Isaiah 1:10-20 - It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins

Introduction

Candles only shine brightly in the darkness. Beautiful music sounds best in a quiet concert hall. A $100,000 diamond only glistens on a dark background. In the same way then, the gospel of God strikes our hearts and minds most acutely against the backdrop of our sin and God’s wrath.

It is only appropriate then that the gospel of Isaiah should begin with a pronouncement of God’s wrath and judgement against the sins of the world, in order that the stage might be set for the advent of God’s Servant, the Root of Jesse, the Righteous Branch, who would provide salvation for Israel and for the world.

Last week in verses 2-9 we saw that the nation of Israel has brought condemnation upon themselves by the corruption of their inner man, their outer man, and even their circumstances. The depravity of man is total, and so the curse affects all of creation, and therefore God’s wrath is poured out exhaustively over all aspects of human existence.

And so in light of verse 2-9, verse 10-20 resound like a warning shot from the Lord Almighty to the nation of Israel, and indeed to the entire world: the time is at hand, repent of your sins, leave your dead works behind, believe in God, and be saved from wrath and condemnation.

So with that being said, let’s consider the words of the prophet Isaiah as he presents the gospel to us today.

God’s indictment (1:10)

Our first head this morning is God’s indictment. Webster defines indictment as a formal accusation of a crime, and that is exactly what God does here in this verse. He is pronouncing a formal accusation of crime against the nation of Israel, and he does this in two ways.

The first is simply by this bold declaration. The words used here by Isaiah are unique and carry a very specific meaning. When someone says “Hear the word of the Lord” it is always in the context of judgment. You can look to 2 Kings 22, where the prophet Micaiah declares judgement on the house of Ahab, or to Amos 3 where Amos pronounces judgement on Israel. By using the phrase “Hear the word of the Lord,” Isaiah is declaring that God is now speaking, and the words that come from his mouth are words of judgment, wrath, and condemnation.

The second way that he pronounces this condemnation is by calling his hearer’s attention to an infamous story from their history, and then likening Israel to that story. It is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which we are familiar with. God sends down fire and brimstone to consume these twin cities during the days of Abraham and his nephew lot. The reason? They were utterly sinful. There were not even a single handful of righteous men found in those cities. And the sins they were guilty of were grotesque and unspeakable. And so, in light of the events of Genesis 18 and 19, as the Lord rained down the fury of his wrath upon these evil cities, Sodom and Gomorrah became euphemisms in Hebrew culture for evil, for wickedness, for sin. A nation referred to as Sodom and Gomorrah was a nation who had turned their back on God.

So how does Israel arrive here? God’s chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and temple service and the promises? How far they have fallen, to be categorized with Sodom and Gomorrah?

We need look no further than the records contained for us in the chronicles of the nation of Israel, written contemporaneously with Isaiah’s prophecies.

Uzziah, a great leader, incredibly wise, rules for 50+ years, commands the most powerful army in Israel’s history, becomes proud, decides to break the laws of the temple, gets struck with leprosy, removed from the house and line of Judah.

Jotham, Uzziah’s son, does better than his father and in fact nothing negative is recorded about him in the scriptures. But 2 Chronicles 27 tells us that he wasn’t nearly as a good a leader as his father because somehow he couldn’t lead the people away from their corruption. During his reign, while he was a good man, the nation was still corrupt. 2 Kings 15 tells us that the high places were not torn down as they were supposed to be according to Deuteronomy.

Ahaz, Jotham’s son, facilitates idol worship, sacrifices his own children, continually performs pagan rituals in the holy places of Israel, and cuts an illicit political deal with Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria, and is described as unfaithful to the Lord, and an instigator of God’s wrath.

Finally we have Hezekiah, one of the rare examples of a faithful king. Though not without faults, Hezekiah ruled wisely and well.

So the kings of Judah in the time of Isaiah are 1 for 4. Great. But that’s only half the story. We still have the northern kingdom.

