Leviticus 5 – The Trespass Offering: Only God Can Forgive
Have you ever met anyone that gave their life for you, I’m not talking about our great American soldiers. I’m not talking about our law enforcement. I’m talking about whether have you ever met someone personally come into contact with that gave their life to you. And my answer is there’s only One and that’s Christ. ♪ ♪ If you have been listening for the last few weeks, you know that we’ve been looking at the tabernacle in the wilderness, the furniture, and we’ve moved on to the offerings.
So everything that is in, around, and about the Tabernacle, kind of moving through the book of Leviticus a little bit. And we’ve seen when God gives instructions to Moses, He starts with what is close to Him. And I, for some reason, thought this was so clear because it’s been said so often and I see a lot of, in the messages, people are getting this a little mixed up here. So when we talk about this, there are the offerings, the five offerings that are listed in Leviticus. God starts with the burnt offering and moves on to the meal offering. And then we go to the peace offering. Then we have the sin and trespass. Now, I’ve said to you, God starts with what is dear to Him. We cannot start at the burnt offering when we come into the realm of even trying to understand like many of you coming into the church and learning about God. It takes so long for us to even comprehend this: sin and trespass. I’ve said this to you so many times, you’ve probably heard this from other people, when people say, “I’m a good person.” Nah, all right, so that tells you right away, anybody who utters those words coming into the church tells you they haven’t even begun the level of understanding.
But the reason why this is important is in the Old Testament when it says, “God starts first with what is near and dearest to Him,” this offering was considered a sweet saver, wholly ascending to God for God, no other, perhaps maybe the only part left off, as I’ve said, was the skin given to the priest possibly. I’m not sure of the details of that, but I can say this is completely offered up to God. We come into the church and we cannot even start here. Now I’ve been in churches and I’ve been to places where new Christians, so excited, so on fire, think they’ve arrived at the burnt offering.
They’re wholly dedicated. They’ve offered themselves like Romans 12. They’ve put themselves out there offering themselves to God. But the reality is, until this is crystal clear, we’re dealing with two things. The condition; and I used the word last week, the “congenital condition” you are born in. That is fallen, Adam. That means a beautiful cute baby that comes out the gate, “Ah, la, la,” all cute and everything, all full of wants and whatever else.
Not━you say, “Well, how could, how could you look at that baby and say the baby’s a sinner? Agh!” right? But we’re talking about the condition in which that child was born. And the fruit as we live, as we go, as we have our life, the fruit of that nature brings us to the trespass. When I say this, so much insanity here, and you’ve heard this over the years, people think sin, “I do or I don’t do, I haven’t done this, I don’t kill bugs, therefore I’m not a murderer.” But the reality is that two things, one, Jesus took that, He took the Ten Commandments and He lifted them, basically putting them on steroids and saying, “Don’t think any more about the commandment of not killing. Think about if you have hate in your heart, you’re as guilty as the murderer.” So it’s important that the starting point, you know, I’ve got people that tune in and they listen, they are, some of them are very dear friends of mine, acquaintances, people that have curiosity, and I’m standing here talking about this, and unless it’s something that makes them feel warm and fuzzy, it’s discounted or they tune it out.
But this is why I said to you, why it’s hard to populate a church because when you start teaching, it requires; Christianity, true Christianity is for the thinking person, not the person who wants to go, “Ugh, ugh,” all right? So, and I say that mockingly, but that’s the truth. There are way too many people that want to go to church to feel good emotively, but they’ve not even grasped this problem, which is, I was born, I was conceived, I came out as a baby in a sinful condition, and then as I live, as I breathe, as I have my life, the fruit of that nature that I, the condition I was born in produces this. So I don’t set out deliberately to do things that are an offense against God, but that is what we’re dealing with. And failure to even start there, so people are getting this confused when I say, I’m trying to show you how we relate to these burnt offerings, meal offerings, peace offerings, sin, and trespass. And when you see them laid out properly, you recognize, yes, they were God’s prescription for the children of Israel in the wilderness, but they also represent the pattern in which we come.
They also represent Christ. There are so many, as I’ve said, so many different focuses to this, but the one I’m pointing out right now is how it applies to us. So if your starting point is to understand God sets out to show what’s important to Him, what’s nearest and dearest to His heart, something that could be wholly offered up to Him. Yet when we come and we start, God lets us start at this end, sin and trespass, to figure this out; required offerings, commanded offerings. I am not talking about offerings we make now or any type. We’re looking at this, so please stay on the page, all right? Now with that being said, I’ve said to you, I previously noted this, I think last week, sin and trespass are not sweet savors and that’s important. That gives us a clear distinction between the last two offerings and the first three. Sweet savor could be considered something pleasing to God, that’s acceptable to God.
