“White As Snow!”
Isaiah 1:16-18

January 2, 2005
by C.W. Powell

The Christian life begins with the forgiveness of sins. In the Apostles Creed, which we confessed a few moments ago, we affirm that we “believe in the forgiveness of sins.” This is a wonderful doctrine, and more than a doctrine, for it is the evangelical truth that energizes and drives the Christian walk, for we walk by faith. The ground of our forgiveness is the sufferings and perfect obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ, for God cannot deny Himself and cannot pretend that sin is righteousness or that a guilty sinner is good. God is not like we are, and will not turn His eyes away from sin. He confronted our sins and guilt directly by taking them on Himself at Calvary and put them away forever. Let us consider this great truth today in the consideration of this great passage from the Word of God.

Vs. 2-4: A terrible thing had happened in Judah: they had departed from God.

1. God has nourished and brought up children who had rebelled against him. They were worse than oxen and donkeys, who knew their masters and their stables.
2. God calls the heavens and the earth to witness. It is better not to have ears or minds, as the planets and the stars, and the rocks of the mountains---it is better to have no mind and no reason, than to have a mind and reason and not use them and worse, to use them in rebellion and in sin. This is more than poetry, for God does not use vain rhetorical flourishes, but always speaks to purpose and meaning.
3. Descriptions sinful nation; laden with iniquity; seed of evildoers [sinful for many generations]; children that are corrupters—not content with the sins of their fathers, they go beyond, and corrupt whatever good gifts they received.
4. These things could have been said of any nations, but Judah had more guilt because much more had been given to them. They had forsaken the Lord: this was the source of their troubles: their sins were the result of their forsaking of the Lord and His ways and His promises.
5. They provoked God to anger. God can be provoked to anger. This is a figure, of course, but it speaks to the vindictive anger of God, which is a major Bible doctrine. To deny this doctrine, that God is angry with the wicked every day and brings judgment upon them in body and soul,is to overthrow the doctrine of Christ and make His atonement an empty and vain thing. The awful sufferings of Jesus Christ in body and in soul make absolutely no sense except against the background of the wrath of God and His vindictive judgments. The world lay under the curse of God because of sin; Jesus came to take that curse upon Himself for those who believe. Those who do not believe still lie under the curse of God, and can escape only by faith in Christ.

Vs. 5-9. The results of this anger: only a tiny remnant in Judah remained.

1. From God’s points of view, Judah was in miserable and terrible condition. They were like a person so wounded from head to foot that only a tiny spark of life remained.
2. Their rebellion was of long continuance, as an open sore that bleed corruption and disease. This does not speak only of outward afflictions, but goes much deeper, to the root of sin and misery in men: the native rebellion and refusal to submit to God.
3. The head is sick; the heart is faint: the corruption proceeds from the source of soundness and health. Israel is compared to a body in which only a faint spark of life remains.
4. True life was only in a remnant that remained: a people preserved by God: one here and there. In our day a few people in this or that church. A small church here and there. A few larger churches; but the great masses of people either indifferent or following error and corruption.
5. The anger of God rests upon both body and soul. Physical judgments follow spiritual judgments.

Vs. 10-15. The frightful disease could not be cured by ceremonies.

1. Who hath required this? Well, God did. But He did not recognize the ceremonies because they were offered with rebellious hearts and bloody hands. No ceremony is efficacious in itself.
2. God is a spirit, and ceremonies are worse than useless if they are not offered from hearts that have been taught the truth of the ceremony.
3. It is not enough to be sincere, if the doctrine in the heart does not match the doctrine of the Bible and the sacrament. Many of our RC friends are sincere and think they really eat and drink the body and blood of Christ, but they are wrong indeed.
4. Although they had the name of the people of God, yet God saw them as Sodom and Gomorrah, because the doctrine in the hearts was the same as that of Sodom and Gomorrah. What they did in the ceremonies did not match what they had in their hearts.
5. We must study to know the meaning of the sacraments and the meaning of the rite.

Vs. 16-18. The true pollution is in the heart and must be cleansed away.

1. Ceremonial cleansing is the reference:

See Hebrews 9:13-14 "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

2. An unclean heart cannot bring forth clean deeds. Matthew 12:33-35 "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things."
3. The heart is the source of the corruption in man. God looks on the heart: put away evil from my sight—not from the sight of men, but from the sight of God.
4. God is not calling on Israel to perfect their ceremonies. There is no complaint about their ceremonies: the complaint is about the condition of their hearts.
5. What will put away sin?

a. When God looks upon the heart, He sees one of two things:

1) A heart desperately trying to make excuses, cover itself, appear righteous before men, thinking to hide itself from God—a heart that depends upon itself. The inner man is what we mean by the heart.
2) A heart in which faith in Christ rests. Only the blood of Christ can cleanse from sins. Hence, if trust in Christ resides in the heart, that heart is connected to Christ and the heart is justified, because Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the sinner.

c. If there is no faith, even the most rigorous and religious works are despised by God, because such a heart despises God who created it. How can you receive favor from God if you despise His only begotten Son.
d. Faith in Christ cleanses the man from rebellion and refusal, and is the beginning of new life in Jesus Christ.

6. If ye be willing and obedient is contrasted with refusal and rebellion. The heart is first: the inner man is first: if the inner man is not fixed, then you cannot fix the worship and the ceremonies.
7. Men refuse the duties and obligations of Christianity because of the rebellion in their hearts.
8. Come now, let us reason together.

a. The faith is not stupid and irrational. What is stupid and irrational is refusal and rebellion.
b. God has always offered to His people forgiveness of sins on the basis of true faith
c. A willing and obedient heart is the result of regeneration, the result of the new covenant.
d. Only a remnant had this new heart in the days of Isaiah, but God promised a better day, when Christ came:

Ezekiel 36:25 "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Application:

1. Our business with God is always in our hearts. The fountain must be cleansed before the water flows purely.
2. Christianity does not consist in ceremony or ritual, but in the walk with Christ in the heart. Walking in deeds of darkness signals trouble in the heart, but no amount of good deeds can change or trans-form the heart.
3. The heart is transformed by faith, which comes by hearing, which comes by the Word of God.
4. The ceremonial life of the church, and we do admit this, must always emphasize the importance of spiritual worship, or we will fall into the error of the Jews, lifting defiled and polluted hands to God, and our worship will be an abomination to the Lord.
5. Sins are truly forgiven to all those who believe and trust in Christ. We are not saved because we live the Christian life; we try to live as Christians because our sins are forgiven and we yield up ourselves to Christ as living sacrifices, the only true worship of God.

May God bless you.