Wednesday, June 25, 2025 PM

Isaiah’s Corporate Confession of Sin

Been forgotten by Judah. They are ignoring the Lord. They refuse to acknowledge Him as their true Creator, as their Father. They are not being faithful. They are ignoring Him, forgetting Him in their rebellion.

As Isaiah stands in the very place where Judah truly stands, before the face of a holy God, Isaiah says what must be said. Woe is me. I am ruined. And then begins to confess his sins. Not only does he prophesy his own doom, but he gives supporting reasons why his doom is correct.

He states two-fold his own personal sin. I am a man of unclean lips. And then he bolsters that reason with his corporate guilt with Israel. I dwell among a people of unclean lips. So he has two reasons why the judgment of God comes upon him, why destruction is absolutely certain for him, and we may by extension consider the people whom he represents.

Now we left off our consideration of the individual's sin last time, but now we are going to think about the imputed sin. Why does Isaiah list the sin of Judah as a reason why he is under the wrath of God?

So let's look again at verse 5. So I said, woe is me, for I am undone. So he says, woe is me, the wrath of God upon me, the doom of God upon me, I am undone. We saw in chapter 15, very same word in the Hebrew, means destroyed.

I am destroyed. I am as good as done and there's nothing I can do. Why? Because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

So Isaiah supports the surety of his doubly described doom with guilt compounded, not just his guilt, but also the guilt of those with whom he dwells. So we have his own unclean lips, but also the unclean lips of the people with whom he dwells.

Remember that the lips being unclean speaks to that intersection between all that defiles from without and within. For Isaiah, he's not being hyper focused on one little part of his existence as if that's the only problem, but that this is where everything is intersecting to show how unclean he is and this is really where he feels it the most, especially standing before a holy God as a prophet from a priestly family with royal connections.

Surely he's got to have something to say, but what's he gonna say when his lips themselves are unclean? So Isaiah is in trouble, not only for his own uncleanness, but also for the uncleanness of others.

These others are not just anyone, they are his own people. He says, I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. He's been talking about these people and preaching to these people, addressing the needs of this people all the way through Isaiah thus far.

This is the people of Judah. He dwells in their midst, not simply because it just happens to be where he is, but because he is one of them. They are a people together, he and they. Their unclean lips only add to his doom, his certain destruction.

Now we've got to think about why that is. It's not merely that Isaiah considers himself to live in a target zone of God's wrath, right? I mean the first five chapters of Isaiah are enough to convince us that it's a bad idea to live among really wicked people, woefully targeted for judgment.

But it's more than that, because Isaiah is not merely bemoaning the certainty of collateral damage. Oh boy, I'm in trouble. I'm living with people who all have a bullseye on their heads. God's coming after them, and I'm gonna get hit in the target zone.

There's gonna be collateral damage, and I'm going to suffer because of it. That might be a reason to be upset, but that's not what he's saying here. He is confessing sins that he himself individually did not commit.

You notice that? This is something that we see in the Old Testament, the corporate confession of sin. Isaiah sees himself as guilty for his own sin, and problematically guilty for the sins of those he belongs to, and this is part of that old covenant arrangement that God made with Israel at Sinai.

And the reason why God made this arrangement with Israel at Sinai was to say something about the condition that all mankind finds themselves in as creatures before their Creator, that all men are guilty individually, all have sinned, but also we're guilty because of our creational head, Adam.

Scripture tells us in Romans chapter 5 that we're guilty because we're in Adam, and it is the covenantal arrangement that God makes with Israel that amplifies that creational accountability. So, if you think about how it worked in Israel in the Old Covenant, you're going to find the judgment of Genesis 3 amplified, and the writings of the New Testament clarified.

So, for example, let's think about Israel in the wilderness. Not everybody did the wrong thing in the wilderness, but everybody suffered. Did you notice that? There were 12 spies. How many of them said, we're like grasshoppers in their sight, we ought not go?

How many of the 12 said something very rebellious? 10, Joshua and Caleb did not, but you know what Joshua and Caleb had to suffer? 40 years of wilderness wandering, but Joshua and Caleb didn't do anything wrong.

They were faithful men. Why didn't God just say, Joshua and Caleb, you get to go in, rest of you all, you got to wander around. But everybody in the whole camp suffered because of the sins of some. This happened in many other instances where some gathered and some worshipped idols, and some complained and murmured and disputed, but then the plague and the disaster would come upon the entirety of the nation.