Starting 38 years into the reign of Uzziah, we see this string of seedy characters:

Zechariah, evil in the sight of the Lord, rules for 6 months, assassinated. Shallum, Zechariah’s assassin, reigns for a month, assassinated, Menahem, Shallum’s assassin, known for dismembering pregnant women, paying off foreign kings, and being evil in the sight of the Lord. Pekahiah, rules for 2 years, evil in the sight of the Lord, assassinated, Pekah, Pekahiah’s assassin, does evil in the sight of the Lord, and is on the throne during the first wave of the Assyrian Exile, in which Assyria comes and captures the best and brightest of Israel’s population. Then you have Hoshea, who decided to commit himself as a servant of Shalmaneser king of Assyria, while behind his back cutting deals with Egypt. He gets thrown in prison, Shalmaneser is angry, places the capital city of the northern kingdom, Samaria, under siege for 3 years, and ends up wiping the northern kingdom off the map.

Listen to the words of the scribes as they write in 2 Kings 17:7-23

2 Kings 17:7–23 NASB95

Now this came about because the sons of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and they had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel, and in the customs of the kings of Israel which they had introduced. The sons of Israel did things secretly which were not right against the Lord their God. Moreover, they built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set for themselves sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, and there they burned incense on all the high places as the nations did which the Lord had carried away to exile before them; and they did evil things provoking the Lord. They served idols, concerning which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.” Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, My statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through My servants the prophets.” However, they did not listen, but stiffened their neck like their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers and His warnings with which He warned them. And they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the nations which surrounded them, concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do like them. They forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. Then they made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, and practiced divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him. So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from His sight; none was left except the tribe of Judah. Also Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs which Israel had introduced. The Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them out of His sight. When He had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. Then Jeroboam drove Israel away from following the Lord and made them commit a great sin. The sons of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them until the Lord removed Israel from His sight, as He spoke through all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away into exile from their own land to Assyria until this day.

In light of all that, then, God’s indictment is warranted. The pronouncement of judgement against the people of Israel is not arbitrary. They have committed great evil in the sight of the Lord.

The history here is fascinating, and Isaiah’s declaration of God’s indictment of Israel is theologically compelling as we consider how he views evil in the world and evil amongst his people.

But this indictment ought also to cause us to pause and consider how our world and culture today compare to that of Israel in Isaiah’s time.

Look for a moment at the world around you, and filter it just through the grid of the Ten Commandments, and not even the vertical commands telling us how we are to relate to God, but just those that tell us how to relate to others.

We are called to honor our father and mother, to dignify the nuclear family as God designed it. And what do we have? Families being torn apart. Father who don’t lead. Mothers who prefer the workplace to the home. Children who disrespect their parents. Politicians and leaders telling us that it takes a village to raise a child, effectively nullifying the role of father and mother in the life of a child and in our society.

We are called to not murder, to honor and preserve and dignify life. And yet we participate in a modern American holocaust by killing hundreds of millions of pre-born babies, robbing them and their parents of the precious gift of life. Further, we find ourselves in a state which has declared itself to be a sanctuary for abortion, going so far as to provide women around the country with an all-expenses-paid California vacation if they include child sacrifice as part of the trip.

We are called to not commit adultery, or to honor and dignify marriage between one man and one woman. And yet we celebrate the wickedness of homosexuality, approving it by offering these wicked relationships legal recognition and associated benefits. Some 90% of young men in our country feed addictions to pornography. We center the sin of adultery in our entertainment. We shrug at unmarried people defiling the marriage bed together.

We are called to not steal, to honor private, personal property. And yet 11,000 college courses around the country propagate the teachings of a man whose chief aim was to abolish private property. We loot trains right here in our own city. We live in fear that a $50 Amazon package will be stolen off our porch at any given time.

We are called to not bear false witness, to be lovers and promoters of truth. Yet we teach blatantly disproven scientific hypotheses in our schools. We propagate false narratives to push political ends. We have celebrities crying out that they were victims of racially-motivated assault, only to find out that the entire story was fabricated. We have told ourselves and our children that truth only exists in your mind, and that truth is yours, and yours alone, and your truth cannot impose itself on anyone else’s truth.

We look at our world and we say “Yes, wow, amen, we live in an evil world. But thanks be to God that His church is free from this corruption.”

False.

Over 50 American Christian denominations openly affirm homosexuality and preach it from their pulpits.

Less than half of all Americans who claim to be Christians claim to believe in the authority and inerrancy of God’s Word.

