than the former.
They shall be as wool.] Which naturally is exceeding white in those countries. {Psa 147:16} Scultetus noteth that God here promiseth not only pardoning, but purging grace also.
{a} Chrysos., Basil., Liturg.
{b} Alludit ad habitum meretricum. - A Lap.
{c} Cicer., lib. iv. Acad. Quest.
{d} Galen., lib. ii. De virt. simp. remediorum.
{e} Ainsw. in loc.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Come now, and let us reason together; I am…
Come now, and let us reason together; I am willing to lay aside my prerogative, and to submit the matter to a fair and equal trial, whether I do not deal justly in rejecting all your services, which are accompanied with such gross hypocrisy and wickedness, and whether I do not deal very graciously in offering mercy and pardon to you upon these conditions.
Though your sins be as scarlet, red and bloody, as theirs were, Isa 1:15, great and heinous,
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they shall be as white as snow; they shall be washed and purged by the blood of the Messias, whereby you shall be made white and pure in God’s sight. It is a metonymical expression, as sins are said to be purged, Heb 1:3, when men are purged from their sins, Heb 9:14.
Shall be as wool; which for the most part is white, and is compared to snow for whiteness, Rev 1:14.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Come now, and let us reason, together, saith the…
Come now, and let us reason, together, saith the Lord,.... These words stand not in connection either with the preceding or following, but are to be read in a parenthesis, and are thrown in for the sake of the small remnant God had left among this wicked people, in order to comfort them, being distressed with sin. These, seeing their sins in their dreadful colours, and with all their aggravating circumstances, were ready to conclude that they were unpardonable; and, seeing God as an angry Judge, dared not come nigh him, but stood at a distance, fearing and expecting his vengeance to fall upon them, and therefore put away the promises, and refused to be comforted; when the Lord was pleased to encourage them to draw near to him, and come and reason with him: not at the bar of his justice; there is no reasoning with him there; none can contend with him, or answer him, one of a thousand; if he marks iniquity in strict justice, none can stand before him; there is no entering the lists with him upon the foot of justice, or at its bar: but at the bar of mercy, at the throne of grace; there the righteous may dispute with him from his declarations and promises, as well as come with boldness to him; and at the altar and sacrifice of Christ, and at the fountain of his blood: here sinners may reason with him from the virtue and efficacy of his blood and sacrifice; and from the Lord's proclamation of grace and mercy through him; and from his promises to forgive repenting and confessing sinners: and here God reasons with sensible souls from his own covenant promises and proclamations to forgive sin; from the aboundings of his grace over abounding sin; from the righteousness of Christ to justify, his blood to cleanse from sin, and his sacrifice to atone for it; and from the end of his coming into the world to save the chief of sinners: saying,
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Every sin is a transgression of the law, and hateful and abominable to God; no sin is venial in itself, but deserving of the wrath of God, and the curses of the law; all sin is mortal, the wages of it is death: but all are not alike; some are greater, others lesser; some are attended with aggravating circumstances, as when the persons that commit them have, besides the light of nature, also the law of Moses, or the Gospel of Christ; have had the advantage of a religious education; have sat under a Gospel ministry, and received much speculative light and knowledge; yea, have been under convictions of sin time after time, and yet have been ringleaders and encouragers of others in sin, guilty of very enormous crimes, which in themselves are comparable to "scarlet" and "crimson": and perhaps reference may be had to the sin of murder, since the persons, among whom these dwelt, their hands were full of blood; and may respect the crucifiers of Christ, among whom there were some savingly convicted and converted. Moreover, they may be signified hereby on account of the effects of them, they defile men, provoke God to wrath, and, through the law, work wrath in their consciences; and may signify, that they are sins of a deep dye, and which have such a place in their hearts and consciences, that nothing can remove them but the blood of Christ: and besides are open, flagrant, and notorious to all, and especially to God; yet these, through the grace and blood of Jesus, become as white as wool and as snow: not that pardon of sin takes sin out of the hearts and natures of men, nor changes the nature of sin, or causes it to cease to be sin; but this is to be understood of the persons of sinners, who hereby are made so white, yea, whiter than this, Psa 51:1 as they are considered in Christ, washed in his blood, and clothed with his righteousness, which is fine linen, clean and white; God, seeing no iniquity in them, has thus graciously dealt with them, and they being without fault, spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. It was with respect to this Scripture that the Jews in later times were wont to tie a scarlet thread to the head of the scapegoat, when he was sent into the wilderness; though at first they fastened it to the door of the outward porch, and then to the door of the inward porch, and, if it turned white, it was a sign their sins were forgiven them, but, if not, otherwise (k); and it is owned by them, that it belongs to future time, the time of the Messiah (l).
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(k) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 89. 2. (l) Gussetius observes, that signifies not "oppressed", but infected with leaven, and so means, reduce to a right way him that is corrupt with the leaven of vice, by hindering him that he may not go on to hurt the fatherless. Comment. Ebr. p. 265.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On v19 If - If you are fully resolved to obey…
If - If you are fully resolved to obey all my commands. Shall eat - Together with pardon, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Verse 18. Though your sins be as scarlet] שני…
Verse 18. Though your sins be as scarlet] שני shani, "scarlet or crimson," dibaphum, twice dipped, or double dyed; from שנה shanah, iterare, to double, or to do a thing twice. This derivation seems much more probable than that which Salmasius prefers from שנן shanan, acuere, to whet, from the sharpness and strength of the colour, οξυφοινικον; תלע tela, the same; properly the worm, vermiculus, (from whence vermeil,) for this colour was produced from a worm or insect which grew in a coccus or excrescence of a shrub of the ilex kind, (see Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 8,) like the cochineal worm in the opuntia of America. See Ulloa's Voyage book v., chap. ii., note to page 342. There is a shrub of this kind that grows in Provence and Languedoc, and produces the like insect, called the kermes oak, (see Miller, Dict. Quercus,) from kermez, the Arabic word for this colour, whence our word crimson is derived.
"Neque amissos colores
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Lana refert medicata fuco,"
says the poet, applying the same image to a different purpose. To discharge these strong colours is impossible to human art or power; but to the grace and power of God all things, even much more difficult are possible and easy. Some copies have כשנים keshanim, "like crimson garments."
Though they be red, &c.] But the conjunction ו vau is added by twenty-one of Kennicott's, and by forty-two of De Rossi's MSS., by some early editions, with the Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic. It makes a fuller and more emphatic sense. "AND though they be red as crimson," &c.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v18 Isa 1:18-20. Come now, let us reason together —…
Isa 1:18-20. Come now, let us reason together — The word נוכחהis properly understood of two contending parties arguing a case; or, as Bishop Lowth translates it, pleading together; but here it seems to import also the effect, or issue of such a debate, namely, the accommodating their differences. Though your sins be as scarlet — Red and bloody as theirs were, mentioned Isa 1:15; great and heinous; they shall be white as snow — God, upon your repentance and reformation, will pardon all that is past, and look upon you with the same grace and favour as if you had never offended, your sins being expiated by the blood of the Messiah, typified by your legal sacrifices. It is a metonymical expression, by which sins are said to be purged, as Heb 1:3, when men are purged from their sins, Heb 9:14. If ye be willing and obedient — If you be heartily willing and fully resolved to obey all my commands; ye shall eat the good of the land — Together with the pardon of your sins, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings. But if ye refuse and rebel — If you obstinately persist in your disobedience to me, as hitherto you have done; ye shall be devoured with the sword — With the sword of your enemies, which shall be commissioned to destroy you, and with the sword of God’s justice, his wrath and vengeance, which shall be drawn against you; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it — And he will surely make it good for the maintaining of his own honour.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Come now - This is addressed to the nation…
Come now - This is addressed to the nation of Israel; and the same exhortation is made to all sinners. It is a solemn act on the part of God, submitting the claims and principles of his government to reason, on the supposition that men may see the propriety of his service, and of his plan.
Let us reason together - ונוכחה venivākechâh from יכח yâkach, not used in Kal, but in Hiphil; meaning to show, to prove. Job 13:15 : ‘Surely I will prove my ways (righteous) before him;’ that is, I will justify my ways before him. Also to correct, reprove, convince, Job 32:12; to rebuke, reproach, censure, Job 6:25; to punish, Job 5:17; Pro 3:12; to judge, decide, Isa 11:3; to do justice, Isa 11:4; or to contend, Job 13:3; Job 16:21; Job 22:4. Here it denotes the kind of contention, or argumentation, which occurs in a court of justice, where the parties reciprocally state the grounds of their cause. God had been addressing magistrates particularly, and commanding them to seek judgment, to relieve the oppressed, to do justice to the orphan and widow; all of which terms are taken from courts of law. He here continues the language, and addresses them as accustomed to the proceedings of courts, and proposes to submit the case as if on trial. He then proceeds Isa 1:18-20, to adduce the principles on which he is willing to bestow pardon on them; and submits the case to them, assured that those principles will commend themselves to their reason and sober judgment.
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Though your sins be as scarlet - The word used here - שׁנים shānı̂ym - denotes properly a bright red color, much prized by the ancients. The Arabic verb means to shine, and the name was given to this color, it is supposed by some, on account of its splendor, or bright appearance. It is mentioned as a merit of Saul, that he clothed the daughters of Israel in scarlet, 2Sa 1:24, Our word scarlet, denoting a bright red, expresses the color intended here. This color was obtained from the eggs of the coccus ilicis, a small insect found on the leaves of the oak in Spain, and in the countries east of the Mediterranean. The cotton cloth was dipped in this color twice; and the word used to express it means also double-dyed, from the verb שׁנה shânâh, to repeat. From this double-dying many critics have supposed that the name given to the color was derived. The interpretation which derives it from the sense of the Arabic word to shine, however, is the most probable, as there is no evidence that the double-dying was unique to this color. It was a more permanent color than that which is mentioned under the word crimson. White is an emblem of innocence. Of course sins would be represented by the opposite. Hence, we speak of crimes as black, or deep-dyed, and of the soul as stained by sin. There is another idea here. This was a fast, or fixed color. Neither dew, nor rain, nor washing, nor long usage, would remove it. Hence, it is used to represent the fixedness and permanency of sins in the heart. No human means will wash them out. No effort of man, no external rites, no tears, no sacrifices, no prayers, are of themselves sufficient to take them away. They are deep fixed in the heart, as the scarlet color was in the Web of cloth, and an almighty power is needful to remove them.
Shall be as white as snow - That is, the deep, fixed stain, which no human power could remove, shall be taken away. In other words, sin shall be pardoned, and the soul be made pure. White, in all ages, has been the emblem of innocence, or purity; compare Psa 68:14; Ecc 9:8; Dan 7:9; Mat 17:2; Mat 28:3; Rev 1:14; Rev 3:4-5; Rev 4:4; Rev 7:9, Rev 7:13.
Though they be red - The idea here is not materially different from that expressed in the former part of the verse. It is the Hebrew poetic form of expressing substantially the same thought in both parts of the sentence. Perhaps, also, it denotes intensity, by being repeated; see Introduction, 8.
Like crimson - כתולע katôlâ‛. The difference between scarlet and crimson is, that the former denotes a deep red; the latter a deco red slightly tinged with blue. Perhaps this difference, however, is not marked in the original. The purple or crimson color was obtained commonly from a shellfish, called murex, or purpura, which abounded chiefly in the sea, near Tyre; and hence, the Tyrian dye became so celebrated. That, however, which is designated in this place, was obtained, not from a shellfish, but a worm (Hebrew: תולע tôlâ‛, snail, or conchylium - the Helix Janthina of Linnaeus. This color was less permanent than the scarlet; was of a bluish east; and is commonly in the English Bible rendered blue. It was employed usually to dye wool, and was used in the construction of the tabernacle, and in the garments of the high priest. It was also in great demand by princes and great men, Jdg 8:26; Luk 14:19. The prophet has adverted to the fact that it was employed mainly in dying wool, by what he has added, ‘shall be as wool.’
As wool - That is, as wool undyed, or from which the color is removed. Though your sins appear as deep-stained, and as permanent as the fast color of crimson in wool, yet they shall be removed - as if that stain should be taken away from the wool, and it should be restored to its original whiteness.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v18 Accuse me. If I punish you without cause.
Accuse me. If I punish you without cause.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv18–20 God deigns to argue the case with us, that…
God deigns to argue the case with us, that all may see the just, nay, loving principle of His dealings with men (Isa 43:26).
scarlet--the color of Jesus Christ's robe when bearing our "sins" (Mat 27:28). So Rahab's thread (Jos 2:18; compare Lev 14:4). The rabbins say that when the lot used to be taken, a scarlet fillet was bound on the scapegoat's head, and after the high priest had confessed his and the people's sins over it, the fillet became white: the miracle ceased, according to them, forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, that is, exactly when Jesus Christ was crucified; a remarkable admission of adversaries. Hebrew for "scarlet" radically means double-dyed; so the deep-fixed permanency of sin in the heart, which no mere tears can wash away.
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snow-- (Psa 51:7). Repentance is presupposed, before sin can be made white as snow (Isa 1:19-20); it too is God's gift (Jer 31:18, end; Lam 5:21; Act 5:31).
red--refers to "blood" (Isa 1:15).
as wool--restored to its original undyed whiteness. This verse shows that the old fathers did not look only for transitory promises (Article VII, Book of Common Prayer). For sins of ignorance, and such like, alone had trespass offerings appointed for them; greater guilt therefore needed a greater sacrifice, for, "without shedding of blood there was no remission"; but none such was appointed, and yet forgiveness was promised and expected; therefore spiritual Jews must have looked for the One Mediator of both Old Testament and New Testament, though dimly understood.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On v18 18-20. Revolting as the people’s acts have been, God…
18-20. Revolting as the people’s acts have been, God is here pleading to show that their ill condition is of their own causing.
Come now — This is a common formula of entreaty.
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Let us reason — Discuss the case together. The verb is reciprocal; hence, considering the parties, to secure their consent to examine the issue is to secure their own self-conviction.
