Bible Discussion Thread

Lev. Ch. 5

...cont.

So, this chapter also speaks to specific sins.

It speaks of;

bearing false witness against someone, perhaps in a legal sense.

swearing an oath and not fulfilling it.

touching things that are unclean, a dead carcass of an animal or human, a man who had an emission of semen or a woman who is having menstrual bleeding, or handling of creepy, crawling things that are unclean (snakes, rats, etc.) hereby they would be unclean until evening and must bathe before re-entering the camp.

doing harm to YHWH by misuse of holy things, whereby he is expected to renumerate to the priest a 20% charge on top of the worth of the loss of dignity to what God has determined to be holy.

Even if the person does not know that they sinned at the time of the sinful act, he is still guilty of sin. And when he becomes aware that what he did was indeed sinful, he is then to make this trespass offering. This was also true of the sins requiring the sin offering in Chapter 4. Even if done unintentionally or in unawareness, sin is still sin and must be atoned for. I think it is merciful of God to be patient until Jesus came to be the atonement for all sins. And gracious of Him to give us a conscience that can be influenced by the Holy Spirit to show us our sin. This was true for the Israelites, too. The Holy Spirit has been working in creation since it was first created. His work is to convict the world of sin and to lead to the Father, those the Father has chosen to be saved by the work of the Son.

I think that it is so appropoe that the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness. It seems that they were learning along the way as they followed the pillar of cloud/fire. They did not have a long history of God's redemptive work in Christ. They knew that the Messiah was promised, but they had so much to unlearn from their life-long stay in Egypt as well as learn these new commandments and ordinances from YHWH on Mt. Sinai and in the tent of meeting where He Himself known.