Preparing the Patient ...

Time for a doctor / patient consultation.  If the nature of our problem is a disease of the mind, then the first step towards healing must be to select a doctor and get our first consultation.  In this instance, as we are dealing with a spiritual matter, it turns out a particular doctor has been attempting to reach us on this matter for a very very long time.  The process of salvation, or being remade from who we are now to a version of us that is without the disease of evil, has been the same one since Adam fell until now.  Our disease is cured the same way, through the same mechanism, and by the same doctor who first created us.  But of course getting medical attention from outside-of-the-only-known-cure not only presents a risk to the patient, it is a virtual guarantee of a worsening terminal condition.  And as always, the chief competition to our only qualified Doctor, looks back at us from the mirror.  Too many patients, be they non-believers or Christians, prefer a self-diagnosis, and a self-proscribed means of treatment for the disease of evil we are all afflicted with.  The competition between self-made-medicine and the only known cure is fierce, and causes countless patients to suffer simply because they refused to seek any medical counsel outside of their own.  Lucifer was the first to follow this path.  Too many of us have been too eager to join him in these vain pursuits.

One of the most dangerous social trends of the day is self-help.  The prevailing idea is that if you want to become a better person, you need only put your mind to it and it will surely happen.  Christianity too often falls into this same kind of trap by accentuating what “we do” to make our spiritual lives strong.  In order to have a better spiritual life we need only … pray more, read more, attend church more, and attempt to witness more.  By following this recipe, or one of similar design, “we” will transform our spiritual life into a much more healthy, righteous, and God-like existence.  The Pharisees of old had very similar ideas.  They too studied scripture, maintained strict adherence to every known (or imagined) spiritual guideline and doctrine.  They lived lives of rigid codes and general dedication to the study of doctrine.  But when the Messiah did finally come to earth, they missed Him entirely.  When Nicodemus sought out Christ, the first words of Christ were the requirement that “a man be born again” in order to see the kingdom of God.  Nicodemus believed that his studied life of devotion to the word would enable him to become righteous, as did all his contemporaries.  But Christ reveals on He could “make” Nicodemus over again.  Only through Christ could Nicodemus be recreated, and this was actually not something new.  Instead it was something Nicodemus might have understood from the Old Testament if he had taken perhaps a little closer look.

The “work” of preparation has long been a topic within the Christian community.  Somehow, the popular teachings have centered the responsibility on those who seek righteousness to find it in what they do, or in which doctrines they agree with.  Neither is true.  So then how does one “prepare” to be healed?  We recognize the healing itself will be done for us, or on our behalf, so what then is the work of preparation?  As we discussed in the beginning post of this section, the initial gift of faith itself comes from God, and it is God who sees the finalizing of His work within us.  So how do we prep?  If it were a medical surgery we were discussing, then the first step would be a consultation with the doctor.  Perhaps there is no difference when it comes to spiritual matters.  In fact the prophet Isaiah describes this part of our process very well in his book in chapter one and for our purposes beginning in verse 18 where the prophet quotes the words of Christ Himself saying … “Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord: …”  Here is our spiritual doctor inviting us to think and talk with Him about our condition.  He continues … “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”  Well now that seems like a fairly good prognosis by the Doctor, our current condition is dire, it is terminal as represented by the red.  Blood is red.  Our condition if left untreated will cost us in our blood.  Coincidentally the cure for our condition will also require blood, but not our own.

But regardless of our current state, which as God puts it as “ins that are red like crimson”, they shall be “as white as snow”.  White in this instance represents a state of purity.  The image of pure undisturbed snow is perhaps one of the “whitest” colors found in nature.  Apparently, our sins or our actions, our characters, and our motives today – the composite of who we are – is to be made “as white as snow” – a state of purity that is without blemish.  This is the goal of our God (our Doctor in this instance), it is to make us pure, to remove our disease, to transform us from the state we are in, into a state of His design.  This singular text represents the entirety of the process of salvation laid out before us.  Nowhere within these words are edicts about what we are to do to see this promise fulfilled.  Nowhere does it state that we must FIRST pay our tithes, worship on the proper day, and abstain from theft, lies, and murder.  In fact, our doctor recognizes that our current condition is likely steeped in all these evils.  But despite our terminal embrace of evil and adoption of it into the fabric of who we are, our Lord promises that what we are to become is something entirely different from today, and entirely devoid of all the redness we once were stained with.  Notice He does not say he will turn us pink, or less red, or perhaps mostly white with a few pink poka-dots.   He says as white as snow, or as white as sheep’s wool if you please.  A complete renovation is what is promised, not a partial one, not an incomplete one, but one that is in harmony with Himself and with the principles, values, and government of heaven – one that is immersed and obsessed with loving others – like Christ is.