Though your sins be as scarlet — As deep dyed as scarlet. This expresses a superlative degree of moral turpitude. “Scarlet,” or crimson, is made from a dye formed of insects found in excrescences on the oak, like our common cochineal. It is the firmest of dyes, and is the deepest symbol of blood-guiltiness. Yet such sins shall be washed out, and the souls of the people become cleansed to whiteness, if they will even now become obedient; but fearfully otherwise if they still rebel. On condition of obedience, land and city shall be preserved; on continued disobedience, the ruthless invader shall bring destruction, as sure as God liveth.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv18, 20 18. let us reason together] more accurately, let us…
18. let us reason together] more accurately, let us implead one another (Act_19:38, A.V.). The idea is that of a legal process in which each party maintains his own case (see ch. Isa_43:26). It is felt by some comm. that the legal figure is inconsistent with an absolute offer of forgiveness in the two clauses which follow. The difficulty would be obviated by the subtle and attractive rendering (proposed, but now withdrawn, by Cheyne) “let us bring our dispute to an end”; but this is unsupported by grammar or usage. The second member of each sentence might be taken as an indignant question, “If your sins are … shall they be white …?”—or as an ironical concession, “Though your sins be … let them be white …!” The idea of pardon, however, may be retained, provided it be understood as conditioned by the alternative of Isa_1:19-20.
scarlet and crimson are really synonyms for one colour, properly “crimson.” The dye in question was obtained from the dried and powdered bodies of an insect (coccus ilicis, in Hebr. tôla‘ath shânî = “bright worm”). There is perhaps no other instance of red used as a general symbol for sin, though white is the natural emblem of innocence (Psa_51:7).
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18–20. Jehovah condescends to plead.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv18–19 (18) Come now, and let us reason together.—The Authorised…
(18) Come now, and let us reason together.—The Authorised Version suggests the thought of a discussion between equals. The Hebrew implies rather the tone of one who gives an authoritative ultimatum, as from a judge to the accused, who had no defence, or only a sham defence, to offer (Mic_6:2-3). “Let us sum up the pleadings—that ultimatum is one of grace and mercy—‘Repent, and be forgiven.’”
Though your sins be as scarlet.—The two colours probably corresponded to those now designated by the English words. Both words point to the dyes of Tyre, and the words probably received a fresh emphasis from the fact that robes of these colours were worn by the princes to whom Isaiah preached (2Sa_1:24). To the prophet’s eye that dark crimson was as the stain of blood. What Jehovah promises is that the guilt of the past, deep-dyed in grain as it might be, should be discharged, and leave the character with a restored purity. Men might dye their souls of this or that hue, but to bleach them was the work of God. He alone could transfigure them that they should be “white as snow” (Mar_9:3). Comp. the reproduction of the thought, with the added paradox that it was the crimson “blood of the lamb” that was to bleach and cleanse, in Rev_3:4-5; Rev_7:14.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Come now, and let us reason together. God has…
Come now, and let us reason together. God has from time to time permitted man to reason with him; (Gen_18:23-32 Exo_4:1-17 Job_23:3-7 Mic_6:2) but it is difficult to see that there is any "reasoning" or "controversy" here. Mr. Cheyne translates, "Let us bring our dispute to an end." Though your sins be as scarlet... like crimson; i.e. "open, evident, glaring." Or there may be an allusion to their blood-guiltiness (see vers. 15, 19). They shall be as white as snow. Psa_51:7, which is completely parallel, whether it was written before or after. There can be no better image of, purity than snow. (comp. Job_9:30 Lam_4:7) As wool. A weaker illustration than the preceding one, but needed for the parallelism. (The resemblance of falling snow to wool is noted in Psa_147:16)
Vers. 18-23. Argument and conviction.
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I THE TRIAL OF THE CASE.
1. God is reason, otherwise he could not be God of justice. And if the nature can defend itself, clear itself from guilt, its plea will be allowed. Just Isa_43:19, the imagery of a court of justice is presented: "Let them bring forth their witnesses that they may be justified, and let them hear, and say, It is true." The question is Can the nation clear itself from the charges alleged against it? If so, the deep fixed stain that now seems to rest upon them shall be taken away, and they shall be white as driven snow or as undyed wool.
2. God appeals to fixed principles of right. These have long been known, are written in the conscience of the people. A willing spirit of obedience to Divine law is assured of blessing; rebellion brings about hostility, invasion, and all those calamities from which the people are now suffering. Have these curses come "causeless" upon the people? Or are they the just consequences of disobedience? Let them answer. A long pause and silence convey the admission of guilt. They have no argument to urge, no cause to show why judgment should be stayed.
II THE PROPHET"S LAMENTATION. He, as daysman, or go-between, mourns over the city thus convicted, unable to stand in judgment against Jehovah. He is compelled in this cause to turn witness against his own people. Once loyal and pledged as in the covenant of marriage to Jehovah, the city has become like her who "forsakes the guide of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God." Where once the splendid seat of justice and purity stood, there is now lawless bloodshed. The pure metal of her virtue has been debased; and "as water unto wine" is her moral feebleness now as contrasted with her moral strength then. They who, as rulers, were set for an example of obedience to God, integrity among men, are rebels and thieves" comrades. Instead of withholding their hands from bribes, they greedily clutch after them. Pity and mercy are extinct; the orphan and the widow are thrust aside. The guilt of guilt lies in the use of power without love. Christ, as the impersonation of humanity and of love, points out that the condemnation of evil conduct lies in this, that love is wanting, The splendid temple ritual was naught, because there was no love in it, as their conduct out of the temple so clearly showed. We may never miss a Sunday service or a celebration of the communion, yet for all that be undone. And many who have never been "professed" Christians will be, on other grounds, professed by Christ. J.
Salvation to the uttermost.
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." The previous verses show that the Jews had mistaken the ideal of Divine services; they had turned them into a correct ritual, to a multitude of sacrifices without purpose. And purpose or motive is the very heart of religion. They were devotional, but cruel. "When ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood." It was all empty ceremony. The solemn meeting even was iniquity. A change must come. And it must bean in character. "Cease to do evil." Yes; but that is not enough. Negation is not salvation. There must be life unto God as well as death unto sin. "Learn to do well." Then come the words of our text. They sound a strange note at first; they speak of what man cannot do and what God can.
I HERE IS THE GOSPEL IN ISAIAH. Free, full, perfect redemption. We see in these words Gethsemane and Calvary. There God"s purpose was fulfilled; but it is in his heart when these words are spoken, for "the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world." It is a glorious gospel God giving himself for the world. And now, as we read Israel"s sins in this record, we may see even then that, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
II HERE IS THE REASONABLENESS OF RELIGION. How condescending! Let us the Infinite and the finite, the immaculate and the evil. Yet so it is. God says, "While you are stained with blood and cloaked with hypocrisy, I can have nothing to say to you or to do with you." It cannot be that light should have fellowship with darkness. That is reasonable surely. But how can the sins of Judah and Jerusalem be purged away? Amendment is not atonement. And God is their Ransom, the high God is their Redeemer!
III HERE IS THE CHARTER OF THE CHURCH"S LIBERTY. These words will never be forgotten. They have comforted millions. It is not liberty to sin, but salvation from all sin, and from the punishment of sin. Not from punishment only, but from sin itself, in all its forms, all its depths, all its degrees! For the colors are chosen as the symbols of the most marked and malignant evil scarlet and crimson. Yet God is able to save to the uttermost. The words are best understood beneath the cross and in the history of redeemed men in every age. W.M.S.
The magnitude of the Divine mercy.
I THE FULNESS OF THE DIVINE MERCY. In estimating the fullness of God s grace to mankind, we must include:
1. His patience toward all men, both penitent and impenitent. From the beginning of sin until the present hour God has been forbearing to inflict penalty. He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." The times of long-continued ignorance God overlooked, or did not interpose with special penalty or redemption. (Act_17:30)
2. His pardon offered to the penitent and believing. In the Law we read that he is "the Lord God, merciful and gracious," etc.; (Exo_34:6, Exo_34:7) in the Psalms we read that he is "plenteous in mercy," etc.; (Psa_103:8, Psa_103:11, Psa_103:12) in the prophets we read that "he is merciful and will not keep anger forever". (Jer_3:12; and see text and Isa_55:7-9 Dan_9:9) In the gospel of Jesus Christ remission of sins is a cardinal doctrine. (Mat_26:28 Luk_24:47; Act_2:38 Act_5:31 Act_10:43 Act_26:18)
3. The thoroughness of his forgiveness.
(1) The breadth which it covers.
(a) The worst kinds of sin blasphemy, idolatry, all forms of impurity, murder, etc.;
(b) the most criminal condition long-continued forgetfulness, sin against multiplied privilege, persistent and obdurate rebelliousness of heart, etc.
(2) The depth to which it goes down.
(a) Penetrating to the most secret thoughts of the mind, to the most inward motives of the soul, to the slightest choices of the will;
(b) extending to the thoughts and things which have been overlooked and omitted, as well as to those which have been entertained and wrought.
(3) The height to which it rises.
(a) Leading to actual holiness for pardon is the fruit of penitence and faith, and with them in the soul, the scarlet becomes as snow, the crimson as wool, the mind is radically changed, the life is thoroughly transformed
(b) including full restoration, not merely the not exacting penalty, but the actual bestowal of the Divine favor admitting to the Father"s home and table, lavishing upon the accepted child every sign and proof of parental love.
II THE DIVINE ARGUMENT THEREFROM. God condescends to "reason" with us; he appeals to our sense of obligation, to our regard for our own interests, to our human affections, etc. The argument here is not stated, but it may be easily inferred. If such is the Divine mercy so large and full and free, then how wise to seek it at once! because of:
1. The blessedness of being right with God henceforth.
2. The uncertainty of the future. Between our souls and its possession may be interposed
1. sudden death;
2. hardening of the heart;
3. increased outward obstacles.
3. The immeasurable, issues which are at stake punishment or life eternal. C.
Reasoning with God about our sins.
Conceive a man responding to this appeal, what may we think he would say to God, and what may we suppose God would reply?
I FIRST PLEA. "Thou art revealed as the great God, inhabiting eternity, whose Name is Holy; who art of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. I am afraid thou wouldst not concern thyself about the sin, much less about the forgiveness, of such creatures as we are." What is God"s answer? "I have a great interest in that little world where you dwell. I have given you many proofs of it. I have hidden my great sun to shine on you, and quicken life and beauty everywhere around you. I am coming down continually in the rains and winds that provide food for you, coming down to attend your steps and ward off evils from you. It is quite true that by me even "the very hairs of your head are all numbered." If I take such interest in you, should I not concern myself about your sin, the worst of the evils that gather about you? Do you think I could temper the storms and the sunshine, keep away pestilence and blight, and not strive to take away sin? And there is something more: "I am merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and of great kindness." You know that I am Light, Power, Majesty, King, Judge. But you do not really know me till you know that I am Love, and love will spend itself until every stain is cleansed from those whom it loves. My love sends forth streams that wash away sins." When love opens the cleansing fountain, what can we do but Plunge rote the purple flood, And rise into the life of God.
II SECOND PLEA. "I read that thou hast given a great Law, by which thy creatures are to be judged. "The Law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." Thou hast said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." I do not see how thou canst keep thy justice and thy truth, and yet blot out my scarlet, my crimson sins." What is the reply? "It is indeed the mystery of mysteries, but love has solved it. I can be just and justifying. I have set forth my dear Son as your Sin-bearer, your Substitute, the Propitiation for your sin. In his righteous life, by his vicarious death, my Law is magnified and shown to be honorable. Not a stain can even seem to be upon it after such an obedience as Christ rendered, if I did gather every sinful creature into my love and heaven. I have myself put such an eternal honor upon Law by permitting my Son to submit to it, that none can ever doubt the transcendent glory of my justice.
III THIRD PLEA. "But my sins are so great, so aggravated, it seems to me as though such sins as mine cannot even be atoned for; even if atoned for, I think I should never be able to hold up my head for very shame." Some of us know what scarlet sins mean, crimson sins, sins of deepest die. What is God"s reply? "I have provided for the uttermost of sin in the infinite merit of my Son. His worth outweighs all sin; it can cover and blot out the deepest crimson stains. His sacrifice sends up such a fragrant incense to me that I can freely pardon all your iniquity. If his robe of righteousness cover you, I shall not see any of those stains; I shall accept you in him.
IV FOURTH PLEA. "But my sins are not just acts of willfulness and rebellion, they are the habits of my life, the neglectings and self-servings of my life. I hear of rolling sin as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and that is just the way with me. If I were forgiven, I fear I should just go on sinning still." But God answers, "I have provided also for this. I will pour out of my Spirit upon you; and to them that have no might he shall increase strength. He shall be Teacher, Guide, Comforter, Earnest, and Seal. He shall be with you always.
V FIFTH PLEA. "Even if my scarlet sins are made like wool, and my crimson sins like the snow, I fear I shall never be able to return anything for such grace abounding." What a wonderful reply God makes to you, closing up your mouth and humbling you in the very dust! "Not for your sakes do I this, O house of Israel, but for mine own Name"s sake." Truly that is a wonderful answer. It is like God coming to us, opening the fountain of his being, and saying, "Look in, look long, and peer into the depths. I am love." There is all the secret. Love saves. Love saves even those who never can hope to make worthy returns for love. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv18–19 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the…
Isa_1:18
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord
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Further reasoning useless
You have nothing more to say; all that you have already said has no value; reasoning has done its work; if reasoning is to rule, the case must go against you--there can be no other issue; but if yielding to the force of My reasoning, admitting it is true and fair, you confess yourselves convicted and condemned, then My mercy shall have its free, triumphant exercise upon you; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
(W. Perkins.)
Reform and pardon
Cease to do evil, etc. Come now, etc. As early as the time of Isaiah we find the doctrine of the reformation of character dependent on forgiveness of sin distinctly taught. Gods remedy for sin is the same in all ages. More prominence perhaps was given to the observance of the law in the olden times, but not to the exclusion of grace; while in the New Testament grace appears the more prominent, but surely not to the exclusion of law. Neither in the one nor in the other was the law the condition of life. Both represent rather two different stages in the same covenant of grace--the one preparatory to the other.
I. THE DEMAND HERE MADE.
1. The nature of the demand. It is for reformation of practice. Wash you, make you clean, etc. This is the one Divine call to fallen man. In it everything is summed up. Made in sundry times and in divers manners, it ever remains substantially the same. The essence of moral beauty is goodness. Now goodness is not a quality deposited in the heart and there shut up; nor yet a something to put on as a garment at will. Rather it is the fruit of well-doing--the outgrowth of a righteous life. This is what God requires. This is to be the outcome of His redeeming love. But it cannot be accomplished without the cooperating activity of the human will. While the hands are besmeared with blood--the token of an immoral life--all natural refinements are of very little value in His sight. God is uncompromising here. Our greatest happiness is to do good. By doing good we shall find the highest good. This then is the great lesson of life--Cease to do evil; learn to do well.
2. The word learn suggests a further thought, namely, the ground of this demand for reform. Man is evil and does evil. Even those who take the most sanguine view of human nature admit that there is something wrong in mans moral constitution.
