Word of Salvation – Vol.11 No.46 – November 1966
The Holy God And His Unholy People
Sermon by Rev. G. de Ruiter on Isaiah 1
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 1
Psalter Hymnal: 334; 76:1,2 (after Law); 203; 432:3; 215:1,2,4,5
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
When we start reading and studying the book of the prophet Isaiah we have in front of us one of the most beautiful books of the Old Testament and we enter a world of a wonderful variety of deeply religious thoughts. Isaiah, an aristocrat by birth, is an aristocrat in his thoughts – in the good sense of the word. When Amos, the farm hand, the countryman, gets angry against the high society then one can think he does so with a good deal of resentment. When Isaiah fights against snobbery and sophisticated behaviour of his upper-ten contemporaries, and when he predicts the judgment of God because of their hard, selfish, unsocial behaviour, one feels he is absolutely unprejudiced.
But that social element in Isaiah’s preaching is not the main point. Isaiah is one of the most religious authors of all the Old Testament bible writers. He especially is deeply impressed by the wonder of Gods humility to come down from far away, out of His heavenly residence of eternal, perfect, divine holiness to deal with us on the low level of unholy human beings. That is what has surprised Isaiah most of all, and he can not stop talking about the holiness of God, about the Holy One of Israel, who wants to accept unholy people, who is eager to adopt them as His children, who is willing and able to cleanse them from all their unholiness. And right from the beginning, from Chapter 1, Isaiah deals with all this.
We will talk about three points, mentioned in this first chapter,
– about God as the Holy One of Israel,
– about Israel as a bunch of unholy people, and
– about the relation between this Holy God and His unholy people.
The word “holy” has two basic meanings. First it means to make an ordinary secular thing holy, by certain rituals or by bringing it into contact with things which are holy already, but it is obvious that that is not the original meaning of the word, that it is not the meaning as far as God is concerned. “Holy”, in its original meaning, has a much deeper sense, it means being from a completely different kind, absolutely different from everything and everybody created, human beings and angels included. That is why angels sometimes covered their faces with their wings in God’s presence. That is why God is supremely the Holy One, for God supremely belongs to a different sphere of life and being. The meaning probably becomes even clearer when we examine the word in use,
For example, the commandment, is to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy, that is to say this day is to be regarded and to be kept as different from other days. The instruction is to consecrate the priests, that is, to set them apart from ordinary men, they are different from laymen. So in the highest sense of the word God is absolutely different, in a deep contrast from a created world, and therefore quite incomparable with anything or anybody created. Therefore Gods holiness is a burning fire for His enemies, and the disobedient members of His people. As the divine Judge, God has to burn away all unholiness which He cannot stand as the Holy One. All this is very relevant for us, Gods holiness is maybe one of the attributes of God we are often the least concerned about.
The noisy behaviour in church sometimes, for example, and a careless, nonchalant attitude during prayers of people looking around or resting on their arms, are proofs of the fact that many church people don’t seem to realise that God whom they are listening or talking to is the Holy One indeed, absolutely, completely different from the best of us,
Isaiah was most impressed by this holiness of God, and time and again his reaction was one of the greatest surprise: “Oh God, how is it possible that Thou wantest to have contact with us, for who are we, unholy creatures, men of unclean lips”. And that’s part of his message he wanted to impress on his people – see Chapter 1:4 “You, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity; offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly”. Oh no, don’t try to camouflage your unholiness (see Chapter 1:11), “don’t try to hide behind a multitude of sacrifices,” or in modern terms: behind church going twice a Sunday; behind hymn singing with a loud voice and a pious face; behind praying and bible reading and bible study – I’ve had enough of all of that, I do not delight in it anymore. “When you come to appear before Me, who required of you this trampling of my courts?” Do you hear again God’s indignation because of human superficiality, because of people dealing with God as if they are dealing with their butcher or greengrocer, entering his shop, first dropping in occasionally, just as we can drop in, in a prayer, a divine service, or a Bible Study, so terribly thoughtlessly, so disrespectfully, not realising at all that we are entering the realm of the Holy One. But the deepest indignation is caused by their daily behaviour of materialism and egoism. Their outward piousness was their shield to hide behind, to get on with their cruel, love-less, unsocial behaviour. Here is again that earnest warning against a deep discrepancy between strict Sunday observing and sticking to old religious customs or new habits and on the other side a hard, selfish attitude, six days a week as a member of a society in which being a real Christian means bringing many sacrifices. Isaiah already knew very well that a real believer can only prove the reality of his faith outside the church, in society.
