Something I've been ruminating on for a while now, and trying to work through.
As I’ve been getting used to the copy of the Greek Septuagint I’ve acquired, my attention has been more drawn to the fact that the Torah distinguishes between intentional wrongdoing and unintentional wrongdoing, or in the Greek text, "adikia" and "hamartia." The Hebrew text which the Greek translates also distinguishes them as well [“‘avon,” “iniquity, guilt,” and “khata’,” “to miss one’s target”], so there’s no difference if I go from the Greek translation or the Hebrew original.)
There is a difference between "adikia" and "hamartia;" between intentional wrongdoing and a flaw, mistake, or malfunction. Intentional wrongdoing is a deliberate choice which is made. Whereas a mistake is just that. Something we didn't intend to happen, but did. God recognizes the difference between the two. When Paul talks about "sin" in Romans and his other letters, He's always talking about "hamartia." When people are called "sinners" in the Gospels and epistles, it's always a cognate of "hamartia."
There is no offering in the Torah for individual deliberate wrongdoing. Virtually all of the offerings for "sin" are for unintentional wrongdoing. The only offering for intentional wrongdoing appears to be the Day of Atonement, and this for the nation as a whole. "Adikia" must always be repented of and turned from in order to receive forgiveness, but there are also severe penalties involved under the Torah for deliberate wrongdoing. For "Hamartia" however, there must be a recognition and agreement that the thing occurred, and then there is an offering for it to satisfy the conscience. An example of this dichotomy is in the laws regarding homicide. If a person is killed unintentionally, the family is allowed to hunt the slayer down, but the slayer is allowed to run to a city of refuge where they can't touch him as long as he's within the walls. If however a person commits deliberate homicide, there's no protection for him. No refuge. Nowhere he can hide. And no sacrifice which can absolve him from the penalties which the Torah demands.
We each of us as human beings have an internal malfunction which colors and informs every action we take, every word we speak, and nearly every thought we have. As a result, even the best of our intended words and actions are flawed, malfunctioning, and erroneous. We want to do good, to be good, but we find that our best efforts always miss the target for which we are aiming, and frequently it all goes wrong. This is hamartia, and the actions it produces. Hamartia itself is not adikia, but the flaw in our neurology produces the flaw in our thoughts, emotions, and reasoning which then can and does lead to deliberate wrongdoing as we seek to get what we want regardless of who we have to hurt to do it.
God has never needed sacrifices in order to forgive us. That was a human invention in order to satisfy our own malfunctioning consciences. In the Torah, there were sacrifices prescribed, not because God was wrathful and angry and demanded, but because we in our malfunction needed something to assure us of that forgiveness, and the practice of blood sacrifice had already been well established for thousands of years by that time. The sacrifices for sin that were established were there in case the person realized he or she had done something wrong or made some mistake, hurt someone without intending to.
Deliberate wrongdoing is a different animal. God wants to forgive even this, but would it help anyone, including the offender, if He just overlooked someone intentionally hurting someone else and continuing to do it? God runs to forgive, but the person in turn must come to their senses and turn away from the deliberate harm they had been causing. They must change their minds and hearts and take a different path away from their wrongdoing.
The difference between them is not always easy to recognize visually. There are few people in the world that believe they’re not doing the right thing, at least for them. Some of the most hurtful and harmful actions have been done in the name of “the good,” or “doing the right thing.” Consider the Islamic conquests after Muhammed, and the Crusades which followed a few hundred years later. Both sides believed they were in the right, and even doing the will of God, and yet both sides were killing each other and committing atrocities. They were both malfunctioning in a big way and causing massive amounts of harm even as those so doing believed they were doing good and intended to do good.
Here's the thing. It's okay if we make mistakes, even if they're big ones. Each of us can only operate according to what we understand to be “the good” or the “right thing” according to the cultural or religious moral codes with which we’ve been brought up or to which we’ve personally adhered. God doesn’t hold us responsible for what we don’t know. But it's not okay to deliberately and willfully cause harm. It's okay to try and fail, or if you’re only doing what you were taught was the right thing, even if it’s causing hurt or harm that you’re not aware of. It's not okay to intentionally hurt someone, or to continue in a hurtful or harmful action when you’ve been made aware of it. It's one thing to succumb to temptation and screw up without meaning to. It's another to hurt someone intentionally, or act selfishly with no regard to who we hurt, and then go to God expecting to be forgiven for it so you can do it again without consequence. He didn't put up with it under the Mosaic Covenant. What makes us think He'll put up with it under the New Covenant?
The path of Jesus Christ begins with this change of mind and heart about the deliberate wrongdoing and harm we've inflicted on others and even ourselves. It begins with the recognition that we're not okay, and the harm we've inflicted is not okay. It then continues with putting our trust into Jesus Christ, and our union with Him through inclusion into His death, burial, and resurrection through baptism, and surrendering control of our behaviors and responses to His Spirit, submitting to Him just as He submitted to the Father, and imitating Him in this. As Jesus Christ Himself taught, we are to "repent and believe in the Gospel." God doesn't hold onto our past mistakes and wrongdoing if we turn around and change our hearts and minds about them. As was illustrated in the parable of the “Prodigal Son,” He will happily let them go for the joy of regaining His sons and daughters.
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