I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
— ISAIAH 43:25 —
Miroslav Balint-Feudvarski: Theological Biblical Academy | Croatia
Yahweh is unlike all would-be or imagined gods. None fashioned by human imagination could ever abound with such glory and grace. Yahweh alone is the true God. Yet Isaiah reminds us that He is a redeeming God who once saved His people from Egypt and even now has undertaken an incomparably greater redemptive plan. In both instances of salvation—past and present—it comes to ungrateful and insubordinate people, who always fall short of His standard. When measured against God and His standard, the contrast is great! A self-centered and self-indulgent world must be pointed to the One who alone is worthy of worship. On one side there are sinners, corrupted to the core and totally incapable of seeing beyond their selfishness. On the other, behold Him! Isaiah repeats twice in God’s proclamation that attention and focus is to be on Him. Both in creation and in salvation, the orbit is theocentric—God is the focus and God receives the glory. What wonder! For His own name’s sake He will wipe out our transgressions. His glory drives our salvation. His glory is displayed in the richness of His unmerited love and mercy as He determines to not remember our sins. And indeed, this is all possible because in the greatest manifestation of His glory, Yahweh came in the flesh in the person of Jesus to bear the iniquity and punishment for His people. If God is about His glory, and His salvation magnifies His glory, then the gospel we proclaim must also be God-centered. A self-centered and self-indulgent world must be pointed to the One who alone is worthy of worship. Consider what you say to lost sinners. Does your gospel proclamation begin and end with God?