Interlude: Though Your Sins Are as Scarlet

An interlude in Let Us Reason Together

"Come now, and let us reason together," says the LORD, "Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool." (Isaiah 1:18)

This book takes its name from the first half of that verse. Every chapter has been an invitation to reason, to examine the evidence and to render a verdict. But God did not issue that invitation to people whose lives were in order. He issued it to a nation whose hands were "covered with blood" (Isaiah 1:15). The reasoning God invites is reasoning about cleansing. He calls sinners to come, and He tells them in the same breath what He intends to do with their sin.

Therefore, before moving on to the next piece of evidence, this interlude pauses to answer a question the evidence alone does not settle for many believers. The earlier chapters asked, "Is it true?" This one asks, "Is it true for me?"

The Frustration of a Simple Gospel

Many a skeptic and many a believer alike are frustrated by the simplicity of the gospel. On the day of Pentecost, the crowd asked Peter what they should do, and his answer fit in a single sentence:

"Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38)

Repentance assumes belief, because no one turns toward a Savior he does not believe exists, and the confession of that belief is plain throughout the passage. That is the instruction. It is not complicated.

What frustrates people is what comes after. The Lord does not hand out logoed blazers, initiation pins, or Full Armor of God medallions. No one meets you at the water's edge with something to wear that proves you made it. You are now a follower of Christ. You have entered the race. Yet nothing in your hands says so.

To add to the frustration, many, if not most, people feel no different coming up out of the waters of baptism. They read of tongues of fire resting on the apostles. They read of speaking in tongues, of prophesying, of God speaking to others. Then they begin to wonder whether it worked. They followed the instructions, and the result did not look like what they expected.

Therefore it must be said plainly: Scripture never makes feelings the proof of salvation. The promise of Acts 2:38 rests on the One who made it, not on the emotions of the one who received it. Paul tells believers that they were "sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Ephesians 1:13). A seal is not a sensation. It is a mark of ownership placed by the owner. Evidence answers the head, but only surrender answers the heart, and the surrendered heart is not asked to manufacture a feeling. It is asked to trust a promise.

The Accuser's Two Faces

Then, in the middle of that doubt, comes a sin committed knowingly. It is not a sin of ignorance. It is one you saw coming and chose anyway.

Satan is a master of duplicity. During the temptation, he is your biggest supporter. He downplays the cost of the sin and inflates its payoff at the same time. Most of the time we help him, telling ourselves that the act is not really what we know it to be. Sometimes we do not bother to justify it at all.

As soon as the sin is committed, he changes sides. The one who said it was nothing now says it is everything. "How could you? And you call yourself a Christian? Would a Christian spit in the face of a God who loved him so much? God must hate you. Why would He love you when you obviously do not care about Him or what He thinks?" And on he goes.

Scripture names him for exactly this work. He is "the accuser of our brethren... he who accuses them before our God day and night" (Revelation 12:10). Jesus warned Peter, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat," and in the same breath He said, "but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail" (Luke 22:31-32).

Notice what the accuser says and what he leaves out. He says you are guilty, and in that he is correct. He leaves out that Christ died for the guilty. "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). The accuser tells the truth about your sin in order to hide the truth about your Savior.

The Question Beneath the Guilt

From there, the doubting believer reaches the darkest question of all. "Was I ever saved? Perhaps I am one of those Paul describes as vessels of wrath."

"What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory." (Romans 9:22-23)

People in this state will often add, "God hardened Pharaoh's heart." Some will add an argument from creation. David wrote, "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13). God forms every person, and God knows every outcome. Therefore, the reasoning goes, God knowingly forms some people for destruction.

The relationship between God's foreknowledge and human choice is a large question, and it is for another day. One sentence settles what matters here: God's knowing is not God's causing.

As for Pharaoh, read the account in order. Before the text ever says that the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 9:12), it says twice that Pharaoh hardened his own: "when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart" (Exodus 8:15), and again, "Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also" (Exodus 8:32). God confirmed the choice Pharaoh had already made.

Therefore, look closely at what Romans 9 actually says, because it does not say what the accuser claims.

