Sacrifice and Forgiveness
“For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Then He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.” Luke 7:47-48 NASB
Forgiven – Leviticus tells us exactly what to do when we discover after the fact that we have sinned. The Levitical sacrifices are designed to repair the breach in relationship caused by unintentional sin. When someone realizes that a past act was in fact disobedience, when the sin becomes known, then there are sacrifices for recovery, sacrifices that bring the supplicant back into the presence of God.
But what about all those intentional sins? What do we do about those acts of disobedience that occurred while we knew they were wrong? None of the Levitical sacrifices are sufficient. Our biggest issue is not discovery and restitution. Our biggest issue is knowing and expulsion. It’s one thing to make a mistake. It’s quite another to deliberately make a mistake.
Sacks notes, “For that kind of deliberate, conscious, intentional sin, the only adequate moral response is teshuva, repentance. This involves (a) remorse, harata, (b) confession, vidui, and (c) kabbalat he’atid, a resolution never to commit the sin again. The result is seliha umehila: God pardons and forgives us. A mere sacrifice is not enough.”[1]
Notice Sacks category: “the only adequate moral response.” This is not religious requirement. This is a matter of character, of personal integrity, of concern for right and wrong behavior. Don’t confuse this with theology. We do not need teshuva in order to clean up our theological understanding. We need teshuva because we have broken trust broken truthfulness, broken unity and acted without righteousness. In other words, we don’t repent because God demands it. We repent because we have harmed ourselves. We repent because we need to be healed, to be whole, to be pure.
The man who doesn’t desire transparency is not interested in repentance. The reason we live in the dark is so that we will not have to see ourselves!
Be perfectly honest! Do you really want all the light? Or are there places, perhaps tiny ones, which are better served in the dark? Are you ready to be completely exposed, if only to yourself and God? Or are you unwilling, ever so slightly, to look inside with the microscope of morality? Certainly we all feel remorse. Perhaps we muster up the courage to confess. But kabbalat he’atid is a rare step. It is far too easy to forego the finality of “never again.” We fail to make teshuva because we allow for relapse. We listen to that voice telling us, “Well, you know you might fail again. You can’t help it. It’s just who you are now. So do your best, but . . .”
The issue isn’t whether or not we please God. He is pleased when we are whole. The issue is integrity—whether or not we will become fully known to ourselves and to God at the same time. The issue is whether or not we will be “seen” in the light.
Topical Index: forgiveness, teshuva, Luke 7:47-48
[1] Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, p. 86.
Good points all, but wouldn’t you say, Skip, that without repentance we are separated, in a fundamental way, from YHVH? Sin IS what separates, or, makes unholy. Sin IS the bush I hide in. If I want to come into His presence I have to have the non-presence cured, or, forgiven, and I don’t get forgiven unless I repent. To me, I don’t see any way around either being able to be in His presence, or being sanctified, without that repentance. I can’t even do right until I quit doing wrong. In fact, the only thing I see that I can still do while I am in sin is to cry out for help! This is not a little problem. This is my entire problem.
I cannot enjoy the freedom of being able to love until I have repented for bitterness and hardness of heart and all the previous actions of unloving. I can do loving acts all day long, but if I harbor unforgiveness in my heart, I am still that sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Love doesn’t work at all unless I repent for the unloving first. I see repentance as foundational to everything else. Except, of course, crying out for mercy. Why wouldn’t it be important to Him that I do the action that, more than any other, removes the breach my relationship with Him, not to mention with myself and everyone else? You are right; this isn’t about theology, but that is because it goes way deeper than that.
So, true Laurita. great points.
The reality is, just saying I’m sorry, isn’t going to cut it. The Righteous Judge requires payment. No way to be forgiven without the shedding of blood/ the required Sacrifice. No way to be brought near apart from Yeshua. What He did. The sacrifice He made. The blood He shed.
The points being made may not be about theology but, not to easy to side step it either, when we talk about forgiveness/atonement/repentance. Or how we are made whole, able to be found righteous, or stand before a Holy God.
“The man who doesn’t desire transparency is not interested in repentance. The reason we live in the dark is so that we will not have to see ourselves!”
Even self-examination is pointless in the dark, as one can’t see in the mirror.
I am simply grateful for the mercy He has extended, over and over.
YHWH says if we confess our sins, but we have to be sincere, he will forgive, he goes as far as to say he will cast them into the deepest parts of the ocean, but we love to go SCUBADIVING, and bring them back again, why can’t we just leave them there?
I’d stay in the Garden if I could. Maybe one day I can kiss Yeshua’s feet and Anoint His Head!! And say thank you YHVH for loving us so much. Hallelujah and Amen!!!!!
But what if being thrown out of the Garden is the way to become human, to strive to come back.
Perhaps as long as we understand that the unfallen pair were pronounced perfect (completely connected and related at all levels) humans to begin with. That Fall was certainly not UP, contrary to what a lot of occultic teaching may suggest. We are now struggling to regain what they already had.