Each time I read Leviticus, I thank
God animal sacrifices are no longer required for sin! I’m not sure there’s land
expansive enough to hold the flocks and herds it would take to keep this girl’s
slate clean. Reading the book Thanksgiving week reminded me of the greatest
reason I have for giving thanks, not just one day a year, but every single day
that I don’t have to slaughter the family livestock in order make atonement for
my sins. What a bloodbath that would be!
I once heard Dallas pastor Tony
Evans say we can never truly understand what Jesus did for us if we don’t ever
read the Old Testament. That has certainly been my experience. I struggled for
a long time with believing God’s forgiveness could be for me. Because I
continued to stumble and sin, I thought it was impossible for the Bible to be
true for me. When I began to read the Old Testament, my relationship with the
Lord changed, and my comprehension of the enormity of Jesus began to take
shape. Still today, God’s mercy and grace overwhelms me as I witness His
protection, deliverance, and provision for a stiff-necked people who repeatedly
wandered from Him, only for Him to draw them back, just like He does for me!
My plan was to write a single,
simple blog about sacrifice then and now, but as I followed the trail of blood
from Exodus to the Cross, God revealed new things and connected familiar ones
in a fresh way. Attempting to articulate the impact of the revelation He has
given me over the past seven or so weeks has felt like labor. My brain contracts
and I try to push out the words only to delete what I’ve written and end up
right back at a blank page. No baby. I pray He gives me the ability to
effectively convey what He has shown me. Even if it is familiar, God can make
it completely fresh for you, too. If not for you, perhaps for someone you know
who needs to read these next few posts. Will you join me?
Let’s pick up the trail in
Exodus. Three months after leaving Egypt, the Israelites are at Mount Sinai and
God gives them the Ten Commandments. He establishes laws for every aspect of
their lives and relationships with Him and each other. Israel enters into covenant with the Lord, and
the Lord gives Moses the specifications to build a sanctuary for Him, that He
would dwell among them. Anyone who did not obey the commandments of the Lord perfectly
all the time, whether they knew they were breaking God’s law or not, was guilty
“and shall bear his iniquity” (Leviticus 5:17).
The penalty for sin always has
been and always will be the shedding of blood, so God instructs
Moses in the consecration of Aaron and his sons as priests and details the
sacrifices and offerings He would require. Some covered their iniquity, others
their trespasses, and still others their sin. I had never noticed the
distinction before! The Lord Himself establishes the three terms in a list as
He proclaims: “The LORD, the LORD God,
merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no
means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation’"
(Exodus 34:6-9, emphasis mine).
Why separate iniquity from
transgression from sin? Intrigued, I researched the Hebrew roots for each word (references
for Strong’s and the Hebrew definitions all come from www.blueletterbible.org).
·
Iniquity
is ‘avon (Strong’s H5771), which is
perversity, depravity, and a condition
of guilt. It is the state of our heart and/or the moral corruption into which
we are born: our flesh. I think Encarta’s definition of perversity perfectly captures the
essence of flesh: “stubborn unreasonableness, especially willfully persisting
in actions that seem contrary to good sense or your own best interests.” The root
of ‘avon is ‘avah (Strong’s H5753), which appropriately encompasses the idea of
something being twisted, crooked, amiss or distorted, or doing perversely. This
describes the state of being all of us are born into rather than a choice that
we consciously make.
·
Transgression
is pesha’ (Strong’s H6588), which
deals with our rebellion and guilt as we recognize it, as God addresses it, and
as He forgives. It is the expression of our intrinsically corrupt condition as
rebelliousness. Its root, pasha’
(Strong’s H6586), means to rebel, transgress, or revolt. As a result of our
corrupt condition from birth, we naturally revolt against God until He
transforms our hearts and turns us to Christ. Only then are we able to
recognize our guilt, receive forgiveness, and address wrong attitudes and
behaviors.
·
Sin has
many roots. Chatta’ath (Strong’s
H2403 for) comes from the root chata’
(Strong’s H2398) and refers to the condition and guilt of sin. It is the way we
miss the mark and go wrong from the path of what’s right and what is our duty.
These are actions by which we incur guilt.
Isaiah 59:2 tells us, “Your
iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face
from you, so that He will not hear.” The condition into which we are born
(iniquity), separates us from God and results in an innate hardness of heart
and rebellion against God (transgression), which causes us to err and miss the
mark in what we do (sin). While there is some overlap between certain meanings
for each term, making them interchangeable at times, the specific differences
are at the heart of the gospel: Jesus “ was wounded for
our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our
peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are
healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Healed in the
Greek refers to being made whole, “free from errors and sins, to bring about
one’s salvation” (www.blueletterbible.com,
G2390, iaomai). By Jesus’ stripes, we
are saved from our iniquity, transgression, and sins!
Honestly, I think a lot of people
are confused about Jesus, why He died, and why being saved is a matter of
eternal life and death. I had a conversation recently with a friend who was
really hurting. Months prior, she saw me pray for a friend in my driveway, and
she wanted me to pray with her that same way. We started talking, and I asked
her if she had ever put her faith in Jesus Christ and entered into a personal
relationship with Him. She had not, she explained, because both her and her
husband had been very sick, they had prayed, and it didn’t do any good. It’s a
common story or sentiment. You hear things like, “I read my Bible and nothing
changed.” Or, “I prayed, and God didn’t do what I asked, so what’s the point?”
Or, “I trusted Him and He didn’t…” Just fill in the blank. Or maybe someone’s
gone to church, done all the right things, and then something tragic happened
that they think God did or should have stopped.
Here’s the deal. We don’t put our
faith in Jesus because He can make our lives better or because we want
something from Him. We don’t seek salvation to experience a certain emotional
state, like peace or joy, or to manipulate a particular outcome, like healing,
financial prosperity, or better whatever. Incredibly, because of God’s
goodness, many times we experience those things as His children, but none of
them are the reason we should respond to God’s grace with faith.
And listen, it’s not that there
aren’t good people who do good things. There are. But works don’t save.
Ephesians 2:8-9 clearly says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone
should boast.”
There is no way to earn
salvation, no matter how good a person you are or how great the things you do. Our
sin condition exists at birth. We can’t save ourselves. Only God can, and He
chose to do it through Jesus. And that is why we need Him.
Lord, thank You for the trail of
blood that leads to Jesus, for His blood that washes away our sin. Give us a
deeper understanding of who He is, what He’s done, and what You desire as we
become more wholly Yours this year.
Where does the trail lead now?
Join me Thursday.
Shauna Wallace
Holy His
No comments:
Post a Comment