Isaiah 59:1-16: a reflection

1Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it can’t save; nor his ear dull, that it can’t hear. 2But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. 3For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue mutters wickedness. 4No one sues in righteousness, and no one pleads in truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies. They conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. 5They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web. He who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper. 6Their webs won’t become garments. They won’t cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and acts of violence are in their hands. 7Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are in their paths. 8They don’t know the way of peace; and there is no justice in their ways. They have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever goes in them doesn’t know peace. 9Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity. 10We grope for the wall like the blind. Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Among those who are strong, we are like dead men. 11We all roar like bears and moan sadly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far off from us. 12For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them: 13transgressing and denying the LORD, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. 14Justice is turned away backward, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has fallen in the street, and uprightness can’t enter. 15Yes, truth is lacking; and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. 16He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore his own arm brought salvation to him; and his righteousness sustained him.

Isaiah confronts the people with the real cause of their distance from God. It is not that God is unable to help, his hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear; rather, your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you. The problem is sin, which builds a barrier between us and God. And the passage paints that sin honestly and darkly, the injustice, the lies, the violence, until it arrives at a bleak scene: there was no justice, no one to intervene, no intercessor to be found.

But then comes a turning point that is the heart of the gospel. Seeing that there was no one, no man to help, no intercessor to stand in the gap, God did not leave things there: his own arm brought salvation to him, and his righteousness sustained him. When no one else could bridge the separation sin had made, God himself acted to save. Where no human intercessor could be found, God provided one.

That is the shape of the gospel in miniature. Our sins truly do separate us from God, and no effort of ours can bridge that gap; there is no human intercessor able to make things right. And into that hopeless scene, God himself comes: his own arm works salvation, providing in Christ the intercessor no one else could supply. When you feel the weight of your sin separating you from God, do not despair that you cannot bridge the gap yourself. You cannot; but God has. When there was no one, his own arm brought salvation. Rest in the God who himself provided the intercessor your sin required.

Lord, your word tells me plainly that my sins separate me from you, and that no effort of mine can bridge that gap, that there is no human intercessor able to make things right. And it tells me the gospel: that when there was no one, your own arm brought salvation, that you yourself provided in Christ the intercessor I could never supply. When I feel the weight of my sin separating me from you, keep me from despairing that I cannot bridge the gap. I cannot; but you have. Thank you that where no one else could help, you acted to save. Let me rest in the God who himself provided the intercessor my sin required.