Red Cleansing Red

There is an interesting popular scripture in the Old Testament:

“Come now, and 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 be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)

This is a very colourful verse. It mentions scarlet, red, crimson, and white. Four wonderful colours in just one verse. In this brief study, let’s just focus on scarlet. For centuries, scarlet has been a colour that signifies wealth and power.  How ironic that the colour really came from a bug!

Let’s do a little history and biology. The finest scarlets in antiquity came from a tiny scale insect called Kermes, which were parasites among the oak trees throughout the Mediterranean world. The male insects were very small and could fly away, but the females had no wings. When collected, they were found to contain thousands of eggs and their offspring were brilliant red. The insects were captured, dried, and ground into powder, which was used to form the scarlet dye.

In a remarkably similar way, sin is a parasite to the human soul, and it dyes the lives of humans—introducing defeat and death to those who get coloured by it. Left to the devil, he wants to stain us through and through.

Our opening verse says: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”. In the physical, based on the quality of the source, it can be said to be virtually impossible to eventually wash out a scarlet dye from any cloth it has been properly applied on. How much more impossible would it be in the spiritual?! It can only take a miracle to make a spiritually scarlet-red man to become white as snow.

But thanks be to God who provided a way of escape. Only God could use a RED to cleanse RED!

‘…the blood of Jesus, his Son, CLEANSES us from all sin…’ (1John 1:7b)

Hallelujah! Are your sins as red as scarlet? Why not heed the gracious call of God — “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord”. This reasoning together is simply a call to believe the Gospel of how He sent His Son to die for your sins. If you will indeed and reason together with the Lord on this, I assure you on the authority of scriptures, that you will join the multitude of believers on the last day who would be singing the words of Revelations 1:5 –

‘…Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood…’

Hallelujah. Only the blood of Jesus can properly deal with the redness of your scarlet sins. Making the outcome to be incredible:

Though your sins are like scarlet, THEY SHALL BE AS WHITE AS SNOW! (Isaiah 1:18)

Believe the Gospel today and be counted among those whose spiritual status is constantly described as WHITE AS SNOW. Thanks to the Lord who gave His blood for us. (1Peter 1:18-19)

Only the scarlet blood of Christ can counteract the stain and make us white as snow.

Amen.