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just a reminder that we are not having class next Thursday but Lord willing will be back together on the 22nd uh so let's ask the Lord's blessing on our time together father again we thank you for
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this time to be together Fellowship as Believers as brothers and sisters to be in your word father we ask that you would grant us a measure of your spirit
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to give us understanding of the sacrifices that we're looking into uh but even more importantly to an understanding of why uh they were given
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what was the meaning uh in terms of your dwelling in the presence of your people and your people dwelling in the presence of their God help us to apply that
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wisdom to our own reality that we are indwelt by the the spirit of God and that we Do Dwell Coram we dwell in the
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presence of God so we ask that you would teach us and uh explain things to our inner mind by your Holy Spirit where we ask in Jesus name
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amen we're going to begin tonight we're going to be moving into the particular sacrifices the sin offering and the guilt offering but I want to uh point out this evening a kind of a exegetical
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orical point in terms of uh the way we read our read our Bibles we talked about this when we did the Genesis the Genesis study uh that there was
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a repetition of a phrase um having to do with the generations of the generations of of Adam the generations of terara uh they
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it goes through all the way through the book even the generations I think of of Ishmael is one of them but this repetition of a phrase is a
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marker uh that should transcend our chapter divisions because we recognize that the chapter divisions were not inspired but these phrases or words that
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are repeated throughout the text are are inspired and they pretty much tell us what the uh the divisions of thought or that word pericope um it tells us where
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we're moving from one concept or thought to another when we read that well we have that here in Leviticus and I've mentioned several times that the the
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title of our book Leviticus is misleading and and I believe even dangerously so because it makes us think that this was about the Levites and then we read about sacrifices and we think
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well yeah that's about the Levites but in fact it really wasn't much about the Levites at all it was about the people who would bring the sacrifices and and would actually participate quite
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extensively in the ritual of these different sacrifices so the the title VRA or the ti the Hebrew title VRA and he said uh the first word in the Hebrew
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Book of Leviticus that's how they named the petuk just the first word um which is nice and convenient but it goes beyond that in Leviticus because that
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word or a similar phrase it's not always identical but it's awfully similar sometimes it's in it's Via de and and he
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spoke and he spoke to Moses saying that phrase repeats itself in um chapter 4 verse1 514 61 and 8
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24722 81 111 and on and on and on through 27 that phrase is the marker that no matter where it show
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shows up for example it doesn't always show up in verse one but where it does show up it's marking a marking a new uh thought A New
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Concept now that comes in um immediately with the discussion of the particular sacrifices because if you look at
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Leviticus chapter 4 chapter 4 we have 35 verses in chapter four and that's not bad but chapter 5
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does not begin with that phrase chapter 5 simply says now if a person sins after he hears a public adjuration to testify when he is a witness okay
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doesn't say that in fact we don't see that phrase that phrase again until verse 14 of chapter 5 and then we see it again in chapter
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6:1 and then again in chapter 6 verse 8 now I've encountered a few people over the years who who really have a problem
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with writing in their Bibles um I kind of have a problem with that problem let's let's not make an idol out of the document or the book that we have
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let's Let Let It Be an object of study and um I mean the the rabbis made a point of counting all the letters and marking the middle of every uh document
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and of every sentence and and so they they did Mark up their Scrolls and I would suggest when you're reading a book like genesis and you and you see that
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phrase and the generations of the generations of take a highlighter of the same color and even maybe before you've read the whole book just go through and
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find that and I I think you're closer to the proper chapter proper chapter divisions than your English Bible right so for example the Hebrew Bible chapter
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6 doesn't even begin until our verse eight it gets a little confusing if you look it up in the original language and you're trying to find a particular verse and you you're reading it in your
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English uh chapter 6 verse1 and then you're reading chapter 6 verse1 in the Hebrew with an English translation so that's not the same verse that's because those first seven verses
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are appended to chapter 5 okay so these kind of things help us understand that maybe our chapter divisions aren't well we know they're not inspired maybe
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they're not even correct at some places we've encountered that in the New Testament you know we're we're not it shouldn't bother us because we know that God didn't give chapter divisions um and
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rather we should we should um focus on complete thoughts pericopes complete complete Concepts and let the text