What we do, ONCE we are made white, is follow the edicts of love that has been instilled in our hearts.  ONCE this cure has been rendered we would not think to lie, as lying only brings pain to ourselves and those we love.  ONCE this cure has been given we would gladly worship God at any time of His choosing as to have the chance to worship Him and thank Him for what He has done for us is always on our minds.  ONCE this cure is a part of who we are, our tithe is hardly enough to offer Him, in response to the many blessings He has poured out upon us.  Money means nothing, next to cure for evil that has so long enslaved us and warped our thinking.  ONCE He transforms us from red stained blood on our hands to the pure white love for others, we cannot pass by the homeless person and not think to share what we have with them.  We cannot then see our brother in distress and not yearn to ease their suffering.  We cannot ignore those guilty souls who overflow our prisons without hope, but we must reach out to them and let them know, their guilt can be overcome, their lives can be made victorious, not by the power of self-control, but by the surrender of self to Christ.  The cure makes a person think differently than they do today.  The cure makes a person value different things.  It makes them love more and to the extreme.  It makes them freed of evil, not free to indulge in it.  It breaks the chains of slavery to self and frees the heart to love another.  This is what our doctor is promising us.  This is the kind of complete transformation He is offering – WITHOUT preconditions.

Christ (our doctor) continues in Isaiah 1, and now verse 19 … “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.”  Here it is in a nutshell – until we are WILLING to be healed – we cannot be Obedient to the law.  There is no obedience without the cure, without the transformation He has just laid out.  Our preparation is not one of actions we take, but of being willing to be healed.  There is nothing else.  Obedience FOLLOWS willingness, not the other way around.  The promise of “eating the good of the land” is actually Christ stating the natural consequences of becoming in harmony with Himself and with heaven.  What we value after we have been transformed is measured entirely differently than before we are made pure.  In our present state, we value money, power, fame, and ease – but after our transformation – we value people, relationships, love, and making someone else happy.  The work we do on another’s behalf becomes a reward in itself.  The love we show to our spouse, our children, our family, our church, our communities, and even to our enemies – becomes precious to us, something of infinite value we cannot imagine ever living without again.  The “good” of the land is not the gold, precious minerals, fame, or money that evil finds of value – it is instead the charity, the hope, and the faith, and the testimony we are able to share with those who today have no hope or no love.  The promise itself is a reminder to us, that our God offers us more than merely what we need to survive.  He offers us the gift of participation in the work of redemption, the work of loving others to see them come to the throne of grace, because of the love they simply cannot ignore, reflected by Him through us.  The cure changes us.  Our part though, is to be willing to be changed.  Obedience then follows as the natural results of cause and effect.

Christ continues now in verse 20 of Isaiah chapter 1 … “But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”  Herein is the warning of the consequences of refusing the cure – death.  Notice here too, actions follow choice.  If we refuse … and THEN rebel, we will be devoured.  The natural consequences for continuing to embrace the disease of evil leads to murder, and to our own death.  Every sin, no matter how small, no matter how seemingly innocuous leads us deeper and deeper into slavery to self that will only end in killing God Himself, if we were allowed to do it.  The disease of evil is both addictive and degenerative.  Lucifer became Satan over time, it was not an instantaneous transition, but it was an inevitable one.  Satan the first to participate in evil, the first to abandon love, demonstrated where the path of self-love leads at Calvary.  And he will attempt a repeat at the very end of time.  The apostle John writes in his book of Revelations in chapter 20, and verse 9 about how at the very end of time, Satan and his followers will encamp around the holy city of heaven and think to take it.  Satan is not alone in this effort, all those who have refused, and consequently rebelled, will be with him.  It does not say only those who committed murder will be there, or only those who were homosexuals, or only those who were serial adulterers – scripture does not make that distinction regarding the sinners outside the city, any more than it does for those who were forgiven those same crimes that are inside the city.  The distinction between the saved and the lost comes down to the choice to be willing to obey, or to refuse and therefore rebel.  The type and degree of rebellion is not specified, because it does not matter.  Every type of rebellion ends in the same exact place – attempting to take heaven by force, and being willing to kill the Creator of Love in the process.  Satan did it once on Cavalry, and he would do it again if he could.  Fortunately he does not.

Those Christians who are reluctant to discuss the words of the Old Testament, or who somehow believe God was different with the Children of Israel than He is with us, need to take a closer look at the words of God spoken here to Isaiah.  There are countless examples in the Old Testament about how the process of salvation works.  But it is very clear here – the process is one of decision.  Are we willing to be remade, willing to be reborn, willing to be re-created in the image of God? Or Not?  This is the entirety of the preparation on our part, the entirety of the effort on our part, the entirety of the “work” on our part – the rest of it is done by God.  God does all the heavy lifting, we get all the rewards.  Notice that the restoration God promises us in verse 18 is not set in the timeframe of heaven alone, it begins immediately.  As we are willing, we become obedient, and His promise is fulfilled in THIS lifetime.  Notice the tense of the verb “BE” though our sins “be” red … they shall “be” white.  Regardless of what we are, we will be made into something pure.  This is not only about our past, and our failures to date – it is about our present, and our future to come, both here on earth and as it reaches fulfillment in heaven.  These words are not a promise about eternal life, or life on golden streets, they are a promise about living in the here and now, and with the absence of sin in our day to day.  To be made free from sin is the very essence of salvation.  It is the very essence of righteousness.  And the only way to achieve it, is to allow it to happen to us.  We must be “willing” so that our doctor can deliver on the promise he has made to finally and fully cure us forever.