I even used the word probably more for this offering, the burnt offering than any other offering, is essential that the fact that it was wholly consumed, ascended, and God said, “It’s a sweet savor,” is what I’d also call an “acceptance” offering. So it’s important to understand and distinguish between these offerings and how, how it matters to us and the application. It’s not just learning about what they did and why they did it, but you begin to see and understand with great clarity there is a lot more here that God was so gracious to even in this age of law to make inclusions for every person in the community and He’s still doing it.
This is the mind-boggling thing and I will just say this one thing and I’ll move on. If all of our unique population that does not identify in the old-fashioned or traditional way would stop for a minute and think about this; I don’t care what you say, society may reject you. A lot of people feel they’re normal or, their sexual preferences stand in what we call “standard” and can still be hated. Figure out real quickly there’s only one Person you have to be right with in life and that’s God. And God can show you the way to approval. You don’t need other people. So if, you know, these people that identify and say, “But no one approves of me,” well maybe it’s because you don’t approve of yourself and, your truth gives you away, but it’s concealed in a lie, and delusion.
So that’s all I have to say about that. Anyway, so, we see the importance of recognizing that God made provisions for all people. Now what we’re going to look at today is the trespass offering and there’s something very important about the translation and understanding of the fifth chapter. So you’d like to turn there to the fifth chapter of Leviticus and this is what becomes important. So if, for example, if a person wronged or robbed God, or wrong, robbed or wronged his neighbor, it was considered a trespass and this is what we deal with; what somebody has done. I urge you to go through this very carefully because I touched on this last week and it can be very confusing because some of this sounds like if I said sin is unintentional acts, the trespass seems to have intent, but it’s hard to figure out in some of these areas if they could still be considered “unintentional” and you’ll see as we get in there, it can be very confusing.
So let me first start by reading, the fifth chapter of Leviticus: “And if a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and it is a witness, whether he hath seen or known of it; if he does not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity.” Now unfortunately we’re dealing with a translation that can be rather hard to understand the way it’s written.
So those who withhold evidence are guilty and there’s an implied situation here based on the Hebrew rendering that the time has passed since the act was committed and any person who was privy or a witness who did not come forward, they were essentially under oath to do so and didn’t. “The voice of swearing” or making an oath seems to point to giving testimony in a legal sense or matter. So you need to read this very carefully because otherwise if you’re reading it with a colloquial; or I’m sorry, with more modern thinking or interpretation, “hear the voice of swearing” like what, so some profane words? That’s not what’s being meant here. So you can look that up if you’re able to look it up in a Hebrew lexicon, you’ll see what I’m saying. So here’s what’s interesting. If a person began to feel guilty about the act that they committed, they would come forward because they were essentially under an oath to do so, and then they would have to say their issue, which we will label now as the first time we’re reading about “confession.” Hold that thought for just a minute because people will take off on all kinds of tangents with the word “confession.” Second verse, “Or if a soul touches any unclean thing, whether it be a carcass of an unclean beast, or carcass of an unclean cattle, or carcass of an unclean creeping things, and if it is hidden from him; he also shall be unclean and guilty.
Or if he touches the uncleanness of a man, whatsoever uncleanness it is that a man shall be defiled withal, and it is hidden from him; when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty” There’s all these kinds of nuances in here. So if a person became unclean, did not cleanse or purify themselves in the prescribed manner in the allotted time, they would become ceremonially unclean in one of two ways, either coming in contact with a dead animal, the carcass of a dead animal or coming in contact with an unclean person and/or a dead person.
Those would defile and make you unclean. Now if you want to know more about this, you, on your own time, can go to Leviticus 12-15, it kind of elaborates on it. I don’t want to spend too much time. The next one, verse 4, “If a soul swears, pronouncing with his lips to do evil, or to do good, whatsoever it be that a man shall pronounce with an oath, and it is hidden from him; when he knoweth it, of it, then he shall be guilty in one of these. And it shall be, when he shall be guilty of one of these things, that he shall confess,” there’s the first time we’re reading it, “that he hath sinned in that thing: and he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb of a goat, of the, a kid of the goats, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin.” So what we have here, basically beginning at, I’m going to say verse 5: “the law of confession.” Now this has gotten so out of hand and misunderstood, so, I don’t want to spend too much time on it because I have taught in abundance on this subject.
So if you are not accustomed to listening to me and you say, “Well, what have you taught about confession?” Go on the website, and try and find it there. Now’s not the time for that, but what I do want to say, and what’s important is this is the first time we’re seeing that and I want you to look at a pattern that will emerge from this confession, and it is not how we understand it today. So let’s kind of let this unfold here. Okay, when a person came to the reality that they were guilty of committing an act and they felt bad or remorseful for the act or acts, the first thing for the guilty to do was to go and confess what they had done.
