Aqualung said:
If you don't know you're sinning, it's not a sin.
It says sin is not taken
into account - not that it isn't still
sin (sin was in the world even before the law was given). That's why "death reigned" even over those who did not break any commands; without sin there would have been no death.
Miche said:
Jenyar; I don't deny the passages you have quoted above; but do you really believe that a Loving God would punish someone for 'erring' without realizing it ? How about the insane ?
I have a problem with it when we assume we know what "a loving God" would or would not do. We only know what God does by what He
did, and what He wants by what He tells us. No, God did not take sin into account when it is done in ignorance (that's why Paul told the Athenians "in the past God overlooked such ignorance" - Acts 17:30), but neither does He allow us to stay ignorant for very long. When we
realize we have sinned, it's already done, and consequences don't ask questions. If hell - eternal separation from God - is a consequence of ignorance, then being ignorant is the
worst sin, not the safest one. One might say God came to save us from ignorance.
Few people
willingly do things that would cause their death - much less God's wrath and eternal death. But they do things that make them guilty and separates them from God out of ignorance - even our innocence isn't white as snow. Paul said, "My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Cor. 4:4). So it's to our advantage to know that we are condemned by our sins even when they were done out of ignorance, that every religious ordinance and ritual that tries to please God is just an expression of our predicament, not a solution for it - and certainly not of any lasting merit.
Rom 3.19-20 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
By being convicted of sins we didn't even know we committed (we would have to be Christ himself to know everything that makes us guilty - after the ten commandments, God exposed another 613 areas of sin and gave laws about them - and the Jews were able to identify thousands more from there in their commentaries). But God was able to turn this into the favour of those who would remain fathful to Him:
Rom. 3:21-26 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
