Isaiah 1:16-17

We are given here by Isaiah eight admonitions. Three of them involved the removal of evil that is in principle, wash, make yourself clean, and put away the evil of your doings. Five of them, the performance of what is good, that is the next five. In order for one to do good works and to produce fruit, we are going to always be involved with both sides of the equation.

But if we can use this as any kind of an illustration, we find that one has to do both, but it seems as though from Isaiah's point of view that we have to get away from the negative fixation of not doing things and progress on to the positive of doing things. Almost as if one is elementary, that is the not doing of something, and the other one is more difficult and at the same time requires progress to get to that place, that is the positive doing of something. So it is easier to stop doing something than it is to adjust one's life to where one is doing something.

About seven hundred or so years after Isaiah, we come to the time of Jesus, and Jesus' major battles, it seems, were with the Pharisees. The Pharisees had developed, over the preceding centuries, a way of righteousness, primarily based on not doing evil, and it was combined with an excessive self-concern, that is, the keeping of oneself uncontaminated.

Unfortunately that way of life is essentially egocentric. It is self-concerned. We are not going to go off into Pharisaism here, but I think once you begin to catch a glimpse, an idea, of what the problem was with Pharisaism, you can begin to see the difference between Jesus and the Pharisees.

The Pharisees did have a measure of righteousness; there is no doubt about it. But they became righteous by a negative approach—not doing something. They did not become righteous by doing good things. You can really see this clearly illustrated in Matthew 23, where Jesus climbed all over them. So they tithed of mint, anise, and cumin, but they would not help a widow across the street.

Now which was better in God's eyes? Certainly they should do the one but they left out the other one, judgment, mercy, and faith, which Jesus said were far more important. But that whole way of life was built upon that premise.

Again looking at Isaiah, if we follow his formula here, the negative element will always be present because of human nature, but it will slide into the background if we are growing. If we are making the effort to do good things, then the doing the negative things are going to slide into the background considerably.

Isaiah 1:12-17

He is not saying the New Moons and the assemblies are wrong. What He is saying here is to wash yourselves and make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before God and cease to do evil. Learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the oppressor, defend the fatherless and plead for the widow. Exert concern and care for all those with whom you deal. And the final principle in this particular area is:

Isaiah 1:16-17

There are eight admonitions here. And it is interesting, maybe we can get some kind of balance here. Three of them are negative and five of them are positive. Three of them tell us to do something that is stopping something, and five of them tell us to do something positive.