3. To estimate rightly, however, this cause, we must consider the justice of the demand. It is God who makes it. But He could not have made it unless it were just to do so; nor would He have made it unless it were possible for man to meet it.
II. HOW TO MEET GODS DEMAND. Where is the power to come from? Two answers only are possible: either it is inherent in man--this is the answer of nature or it is supplied from without--this is the answer of grace.
1. The answer of nature. The belief in the ability of man to reform himself is founded either on ignorance of the real nature of his moral condition, as was the case in the pagan world, or on a deliberate refusal to recognise the truth when it is presented concerning that condition, as was the case in Judaism, and is the case at the present day with those who persuade themselves to a belief in the infinite intrinsic capability of human nature. Such is the pride of man, that he is ever slow to admit his own weakness. No, says the modem enthusiast: I regret the new light, for the demands it makes upon me are far too humiliating; I see no reason why a man, given the necessary favourable environments, should not, by a little effort, become perfectly good. Neither the religion of the pagan world, nor the philosophy of the Greeks, nor the power and civilisation of the Romans afford much ground for this belief in human nature. Wisdom then, under the most favourable circumstances, has failed to supply the necessary power to reform the World. Neither the enactments of a Roman senate, nor the Acts of a modern Parliament, nor any power of law, can make man good or even moral. Justice by itself, no more than wisdom, can remove the evil. But nowhere is the inadequacy of wisdom and of law to draw forth the power there is in man to reform his own character, better illustrated than in the case of the chosen people of Israel. They could boast of a wisdom more divine than that of the Greeks, a system of law superior to that of the Romans; while in virtue of their peculiar privileges as a nation they were in an incomparably more advantageous position than any other people, to succeed in their own strength, since they had a will to it. The very possession of their superior privileges, when they abused them, brought upon them a severer punishment.
2. The answer of grace. A power from without is absolutely necessary to enable man to meet the demand for reform. This power is Gods forgiveness. Come now, let us reason together, or better, let us end the dispute: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Although the demand precedes the offer of forgiveness, we are not to suppose that the work of reforming is to precede the enjoyment of the Divine gift. That indeed were impossible. As every duty of man is summed up in the command to reform, so all the riches of grace are summed up in the gift of pardon. But what peculiar virtue or power does pardon possess for producing a change of life?
(1) It is an inducement to repentance, which is the first step in the reformation of character. It induces the resolution to referrer then becomes a power in the penitent man to help him to carry out his resolution. Pardon thus bridges the chasm which exists between a knowledge of duty and the doing of it..
(2) Another function of pardon, and, perhaps, the most important of all in the reformation of character, is that it removes, or rather is itself, as its name implies, the removal of sin. Pardon will convert the criminal into a saint. The pagan world knew nothing of this. It is the power of God unto salvation. (R. E. Morris, B. A.)
God reasoning with man
The gracious promise that God will make us clean follows immediately on a most distinct commandment that we make ourselves clean. Does this seem to you inconsistent? The Jews are here exhorted to make themselves clean,, by putting away from them the evil of their doings--ceasing to do evil, learning to do well. In fact, they are spoken to just as though it had wholly rested with themselves to acquire moral purity.
1. But I dare say they were ready with their objections: they would plead that it was really of no service to decry and exhort them in one and the same breath. Of what use, they seem to say, is it for us to make any effort, unable as we confessedly are to keep the law of God? And even were we able to obey for the future, is there not past disobedience for which we have yet to be reckoned with? It is much in this way that men still receive exhortations to repentance and amendment; for such exhortations belong to the Gospel as much as to the law. And what do men say in reply? The minister, teaching as he does the doctrine of human corruption and helplessness, it is absurd that he should tell men to repent. Is he not contradicting himself? It was, we may believe, in the face of such arguments as these, that God challenged me Jews to controversy in the words of our text. Is this the way, the Almighty seems to exclaim. in which you treat My urgent admonitions to amendment! Come now, let us reason together! But with what sort of reasoning are the objectors met? Perhaps you look for some subtle and ingenious argument. Yet you have no argument at all; you have only the promise--a most free and gracious one, but still only a promise--Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. But how does the promise do away with the objection? Only thus,--God states this to be His appointed way; He designs to save men in this manner, and therefore is this manner prescribed.
The parties to whom He will impart additional grace are those who, in obedience to His call, are straining every nerve to forsake evil ways. It is not that they are able of themselves to work out a moral amendment; but it is that God intends to bestow on them the ability whilst they are making the effort.
2. And, perhaps, the Jews raised more general objections. They may have murmured at Gods dealings, without selecting this or that particular instance, just as men are now disposed to arraign the appointments of Heaven as severe or unjust. The chapter in which our text occurs is full of indignant rebuke, and vehement threatenings, and it may not be imagined that a haughty people would fail to resent being so sternly addressed, and deny the equity of the judgments which the prophet foretold. If this be supposed, then God invites men to reason with Him on the goodness of His dealings. Come, let us clear the scene for the controversy. Come, all of you who think you are in any way hardly dealt with by God--that His dispensations are not such as might have been looked for--Come, let us reason together. You need not, therefore, hesitate to utter plainly what you think, and to make statement of your grievances. Well, what have you to say? You urge, it may be, that your lot is one of poverty, that troubles are multiplied beyond your power of endurance, and temptations beyond your power of resistance. Some of you, perhaps, plead that, born as you are with corrupt tendencies, and placed where there is everything to incite and strengthen them, you have really no chance of keeping out of vice; that you are summoned to duties which are manifestly too arduous, and threatened, if you fail, with punishments which are manifestly excessive. You expect that God will take your complaints one by one, and either show them to be groundless, or, if He admit certain evils, show them more than counterpoised by blessings. Or, again, you expect that, as far as you have dwelt on trials peculiar to yourselves, God win patiently weigh them, prove them not excessive, or trace out beneficial results which they are calculated to produce. Well, this is very natural; I think it is just what would be, if the debate were with a mere human reasoner. But you will hearken in vain if you expect from God this careful exposure of the fallacy or falseness of your statements. There is heard nothing but the beautiful promise: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The right use of reason
The occurrence of the word reason warrants my speaking to you on the right use of reason, and warning you against mistakes into which some are apt to fall.
1. If you hear some objections to Christianity which you are not able to answer, do not on that account conclude that they cannot be answered,--have the modesty to believe that others may be able to explain what is too hard for you. There is one evidence which I can promise you: if you read the Bible carefully and prayerfully the Bible will speak for itself.
2. And, besides the evidences of Christianity, reason has a great part to perform in regard to the doctrines. It would be as great a fallacy as could be alleged against the Gospel were it to be said that it does not commend itself to man as exactly what he needs, so that when he receives it it must be on the strength of external testimony and not at all in the consciousness of its meeting his necessities. I do not say that reason can trace in every point the connection between the death of Christ and the pardon of sin; but, at all events, reason can clearly make out that, because Gods honour is provided for by the sacrifice of Calvary, and that this sacrifice must have been of so stupendous a value as to render possible the salvation of every human being,--there is, therefore, nothing to shrink from in the challenge of our text. I am jealous for reason; I will not, indeed, bum an idolatrous incense before reason; as though I held it sufficient for mans guidance, wanderer as he is in a darkened world; but let reason keep her right province, and in place of jostling with revelation, she will put revelation on a throne, and then reverently and submissively prostrate herself before it. For it is quite wretched to think how many a man loses his soul because he will not humble his reason. The directions are very plain; do not puzzle yourselves with any difficulties; the directions are--Cease to do evil, learn to do well. Make a beginning. Many a man loses his soul by neglecting to act at once on some truth which has been brought home to his conscience. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Religion rational
I. Take that basal truth which lies at the bottom of all reasonable religion--THE BEING OF GOD. The doctrine of the existence of God is reasonable. To believe that there is no self-conscious power behind the world to account for it, is irrational. It argues nothing that all minds do not see God behind nature; all minds do not see the beauty of art; all ears are not ravished with music.
II. Again, we are living under A MORAL GOVERNMENT that is reasonable, one that can be defended and rested in. A moral government is here, which brings evil to its doom, and makes right safe and successful in the long run.
It is rational, and can be defended, as it can be understood. All sin is irrational and utterly indefensible.
III. Take again some of the FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS OF SUPERNATURAL RELIGION.
1. The doctrine of the incarnation is reasonable. Whether the incarnation is or is not reasonable depends upon your conception of God. If He is like men generally, a sort of incarnate selfishness, out of sympathy with suffering, indifferent to the miseries of the world, then the incarnation is unreasonable. But if God is love, and loves His children as we love ours, then the incarnation is reasonable, it is inevitable.
2. Then again His life in the flesh is rational The Gospels narrate just what we might expect God to do if He came here.
3. Then it was reasonable that He should die. The principle was in the heart of God from an eternity. The Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. Sacrifice was not foreign to the nature of God and suddenly invoked for a specific occasion or emergency; it was eternal with Him. The atonement is the most rational of all rational truths. The principle at its heart is at the heart of nature; it is at the heart of humanity. It is the condition on which rests the worlds best life.
4. And the same can be claimed for the resurrection. The resurrection of Christ is a rational doctrine. It is the fitting climax to the life behind it, to the mission upon which He came. It was not fitting in the nature of things that death should hold in its grip such a life. It was due to the majesty of truth and virtue that such vindication should be appealed to.
IV. Turn now to some of the PRACTICES REQUIREMENTS of the Biblical religion.
1. Take that initial requirement of faith. Faith is reasonable. The best things are out of sight. We rise toward our highest possibilities only as we live by the unseen.
2. Repentance is a reasonable demand.
3. Closely connected with faith and repentance is confession. Confession of sin is rational, but so is the confession of Jesus Christ.
4. The duties of Christianity are reasonable. Prayer is a rational exercise of the soul. If we have a Father in heaven it is reasonable that we should come into touch with Him. And so of the means of grace in their entirety. The use of the means of grace is reasonable and right. Effects come through well-defined causes always and everywhere. The use of the Church to the utmost of its power to serve us is a rational procedure. We have no great saints among those who ignore the Church of Jesus Christ. There is one conclusion: a set of opinions and beliefs that will not bear the test of reason had better be abandoned. A life that you cannot defend and justify had better be given up. We had better put our life on a basis that can be justified at every point. (S. H. Howe.)
Gods argument with man
It has been pointed out to us that in the opening verses of Isaiahs book we seem to be present in a Law Court, at some Assize, and it is a Crown case that is on. And the Crown is present in person to argue and plead its own cause. God and His people Israel are the parties concerned, and God is heard in argument establishing the charge He makes, sweeping away utterly the pleas and excuses that are offered, until in this verse He seems to sum up the position, and the case comes to a most wonderful and unexpected and Divine conclusion. The people are brought in guilty on every count. Any attempt at justifying their conduct but makes it worse, and covers them with darker guilt. The case has gone so clearly against them, their arguments have proved so utterly worthless, the verdict is so certain, that we are almost waiting in silence for the dread sentence to be uttered. But lo! instead of the sentence of condemnation and punishment, pardon, perfect and complete, is offered. I have given you the case of God versus Israel, but it is a typical one repeated from age to age. It is equally the Case of God versus man, God versus the sinner. It is a case in which we are not spectators, we are ourselves the defendants. God is here in argument with us, in argument against us, and He sums up the whole by the gracious declaration, Admit the force of My reasoning, yield yourselves to it, confess yourselves convicted and condemned, and My mercy shall have its free and triumphant exercise upon you. (W. Perkins.)
The reasoning God
God reasons with man--that is the first article of religion with Isaiah. God addresses mans mind, intelligence, conscience. There are two great falsehoods in the world about God.
1. That He is too great to reason with man; that He never gives any reason for anything He commands or does.
2. That God Himself is not a reasonable Being at all. It is a falsehood not openly declared in so many words, but a practice adopted in the lives of men. Men act as though they believe they could impose upon God. Let us try to follow Gods reasoning in this chapter. There is a threefold basis of reasoning laid down.
I. God reasons with man ON THE BASIS OF MANS WHOLE LIFE. God said to man, Come, let us reason together. Very well, says man, let this be the ground of our reasoning. Look at my life as it lies within the circle of its religious action and exercises, the sacrifices I bring to you, the incense I offer, the fasts I make. Let us reason on that basis, let us take our stand there. And as you will see in this chapter, God utterly rejects reasoning like this, and says, No, no; I must deal with you on the basis of your whole life, not any limited and selected part of it which you choose to present and urge. Now there is great significance in this connection in the opening words of this chapter. God cries out to earth and heaven, and says, These are the only limits of mans life I can recognise--the earth on which he walks, on the surface of which everything is done, the heavens over his head, which look down upon every transaction of his life; that is the basis of My reasoning, and that alone. It is well for us to remember this, for today men are trying continually to reason with God on some narrow chosen ground of their own.
II. God reasons with men or THE BASIS OF HIS OWN FATHERHOOD. You will see how in this chapter He reminds all men of it, gives men proofs of it, tells men He has fulfilled it in relation to them. Admit, He says, My Fatherhood, and what does your life look like in the light of it? How unnatural and base it becomes. You sink below the brute. This is Gods reasoning, and who of us can stand against it?
III. God reasons with man or THE BASIS OF SINS RESULTS. He says, You have rebelled against Me. Has it justified itself in its success? And God gives the answer in searching and terrible words Why should ye be stricken any more? etc. (verses 5-8). He points them to the terrible and pitiful results which have come to pass for the Individual and the nation through their disobedience towards God; and He challenges them, and says, Now, look at it as I have reasoned it out with you. This is Gods argument still. If we would listen, we might hear His voice in His Word, and in our consciences, saying, Tell me, O men and women who are living without Me and in sin, what good has your sin ever done you! There is no answer. And so we are led to the crisis of my text. We seem to be in the presence of a great dilemma. Either God must abate His claims, lower rebellion, or else logic must rule, justice must have its way. The first of these we know God cannot do. It would wreck His universe if God declined from the absolute right, it would bring ruin and shame wherever created and finite beings are found. If that be impossible, what remains? Oh, there seems to be an awful moment between that first clause of the text and what follows. Come now, let us bring our reasoning to an end. There is nothing more to be said. The case has gone against you; all your arguments have fallen to the ground. What remains? We wait to hear, and instead of the dread sentence of wrath and judgment come the words of mercy: Though your sins be as scarlet, etc. Right in between the eternal and infinite righteousness and the sinners doom mercy breaks in, pardon perfect and complete. So great the change that when a man feels the pardon in his heart, he can turn his face and address himself hopefully to that great ideal of life which the law of God presents. Wash you, make you clean, etc. And then, the soul within us rises up and asks, Why is this, if God be infinitely reasonable, if He reasons with such force and conclusion, why does He not follow out His reasoning to its logical conclusion? Why does He spare and pardon the sinner taken red-handed in his sin? Why, simply because there is something more scarlet than the scarlet of a sinners sin, that covers the sinners sin, and makes Gods pardon a just and rightful thing. There is a fountain filled with blood, etc. (W. Perkins.)