And this is what’s fascinating. The word for “confess” here, oh, you’re going to love this, the word for “confess”━okay, I got to ask this question: How many people have been listening for say twenty years? Okay, so you’re going to be familiar with this Hebrew word, and if you’re not, I’ll explain it; don’t worry. But there was a joke, a little bit of a joke when the late Dr. Scott was teaching in a passage and he introduced to you the Hebrew word yadah. And we kind of made fun of that from Jerry Seinfeld, you know, “Yada, yada, yadda,” right? But yeah is not; remember Hebrew is ambiguous and can have shades of meanings, so in the context of where we’re looking at “confess,” I’m not going to get into too much detail because I don’t want to lose people here, but it’s in the Hithpael, perfect, and the vav in front of it in Hebrew reveals the concept of sequence.
And this becomes important. So the Hebrew, we can’t see it here, but the Hebrew gives you an idea of confession, the word “confess” occurs in a sequence of things. That’s number one. Number two━this is what I said you’re going to love. If you look up this word in the lexicon, you will be in for a big surprise because yadah can mean, in Hebrew can mean “to know.” So just so you know, this, whatever, whatever your secondary words or your vowels might be at the end, I’m not quite sure your consonants rather, but yeah; something like that.
But if you were looking at this in any Semitic language, throughout all Semitic tongues, you would find it has all of these different meanings except for Arabic. The Arabic word is not yadah, but you. In Hebrew, it occurs a hundred; I’m sorry, 1,058 times in the Old Testament, but listen to all the variations. And I, I shouldn’t say “all.” I enlisted ten for the word, but there’s a lot. So when, when it says “confess,” look carefully at the word because that yadah word should mean “to know.” So when a person confesses it means what it means, but also that you “acknowledge” that you have done the act or acknowledged that you need to declare something.
But it can also be, yadah; not in this context, “to be quiet,” “to be humiliated,” “to leave alone or reject or neglect,” “to punish” to say farewell or send away,” “to flow,” or “to sweat,” “to destroy,” it can also connote “obedience to seek and/or to call,” from that one singular Hebrew word. So you might say, “Well, I’m glad we’re dealing in English here,” but don’t be too quick for that. The reason why I bring this up is that some of you that look up words might get a little bit confused here. So the best way to understand behind “to confess,” which I’ve given you the breakdown in the English: con, “with,” fess, “to declare” a declaration of sorts. But if you were wanting to get this clear here, it would be yes to, “to declare,” but also “to acknowledge,” like to acknowledge to self, that lets you then declare aloud, so just a little note to self. Now, verses 7-13 in this passage kind of shift gears a little bit, but manifold instructions here. So 7-13, “And if he is not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the LORD; one for a sin offering, the other for a burnt offering” Remember I said, the offerings could occur side by side? There you have it.
“And he shall bring them unto the priest who shall offer that which is for the sin offering first, and wring off his head from his neck,” he’s speaking about the birds as small items, “but shall not divide it asunder: and he shall sprinkle of the blood of the sin offering upon the side of the altar, the rest of the blood shall be wrung out at the bottom of the altar: it is a sin offering. And he shall offer the second for a burnt offering, according to the manner: and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin which he hath sinned, and it shall be forgiven him.” And you’re going to see that.
I’m going to deal with this towards the end of the message, “and it shall be forgiven him,” because it’s repeated multiple times. “But if he is not able to bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons, then he that sinned shall bring for his offering a tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering; and shall put no oil upon it, neither shall he put any frankincense thereon: for it is a sin offering.” Now I know we’re still dealing with sin, and I told you we’re talking about trespass, but I’m shown; I want to show you something for a reason here. Understanding the connection between this verse, which goes on to talk about the trespass shows you, there are connected thoughts here. So although they are for two distinct things: unintentional, unbeknownst, and then what we’re going to look at, because we’ll get an idea of, beginning at verse 14, of the trespass offerings, what is involved. But I want you to; I want you to see something here.
I did not read this last week, I don’t believe, which is God makes provisions, and this is for the sin offering, and He’ll also make the provisions in the trespass offering for anyone of any walk of life, of any standing. And that’s what I love about God. If you read that now and say, “Well, that’s great for the children of Israel,” but think about in today’s society how people are constantly making excuses about how they either can’t come to God, or they can’t come to church, or they can’t, can’t; and that’s all psychological, blah, blah. That’s all it is. There’s no rhyme or reason, it’s, it’s, it’s the rationale or rationalizing what you don’t want to do with every reason under the sun.
But the fact of the matter is anybody who takes the time to read, even in this book, Leviticus, which is full of legalese, God says, “I’ve made a provision no matter what your standing is.” Now you might say, “Well, how would the poor person? A poor person doesn’t have a lamb or a goat, but how would they bring fine flour?” Well, remember there’s a provision in the law for very poor people to go and glean the remnants of what’s left in the field. Remember, they’re supposed to leave over some stuff, and the poor people can go and glean that, but they’d still have to work to take whatever they’ve gleaned in the field and turn it into fine flour. So it’s not as though they just went and freeloaded off of somebody else’s crop and then said, “Oh, here God.” they still had to produce it with their own hands, turned it into flour, and then present it. So there was still some work involved that connects the fact that in this category of sin and trespass, there is something of, we’ll call it accountability for your acts or your actions, your deeds, whatever.
