Deliberate Sin

Numbers 15

27 “If one individual commits an unintentional sin, the guilty person must bring a one-year-old female goat for a sin offering. 28 The priest will sacrifice it to purify the guilty person before the Lord, and that person will be forgiven. 29 These same instructions apply both to native-born Israelites and to the foreigners living among you.

30 “But those who brazenly violate the Lord’s will, whether native-born Israelites or foreigners, have blasphemed the Lord, and they must be cut off from the community. 31 Since they have treated the Lord’s word with contempt and deliberately disobeyed his command, they must be completely cut off and suffer the punishment for their guilt.”

So, God lays it out for His people: if you unintentionally sin, you must repent, and seek forgiveness. Yeah, in the Old Covenant way of doing things, that involved animal sacrifices. However, if you deliberately sin, you were to be cut off from the community. No messing around here. Before we breathe a sigh of relief because we no longer live under the Old Covenant, let’s be reminded of what Hebrews 10:26-27 says:

26 Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. 27 There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies.

God is STILL serious about His response to deliberate sin. When we know what we should be doing; when we know how we should be living, and yet we deliberately fail to do so, we can expect to face God’s Holy anger and Righteous wrath. To expect any less would be to NOT take God at His Word.