Blood, Fire, and Judgement

“Who is this who comes from Edom, with garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, this One who is majestic in His apparel, marching in the greatness of His strength? “It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? “I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My raiment. For the day of vengeance was in My heart, and My year of redemption has come. I looked, and there was no one to help, and I was astonished and there was no one to uphold; so My own arm brought salvation to Me, and My wrath upheld Me. I trod down the peoples in My anger and made them drunk in My wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.” Isaiah 63:1-6

Every time someone tells me something I say is out of line with God's character, I simply ask what part of His character are they referring to. Since I believe in “Fatalism by Design” the most common attributes of God cited against my theological perspective generally includes the facts that He loves us, He forgives, and He is merciful. When someone says this, I usually ask them how in the world do they think that they have fully comprehended an incomprehensible God? How have they, with a finite brain, comprehended and infinite God? I won't go into the plethora of responses I get to these questions but let me say it here. I do not fully know God, nor will I ever while on this earth. But I recognize the need to bring in every facet of God's character into an inter-dependent, inter-relational, complementary character. The more I understand, the more I love. The more I love, the more I praise. The more I praise, the more I glorify. The more I glorify, the more pleasure I bring Him. The more pleasure I bring Him, the more I fulfill my purpose on this earth. It is for these reasons I find it necessary to recognize and respect every aspect of God's character, even the ones we may not relate to.

Chapter 63 in Isaiah is written in dialog format, Isaiah presumably addressing an unknown person. This unknown person is revealed the very first time “He” (note the capital H) is referenced. Verse one says, “this One who is majestic in His apparel…” The only individual who's name is always capitalized when referred to with pronouns like He, Him, Himself, is God. Thus this passage is a dialog between Isaiah and God. Isaiah boldly addresses God asking, “Who is this who comes from Edom, with garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, this One who is majestic in His apparel, marching in the greatness of His strength?”

In reply God identifies Himself while doing two things. He says “It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” First God speaks and acts in righteousness, nothing He does is wrong. This is fundamental to comprehending the following verses, that what God does is not wrong, not sin. In addition He prefaces the following verses by reminding us that He saves, who specifically depends on the orientation of their heart, but He is mighty to save none the less and it is significant that God notes this about Himself. Again God has multiple facets to His character, each being complementary to the others.

Isaiah, in a very open manner asks of God, “Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press?” It should be noted just how powerful this question is. When someone trod the wine press, they stained not only their pants, but often times the skin of their legs were effectively dyed red from the thick juices of the crushed grapes. This question from Isaiah indicates that God was completely red, stained from something that was obviously not wine, but that was like wine.

God's reply is probably one of the most powerful statements ever issued to humanity. If I had been present when the God issued the following answer, I would be shaking in my boots in pure undiluted fear. God replies in verse 3, “I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with Me.” I want to stop here to point out something important. What follows is God alone, without assistance from man or angel, just Him. God personally attended to what was done without outside help.

He continues to explain what the red is in the second part of the verse. “I also trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My raiment.” If a normal man told me the reason his clothes and skin was soaked red was from human blood I'd probably begin looking for a handy exit. How terrifying is the idea that our all powerful God crushed sinners beneath his feet, trampling them so that their blood soaked His garments. Motivated by anger and wrath God stained all his raiment or all of His clothing in the red blood of sinners.

God doesn't leave Isaiah in terrified bewilderment, as He continues to explain why He trampled and crushed these people. He continues, “For the day of vengeance was in My heart, and My year of redemption has come.” Now when I read this passage the first part made sense, but the second was confusing. Obviously God's wrath and desire for vengeance against the sinners was satiated by His obliteration of their bodies and the spilling of their blood. But, why does God have a year of redemption? The word redemption here is the Hebrew word Ga'al which means to avenge as in renewal. But what about God needed to be renewed? What would be renewed through the action of destroying sinners? The answer to both of these questions is God's sense of justice. God created a world and allowed it to progress for several thousand years, at the end of which His sense of justice needed to be satiated and fulfilled. His justice necessitates that He destroy sinners and sin alike. God's vengeance or personal vendetta against sin was finally fulfilled during the year of the renewal of His justice against sin.

