i. 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.
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 in 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 (Matt. xi. 20–24). As it is with nations and cities, so it is with individuals.[1] 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. 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. vii. 10). This is the grossest self-deception. It cannot be the will of God that you should do evil (1 Thess. iv. 3; James i. 13; 1 Pet. i. 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 Cyclopædia, iii. 161–165.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 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 another man.—Vaughan.
Cleansing for the Vilest.
i. 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.[1]—J. Stirling.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 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 man 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 (Ps. lxviii. 13).—Macmillan.