Okay, so I love the fact that that’s what this spells out. Now if we turn to the trespass offering, we’re going to see differences that will emerge. One of these concepts is “restitution.” We have not seen that before, in the offerings. There was no mention of restitution, restitution. Now, Leviticus 5 and beginning at 14, “The LORD spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul commits a trespass, and sin through ignorance,” and remember I said to you, now you’ve got these words occurring together so it may be a little confusing, but I’m going to try and sort this out for you.
“If a soul commits a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things, in the holy things of the LORD; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering: and he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and he shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him.” So now you’ve got a whole bunch of concepts lined up together, but there’s something really important that was said in here that we can just read by, and that is a mention of two things.
One, “If a soul commits a trespass, and sin through ignorance in the holy things.” So here, the trespass; note this carefully, is against, the trespass is against the things of God. We’re not talking about something else; the holy things, so it’s directly connected. Let’s just say it’s a high holiday. Failure to comply with the laws of the holiday would be sinning. If it was a sin of ignorance, it would be sinning. A known sin probably falls in the category of trespass, that you didn’t comply with the prescribed actions of what was required of you.
And that would require an offering not only of animal but also a rest━if you want to call it that a restitution offering: money. Now here’s the other thing that we’re introduced to for the first time in Leviticus, “a fifth part shall be added.” It would be great if they explained what that fifth part is. So I’m going to try and do that for you, and hopefully, I don’t confuse you even more. To understand this, I’m going to take you somewhere else where it’ll, it’s embedded in a passage, and it’ll maybe make more sense.
So the passage that I’m going to look at will be in Genesis, but basically, let me give the background for those people who are not familiar, my newer listeners. Joseph, who was Jacob/Israel’s favorite child, his son, that son Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. His brothers hated him because he was his father’s favorite. You remember many even who aren’t reading the Bible would know about Joseph’s coat of many colors.
That was made by Jacob, his father given to him, and others hated him, not just for the coat, but for dreams that he said he saw and the interpretations thereof. He just was not loved by his brethren, period. So they sold him into slavery. He ends up getting carried off into Egypt and being put in prison in Egypt. You think perhaps he’s just going to rot there. Anyway, we know that, while he’s in prison, the Pharaoh has dreams. No one can interpret them. Joseph interprets dreams. He’s let out. Those dreams and their interpretations come to pass exactly the way Joseph said, and for that, the Pharaoh of Egypt places Joseph second in command, only second to Pharaoh, and gives him his special ring which would be the sign of royalty or royal authority, gives him standing.
And so we have all of that going on. Of course, we know that, in this particular passage, there are seven years of plenty, seven years of famine, and when the famine does hit, Joseph’s father, Jacob, and his brethren come to Egypt. When it is disclosed and found out that Joseph is alive, he, he’s not dead as was supposed by his father, we have this incredible, the family is reunited, everybody’s happy, right? Kind of. All right that’s the background now, the first book of Scott; I just gave you the summary. So let’s turn to the passage I want us to look at, which happens in Genesis 47. So with all that background, now the seven years of famine hit. There were seven years of plenty, feast.
Now seven years of famine hit. Chapter 47, verse 20, “Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh,” he bought it all, “for the Egyptians sold every man his field because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaohs. And as for the people, he removed, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt, even to the other end thereof. Only the land of the priests bought he not,” so the priests’ portion was not touched. And it says here, “For the priests had a portion assigned them a Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them: whereby they sold not their lands.” So the priests were the only ones in Egypt, Egyptian priests that were able to keep and maintain what they had. “Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land,” so both you and your land are owned by the government. Never mind. “Lo here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land.” So basically Joseph says, “You are owned.
Your land and yourselves are owned by Pharaoh, but here is seed for you, and you will go sow the land that no longer belongs to you. You’re going to have to work for it now.” “And it shall come to pass in the increase,” when it yields when your crops grow, then “ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own.” Remember, I’m trying to explain to you the fifth part. So this becomes interesting because the fifth part, what he’s saying here essentially is an imposed tax. And if you’re not sure about this, please for you who read Hebrew and can even limp through the lexicon, look this up. This would be analogous to essentially a 20 percent levy or tax.
And so he says, “The fifth part unto Pharaoh,” let’s call it, let’s call it for right now in more understandable terms, 20 percent, “and the fourth part shall be your own, for the seed of the field, for your food, and for them of your household, and your little ones.” So I want you to see how that’s working. Now he’s very clear about this. He says, “In your increase.” Now remember, the law was not yet given here.
