The sin offering. It is quite similar to the trespass offering which follows. They are a picture of the side of Christ’s death which is most easily understood by people — His death for sinners. The sin offering meets our need (1 Pet. 2:24; 2 Cor. 5:21). God cannot just forgive sins. They must be paid for. When we accept the Lord Jesus as our own Savior, we receive forgiveness of sins, but He paid the penalty death for us (Eph. 1:7). Do you understand the difference between the first three chapters and this one? In their sequence in time, the sin and trespass offerings come first because we need to be saved first, but God’s side (first three offerings) come first in importance from God’s view. God must be honored first.
V.2 Notice the difference too, in that this offering must be made. Notice that these were sins of ignorance. There were no sacrifices for deliberate sins. A serious thought (Heb. 10:26). A person who calls himself a Christian had better take another look if he deliberately goes on in sin without having a conscience. He (or she) would have no assurance that he (or she) was a believer at all. Once again the chapter is divided into sections.
V.3-12 It was a serious offense if the high priest sinned. In this case, and the next, the whole congregation, if the blood of the sacrifice was not taken into the holy place and put on the altar of sweet incense, the communion with God of the whole congregation would be stopped. The closer a person walks with God, the more serious it is when he sins. God holds him responsible (Luke 12:48).
V.13-21 The same acts must be gone through if the whole congregation discovered that it was guilty of a certain sin.
V.22-35 In these two cases involving a lesser person, the blood was not taken into the tabernacle, but it was put on the horns of the brazen altar outside. That was the place where the individual met God. So, in this chapter, we learn that the more truth we know, the more guilty we are for the sin we do.