The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, historically one of the most faithful groups of churches in American history, was caught red-handed plagiarizing sermons from other pastors because he “didn’t have time to prepare a new message.” Keep in mind that plagiarism is literally stealing, it’s just intellectual property instead of physical property. What’s more, when confronted, the SBC president never repented, never said “let me step away from my positions of leadership because I disqualified myself.” We have pastors and church leaders who were once trusted preachers of the gospel now peddling a Marxist agenda that’s been spoon-fed to them by the same pop culture liars we condemned just a moment ago. We have rampant sexual sin and abuse in churches around this country. Pastors are having affairs with their staff members and continuing to stand in a pulpit every Sunday morning and claim to speak for God. Evil is not just in the world, out there somewhere. Corruption isn’t just out in some imaginary secular land. These things have infiltrated into our very midst.

But here is the worst part about it. We are certainly living in Isaiah’s times. Times of evil and corruption all around us. But Isaiah’s time had an Isaiah, proclaiming truth despite being hated for it. Pronouncing the oracles and judgements of God upon a wicked nation and a wicked world. I fear that as we face the evils we face today, we have too many men who are afraid to prophesy like Isaiah against the evils of this world.

We have too many men ascending to pulpits every Sunday to declare “Hear the word of CNN!” “Hear the word of the latest and greatest social media trend!” “Hear the word of some celebrity!” “Hear the word of the sage thinkers and philosophers of this age!”

And we have far too few men standing up in front of a crowd of a dozen or a thousand, whatever the case may be, holding up a well-worn Bible, saying with Isaiah, “Hear the word of the Lord.”

I am convinced today that the indictment of God is coming against our country and against the visible church, in the same way as God’s indictment came against Israel in the days of Isaiah.

We’ve seen God’s indictment. We’ve seen the evil of Israel. It comes as no surprise then, that we read of God’s insolence against Israel in vss 11-15.

God’s insolence (1:11-15)

God has declared his double indictment against the nation of Israel, and he now moves to describe his insolence against them. Webster defines insolence as the state of regarding something with contempt or hatred. Isaiah even uses the word hate here in verse 14.

God is filled with contempt, filled with rage against the nation. And what specifically is it that has provoked his wrath?

We see God’s insolence against at least four ancient Hebrew rituals.

The sacrificial system - vs 11

The trips of pilgrimage - vs 12

The assemblies and feast days - vss 13-14

The prayers - vs 15

What’s compelling about this is that God actually designed and ordained all of these things. If you go to the book of Deuteronomy, the constitution of Israel, the operating manual for the nation, God actually explicitly commands almost all these things. Look:

Deuteronomy 12 commands the nation of Israel to offer burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, contributions, choice votive offerings.

Deuteronomy 16 commands that the Hebrew people travel to Jerusalem, to the temple, on a regular basis to worship and sacrifice.

Deuteronomy 16 also gives instruction regarding the various feasts and assemblies, including the feast of booths, the feast of unleavened bread, and the feast of weeks.

And while prayer is not directly commanded in the book of Deuteronomy, the implication is there. Part and parcel of worship of God is prayer, making supplications and offering praise to Him.

So we’ve seen the object of the insolence, but how is it described? How does Isaiah describe the reaction of God to these things?

Verse 11, he has had enough of them and takes no pleasure in them.

Verse 13, the offerings are worthless, the incense is an abomination, he cannot endure the solemn assembly

Verse 14, he hates the festivals and feasts, they are a burden, he is weary of them

Verse 15, he will hide his eyes, he will not listen

God’s reaction to the sins of the nation is exceedingly harsh. But what’s interesting is that God specifically targets the worship practices and rituals of the nation. He doesn’t target all of the other evil that we saw recorded in Kings and Chronicles. Instead he goes after the worship ceremonies. Why?

John Calvin in his commentary on Isaiah makes a number of incredibly helpful observations here which I would like to point out:

God does not target the moral law, but the ceremonial law. In other words, God is not going back on the foundation of His Word, the Ten Commandments. And from our readings of Kings and Chronicles we know that the nation was guilty of breaking all those commandments. God takes specific issue with the ceremonial practices.