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itself tell us what the transitions are uh so if you do have a problem with writing in your Bible we can talk about that later uh privately so I don't embarrass you but
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um if you will mark up your these headings and the Lord spoke saying or the Lord spoke to Moses saying you're going to see that in fact the exact same
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phrase um begins verse one of chapter 4 then again then again chap 5:14 chapter 6 ver1 8 24 this the
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same phrase chapter 7 verse 22 okay chapter 8 verse1 you know frankly it would makes for some very long chapters and whoever happened to be reading
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through Leviticus and the corporate reading of the word would would fall apart but apart but um don't let the chapter divisions trip you up you know don't don't stop at our
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chapter 4:35 or whatever and think that you've reached the end of that thought because you haven't until you reach the next dividing mile marker or phrase that
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the writer himself has put in there so the point that it it does with us here is that we actually have three different types of these particular sacrifices or
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offerings beginning in chapter 4 and I call them particular as opposed to General because they are related to
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individual sin or sins the sins however are inadvertent and that's a key phrase Throughout the chapter 4 especially but these sins have
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been committed either ignorantly or unknowingly I guess that's kind of the same thing um and we're going to talk about that concept this evening but the
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first section that we're going to look at in chapter 4 really doesn't deal with any of the particular sins at all it actually deals with the
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with the sinner if the priest sins if the congregation sins if the leader sins or if the Common Man sins doesn't even
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mention what sin is okay it's inadvertent but that's not the point so we we see and again if you're if you're using a highlighter then in chapter 4
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you've already highlighted verse one which is that phrase now take a different color and then highlight the four different peoples or groups that
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are then addressed in chapter 4 because that's very very important what they've done isn't even mentioned that's going to start in chapter 5 when they begin to mention
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actual Sins Not that that clarifies things a whole lot but still um it's necessary to to see the subtle change uh in Moses's writing here from going to
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the to the um the person who is sinning or persons if it's the whole congregation and then moving in chapter five uh which does not
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begin with the then the Lord spoke to Moses saying okay so chapter 5 verse1 is a continuation of what we've already read
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in chapter in chapter 4 but I think the chapter vision is good I think it's helpful here because there's now a shift in the focus from who it is that's doing the sin to what
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sin is being done and we're going to go through um basically four it's four people groups and then there's going to be four classifications of
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sins and that finishes out the sin offering it gets confusing because the word guilt and the word
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sin in the Hebrew are used consistently for both the event or the act itself and the offering for that act
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okay so for example the word guilt is Assam so Assam means guilt and Assam means guilt off
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offering there's no extra word added when the writer is referring to the offering for the guilt same thing for
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hatat which is sin and sin offering okay so as with all translations some interpretation has gone into the text
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I'm going to give you an example of where that can be confusing it's chapter 5 verse 6
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now he's just listed four different types of sins that can be committed and then he says he shall also bring his guilt offering to the Lord for his sin
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which he has committed a female from the flock a lamb or a goat as a sin offering he's just brought his guilt offering as a sin offering
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thank you that makes it so clear we're already having a hard time in fact the text tells us in chapter 7 that there is essentially no difference between a guilt offering and a sin offering except
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there are differences they're not done the same way and they don't seem to have the same criteria but in verse 6 of chapter 5 you've got the guy bringing
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both at the same time one offering that it seems like is both a guilt offering and a sin offering now you might not have noticed that we don't really tend to dig all that deep
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into Leviticus but this is one of the reasons why we don't dig that deep into Leviticus is because we're already confused and then we have a verse where the one offering is called two different
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things and we're trying to understand what the difference is between them well what we're seeing there and we'll get into this more next or next time we meet is that the first phrase guilt offering
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is just the word guilt and the second phrase sin offering is just the word sin again our English doesn't show us that in fact in my copy
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the word offering is not even in italics now normally I don't know about your English Bibles but normally if a word has been added to make it smooth in
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English it's put in italics well the the translators didn't do that um and I don't know why because the first five verses are full of the
