Sin's Captivity
Sometimes biblical authors use metaphors that don’t immediately register with us. The people to whom it was originally written got it without much help. We, because of the cultural differences, have to do a little digging. This passage in Isaiah is one of those. It is a part of the “woes” pronounced on Israel by Isaiah in chapter five. Jesus said, “He who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Isaiah gives us a metaphor that illustrates that truth.
In verse 18 he describes the sinful actions of the people to be like a beast that is tied to a cart with cords of deceit. What he is saying is that they were holding on to their iniquity and justifying it with false beliefs. Notice, though, that he changes from cords to ropes in the second half of the verse. The idea is that what they did purposefully, what they thought they were in control of, eventually enslaves them. The cords which can easily be broken, turn into ropes which cannot.
There is a progression in the following verses that gives us the signs or symptoms of what happens to people enslaved by sin. The first sign is they become arrogant towards God. They become skeptical of His work in this world and start demanding that He prove Himself to them. (verse 19)
The next stage in sin's domination is that the moral code is reversed. Verse 20 describes those who call evil good and good evil, dark becomes light and light becomes dark, that which is bitter is called sweet and that which is sweet is called bitter. Sin becomes an acceptable way of life. The analogies (light, dark, bitter, sweet) are not synonymous. Light and dark refer to public morality while bitter and sweet are about personal taste.
This all finds its roots in the same sin that Satan committed and lured Adam into – the desire for personal autonomy, a life lived without God as Lord and King. When we start to think we know better than God, when we become “wise in our own eyes,” we are on the road to a bad place.
The outcome of all of this is we end up measuring whether life is successful and good by our level of self-satisfaction. The way Isaiah puts it in verse 22 is the heroes of a society in bondage to darkness are those who indulge the flesh to the greatest degree. He uses the example of drinking, but I don’t believe he intended to limit it to that. Any people whose heroes are those who are the greatest sinners are people who are on a cultural and societal deathbed.
This whole disastrous journey has broader effects on the life of a nation. It isn’t just a matter of private, personal choice. It becomes a part of the social fabric and infects every institution with its deadly poison. In verse 23 Isaiah writes about one of those effects. The legal system is corrupted. Bribery becomes the norm. The guilty go free and the innocent are punished.
It is a terrible portrait of a nation that chose to rebel against God and His rule. When it starts, people believe they are in control of it. Like an alcoholic who says, “I can quit anytime I want,” they are self-deceived into believing their rebellion is under their control. What they don’t realize is that after they hitch their life to sin, when they tie themselves to iniquity with cords of falsehood, they are in danger of those cords becoming ropes. They sin and become slaves to that sin and that sin takes them down a path of deception and depravity they couldn’t have imagined when they took the first step.
Is all hopeless then? No. Reading further, Isaiah has his own “Woe is me” moment in chapter six. And what he discovers is that when he confesses his sin and repents of it, God sends cleansing redemption from the altar to him.
While we can’t break the chains of sin ourselves, we have Jesus who can. If you find yourself somewhere on this road of iniquity without any offramp in sight, call out to Jesus. He will come and rescue you from your sin.
