Leviticus 5:1-4
WE NOW pass to the trespass offering which in many aspects is like the sin offering. Hover, the sin offering refers more to God’s holy nature and tells of the awfulness of sin is in His sight so that He must deal with it in judgment, whereas the trespass offering perhaps looks more at God’s government with, each of us. We have confession brought in, and one must make restitution.
“And if a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he hath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, he shall bear his iniquity.”
Swearing here does not mean using bad language, but it is a case where one is called upon under oath, as in a courtroom, to tell what he knows about a matter. This was a solemn thing for an Israelite when we remember that the Lord dwelt in their midst to judge. He was there to deal according to His law and to their relationship as His people. If one shrunk back from telling the truth, he must bear his iniquity.
We remember how our blessed Lord was silent before the hypocrisy of the priests and the false witnesses brought in to testify against Him, yet when the wicked high priest adjured Him “by the living God” to tell whether He was “the Christ, the Son of God,” He answered at once, though He knew it would seal His condemnation unto death (Matt. 26: 59-66). He ever walked in perfect obedience to His Father; He turned not back. He would rather die than disobey. May we ever seek to be obedient too, to be like Him, to whom we now belong by grace, bought with His precious blood.
Speaking of making promises, God would warn us against making a promise we might not be able to keep. Think of Jephthah’s vow (Judges 11:29-40). It is a solemn thing to give one’s word about a matter and then break it. Be sure, dear young Christian, that you have the Lord’s mind before you make a promise. Then once you have given your word, (unless the prose prove to be a sin against God), ask the Lord for grace to carry it out. It is a day when many think all too lightly of promises made, but God looks upon a broken promise as a serious sin.
Then came cases of defilement from contact with death, either unclean beasts or cattle, or crawling things (things of earth), or again from uncleanness of man, defiling things, in whatever form they might be. Here again we are reminded that this is a defiling world in which our lot is cast, and that God’s measurement of sin is not ours. We become so accustomed to the sin around us every day that we are liable to think very lightly of it. Yet sin is SIN before God and nothing less than a sacrifice appointed by Himself can put it away from before His holy eyes.
How blessed to know that the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross has settled the sin question forever for all those who trust Him as their Saviour, not according to our estimate of sin, but according to God’s.
Memory Verse “BLESSED IS THE MAN TO WHOM THE LORD WILL NOT IMPUTE SIN.” Rom. 4:8.
ML-08/08/1971