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Leviticus (NKJV) 4:1 “Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a person sins unintentionally against any of the commandments of the Lord in anything which ought not to be done, and does any of them, 3 if the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord for his sin which he has sinned a young bull without blemish as a sin offering.”
.Modern man can't even quit deliberate sinning! How can we expect to even contemplate restitution for sins we do unintentionally? Unintentional is without deliberation... without aforethought. We know from our legal system, which is based on “natural law”, that there are less severe penalties for crimes “without malice aforethought”. “Involuntary Manslaughter” comes to our minds first when we think of unintentional crimes. “Settled Insanity” is state where we're no longer responsible for our actions. Whereas drunkenness is not valid for an insanity defense, long-term substance abuse is. To make that more clear, we can't intentionally get high, then murder and be found innocent; but a state of perpetual addictive use of a drug may get one off in some states!
.Deliberate sin is the willful violation of God's laws summarized in the ten commandments. If we look carefully at Leviticus 4:1 we see that “unintentional” sin is a violation of any of the same commandments. Consequently, the difference between intentional and unintentional sins are not one of magnitude, but are based solely on our own state of mind... whether we are sinning in rebellion or because we are human.
.Why do humans sin? We sin as a result of man's collective guilt because of Adam's disobedience. It is our nature to do evil, to do what God opposes. Did Adam (and Eve) sin because they were deliberately in rebellion to God? Eve ate because fruit of the tree looked good, she thought it would be good for food and that it might make her wise (Genesis 3:6). Her purpose in sinning was for pleasure! Her primary goal wasn't to rebel against God. She was tricked by Satan (Genesis 6:4). “Original Sin” seems to fall more along the lines of the definition of “iniquity”. Therefore, we are held accountable by God for all sins, not just ones we do out of rebellion. If Eve had meely eaten of the fruit to satisfy the hunger need, she would still be sinning, but without aforethought.
.Since there is no delinealization between sins done deliberately and sins as a result of our heritage, we must make it a difference in our attitudes. The “First Commandment” introduces the term “in vain”, meaning without reverence to God. Unintentional sin is certainly because of lack of reverence for God's authority. We may not want to disobey him... he's just not part of the equation: (temptation + action) = sin. If we listen to God we have (temptation + reverence) = inaction = no sin! We can now see that “reverence” for God is the key whether we sin or not. Consequently, we must be keen to what it means to be reverent.
.Revering God is to know His precepts, His love and wanting to please (obey) Him. When we blatantly (consciously) sin we are in effect saying “I love this pleasure more than I respect God, hence I'll just put God's will aside while I self-indulge”. This is self-worship and in violation of the “First Commandment”. Unintentional sin is when I am tempted and react to temptation without weighing in on God's will for us. We need an example of each of these to clarify.
.Let's use anger in both examples forthcoming. Anger is an emotion. It's cause by an action//reaction pairing. Someone or something violates us or our space. As a result of the stress created by the action, we may become angry. There are three ways to respond to the anger created by stress: 1) We can consider God's will and control our anger, 2) We can consider God's will, ignore Him and seek revenge, or 3) We can react to the stress without thought of God and respond as a reaction. Anger is a human emotion and we all get angry, sometimes rightfully so (Jesus had righteous anger when he threw the merchants out of the temple. However, we must remember, that we're to let God heap the coals, not us).
.In the first instance, we are tempted, we consider the authority and will of God, then practice self-control. We've been tempted, felt anger and unintionally sinned because we still had some anger although it was controlled as far as our human nature will allow Cheit). In the second instance, we're tempted, consider God's Word and rebel against God's will for us. The satisfaction of revenge has outweighed reverence for God. We haven't exercised self-control and, hence, have sinned intentionally (Pesha). In the third case we just failed to consider God's law, or anything for that matter, when we reacted vengefully to the stress we felt. We didn't rebel against God... we just didn't have enough reverence for Him to establish a pattern of Christlike behavior. We sinned, but not out of rebellion (Avon).
.Only God is without sin in with anger because His is righteous anger. If we have anger it is with some degree of self-interest. If we work on our love and respect of God, we will certainly have fewer unintentional sins and as a consequence, even fewer intentional ones! We become more Christlike because we've made Christ ruler of our lives.
.Many theologians believe that “unintentional sins” are those such as uncleanness due to touching the dead, nocturnal eruptions, a woman's unclean period, and such. This idea delineates and sets degrees of sins and I take issue with that approach. I base that on the the phrase “sins unintentionally against any of the commandments”. How in the world would we control our uncleanness? We are unclean because we have systems conducive to defilement. We can't quit being unclean. We can only cleanse ourselves. Conversely, we do have an obligation to know and discern God's Word so we control sins which we commit without consideration. We can place God in a position of importance in our lives and his Spirit guides us! God's grace is sufficient for all sins and His Spirit will aid us if we seek Him!
With Christian perfection the human reaction of anger ceases operation. We'll never get there, but with patience and love we can do better!
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