Daily Thought

For generations, faithful and zealous evangelists have revelled in this verse for the love that forgives and pardons is the same in every age. How well has the prophecy of Isaiah been called ‘the Gospel according to Isaiah’.

In His loving kindness Jehovah calls His erring people to come and reason. They have already been found guilty. Their hands were full of blood. He was weary of their new moons and Sabbaths and festivals. These were all vanities and had become an abomination to Him because of their sinful condition. Yet He invites them, ‘Come now, and let us reason together’. There is, however, no such reasoning at the bar of justice. Guilt, once proven, must be judged. But there was a throne of grace and mercy and to this all were, and are, invited to come. There the righteousness of God can be established and a means provided for the forgiveness of sins.

Though their sins were as scarlet they could be white as snow. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, with others, observe an inter­esting feature here. To quote, ‘Hebrew for “scarlet” radically means double-dyed; so the deep-fixed permanency of sin in the heart, which no mere tears can wash away’. The expositor Albert Barnes concurs, writing, ‘The cotton cloth was dipped in this colour twice; and the word used to express it means also double dyed, from the verb shanah, to repeat’. He adds, ‘Hence we speak of crimes as black, or deep-dyed, and of the soul as stained by sin’.

No effort of man, no rites, ceremonies or tears can remove this stain, and yet, the divine promise is that though the sins be as scarlet, or red like crimson, they can be as white as snow or as wool in its original undyed whiteness.

Today, every believer in the Lord Jesus knows the answer and delights to quote, ‘the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin’, 1 John 1. 7. Of the great company in Revelation chapter 7 it is said that they ‘have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’, v. 14. Jehovah can be just, and the justifier of all who believe in Jesus, Rom. 3. 26.