“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).

Spiritual lessons can be learned as one studies the references to scarlet in Scripture. The scarlet sins: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (text). Even as it is almost impossible to get red dye out of wool, how much more impossible to cleanse ourselves from our red-stained sins. Yet the promise is that we can become as white as snow. This is only possible through the blood-sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The scarlet line: And she sent them away, and they departed: and she bound the scarlet line in the window” (Joshua 2:21). Rahab trusted in the God of Israel, and as Jericho was crumbling, her house stood firm. As the world crumbles around the believer, his spiritual house stands firm as well. The scarlet beast: A modern-day menace will arise during the tribulation. “And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of the names of blasphemy . . . and I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Revelation 17:3,6). The menace prophesied in the text is the coming world government, headed up by the Beast (Anti-Christ), only to be destroyed at Christ’s glorious second coming. The scarlet robe: “And they shall take gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. And they shall make the ephod” (Exodus 28:5,6). Aaron was to wear a robe woven with scarlet, prefiguring Jesus as our great High Priest. “And they stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet robe” (Matthew 27:28). Though done in mockery by the Roman soldiers, this prefigures Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of Lords. NPS