Intentional sin

For as long as I can remember, I've heard that there's no sacrifice in the Mosaic Law for intentional sins. I'm sure that's not a true statement, because Leviticus 6:1–7 outlines the trespass offering.  The trespass offering is prescribed for when someone defrauds his neighbor or swears falsely. These are undoubtedly intentional sins. 

Notice the difference in the descriptions of the the sin offering outlined in Leviticus 5:1ff and the trespass offering in Leviticus 6:1–7. The sin offering is for sins committed in ignorance, while the trespass offering is for sins committed knowingly. So yes, the Mosaic Law does have an offering for intentional sins.

Nevertheless, the Law does tell us that there is no offering for sins committed "with a high hand" (Numbers 15:30–31). So the question is, how do we reconcile Numbers 15:30–31 with Leviticus 6:1–7? If we take any intentional sin to be sins committed "with a high hand," then we have a real problem. But it seems to me we are to understand sin committed "with a high hand" to refer to a specific type or category of intentional sin. In other words, not every intentional sin is committed "with a high hand."

When Paul addressed the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13:14ff), he told them that there is forgiveness for those who believe in the Lord Jesus "from all things from which ye could not be justified in the law of Moses" (Acts 13:39). That's an astonishing claim, and it would have been even more astonishing to the people listening to him than it is to us today. But it's nothing more than a succinct statement of the doctrine of justification by faith (faith alone in Christ alone) taught in Romans 4:1–8. There we read that the one who believes is a "man to whom [the] Lord shall not at all reckon sin" (Romans 4:8, quoting Psalm 32:2). 

And we should probably pause here (as we should pause so many times in Romans) and ask, do we really believe that? Do we really believe what Romans 4:1–8 teaches? I'm sure I often fall short of believing those words, even though I'm convinced they are God's own words. Our actions reveal what we truly believe, and my actions betray my own heart every time I look for some sort of penance, some sort of payment for sins that I commit. Every time I act like it's incumbent on me to make atonement for my own sins, it reveals that I really don't believe that God has already justified me freely from all sins.

Here's a question: have you ever confessed the same sin to God more than once? I know I have, and it revealed my own heart: it revealed I didn't really believe He forgave me the first time. 

But if we go back to Romans 8:1–8 or Acts 13:38–39 or Colossians 2:13–15, then we have to say that believing God means believing in absolute, final, unlimited forgiveness. It means that thinking we've sinned too much this time is unbelief. It's calling God a liar. It's thinking that our standards are higher than His. It's flattering ourselves that what Christ could not accomplish in dying for us, we can accomplish with some tears, some remorse, and maybe some ritual.

In a word, it's sin.

So let's take some time to bask in the completeness of the forgiveness that is ours at Christ's expense. There is no sin that God hasn't already forgiven those who believe on His name. Yes, even sins committed "with a high hand." 

Getting back to the question of the Mosaic Law, it seems to me the Law reveals two terrible things about us in those passages. First, if we're honest, we have to admit we've all sinned "with a high hand." None of us can say that every sin we've committed has been committed inadvertently. And if we're really honest, not one of us can say we haven't sinned deliberately, defiantly, and daringly. We've all sinned with a high hand.

But to me the far more troubling lesson is the lesson of the sin offering: we've all sinned inadvertently, perhaps even unknowingly. The law of the sin offering teaches us that we can be guilty without even knowing it, because we are sinners by nature. We can incur guilt without any effort at all, even without realizing we've done it. It's not merely that we sin, but that we are sinners. That's the real lesson of the sin offering. 

And the more deeply we realize it, the more deeply we learn to appreciate Romans 4:1–8.

 

Seeing

I've taken some flak in Bible readings for this, but I think it's worth making a small point that could be helpful. We'll start in Exodus 14:27–31, and observe – as we have several times already – that Israel was saved when they saw the Egyptians dead on the shore. This passage gives us a clear idea what salvation is: it's not merely escaping slavery in Egypt, it's not even escaping the judgment on Egypt, it's seeing the enemy defeated and lifeless on the shore.

So there is a subjective sense to salvation: it's not just that the Egyptian army was dead and lifeless on the shore, it's that Israel saw them there. The Egyptians lying dead on the shore is a fact: it's objectively true. But salvation isn't only objective truth, it's also subjective acceptance of that truth.

And we all know this on some level: the Gospel is laid out in 1 Corinthians 15:1–8, four propositions about the Lord Jesus: His death, His burial, His resurrection, His appearing to witnesses. That's the Gospel. But it doesn't do me any good unless I believe it (note 1 Corinthians 15:1–2 opens with this claim). We could point to numerous other verses: John 3:16, Romans 4:5, Ephesians 2:8–9. These all tell us that we come into the good of the Gospel by believing God.

I would argue that all spiritual progress, from justification by faith alone in Christ alone to the highest spiritual height, is a result of accepting what God has said. God says that Christ has died for my sins, but I only really come into the good of that when I accept that it's true.

Romans 6:1–14 is a good example of this. There's a real problem (Romans 6:1–2), there is a solution resting on God's declaration (Romans 6:3–7), and we come into the good of it as we accept (count on) it being true (Romans 6:11) and then there are practical exhortations flowing from that (Romans 6:12–14).

And I recognize I'm repeating myself here, but it's worth repeating: we can't skip those steps. I've read a whole lot of commentary on Romans 6. I've listened to a whole lot of sermons on Romans 6. But so much of it turns into drivel, and it's because most of it tries to skip to a favorite verse. It doesn't work that way! We can't skip the explanation of God's view of things in vv. 3–7 and try to get to the "reckoning" part in v. 11. We can't skip straight to the "practical" part in vv. 12ff. No, we need to work through it. We need to hear God's view of things, really immerse ourselves in it, and then align our mindset with that (which is all "reckoning" is) before we can live it out.

Now, we can point out that really, we have died with Christ whether we reckon it to be true or not. That's really the teaching of vv. 3–7.  But someone who feels trapped in sin is looking for something more: skipping from vv. 3–7 to vv. 12ff isn't going to help that person. That person needs v. 11.

And here's where I've gotten into trouble in Bible readings: it's not enough to go from "this is what God sees" to "this is how you should live" without the pause of "reckoning." Not only in Romans 6, but in every single passage. We need that pause of "reckoning" in Colossians 3:1–5, in Philippians 3:9–11, in Ephesians 4:1ff. We need it in all those passages. Because "here's what God sees" doesn't help us in practical terms until we see it too.

That's the lesson from Exodus 14:27–31,  a big part of salvation is seeing what God sees. It takes a change of mind, an accepting that what God says is true, even if we think we know better. We need to "see" the truth that's presented to us before it does us any good.

And so when we come to Philippians 3:9ff, we see being "in Christ" as an aspirational thing ("that I may be found in Him"). It's not that I'm not a man in Christ, but it's that we don't get the practical good of that unless our thinking is aligned with God's. No, I cannot make myself a man in Christ. Yes, God sees me as a man in Christ regardless. But if I want to come into the practical benefits of being a man in Christ, I have to be aligned with what God sees. And in Philippians 3:9ff, being a man in Christ means having no righteousness of my own. Until I accept that I have no righteousness of my own, I may be a man in Christ as far as God is concerned, but I'm struggling against it.

So sometimes I speak about our position in Christ in aspirational terms. That's not because I don't believe it's true, but because I'm trying to emphasize that we won't get the good of it until we come to believe, accept, and "see" that what God says is true. It's when I stop struggling against it that I come into the good of it.