You can think about it in Canaan, in the land of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. Now, Joshua didn't get everything right, did he? He got some things wrong. Remember his deal with the Gibeonites?

Think about the way it worked under the judges. When there were some who were idolatrous, everybody suffered. Here come the Amalekites, here come the Philistines, here come the Midianites, and then everybody is suffering because of the sins of others.

We can think about how it worked with the kings. When you had a really good king, everybody seemed to have a really good life in the land of Judah. But when you had an evil king, everything went really, really poorly because of the king.

And so you can see that this is a pattern in the life of Israel according to the covenant that God made with them. Do you remember when after they had returned from exile in Babylon, and they were rebuilding the city, rebuilding the temple, rebuilding the city walls, and they were trying to get back on track.

And then do you remember what happened when Nehemiah found out that some of the Israelite men had married local pagan women? Do you remember what Nehemiah did? He went around smacking them in the head and making them divorce their idolatrous pagan wives and said, God, remember me for good.

Good grief, Nehemiah, running around smacking people, telling them to get divorced. What are you doing? He recognized that if they continued in their sin, that the judgment would continue to come upon them all.

And so he went around and smacked the violators until they got themselves right. Now, this is an example time and again, of how things were working under the old covenant. It's important for us to read Isaiah's corporate confession of sin in that covenantal context.

And that's the context in which we're reading. I mean, Isaiah 6, we begin by hearing that the king is dead, but the true king, the Lord, is on his throne. And where is that throne? It's in a temple. Where else?

Not in the palace. It's in a temple. And Isaiah is expressing his sin corporately. We see later on in chapter 6, do you see that Isaiah is sent to a single people? He's not sent to the Moabites. He's not sent to the Egyptians.

He's not sent to the Babylonians. He's sent to a particular people. And he declares to them covenantal judgments because they have transgressed against God's covenant. And the concern was whether or not this one particular people got to stay in their one particular land.

So the whole drama of Isaiah chapter 6 is in the context of the old covenant. That doesn't mean that it doesn't mean much to us. It means a great deal to us. Because the arrangements that God made with Israel at Sinai amplify the issues of mankind that happened back in the garden, that happened back at creation.

The sin of man, the sin of Adam is amplified. The ruin of the image of God is amplified in these covenants that God has made. So when Isaiah comes and he stands at the altar of God and his vision, his cleansing that comes from the altar, his cleansing comes and the cleansing involved includes cleansing because he lives among a sinful people.

And then when he is given his commission to go preach, it is an unenviable commission to dull hearts, stop ears, and shut eyes. That's what Isaiah 6 says. Until what? Until only a remnant remains. Now, we ought not take up Isaiah chapter 6 and say, see, this is what we're supposed to do in our churches.

First of all, corporately confess sin that you yourselves did not commit, and then go out and preach until everybody stops listening to you. This is Jesus's plan for this church. No, that is what God said to the old covenant Israel and the prophet was sent out to accomplish this task.

And we'll, again, we can, we get to the second half of chapter 6 of Isaiah, we'll see how Jesus takes up this passage, how he interprets it and says how it comes to pass. Isaiah's vision is full of features unique to God's temple-centered covenant with Israel.

We've got a throne and a temple, there's the seraphim in the smoke, the doorposts and the altar. How did this work? When you go back to Exodus chapter 20 verses 5 through 6, we hear God talking about a forbidding worship of idols.

Remember this in the Ten Commandments? Listen to the way that God talks about this, and this is in the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments which are called the covenant. They stand in for the entire covenant God made at Sinai, sometimes called the Old Covenant in the New Testament.

And in the Second Commandment, notice the arrangement that God says in connection to the Second Commandment. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. You know, the graven images. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.

Now listen. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. Example, those who worship idols. Right? He just said that. So don't worship idols because if you worship idols, I will visit the punishment.

I'm going to show up because of the iniquity of this man and I'm going to punish him, his children, his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren because he hated me. That's part of the Second Commandment.

But showing mercy to thousands. To who? To those who love me and keep my commandments. Are you hearing the Old Covenant? Okay? You hear how those arrangements worked? Now what was so significant then in Jeremiah about the New Covenant?

It was said that the fathers ate sour grapes and the children's teeth were set on edge. But not so. Not in the New Covenant. No, that's not how it works in the New Covenant, is it? There's something different.

When we think about the way that the curses and blessings work in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, read those chapters. How did it work? If there was faithfulness abroad, then everybody got blessed. If there was unfaithfulness abroad, everybody got cursed.