So there has to be an understanding. Remember what is before the law usually continues in the law. It’s refined in the law, and somehow we come out on the other side in the New Testament. This tells you, these people sold themselves and their land. They’re given seeds to sow on the land that’s no longer theirs. And when the increase comes, they will give a fifth part, essentially 20 percent of what has come out of that to Pharaoh, and the fourth part they can keep.
That’s the easiest way to explain this. Now here there was no wrong or injury done. If you want to put it that way, there’s no law. There’s no, there’s no way to catalog because as I said, the law was not given. And where the law was not given, sin cannot be imputed or charged to somebody’s account. So turn back to Leviticus so we can read that again because now you’ve got to add something here. You might say, “Well, what? What’s, what’s the point?” All right, well, the first thing, is I need to point this out because otherwise, all things will not make sense. Remember, this is “trespass in the holy things.” And for trespass in the holy things, the prescribed offering would be a ram without blemish, shekels of silver, and “amends for the harm he hath done to the holy thing; in the holy thing,” adding a fifth part, essentially 20 percent, “and the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him.” So could you think of it like this?
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We might be looking at things like “trespass in the holy things,” failure to bring your firstfruits, failure to dedicate your firstborn child or sort out the first of anything that is within your possession failure to bring the tithe, failure to keep vows of offerings, and I could go on. So this was, and you’ve got to read this right because otherwise, you can come up with all kinds of ideas that are wrong. “If a soul commits a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things,” I just gave you an idea of what that might be, but it could probably extend to a lot of other “holy things,” so in that regard, essentially think of this. It is an offense done against God. Not only is there an offering of a ram without blemish, which means blood will be spilled. Not only is there shekel, silver money being paid, but then there’s also included in here the fifth part, which means essentially 20 percent tacked on to whatever you’re offering.
Now the reason why this is kind of mind-boggling is that if you think about it, there is no as of yet; we’re going to read on, but as of yet, the first thing that’s addressed is “trespasses against the things of God.” Hold that thought. Verse 17, “And if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the LORD; though he wist it not,” so there’s kind of an explanation, a little bit of, we’re talking about he wist it not, yet he is guilty. He didn’t know.
It sounds again; this gets a little bit confusing. Did he do it out of ignorance? Did he forget? Was this a non-deliberate act? And that’s what this sounds like. “He wist it not, yet he is guilty, he shall bear his iniquity. He shall bring a ram without blemish of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: the priest shall make a moment for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and wist it not,” that explains it to you, “and it shall be forgiven.
This is a trespass offering: he hath certainly trespassed against the LORD.” So we’re not done here, but I want you to see something that is very important, and that is when God said, “On such and such a day I want you to do this, and I on such and such a day when you do this, I want you to do that,” very easily because there were so many prescribed things to do, it would be, it would be very easy for a person to miss.
How many of you have by accident, unintentionally, missed a credit card payment? You didn’t intend to, but you did? Oh, good, I’m not alone, all right. What I’m saying is you didn’t mean to do that, yet there, there are consequences. It’s going to hit your credit report, and unfortunately, it’s a stain. So, I don’t mean to diminish the things of God, but I’m trying to say something that you didn’t know and yet should be common knowledge. Guess what? This is the wonderful thing about God. God realizes our frailty and our frame, knows we can’t remember and do it all, and makes provisions for that. If that is not an image or a picture of grace in the Old Testament, I don’t know what is. Let’s keep going. “The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbor,” so I want you to read that one cares, because that bears something we tend to not think about.
In this book, lying to your neighbor is also sinning against God. So it’s important to understand the depth of things that are spelled out here, which is why when you go and you read a passage like Matthew 6 that talks about forgiveness, it becomes vitally important, important to have this underneath it all to know where God was coming from in the first place when He talks about sinning against God and sinning against your fellowman because the sin against fellowman we tend to marginalize or minimalize, but it’s still sin against God. You’re reading that right there. So, “lie unto his neighbor in that which was delivered for him unto him to keep, or in fellowship, or a thing taken away by violence, or he hath deceived his neighbor; or hath found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, sweareth falsely; in any of these things that a man doeth, sinning therein: then it shall be, because he hath sinned, he is guilty, and it shall, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he had deceitfully gotten, or that was delivered him to keep, or a lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in principle, and add,” here we go again, “the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.” So get this, on the one side, as trespass committed against God in the holy things, restitution is required in the forms of offering the shekel and the fifth part.
And here we have, on the other hand, wrongs committed essentially against fellowman, and we still have a fifth part, that 20 percent is going to be tacked on thereon, on top of the person’s offering. Now you and I may think, “Twenty percent, eh, that’s not a lot,” 20 percent would be a lot. Don’t kid yourself, okay? “He shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, or ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the LORD: and shall be forgiven for anything of that, in all that which he hath done in trespassing therein.” Okay, let me go back to my notes because I’ve got a lot of stuff here that needs to be kind of a little bit of a simplified version of what we just read.
