Rejecting and Returning
Pastor Scott’s exposition of Isaiah 31 this Sunday sounded God’s word of repentance to Israel upon our own ears. From this word, verses 6 and 7 stand out boldly in the chapter:
Return, you Israelites, to the One you have so greatly revolted against. For in that day every one of you will reject the idols of silver and gold your sinful hands have made.
God’s basic meaning here is straightforward: He wants His people to repent! Even so, it’s worth noting some details that might otherwise be easily missed. Specifically, take note of the words “Return” and “Reject.”
When we think of repentance, we are right to think of it as making a sharp change in the direction of our lives, as making a U-turn in our lives. There is a strong sense in which we are turning away from the direction in which we were previously headed. This sense best aligns with God’s call for Israelites to reject their idols (in fact assuring that they will one day see rightly and reject them).
We easily pick up on this meaning. When a call to repent is given, we think about rejecting sin:
“I will reject arrogance and pride.”
“I will reject my selfishness.”
“I will reject my lustfulness.”
“I will reject my out-of-control anger and rage.”
This is all very good and necessary. And yet, the verses above hint that there is more to repentance than rejecting sin. As much as repentance entails rejecting sin, it just as much entails a “return.” The motion of repentance is only complete in its turn when it leads us into a the arms of our Father. It’s a call to set aside our revolt against God and to seek His embrace.
This is the more difficult part of repentance. It’s not all that difficult to draw up a list of things that we must reject. It is even possible to enjoy some moderate success in “righteous living.” The Pharisees of Jesus’ day and religious practitioners worldwide continue to demonstrate the possibilities of morally rigorous self-discipline. But all such efforts fall short of the measure of true repentance for one basic reason: they end in self-embrace rather than in the arms of the Father.
Taking the parable of the prodigal son as an example, it is as though the story takes a different turn, with the son finding himself a good job in the city rather than returning to his father. This alternative version is tragic; it ends with the son still blind to the fact that his true need can only be met in the arms of his father.
And yet this alternative ending is attractive to us. It plays to the tune of that first temptation strummed in the Garden, that we could get by on our own, that God need not be in our lives.
The return remains most difficult. The great irony in the Son’s incarnation and atonement is that God at once doubles down on this difficulty, even as He freely gifts salvation to humanity. It should be so easy for us to accept God’s mercy to us in Christ, He accepts us guilt and all, but it is this final admission of our need for God as Savior that so often trips us up.
As I have noted previously, our created purpose and what God desires most is that we would know Him. We can’t know God while we embrace our sin, but neither can we know him by embracing ourselves and our “righteous” ways. God is calling us away from our sin, away from our self-sufficiency, and into the Way of His Son, in whom He will make us into His righteous people. We see this in God’s promise given through the prophet Jeremiah, a picture of a true return which I leave you with:
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." [Jeremiah 31:33-34 NIV]