Do you remember what happened when the Sinai Covenant was consolidated down to the performance of the king in the Davidic Covenant? What happened when David disobeyed God and numbered the people? Did God take David aside and put a disease on David?

Bad David. What did he do? He made David choose how all the whole nation was going to suffer for the sin that David committed. Do you see that? This is an expression of the Old Covenant. Does anybody remember a man by the name of Achan?

Remember a man named Achan? So he disobeyed God. He stole that which had been committed to God, placed under the ban at Jericho. He stole. He disobeyed God. And then who died? Achan, his wife, his children.

Remember that? And who else died? Oh, a bunch of soldiers who went out to try to fight at Ai. All kinds of people dying and suffering because of the sin of this person over here. God arranging it all as covenant curses upon disobedience.

You see how that works? Now this is where when we read in Romans, we are told that when the law shows up in the life of Israel, all of a sudden the sin that brought death to each man because each man sinned, and because man was an Adam, death spread to all men because each man sinned.

All of a sudden when the law shows up, now it's a transgression. In Romans chapter 4 verse 15 says, the law brings about wrath. For where there is no law, there is no transgression. As soon as the law shows up, now your sins are transgressions.

Now they're doubly severe. And in Romans chapter 15, in verse 13, it says, for until the law, sin was in the world. So sin was prior to the law, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. When the law shows up though, and you transgress, guess who suffers?

Everybody you are in covenant with suffers. Later on in chapter 5, it says that the law entered that the offense may abound, that it would get worse. So throughout the history of the old covenant, it was required that the whole nation turned back to God in repentance.

Remember, everybody had to fast. Everybody had to go sackcloth and ashes. Everybody had to do it, right? Because if not, if everyone didn't do it, then the wrath wouldn't be turned away. However, there were many events that we read about where a single servant, where a mediator of some kind would just suddenly step forward and they would atone for the people.

They would do something fantastic for the sake of all the people. And God would look upon that action with favor and he would relent from the judgment. Remember, Moses did this more than once. Remember Phineas, who did the great zealous act.

Several judges were used in this way. David the king was used this way. And each one of these servants was a foreshadowing of the coming true anointed one, the Messiah, who would bear our curse and bring our blessing.

Abraham, Israel, and the Blessing and Curse of the Covenant

Now, how about a practical application of all of that? Let's turn to Genesis chapter 12. So when you have a people in covenant, the people of Israel in covenant with God, then you would have people like Isaiah and Daniel confessing sins on behalf of the entire people.

Because they stood burdened by the guilt of the sins that they themselves did not commit, but they themselves still bore that guilt and sin before God. So they confessed it. They were under God's judgment.

Because the law, because of the transgressions, wrath was imputed to them all. Now, also the people together as a group were related to by others on the outside. To deal with one would be to deal with them all.

Now think about this. Genesis chapter 12. And the Lord said to Abram, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation.

I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now, this is dealing with the Abraham and his descendants as a whole, seeing a group.

And then you read the story. And then so Abraham begets Isaac and Isaac begets Jacob. Jacob's name is changed to Israel. He has the children of Israel. There's the tribes of Israel. And then we see that Pharaoh messes with Israel and Pharaoh gets cursed.

Right? We see others dealing with Israel and they deal with Israel in a way that is respectful. And then they get blessed. And you see how this begins to work out. It's fleshed out in the life of Israel in Genesis and Exodus all the way through the history of the Old Testament.

And then in the life of Israel on the inside, it's not just outside, outside there was blessing and cursing. Blessing for those who bless Abraham and his seed. Cursing for those who curse Abraham and his seed.

But on the inside of Israel, there was also blessing and cursing, wasn't there? God said, I set before you blessing and cursing, life and death. Choose life that you may live. And they would have all the life and blessing that they could want if they would obey God, love God, follow his commandments, fear God, put him first in their lives and so on.

And then they would be blessed. So blessing and cursing on the inside, blessing and cursing on the outside. So how are we to interpret that? Well, today you may have noticed that we live in a world that is shaped by theology.

We live in a geopolitical state that is shaped by theology. And we are told, and from more than one person seeking donations, that we are to bless the modern state of Israel because if we don't, God's gonna curse us.

Did you know that the Bible doesn't say that? Do you know that the Bible says this passage, bless those who bless you will be blessed, those who curse you will be cursed, is not fulfilled in the modern political state of Israel?

Do you realize the Bible says that that's fulfilled in something else, in someone else? And it's stated as clear as clear can be. Galatians chapter 3. Galatians chapter 3. Now look at verse 13. Now here's some good news.

