AN ANALYSIS OF ISAIAH 64:6
How to Refute Christian Missionaries 1
by Samuel Levine
Isaiah 64:6--Here are the quotes:
"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as the leaf and our iniquities, like the
wind, have taken us away. And there is none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold
of thee;for thou hast hid
thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities. But
now, 0 Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter, and we
are all the work of thy hand. Be not wroth very sore, 0 Lord,
neither remember iniquity for ever; behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all
thy people." From this passage, as well as others such as
Ecclesiastes (Kohelet)
The first question that probably has already crossed your mind is that the
timing is off. Jesus died around 32 A.D. and the
There are other problems, however, with their argument. Nowhere in the book of
Leviticus, or anywhere else, does the Torah allow any form of human blood as an
atonement. That was a purely pagan notion performed throughout the world, but
never in the Jewish world. The Jews have never offered a human sacrifice with
the consent of the Jewish court and community. Furthermore, the entire chapter
17 of Leviticus, and even verse 11, seems to indicate in the strongest terms
that all sacrifices and means for atonement that use blood must be offered in
the Tabernacle or the
Let us now deal with the issue of man and sin. Isaiah 64:6 was misunderstood or
misinterpreted. The verse right before it says, among other things, the
clause, "we have sinned." It is the beginning of a confession. The
next verse then says that we are unclean, and our righteousness is as unclean
as filthy rags. The Jews were confessing the reasons for the troubles that were
besetting them, and they were saying that even the way that they did acts of
righteousness was wrong. The commentaries point out that they felt proud when
they did acts of righteousness, or that they did those acts for the sake of
prestige and honor. Hence these acts were like dirty rags. The Jews were not
saying, however, that whatever any person on earth does is like a dirty rag.
That is openly contradicted by Deuteronomy 28, where it says that "if you
shall hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to
do all His commandments which I command thee this day, then the Lord thy God
will set thee on high above all nations of the earth... Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shall thou be in the
field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body... blessed shall be thy basket
and thy store. Blessed shall thou be when you come in, and blessed shall you be
when you go out..." See the entire passage for the list of all the
blessings. Thus, God is saying that when you obey the commandments properly,
they will produce blessings of all sorts, not dirty rags. Look at Deuteronomy
30:8-14: "And thou shalt return and obey the
voice of the Lord, and do all His commandments which I command thee this day. And
the Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine
hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the
fruit of thy land, for good...If thou shalt hearken
unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep His commandments and His statutes
which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy
G-d with all thine heart, and with all thine soul For this commandment which I command thee this
day, it is not hidden from thee, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that
thou should say, Who shall go up for us to hea yen, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do
it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou should say, Who
shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do
it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth,
and in thy heart, that thou may do it." This is clearly saying that
the command to hearken unto the word of God is near, it is accessible to the
Jews, and all sorts of blessings will result from obeying those laws. This
clearly is refuting the Christian claim that one is condemned to sin; it
clearly is saying that we can obey the law, if we choose to do so. In fact, the
next few verses continue and elaborate that:
"See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.
In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways,
and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that thou may
live and multiply... therefore choose life... " Thus,
the Torah is most clearly saying that we have the control to deserve life, that
we can be good enough to deserve divine blessing in our bodies, our crops, in
all areas of our lives, as well as eternal life. Furthermore, this will result
if we will choose to love God and obey His commandments. God said that the law
is critical for our well being, unlike Paul, who claimed that it was not, in
Galatians 3 and elsewhere.
Thus, man is not condemned to sin, and we therefore do not need Jesus, or God,
to die for our sins. That itself is a ridiculous concept. What good would it do
for God to kill himself, as a means for my atonement? How will his death make
me innocent? How can killing another vindicate my sins? Thus, that verse in
Ecclesiastes must be understood to mean that nobody is perfect, in all
probability. Man will probably sin, no matter what--but so what? God said that
that will not deprive a person from blessing, because, as that verse in Deut.
30:8 said, 'And you shall return "--if you return to God, i.e., even if
you were away from God, even if you sinned, just return to Him, and then the
Lord will place all types of blessings on you. Repentance is the key point,
according to God. Thus, in Psalms 5
If you look throughout the Bible, you will see more evidence of that. In Jonah
3: 10, it says that "God saw their works that they turned from their evil
way" and so He did not destroy the people of
Thus, the notion that man is condemned to sin is not based on the Torah. The
notion that we need blood, and blood alone, in order to receive forgiveness, is
not based on the Torah.
Besides, Jesus was not offered on the altar, he was not offered in the Temple,
his blood was not sprinkled like all other offerings--in short, he was not a
blood offering even if it would be possible to use humans, which, of course, is
not permissible.
Thus, the Christians may ask you about Psalms 14:3 and other verses. Realize
that they misunderstand those verses, or else the Bible is totally
contradictory. Psalm 14:3, for example, says that God sees that no one does any
good. This is referring to the fools of the first verse, where it explicitly
says that there are no fools that do any good.
FOOTNOTE:
1. You Take Jesus, I'll Take G-d,
by Samuel Levine, section one, #10