Men invited to reason with God
1. God is a moral agent. That He has moral character is sufficiently manifest from the revealed fact that man is made in His image.
2. God is also a good Being--not only moral, but holy and wise. He always acts upon good and sufficient reasons, and never irrationally and without reasons for His conduct.
3. God is always influenced by good reasons. Good reasons are more sure to have their due and full weight on His mind than on the mind of any other being in the universe.
I. WHAT IS THAT TO WHICH THIS TEXT INVITES US? Come now, and let us reason together. But what are we to reason about? The passage proceeds to say, Though your sins be as scarlet, etc. In the previous context God makes grievous charges against men Now, He comes down to look into their case and see if there be any hope of repentance, and proceeds to make a proposals Come, etc. Produce your strong reasons why your God should forgive your great sin.
II. The invitation, coupled with the promises annexed, implies that THERE ARE GOOD AND SUFFICIENT REASONS WHY GOD SHOULD FORGIVE THE PENITENT. Sinners may so present their reasons before God as to ensure success.
III. The nature of the case shows that WE ARE TO ADDRESS OUR REASONS AND MAKE OUR APPEAL, NOT TO JUSTICE BUT TO MERCY. We are to present reasons which will sanction the exercise of mercy. (C. G. Finney.)
Reasons for pardon and sanctification
I. THE REASONS WHICH MAY BE OFFERED WHY GOD SHOULD PARDON OUR SIN.
1. You may plead that you entirely justify God in all His course. You must certainly take this position, for He cannot forgive you so long as you persist in self-justification. You know beyond all question that all the wrong is on your side and all the right on Gods side. You might and should know also that you must confess this, You need not expect God to forgive you till you do.
2. You may come to God and acknowledge that you have no apology whatever to make for your sin.
3. You must also be ready to renounce all sin, and be able in all honesty to say this before God.
4. You must unconditionally submit to His discretion. Nothing lees than this is the fitting moral position for a sinner towards God.
5. You may plead the life and death of Jesus Christ as sufficient to honour the law and justify God in showing mercy. Pardon must not put in peril the holiness or justice of Jehovah. The utmost expression He could make, or needs to make of His holiness and justice, as touching the sins of man, is already made in the death of Christ, whom God did Himself set forth to be a propitiation, etc.
6. You may also urge His professed love for sinners.
7. He has also invited you to come and reason with Him. Therefore He has fully opened the way for the freest and fullest communion on this point. You may also plead His honour; that, seeing He is under oath, and stands committed before the universe, you may ask Him what He will do for His great name if He refuse to forgive a repentant and believing sinner. You may plead all the relations and work of Christ. You may say to Him, Lord, will it not induce other sinners to come to Thee? Will it not encourage Thy Church to labour and pray more for salvation? Will not Thy mercy shown to me prove a blessing to thousands! You may urge the influence of refusing to do so. You may suggest that His refusal is liable to be greatly misapprehended; that it may be a scandal to many; and that the wicked will be emboldened to say that God has made no such exceeding great and precious promises. You may urge that there is joy in heaven, and on earth also, over every sinner pardoned and saved. You may urge, that, since God loves to make saints happy in this world, He surely will not be averse to giving you His Spirit and putting away your sins--it will cause such joy in the hearts of His dear people. You may also plead the great abhorrence you have of living in sin, as you surely will unless He forgives you. Tell Him, moreover, how wretched you are, and must be in your sins, if you cannot find salvation, and what mischief you will be likely to do everywhere, on earth and in hell, if you are not forgiven and renewed in holiness.
II. THE REASONS WHICH MAY BE URGED BY THE PARDONED SINNER WHO PLEADS FOR ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION.
1. You may plead your present justification.
2. You may plead your relation to Him, to the Church, and to the world--that, having now been justified and adopted into His family, you are known as a Christian and a child of God, and it therefore becomes of the utmost consequence that you should have grace to live so as to adorn your profession, and honour the name by which you are called. You may also plead your great responsibilities, and the weight of those interests that are depending upon your spiritual progress. Plead the desire you feel to be completely delivered from sin. Ask Him if He has not given you this very desire Himself, and inquire if He intends to sharpen your thirst and yet withhold the waters of life. Plead also His expressed will. Appeal to His great love to you, as manifested in what Christ has done, etc. Tell Him how you have stumbled many by your falls into sin, and have given great occasion of reproach to the cause you love; tell Him you cannot live so. Tell Him of your willingness to make any sacrifice; that you are willing to forego your good name, and to lay your reputation wholly upon His altar. Be sure to remind Him that you intend to be wholly disinterested and unselfish in this matter; you ask these things not for your own present selfish interest; you are aware that a really holy life may subject you to much persecution. You want to represent Him truly. Then tell Him of your great weakness, and how you entirely distrust yourself. Tell Him you shall go away greatly disappointed if you do not receive the grace you ask and need. Remarks--
1. Whenever we have considered the reasons for Gods actions till they have really moved and persuaded us, they will surely move Him. God is not slow--never slower than we, to see the reasons for showing mercy and for leading us to holiness.
2. Many fail in coming to God because they do not treat Him as a rational being.
3. Many do not present these reasons, because in honesty they cannot.
4. When we want anything of God, we should always consider whether we can present good reasons why it should be granted.
5. All who are in any want are invited to come and bring forward their strong reasons.
6. Of all beings, God is most easily influenced to save. He is by His very nature disposed to save the lost. (C. G. Finney.)
The cultivation of the reason
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! In this well-known panegyric on man the great dramatist puts the reason foremost: How noble in reason! and, perhaps, the reason is the prime dignity of man. It is by it, more than ought else, that man is separated from the inferior animals. It is by it that he rules over them. It is by the development of reason that one race outstrips another in the course of progress, and this is the accepted standard by which we measure greatness between man and man. Therefore the cultivation of the reason must be a subject of supreme and even religious interest to all who wish to attain to a noble and well-developed manhood. (J. Stalker, D. D.)
The reason
I. THE WORK OF THE REASON.
1. The reason is the faculty by which, from things already known, we advance to conclusions which these imply, but which, till the act of reason is performed, are unknown; so the work of the reason is a kind of creative work, and do you not think there is an inkling of that in the kind of exultation with which we complete any difficult act of reasoning, or even hear a speaker completing it? I think every schoolboy feels a touch of this exultation when he sees a sum at which he is working coming right, and every housewife feels it when she sees that the two sides of her accounts are about to balance exactly. In a court of law, at the conclusion of the evidence the facts often appear to the Jury a confused mass, pointing in no particular direction; but when a skilful advocate rises, and taking hold of the evidence, separating one thing from another, and laying this beside that, shows that from the confused mass there emerges a necessary, irresistible conclusion, how delightful it is to listen to that. The whole science of mathematics is deduced from a few simple axioms. To these an ordinary mind might give assent, without observing that anything might be implied; but the practised intellect deducts from them, step by step, a magnificent system of truth. Thus, the reason, bringing its forces to bear on the raw materials of knowledge supplied by the lower faculties, infers from them a more advanced and lofty knowledge of its own.
2. But now, I would like to give a clearer and simpler explanation of what its work is. The reason may be called the faculty of comparison, or the faculty by which we perceive the connections or relations of things. These relations between things with which the reason has to deal are of different kinds, but of whatever kind they are, the reason has to deal with them.
(1) One of them is that of means and ends. Something requires to be done, but how? It is the work of the reason to find that out.
(2) Another relation between things which is still more important for the reason, is that of cause and effect. The word why is a great word of the reason, and its sister word is because. Wherever why and because are coming into speech, there reason is at work.
(3) But this process can be turned the other way. Instead of looking at phenomena, and asking how they come there, we can say, Given certain things, what will be the consequence! Suppose there are certain conditions, what will follow from them? If fire and gunpowder are brought into contact, we know what will follow. If people live in a polluted atmosphere, we know what the result will be to their bodies. But we cannot deal much with such relations without this question arising, How do these relations come to subsist between things?
(4) One of the greatest triumphs of the reason is to find out the laws of nature, e.g., the law of gravitation. Newton discovered that law, and applied it first to some trivial things; then he and others applied it to more distant and sublime things, until we now know it to be a law prevailing in the whole system of things, and among the bodies that roll in space; but how comes it that all the bodies in earth and heaven are directed by this law? As the mind thus moves through nature it finds that it cannot go arbitrarily. The divisions which it makes are in nature before it finds them. In short, nature is intelligent--aye, and it is moral, because nature is seen to be so arranged as to encourage certain lines of action, and to discourage certain other lines of action. The stars in their courses, so to speak, fight against evil and on the side of righteousness. And does not that look as if behind nature there were some One who is intelligent, and who, because He orders nature so as to make for righteousness, is good?
II. THE CULTIVATION OF THE REASON. This faculty is bestowed on different individuals in very different degrees. To those intended by the Creator to be leaders of their fellows, it is given in liberal measure. There are multitudes of others whose ideas are habitually vague and feeble. Reason may be given in different forms, some of which are more conscious, and some more unconscious. Reason in the unconscious form, we call by such names as tact, or common sense. The science of logic has for its aim the making visible to the eye the process through which the mind passes in reasoning, whether it is conscious of this process or not, and at the same time it makes visible, so as to show their absurdity, the different kinds of fallacious reasoning; and there can be no doubt that the study of that science is one of the best means of cultivating the mind.
III. THE RELIGIOUS USE OF REASON. The marks of God are on all things that He has made, and by collecting these from all places where they can be seen, the reason apprehends His eternal power and Godhead, and never in the reason of man so nobly employed as when thus it is collecting the indications of God, so as to convert them into a correct and impressive conception of what He is, or when it is vindicating His existence and His character against the attacks of unbelief. Our text says, Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord, and one of the commonest complaints of the Bible is that people will not reason. Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider. That is the complaint all through the prophets. It is always taken for granted that if people only would think, they would love and obey God. One of the commonest names in the Bible for sin is folly. At the present time we have need of a reasoned Christianity, because Christianity is tending far too much to sentimentalism and sensationalism. Christian work is becoming so absorbing that men have not leisure to think, and if Christians do not think, Christianity will before long suffer the consequences, and they will be hard to bear. (J. Stalker, D. D.)
The Gospel of pardoning mercy as preached by the prophets of the kingdom
Analyse carefully the picture of the sins which the prophet sets before his people, as preliminary to his glorious, full and free offer of mercy.
1. A marked feature of the portraiture, here drawn, is that they are sinners under the light of Jehovahs special revelations and appointed ordinances.
2. These sinners are such in face of every obligation of love and gratitude to Jehovah, arising out of peculiar blessings and privileges.
3. Yet in the midst of all these mercies, sin everywhere abounds. The public men and the people alike are corrupt.
4. All this wickedness clothes itself in the garb of religion. Having considered to whom he speaks, let us consider what it is the prophet says to all such. It embraces three points chiefly.
I. A PROPOSITION TO STOP AND REASON THE MATTER WITH JEHOVAH. The proposition is very suggestive; both of the cause why men continue to live in sin; and of the means and process whereby Jehovah would bring them back to Himself. The grand cause of the continuance in sin is that men will not reason of the matter. It is not that they do not know enough; but they do not reason concerning what they do know.
II. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE PARLEY--sin and its consequences.
III. THE REMEDY FOR SIN--its effectiveness, certainty, and readiness. (S. Robinson, D. D.)
Pardon for aggravated sin
Though your sins be as scarlet, and red like crimson. The critics tell us that one of the terms here refers to the outward appearance, glaring, attracting and fixing the attention; the other, from a root signifying double-dipped, refers to the ineffaceable stain of sin upon the soul; a stain that no rain, nor sunshine, nor dew can ever wash out, or bleach. The meaning is, however aggravated your sins may be. What, then, are some of the circumstances that aggravate sin? Sins are aggravated--
1. When committed against special light and knowledge.
2. When committed against special obligations of gratitude.
3. From the social position of those who sin, or their relative position towards others, or their peculiar gifts and endowments which give them influence over others.
4. As committed against special covenants and vows. (S. Robinson, D. D.)
God reasoning with man
This text strikes at the root of the wicked notion that man is under an arbitrary government, that he is a mere slave, or a mere machine, and that he is controlled apart from principles that are moral. He is addressed almost as the equal of the Almighty. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God reasoning with man
The proposition comes from God. It does not arise from the human side at all.
1. God having made this proposition proceeds upon the assumption that He knows Himself to be right in this case. The man who knows himself to be in the right is always the first to make the noblest propositions, and to offer as many concessions as are possible without impairing the law of absolute right, truth, and propriety. If amongst ourselves we do so, it is in an infinitely higher degree true in the case of Almighty God. He makes the proposition to His rebel. This proposition is not only the proof of the grace of God; but that grace itself is the vindication of His righteousness. He knows He is right in the court of reason; that if the case be fully stated the criminal will convict himself, he will burn with shame, and cry out for the judgment that is just. We are not wrong partially, not wrong here and there, with little spots of light and blue, between the errors, but we are wrong altogether,--shamefully, infamously wrong!
2. Yet God knowing this, asks us to reason the case with Him. Showing us, in the next place, that God proceeds upon the assumption that man ought to be prepared to vindicate his conduct by reasons. God says, Why do you do this! Let Me know your reasons for having done so. Will you state your case to Me! I give you the opportunity of stating your own casein your own terms. Observe how wonderfully influential, when rightly accepted, is a proposition of this kind. If men would think more they would sin less. Logic is against you as well as theology. Common sense is against you as well as spiritual revelation. This is the strength and the majesty of the Christian faith, that it challenges men by the first principles of reasoning to defend themselves, as sinners, before the Almighty.
3. But there is something to be remembered at this point. If God could trifle with righteousness in making a case up with us, His own throne would be insecure, His own heaven would not be worth having. In taking care of righteousness He is taking care of us. Herein do men greatly err. Talking upon religious questions, they say, Why does not God come down and forgive us all! That is precisely what God Himself wants to do. Only even God cannot forgive, until we ourselves want to be forgiven.
