Devotion: Though your sins are as scarlet(Isaiah 1:18)

These days I was thinking about the extent of God’s forgiveness. Sometimes we misunderstand God’s forgiveness or can God really forgive all sins? Is God’s forgiveness just forgetting things? When Moses asked God to reveal himself in Exodus 34:6,7 – 

He says

“The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, ⁷ keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

That’s how God introduced himself, I am merciful, I am gracious, I forgive iniquity and transgression and sin. And those who are guilty, those who don’t ask for forgiveness he punishes them. I was thinking is there any sin that God cannot forgive and will not forgive. New Testament says about a sin that God does not forgive in Mark 3 – Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which was committed by the Pharisees. They saw the miracles and they were aware that Jesus performed these miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit but they willfully attributed it to the work of Beelzebub. That was the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Today those who are true believers cannot commit that sin as we acknowledge and accept Holy Spirit. So there is no other sin that God can’t forgive.  

When we turn to prophet Isaiah, we see - Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool – Isa 1:18

This verse I feel is one of the best verse which explains forgiveness. Two words are used to represent the worst of the sin that one could commit – Scarlet and Crimson. These two are the Red colors which are at the end of the color spectrum, next to orange.

In this verse, we see the condition for forgiveness - repentance and the effect of forgiveness – reconciliation or restoration of the states. Today I would like to give the true meaning of God’s forgiveness. It's not just forgetting things, the effect of forgiveness is the restoration of previous relationships.

Repentance

Israel’s sin is mentioned in the verses above - the faithful city has become a harlot and murderers. But God says wash clean, stop doing evil, whatever it maybe I, though it is as scarlet. I will forgive you. Here we see the extent to which God can forgive.

The sins that are not forgiven are those sins which we don’t take it to Him. Rahab was forgiven, David was forgiven, King Manasseh of Israel was forgiven, and Apostle Paul was forgiven.

Reconciliation

The effect of forgiveness is reconciliation not just forgetting sin. After forgiveness, your sin and your condition will not remain as scarlet or crimson. But a change will happen, you will be made white as snow, like wool. White shows purity. The other extent.

Col 1: 21, 22 – He has reconciled us through his death for what – To be holy and blameless above reproach. That is the state that God wants and the result of forgiveness is that we are declared holy and blameless before God. Transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God. (V14). That is the restoration happens in our state as a result of God’s forgiveness. Our forgiveness is basically forgetting things and we try to keep them at a distance even after forgiveness. But here God restores the previous relationship that we had with him before sin.

Basis of forgiveness

Col 1:14

The basis for God’s forgiveness is the cross of Christ. The thing which was blocking our forgiveness from God was our sins. But Jesus who bore our sins on the cross and paid the penalty of sin. So that we might receive his forgiveness. If we had not died, we would have remained in that broken relationship with God, still in the kingdom of darkness, in the position of enemies of God. All our sins are forgiven on account of his name. Christ’s death is sufficient to get forgiveness for all our sins. He died for our past, present, and future sins. We just need to confess to God when we sin to restore the relationship with God which was broken because of sin.  

Conclusion

Let us thankfully remember the sacrifice of Lord Jesus Christ. Without which we would never come into a relationship with God. Through his death on the cross, by making him sin, we are declared holy and blameless before God.