God condemns the ceremonial practices because, according to Calvin, the nation did not consider the object and purpose for which they were given. For those of you who are with us on Thursdays, you’ve seen that time and time again, we come back to those three guiding principles, answering the why of the ceremonial law. Just this last Thursday we mentioned that the various sundry laws of Israel were instituted by God to showcase his holiness, to establish the distinctiveness of the nation of Israel, and to prepare the way for Christ. They weren’t given as ends unto themselves, but were given as visible reminders of who God was and who they were. They were never intended to save. Only obedience from a humble heart was satisfactory to please God. Calvin calls upon the assistance of Micah to clarify God’s declaration to Israel: Micah 6:7-8 “Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”

Calvin goes on to say that the ceremony was to be dependent wholly on the Word, and the obedience thereof, and it is completely unprofitable, a fool’s errand, to separate the Word of God from the ceremonies of God. God condemns the ceremonies because they have been divorced from obedience to the Word of God.

God’s primary desire is not external adherence to rituals. God’s primary desire is heart transformation, out of which obedience becomes true and valuable, and out of which ceremonies become true and valuable.

The preaching of God’s Word only has as much effect as the willingness of the preacher and the people to hear it. Only by the softening of the heart can the word be received.

Baptism by water brings no benefit apart from the concurrent baptism by the Holy Spirit.

Taking and eating of a cup of juice and a wafer does nothing for a person if they have not tasted of the glory of the gospel of Christ and drank deeply from the grace found only at the cross of Christ.

Going back to Calvin, this time in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, all these outward things are merely signs to us to help our weakness. They help us bridge the gap between the seen and unseen worlds. Adhering to these things while failing to renew your mind, while failing to abide in Christ, while failing to repent and believe, is vanity, and more than that, it is hated by God.

I think there are many professing Christians out there who stick to the rulebook without ever truly grasping the heart of the rule. There are people out there who read their Bibles, who go to church, who pray, who speak encouraging words, who serve, who do all of these things. All fine and well. But God views them as an abomination if they are not done from a heart of obedience.

Church, we need to pray for a heart of obedience. We need to pray every day that our worship, all the things we do here on a Sunday morning, that they are pleasing to God because of the heart attitude that they come from. We need to pray that the Spirit of God would continually place a heart of flesh in our chest, continually make our acts of worship worthy of the God to whom they are offered.

The blood of bulls and goats and the offering of heifers cannot take away sins. Only the sacrifice of Christ can do that. Isaiah looks forward even to that promise here in these verses, which brings us to our next point.

God’s invitation (1:16-20)

Isaiah now turns a corner. God has declared his indictment, he’s declared his insolence, and now he makes a solemn invitation. Wash yourselves and make yourselves clean.

And what does that washing and cleaning consist of?

Removing evil and ceasing to do it, while in the same stroke learning to do good by seeking justice, reproving the ruthless, defending the orphan, and pleading for the widow.

Isaiah repeats himself in a parallel fashion in vss 18-20, with a little bit of a developmental twist: wash yourselves of the blood of verse 15, make yourself clean, purify yourself, and your sins, represented by the bloody hands of verse 15, will be washed whiter than snow, like white wool. Obey this command, and you will be blessed, disobey the command, and you will die by the sword.

The clarion call of Isaiah to the nation is to walk away from their evil and walk in obedience.

But there’s something interesting and actually disturbing when you see what’s going on here.

All these commands are active commands. In other words, the people of Israel are being called to do these things. If you complete a certain set of commands, you will escape the wrath of God. That certainly sounds like works-based salvation, and as it sounds, so it is. God has always been clear. If you want to be saved, if you want to be in right relationship with him, you must be holy, righteous, and obedient.

The picture of verse 18 is coming into the courtroom of God to argue a case. He is calling Israel to come before him and make an argument for their own righteousness based on their fulfillment of verse 17, that they have in fact learned to do good, and ceased to do evil.

The irony is this: the rest of the book of Isaiah, and the rest of the history of the nation of Israel, demonstrates with abundant clarity that Israel was simply not capable of washing themselves. They were not capable of removing the evil from before the face of God. They could not learn to do good. We know from Isaiah 6 that these early chapters of Isaiah were written at the end of the reign of one of the better kings of Judah. After the death of Uzziah things only got worse for Israel. They continued to walk in rank disobedience.

It’s maddening really. Israel could have had it all. They could have eaten of the best of the land, walked in harmony with the lord their God as children walk with their father. But they couldn’t do it. They didn’t have it in them to actually obey the way they were called to.

So Isaiah leaves Israel hanging just a tiny bit. The opportunity for salvation is there, but the means to achieve it is not. God has a made a way, but Israel is not capable of walking it.

