Leviticus 5:14-19: a reflection

14The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 15“If anyone commits a trespass, and sins unwittingly regarding the LORD’s holy things, then he shall bring his trespass offering to the LORD: a ram without defect from the flock, according to your estimation in silver by shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering. 16He shall make restitution for that which he has done wrong regarding the holy thing, and shall add a fifth part to it, and give it to the priest; and the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and he will be forgiven. 17“If anyone sins, doing any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, though he didn’t know it, he is still guilty, and shall bear his iniquity. 18He shall bring a ram without defect from of the flock, according to your estimation, for a trespass offering, to the priest; and the priest shall make atonement for him concerning the thing in which he sinned and didn’t know it, and he will be forgiven. 19It is a trespass offering. He is certainly guilty before the LORD.”

Among the offerings God prescribes is one for a particular kind of sin: unintentional sin, wrong done without knowing it. If anyone sins, doing any of the things the LORD has commanded not to be done, though he did not know it, the law says, he is still guilty, and must bring an offering for atonement. Even sin committed in ignorance, without awareness, required atonement, for it was still guilt before a holy God. But God provided the offering, so that the one who sinned unknowingly could be forgiven.

Notice the sobering and comforting truth here. The sobering part: we are guilty of more sin than we know. Even the wrongs we commit without realizing it, the sins we are unaware of, are real guilt before God, not erased by our ignorance. We are not as innocent as our own awareness suggests; there is sin in us we do not even see. But notice the comfort: God provided atonement even for this, a way to be forgiven for the sins we did not know we had committed.

Both are worth holding. It humbles us to know we are guilty of more than we perceive, that our own sense of our innocence is incomplete, and it drives us to pray, as the psalmist did, Cleanse me from hidden faults. And it comforts us to know that God's provision reaches even our unknown sins; in Christ, atonement covers not only the sins we confess but the ones we never even saw. Do not presume you are as clean as you feel; there is more sin in you than you know. But do not despair, for Christ's atonement covers even that. Ask God to cleanse you from hidden faults, and rest in a grace that reaches deeper than your own awareness of your sin.

Lord, your law required atonement even for unintentional sin, the wrongs done without knowing it, for these were still guilt before you, and yet you provided a way of forgiveness even for them. Humble me with the truth that I am guilty of more sin than I know, that my own sense of my innocence is incomplete, that there is sin in me I do not even see. Cleanse me from my hidden faults. And comfort me that in Christ your atonement covers not only the sins I confess but the ones I never perceived. Thank you for a grace that reaches deeper than my own awareness of my sin. Make me neither presumptuous nor despairing, but resting in the atonement that covers even what I cannot see.