“I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.” (Isaiah 44:22)
Weak believers expose themselves to various fears and discouragements when they cannot be persuaded in their own mind that their sins are pardoned. Because of their frail faith, they cannot close with Christ and his promises. They worry that they may be deceiving themselves into thinking their sins are not forgiven because in their heart of hearts they are not convinced that Christ has indeed forgiven them. They see themselves as sinful and cannot believe that God will bear with all their failures and transgressions. They fear that God does not intend them to share in the grace he offers and speaks of in his Word.
And yet faith sufficient to redeem a lost soul from eternal death and hell is not based in human thought, persuasion, or especially feelings. Saving faith, by default, springs from the unchanging truth of an unchanging God. And this same God declared that through his name, whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and his substitutionary death and resurrection shall receive remission of sins. Regardless of what we think or feel at any given moment, we are to believe what God has plainly and simply stated in his Word. The truth of the Gospel emanates from the character of God himself. If he said he will do it, it is done. And the man or woman who wavers in that belief in effect makes God a liar “because he does not believe the record that God gave of his Son,” (1 John 5:10).
Faith is exercised as a matter of spiritual persuasion and godly choice – both activities of the mind. And as Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 10:5, the mind is where the majority of our spiritual battles are won or lost. We lose the battle to doubt and fear when we focus on ourselves – our own inadequacies, failures, sins, worries, guilt. Thoughts that originate from an undisciplined mind and shifting confidence always result in a weak faith (James 1:8). And the choice to listen to our fears and other fickle feelings that arise from ill-focused thoughts only further tend to our spiritual demise.
A strong faith, on the other hand, chooses to focus the mind on whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report (Phil. 4:8), regardless of how things feel. Feelings can be as unpredictable as the weather, as opposed to the word of God, which stands – as is – forever (Matt. 24:35, 1 Peter 1:25, Isa. 40:8).
God is not as man is. His disposition toward his own does not waver, nor is our salvation and relationship with him dependent on our changing thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. God says, “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more,” (Heb. 8:12), and “there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus,” (Rom. 8:1). Christ offered one sacrifice for sins forever, and then proceeded to sit down at the right hand of God in exaltation of his work. His redemptive work on behalf of those who believe in him as Lord and Savior is finished. Sufficient. Complete.
John Smith rightly said of all true believers, “We must remember, our sins are no more ours, but Christ’s; and his righteousness is ours; God reckons and accounts us as one now; so though we sin, yet every sin was accounted for in him.”[1]
Contemplations:
- Lord, we are to consider that although afflictions come with sin and are the wages of sin, to those who are bought with the blood of Christ they are not judgments. For everything of justice against sin was spent on Christ at the cross.
- Lord, help me see that afflictions are part and parcel to living in a fallen world where sin abounds and everything is broken. Yet in your providential care and love, even in those dark and difficult times, we know “that all things do work together for good, unto them that love God.”
- Help me Lord to consider, that though the Scriptures often set forth your righteousness against sin and your justice against iniquity, your justice has been satisfied by Christ, who made his soul an offering for my sins. Justice itself has no more power against me for my sins. “For sin shall not have dominion over you; ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
- Help me consider, Lord, whether I am maturing in my faith. There is a great difference between being a babe in Christ (1 Cor. 3:1, Heb. 5:12-14) and growing beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and toward maturity (Heb. 6:1).
Further References for Isaiah 44:22:
Isa. 43:25; Acts 3:19; 1 Cor. 6:20; Psalm 51:9
[1] John Smith, Soul-Reviving Influences of the Sun of Righteousness, (London: Printed for Giles Calvert, 1654), 83.
