“How the faithful city has become a harlot, She who was full of justice! Righteousness once lodged in her, but now murderers…. I will also turn My hand against you, and will smelt away your dross as with lye and will remove all your alloy. Then I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning; after that you will be called the city of righteousness, a faithful city” (Isa 1:21, 25-26).
When God says “I do,” he really and truly does. The prophet personifies Jerusalem as an adulterous wife who is worthy of receiving the maximum penalty of the law for all her crimes against her perfect husband. While we fully expect God to punish, he stretches out his hand to administer first aid. The faithless harlot is transformed into “the city of righteousness, a faithful city.” Are you living under a shadow of fear that God is, at any moment, going to serve you with divorce papers? Ponder these verses from Isaiah and remember this: God really and truly is a perfect husband!
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless” (Eph 5:25-27).
