This Torah portion is about the guilt or “asham”
offering.
This is offered for a sin committed by mistake – (Heb
shagag)
The dictionary defines guilt in the following way:
“The fact or state of having committed an offense,
crime, violation or wrong, especially against a moral or penal law – a feeling
of responsibility whether real or imagined.”
Lev 4:1 And יהוה spoke to
Mosheh, saying,
Lev 4:2 “Speak to
the children of Yisra’ĕl, saying, ‘When a being sins by mistake against any of
the commands of יהוה, which are not
to be done, and shall do any of them:
Lev 4:3 ‘If the
anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, then he shall bring to יהוה for his sin which he has sinned a young
bull, a perfect one, as a sin offering,
Why is he anointed? Because he is engaged in active duty.
The mistakes of priests or Kohanim are first mentioned
because the consequences of their mistakes can have very serious consequences
for the people.
We can all have mistakes but there are often consequences
for our mistakes.
We know that if we confess our sins YHVH is merciful and
will forgive us our sins. When we keep on making the same mistakes, YHVH may
have to discipline us to correct wrong patterns of behavior and actions.
Heb 12:4 You have not yet resisted unto blood,
striving against sin.
Heb 12:5 And you have forgotten the appeal which
speaks to you as to sons, “My son, do not despise the discipline of יהוה, nor faint
when you are reproved by Him,
Heb 12:6 for whom יהוה loves, He disciplines, and flogs every son
whom He receives.”1 Footnote: 1Prov. 3:11-12.
Heb 12:7 If you
endure discipline, Elohim is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom a
father does not discipline?
Heb 12:8 But if
you are without discipline, of which all have become sharers, then you are
illegitimate and not sons.
Heb 12:9 Moreover,
we indeed had fathers of our flesh disciplining us, and we paid them respect.
Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
Heb 12:10 For they
indeed disciplined us for a few days as seemed best to them, but He does it for
our profit, so that we might share His apartness.
Heb 12:11 And
indeed, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but grievous, but afterward
it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained
by it.1 Footnote: 1Dt. 8:2.
Heb 12:12 So,
strengthen the hands which hang down and the weak knees,
Heb 12:13 and make
straight paths for your feet, lest the lame be turned aside, but instead, to be
healed.
Heb 12:14 Pursue
peace with all, and pursue apartness without which no one shall see the Master.
1Jn 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we are
misleading ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is trustworthy and
righteous to forgive us the sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jn 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make
Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.
Any person who continues to intentionally sin may sin
away their time of favour.
1Ti 4:1 But the Spirit distinctly says that in latter
times some shall fall away from the belief, paying attention to misleading
spirits, and teachings of demons,
1Ti 4:2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having been
branded on their own conscience,
1Ti 4:3 forbidding to marry, saying to abstain
from foods which Elohim created to be received with thanksgiving by those who
believe and know the truth.
Gal 5:1 In the freedom with which Messiah has made us
free, stand firm, then, and do not again be held with a yoke of slavery.
Rom 8:1 There is, then, now no condemnation to those
who are in Messiah יהושע, who do not
walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Rom 8:2 For the
Torah of the Spirit of the life in Messiah יהושע has set me
free from the law of sin and of death.
Rom 8:3 For the
Torah being powerless, in that it was weak through the flesh, Elohim, having
His own Son in the likeness of flesh of sin, and concerning sin, condemned sin
in the flesh,
Rom 8:4 so that
the righteousness of the Torah should be completed in us who do not walk
according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Rom 8:5 For those
who live according to the flesh set their minds on the matters of the
flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the matters of
the Spirit.
Rom 8:6 For the
mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace.
Rom 8:7 Because
the mind of the flesh is enmity towards Elohim, for it does not subject itself1
to the Torah of Elohim2, neither indeed is it able, Footnotes: 1Or
does not obey. 2John 15:5, 1 John 4:4, 1 John 3:9, 1 John
5:18.