Don’t you just love Leviticus!
No? (she said incredulously).
Okay, the truth is, I have trouble with Leviticus too. It seems to alternate between boring and incomprehensible.
Let’s look at this head-scratcher for example: “If someone sins and without knowing it violates any of the Lord’s commands … he bears the consequences of his guilt” (Leviticus 5:17 HCSB, emphasis mine).
How do we understand such a hard-nosed stance? Why should a person be punished for something he didn’t even know was wrong? To our minds, this seems unfair.
But maybe the problem is our perspective. We tend to view sin as a legal issue. We consider it appropriate that a punishment should be reduced, or waived altogether, when someone violates a law in ignorance. (Especially if we’re the one stopped by the police officer. Then we might even complain if our plea of “But I didn’t see the sign!” meets with anything more than a “Well, I’ll let you off with a warning this time.”)
But what if sin’s more like an infection?
We know about infections these days, don’t we? Covid-19 doesn’t care if its next victim believes it exists or not. It doesn’t care if she only went to one New Year’s bash, or if he just couldn’t stand being cooped up any longer. This sneaky virus doesn’t even care if it’s found you by way of someone who feels just fine.
Can any of these Covid patients request a do-over? Can they file for an exemption from illness because they didn’t know they were being exposed?
Nope.
And that’s just how sin works. When it enters our lives—no matter how—it affects us. It creates new pathways in our brains that subtly alter the pattern of our thinking and behavior. This is why James urges us to keep ourselves “unstained by the world” (James 1:27).
But there is good news, and we also find it in those old ceremonial laws of Leviticus: “Anything that touches the offerings”—which represented the Sin Bearer—“will become holy” (Lev. 6:18).
We can be cured of sin. We just need a daily, abiding “touch” with Christ.