As White As Snow
Minister: | Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: | 5/12/2013 AM |
Text: | Isaiah 1:18 |
Psalters: | 261, 103, 320, 277 |
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper |
- Divine reasoning.
- Earlier the scene is a trial where God lodges a charge against Israel (not the heathen) (2-4).
- In their wickedness Israel, as a whole, dares to find evil in God and testify against Him.
- Thus the accused ask that the charge be dismissed as false.
- But God answers their claims of great religiosity with this proof: they showed no mercy (17).
- Now here God comes to the faithful remnant who in great sensitivity fear divine judgments: “Come now, and let us reason..”
- This is a parenthesis, not connected to the preceding or the following.
- How do God’s words come? (cf. with Adam; Job 40:7; Micah 6:2,3).
- He was to encourage them to draw near to Him and reason with Him before His bar of mercy.
- Earlier the scene is a trial where God lodges a charge against Israel (not the heathen) (2-4).
- He does not deny or excuse their sin and sinfulness, but declares that it is very serious!
- God judges Israel’s sins to be “scarlet” and “red like crimson.”
- Every sin is a transgression of Him, and is hateful to God, deserving of His wrath and curse.
- Israel’s sins are even worse for they had the advantage of increased revelation
- Further, God judges the sins of the supposed church to be that of hypocrisy.
- But God will judge the kernel in Israel according to His compassion.
- He will not only regard the sin as not existing, but He will change is into its very opposite.
- The reddest possible sin is become pure white.
- “White as snow” is to be without any mixture of black or darkness.
- This is only because of the divine act of justification and is a demonstration of the power of Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
- The supreme and perfect Judge declares a judgment merely of grace.
- The verdict is that God has put away our sin (II Sam. 12:13): we are without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
- He will not only regard the sin as not existing, but He will change is into its very opposite.