But the astute Israelite would remember something, something about the God who is making this solemn declaration. This is the same God who made a covenant with Abraham. And when he made that covenant, he did something unusual. The customary sign of an ancient near Eastern covenant was to prepare a handful of sacrificial animals, cut them into two pieces, and lay them in two rows across from each other. The symbolism was this: by walking through these pieces, the two covenanting parties vow to have it be done to them as it was done to these animals if they were ever to break this covenant. This ceremonial walk is the seal by which each party commit to uphold their end of the bargain. But the thoughtful Israelite would remember that this is not what happened when Abraham and God cut their covenant in Genesis 15, that God passes through the pieces alone, thereby vowing that He and He alone would uphold the covenant. It doesn’t matter what Abraham does. God will keep the covenant according to Himself and Himself alone.

The implication of Isaiah 1:16-20 is first that Israel cannot keep the covenant, second that if they are to be saved, they will need someone else, and thirdly that that someone else is God Himself.

Decades after Isaiah utters these words, the word of the Lord comes to another prophet, Ezekiel. By the mouth of Ezekiel, God says this: Ezekiel 36:22-25

Ezekiel 36:22–25 NASB95

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. “I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,” declares the Lord God, “when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

Israel can’t cleanse themselves. Only God can do that.

Israel can’t remove the evil from their midst. They can’t do good. Only God can do that. And how does he do it? Turn to Isaiah 42:1-4

Isaiah 42:1–4 NASB95

“Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. “He will not cry out or raise His voice, Nor make His voice heard in the street. “A bruised reed He will not break And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. “He will not be disheartened or crushed Until He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.”

The one who will bring forth justice is the Anointed Servant of Yahweh. Israel cannot learn to do justice, and so they need someone who is both just and justifier to bring justice to them.

Isaiah again draws our attention to the Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah 61:1

Isaiah 61:1 NASB95

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners;

The downtrodden, the oppressed, the widow, the orphan, are caught up in this glorious declaration of the mission of the servant.

And by now we should all know full well who this servant is. He is the very same one who in Luke 4:18 ““The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed,” quotes this passage in Isaiah, declaring to all that were present in that synagogue on a Saturday morning in Nazareth, that the Scriptures were fulfilled in their hearing. Christ declares to them: I am the servant. I am the promised one. I am the Son of God who has come to take away the sins of the world.

Time and time again, throughout Christ’s life and ministry, he demonstrates that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah 1:16-20. From his birth he walked in purity and cleanliness, as demonstrated by his baptism. The word translated wash here in your English Bible, means submerge. In Greek, it’s baptizo, or baptize. As he wraps himself in a towel, as a humble servant, to wash the feet of the disciples, do not let the power of the picture be lost on you: the servant has come to wash the ones who could not wash themselves.

As he is buried, taking to the grave the sins of Israel and indeed of the whole world, once and for all He removes the evil from the sight of the Lord. They could not remove it, so He did.

Jesus was the true good. He didn’t need to learn to do good, for he was Goodness Incarnate.

He didn’t only seek justice, he accomplished it, by living a righteous life, pleasing to God.

He came to rebuke the oppressor, namely, the oppressor of our souls, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And that rebuke rang most loudly as he rose from the grave, triumphant, victorious over all three enemies.

He did not only come to defend the orphan, he came to adopt them as sons and daughters.

As Paul says in Romans 6, humankind is bound by law to their old husband, their sin nature. But that sin died with Christ, and upon his resurrection he can now claim the widow for himself, the church, the bride of Christ.

Christ stepped into the divine courtroom and pleaded the merits of his life, and death, and resurrection, and because of that our sins are truly white as snow. Though the blood was on our hands, it has been washed away in the blood of Jesus, and now, where we were filthy and bloody before, we are now clothed in white robes, robes made of pure wool from a pure and spotless Lamb.

Jesus obeyed, and has inherited the best of the land. The question for us then becomes: are you washed? Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?

That is the offer of Isaiah. That is the offer of God. That is the offer of the Servant, Jesus Christ. Washing and cleansing await you. Goodness and righteousness can be yours. Repent, and believe, and walk according to that cleansing even today.

God has declared his indictment. He has declared his insolence, and He has declared His invitation.

Praise God that He has provided a way. Praise God that because of His faithfulness, He will not abandon us. Praise God for His Servant, who has brought forth justice and righteousness.

May we walk worthy of His sacrifice even today.