Commentary on "Planning Ahead"

GABRIEL PROKSCH

 

Day 5: Wednesday, November 4, 2009

 

In today’s lesson the grave sins, the sins made “with a high hand”, sins of defiance, are brought to the attention. They are serious enough to have no remedy provided for those who commit them. They received capital punishment.

 

Positive aspects

The necessity of repentance before forgiveness is one of the positive points. The lack of repentance is the reason why those sins are not atoned for but are punished. These sins have effects beyond the life of the individual, affecting the people with whom they come in contact.

 

Negative aspects

There is no difference made between the shadows of the Old Covenant and the fulfillment and substance of the New Covenant. While sins of defiance were punished in the Old Covenant and no sacrifice was provided for them, in the reality of the New Covenant which Christ is the substance people are forgiven of sins that they could not be forgiven in the Old Covenant (Acts 13:38,39). The category of people who sinned intentionally but repented afterward was not addressed in the Old Covenant system. It would be better to think about those sins of defiance which were punished in the mosaic system as having a correspondence in the sin against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31,32) and making a distinction between this sin and those sins which believers still commit while being in the flesh. The apostle Paul, describing his experience and battle with sin, still confessed that he sins against his own conscience informed by a law that was holy and good (Romans 7:14-24). His sin did not fit perfectly in either category: he didn’t sin defiantly, but neither ignorantly. The solution provided by the gospel for this situation is missing in Adventist theology: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ” (Romans 8:1). In Christ our condemnation is gone forever, today is the day of salvation. While our conscience condemns us for sins which we did while we were conscious about their sinful nature, the gospel tells us the good news that all our sins were wiped out, blotted out, when Jesus died for us and raised again for our justification (Col. 2:13,14; Romans 4:25).

 

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