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word word word word guilt he shall bear his guilt he shall bear his guilt he shall bear his guilt nowhere does the Translator translate that he shall bear his guilt offering he
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shall bear his guilt offering okay it's the same the same word there's nothing added in verse six to make it a guilt offering so really what verse six is
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saying okay after all these different offenses where the person has is Bears his guilt then he shall bear his guilt
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before the before the Lord how by bringing a sin offering these are sin offerings we don't actually get to the guilt offerings until chapter
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5:14 okay but the the divisions the way we know or at least can be confident that we're still in the Sin offerings is that we haven't yet
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gotten to that phrase that Mark a change of topic that comes in verse 14 does that make sense
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right yes so now my contention is does yours have guilt offering in the very first part it should say he shall also bring his guilt offering to the Lord for
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hisus confesses and then verse six reads how he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation compensation okay all right that's interesting for the that he has
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committed okay what version is that ESV ESV all right so the ESV as a footnote Hebrew his guilt penalty his guilt penalty yeah uh the word is Assam and
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compensation is an interpretation that comes from chapter 5 verse4 where compensation is added to
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the sacrifice that's comes later many scholars think compensation is the key to the guilt offering it is different so for example
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the general offerings no sin is mentioned at all everybody get that okay they're they're bringing it the general concept of corruption is why they're
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bringing it so sin as a force and a reality lies behind the general offerings but sins do
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not then we get to chapter four now sins are a part of the equation but they're inadvertent but they are sins okay the
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person in fact it's very important as we're going to see that there's so much similarity between some of these sacrifices that they had to be very
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careful not to do certain things when individual sins were concerned because otherwise that sacrifice would look like one where sins
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were not concerned so for example in a in a sin offering that was of flour a sin offering you were forbidden to mix in oil and
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frankincense you were required to do that for the grain offering under the general ones is that you following me because if you were to mix in oil and
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frankincense to your sin offering it would become a general offering and not the particular one dealing with your sin okay so that they're very subtle
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differences but they're important differences okay um so the ESV what the ESV has done is on the basis of the
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recompense that we start to read about later in chapter 5 when a person has caused another person loss they not only bring the
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sacrifice they also have to make 20% restitution full plus 20% okay kind of like your Visa card all right they really they're
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they're they're kind of paying off credit to God they have offended they have defrauded okay so there is compensation the what the ESV has done and I don't quite agree with them is now
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they've kind of anachronistically gone back to the sin offerings and Incorporated the word compensation okay and that's fairly common now in modern scholarship um I
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encounter it quite a bit where they take the guilt offering which is also in older literature called the trespass offering so you you may have that in your Bibles that's another so guilt
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offering trespass offering are synonymous they're the same word compensation is a is is a conclusion about what that offering was
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all about all about problem is that there are other guilt offerings like for the Nazarite who inadvertently breaks his vow by
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contacting a contacting a corpse okay he didn't mean to but he walked over a fresh grave or something okay now he must bring a guilt offering this is later in numbers he must bring a
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guilt offering but without any compensation so it's not clearcut and I think it would be better for our for our
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interpreters for our translators to be consistent in the in the way they translate the word guilt in in the
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ESV in chapter 5 verse one what is the last what is the last word it says if he
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does not tell it then he will bear his okay his iniquity how about the last word of chap of verse two he is unclean he will
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beiz guil guilt yeah so that's the same word as in verse six where they translated compensation okay but what they've done this is where it gets tricky they have concluded that in verse
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six it's the offering that is being discussed and not just the guilt but that presents a problem because there are two offerings then in verse six in
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fact the writer equates them he calls the guilt offering a sin offering but a sin offering and a guilt offering were not the same thing okay they're probably
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the two closest sacrifices in the entire levitical system the sin offering and the guilt offering one
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um 19th um 19th century hebraist century hebraist said the precise distinction between the sin offering and the guilt offering or trespass offering is not altogether
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clear and has been much discussed okay so there's a scholar for you which is a nice way of saying I don't know so when when we have two offerings
