Isaiah 1:1-20: God's Hatred and Forgiveness of Sin

"Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations--I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates. . . .Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Isaiah 1:13-14a, 18a

Let me ask you a question: when is the last time you read Isaiah 1? To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I ever have, but after reading and meditating upon it this morning, I think it's one of my favorite chapters in all of scripture. Why? Well, you see, because it so clearly paints for us how God both hates yet forgives our sin. Stick around and read the rest of this devotional, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

In verse 1 of the chapter, we find that the book of Isaiah is a written documentation of Isaiah's "vision" and prophecy towards the people of Judah during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (some of who's reigns we've already looked at!). Although I don't want to skip too far ahead, it is helpful for us to understand that this prophecy of Isaiah was all about two things: judgment and hope. Although these two things usually don't go together in our minds, they do in Isaiah's mind, and better yet, in the Lord's mind. Throughout the book, we are going to see a constant pattern of how the Lord is going to judge, but yet how there is hope for Israel if they repent of their sins and turn to God. Ultimately, this is a picture of the Gospel, of how we were deserving of the judgment of God because of our sins, yet there was hope found in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, let's stay on track with the book of Isaiah.

In chapter 1, we see these two great themes of judgment and hope laid out for us, even in the short first 20 verses of the book. The book starts out speaking of God's judgment, that is, God's hatred of sin. Isaiah starts his prophecy by calling out to Jerusalem and speaking of their great, great iniquity. If you read the chapter for yourself, you'll quickly find that Isaiah doesn't just call Israel evil, he refers to them as beyond evil. He even goes so far as to say that if the Lord hadn't saved a few of them from sin and destruction, they'd be just as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah (v. 9). Furthermore, Isaiah points out that they are so wicked that their feasts, sacrifices, and convocations were nothing but an abomination to the Lord. This is quite interesting, as these feasts and sacrifices were supposed to be glorifying to God, yet what we find here is that the Israelites were merely using them for their own purposes rather than God's glory. Thus we find that Israel was so bad that the Lord hated their hypocritical religious deeds and even stopped listening to their prayers (v. 15). Israel had sinned, and the Lord hated it with all of his being.

Yet, the chapter doesn't stop there. And although we would expect the rest of the chapter to tell of the destruction of Israel, this is not what we find. Now, don't get me wrong, Israel was going to be destroyed, the rest of the book tells us that. But rather than highlighting their future destruction in the first chapter, Isaiah highlights the hope that can be found if Israel were to turn from their sins: "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean. . . .Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice. . . .Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." You see, although Jerusalem would be destroyed, there was hope for the people of Israel, not in military victory, but in spiritual victory. Though their sins deserved great punishment and destruction, the Lord still offered them an opportunity for forgiveness. Here, we learn a phenomenal truth about our God, stated simply by one commentator: "Those who will break off their allegiance with sin are always welcome to come back to fellowship with [God]." In other words, we are never too far gone for God to save us. I've heard it said before that we cannot "our-sin" God's grace. This was true for Israel, it was certainly true of Paul in the New Testament, and it is true for us today.

Yet, we would fail in our observation of this chapter if we did not consider how the Lord can forgive us, which is of course because of Christ. Our sins can be counted as snow and wool all because Christ's snow and wool was counted as scarlet on the cross. He took our sin and shame in his body on a tree, that we might be able to be forgiven, that is, if we repent and call upon the name of the Lord (Rom. 10:13). This is the story of Isaiah, and it is also the story of the Gospel: that although we deserve destruction, the Lord offers hope for all who may turn from their sins and seek his face. Amen!