A pretty AMAZING book

At about the age of eleven I remember saying that Isaiah was the worst book of the Bible. This was largely because it seemed so big and confusing. I have to say that at the age of twenty-five, I now completely disagree with my younger self. In fact, I am now dedicating the next couple of months to reading my way through the book.

I plan to blog as I go to help me think through what I am learning. I probably won't write about every chapter, but we'll see how I go!

* * *

Isaiah chapter 1 is a painful read. We see a nation chosen and loved as children of God (v2), whose religion functions only as a mask (v11-15). God's city has become a city of unfaithfulness and murder (v21) and of corruption and oppression (v23).

God hates their fake religiosity, and he gives them a stark choice:
"If you are willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the land;
but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword." (v19-20).

Reading this passage I feel the weight of what God is saying. I am painfully aware that the people to whom he is talking are incapable of willing obedience. If God treats them as they deserve, they will be broken, consumed and ashamed (v28-29). They shall wither like a plant without water, and will burn along with their evil deeds (v30).

And yet somehow, God is able to say -
"Come now, let us reason together says the LORD;
though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow." (v18)

I don't know if you spotted it, but this is the opposite of logical! In fact this is humanly impossible. How am I able to reason myself to the conclusion that God draws in verse 18? I am painfully aware that I cannot make my ugly scarlet sins white as snow.

And so, God sets up the whole story of the book of Isaiah. He will now reason with us.

He will show us how he will "Zion shall be redeemed by justice" (v27) and how she "shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city." (v26)