Many people know about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s famous book, The Cost of Discipleship. Even if you haven’t read it, you might recall a quote from the book about cheap grace. That kind of grace says you can live any way you want and still be okay with God.
In contrast, the first chapter of Isaiah talks about God’s grace to his people. However, this is not cheap grace. It’s grace that recognizes who God is and what our response to his goodness should be.
“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:17-17).
A good way to understand the message in these verses is to prayerfully examine the admonition in order.
(1) Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean:
King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed in battle to hide their sin. Psalm 51 includes his public confession and plea for forgiveness. Notice what he says about praying for a clean heart.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me (Psalm 51:10).
David couldn’t cleanse his own heart, just like we can’t. But he shows us that we can humbly ask God to give us the clean heart we need. I believe this captures the essence of what Isaiah is saying in this passage.
(2) Remove the evil of your doings: Once, I made a list on a yellow legal pad of all the sins I could remember. It filled a couple of pages. I knelt beside the bed and confessed each sin one by one. That was well and good.
But what if I had immediately returned to those sins? What would that show about my sincerity in confessing them?
When we are told to remove the evil, we must both confess and then work with the Lord to avoid returning to those sins.
(3) Learn to do good: What if we looked at our lives every day and asked God to show us what we needed to know to do the right thing? What if we made it a habit to learn how to do good? I think this captures what Isaiah is telling us.
(4) Seek justice, correct oppression: In Isaiah’s time, institutions favored the rich and marginalized the poor. Doing good involves changing that. We should use our advantages to help those who are less fortunate.
(5) Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow: In ancient times, the most vulnerable were widows, orphans, and immigrants. Returning to God and doing good means supporting these people and using our resources to help them.
Another book to consider is by J.B. Phillips. It’s called Your God is Too Small.
We shouldn’t limit our sins to things like watching certain things on our phone, gossiping, or missing church. Instead, we should think more broadly about justice and righteousness and how we can help those in need of our love and care.
God is a big God, and our response to Him should contain full-bodied faithfulness to His purposes.
Two Gracious Offers
You are probably like me and have had times when you felt the weight of your sin and disobedience painfully. Here is God’s gracious good news for sinners.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
I have often repeated God’s assurance of forgiveness found in 1 John to myself and others.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
God responds to our confession and repentance with complete forgiveness. He doesn’t remember our sins and hold them over our head. He completely wipes them away.
What a gracious gift, and a powerful motivation to respond in love and repentance to the Lord.
The second act of God’s grace is a promise to the faithful.
“If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken” (Isaiah 1:19-20).
I often turn to verse 19 and ask myself if I am willing. An internal willingness is necessary to fulfill what is present in the verses we have been studying in this passage. Once we are willing, obedience will follow.
I challenge you to do what I do with the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). I rehearse the verses and ask myself, “Am I willing to do what Jesus teaches? Am I following His guidance with obedience?”
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross, Bruce Kirby, and I discussed this passage on YouTube today.
Real Voices 