Year 7, Day 95: Leviticus 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I think we would be wise to spend a considerable amount of time processing the opening few verses of Leviticus 6.  These verses go a long way in countering the human desire to rationalize his own sinfulness away.

Notice that the sin being spoken about in these opening verses are sins committed in community.  God is talking about deceiving a neighbor, or robbing another person, or oppression another person, or lying, or swearing falsely.  Many of these examples hearken back to the Ten Commandments.  All of these are examples of things that human beings do against one another.

Notice the words that this chapter uses to set up this list: “commits a breach of faith against the Lord.”  Leviticus 6:2 is awfully clear about the sin being committed here.  These are certainly sins that are done to one another.  These are certainly sins that affect our relationships with each other.  But they are classified as breaches of faith against the Lord.

I believe most human beings who believe in God try to set up two categories of sinfulness.  We like to think that there is a large list of sins that we do against one another.  We also like to think that there is a small list of really awful things that we would never do because it is against God directly.  So long as we don’t do any of these really horrible acts directly against God, we feel pretty good about ourselves.

This simply is a fallacy, however.  All sin is a breach against the Lord.  When we lie to another human, we sin against God.  When we steal or even covet what our neighbor has, we sin against God.  When we cheat, we sin against God.  There are no two categories of sin.  There is simply living in God’s ways and living in sin.  If we are not living in righteousness, we are sinning.  If we are sinning – sin of any kind – God is taking our action seriously.

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