So there are details in what I just read put in plain English: A person’s property rights may be violated by someone else unlawfully, seizing them, stealing them, taking what’s not yours, failure to report, lost or found property, or giving false testimony. And when the guilty party came forward to confess, they would bring an offering, a clear revelation to the individual’s remorse and repentance, not like, “Okay, now I got to do this.” It would be the display of remorse for the act, and it all ends, of course, as you can read with, “and it shall be forgiven him.” Now this is what’s important. When Christ gave His life for a ransom for many, the fullest satisfaction was made for both man and God. In other words, Jesus takes care of all of this, and on top of that, puts into the category the things you and I would not consider actually or define as a sin or a trespass.
Do you know why? Because we’re living in different times. You know, it might have been if we went back into the Puritanical times, certain things, you know, if you read enough history, you know, certain things would have been a sin. This would have been a sin: a woman wearing pants, right? That would have been a sin, and, and it would have not just been a sin verbally; it would have been a sin where you’re ostracized in the community. There’s a whole litany of things within the church; we’re not talking about in the world.
So it all depends. This is why I say to you, you’ve got to read this very carefully to see that God was never trying to squeeze the life out of somebody, but trying to point and show and reveal our need is much more than any animal offering could ever do. Keep in mind that the sacrifices under the law activated or effectuated the temporal remission of punishment, but they could never cleanse the soul. And this is why when you read Hebrews, you go and you read the chapter where it says, “Neither the blood of bulls or goats could not cleanse a guilty mind.” So you could transfer. Remember I said that you’ve got to place your hand on the animal’s head and it’s one of those vicarious things.
You could transfer, but that would not cleanse the inside. You’d still be walking around with the knowledge that even though that act would quell the punishment, the inside of the person was never at peace. You could not be at peace knowing that you have offended God. So there’s a lot more to this. I think the Israelites who sinned and incurred the penalty of death, for example, provided it was not a premeditated, willful, and deliberate act, would bring the prescribed offering. But I don’t think even there they thought, “Oh, and this absolves me completely.” It would absolve you of the punishment in the temporal sense, but could never cleanse. That’s why I love what the Book of Hebrews says. The shedding of blood was required, and I know a lot of people, this drives a lot of people mad, and they don’t want to hear it. But God was driving home a point that if we were focused enough, we would look at this and we wouldn’t say, “Oh, the bloodshed and oh, the carnality of it all, the,” when I say “carnality,” the flesh being torn down.
But rather we’d look at this and we’d say, “God knew that we needed Christ, we needed the sacrifice of Christ as a full, complete sacrifice to cover it all, to take it away.” And I’ll say this one other thing because I’ve said this in the past. I don’t even think when we interpret the word kaporeth, the covering, which we’ve looked at on the Ark and many other places; I don’t even think that’s an adequate word for Christ’s work.
Do you know why? Because He didn’t cover us; He cleansed us. This, what we’re looking at, would be a covering. The actual fullness of Christ’s work is something that is cleansing to the core, but you’d have to read the book to see that. You’d have to read the book to know it. So now that I’ve painted this picture, I want us to look at several things that are repeated several times. Starting in the fourth chapter; don’t turn there; in verse 20, verse 26, verse 31, verse 35; the fifth chapter, verses 10, 13, 16, and 18; and in the sixth chapter, verse 7, “It shall be forgiven him,” or “it shall be forgiven them.” The Hebrew word for “forgiveness,” this word is sallâch.
I think that’s what I’m wanting to write: sallâch, maybe. And there’s a whole bunch of words that would be attached to this word. This is what’s important. You know, I give you the details, but I want you to see something. This, this word occurs 46 times as a verb in the Old Testament, but there’s something really important here. The only one who grants sallâch is God. What’s my point? We make the mistake, and I; most of you who are listening to me know this, but I’ve got a whole host of people who have not heard this before.
The priest here did not dispense forgiveness. The priest here could not dispense forgiveness. Only God could forgive; even the Pharisees and the Sadducees in Jesus’ day said, “Only God can forgive sin.” And this Hebrew word is used exclusively for God’s forgiving. So anyone who reads this and takes that as a template and spins it into the modern realm of Catholicism that the priest can absolve you; I’m sorry, but that is just not the case, and that will never be the case. No human can absolve another human of the acts, sin, or trespass. Sin is your condition, but trespass is anything committed against God. No one can do that except God. God’s willingness to forgive is much more if you see what I see, and I’ve highlighted them. You know, you go around and you, the green is where it says “it shall be forgiven him.” That was important for me to highlight that, so that every time I open this book, I do not forget that even here within the confines of the law, God had abundant mercy and grace to provide forgiveness to grant that to His people.
