Do you live up north, where there is winter? Open your curtains and look out across the landscape as the snow covers everything with a pure white blanket. If you do not have this, instead of opening the curtains, close your eyes and picture it.
“Come, let’s settle this,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are crimson red, they will be like wool.
Isaiah 1:18 (CSB)
It is winter, snow covers the ground. It is not just a skiff of snow. It is 14 inches of snow. It is foggy and hoar frost covers everything. It is a winter wonderland. Everything is white. It is fresh and unspoiled. I look out over our acreage and see a pristine white blanket everywhere.
Isaiah uses snow as an analogy. He is contrasting its colorlessness with vibrant red. Our sins are scarlet red. I can picture them splashed across the snow. In the wild, predator activity gives us a visual picture of this. It is repulsive to us. We are not comfortable with blood on snow.
Our yard is perfect. It is pure and clean and white. At least, it looks that way. Underneath things are not so pretty. There are dead leaves, broken branches, rocks, and scattered litter. Nothing is growing. There is no explosion of autumn colors. There is only the dormancy of winter. The snow hides the bleak, colorless surroundings. It makes it pure and clean.
It has inspired me to remember what Christ has done for me. He has made me white as snow. The reality of the things I have done still exits. Without Him, my life is an unproductive wasteland. My sins contaminate the purity splashing red everywhere. He covers it all. He has made my sins are white as snow. They are removed as far as the east is from the west.
As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Psalm 103:12 (CSB)
7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
Philippians 3:7–11 (CSB)