I HAVE BLOTTED OUT THY TRANSGRESSIONS

Isaiah is the evangelical prophet. He delights to preach the gos­pel of God’s grace. In our passage, he proclaims God’s free forgiveness to the returning exiles of Judah. He calls heaven and earth to rejoice at the miracle of their deliverance from Babylon and restoration to Jerusalem. Decades before he came to power, a heathen king is named who will be the human agent in fulfill­ing God’s purpose in the liberation of His people.

God assures restored Israel of His deep personal interest in them and their close relationship to Him. The greatest blessing this will bring them is the knowledge that God has completely forgiven their sins. That is the greatest boon anyone can enjoy. Only God can grant a perfect pardon. In grace, He promises that He will not remember our guilty failures nor ever raise them against us, Isa. 43. 25; Jer. 31. 34. This is pictured as God placing our transgressions as far from us as the east is from the west, the circumference of the globe, Ps. 103. 12. It is like Him casting our sins into the depths of the sea, Mic. 7. 19. Paul describes forgive­ness as the cancellation of our debts. They are expunged from the ledger. They are paid in full, Col. 2. 14.

Isaiah paints another picture of this tremendous truth. Our sins are like clouds and mist veiling the sun of God’s love. They separate us from God, Isa. 59. 2. In nature, God can easily clear the clouds away. So too, in grace, He sweeps away the dark clouds and the obscuring mist and restores the blue sky of His favour. The word ‘blot’ used in our text does not carry any sense of a smudge or a stain being left. Rather, it means to wipe out completely. Our slate of offences is totally cleared when we turn in faith to the Lord Jesus. By virtue of His precious blood, sin’s guilt is altogether removed and we stand accepted in Christ. Israel needed release from the guilt of her past even more than her release from bondage and exile in Babylon. We too can be crippled spiritually by a sense of guilt and failure. ‘The word of forgiveness is the most encouraging message of all, and Israel, like us, needed to hear it again and again’, Webb. May God grant today that we may hear His gracious promise of complete for­giveness and perfect pardon.