Forgiven Before We Fell

Read: Isaiah 40:1-5

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned.”

Isaiah 40:1-2

THE PROPHET SAW ahead to a time when God’s people had been disciplined severely for their sins. History would prove him right; the devastation of Jerusalem and the captivity of its people in Babylon was a catastrophic event and an earth-shaking theological crisis. How could God let his chosen people, the delight of his eye (Zechariah 2:8, ESV), fall to ungodly Babylonians? For years, the people of Judah lived in exile, hung up their harps, and sat down and wept by the rivers of a foreign land (Psalm 137:1-4). Their spirits were crushed.

Long before this cataclysm, Isaiah wrote God’s words of comfort to Jerusalem. God spoke tenderly to his precious possession and pardoned its sins. That may seem to us like nothing more than much-needed encouragement and a nice personal touch, but that’s because we look back at these words long after the story has already been resolved. When Isaiah wrote this prophecy, God’s people had not yet rebelled to the point of judgment, and they could not imagine the suffering that was to come. In other words, God had an answer for their sin long before they needed it. He knew what was going to happen and had already compensated for it. He planned a solution and gave them hope well before they had lost it.

We see a similar pattern in the larger salvation picture. We’re told that God loved us and chose us “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4, ESV)—before we had sinned, before we were born, before the world had rebelled or even been created. He looked ahead to our need before we existed and planned for it. He was not taken by surprise when we sinned, nor has any decision we’ve ever made turned him away. He already accounted for our wanderings and had a remedy in place. We were forgiven before we fell.

No wonder the words spoken through the prophet are comforting. They prove that God has not permanently turned away from any of his people. If he had planned a solution before the problem came, then he was not irrevocably offended by the problem. He made a commitment to us that could not be broken by our failure. The Messiah came because God is for us. Our guilt is undone and the weight of it is removed. We can rest in what God has done because he did it for us unconditionally. His delight in his people never fades away.

PRAYER

Father, your mercies are unfathomable, and your knowledge of my heart and my need is too deep to understand. Thank you for choosing me, drawing me into your Kingdom, and never letting me go. Amen.

REFLECTION

In what ways is God’s foreknowledge of our sin comforting? How do his tender words change our perception of our trials?

Further reading: Ephesians 1:3-8

Oft, oft with weeping eyes

I gaze to heaven;

Then, at your look, arise

restored, forgiven.

“BEFORE THE COCK CREW TWICE,” HALLGRIM PJETURRSSON