No doubt the best God is a surprising God. And one which will not be unfair, yet is absolutely self-centered, it is God’s love for himself that resolves the apparent dilemma between his justice and grace.
Consider a passage from Hebrews that should clue us into the fact that redemption is not as it seems. That maybe God is going to amaze us in ways we never thought possible. That all our tears will be wiped away, and that includes our sad remembrance of the past… when all seems lost, but God.
This is something I wrote a little over a year ago.
Could it be?
It’s kind of neat how a verse which you read numerous times, comes off the page.
Hebrews 9:7
“but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.”
Unintentional sins.
Terrors of a younger self came to mind. Of reading Numbers 15:30, and thinking that this time I had indeed gone too far. In a Jewish commentary then, I found something about how there is a public nature to this kind of sin. And since I had none done that, I figured I was still okay.
But now, this phrase in Hebrews 9:7 caught my attention. What do the commentators say about it?
Guthrie notices it, but does not comment:
It is noticeable that the annual offering is said to be for the errors of the people (literally ‘ignorances’, agnoēmata).
Allen sees a disparity:
This construal assumes, however, that “high- handed sins” were not atoned for on the Day of Atonement, an assumption that cannot be made with any certainty based
on the Old Testament text.
Owen is adamant it is sin all the same:
Scripture calls all sins by the name of “errors.”
And Pink goes where I haven’t seen anyone else go:
Under the dispensation of law God graciously made provision for the infirmities of His people, granting them sacrifices for sins committed unwillingly and unwittingly… The distinction pointed out above is the key to Psalm 51:16, “For Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it.” There is no room for doubt that David knew full well the terrible character of the sins which he committed against Uriah and his wife. Later, when he was convicted of this, he realized that the law made no provision for forgiveness. What, then, did he do? Psalm 51:1-3 tells us: he laid hold on God Himself and said, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (verse 17). It was faith, penitently, appropriating the mercy of God in Christ.
Could it be the writer of Hebrews is properly interpreting the dispensation of the law, and showing that Jesus is indeed better to “perfect the conscience of the worshipper”?