As White As Snow

Minister:
Date: AM
Text: Isaiah 1:18
Psalters: 261, 103, 320, 277
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
  1. Divine reasoning.
    1. Earlier the scene is a trial where God lodges a charge against Israel (not the heathen) (2-4).
      1. In their wickedness Israel, as a whole, dares to find evil in God and testify against Him.
      2. Thus the accused ask that the charge be dismissed as false.
      3. But God answers their claims of great religiosity with this proof: they showed no mercy (17).
    2. Now here God comes to the faithful remnant who in great sensitivity fear divine judgments: “Come now, and let us reason..”
      1. This is a parenthesis, not connected to the preceding or the following.
      2. How do God’s words come? (cf. with Adam; Job 40:7; Micah 6:2,3).
      3. He was to encourage them to draw near to Him and reason with Him before His bar of mercy.
  2. He does not deny or excuse their sin and sinfulness, but declares that it is very serious!
    1. God judges Israel’s sins to be “scarlet” and “red like crimson.”
    2. Every sin is a transgression of Him, and is hateful to God, deserving of His wrath and curse.
      1. Israel’s sins are even worse for they had the advantage of increased revelation
      2. Further, God judges the sins of the supposed church to be that of hypocrisy.
  3. But God will judge the kernel in Israel according to His compassion.
    1. He will not only regard the sin as not existing, but He will change is into its very opposite.
      1. The reddest possible sin is become pure white.
      2. “White as snow” is to be without any mixture of black or darkness.
    2. This is only because of the divine act of justification and is a demonstration of the power of Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
      1. The supreme and perfect Judge declares a judgment merely of grace.
      2. The verdict is that God has put away our sin (II Sam. 12:13): we are without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.