We don't live under the old covenant. Anybody ever told you that you have to break generational curses? That's old covenant. Dearly beloved, Galatians chapter 3, Galatians 3 verse 13. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.

How much curse, all the curses of the law, blessing and cursing. Who has redeemed us from the curse of the law so that we are no longer under the curse of the law? Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

All of those curses of the law. Should we live in fear of the law's curses? Should we think, oh God is going to curse us? If you're in Christ, why would he curse you? If you have the righteousness of his only begotten Son covering you, if you are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, why would God curse you?

He says of his Son, in him I am well pleased. And if you are in Christ, then in you he is well pleased, according to the merits of Christ. Christ has borne the curse, why? Verse 14, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, the nations, in Christ Jesus.

Now, remember Genesis chapter 12, blessing to those who bless you, curse of those who curse you? Well, where does the blessing of Abraham go? It comes upon the Gentiles, the nations, the families of the earth, how?

In Christ Jesus. That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Now, look at verse 16. Now, to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say into seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed who is Christ.

I would encourage you to read the entirety of Galatians 3, but look there. Now, doesn't it make more sense, at the point of the Bible, is that those who bless Jesus Christ are blessed, and those who curse Jesus Christ are cursed, because he is the seed of Abraham?

Doesn't it make more sense because all the promises of God are yes in Jesus Christ, and that because that Christ has come, and he's died upon the cross, and rose from the dead, and he has broken down the dividing wall, so that there's not a Jew nor Gentile anymore.

Doesn't it make more sense that it's all about whether or not you are in Christ or against Christ? Isn't that the real divide in the world today? That we're still, we're not supposed to be running around and still counting ourselves as, according to our racial makeup, our ethnic makeup, our gender makeup, and identifying ourselves all these different ways.

We've had a lot of confusion these last few years. Christians running around confessing sins that are not their own. I belong to a people of a certain skin color, so I'm going to start confessing sins that I've never committed.

I belong to a denomination that some people find offensive from previous decades and centuries, and things that some people wrote one time, so I'm going to confess my sins, or confess sins that don't belong to me.

I'm going to do corporate confession because it's in the Bible. I am being biblical. Actually, you're not. We don't live under the old covenant. And today, I would encourage you to, when you're reading the scriptures, follow the trajectory.

Jesus said Moses and the prophets wrote about him. Jesus said they wrote about me. They testified of me. As many as are the promises of God in Christ, they are yes. Second Corinthians 1 .20. So, what's happening in the Middle East today, which has been happening in about 18-month cycles for the last, you know, 70 years, if you hadn't noticed, is nothing new.

The reason why there's so much war and fighting over there is because people hate each other, and what they need is to be turned to Christ, and there are a lot of Christians who live in Israel who are getting killed by bombs.

There's a lot of Christians who live in Palestine who are being killed by bombs. There's a lot of Christians who are living up in Lebanon and down in Gaza. There are a lot of Christians in Iran now spreading churches in Iran.

When we think about what's going on in the world today, think about and pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are preaching the gospel and the advance of Christ's kingdom as it spreads through.

Pray for peace. Amen. Pray for peace. Pray for peace so that the gospel of Jesus Christ can continue to advance as he has died and shed his blood for men, women, and children of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

Christ’s Fulfillment of Old Covenant Judgment and the Prayer for Peace

And so, I hope that a practical thing for you. When we see Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6 confessing corporate sin, he stands guilty for the sins that other people committed. Praise God that we see that, that that is an old covenant model, but it speaks of something glorious because we see that time and again, Jesus Christ came and fulfilled that.

He stood under the wrath of God. He hung on the cross under the wrath of God, suffering for the sins that he had not committed because he was the anointed one. And so, every time we see that in the Old Testament where someone is standing and bearing the guilt of others before a holy God and unable to bear it, we're to remember that Christ stood guilty before the holy God for sins that he had never committed, bearing our sin, bearing our guilt in our place and for our sake, and thus fulfilling the old covenant so that we would live in the new covenant.

Let's close with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much for the time that you've given us in your word. I thank you for the joy of living free in Christ. It is for freedom that you have set us free, you say in Galatians.

So we thank you for the gifts of the new covenant. We thank you for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we thank you for grace to live in this world today, and I pray that you would bring peace and that you would frustrate the powers of evil.

And I pray that you would continue to advance the gospel of your son, Jesus Christ, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, we're dismissed.