Five Answers from the Text

First, Paul names God as preparing only one kind of vessel.

Of the vessels of mercy, Paul says God "prepared beforehand for glory." God is the named subject. He is the one doing the preparing. Of the vessels of wrath, Paul writes only that they were "prepared for destruction." He does not name God as the one who prepared them. The grammar of the original language permits the reading that these vessels fitted themselves for destruction. At the very least, Paul chose to name God as the maker of vessels for mercy and declined to name Him as the maker of vessels for wrath. That contrast is deliberate.

Second, God's patience is a door held open.

Toward the vessels of wrath, God "endured with much patience." Ask the obvious question: why would God be patient with a vessel whose destruction He had fixed from the beginning? Patience is only meaningful where the outcome is still open. Paul has already said in this same letter what God's patience is for: "the kindness of God leads you to repentance" (Romans 2:4). Peter says it directly: "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). Therefore, the patience of Romans 9:22 is not a delay before a fixed sentence. It is a door held open.

Third, the Potter remakes spoiled clay.

Paul's potter and clay come from the prophets. Isaiah used the image to rebuke those who argue with God: "Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?'" (Isaiah 45:9; see also Isaiah 29:16). Jeremiah gives the fullest explanation of what the image means. He watched a potter at work, and "the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make" (Jeremiah 18:4). The spoiled vessel was not thrown away. It was remade.

God then told Jeremiah what the picture meant: "if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it" (Jeremiah 18:8). In the prophets, the clay's response changes what the vessel becomes. Isaiah even records the clay speaking to the Potter, and what the clay asks for is mercy: "But now, O LORD, You are our Father, we are the clay, and You our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD, nor remember iniquity forever" (Isaiah 64:8-9). Therefore, whoever uses the potter to teach that the clay's response is meaningless is using the image against the prophets who gave it.

Fourth, Paul's last word on vessels is an invitation.

Paul returns to vessel language in his final letter, and this time he says whether a vessel's status is fixed:

"Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work." (2 Timothy 2:20-21)

A vessel can become a vessel for honor. Paul's last word on vessels is an open invitation, and it begins with "Therefore."

Fifth, the dead do not tremble.

Vessels of wrath do not lie awake at night afraid that they are vessels of wrath. Pharaoh lost no sleep over whether he had displeased the LORD. Esau wept over a lost blessing (Hebrews 12:17), not over a lost God. The fact that this question torments you is itself evidence that God is at work in you. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, "He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8). Conviction is His work, and you have it in abundance. You have simply been reading His conviction as His rejection. "God is greater than our heart and knows all things" (1 John 3:20).

White as Snow

The doubting believer reaches one conclusion correctly. He does not deserve God's grace and mercy. That is true. Where he goes wrong is in thinking that this disqualifies him, when it is the very reason Christ went to the cross. Grace is not given to those who deserve it. If it were deserved, it would not be grace.

Return now to the verse that names this book. "Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow." God's invitation to reason was always an invitation to be cleansed. The same promise runs through the New Testament. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). To a church full of former idolaters, thieves, and drunkards, Paul wrote, "Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11). And the vessel that cleanses itself, Paul says, becomes a vessel for honor.

There is still no logoed blazer, no pin, and no medallion. There is something better. You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, and the seal was placed by the Owner, not by your feelings. Therefore, when the accuser points to your sin and asks whether you were ever really saved, answer him with the promise rather than the feeling: "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).

Romans 9 does not teach that God formed you for destruction. It teaches that the Potter endures with much patience, remakes spoiled clay, and declares that anyone who cleanses himself will be a vessel for honor. Anyone includes you, brothers and sisters.

The Charge

For the one who is in Christ, God has already rendered His verdict, and it is "no condemnation." The accuser does not get to overturn it. Every chapter in this book ends the same way, and this one does too.

The evidence is in. The verdict is yours.

The Juror's Assignment: Write Isaiah 1:18, Romans 8:1, and 2 Timothy 2:21 on a card and keep it where you will see it. The next time the accuser speaks, read the card aloud instead of answering him with how you feel. Then think of one believer you know who is struggling with assurance, and pray for an opportunity to share these verses with that person.