4. With all this before me I am driven to this conclusion, that now the sinner is left absolutely without excuse. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God reasoning with man
I. THE PARTIES INVITED. Who are these? They are those of whom it is said, their sins are as scarlet, and red like crimson--terms which clearly convey the idea that there are no sins so heinous that they may not be forgiven, and no men so wicked that they may not be saved. These terms designate bright, glowing, easily-seen colours, teaching most explicitly, in their present connection, that sin, though so large as to fill the public eye, nevertheless may be pardoned. Indeed, I cannot help thinking that the language of the prophet here has also a symbolical meaning, and that as crimson is the colour of the blood, there is set before us the thought that not merely the flagrant transgressor, but the atrocious criminal--the man whose hands have been imbued in the blood of his fellow man--is declared to be within the reach of the Divine mercy. And I am fortified in this persuasion by the words of the Master, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
II. THE INVITATION GIVEN THEM. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. What forcibly impresses us in this statement is not only the all-embracing sweep of the Divine mercy, but the singular way in which this mercy is offered. The usual manner in which a superior makes known his will to an inferior is by a command. The master gives his orders to his servant. The parent commands his child, and the language of royal personages is never the language of solicitation. But we have here the King of kings, and Lord of lords, very unlike man, not employing force, authority, command, but condescending to reason with His creatures, and trying, as it were, by argument and persuasion, to induce them to accept His grace.
III. THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH THE INVITATION RESTS. When good news is brought to us we sometimes hesitate about receiving it. And why? Because we think it too good to be true, and are not satisfied of the entire truthfulness and fidelity to fact of the person who brings it when it was told Jacob that Joseph, his beloved son, whom he had long mourned as dead, was alive and well, and governor of Egypt, his heart fainted, for he believed them not. But here, the authority is as unassailable as the invitation is cordial, and it is issued on the authority of God Himself.
IV. THE PERIOD WHEN THE INVITATION IS GIVEN. All privileges urged upon your acceptance in the Bible are strictly applicable and limited to the very time when they are offered to you. That mental and moral inaction, so fatal to our spiritual prospects, gets no countenance from the Word of God. On the contrary, it is always denounced as fraught with the greatest dangers to our souls. (J. Imrie, M. A.)
Reasoning with God
From this passage we infer--
I. THAT MAN, THOUGH DEPRAVED, HAS STILL A FACULTY TO REASON WITH GOD.
1. This power exists as an unquestionable fact. It is a fact--
(1) Involved in the existence of a revelation. Would Infinite Reason appeal to us unless we had the power of appreciation?
(2) Implied in the considerations addressed to our reason. The Bible abounds in considerations addressed to us as to the wisdom and the folly, the right and the wrong, of our conduct.
(3) Attested by the universal consciousness of humanity.
2. This power exists as the chief glory of human nature. What is the chief glory of human nature in itself considered? Not its faculties of contrivance and logical investigation, as you see them developed in the arts and sciences. But mans power to reason with the Infinite--to take the thoughts of God and to feel their power.
3. This power exists, notwithstanding the devastations of depravity.
II. THAT MAN, THOUGH DEPRAVED, HAS NOW AN OPPORTUNITY OF REASONING WITH GOD. Whilst all sinners forever will have the power of moral reasoning, only now on earth are they invited to a merciful conference with God. This invitation implies--
1. The existence of an extraordinary principle in the Divine government of God. Antecedent reasoning would lead us to conclude that whenever a creature rebelled against the righteous government of his Creator, banishment from His holy presence would be the result. The angels that kept not their first estate, etc. God governs humanity through the mediation of Christ.
2. It denotes the astonishing condescension of God.
III. THAT MAN, THOUGH DEPRAVED, BY RIGHTLY AVAILING HIMSELF OF THIS OPPORTUNITY, MAY BE ENTIRELY CLEANSED OF HIS SINS. Though your sins be as scarlet, etc. Notice--
1. That sin has taken a very fast hold on human nature. How closely and firmly attached to human nature is sin! It has coloured not only the complexion, but the vital current, of mans life. Every thought, feeling, and expression, is tinged with the stain of sin.
2. That though it has taken this fast hold, it can be separated. The scarlet is not a part of the texture. So of sin. Though closely identified with human nature, it is not of it. Human nature can exist without it, has existed without it, will exist without it. There is a moral chemistry that can take the scarlet and the crimson from the texture of human nature.
3. That right attention to Gods reasoning will certainly and effectively remove the stain of sin. (Homilist.)
Desperate characters
I. I have to PUBLISH THE LORDS INVITATION TO DESPERATE CHARACTERS. The invitation is to those whose sins are double-dyed scarlet and crimson in colour.
1. You have had pious parents.
2. You were once a member of a Christian congregation or Church.
3. I have to give the invitation to those whose sins have made them worse than beasts.
4. And to those who are laden with iniquity.
5. And to those who are corrupters of others.
6. This all-embracing invitation is to those who have forsaken the Lord.
II. I am to give REASONS WHY DESPERATE CHARACTERS SHOULD ACCEPT THE INVITATION.
1. You say, It is impossible for me to accept of it because my heart is perfectly hardened. Impossible! If your heart is hard, come and accept the invitation, because God has promised to take away the stony heart and to give you one of flesh.
2. Again, you say, I cannot accept it, because I am so wicked. If you feel wicked it is Gods Spirit showing His light in your soul in order that you may be led to the Cross of Jesus and have your sins washed as white as snow.
3. Then somebody else answers, Well, I would accept it, but I have always failed. Though you have failed, yet come again, for our heavenly Father is noted for receiving sinners.
4. But another says, Before I came tonight I said I would not be converted. Two men were bidden to do their lords will. One of them said, I will do it; but he went away, and did it not. And the other was angry and exclaimed, I will not do thy will, but after he had gone away he repented and went and did it. Copy the example of the latter.
5. Perhaps, somebody still answers, You have not put your hand on me, for I am sunk in sin. The Bible tells me that no man can be sunk lower than the reach of the everlasting arms of God. Though you have lost your character, your honour, and your self-control, yet God invites you to be saved.
III. AN EARNEST ENTREATY FOR YOU TO COME AT ONCE. (W. Birch.)
The Lord reasoning with sinners
Let us regard these words--
I. AS ADDRESSED TO THOSE WHO ARE LIVING IN SIN. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Sinner, bring forth thy strong reasons; then hear the reasons of God. What plea will you make for not turning to God?
1. You say, perhaps, This world is all I desire. I am well content with what it gives. Its gains and pleasures suit me well. I wish for nothing beyond. Why not leave me to follow my own way? What says God in reply? The world passeth away, and the lust thereof.
2. Or, wilt thou reason thus: I have years yet before me. At a more convenient season I will seek God? What does God answer? Thou fool, this night, it may be, thy soul shall be required of thee
3. Or, dost thou say in thine heart--I hate the knowledge of Gods ways Religion is a weariness to me. I will go on as I am, and take the consequences? Dost thou know the end of the terrors of the Lord?
4. Or, is it in thy thought to say to God, Wherein have I sinned so much against Thee? Behold, He answers thee: I made thee, O man, and every power thou hast should be devoted to Me--thy life, thy health and strength, thy body and soul. Have these been devoted to Me? Has thy body been kept in soberness, temperance, and chastity? Hast thou always been led by My Spirit?
II. But the text is addressed, in its latter part more particularly, TO THOSE WHO KNOW THAT THEY HAVE DEEPLY SINNED AGAINST GOD, AND WOULD WILLINGLY, IF THEY DARED, RETURN TO HIM. What is the feeling of such? It may be, you are tempted to say, There is no hope. My sin is too great to be forgiven. Gods answer is, Come now, and let us reason together, etc. Is it not well suited to your case?
III. THE TEXT IS NOT WITHOUT ADMONITION AND COMFORT TO THE BELIEVING CHRISTIAN. (E. Blencowe, M. A.)
Forgiveness of sin
I. THE GRACIOUS CONDESCENSION AND BOUNDLESS LOVE OF GOD, IN ADDRESSING THIS INVITATION TO SINNERS. Even among friends, the offended party does not first display a disposition to be reconciled. He usually deems that the first overture should proceed from the offender. But behold the infinite condescension and compassion of the most high God toward sinful man. He does not wait till men come to a sense of their delinquencies.
II. THE IMPORT OF THE INVITATION. What is this to which God calls you? He says, Let us reason together. It seems to be an expression borrowed from courts of justice, and is tantamount to saying, Let us hear the cause of the defendants.
1. The sinner must listen to the charge--to the grand indictment, that he may know both the extent of his guilt and feel the hopelessness of his case. This charge is indeed heavy, but it must be heard. The law is holy. Let it operate on you as it did on Saul of Tarsus.
2. Observe, God is willing to hear your defence, if you can make one honestly and truly; but if not He will hear your confession. Which shall it be?
III. GOD MAY BE CONSIDERED AS ADDRESSING THOSE WHO, WITH A CONVINCED AND BROKEN HEART, ARE AFRAID TO VENTURE BEFORE HIM, and who have the sentence of condemnation and death in themselves.
IV. Let us complete the whole of this glorious theme of salvation, by calling upon you to observe, and admire, the great principle established by this text, that, WHATEVER THE MAGNITUDE OF OUR SINS MAY BE, THEY DO NOT EXCLUDE US FROM THE BENEFITS OF THE DIVINE MERCY. (The Evangelist.)
Pardoning mercy
The pardon of sin has been justly called the life blood of religion. It is this which runs through all parts of the Scripture, like the blood in our veins, and is the foremost object in the glorious Gospel.
I. The first thing in the text is A CHARGE IMPLIED, and more particularly expressed, in the former verses of this chapter. The charge is sin--sin the most aggravated. Scarlet and crimson are colours far remote from white, which is the emblem of innocence, or righteousness. (Rev_19:8.) But here sinners are represented as in garments stained with blood. The bloody, murderous, destructive nature of sin may be intended. Sin has slain its millions. (Rom_5:12.) Some understand by the word scarlet, double-dyed; as deeply tinctured by sin as possible; as when any garment has been twice dyed, first in the wool, and again in the thread or piece. So great sinners are twice dyed, first in their corrupt nature, and then again in the long confirmed habits of actual transgression. It is absolutely necessary that each of us should personally know that this is his own case.
II. THE INVITATION. True religion is the most reasonable thing in the world.
1. Is not self preservation highly reasonable? We account it the first law of nature, and should blame the man who neglects it. Is a house on fire? Let the inhabitant escape for his life.
2. Is it not reasonable for a man to do well for himself? Yes; Men will praise thee when thou doest well for thyself. We commend the honest, ingenious, industrious tradesman. Is it reasonable for a man to mind his own business? Well, one thing is needful; the care of thy soul is the business of life (Luk_10:42). Is it reasonable to improve opportunities for business, as fairs and markets? Redeem then the time, and catch the golden opportunities of gain to thy soul. Is it reasonable to make a good bargain? The Christian makes the best in the world. Is it reasonable to cultivate friendship with the wise, the good, and the great? Oh, how wise to make Christ our Friend.
3. Is it not reasonable to believe the God of truth? The Word of God has every confirmation we could wish.
4. Is not love to God and man perfectly reasonable? This is the whole of our religion. Is it reasonable or not to love the Best of beings better than all other beings?
III. THE GRACIOUS PROMISE. Though your sins, etc. The pardon of sin is the first thing in religion. It was the great business of Christ upon earth to procure it. The pardon of sin originates in the free mercy and sovereign grace of God, without respect to anything good in the creature. But we are not to expect pardon from an absolute God. Pardon is an act of justice as well as of mercy. Mercy on Gods part, but justice on account of Christ. Another thing is, that it is by faith alone we are made partakers of pardoning mercy. Notice, too, the perfection of pardon, which is expressed by making scarlet as snow, and crimson like wool. We are to understand this of the sinner, not of his sins. Pardon does not alter the nature, or lessen the evil of sin. (G. Burder, D. D.)
The reasonableness of the offers and terms of the Gospel
I. THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. The Almighty here proposes completely to take away the guilt of sin, and consequently to remit the punishment due to it. There are various kinds and degrees of sin; sins of different colours and complexions, more or less aggravated, more or less strengthened by habit and indulgence. But the offer of pardon extends to all alike. Is not this a blessing peculiarly adapted to our need? Nothing but a gratuitous remission of sin can suit our case. God deals with us in the most reasonable manner, and leaves us without excuse, if we attend not to His offer.
II. THE TERMS OF THE GOSPEL.
1. With respect to faith. Is not this a perfectly reasonable requisition? Since God has provided a salvation for you, has He not a right to stipulate the means by which you shall apply to yourself the benefit of that salvation? And what easier, simpler way could He have devised?
2. As to repentance. Is there anything unreasonable in this requisition? Can it be considered as a hard condition that we should relinquish those practices which cost the Son of God His life; and which, if He had not died for them, would have cost us our souls? If religion be in itself so reasonable a service, how can you act so unreasonably as not to choose and follow it? (E. Cooper.)
Self-scrutiny in Gods presence
I. THE DUTY OF EXAMINING OUR MORAL CHARACTER AND CONDUCT ALONG WITH GOD. There are always two beings who are concerned with sin--the being who commits it, and the Being against whom it is committed. Such a joint examination as this produces a very keen sense of the evil and guilt of sin. When the soul is shut up with the Holy One of Israel there are great searchings of heart. Another effect is to render our views discriminating. Objects are seen in their true proportions and meanings.
II. THERE IS FORGIVENESS WITH GOD. We deduce the following practical directions.
1. In all states of religious anxiety, we should betake ourselves instantly and directly to God.
2. We should make a full and plain statement of everything to god. (W. G. T. Shedd, D. D.)
Forgiveness
In this passage--
I. THERE IS ASSUMED THE EXISTENCE OF ENORMOUS GUILT. The aggravations of sin are to be found in their highest form where there are instituted powerful means to deter from its perpetration, and where yet it is committed in spite of restraints eminently calculated to direct the soul to goodness. We turn at once to the country in which we dwell, to find the sins which are as the scarlet or the crimson dye. Ours is a country, signally favoured with means the best adapted to lead from transgression, and excite to obedience.
II. THERE IS PROMISED THE BESTOWMENT OF PARDONING MERCY.
1. It might indeed have been imagined, that, after such repeated accusations of iniquity, there would succeed only a threatening of doom. Is God not just? Is He not jealous of His glory?
2. Such a promise as this is made in perfect consistency with the immutable justice and holiness of the Divine nature.
3. It will be proper to observe the manner in which the promised blessing is bestowed. God communicates forgiveness through the atoning sacrifice of His Son.
4. In order to secure the personal application of the sacrifice of Christ, there must be, in yourselves, the production of certain emotions and principles, by the operation of the Spirit of God.