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that are already almost indistinguishable and then we come upon a verse where they're both mentioned for the same
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the same act that gets confusing and I and I'm I'm trying to show that it in the original text it's
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the same word there's no extra word when it becomes an offering okay it's not like they they add the word Corban we talked about that last week that you know the word of presentation no they
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don't add any word I mean there are several words that mean offer they don't add them it's just guilt or sin and then we have to determine by the context whether he's talking about the act the
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offense or the sacrifice that atones for that offense but because we have not yet gotten to another break in the text and
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the Lord spoke to Moses saying we're still in the Sin offering section okay so even though we read in our Bible's guilt
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offering I think we can pretty Solid Ground realize no we're not there yet we're still in the Sin offering what he's bringing is not his guilt offering
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it's his guilt he's bringing before the Lord and what he's offering as atonement for it is a sin offering okay now once we get to verse
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14 now we're shifting and the Lord says to Moses spoke to Moses saying does everybody agree that that's a fairly significant phrase okay it's as if okay this is what
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the Lord is speaking to Moses and so everything he's saying is within that pericopa right and then when we read it again we start a new dialogue or
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monologue right okay so even though it seems like guilt and guilt is mentioned quite a bit in the first few verses of chapter 5 we realize because of verse 14
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we're still in that section that started back in chapter 4 verse one so we have to think about it under the rubric of sin offering not guilt offering then it
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becomes I think more clear when you realize that it's just the same word guilt or sin that is being translated either guilt or guilt offering and I
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think we're on we don't need to worry about disagreeing with the translators that there's no offense okay it's not like you're disagreeing with the Lord if you disagree with the
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translation or a chapter division or whatever okay so you're on Solid Ground there if you if you've got good reason behind you you're not questioning the
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text you're trying to make the text fit within its own context okay so all that to say is that we're now getting into U two
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sacrifices that are almost indistinguishable and that even those things that seem to distinguish them are
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not universally not universally applied when that offering is applied we'll get into more of that next week or the next time we get together um as we
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move into the different um sins and how they are then atoned atonement is still the word okay so as we go through
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chapter 4 we switch remember I put that phrase up on the board um the key phrase throughout the general offerings was that it was a sweet Savor to the Lord
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okay we get that again in chapter 4 um 4 um verse Oh what is it
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it it shows up once in chapter 4 but pardon me1 31 all the way down
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there yeah for a soothing Aroma to the Lord in verse 31 um there
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is that leads to another issue um the general consensus among both Jewish and Christian commentators is that that isn't in an
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addition to the text it doesn't fit there because it's not part of the general offerings and a soothing Aroma is not mentioned for
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specific sins and for example it is forbidden to add add frankincense to the offering of flower for a sin or a guilt
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offering okay because that would make it a sweet a sweet Savor and sin is never a sweet Savor so there now what I want to talk about for
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just a moment is the fact that um we you you really don't see um in your Old Testament do you notice many uh many an ancient manuscripts have this phrase or
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or don't have this paragraph you don't see that in the Old Testament like you do in the New Testament I don't know if you've ever noticed that the marginal notes that are
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in your new testament about whether or not you know the textural variants that have worked their way into our translations either in the text you know they have the brackets around some of
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them okay you don't see that in the Old Testament the reason you don't see that in the Old Testament is that the manuscripts we have are not very old they generally date from the 11th
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Century ad okay it's called the mastic text we we don't have old Hebrew manuscripts from 500 years before Christ
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we just don't okay so our the distance between our manuscripts of the of the Hebrew Bible and the actual time in which it was written is measured in
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centuries or maybe even Millennia millennium whereas the distance between our manuscripts of the New Testament and the time in which they're written is
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measured in measured in decades does that make sense now we do have the
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Le from the standpoint of the Jewish or Hebrew writings regarding the scriptures the targums the the commentaries that the rabbis wrote both in the inter
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testamental period And in the New Testament period of course they didn't call it the New Testament period because they didn't believe in Christ but what we call the New Testament period there were bits and pieces of the Old
