Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” (Isaiah 1:16-18)

“[T]he Lord calls his people to the bar of his justice where of course, they can only be found guilty. But it is there that they hear words of free pardon based on the substitutionary death of a divinely appointed sacrifice.” – Alec Motyer

To be saved from His covenant wrath and to enjoy His covenant blessings, we are required by God to “wash” and make ourselves “clean” (verses 16-17). But that is humanly impossible because our sinfulness is total and absolute, and the cleansing that the Lord requires is a perfect and radical change of nature ̶ from “scarlet” and “red like crimson” to “white as snow” and “wool” (18). Therefore, in His amazing grace and mercy, He, the covenant King and Father whom His people has wickedly wronged and forsaken, offers forgiveness and renewal as free gift to all who come to Him in faith and repentance (19-20).

This was fulfilled in Christ when He died on the cross to pay for sins and accomplish salvation for all who believe in Him:

God put him forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Romans 3:25)

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. (Ephesians 1:7)

Confess to the Lord that you are

• sinful,
• unable to cleanse yourself, and
• in need of God’s free gift of cleansing.

Believe and accept God’s offer of total, perfect and eternal cleansing in Christ.

By the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, live as a cleansed person in Christ.