How God Deals with Sin

God Forgives People for Present Sin

The purification offering in Leviticus 4 was offered specifically for unintentional sin. The word “unintentionally” occurs three times, referring to the purification offerings for the priest, for leaders, and for common people (vv. 2,22,27). Verse 13 refers to “the whole community of Israel,” and the words “errs, and the matter escapes the notice of the assembly” seems also to indicate unintentional sin. The word “unintentional” refers to a sin of error. It comes from a verb that means to stray (Brown, Driver, Briggs, Lexicon, 992–93). An unintentional sin is not premeditated or planned; it’s a sin we just wander into—because of either ignorance or negligence. We unthinkingly stray into trouble, like a sheep (Isa 53:6).

Sometimes we do something not knowing that God commands us not to do it. We disobey God’s command out of ignorance. That old legal proverb applies here—“Ignorance of the law does not excuse violation of the law.” Even if we don’t know about a law, if we break it we’re still guilty of breaking the law. Once when I was visiting my home town of Montgomery, Alabama, I took my parents downtown to go to a restaurant there. Downtown Montgomery is a bit of a maze of one-way streets. Since I didn’t know which street went which direction, I had to pay close attention to the one-way signs. At one point I was driving north on a one-way street, and another car was driving south, coming right at us. He was going the wrong way on a one-way street. He was probably a visitor and hadn’t seen the sign that said not to drive that way. He was ignorant of the law. But as soon as he passed us, I saw flashing blue lights; a policeman was pulling him over for breaking the law. Likely he was ignorant of the law, but he was still guilty of breaking the law. He didn’t see the sign, but still he could have hurt somebody.

An unintentional sin can also be committed because of negligence. We know about the law, and we didn’t intend to break it, but we were negligent. We weren’t paying attention; we made a mistake. After 40 years of driving a car and never causing an accident, I ran into another car one Sunday afternoon. I was stopped at a traffic light, I looked down at the radio, and in the corner of my eye I saw the traffic moving forward, so I started moving forward. But the traffic in my lane wasn’t moving, so I ran into the car in front of me. I was only going about 5 miles an hour, so nobody was hurt, but it caused over $6,000 worth of damage to my car. (I’m grateful I had car insurance!) It was a dumb mistake on my part, but it was just a mistake. A momentary mistake, an unintentional sin, can cause a lot of trouble. Just because we commit unintentional sins out of ignorance or negligence doesn’t mean that we don’t experience consequences because of these sins. We’re defiled by all sin, so God provided a sacrifice to atone for unintentional sins.

In Leviticus 4 the same statement occurs 3 times. Verse 20 says, “The priest will make atonement on their behalf, and they will be forgiven.” Verse 26 says, “The priest will make atonement on his behalf for that person’s sin, and he will be forgiven.” Verse 31 says, “The priest will make atonement on his behalf, and he will be forgiven.” That repetition emphasizes the purpose of this sacrifice—to atone for sin and secure forgiveness from God. To atone for sin means to do what is necessary to restore a right relationship with God. The word used to refer to forgiveness is a word that in the whole Old Testament is used only to refer to God’s forgiveness (Gane, Leviticus, Numbers, 103). We can forgive other people, and other people can forgive us, but God forgives in a way that no human can, so a special word was reserved to refer to God’s forgiveness. When I forgive someone’s sin against me, I forgive as someone who has also sinned. My forgiveness doesn’t require a sacrifice to atone for sin; it doesn’t even require confession or repentance. It only requires my decision to forgive, realizing that I too am a sinner in need of forgiveness. God’s forgiveness is different. He is perfectly holy, perfectly just, and the King of the universe who decrees that all sin leads to death. To secure His forgiveness requires either our death or the death of a sacrifice that He ordains.

Praise His name, He does forgive! Leviticus 4 carries the message that forgiveness is available to all. God specified that the purification offering was for four groups of people. His forgiveness is available to common people, to leaders, to priests, and to the congregation as a whole. The purification offering was only for unintentional sins, but elsewhere the Old Testament states that God made His forgiveness available for intentional sins (e.g., 2 Sam 12:13; plus, the rituals of the Day of Atonement secured forgiveness for all Israelites, presumably including those who had sinned intentionally; Lev 16:21,30,32,34). In the Old Testament, the only sins not forgiven are the sins of defiant and unrepentant sinners (Num 15:30-31). God makes His forgiveness available to all.