5. Let us further observe, the sufficiency by which this promised blessing of forgiveness is characterised.
III. THERE IS DESIRED THE EXERCISE OF WISE CONSIDERATION. (James Parsons.)
Divine expostulation
I. THE CHARACTERS WHO ARE HERE ADDRESSED. We see the Jews charged--
1. With a gross departure from God.
2. With carrying their abominations into the religious services of the sanctuary.
II. THE CHARACTER IN WHICH GOD IS HERE REPRESENTED BY THE PROPHET--that, namely, of the most amazing condescension. Various are themethods in which God may be said to reason with us.
1. By family afflictions.
2. By personal inflictions.
3. By awful providences.
4. Through the ministry of His Word.
For what does God condescend to reason with us? For the bestowment of pardon. Your reason, in its highest powers, is challenged. (J. Gaskin, M. A.)
The silver trumpet
I. Our text is addressed to SINNERS OF THE DEEPEST DYE.
1. In the second verse you will perceive that the text was addressed to senseless sinners--so senseless that God Himself would not address them in expostulation, but called upon the heavens and the earth to hear His complaints.
2. The text is given to ungrateful sinners. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. Oh, how many of us come under this description!
3. By reading in the third verse, you will perceive again that the text is addressed to men who are worse than beasts. None of us would keep a horse for twenty years, if it never worked but only sought to injure us; and yet there are men whom God has kept these forty and fifty years, put the breath into their nostrils, the bread into their mouths, and the clothes upon their backs, and they have done nothing but curse at Him, speak ill of His service, and do despite to His laws.
4. They were a people laden with iniquity.
5. They were not only loaded with sin themselves, but they were teachers in transgressions. Children that are corrupters.
6. The blessed text we have on hand is addressed to men upon whom all manner of afflictions had been lost and thrown away. It is a great aggravation of our sin when we sin under the rod.
7. The invitation is sent to men who appeared to have been totally depraved from the sole of the foot even to the head.
II. The text presents us with REASONING OF THE MOST PREVALENT POWER.
III. The words of this text contain a PROMISE OF PARDON OF THE FULLEST FORCE. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. These colours are selected because of their exceeding brilliancy. Now some sins are striking, glaring sins; you cannot help seeing them; and the sinner himself is compelled to confess them. But the Hebrew word conveys the idea of doubly dyed--what we call ingrained colours--when the wool has lain so long in the dye that it cannot be got out; though you wash or wear it as long as you please, you must destroy the fabric before you can destroy the colour. Yet here is the promise of full pardon for glaring and for ingrained lusts. And note how the pardon is put--they shall be as snow--pure white virgin snow. But snow soon loses its whiteness, and therefore it is compared to the whiteness of the wool washed and prepared by the busy housewife for her fair white linen. You shall be so cleansed, that not the shadow of a spot, nor the sign of a sin, shall be left upon you. When a man believes in Christ, he is in that moment, in Gods sight, as though he had never sinned in all his life.
IV. THE TIME mentioned in the text, which is of the MOST SOLEMN SIGNIFICANCE. Now. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Reasons for parting with sin
It is the great joy of our heart that we do not labour in vain, nor spend our strength for nought. Still, there is a bass to this music: there are some, and these not a few, who remain unblest where others are saved. It is obvious that something hinders. What can it be? The real reason why men who have an earnest desire to be saved, and have sincere religiousness of a certain sort, do not find peace, is this, because they are in love with sin. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Let us have this matter out, and hear what is to be urged in favour of Gods demands.
I. IT IS A REASONABLE THING THAT SIN SHOULD BE RENOUNCED.
1. Because it is most inconsistent to suppose that pardon can be given while we continue in sin. How could the Judge of all the earth thus wink at iniquity? Only fancy what the effect would be upon our country if a proclamation were issued, that henceforth all manner of offences against the law would be immediately forgiven, and men might continue still to perpetrate them. And what would be the effect Upon the sinner himself if such could be the case? Say to a man--you are not to be punished for your sin, and yet you may live in it still, and what worse turn could you do him? Here is a bleeding wound in my arm; the surgeon says he will allow it still to bleed, but he will remove my sense of faintness and pain. I would decline to have it so. It is unreasonable that you should expect that God will allow you to remain impenitent, and yet give you the kiss of forgiving love. It would be neither honourable to God, nor good to your fellow men, nor really beneficial to yourself.
2. Is it not reasonable, too, that we should part with sin, because sin is so grievous to God?
3. Should it not be given up because of the mischief it has already done to man!
4. Remember, also, that unless sin is repented of and forsaken no act of yours, nor ceremony of religion, nor hearing, nor praying can possibly save you.
II. Let me now go further, and declare that IT IS MOST REASONABLE THAT MAN SHOULD SEEK PURITY OF HEART. You ask for forgiveness, and in return God says to you, Wash you, make you clean; put sway the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow. Is there not reason in this command! You practically say, Lord, enter into amity and peace with me. The Lord replies, There is no peace to the wicked: only as you become renewed in nature can there be any peace between us. Do you dam to ask God to commune with you while you are a lover of sin?
III. IF THE SINNER REMAIN IMPENITENT IT IS MOST UNREASONABLE FOR HIM TO LAY THE BLAME OF HIS NOT BEING FORGIVEN UPON THE CHARACTER OF GOD, FOR GOD IS READY TO FORGIVE.
IV. IT IS A REASONABLE THING THAT GOD SHOULD DEMAND WITH THIS PARDON OBEDIENCE TO HIS COMMAND. And what is that command? It is, If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel the sword shall devour you. Obedient to what? Obedient to all Gospel precepts. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Scarlet sinners pardoned and purified
It is a wonderful instance of Divine compassion that God should be willing to hold a conference with man. Of course, the first person to ask for such a conference ought to have been the offending party. But, instead of man seeking God, and pleading, with bitter tears, Lord, pitifully hear me; graciously listen to me, and forgive me; it is God who comes seeking man. Surely it should be a great joy to a man to hear that God invites him to a conference; he should take heart of hope from that fact. God meets man in two ways: first, by the perfect pardon of sin, and, next, by a clean deliverance from the power of sin.
I. First, I will suppose that I have before me someone who says, MY SINS ARE AS GLARING AS SCARLET. How can I ever be the friend of God as my sins are so prominent? Some peoples sins are of a drab colour, you might not notice them; other peoples sins are a sort of whitey-brown, you would scarcely perceive them; but my sins are scarlet, that is a colour that is at once observed. What sort of sins may be called scarlet?
1. The filthier vices.
2. The universally condemned sins, those sins which are offences against the State, and against the well being and social order of the community, such as dishonesty, theft, peculation in all its forms, knavery, cheating, lying.
3. The louder defiances of God. Some men dare to contradict Scripture, to express their disbelief in it, nay, to contradict God Himself even to express their disbelief in His existence; and, disbelieving in God, they dare to cavil at His providence, to judge His words, and to utter criticisms and sarcasms about the acts of the Most High.
4. Scarlet sins may consist, again, in long-continued dissipations.
5. In repeated transgressions.
6. In any act of sin which is distinctly deliberate. Do you want to know how this can be done? It is through the great atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
II. But there is a second difficulty. The man of whom I first spoke also says, MY TENDENCY TO SIN IS DEEPLY INGRAINED. He says, If all my scarlet sins were forgiven, yet I am afraid I should not be all right even then. Why not? Because I feel impulses within me towards evil which, I think, are stronger than in anybody else. Well, I will take you on your own ground; I do believe that there are some persons who have a greater hereditary tendency to some sins than others have. Still, though your sins be red like crimson, they shall be as wool God knows how to effect this transformation by the working of the Holy Spirit. Oh! says another, I should not mind about hereditary tendencies; but my difficulty is that I have been habitually committing sin. The Holy Spirit will help you to break off every sinful habit at once. You know that scarlet and crimson are colours very hard to get out of any fabric. Neither the dew, nor the rain, nor any ordinary processes of bleaching, will get out the scarlet. But God knows how, without destroying the fabric, to take out a fifty years crimson habit, and not leave a stain behind. I heard a third person say, The trouble with me is that I have such feeble mental resistance to evil, I am so weak, such a poor fool. Well, you are not much of a fool if you know you are; the biggest fools are those who never know that they are fools. Still, there are people of this kind. Now, if you will come and reason with God, and yield yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit, He will put a backbone into you. Still, perhaps, I have not quite hit the nail on the head with all of you. Some are entangled by their circumstances. But Gods grace can deliver you. There is nothing like making up your mind that you are coming right straight out from everything that is wrong, let it cost whatever it may. What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? The ship is going down, and if your little boat is tied to it, you will go down too. Up with the axe, and cut the rope! I think I hear another say, But I am a man of such strong passions. They must be got rid of; and I do not know of any surgical operation that can do it; you will have to be born again, that is the only real cure. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Dyeing and bleaching
All men can dye their souls, but, as saith a quaint divine, only God can bleach them. It is in our power to dye ourselves into all colours, but only God can make us white. The idea is that there is no human condition too desperate for Divine treatment. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The theology of colours
There is a philosophy of colours; there is a theology of hues; and it hath pleased God to represent purity by whiteness. The saints above are robed in white; they who love God are clothed in white raiment now, and it is the harlot of the earth that is scarleted and that lives in her significant redness. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Scarlet and crimson sins
Sins are here likened to scarlet and crimson dye, and with good reason, indeed. For, first of all, scarlet and crimson are the most glaring and flaunting of colours; and sin is the most audacious as well as self-delusive appearance, under which man affronts the majesty of God in the sight of heaven and earth. Scarlet and crimson, also, are the blush of shame. And what so shameful as sin, or rather what can be shameful but sin! Scarlet and crimson are also the colour of blood; and blood is on the head of every sinner, as St: Paul, told the unbelieving Jews when they refused to be converted from their sins: Your blood be upon your own heads And scarlet and crimson were (whatever they may be now) colours which it was beyond all mens power and skill to discharge from the cloth which had been ones dyed with them. And is it not equally beyond all mans power to cleanse his own soul from the dye of sin? (R. W.Evans, B. D.)
Almightys white
A preacher admired the whiteness of a washerwomans clothes. There they hung upon the line, beautifully white, as compared with the dark slates of the roof of the house behind them. But after a snow storm had come on, which covered the roofs and streets with a mantle of unsullied purity, they seemed to have lost all their whiteness. And when he said to her, The clothes do not look quite so white as they did, she replied, Ah, sir! the clothes are as white as they were, but what can stand against God Almightys white? (Life of Saith.)
Come now
Do you know, that as I live, wrote James Smetham, I become more and more impressed by one word, and that word is Now!
Scarlet sins
We have some little difficulty, said a scientific lecturer, with the iron dyes; but the most troublesome of all are Turkey red rags. You see I have dipped this into my solution; its red is paler, but it is still strong. If I steep it long enough to efface the colour entirely the fibre will be destroyed; it will be useless for our manufacture. How, then, are we to dispose of our red rags? We leave their indelible dye as it is, and make them into red blotting paper. Perhaps you have wondered why our blotting pad is red; now you know the reason. What a striking illustration of the fitness and force of this figure of Gods Word, and of the power of the precious blood of Jesus to change and cleanse is furnished by the above explanation! The Spirit of God led the prophet Isaiah to write, not though your sins be as blue as the sky, or as green as the olive leaf, or as black as night. He chose the very colour which modern science, with all its appliances, finds to be indestructible--though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Roses speaking of sin and forgiveness
One night in June, a few years ago, Sister Margaret was going home from her work in the streets, sad at heart because of the sin and misery about her, and somewhat disappointed at what seemed a night of fruitless toil. She had taken with her a bunch of flowers, and now they were all withered except two roses that had kept their freshness--the one a deep red, the other a pure white. As she looked at them, the words occurred to her mind, Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Suddenly looking up, she saw in the shadow of a doorway in Piccadilly a young girl, a picture of utter despair. The sister came to her and held out the roses; but the girls face at once hardened scornfully, and she turned away. Quietly the sister followed her, when the girl turned and said angrily, Why do you come to me with flowers? Do you want to torment me? Do you know what these roses seemed to say to me--this white and this red rose? said the sister, kindly. The message they spoke was this: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Yes, said the girl, that is all very well for you, but I am not fit to touch them. Oh, but the message is meant for you as much as for me, and again the sister held out the flowers. Then the girl burst into tears, I will take them and keep them for my mothers sake. She sent me two roses in her last letter. I have got them now in the Bible she gave me when I left home to come to London. It was an easy thing now to urge the message of love. That night the girl left her life of sin and came simply to the Saviour. She was soon restored to her home in the country, and her new life has been a blessing to many. Frequently there comes from her a box of flowers to Sister Margaret, with the message: Give these to the girls; a flower saved me. It may do as much for somebody else. (M. Guy Pearse.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv18–19 Isa_1:18. Come now, and. let us reason together, saith…
GOD’S GRACIOUS INVITATION TO SINNERS
Isa_1:18. Come now, and. let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
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It is scarcely possible to conceive of a more interesting and delightful exhibition of the love and mercy of God than is presented to us in these words; unless they had been found in the volume of eternal truth, we might have justly doubted their veracity. For the speaker is Jehovah, a Being infinitely happy and glorious in Himself. He needs not, on His own account, the return of the sinner to Himself. Besides, He is the offended party. How marvellous, then, that He should stoop to ask reconciliation with poor wretched man, the rebel and traitor against heaven. Notice—
I. The characters addressed. Not such as excel in moral excellency, but the vilest and most degraded of sinners. How apt we are to think that such are past reclamation. Yet it is to these that the invitation of our text is addressed—those whose sins are as scarlet and crimson. This description includes—
1. Those whose sins are glaring and manifest. In the heart of men there is much evil that man or angel never sees. External circumstances act in the moral world as the shore to the ocean, limiting and bounding its waters. The control thus exerted upon men is well for them, for society, and for the Church. But numbers cast it off, sin in open day, and glory in their shame. Their sins are as scarlet or as crimson.
2. Those whose iniquities are specially productive of much evil and misery—ringleaders in sin; ridiculers of piety, who labour to throng the road to hell; ungodly masters; ungodly heads of households, &c.
3. Those who have sinned against great privileges and mercies (Mat_11:20-24.) As it is with nations and cities, so it is with individuals [382] How many have had privileges of a high character—pious parents, religious society, a faithful ministry, special providences, &c.
4. Backsliders, who by their fall have hardened others in iniquity, and caused them to scoff at religion.
5. Aged transgressors.
[382] All our sins are of a “crimson dye, for remember, it is not needful to have steeped our hands in a brother’s blood to make our guilt “scarlet.” God measures sins by privileges. One evil thought in one man is as much as a thousand crimes in auother man.—Vaughan.
