Tuesday, Oct. 22
Leviticus 4:1 – 5:17 Read it here
I’ve always been challenged by the term “unintentional sin.” But since God didn’t write the Bible for my personal convenience, I’m left with trying to understand what is meant by it.
First, chapter 4 begins by making it clear that the sacrifices weren’t meant to free anyone from the consequences of deliberately sinning.
In fact, 5:5-6 makes it clear that even unintentional sin has consequences (“When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned and, as a penalty for the sin he has committed, he must [sacrifice a female lamb or goat]”)
My struggle is with the word “unintentional.” Most sins involve doing something that you know you’re doing, so how can that be unintentional? And if you somehow don’t realize what you’re doing, or don’t know it’s a sin, how can it incur guilt?
It’s likely that I’m overthinking here.
In some of the examples given it’s easy to see how you might do something and truly be unaware of it, or at least until after you have done it. It would be easy, for example, to step on something unclean without realizing it’s there.
But how could you take an oath without noticing? Or fail to testify to something you know about?
Perhaps 5:4 provides some assistance when it speaks of “thoughtlessly” taking an oath. That implies carelessness more than complete unawareness.
In any case, now that we rely on the sacrifice of Jesus rather than sacrifices of animals or grain, it’s important to keep the purpose of sacrifices in mind: restoring relationship with God after unknowingly or thoughtlessly turning away from that relationship.
Sacrifice restores us from sin that comes from weakness or failure. It’s not a free pass to deliberately turn our back on God with the thought that it can be fixed later.