Words in the Wounds
Isaiah 1:2
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.”
These opening lines of Isaiah aren’t merely God-breathed; they’re God-grieved. They’re fresh words from flesh wounds. They’re effectively bled out from a Father who’s been repeatedly stabbed in the back by His own children. Yes, I know that’s graphic, but does it even come close to describing what we’ve put God through? No. Adam’s sin, Cain’s murder of Abel, the Tower of Babel, the time of the Flood, the free-for-all days of the judges, Sodom and Gomorrah, Israel’s captivities, the killing of the prophets, faithless Jews griping in the wilderness, Aaron’s golden calf, the blasphemies of Jezebel, Eli’s apathy, the crucifixion of Jesus. Oh how we’ve turned the Promised Land into a city dump! Oh how our pile of iniquities stretches sixty-six stories high!
But Christian, God’s faithfulness—not our failures—is the theme of this Book, and Isaiah’s portrait is not of an ever-sighing Father, but of an ever-saving One. Yes, there’s blood on these pages; yes, it pours afresh from God’s heart still today; but it doesn’t scream of our betrayal—it sings of our redemption!