Filthy Rags (Isaiah 64:6) One of the Most Misunderstood Christian Bible Phrases – Super Short

Isaiah 64:6 says: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

The first half of this verse is typically used to try to say that all men, even the righteous, live in sin constantly and will never cease doing so in this life. This twisting of Scripture is a great lie from the pit of hell which justifies all manner of sin and uncleanness as allegedly being compatible with authentic Christianity. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Those who read through the Book of Isaiah will see how God testifies right at the beginning thereof in chapter one that Israel was at one time a righteous nation which He regarded as pure and faithful. This was not so by Isaiah’s time. He also makes it clear that He’ll go to extreme measures to purify Jerusalem and the remnant of Israel in order to cause righteousness and purity to prevail among them.

You will also notice in Isaiah chapter one that Israel was yet a ceremonially religious people in spite of the fact that they were morally wicked. They valued ceremonial adherence over actual righteous, godly living. They lived wickedly and did not walk in God’s ways- yet they were still trying to offer sacrifices, incense, and keep religious feasts and religious holidays. In that context, all their righteousnesses were indeed as filthy rags.

Jesus Christ’s enemies in the Gospels likewise justified all manner of sin and uncleanness while practicing an outwardly scrupulous religion. Such is often a convenient mixture of Biblically prescribed ceremony along with superstition and shallow morality which emboldens its adherents to continue in carnality and remain alienated from God in their hearts. Jesus’ severe rebukes to His opposition were given precisely because they were committed to sin in their hearts yet blessed God with their lips. Such rebukes would be unnecessary and have no force at all if people had no choice but to remain unclean and could not possibly do anything ever that was pleasing to God.

Isaiah 64:6 is in itself a lamentation of the wicked state of Israel. It is spoken in regard to how there were virtually no righteous people there in Isaiah’s time. That did not have to be the case. It is a similar situation to when Elijah lamented before God that he was left alone of the faithful. God told Elijah that there were 7,000 in Israel who had stayed faithful and not bowed their knees to the false god Baal.

Those who try to use Isaiah 64:6 to attempt to claim the inevitably of living in sin and uncleanness already have the unfavorable verdict regarding this claim written on the gates of God’s eternal kingdom.

Revelation 21:27: “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”