If one person sins unintentionally, he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement before the Lord for the person who makes a mistake, when he sins unintentionally, to make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven. You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel and for the stranger who sojourns among them. But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him.

Numbers 15:27-31

I was reading through Numbers this morning when this passage struck me. It is something we too often forget under the new covenant. The laws of sacrifices under the old covenant were for unintentional sins.
They were for sins of forgetfulness or mistakes. There were a lot of laws, especially for the ceremonies of worship. To miss a detail was understandable. But once one consulted the Law and realized the mistake, a sacrifice was to be made to cover it.
Consider how seriously the mistake was taken! Do we consider our mistakes as strongly? Do we consider our day-to-day forgetfulness worthy of a blood sacrifice? Remember that David prayed in Psalm 19:12, "Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults." Yes, Christ was sacrificed once and for all for your daily negligence!
But consider the sin that is not ignorant. (This is what most of us consider to be sin.) It is a sin with a high hand, that is, it assaults God's authority. This is sin for sin's sake. This is when you want something so badly you dare God to do His worst. It rarely sounds so bold as you prepare to do it. No, it hisses in your ear, "You will not surely die." You know that no good judge would ever find you guilty in his court of law and say, "Aw, it's not that big of a deal." Because it is that big of deal. But you will deceive yourself into believing God is so unconcerned with your righteousness. You're too important to be bothered with righteousness. You're too good on your own (self-righteous). You're too wise to limit yourself with old Victorian taboos like that.
What sacrifice was prescribed for this sin? The person himself was to be cut off from among his people. He shall be utterly cut off. His iniquity shall be on him.
The example is next given of a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath. A few sticks. What harm could there be in picking up a few sticks? That's hardly back-breaking labor. But God made an example of him. God ordered he be taken out and stoned to death.
What harm is there in a little envy? A little hate? A little lust?
I know in my own heart that too often I sin with a high hand against God and only do good works unintentionally. I have enough "faith" in God's mercy to sin against Him, but not enough faith in His justice and grace to obey Him.
Yes, we need another Great Awakening. We need another Reformation. We need to return to Sola Scriptura. But we must return to seeing sin as God sees sin. We need to take our holiness as seriously as God takes it. He died for your holiness. He died for your atonement. He did not die to free you to live in the sin that nailed Him to the cross. He died to free you from that sin and to free you to do good works.
Let repentance turn our hearts that we might intentionally do good and truly (positively) grieve for our unintentional mistakes.