In the verses 16 and 17 God comes with His warning regarding the consequences of listening to God: “Remove the evil of your doings, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, defend and help those who are in need of help,” and if you do not like to prove your faith in your daily behaviour over against your neighbour well, then I don’t like your ‘going to church’, (verse 15)” when you spread forth your hands trying to impress me with your devotions, I’ll hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.” (verse 13) “Please, bring no more vain offerings, I cannot endure that combination of iniquity and solemn assembly.”
Do you realise how this first chapter is already one great warning: please, do take your piety, your devotion, your profession of faith seriously. There is for all of us that danger of combining an outward form of religion without inward piety.
The other day, I heard a young girl, a young professing member of our congregation say; “I think I’ve kept the commandment; love your neighbour as you love yourself,” but she didn’t even realise how cold, hard and harsh she often could be in her judgment of others. Serious Bible study without tolerance, outward biblical knowledge, without sympathy and love for others in the same congregation with a different approach to all kinds of questions and problems, saying prayers and going to church without trying to understand and to help the neighbour – it is outward religiousness without inward piety, it is good for nothing, trampling the floor of Gods house, as a bunch of religious rock and rollers.
No love and sympathy, only judgment and criticism, and selfishness, I’ve had it, God says, please go out, or, (verse 28) “wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, for rebels and sinners shall be destroyed together and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. God cannot accept such an attitude of hypocrisy, proving a low and unworthy conception of the Holy One.
The thing God cares about is how we are in our hearts disposed towards Him. God hates that hypocrisy of people honouring Him with their lips while their hearts are far from Him, and maybe even farther from their neighbour. Talking about religion and faith without neighbourly love, with only criticism and hard intolerance is talking nonsense, offending and insulting God.
It would be better not to “tread God’s courts” with your prayers and hymns at all, than to do so without a reverent and prayerful spirit, and a heart filled with real, warm, neighbourly love.
The thing which God hates so deeply is the separation between a worshipping and an obedient heart. The shell becomes worthless when the worm has eaten the nut. The voice is hateful in God’s ears which doesn’t talk about love and doesn’t prove that love in good, warm, friendly words and professing real faith. Be formal and insincere and out of your hands God will knock all your sacrifices and even the greatest show of devotion.
And now you may say that in this way Isaiah’s preaching is rather a message of wrath than of mercy, but that’s not true. In Isaiah’s preaching, Gods wrath, Gods indignation is but the background to set in brighter light the message about God’s great mercy for unholy people. From the Holy One’s attributes of sovereignty and righteousness Isaiah concluded that He would punish Israel, the nation which was peculiarly His own, for its unholiness and unrighteousness,
.But Isaiah did not regard punishment and judgment as exhausting God’s intentions towards His people, Time and again they are inter-mingled in Isaiah’s book: God’s severe warnings and God’s proposal, His declaration of deep affection and love. Take Chapter 1, In between two hard sayings (verses 12 to 17 and verses 21 to 23) is that beautiful highlight of the verses 18 to 20. “Do you see”, God says in this chapter, “the immense distance between you and me, the great difference between my holiness and your unholiness, do you realise, that, as the situation is now, it is impossible for you to have contact with me, since the Holy One can’t possibly associate with you, unholy creatures? But listen, listen carefully now, don’t run away discouraged and distressed because of the picture of your life and behaviour I’ve shown you, come, come closer, come now and let us reason together…!”
Isn’t it unbelievable, the Holy One who wants to reason with unholy hypocrites? That is the Gospel, Gods great message, the good news from heaven, God the Holy One wants to reason with us, He is willing to find a solution. How will we ever be able to bridge that gap between divine holiness and human unholiness?