I love the fact that, for example, when Nehemiah reminds God of God’s past mercies, and if you examine, he’s praying for something, he’s petitioning, and he’s petitioning God for something he didn’t do, but people did. And that got God’s ear. But only God━do you see what I’m trying to say? It can’t be us. We can pray, we can petition, we can ask, but only God has the power, and God did take Nehemiah’s words, honored them, kind of a cry for forgiveness and mercy to the people, and that is what opened the door for God to open the heart of Cyrus to let the people come back. So you kind of got to see it from a proper perspective. You’ve got the same thing, by the way, if you look at Amos, when he’s praying, you know, he’s praying about these locusts, and you think about it, he’s praying for the people to be forgiven, essentially, to take, to take away this; it’s a vision, by the way, it didn’t yet happen in, in his time.
And God reassures him, basically in a nutshell; I’m giving you the quick version; that all is, all could be, or all would be forgiven. So it’s important to see the subject of forgiveness even in the law through the prophets is very, very clear. And there’s a formula here. So check this out. The person who sins or trespass must bring their offering, there must be shed blood; it’s as if God’s saying, “I gave you a lot. I freed you.
I gave you life. I gave you all, everything that you could need or want, and you’ve sinned against Me essentially. It’s going to cost you.” And now we can’t even imagine that that cost is nothing compared to the cost of Jesus dying on the cross for us, but God says, “Nevertheless, it’s going to cost you.” And I don’t care what anybody says about this part here. The reason why I’m highlighting all this is that no matter what the people did, it took a long time before God gave up on the people, their apostasy, their complaining, and their chronic issues, which if you read just the Pentateuch, can see these people were, instead of being grateful and going back to God in thanksgiving, they were pretty much a stiff-necked, ungracious band of people. God chose them out of a unique group of people, that He chose them, He didn’t choose other people, and yet they could not get this.
And yet despite all that, He still forgave them. He still forgave them. But once we’ve turned from the Old Testament you understand this. And you get into the New Testament, and we’ve studied those words for forgiveness, the major Greek words for forgiveness you begin to see God hasn’t changed. The, we’ll call it the harshness or the legally binding things, yes, those are, those are not there anymore.
But if you read enough, and we’ve studied these words, for example, the Greek word, aphiemi, which is “to let go, to cancel, to remit, to forgive”; aphesis, which is “to release, to pardon,” it connotes cancellation of debt. Paresis is another word occurring one time, “to let pass,” or “to let go.” You’ve got in the New Testament, aphiemi used 142 times; 47 of them are found in Matthew. I mean, if you kind of break it down, you see there’s a lot of that concept woven into the New Testament wherever you look. And the importance of this is to understand that when you get to the New Testament, forgiveness of sins, of debts, of trespasses, it’s used in a very general context. No longer do we have, we’ll call it the details, but it still must be maintained and understood. Christ takes care of both the condition of man; our condition, our Adamic fallen nature, our condition, our congenital condition, and the fruit of that life lived, which is the sins we commit. And don’t go down the pathway and say, “Well, I don’t drink anymore, I don’t smoke.” Those are, I wouldn’t even, tell you the truth, those are the easiest things because they’re the obvious things, but what about the things that are not obvious that people tend to forget and gloss over? Think about that, it’s a good one.
So what we have here is the Old Testament where what we’re studying shows us that God’s grace and God’s willingness to forgive was always there, and the method. Okay, you can say, “Well, God made a prescription, and dah, dah, dah, dah,” well, the prescription for the New Testament was that Jesus must go to the cross and die, that He’d also resurrect. And remember the connection to what Paul says. He says, “If Christ is not risen, our faith is vain, and you are yet in your sins.” This is why it’s vital to understand for every person listening to me, the front, center, circumference, anywhere you want to, at any angle, is the Resurrection because without the validity of the Resurrection, everything else crumbles to pieces, including the forgiveness that, the forgiveness of sins, right? So it’s important to understand that.
Now, I want you and I to approach the subject of forgiveness a little bit differently. When you go back and you read this, I don’t want you to look at, “Well, those were the children of Israel, the Israelites in the desert.” They have the same disease we have. They, suffered from the same things we suffer from, and that is spiritual blindness, spiritual ineptness, the inability to understand God, God’s ways, God’s words, God’s wishes, God’s desires. We struggle with the same problems and it’s pretty simple if I may say so. The offerings point us. So if we take all these offerings and you can say, “Okay, lift away the,” we’ll call it the grossness of the offerings for just a minute because you can’t remove it.
And what the offerings show us for us, an application to us, we come in already from the get-go offending God. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care how great you think you are or how bad you think you are. You come in already offending God from the beginning in the holy things. Now, remember there is no law now. The law’s been fulfilled in Christ, but how many times have I said to you, people who think they’re fulfilling the bare minimum think they’ll make it in? They’ve checked the box; they think they’ll make it in, “Oh, I’ve done the minimum I, I’ve required to do.” That might be, if that’s your mindset, you still don’t have a relationship with Christ.