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Testament woven Testament woven into a multitude of Rabbi commentaries what we don't have is an
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ancient text what that means is we don't really get into textual variance in the Old Testament we don't have well this text says that and that text says something different it just doesn't work that way
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because our manuscript evidence is of a different nature than what we have in the New Testament where we actually have manuscript copies of the entire
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Gospel of Matthew or the entire New Testament okay or maybe we have a Papyrus or we have parts of this that we can compare with the larger manuscripts
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that we have we just don't have that with the Old Testament okay so that's that's not a really big deal because the Old Testament doesn't really present Christian doctrine as the New Testament
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does and it really only comes out in for example verse 31 of chapter 4 where we read that an offering is a soothing Aroma to the Lord which really we haven't
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read except for the general offerings so we have really a new phrase working in the particular offerings than we had in the general in
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the general offerings it was a sweet Aroma to the Lord and yet we read in the first chapter verse four that this is an atonement so the word cfair atonement is
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there and it's here as well so as I was trying to teach in the previous lessons that word atonement has a broader meaning than we're often familiar with
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it does apply to individual sins but it also applies to the communion between God and his people in fact it still
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applies more powerfully in that manner even in the particular offerings than the individual sins that are being committed so atonement is
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still a kind of a a rubric that goes throughout but in one part we have a soothing Aroma or a or a rest giving Aroma to the Lord and now we move into a
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different uh realm where the key phrase is now the priest shall make atonement for them and they shall be
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forgiven the priest shall make atonement for him and he shall be forgiven okay so that combination and there's the here's
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particular that's our phrase that's our that's the result of the offering okay but then when we get to the not the particular the general when we get to
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particular we have a two-fold phrase the phrase the priest shall make
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second occurrence has become our general understanding of the sacrificial system and of atonement in general is that a fair statement when we think about sacrifice
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don't we think about oh I sinned I need to go make a sacrifice so that God will forgive me that me that Fair it's going to be rather disturbing
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to find out that if you know you sinned you might not have that recourse because it may be that your sin was high-handed for which there is no sacrifice but be that as it may and
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we'll get into that as we talk about the the particular sacrifices when we think of sacrifice and atonement in terms of personal
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sins we're not starting where Leviticus starts we're actually not starting where God starts when he takes
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up residence with his people he starts at community and that is the general
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sacrifices that are offered up as free will offerings as a sweet Aroma to the Lord without any reference to sins at
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all to say that Christ fulfilled the sacrifices but to leave out the burnt offering the grain offering and the peace
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offering is to only get a part of what Christ did yes he fulfilled these and that has meaning okay if we sin we have an
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advocate with the father right and we know that his blood has washed us clean of our sins but do we understand the concept of a people dwelling in the
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presence of a holy God and what it takes for that holy God to remain in their presence in their midst that's where this starts that's where Leviticus
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starts that's where we should start okay does that make sense kind of broadening hopefully our understanding of the concept of
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atonement that it isn't just me being forgiven for my sins it is that but it's it's me being
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cleansed so that I might dwell in the presence of presence of Yahweh even without regard to individual sins I still need to be
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cleansed so it's not my sins that have made me unclean it's my sin or as Paul might say it's the sin that indwells
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me that's something that gets lost a lot in modern teaching and preaching because it's religion everywhere tends toward
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moral uh the word is moral suasion in other words try to persuading us persuade us to be good the phrase um I think it's more it's often more or moral brow beating and if you don't happen to feel
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the guilt for your sin I'll be sure to help you feel it okay see we're we're always we're with we're at the guilt offering the guilt offering the guilt offering what about the burnt offering with the grain
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offering and then the peace offering where we had a meal together what about all those why don't we talk about those to go back to's point about
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abam years mes ABAC jaacob I just can't help thinking especially Jacob such a crappy
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life and they don't have any concept ofad sense but God instituted sacrifices with them and
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we don't see them as sacrifices for their right we don't we don't sacrifices of community with yeah like what was what was Noah's sin when he offered up a