II. The invitation presented. “Come and let us reason,” &c. He wishes to have your state and condition tested by reason. He gives you opportunities of self-defence; he is willing to hear all your motives, arguments, &c. Now, will you come to God, and reason with Him? What will you say?
1. You cannot plead ignorance. You have seen the evil of your way, and yet have chosen it.
2. You cannot plead necessity. The Jews of old declared that they were not free agents, and that they could not help committing the sins of which they were guilty (Jer_7:10). This is the grossest self-deception. It cannot be the will of God that you should do evil (1Th_4:3; Jas_1:13; 1Pe_1:16). To attribute our sins to Him is the most outrageous impiety. You have sinned freely; it has been your own act and choice.
3. You must plead guilty. Cast yourself on the mercy of God, pleading guilty, you shall not be condemned, if—
4. You plead the merits of Christ. He is “the propitiation for our sin.” Here is your hope, your plea. In availing yourself of this plea, all that God requires is repentance and faith.
III. The gracious promise.—Jabez Burns, D.D., Pulpit Cyclopœdia, iii. 161–165.
CLEANSING FOR THE VILEST
Isa_1:18. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
We are informed by the Rabbins that the high priest bound a scarlet fillet round the neck of the scapegoat, and that when the priest confessed his own sins and the sins of the people, the fillet became white if the atonement was accepted by God, but that if it was not accepted, the fillet remained scarlet still. The Rabbins further say that the goat was led about twelve furlongs out of Jerusalem, where it was thrown down a precipice, and was mangled to atoms by the fall. In case of the sacrifice being received by Heaven, a scarlet ribbon which hung at the door of the temple changed from scarlet to pure white. They affirm that it is to this changing of the fillet and ribbon from scarlet to white that Isaiah refers in our text. While we regard these as fictions, and not as facts, they serve to illustrate the nature and greatness of the change spoken of in it.
I. Scarlet and crimson represent sins of excessive and glaring notoriety.
1. The soul has been steeped in the dyeing element.
2. It has carried away as much of the dyeing quality as it can hold. It is twice dipped in the dye-vat.
3. The sins glare and arrest the eye like scarlet in the sun. As the uniform of the British soldier is most conspicuous, so these sins glare in the eye
(1) of society
(2) of conscience,
(3) of Divine justice.
II. Scarlet and crimson symbolise the fast and permanent hold of these sins upon the soul.
1. The sins are not a stain but a dye.
2. The sins are not superficial: they have penetrated into the fabric, every thread of which has been dyed. The faculties are the threads: the whole man the web.
3. The sins are not typified by any dye, but by scarlet and crimson, which are as permanent as the fabric they colour. They resist sun, dew, rain, the wash.
III. Scarlet and crimson becoming white as snow represents the perfect removal of the greatest sins. The colouring element is removed. The soul is restored. The power that removes the sin yet saves the soul. Application.—There is hope, then, even for the vilest. The most desperately sinful need not despair [385]J. Stirling.
[385] In nature there is hardly a stone that is not capable of crystallising into something purer and brighter than its normal state. Coal, by a slightly different arrangement of its particles, is capable of becoming the radiant diamond. The slag cast out from the furnace as useless waste forms into globular masses of radiating crystals. From tar and pitch the loveliest colours are now manufactured. The very mud of the road, trampled under foot as the type of all impurity, can be changed by chemical art into metals and gems of surpassing beauty; and so the most unpromising materials, the most worthless moral rubbish that men cast out and despise, may be converted by the Divine alchemy into the gold of the sanctuary, and made jewels fit for the mediatorial crown of the Redeemer. Let the case of Mary Magdalene, of John Newton, of John Bunyan, of thousands more, encourage those who are still in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. Seek to be subjected to the same purifying process; lay yourselves open to the same spiritual influences; yield yourselves up into the hands of the Spirit to become His finished and exquisite workmanship; seek diligently a saving and sanctifying union with Christ by faith, and He will perfect that which concerneth you, and lay your stones with fair colours (Psa_68:13).—Macmillan.
COMFORT FOR THE DESPONDING
Isa_1:18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Some are kept in a desponding state—
I. By the views they entertain of the sovereignty of God and the doctrine of election. But—
1. The election of God, whatever it is, is an election unto life, and not unto destruction. It should therefore be a source of encouragement, not discouragement: it should awaken hope and joy, rather than despondency.
2. God’s election is His rule of action, not yours: yours is the Bible [388]
3. The thing you are required to believe in order to salvation is not your election, but God’s truth.
4. In your present state you have nothing to do with election [391] but if you will entertain the question, the evidence is much more in favour of your election than against it.
[388] Whatever the decrees of God be concerning the eternal state of men, since they are secret to us, they can certainly be no rule either of our duty or comfort. And no man hath reason to think himself rejected of God who does not find the marks of reprobation in himself—I mean an evil heart and life. By this, indeed, a man may know that he is out of God’s favour for the present; but he hath no reason at all from hence to conclude that God hath from all eternity and for ever cast him off. That God calls him to repentance, and affords him the space and means of it, is a much plainer sign that God is willing to have mercy upon him, than anything else can be that God hath utterly cast him off. For men to judge of their condition by the decrees of God, which are hid from us, and not by His Word, which is near us, is as if a man wandering in the wide sea in a dark night, when the heaven is all clouded, should resolve to steer his course by the stars which he cannot see, but only guess at, and neglect the compass which is at hand, and would afford him much better and more certain direction.—Tillotson, 1630–1694.
[391] We have no ground at first to trouble ourselves about God’s election. “Secret things belong to God.” God’s revealed will is, that all who believe in Christ shall not perish. It is my duty, therefore, knowing this, to believe: by doing whereof I put that question, whether God be mine or no? out of all question, for all that believe in Christ are Christ’s, and all that are Christ’s are God’s. It is not my duty to look to God’s secret counsel, but to His open offer, invitation, and command, and thereupon adventure my soul. In war men will venture their lives, because they think some will escape, and why not they? In traffic beyond the seas many adventure a great estate, because some grow rich by a good return, though some miscarry. The husbandman adventures his seed, though sometimes the year proves so bad that he never sees it more. And shall not we make a spiritual adventure, in casting ourselves upon God, when we have so good a warrant as His command, and so good an encouragement as His promise, that He will not fail those that rely on Him?—Sibbes, 1577–1635.
II. By the views they take of certain isolated passages of Scripture (Mat_12:31-32; Heb_12:17; Pro_1:24-31). Not one of these passages, rightly understood, need quench your hope. Where there is one obscure passage that seems to make against you, there is a hundred which plainly and positively tell you that if you turn you shall live, if you believe you shall be saved.
III. By an apprehension that their repentance has not been deep enough. But—
1. The genuineness of your repentance is not to be estimated by the pungency of your feelings [394]
2. It is not the depth of your feelings that is your warrant to come to Christ.
3. Your penitential feelings will not be likely to be increased by staying away from Christ.
[394] I see no reason to call in question the truth and sincerity of that man’s repentance who hates sin and forsakes it, and returns to God and his duty, though he cannot shed tears, and express the bitterness of his soul by the same significations that a mother does in the loss of her only son. He that cannot weep like a child may resolve like a man, and that undoubtedly will find acceptance with God. Two persons walking together espy a serpent; the one shrieks and cries out at the sight of it, the other kills it. So is it with sorrow for sin: some express it by great lamentations and tears, and vehement transports of passion; others by greater and more real effects of detestation—by forsaking their sins, by mortifying and subduing their lusts; but he that kills it doth certainly best express his inward enmity against it.—Tillotson, 1630–1694.
IV. By the fear that they have gone too far and sinned too much to be forgiven. But, admitting the very worst you can say of yourself, there is everything in the character of God, in the work of Christ, in the power of the Spirit, in the experience of other sinners [397] in the promises of the Bible, to inspire and sustain your hope.—John Corbin.
[397] Oh who can read of a Manasseh, a Magdalene, a Saul, yea, an Adam, who undid himself and a whole world with him, in the roll of pardoned sinners, and yet turn away from the promise, out of a fear that there is not mercy in it to serve his turn? These are landmarks that show what large boundaries mercy hath set to itself, and how far it hath gone, even to take into its arms the greatest sinners that make not themselves incapable thereof by final impenitency. It were a healthful walk, poor doubting Christian, for thy soul to go this circuit, and oft see where the utmost stone is laid and boundary set by God’s pardoning mercy, beyond which He will not go.—Gurnall, 1617–1679.
SIN AND GRACE
Isa_1:18. Come now, and let us reason together, smith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
For an exposition of the symbolism of this verse, see note [400]
[400] Jehovah here challenges Israel to a formal trial: nocach is thus used in a reciprocal sense, and with the same meaning as nishpat in Isa_43:26 (Ges. § 51, 2). In such a trial Israel must lose, for Israel’s self-righteousness rests upon sham righteousness; and this sham righteousness, when rightly examined, is but unrighteousness dripping with blood. It is taken for granted that this must be the result of the investigation. Israel is therefore worthy of death. Yet Jehovah will not treat Israel according to His retributive justice, but according to His free compassion. He will remit the punishment, and not only regard the sin as not existing, but change it into its very opposite. The reddest possible sin shall become, through His mercy, the purest white. On the two hiphils here applied to colour, see Ges. § 53, 2; though he gives the meaning incorrectly, viz., “to take a colour,” whereas the words signify rather to emit a colour, not colorem accipere, but colorem dare. Shâne, bright red (the plural Shânim, as in Pro_31:21, signifies materials dyed with shâni) and tolâ, warm colour, are simply different names for the same colour, viz., the crimson obtained from the cochineal insect, color coccineus.
The representation of the work of grace promised by God as a change from red to white is founded upon the symbolism of colours, quite as much as when the saints in the Revelation (Isa_19:8) are described as clothed in white raiment, whilst the clothing of Babylon is purple and scarlet (Isa_17:4). Red is the colour of fire, and therefore of life: the blood is red because life is a fiery process. For this reason the heifer, from which the ashes of purification were obtained for those who had been defiled through contact with the dead, was to be red; and the sprinkling-bush, with which the unclean were sprinkled, was to be tied around with a band of scarlet wool. But red, as contrasted with white, the colour of light (Mat_17:2), is the colour of selfish, covetous, passionate life, which is self-seeking in its nature, which goes out of itself only to destroy, and drives about with wild tempestuous violence: it is therefore the colour of wrath and sin. It is generally supposed that Isaiah speaks of red as the colour of sin, because sin ends in murder; and this is not really wrong, though it is too restricted. Sin is called red, inasmuch as it is a burning heat which consumes a man, and when it breaks forth consumes his fellow-man as well. According to the biblical view, throughout, sin stands in the same relation to what is well-pleasing to God, and wrath in the same relation to love or grace, as fire to light; and therefore as red to white, or black to white, for red and black are colours which border upon one another. In the Song of Solomon (Isa_7:5), the black locks of Shulamith are described as being “like purple,” and Homer applies the same epithet to the dark waves of the sea. But the ground of this relation lies deeper still. Red is the colour of fire, which flashes out of darkness and returns to it again; whereas white, without any admixture of darkness, represents the pure, absolute triumph of light. It is a deeply significant symbol of the act of justification. Jehovah offers to Israel an actio forensis, out of which it shall come forth justified by grace, although it has merited death on account of its sins. The righteousness, white as snow and wool, with which Israel comes forth, is a gift conferred upon it out of pure compassion, without being conditional upon any legal performance whatever.—Delitsch, Commentary on Isaiah, vol. i. pp. 98, 99.
A subordinate point in the imagery is, that scarlet and crimson were the firmest of dyes, least capable of being washed out.—Dr. Kay.
I. THE WONDERS OF DIVINE CONDESCENSION.
1. How marvellous that God should condescend to “reason” with sinful men! Not thus do human governments deal with rebels against their authority. The stern proclamation goes forth, “Submit, or die.” To admit helpless rebels to a conference on equal terms (such as “reasoning” implies) is an idea that never occurs to earthly sovereigns; but (Isa_55:8-9)—
2. How marvellous that God should invite sinful men to reason with Him, with a view to reconciliation with them! The result of such an investigation of their conduct could only be their condemnation; but this is not God’s ultimate design. He does not desire to humiliate sinners, but to bring them to repentance and confession, in order that it may be possible for Him to pardon them. According to human standards, it would have been a great thing had God been willing to be reconciled to those who have offended Him so grievously; but how astonishing is this, that He, the offended party, should seek to reconcile the offenders to Himself. (2Co_5:18-19; Joh_3:19).
II. THE POSSIBILITIES OF HUMAN SIN. “Though your sins be as scarlet … though they be red like crimson.” Sins that take complete possession of a man, and that are conspicuous to the public eye, may be described as crimson and scarlet sins. How common such sins are! What a spectacle the human race must present to angelic eyes! Scarlet and crimson sins are more common than we are apt to suppose, because responsibility is in proportion to privilege. In proportion to the sinner’s light is the sinner’s guilt. Consequently that which is a trivial fault in one man may be a crimson sin in another. When an offence is contrary to a man’s whole training, though it may be a small matter in the sight of man, it may be as scarlet and crimson sin in the sight of God. In these possibilities of human sin we have—
1. A reason for universal watchfulness. Taken even in its most obvious sense, the possibility of which our text speaks is the possibility of every man. There is no human being who may not fall into crime. Many men, after living half a century blamelessly in the sight of men, suddenly yield to temptation, and are consigned to felons’ cells. David was no stripling when he committed his great transgression. Said Hazael, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” Yet he did it! (2Ki_8:13, &c.) Peter rejected Christ’s warning as incredible. Therefore (Rom_11:20; 1Co_10:12) [403]
2. A reason for universal humiliation and prayer. Just because our privileges have been so great, God may put a very different estimate upon our transgressions than we are disposed to do. Therefore let us humbly seek pardon for the past, and preventing grace for the future (Psa_19:12-13).
[403] The strong men are fallen; even Solomon himself, and David, and Noah, and Lot, and Samson, and Peter, the lights of the world, fell like stars from heaven. These tall cedars, strong oaks, fair pillars, lie in the dust, whose tops glittered in the air; that “they which think they stand may take heed lest they fall.” Can I look upon these ruins without compassion? or remember them without fear, unless I be a reprobate, and my heart of flint? Who am I that I should stand like a shrub, when these cedars are blown down to the ground, and showed themselves but men? The best man is but a man: the worst are worse than beasts. No man is untainted but Christ. They who had greater gifts than we, they who had deeper roots than we, they who had stronger hearts than we, they who had more props than we, are fallen like a bird which is weary of her flight, and turned back like the wind, in the twinkling of an eye. What shall we do then, when we hear of other men’s faults? Not talk of them as we do, but beware by them, and think—Am I better than he? Am I stronger than Samson? Am I wiser than Solomon? Am I chaster than David? Am I soberer than Noah? Am I firmer than Peter? There is no salt but may lose its saltness, no wine but may lose its strength, no flower but may lose its scent, no light but may be eclipsed, no beauty but may be stained, no fruit but may be blasted, no soul but may be corrupted. We stand all in a slippery place, where it is easy to slide and hard to get up.—Henry Smith, 1592.
