Leviticus 5: 14-19, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the LORD; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering: And he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him. And if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the LORD; though he wist it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity. And he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and wist it not, and it shall be forgiven him. It is a trespass offering: he hath certainly trespassed against the LORD.”
While it is possible to commit sins through ignorance it doesn’t stop that activity from being a sin. Sometimes a person might do something without a proper understanding of what the Lord requires in those circumstances while at other times a person may think that they are doing one thing but they are really doing something else because they haven’t investigated all the circumstances fully. Whatever the reason, when the person discovered that they had sinned they were expected to do something about it. That person had the opportunity to bring an offering to the Lord when they discovered they had sinned. They also had to add a fifth of the value to any other thing that they had damaged in order to cover the costs to the proper owner. However, once the proper procedures had been followed then that person could be forgiven. We can face similar problems today as we seek to bring honour to the Name of the Lord. We all have practices that are primarily acceptable in our culture but, on examination of the Bible, may not bring honour to the Lord’s Name, under those circumstances it is appropriate to give up those practices and adapt our way of behaviour to a way that is expedient to our claim to belong to the Lord Jesus Christ (see 1 Cor 6: 12, “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”). Any habit that we have which controls our thoughts and behaviour is not appropriate for a person who desires to follow the Lord.
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
No comments:
Post a Comment