The minimum that you can do is recognize; it’s like saying, this person died for me. Don’t make this a generic picture of the world. This person died for me. Do you, have you ever met anyone that gave their life for you, I’m not talking about our great American soldiers. I’m not talking about our law enforcement. I’m talking about whether have you ever met someone personally come into contact with that gave their life to you. And my answer is there’s only One and that’s Christ. So when you come to that real reality, not the lip service version, you come in recognizing you’ve offended God right at the get-go, and then I see my condition. Once these two things have been dealt with in Christ, I begin to be able to have fellowship with God, because that’s what the peace offering is. The peace offering is shared; God, the offeror, and the priest all partake.
I’m able to, because of understanding my status, my state of being, and the fruit of my state of being, I’m now able, because of the offering, I’m speaking in the New Testament, because of the offering of Christ, I’m able to have fellowship with God. I’m able to, if I can keep making the journey in my walk and keep faith, I’m able to get to the mindset of the burnt offering, which is what the apostle Paul was saying in Romans 12, to offer yourself wholly, a living sacrifice to God. You get to that point of recognizing, yes, the burnt offering is Christ, it’s also us. And everything in between is a picture, a portrait. So you can get hung up on, “Oh, I can’t read that,” because whatever, or you can look at this and say, “God had a roadmap even here in the Old Testament to show us what life would be like for the spiritual and faithful in the New, and it hasn’t changed.” The beauty of this is even embedded here, “it shall be forgiven.” We know when we get to the New Testament mindset, this is why this bugs me when people say, “Well, you know, it’s very difficult for me because,” and fill in the blanks.
If God said, “I forgive you, it shall be forgiven you,” then I recommend you take God at His word. Several psalms are beloved by most of this congregation. Psalm 103 talks about the forgiveness of God being as your sins are removed as far as the East is from the West. And in another place it talks about, in the book of Micah, your sins being thrown into the abyss of the sea, never to be seen again. That is the forgiveness of God. And when one receives that forgiveness, let me tell you what happens. The devil may still come and whisper in your ear, people you used to know may say, “Yeah, sure,” and point their finger at you, but you won’t━I will reiterate this.
You have one Audience to please, and it’s not me. It’s God. And when you get that right, everything comes together. Even the faltering and the “Kind of; I’m not sure exactly.” When you’re focused on that one Audience, and that’s the most important Person, this will all fall into place and you’ll understand one thing: God is not against you. God is for you. All these people that say, “Well, I can’t come to the church, because,” those are manmade ideologies that keep people out, the whole, “You’ve got to clean up before you come in here.” We’ve never looked at anybody and said anything other than sinners are welcome, but you’ve got to start with the right place.
Don’t come in here with your baggage and don’t come in here with your ideology and tell me you’re okay, when most of us coming in can’t even figure out we’ve already sinned against God. Choose words wisely. We’ve already sinned against God in our activities before we even came into the church. Don’t try and put a halo on it. Recognize it, and the confession part comes when you talk to God.
David did that. David had a priest by him, by the way, let me remind you, prophet and priest in Nathan, and he may have conversed with him, but when he made that bold declaration in Psalm 51, he’s talking to God; he’s not talking to an intermediary: “Against thee, O LORD, and thee alone have I sinned.” So if there’s a takeaway, all of this point, all these offerings point to Christ, help us understand the New Testament.
If there’s another takeaway, it’s that only God can forgive. No man can, no one can, no man or woman can forgive sins committed against God. And finally, we serve a forgiving, loving God. What He does want though is He wants us to be honest both with ourselves and with Him. And when that happens, the floodgates of real blessings of knowing Christ begin to happen. So for all those people who say, “Well, what’s the point in studying this?” I hope you recognize that there’s great value. Now if you go back and you look at these and scrutinize them, because we didn’t read every verse in here and there’s much more I could have gone into, I want you to see something. As people say, “Well, it’s Old Testament” Yeah, it’s Old Testament, but, the beauty is that if you look carefully, you’re going to see Christ on these pages, even within the book of Leviticus. Now that’s pretty darn special and pretty amazing that God would include that as something for us to recognize, see, and learn from.
So hopefully, this has gelled with you all. And while I was sitting here and finishing my notes, I couldn’t help but think about this. You know, we used to sing a song here, which speaks to my heart greatly, “I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus, how I found in Him a friend so strong and true. I’d love to tell you how He changed my life completely. He did something that no other friend could do. No one has ever cared for me like Jesus.” And when you get that in your mind, everything else will change. And that is that He cared for the people back here.
He cares for the people today, and if we could only wake up to that and fortify ourselves in that knowledge, there’s nothing that the Christian, that the believer cannot do in Christ. That’s my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday at 11 am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you’d like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com