To further stress the point He made previously with respect to the fact that it was Him, and Himself only who did this God says, “I looked, and there was no one to help, and I was astonished and there was no one to uphold…” In other words there wasn't any other person, human, angel, spirit who was able to uphold His justice. Many people, including myself some years ago, contend that God allows the destruction of sinners by letting Satan do the destruction as if Satan was a vicious dog that God let off the leash. Here however God points out that no one else could uphold His sense of justice, no one could assist in the destruction of sinners. He, God of the universe personally attended to this act of destruction of sinners.

If you think this point of God being the only one who did this, He felt it necessary to eradicate any possible doubt that He alone was the one who did this. He says in the latter part of verse five, “So My own arm brought salvation to Me, and My wrath upheld Me.” This verse illustrates that it was God's own arm that did this thing and that it was His wrath that drove Him. In addition it again points to what He pointed out previously with respect to upholding justice. He brought salvation or renewal of His character, and it was His wrath that upheld it.

In case anyone forgot what God did to satiate His desire for vengeance, what He did to uphold His nature of justice, God reminds us in the closing of His statement. In verse six He says, “I trod down the peoples in My anger and made them drunk in My wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.” He uses two phrases with respect to the devastation He wreaked on the sinners. The first is the statement that He made them drunk with His wrath. To be drunk with something means that it overwhelms your senses, permeates your being, and has so completely intoxicated you that it dominates your whole body. That God's wrath has intoxicated, inebriated, and permeated the sinner's beings demonstrates the extent of His righteous wrath against sin and sinners. The second is the term “lifeblood”. Anyone who has seen a human or animal stabbed deeply can testify to the difference between the blood that you see when someone nicks themselves and the lifeblood. Life blood is dark and clotty, thick and drips more akin to syrup than water. Although it is a little disgusting to think about, it necessary to understand that it is this blood, the deep core blood that sustains human life that God was crushing out of the sinners, and spilling over the earth.

With these vivid mental pictures of our God soaked and stained in the blood of sinners suddenly begin to wonder, do we really know who our God is? To reconcile this portion of God's character with the tender love and forgiving grace He possesses we must go back to the two reminders He gave us at the beginning of this passage. Firstly, He is righteous or right in what He did. It was justice, it was necessary, and it was proper. Secondly, He saves, forgives, and loves those who follow Him. It is the wild dichotomy between His treatment of those who love and follow Him and His treatment of those who defy Him in sin. One might ask, why don't we as those who love and follow Him just look at the love and forgiveness He extends to us?

This is a perspective that has been propagated by pastors and “theologians” like Joel Osteen who don't feel they need to talk about God's justice, wrath, anger, and violence. My response would be simple. They are looking at half of who God is, and cannot fully appreciate what they are looking at. It is a simple fact that we cannot appreciate being saved from something we don't comprehend. Being snatched from the fire flames of a house fire is made all the more significant when you hear the screams of those not rescued. You have to be so close to the danger that you can smell, taste, and feel the heat of God's wrath which He saved us from. I want as vivid and complete a mental picture of the devastation, death, and destruction of the sinners as possible so I can fully appreciate how vital and important it was that God save me from that same fate.

Why would God do this? Ephesians chapter one says that He created and designed us all for His “good pleasure”. It says we bring Him pleasure through our praise and gratitude both of which bring Him glory. After imagining a God so full of wrath and anger that He has immersed, soaked, and stained Himself in the dark, thick, red blood of His enemies, after imagining that I feel the most real sense of deep gratitude for His saving and forgiving me. This gratitude is expressed in my nightly worship sessions where I sing my heart to my God, and the more grateful and worshipful I am, the more glory He receives.

I must settle one last question with respect to all of this. When speaking with a young woman about God's will she made the statement that if God would deny a human salvation for His own glory and thus pleasure that she wouldn't want to be in a heaven with such a God. The voice of defiance was so strong in her that she dishonored the God who created her. She was incapable of truly submitting herself and her will to God. If that is the person reading this, my sympathy is with you. I stand by God, I will take all the suffering, pain, and trials He gives me that I might honor Him. I will glorify His violent, destructive side in tandem with His love and grace as complementary sides to His nature.

In doing this I honor God, I bring Him glory, I fulfill my purpose. As a consequence, I will hear His loving words as I kneel in tears before His throne, Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter unto the happiness of thy master...