Year 9, Day 48: Isaiah 64

Theological Commentary: Click Here

One of my favorite aspects about the prophets is their deep understanding of the judgment cycle.  Yes, there is judgment, repentance, and forgiveness.  That’s an important cycle to understand.  There is more to it than that, however.  Judgment, repentance, and forgiveness is what happens after God gets involved.  That’s what happens after He comes to judge.

The prophets always include a step we would prefer to overlook.  The prophets know that judgement only comes upon people who are guilty.  The thing that the prophets consistently get right is that we as a people are guilty.  We have sinned.  We have aroused God’s anger.  We have brought judgment upon ourselves.  We are not the innocent bystanders caught up in the wake of a great evil as we would really prefer to believe.  We are the great evil itself.

Thankfully, we serve a God we believes in what we can become, not what we are.  Isaiah reminds us that God meets those who work righteousness with joy.  Instead of scrapping the whole of creation, God anticipates when we will choose Him over our sinfulness.  He longs for when we will recognize our sin and repent.  That’s the key that the prophets all understand.  Judgment will come one way or another.  The thing that takes judgment and helps it lead to repentance and redemption is our own ability to acknowledge our sinfulness.

When we acknowledge our sin, we can cry for mercy.  We can look for redemption.  We can ask the Lord to make His judgment not last forever, but rather to pass over us quickly so that we can demonstrate our repentance to Him.

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