God's Invitation

God's Appeal for Reason
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. Isa 1:18

We are obliged to speak of the Lord after the manner of men, and in doing so we are clearly authorized to say that He does not look upon human sin merely with the eye of a judge who condemns it, but with the eye of a friend who, while he censures the offender, deeply laments that there should be such faults to condemn. Hear, “O heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me,” is not merely an exclamation of surprise, or an accusation of injured justice, but it contains a note of grief, as though the Most High represented Himself to us as mourning like an ill-treated parent, and deploring that after having dealt so well with His offspring they had made Him so base a return. God is grieved that man should sin. That thought should encourage everyone who is conscious of having offended God to come back to Him. If thou lament thy transgression, the Lord laments it too. (C. H. Spurgeon)

Israel's Apostasy-A Mirror of Human Sin

​The prophet points out, first the misery that had overtaken the country,

​Isa 1:4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. 
Isa 1:5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 
Isa 1:6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. 
Isa 1:7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 
Isa 1:8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 

and then the sins of the ruling classes,
​Isa 1:10  Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 
Isa 1:17  Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
​Isa 1:21  How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 
Isa 1:22  Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: 
Isa 1:23  Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. 

What may be called personal and private sins, such as drunkenness, vanity, bribery, and the oppression of the poor, are viewed in their public hearing, as bringing wrath and disaster on the whole nation. No man can sin by himself. His most private sins react on the whole community. Thistle-down floats far and wide. In reply, the nation pointed to the splendid ritual and innumerable sacrifices of the Temple service. But these observances only added to the tale of their sins, because they were formal and perfunctory. The sacrifice of God is a broken and contrite heart. The outward is absolutely worthless, unless it is the expression of the inward and the spiritual. But where a pure and holy spirit is present, the simplest forms are magnificent in their significance and value. To atone becomes the base of a ladder to heaven, and the thorn-bush flames with Deity. But forgiveness is freely offered to the guilty. Crimson and scarlet are the most lasting of all colors, and their removal impresses the completeness of God’s pardoning love.  (F.B. Meyer)

God's Appeal as a Father

​God reasons with men on the basis of His own Fatherhood. You will see how in this chapter He reminds all men of it, gives men proofs of it, tells men He has fulfilled it in relation to them. He says, “You are not simply My creatures. You are more—you are nearer to Me. I have done more for you. Hear, O heavens; give ear, O earth. I have nourished and brought up these children; that is My plea.” He declares His Fatherhood by calling them children. He says, “It is not a name with Me; I have fulfilled a Father’s part; you owe everything to Me. Look at your life and see what it looks like in the light of this relationship which I have sustained and fulfilled towards you. Admit,” He says, “My Fatherhood—and you cannot but admit it—and what does your life look like in the light of it? How unnatural and base it becomes. You sink below the brute, you are steeped in more absolute stupidity than the ox or the ass, for the ox knoweth its owner and the ass its master’s crib, but Israel does not know My people.” This is God’s reasoning, and who of us can stand against it? God, our Father, to whom we owe our being, from whom all gifts have come to us, upon whom we depend for everything—what has been our conduct towards Him? “I have nourished and brought up children, and ye have rebelled against Me, flung off My authority, despised My love, lifted your hands against Me”—what can we say to reasoning like this? We cannot excuse ourselves, we cannot justify ourselves; we can only hang our heads in silence and in shame while God says, “Come, and let us bring this reasoning to an end—you know you have nothing to say: admit it.”

Thus in this chapter also God reasons with man on the basis of sin’s results. He says, “You have rebelled against Me; has it justified itself in its success? You have rebelled against Me; what good has it done you? Has it brought you freedom and happiness? Has it brought to the land and the nation peace and prosperity?” God Himself gives the answer in searching and terrible words: “Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores; and your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire—that is what sin has done for you.” He points them to the terrible and pitiful results which have come to pass for the individual and the nation through their disobedience towards God; and He challenges them and says, “Now look at it as I have reasoned it out with you.” (Note: W. Perkins)

God's Love-The Love of a Father

Isaiah begins his prophecy by calling upon the heavens and the earth to witness the exceeding sinfulness of God’s chosen people. “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” Such ingratitude and sin as this, he naturally supposes, would shock the very heavens and earth. Then follows a vehement and terrible rebuke. The elect people of God are called “Sodom” and “Gomorrah.” “Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.” “Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more.”
​
This outflow of holy displeasure would prepare us to expect an everlasting rejection of the rebellious and unfaithful people, but it is strangely followed by the most yearning and melting entreaty ever addressed by the Most High to the creatures of His hand: “Come now, and let us reason together: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

​The sequel of the reasoning is that sins which are scarlet become white as snow, sins which are crimson become as wool. Acknowledgment of the utter sinfulness of the heart and life is followed by pardon, cleansing, and new obedience.
​
“I recollect,” says Spurgeon, “that I used to say to myself, when I was quite a lad, ‘If God does not punish me for my sin, He ought to do so.’ That thought used to come to me again and again. I felt that God was just, and that He knew that I did not wish Him to be anything but just; for even my imperfect knowledge of God included my recognition that He was a just and holy God. If I could have been certain of salvation by any method in which God would have ceased to be just, I could not have accepted even salvation on those terms; I should have felt that it was derogatory to the dignity of the Most High, and that it was contrary to the universal laws of right. But this was the question that puzzled me—How can I be saved, since I have sinned, and sin must be punished? You see, in our text, the blessed answer which the Lord Himself gives, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’ That is to say, the Lord means, ‘You shall have no sin to be punished, for I will so effectively remove it that there shall be none left upon you. I will be as sternly just to you as a righteous and holy God must be, yet I shall not smite you, for I see nothing in you, or upon you, which I ought to smite.’ O wondrous miracle of mercy and grace!”   (Great Texts)

Isa 44:22  I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee. 
​Mic 7:18  Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. 
Mic 7:19  He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. 
​Eph 1:5  Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 
Eph 1:6  To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 
Eph 1:7  In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
2Co 5:21  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 
​2Co 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.