However, God’s forgiveness is not automatic. Forgiveness is arranged by God. God gave specific laws regarding His forgiveness, and those laws must be followed to secure His forgiveness. In the case of the purification offering, God commanded the people who wanted His forgiveness to bring the specified animal to the entrance of the tabernacle and lay their hands on the animal’s head, and the priest (v. 4), the elders (v. 15), the leader (v. 24), or the common person (v. 29) would kill the animal. The priest was then to follow special rules in handling the blood of the sacrificial animal. When the purification sacrifice was offered for priests or the whole congregation, priests sprinkled the blood inside the tabernacle in front of the inner veil and placed some of the blood on the horns of the altar of incense. When the purification sacrifice was offered for a leader or a common person, the priests placed some of the blood on the horns of the bronze altar. In every case the remaining blood was poured out at the base of the bronze altar.

The prominence of blood in the sacrificial system carried an important message. Hebrews 9:22 says, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Why is the shedding of blood necessary for God to forgive sin? The blood of the animal represents the life of that animal. Leviticus 17:14 says, “The life of every creature is its blood.” The blood is the life, so as the blood of the sacrificial animal was shed, its life was given in the place of the life of the one who offered it. We’ve mentioned before that God has decreed that sin leads to death. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” Sin always leads to this end. God in His mercy allows for a sacrifice to die in the place of sinners so they can live. God’s decree that sin leads to death is still in effect. My sin and your sin will lead to death. Someone will die for our sin. Either we will die eternally for our sin and remain separated from God, or we can place our faith in Christ, and His sacrificial death on the cross will atone for our sin. That leads to our final point.

Jesus Fulfills the Old Covenant Sacrifices for Sin

Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is sufficient to atone for our sin. At Mount Sinai, under the old covenant, God commanded His people to offer all the sacrifices. But God knew that He intended the levitical sacrificial system to be temporary. God knew His people would corrupt His sacrifices.

Repetition Led to Corruption

The Israelites offered sacrifices, and then they offered sacrifices again, and again, and after a while many of God’s people merely participated in the sacrificial rituals with no remorse or repentance for their sin. They went through the motions as if the ritual itself was sufficient to atone for sin, like someone attending church with the assumption that their mere presence in the building means that all is well with them spiritually.

God knew about that corruption in advance, and when it happened God sent prophets to preach against it. They preached against the corruption of legalism. Many of the Israelites ignored any personal relationship with God; they weren’t faithful to the covenant with God, but they continued to observe religious rules. That’s legalism—following rules and expecting that to make us right with God.

Following rules can make us look so religious and so righteous, even when wicked thoughts are in our hearts. The principle point of contention between Jesus and the Pharisees was Jesus’ priority of the condition of our hearts instead of external compliance to rules and observance of rituals. During the lifetime of Jesus, Jewish leaders like the Pharisees devoted their writing, their studying, and their living to matters of external purity. They scrupulously avoided eating foods considered ceremonially unclean; they refrained from touching or wearing anything considered unclean. Jesus defied their rules about external observance to their faces. He told them that in spite of their rules and in spite of their righteous appearance they still had wicked hearts. Jesus called them “hypocrites” multiple times. He also called them “whitewashed tombs”—white and clean on the outside, but dead on the inside (Matt 23).

A few years ago a student of mine had the water in his house tested. He had just moved in and had young children, so he and his wife thought it was important to make sure the water they were drinking was clean. He was confident their water was clean. It looked perfectly clear and he tasted nothing unusual; the water must be fine. Still, they had it tested. The technician took samples from their water faucet and dropped a liquid solution into the water that would cause any bacteria, minerals, or foreign objects to turn yellow. He said that in a few minutes their water looked like yellow Gatorade. They were shocked, and pretty grossed out. The water looked clear, but it wasn’t. We can look pure on the outside too, while our hearts are impure. We can observe a ritual of repentance and forgiveness, while not repenting or receiving forgiveness.

Jesus also said this about the Pharisees: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:20). I struggled with that statement for a long time because the Pharisees devoted their whole lives to studying and obeying God’s law and their rabbinic rules. They did not do immoral things or they couldn’t be Pharisees. How can we be more righteous than them? But Jesus said that unless our righteousness surpasses their righteousness we won’t enter the kingdom of heaven. To understand what Jesus meant we have to listen to what He said next. To paraphrase, He said that God’s law says not to kill, but God knows our hearts, so we’re guilty of sin if we even think violent thoughts about somebody. God’s law says not to commit adultery, but God knows our hearts, so we’re guilty of sin if we even have adulterous thoughts. The righteousness of the Pharisees stopped with external compliance to rules; Jesus requires His followers to have righteous hearts so we don’t just appear pure, but are pure.

