Leviticus 6:1 - Meaning and Application

This is the later part of the law about the guilt offering. The earlier part, which dealt with sins against holy things, was at the end of the last chapter. This section deals with sins in ordinary life.

First, we see the kind of wrong being described (Leviticus 6:2-3). Even though all these cases involve a neighbor, the offense is called a trespass against the Lord. That is because when a person wrongs another person, he also insults God, who made both the command and the relationship. James says that anyone who speaks evil of his brother speaks evil of the law, and so of the Lawgiver too (James 4:11).

The people injured may be poor, weak, or beneath us in standing. Yet the wrong still reaches God, who commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. The sins named here include denying a trust, lying about something left in one’s care, or about something lent for use. If someone claims as his own what was only borrowed or entrusted to him, he sins against the Lord, who wants truth and property respected for the good of human society.

The passage also speaks of cheating a partner by pretending to have full ownership of something that is shared. It includes boldly denying a robbery or violent taking, even when the fact is hard to hide. It also covers cheating in trade, or, as some understand it, using false charges to oppress a neighbor. In short, it means either holding back what is owed or taking more than is right.

Another case is keeping what one has found and lying about it (Leviticus 6:3). If a man finds lost property, he must not quickly call it his own. He should try to find the owner and return it. That is simply doing to others what we would want done to us. But if he lies about it, especially if he backs the lie with a false oath, he sins against the Lord. God is a witness to everything said, and when a person swears, he calls God to witness his words. To use that solemn appeal for a lie is a serious insult to God.

Second, the guilt offering is appointed. Before bringing the offering, the offender must make things right with the person he harmed. If he is guilty and his own conscience convicts him, he must fully restore what he took by fraud or force, and add one-fifth more as payment for the loss and trouble caused. He must pay both the debt and the damages.

Where wrong has been done, restitution must be made. Until a person has restored what he can, or until the injured person accepts an equivalent, he cannot rightly feel the comfort of forgiveness. Keeping stolen gain is the same as admitting the theft, and the two together remain one continuing act of injustice. True repentance means undoing the wrong as far as possible. That is why Zacchaeus, after turning to the Lord, said he would repay what he had taken and more (Luke 19:8).

After making restitution, the sinner must come and bring his offering to the Lord whom he has offended. The priest then makes atonement for him, meaning a covering for sin that restores him to God (Leviticus 6:6-7). This guilt offering could not, by itself, remove sin or fully reconcile God and the sinner. It pointed ahead to the atonement Jesus Christ would make, when he would offer himself for sin. Isaiah uses the same word when he says that the Lord would make his soul a guilt offering (Isaiah 53:10).

The sins listed here are still sins under Christ’s law. His law demands justice and truth just as much as the law of nature and the law of Moses did. We may now receive pardon without bringing a guilt offering, but not without true repentance, restitution, a changed life, and humble faith in Christ’s righteousness. If anyone grows bold in these sins because no animal offering is now required, he turns God’s grace into a license for sin and brings destruction on himself. The Lord will punish all such wrongdoing (1 Thessalonians 4:6).