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burnt offering After the flood what did there was no sin okay uh what was it about Abel's sin that was acceptable to God when Cain's
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was not okay we didn't have a law yet Paul tells us that where there is no law there is no imputation of sin so we we can't do as many scholars and reformed Scholars have done and and say that you
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know the anti delians knew the law in their heart no they no Paul makes it clear in Romans 56 and 7 that the law was not in place between Adam and Moses and yet death reigned we
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can't be anachronistic and put the law back before it came then we don't understand why the law came because we make it Universal well it well it wasn't not in God's mind so that gets
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into you know obviously that's a that's a huge Rabbit Trail that's more Romans than it is Leviticus
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most is intentional we're GNA get that yeah it's yeah unintentional sin we're going to get that tonight unintentional sin seems like an oxymoron does it not I mean how can you sin unintentionally
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well that's what we're going to get into um because what what that just here here's kind of an executive summary what that is pointing out is that we really don't have a clue what
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Holiness means Holiness means we don't realize we're there we don't realize we're sinning and we're sinning if we're not doing things wholly for the
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glory of God we're sinning plowing the field plowing the field yeah that is is an Abomination to the Lord so that's really what it's pointing at this idea of inadvertent or ignorant sins is that
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you don't even have a clue how defiled You Are by sin I'm going to Simply tell you that you are and and we're going to find out things are hidden from his eyes
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and then they are revealed we're not told how they're revealed but when they're revealed he needs to repent of it and bring an offering okay so yeah if
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we sin willfully numbers 15 we're going to get there in a moment there is no sacrifice so this is teaching us something about the Insidious nature and
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the the um what's the word the immersion of the human soul in the corruption of sin is
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deeper than we even know and so there here are these sacrifices for inadvertent sin now this
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can only drive a a member of the elect to God's grace part to his knees yes um to
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despair if this in fact is is is all there is but it isn't all there is this is pointing forward this is how the law becomes that school Master to lead us to
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Christ is that we spend some time meditating on this concept of inadvertent sin because we're taught that we do sins right sins are actions
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and we we don't say the devil made us do it we know we did it and our conscience convicts us or acquits US Paul says well that's only the surface we don't understand how deep sin resides
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in our psyche in our soul and so the scripture can talk about inadvertent sins without I mean it's going deeper
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and and it's supposed to take us deeper because if we stay up here at the surface we be we can become very religious if we have we can become I
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mean basically we can become as the Roman Catholic system and that is there's you know there's pen uh Penance you know and then there's uh Purgatory I mean it's all it's all going to work out
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I'll pay for every single sin somehow and then I'll go to heaven see because it's always up here on the surface and never ever digs down into the true nature of sin okay anel um is the one
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who had that famous phrase you have not yet fully accounted for sin in his cardas homo why God became man you know his his respon response to
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I always love this his counter in the whole thing is Bozo I don't think it's he had a big red nose or anything but um you know he he
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made some comment about well why don't we just do the sacrifices and and anel's response was you have not yet accounted for sin and I think that's what we can learn from the Old Testament especially
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levitical sacrifices is we really haven't accounted for sin now that doesn't mean we're not saved until we fully account for sin no it just means
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that we are growing deeper our Christ is becoming less becoming less thin when we realize that he didn't just die for my padillos the things I do
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wrong he died for a whole lot deeper sin than that okay a whole lot deeper sins that I'm not even aware of that are in me that dwell in me and thus defile me
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and keep me from my God okay so that's really what the the whole idea of inadvertent now there's going to be some there going to be some explanations in the text but at the at the end of the
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day Abe you're right we're aware of our sins and even the ones that that we're going to read about in chapter five the person can hardly commit these
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acts without knowing it and that seems like a high-handed sin so let's go ahead and start talking about that whole concept of inadvertent sin um
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sin um turn with me if you have your Bibles to numbers 15 because numbers 15 is a short summary of the first few chapters of
43:52
22 but when you unwittingly fail and do not observe all these Commandments which the Lord has spoken to Moses even all that the Lord has commanded you through Moses from the day the lord gave commandment and onward through your Generations then it shall be if it is
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done unintentionally which is the same word Shaga actually it's there's a preposition in front of it a b um so
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it's it's the same phrase that means ignorantly unintentionally unwittingly not purposefully but you've committed this sin if it is done unintentionally
