Matt Mings on All Our Sins
As we approach Passion Sunday, the mystery that believers hold so dear — that Jesus was the Messiah who was crucified, died, and now lives — has me thinking about its many dimensions. The code of holiness that is recorded in the book of Leviticus is not simply law. We, as contemporary believers, must wrestle with this text rather than simply saying, “That’s nice . . . glad we aren’t under the law anymore . . . so this really doesn’t carry meaning for us.â€?
While the instructions in Leviticus may be law in a formal sense, what is actually portrayed is a gracious offer of forgiveness from God. Listen to God’s promise throughout this text: “Your sins will be forgiven!� (Leviticus 16.6-16). We are created by a God who freely grants forgiveness to the believer in and through sacrifice. God is freely at work in the sacrifice and is freely accepting the sacrifice as a means of grace. The sacrifice is sacramental in that it is a tangible means in and through which God acts in a saving way to forgive. We do not attempt to appease an angry God. Rather, the object of this purification is sin; it is never God. Remember, “Your sins will be forgiven!� And the reality of Christ is that the sacrifice has now been offered by God himself in Jesus of Nazareth. The one who promises forgiveness is so gracious that he even provides the sacrifice. We then are offered the chance to engage with this forgiveness by offering our lives as a living sacrifice.
Notice that within this ancient ritual sin is not simply to be understood in individual terms. Sin is a realit
y that has a corporate dimension. The goat (and so Christ) is not a substitute, but a symbolic vehicle for recognizing that God has forgiven our sins. So often we claim Christ’s atonement for “me:â€? “I was saved . . . Christ died for meâ€? and so on. Yet what if we–Christ’s Church–fully realized the vast nature of sin? Can we believe that sacrifice has been made on behalf of our sins of abortion, war, racism, genocide, oppression, and neglect of the poor? Can we join in such confession? We must. For where there is this confession there is : “All your sins are forgiven.â€?
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Category: Sacramental Living, Scripture Comment »