God's Reasoning Leads from Scarlet Sin to Snow-White Pardon

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord" (Isaiah 1:18). William Perkins observed that God's logic is inescapable: human arguments have exhausted themselves. Reasoning has accomplished its work. If reason alone were to judge, condemnation must follow—there exists no other outcome. Yet Adonai offers a revolutionary transaction. Those who yield to His reasoning, who admit its truth and fairness, who confess themselves convicted and condemned, shall experience His mercy in triumphant exercise: "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

This doctrine unites reformation with pardon. As early as Isaiah's time, God taught that character transformation depends upon forgiveness of sin. The Divine remedy remains constant across all ages. The Old Testament emphasized law's observance without excluding grace; the New Testament emphasizes grace without excluding law. Neither covenant made law the condition of life. Both represent successive stages within the same covenant of grace.

God demands reformation of practice: "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings." Moral beauty is goodness—not a hidden deposit in the heart, nor a garment donned at will, but the fruit of righteous living. While hands are "besmeared with blood," tokens of immoral life, natural refinements hold little value before Yahweh. Our greatest happiness flows from doing good. This is the essential lesson: "Cease to do evil; learn to do well."