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without the knowledge of the congregation that all the congregation to offer one bowl for a burnt offering as a soothing Aroma to the Lord now that's interesting it's a soothing Aroma here but back in Leviticus 4 when the
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whole congregation sins unintentionally they offer up a bull so it's the same sacrifice only there it's not a soothing
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Aroma there it's an atonement and they shall be forgiven their sin okay so but we're dealing with the same um sacrifice it seems like at this point also is
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added a grain offering and a drink offering according to the Ordinance one male goat for a sin offering so there's the sin offering all right then the priest shall make atonement for all the
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congregation of the sons of Israel and they shall be forgiven for it was an error and they have brought their offering an offering by fire to the Lord and their sin offering before the Lord
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for their for their error all right then we go down to verse um 30 but if the person who does any any
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the person who does anything defiantly now that word is literally with a high hand okay that's a that's two words in the Hebrew and it means with a high hand
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so let's look at this because any sin that is with a high hand whether he is a native or an alien that one is blaspheming the Lord and that person shall be cut off from among his people
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because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his Commandment that person shall be completely cut off his guilt shall be on
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him a death sentence could hardly be more uh firmly pronounced than those two verses so we're faced with this concept of
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sin I will submit that we cannot Define this term this term absolutely we can only Define it relatively and numbers 15 helps us do
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that so we have have and I'm going to I'm going to put it this way we
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have three types of sins okay we have unintentional
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sins that are defined by contrast with highh handed sins they're not defined in the text I read in numbers 15
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the only thing that is defined is that it is hidden from the congregation and then somehow it is made known to them now one example would be um during the time
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it the Israelite I I can't remember the king the Israelites were suffering they knew that the Judgment of God was upon them and so the priest sought out with the uim and the thumim the will of the Lord and the word of the Lord came to
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the priest and said it is because of what the H the house of Saul did to the
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sua had sworn safety though they had deceived Joshua with their worn out sandals and their staled bread you know pretty smart cookies these gibian um need to be a whole tribe of lawyers
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but they had been granted safety and Saul had violated that and so until that was atoned for this plague or whatever
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was on Israel so there's an example of they were committing a sin unwittingly unknowingly then it was made known to them in this case it was made known to
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them because of an Affliction that they knew to be from the Lord and when they sought him out the reason was given they atoned for it um some people died you
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know as you know retribution for the sin of the House of Saul and then the plague lifted pardon me David oh was it David
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oh was that soon it was near the end of his okay all right um I didn't realize it was that soon I thought it was one of the subsequent Kings but I couldn't remember all right so we have unintentional which is
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defined relative to the high-handed sin that's in numbers 15 okay so numbers
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15 contrast these two now the high-handed sin is pretty much defined in fact it's it's um it's not what you did it's the heart with which you did it okay the high-handed
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sin uh he's blaspheming the Lord he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken the Commandment of the Lord okay so he has we talk about the
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unforgivable sin he has committed blasphemy and then I think that blasphemy is further defined so what we're talking about here is
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Lord this is essentially defining apostasy defining apostasy Rebellion this would be the sin of Kora and day and day okay it's not so much the sin that's committed it's the attitude with which
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the sin is committed it's committed with an evident arrogance toward the lord and his word that must be eradicated like a
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cancer from the community of Israel like cor uh Kora and Dayan they were removed when the earth opened up and swallowed them okay or even aen who stole the
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idols from from Jericho he was stoned to death and a heap of stones was piled upon him his family his household and his possessions as a as a cleansing of this
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apostasy this Rebellion from the community of of Israel and again it's almost always presented as you must remove this person from the midst of the
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congregation you must excise surgically this person and get him out or it will infect and defile the whole Community if you mix in then the
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prophets or even the the time of Nehemiah and the description of the community at that time what you see is they rarely did what they were supposed to do with these type of people and the
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effect was that the whole congregation was corrupted and defiled by these Rebels who were sinning with a high hand
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now um me see if I can add to that a little bit more
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is no I think that's what I'm trying to teach is that's not the definition of sin I think Paul in Romans would say no that's not the definition of sin okay sin is is not um active Rebellion
