Category Archives: Contradictions

So what about the sins of the Israelites? When were they forgiven?

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At the cross? Allow me to suggest that’s only partially true.

Ask many Christians about the sins of the Israelites, and they’ll explain that the sins were “rolled forward”, and forgiven at the cross, as if each Israelite kept adding sins to his account until the day he died. I’d like to also suggest this to be an unscriptural concept. Follow me here…

Forgiveness is not a distinctly New Testament concept.

27If a member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD’S commands, he is guilty. 28When he is made aware of the sin he committed, he must bring as his offering for the sin he committed a female goat without defect. 29He is to lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it at the place of the burnt offering. 30Then the priest is to take some of the blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. 31He shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. In this way the priest will make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven. (Leviticus 4:27-31)

Did you notice the words God spoke through Moses in the last verse there? “…and he will be forgiven.” Does that sound synonymous with “rolled forward”? Forgiven is forgiven; it is not “kept on account until such time as it can truly be forgiven”. You know what else? That phrase “will be forgiven” is repeated 7 more times in Leviticus 4-5, once each in Leviticus 6:7 and Leviticus 19:22, and three times in Numbers 15:25-28.

That’s a total of 13 times God promised the Israelites He would forgive them.

“Wait”, you say. The word “will” simply means that it’s a future action — one that doesn’t take place at the present time. Yes, I agree, but the context certainly doesn’t suggest that it would be another 2000 years before God would follow through on any such “future action”. Context demands the conclusion that the point in the future when God would fulfill His promise was when the sacrifice was made — in other words, when repentance was visibly demonstrated.

One more.

In Moses’ plea before the Lord, recorded in Numbers 14, he reminds God of one of His promises:

17“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: 18‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.’ 19In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” 20The LORD replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked…” (Numbers 14:17-20)

What about the fact that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins?

1The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Hebrews 10:1-4)

That looks like an apparent contradiction to me. We just saw 8 times in Leviticus 4-5 where God specifically promised to forgive the Israelites. We read in Numbers 14 where He said He already had forgiven them. Now He says that “the blood of bulls and goats [can’t] take away sins”. There are only 2 possibilities here. One possibility is that this could be a contradiction. But if you believe, as I do, that the Bible does not contradict itself, that leaves only the second possibility, that our understanding of passages that appear to contradict themselves, is itself incorrect.

If you want the full context of Hebrews 10:1-4, read chapters 9 and 10. The context shows how the sacrifice of Jesus was infinitely more perfect than animal sacrifice. One of the ways animal sacrifices were imperfect is that they had to be offered over and over. After one sacrifice was offered and one sin was forgiven, the newly-forgiven person would soon commit another sin, requiring another sacrifice. And so on.

Christ’s sacrifice, being perfect, had to be offered only once. It had the power to forgive Israelites who lived 2000 years before, and it had the power to forgive me 2000 years later. Animal sacrifice could never do that.

The sins of the Jew were not “rolled forward”. They were forgiven. The sins that were not forgiven until Christ’s death on the cross were the sins committed between sacrifices — between one Day of Atonement and another, between one sin offering and before the next.

God is, and always has been a God of forgiveness. Those aren’t my promises; they’re His.