We won’t, we can’t. And yet God says: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool!” Scarlet and crimson, are symbols of the most marked and malignant evil, proving blood red human guilt, and God knows how to make it white like snow, and from the New Testament we hear how: through the blood of God’s Son, called by Peter in Acts 3 and 4, the Holy One Himself. Only the Holy One is able to cleanse us from all our unholiness, to wash away our bloody red guilt, by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Holy and Righteous One Himself (as Peter calls Jesus in Acts 3:14). And in this way the Holy One is able to maintain His holy righteousness proclaiming in Jesus the highest form of forgiveness. But only in this way – there’s no other way to wash away bloody-red sin but through Christ’s blood.
And here is the full gospel of the Old Testament free, full, perfect redemption, as they are realised in Gethsemane and on Calvary. There, God’s purpose was fulfilled- but it was not by coincidence. It was in Isaiah’s heart when Isaiah 1:18-20 were written, for “the Lamb, was slain even before the foundation of the world.” It is the glorious gospel in the Old Testament: The Holy One giving Himself for an unholy world, to take away all unholiness from those who accept His sacrifice. Isn’t it incredible?
God says: “While you are stained with blood and clothed with hypocrisy, I can have nothing to say to you or to do with you in this way.” It cannot be that light should have fellowship with darkness. That is reasonable surely. So how can the sins be purged away? Only by a wonder from above, by legal action from the Holy One Himself. So, God Himself, became our Ransom in Jesus Christ, the Holy One, Redeemer from all our unholiness – and now salvation from all punishment of sin.
Not from punishment only, but from sin itself, from all its forms, all its depths, all its degrees, all its consequences. No longer blood-red no longer accusing scarlet, crimson crying to Heaven, but:
My sin, oh the bliss of that glorious thought,
my sin, not in part, but the whole
is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord 0 my soul.
And restoration and regeneration and recreation shall be our share. Verse 27,”and in Jesus Christ, Zion, God’s City, the people of the Holy One shall be redeemed by justice”, justice through Christ, dying upon the cross under God’s wrath against us, and therefore redemption for us and those who repent, will be saved by righteousness, righteousness revealed in Christ’s death – Salvation for all who repent and live in Christ.
Without repentance, without coming to Christ, a man’s life shall wither away as a garden without water. Even the life and work of the most strong and vital man shall become a spark, a particle, a nothing, since he refuses the wonder of divine mercy and grace, since he wants to reason with the Holy One, of his own accord, on his own terms, his own account, And that kind of reasoning will finish as a disaster. On Christ’s account we can reason with God, but only on Christ’s account.
So come, do come, and reason with God on the basis of Christ’s work, praying for the cleansing power of Christ’s blood in your life, your soul, your heart,
No, God doesn’t let us play with His justice, His righteousness. We just can’t do what we like and be safe in the end. God is too holy to close His eyes for injustice, for cruelty, for human coldness and hate, too holy to turn a deaf ear to the cries from concentration camps and uranium mines and gas chambers. Too holy to do so, for that would mean victory for Satan.
Oh, no not that. Rather than leaving unpunished sinners and sin and a blood-red guilt, the Holy One punished it in the death of His only begotten Son. And maintaining justice and righteousness God now can proclaim redemption on the basis of repentance and the way for the Holy One to reason with unholy creatures is wide open now,. And David’s prayer of Psalm 51 has been heard – “make me pure – Thy grace bestow wash me whiter than the snow. But only, once again, when you come to God, as David did: with a broken spirit and a contrite heart – and with a renewed longing to be willing and obedient as a faithful servant of the Lord.
Then you may know of a heart white as snow, of sin and guilt which disappear before the eyes of God, through Jesus Christ your Lord.
If you, through your faith, a sincere, actual, active faith, are one with Christ, then the Holy One looks upon you with mildness and kindness; Christ’s perfectness is yours now; Christ’s holiness is yours, no sins are too big, too accusing, too red; in Christ you can get rid of everything. And now you can reason with God, with Christ at your side. What a gospel, how great this divine goodness
O bless the Lord, my soul, with all your power.
Amen,