Our Righteousness Like Filthy Rags
But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
In Isaiah 64, the prophet Isaiah clearly shows that “we have sinned” and “need to be saved” (verse 5). He asks God not to “remember iniquity forever” (verse 9). Our sins have cut us off from God.
But in verse 6 Isaiah shows that even our human attempts to do right can be tainted and unclean in God’s sight. His ways and thoughts are so far above ours that, on our own, we cannot please Him. Thankfully He is willing to forgive us and give us His Holy Spirit so we can begin to think and act as He does. The Holy Spirit writes God’s laws on our hearts and minds so that our motives and our righteous acts can be truly pure in His sight.
For more about how we can seek God’s righteousness in our lives instead of humanly motivated righteousness, see our sections on “Repentance” and “Christian Conversion.”