III. THE CERTAINTIES OF DIVINE GRACE. “They shall be as white as snow.” Where sin abounds, grace shall more abound. In God there is mercy to pardon every sin [406] and grace to cleanse from every form and degree of moral pollution. Here, then, we have—
1. A reason for repentance. There is no argument so powerful as this: God is ready to forgive. Many a prodigal has been deterred from saying, “I will arise and go to my father,” by a remembrance of his father’s sternness, and by a doubt as to whether his father would receive him. But no such doubt need deter us. We are not called to the exercises of a sorrow that will be unavailing. Our Father waits to be gracious [409] Hear His solemn and touching message (Isa_55:6-7; TEXT).
2. An encouragement for those who are striving after moral purity. Many who try to live a Christian life grow discouraged. There are discouragements that come from without: the constant recurrence of temptation, the unfavourable spiritual atmosphere in which they live, the glaring inconsistencies of some of the professing Christians by whom they are surrounded, the low tone of the spiritual life of those whose conduct is not so open to censure. Still sorer discouragements come from within: the faults that will not be shaken off; the evil tendencies that will manifest themselves; the evil thoughts that will keep welling up from the fountain of the heart, revealing its intense depravity. These things are carefully hidden from men, but God knows them, and the believer knows them, and because of them is apt to grow discouraged. It seems to him that he can never be “made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.” But God has declared that he shall be: God has undertaken to perfect him in purity. “Be of good courage, all ye that hope in the Lord.” God is able to make all grace abound toward you, and He is faithful to all His promises. See what He has promised in our text. He has already fulfilled this promise in innumerable cases (Rev_7:9), and He will fulfil it in yours. Be not discouraged because your moral progress is so slow. How long does the sun shine on the fruit seemingly in vain! All the summer the peach remains hard as a stone. But the sun is not shining in vain. Some week in the autumn this is seen. All at once it softens and becomes ripe; not as the result of that one week’s sun, but of all the sunlight and warmth of the preceding weeks. The chestnut opens in a night; but for months the opening process is going on. In a moment many chemicals seem to crystallise, but the process of crystallisation goes on long before it becomes apparent. So there is a ripening, a crystallising, a cleansing process going on in the heart of the believer: though we see it not now, Yet we shall have ample proof of it by and by. In this matter walk by faith, not by sight. Be of good courage! We shall yet be “white as snow.”
[406] Man may be willing to forgive a mite, the Lord a million; three hundred pence and ten thousand talents are all one to His mercy.—Adams, 1653.
[409] Joy is the highest testimony that can be given to our complacency in any thing or person. Love or joy is a fuel to the fire; if love lay little fuel of desires on the heart, then the flame of joy that comes thence will not be great. Now God’s joy is great in pardoning poor sinners that come in; therefore His affection is great in the offer thereof. It is made the very motive that prevails with God to pardon sinners, “Because He delighteth in mercy,” “Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His anger for ever, for He delighteth in mercy.” God doth all this, “because He delighteth in mercy.”
Ask why the fisher stands all night with his angle in the river; he will tell you, because he delights in the sport. Well, you know now the reason why God stands so long waiting on sinners, months, years, preaching to them; it is that He may be gracious in pardoning them, and in that act delight Himself. Princes very often pardon traitors to please others more than themselves, or else it would never be done; but God doth it chiefly to delight and gladden His own merciful heart. Hence the business Christ came about (which was no other but to reconcile sinners to God) is called “the pleasure of the Lord” (Isa_53:10).—Gurnall, 1617–1679.
Many people get a wrong idea of God by thinking of Him as infinite only in justice and power; but infinite applies to the feelings of God as much as to the stretch of His right hand. There is nothing in His nature which is not measureless. Many think God sits brooding in heaven, as storms brood in summer skies, full of bolts and rain, and believe that they must come to Him under the covert of some apology, or beneath some umbrellaed excuse, lest the clouds should break, and the tempest overwhelm them. But when men repent towards God, they go not to storms, but to serene and tranquil skies, and to a Father who waits to receive them with all tenderness and delicacy and love. His eye is not dark with vengeance, nor His heart turbulent with wrath; and to repent towards His justice and vindictiveness must always be from a lower motive than to repent towards His generosity and love. When you wish to please God, treat Him as one who feels sorry for sinners; treat Him as one who longs to help those who need help; go to Him confidingly. No matter how bad you are—the worse the better. Old Martin Luther said, “I bless God for my sins.” He would never have had such a sense of the pardoning mercy of God if he had not himself been sinful. By as much as you are wicked, God is glorious in restoring you to purity. Let Him do for you those things which are the most generous and magnanimous, and that will please Him best. He is a Being whose feelings and affections move on such vast lines of latitude and longitude, that the more you presume upon His goodness, and cast yourself before Him saying, “I need a miracle of grace and mercy,” the better He is pleased.
Now I beseech you to kindle up a thought of what your mother would do if you were a sinful, heart-broken, discouraged man, but repentant, saying, “I have trod the thorny way of life, and learned its mischief, can you, mother, help me to begin anew?” What mother would cast away such a son? What father would not receive a son on such terms? And if earthly parents can lift themselves up into feelings of holy sympathy for a repentant child, what must be the feelings of God when His children come to Him for help to break away from sin, and to lead lives of rectitude? Read the 15th chapter of Luke, and find out what God’s feelings are; and then say, “I will arise, and go to my Father.”—Beecher.
He is rich in mercy, abundant in goodness and truth. Thy sins are like a spark of fire that falls into the ocean, it is quenched presently; so are all thy sins in the ocean of God’s mercy. There is not more water in the sea than there is mercy in God.—Manton, 1620–1667.
Why dost thou not believe in God’s mercy? Is it thy sins discourage? God’s mercy can pardon great sins, nay, because they are great (Psa_25:11). The sea covers great rocks as well as lesser sands.—Watson, 1696.
Like some black rock that heaves itself above the surface of a sunlit sea, and the wave runs dashing over it, and the spray, as it falls down its sides, is all rainbowed and lightened, and there comes beauty into the mighty grimness of the black thing; so a man’s transgressions rear themselves up, and God’s great love comes sweeping itself against them and over them, makes out of the sin an occasion for the flashing more brightly of the beauty of His mercy, and turns the life of the pardoned penitent into a life of which even the sin is not pain to remember.—Maclaren.
SELF-SCRUTINY IN GOD’S PRESENCE
Isa_1:18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
The outflow of holy displeasure contained in the earlier portions of this chapter would prepare us to expect an everlasting reprobacy of the rebellious and unfaithful Church, but it is strangely followed by the most yearning and melting entreaty ever addressed by the Most High to the creatures of His footstool.
I. The text represents God as saying to the trangressors of His law, “Come, and let us reason together.” The first lesson to be learned, consequently, is the duty of examining our moral character and conduct along with God. When a responsible being has made a wrong use of his powers, nothing is more reasonable than that he should call himself to account for this abuse. Nothing, certainly, is more necessary. There can be no amendment for the future until the past has been cared for. But that this examination may be both thorough and profitable, it must be made in company with the Searcher of hearts. For there are always two beings who are concerned with sin: the being who commits it, and the Being against whom it is committed. Whenever therefore, an examination is made into the nature of moral evil as it exists in the individual heart, both parties concerned should share in the examination. Such a joint examination as this produces a very keen and clear sense of the evil and guilt of sin. Conscience, indeed, makes cowards of us all, but when the eye of God is felt to be upon us, it smites us to the ground.
1. When the soul is shut up along with the Holy One of Israel, there are great searchings of heart. Man is honest and anxious at such a time. His usual thoughtlessness and torpidity upon the subject of religion leave him, and he becomes a serious and deeply-interested creature.
2. Another effect of this “reasoning together” with God respecting our character and conduct is to render our views discriminating. The action of the mind is not only intense, it is also intelligent. The sinner knows that he is wrong, and his Maker is right—that he is wicked, and that God is holy. He perceives these two fundamental facts with a simplicity and a certainty that admit of no debate. The confusion and obscurity of his mind, and particularly the queryings whether these things are so, begin to disappear like a fog when disparted and scattered by sunrise. Objects are seen in their true proportions and meanings; right and wrong, the carnal mind and the spiritual mind, heaven and hell—all the great contraries that pertain to the subject of religion—are distinctly understood, and thus the first step is taken towards a better state of things in the soul [412]
[412] Man is not straitened upon the side of the Divine mercy. The obstacle in the way of his salvation is in himself; and the particular, fatal obstacle consists in the fact that he does not feel that he needs mercy. God in Christ stands ready to pardon, but man, the sinner, stands up before Him, like the besotted criminal in our courts of law, with no feeling upon the subject. The Judge assures him that He has a boundless grace and clemency to bestow; but the stolid, hardened man is not even aware that he has committed a dreadful crime, and needs grace and clemency. There is food in infinite abundance, but no hunger upon the part of the man. The water of life is flowing by in torrents, but men have no thirst. In this state of things nothing can be done but to pass a sentence of condemnation. God cannot forgive a being who does not even know that he needs to be forgiven. Knowledge, then, self-knowledge, is the great requisite; and the want of it is the cause of perdition. This “reasoning together” with God, respecting our past and present character and conduct, is the first step to be taken by any one who would make preparation for eternity. As soon as we come to a right understanding of our lost and guilty condition, we shall cry, “Be merciful to me, a sinner; create within me a clean heart, O God.” Without such an understanding—such an intelligent perception of our sin and guilt—we never shall, and we never can.—Shedd.
II. The second lesson taught in the text is, that there is forgiveness with God. If mercy were not a manifested attribute of God, all self-examination, and especially all this conjoint Divine scrutiny, would be a pure torment and a pure gratuity. We have the amplest assurance in the whole written revelation of God, but nowhere else, that “there is forgiveness with Him, that He may be feared.” The text is an exceedingly explicit assertion of this great truth. The very same Being who invites us to reason with Him and canvass the subject of our criminality, in the very same breath, if we may so speak, assures us that He will forgive all that is found in this examination. And upon such terms cannot the criminal well afford to examine into his crime? The Divine pity outruns and exceeds the crime. Paradoxical as it may appear, self-examination, when joined with a distinct recognition of the Divine character, and a conscious sense of God’s scrutiny, is the surest means of producing in a guilty mind a firm conviction that God is merciful, and is the swiftest way of finding Him to be so. Abhorrent as iniquity is to the pure mind of God, it is nevertheless a fact that that sinner who goes directly into this Dread Presence with all his sins upon his head, in order to know them, to be condemned and crushed by them, and to confess them, is the one who soonest returns with peace and hope in his soul. For he discovers that God is as cordial and sincere in His offer to forgive as He is in His threat to punish; and having, to his sorrow, felt the reality and power of the Divine anger, he now, to his joy, feels the equal reality and power of the Divine love. And this is the one great lesson which every man must learn, or perish for ever.
From these two lessons of our text we deduce the following practical directions—
1. In all states of religious anxiety we should betake ourselves instantly and directly to God; there is no other refuge for the human soul but God in Christ. Are we sinners, and in fear for the final result of our life? Though it may seem like running into fire, we must, nevertheless, betake ourselves first and immediately to that Being who hates and punishes sin (1Ch_20:1-3).
2. In all our religious anxiety we should make a full and plain statement of everything to God. Even when the story is one of shame and remorse, we find it to be mental relief, patiently, and without any reservation or palliation, to expose the whole, not only to our own eye, but to that of our Judge. For to this very thing have we been invited. This is precisely the “reasoning together” which God proposes to us. God has not offered clemency to a sinful world with the expectation or desire that there be, on the part of those to whom it is offered, such a stinted and meagre confession, such a glozing over and diminution of sin, as to make that clemency appear a very small matter. He well knows the depth and the immensity of the sin which He proposes to pardon, and has made provision accordingly. In the phrase of Luther, it is no painted sinner who is to be forgiven, and it is no painted Saviour who is offered. The transgression is deep and real, and the atonement is deep and real. The crime cannot be exaggerated, neither can the expiation. He, therefore, who makes the plainest and most childlike statement of himself to God, acts most in accordance with the mind and will and gospel of God. If man can only be hearty, full, and unreserved in confession, he will find God to be hearty, full, and unreserved in absolution.—W. G. T. Shedd, D.D., The American Pulpit of the Day, vol. i. pp. 829–842.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv18–19 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues to speak to the people of Judah.
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Come now, and let
Yahweh graciously and lovingly invites the people to listen to what he is about to say. "Please listen to me. Let" or "Pay attention; I want to help you. Let"
let us reason together
"let us think about this together" or "we need to discuss this" or "what are we going to do?" Yahweh invites the people to discuss the future. Here the word "us" refers to Yahweh and includes the people of Judah. (See: Inclusive "We")
though your sins are like scarlet, they will be white like snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool
Isaiah is speaking of the people as if they were wearing clothes that were supposed to be white wool and of their sins as if they were red stains on the clothes. If Yahweh forgives their sins, it will be as if their clothes become white again. (See: Metaphor)
like scarlet
Scarlet is a bright red color. AT: "bright red" (See: Simile)
white like snow
White is often a symbol for holiness or purity. "Snow" refers to something like frozen rain that is very white. Since this simply describes something as very white, you could replace it with something else that is white: "white as a seashell" or "white as a dove." This means that their sins will be forgiven. (See: Simile)
red like crimson
Crimson is a dark red color. AT: "dark red" (See: Simile)
like wool
Wool is the hair of a sheep or goat. How they will be like wool can be made explicit. AT: "white like wool" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information and Simile)
translationWords
Yahweh
sin
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv18–20 1:18 God called his people to come and settle…
1:18 God called his people to come and settle their dispute so that he could restore his covenant relationship with them. This required Judah to make a decision between obeying or turning away (1:19-20). Isaiah says their sins are like scarlet . . . they are red like crimson, the color of blood, which Judah had unjustly shed (1:15). • white as snow . . . white as wool: The people would be radically transformed—cleansed, purified, and made holy (see also Ps 51:7; Dan 7:9).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.