With respect to the sacrificial system, the rules had to do with rituals, so repetition also led to the corruption of ritualism. Many of the Israelites were just going through the motions of the rituals, obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. They performed the religious ceremony, but they had no remorse for sin, confession of sin, or repentance from sin. God never intended His sacrificial system to function as an empty ritual, but His people corrupted the sacrifices.

If God knew His people would corrupt the sacrificial system, and if God intended from the beginning for the sacrificial system to be temporary, then why didn’t God the Father send God the Son immediately after Adam and Eve committed the first sin? Why did God introduce a system that He says in the book of Hebrews was imperfect from the beginning and that would become obsolete (Heb 8–10)? The answer is that God was teaching. God used the old covenant sacrificial system to impress powerful and permanent lessons on all humanity. First, God’s law and the history of failed attempts to keep His law teach us that we are sinners and incapable of being justified to God by means of our own good works. Therefore, we need God and His grace.

The second lesson is that in order for sinful people to be reconciled to the holy God, a sacrifice for sin is necessary. Because of the old covenant sacrificial system, the idea of sacrifice was accepted and normal by the time Jesus appeared.

Education Led to Preparation

God teaches us by means of the old covenant sacrificial system in order to prepare us for Jesus. Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly, He was the perfect sacrifice, and He’s the perfect embodiment of grace. In the book of Leviticus Moses recorded five types of sacrifices in the first seven chapters, plus the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement. Why didn’t God give just one type of sacrifice? Each of the sacrifices teaches us something different about what needs to be repaired in our relationship with God. The whole burnt offering expressed the giving of one’s life to God and taught that sin leads to death, the grain offering expressed thanksgiving and dedication to God, the peace offering expressed renewed fellowship with God, and the purification offering dealt with forgiveness for sin. No one sacrifice was sufficient to communicate all of that.

God used all those sacrifices to prepare us for Jesus, whose one sacrifice is sufficient to accomplish everything that all of the old covenant sacrifices together could not. The sacrifice of animals offered by humans was imperfect. The sacrifice of Jesus is perfect. The book of Hebrews states that old covenant sacrifices had to be offered repeatedly; Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was offered once for all. Old covenant sacrifices were temporary; Jesus’ sacrifice is eternal. Old covenant sacrifices were offered by imperfect priests in a tabernacle made with human hands; Jesus’ sacrifice was offered by God the Son Himself in the very presence of God. Old covenant sacrifices applied generally to those who offered the sacrifice; Jesus died for all—Jews and Gentiles. Hebrews 7:27 says of Jesus, “He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do. . . . He did this once for all when He offered Himself.” First Peter 3:18 says, “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God.” Christ died for our sins, in our place to bring us to God.

Many of us remember where we were on September 11, 2001, when we heard the news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon. Steve Scheibner also remembers where he was on September 10. Scheibner was a pilot for American Airlines. On the afternoon of September 10, he logged on to the American Airlines website, saw that a space was available for a first officer on Flight 11 the next day, and typed in his name for that flight. The computer accepted his name, so he knew he was slated to fly the next day on Flight 11. He never received the call from American to confirm, but he didn’t think about that since he thought he was the only one available for the flight. So Scheibner and his wife started preparing for the flight—washing clothes and packing for the trip. Later, Scheibner saw that a pilot named Tom McGuinness had been assigned to the flight instead of him. McGuinness had seniority, so he bumped Scheibner. So the next day Flight 11 took off from Boston’s Logan Airport headed for Los Angeles, flew to 23,000 feet, and engaged the auto-pilot. Then the terrorists attacked, and the result was the death of the passengers, the crew, and many others.

You can imagine what Steve Scheibner must have felt. He thought he was going to be on that plane, but somebody else sat in his place and died the death that he could have died. Later, Scheibner said this:

I saw where I should have died, but I didn’t. . . . Tom sat in the seat that I was qualified to sit in. By all rights, that was my seat that day, I should have been in that seat that day. (“In My Place”)

Tom McGuinness died in place of Steve Scheibner. When we understand what Jesus did for us on the cross, put our faith in Him, and receive eternal life from Him in place of eternal death, then we know what it’s like for somebody to die in our place. Sin always leads to death. We should have died for our sin, but Jesus died for us—in our place, for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. Praise God, that’s how God deals with sin! Second Corinthians 5:21 puts it this way: “He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Reflect and Discuss