Week 4: More Than Restoration

Isaiah 1:18 English Standard Version (ESV)

18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

After all that the nation of Israel had done to rebel against the Lord their God, He has given, as we looked at last week, a way to be restored. After calling them to be clean and cease to do evil, God now tells them what it will look like if they obey. The very act of Him asking them to reason with Him shows that there is a desire for relationship on His end, and with their hearts turned back toward Him, He is promising to cleanse them in a way they cannot do themselves.

Now as the good bible-taught believers that we are the words “Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow”, might stick out like a sore thumb, saying “Words of Jesus, words of Jesus” to us. At least they did to me. But actually this is the only place these words are recorded. But they are nonetheless ripe with meaning for us. God, desiring a relationship with all of us, even with me individually, gave His Son, that through the shedding of His blood, that scarlet stream would be the cleansing agent, making us, who were before covered in the leprous sin, to be now as white as snow in the eyes of the Father. Our garments would be changed from crimson colored to the purest wool. He has given us a way out just as He gave the nation of Israel a way out.


If they, and we, can but trust and obey Him, He will bring nor only restoration, but a cleansing that only He can accomplish, with them becoming the true picture of what God looks like, much as we are to show Christ to the world now. Let it be so in my life Lord.

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