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against God Paul was not an active Rebellion against God before he was on the road to Damascus okay he was not an active Rebellion against God he was a Pharisee
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he was devoted to the Torah and I think he delighted in the law of God in his mind as he says in Romans 7 we have been we've been I think we've been taught
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that sin has a certain definition and it's not necessarily a Biblical one sin is opposition to God but it's not necessar neily
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necessar neily willful that's what we need to understand about Sin is that it is it is part of our fallen nature now yes within that there's a
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category of sin that is willful but that's only a category it's not the not the whole does that make
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sense our our best Deeds are not worthy of the Lord all our righteousness is as filthy rags
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okay so I think the scripture is very consistent in saying that we're in such a state as we don't even realize in terms of a holy God and we have we have
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kind of just looked at the surface at what we do and if we can just stop doing these things we'll somehow be okay before God well the point is no even if
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you could stop doing those things and Paul says according to the righteousness which is with the law he was perfect and I don't think he was bragging or misguided I think he was very diligent
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to to do what the law required but that wasn't enough because the corruption goes much deeper than what we do it goes down to
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the very core of our being that we're not even aware of until God makes us aware of it through Christ and the Holy
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Spirit so sin is not defined by willful Rebellion against God that's not the definition of sin that's actually a
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category of category of sin just a subcategory we sin Even in our obedience
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God Adam oh yeah but Adam sin was the Proto sin Paul makes that clear in Romans 5 now sin has become part of our Essence
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sins morality preaching deals with the children okay dress up and clean up the sins never deals with the parent the root the root had to be eradicated ated
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had to be pulled out sin had to be condemned in the flesh okay but that's what the that's what the sacrifices are pointing toward this whole idea of
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unwitting or unknowing sins points to a deeper problem than just what I did
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wrong yes yeah weal yeah and and definitely what Adam sin what he did was he introduced corruption he introduced corruption into the human race and creation Romans 8 that sin introduced
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corruption into God's creation I reading in first
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yes in essence what he's thinking what he's thinking is essentially numbers 15 in my opinion John was was a Jew okay and he's saying I'm not talking about these sins you encounter this kind of
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stuff it's kind of like the sin against the Holy Spirit what on Earth is that okay well this kind of I think sheds light on it that even in the Old Testament there were sins for which there was no atonement
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available the the and how did it lead to death well that's was the cutting off from the congregation the sin that led to death was the high-handed sin okay
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now what's interesting about this these two words high-handed is that they're used frequently in the Old Testament and except for numbers 15 it's always a positive sense so that the children of
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Israel went out from Egypt with a high hand okay um one commentator actually quotes a study that was done to show
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that the raising of the Fist is a sign of Pride and power I wonder how much money they spend on that study okay okay must have been a government study because they would be the only ones to
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be so stupid as to of course you know the idea of I mean we knew this from the from the 60s you know right remember that in the Olympics okay black power
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power and and in the Old Testament the phrase is used positively that you will go you will run over your enemies with a high hand okay it's a good thing except
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in numbers 15 now what's interesting is when you get to the Dead Sea Scrolls the sitting with a high hand the high the idea of the high hand is entirely from numbers 15 all the others
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the positive references are ignored because in numbers 15 the high hand is in the face of God okay it's not God delivering his
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people out of Egypt and the high hand is in the face of Moses okay which translated in the Italian would look more like this but there was the pride and power of Yahweh
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delivering his people but in this context now it's the human being doing this to God and that's the high-handed sin for which there is no sacrifice
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available so when John talks about the sin that leads unto death or Jesus mentions the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit I think our problem we've always
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tried to understand them in a strictly New Testament environment and there's nothing there to help us okay that's it they're a haak slam
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it's the only time we read it and there's no light shed upon it by the New Testament itself but there's a lot of light shed upon it by the levitical system and then you read for example in
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Hebrews 10 probably a verse that you never necessarily linked with first John but I hope that reading about the high-handed sin in Leviticus or I'm
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sorry numbers okay listen to this for we if we go on sinning willfully after
