And you, being dead to your offenses and sins, in which once you walked, in accord with the eon of this world,… Ephesians 2:1 Concordant Version of the New Testament 

          One of our readers, Dave, has commented on Notes on Missing The Mark with several criticisms that we gratefully view as constructive.  His general observation is that hamartia is a noun (which we contend the apostle John meant as legal offenses against God’s law), and hamartano is a verb (which we contend John meant as missing the mark).  Therefore, since the noun and the verb derive from the same basic word, they should not be interpreted with such markedly divergent meanings.  We think it is fair to say that Dave’s chief objection to the post is the view that one may miss the mark without committing a legal offense against God’s law.  Here is Dave’s comment in his own words:

“Scripture does not divide sin between small failures and legal condemnations.  Even small things are deserving of unending death (Matthew 5:21-22) precisely because any sin at all is not just a failing (“missing the mark” in your nomenclature) but enmity towards God.  (Romans 5:10)”  (scripture references cited by Dave)

          We wish to clearly state at the outset that Dave’s opinion represents the mainstream; that is, it is the predominant view of most of the Church today.  Our view is NOT the mainstream; we trust God will change the Church’s collective mind when He is ready.  Because of this fact, we intend for this post to give an account for the faith we have, with gentleness and reverence, for it is based upon hearing God’s word, knowing God’s mind, and rightly dividing the word of truth. 

           Setting aside for the moment the manner of punishment, does God punish all wrongdoing the same?  The idea that He does is essentially a priori, meaning that it is not based upon experience  and observation, but instead is based upon thought.  It appears nowhere in nature or in any civilization (even where sharia law is practiced), and no one would seriously argue that any father should execute his child for disobediently sneaking a cookie.  In the same way, no one would seriously argue that the punishment for stealing a cookie should be the same as for stealing a car.  Indeed, no one in the Church can accuse Father of treating themselves or anyone else in such fashion.  Finally, such an idea does not appear in Scripture, as we shall see; rather, the witness of Scripture is that the punishment fits the crime.

          One cannot rightly divide the word of truth in the New Testament by disregarding the Old Testament, specifically God’s laws and His teachings.  Most, if not all, of the New Testament had underpinnings from the Old Testament.  Think about it:  when the Lord Jesus referred to “the Scriptures”,  to what was He referring?  (See, for example, Matthew 21:42, Matthew 22:29, Matthew 26:54, and Luke 4:21.)  The concepts of sin and punishment did not originate in the New Testament.  Instead, they were part of the careful, continuing and unfolding revelation from Father that was delivered by Moses to the Church in the wilderness which gave specific instructions to restore the lawful order depending upon each situation–that is, the Old Testament, in general and Torah, in particular.  These instructions have been abandoned today as hopelessly irrelevant with not even the slightest thought to what was in Father’s mind when He gave them to the people.

          In Leviticus 4:2-3, if a person sinned (chata, a Hebrew verb) unintentionally or in ignorance, a bull was to be offered to YHWH (chatta’ath, a Hebrew  noun), the blood sprinkled upon the altar, the blood applied to the horns of the altar, the fat and the kidneys offered up in smoke (just like the Sacred Gift of Greeting of which we wrote earlier), and the rest of the bull removed to a clean place outside the camp and burned.  See by comparison, Leviticus 6:1-7, where the guilty party not only takes an animal to the priest to be offered up, he must also “make restitution” and add one-fifth to the amount in controversy.  This is where the guilty party comes forward on his own; if he is caught before he repents, he is to pay double according to Exodus 22:3-4.  If he has no means to make restitution, he is sold into bondage to pay the debt, for all sin is a debt.  For other crimes against Father and man, the matters were presented to the local leaders, who were to judge all men fairly without partiality and bribes, regard to wealth, and status as a citizen or alien.  Exodus 23:1-9 

          Where the misdemeanor warranted it, a man was to be beaten on the spot, but with the important limitation that the strokes could not exceed forty, “so that…your brother is not degraded in your eyes.”    Deuteronomy 25:1-3  When a culprit refused to submit to the judge’s decision, or in the case of a felony, the culprit was stoned and submitted to Father for correction.  See, for example, Deuteronomy 17:12 and Deuteronomy 19:11-13.  Much more could be said about the restorative and corrective nature of God’s laws and instructions.  However, the point is, not all wrongdoing is to be punished the same by Father, unless Father is guilty of instructing us to do one thing while He does another.  This is a grievous charge, and we insist that Father is innocent of it.  Romans 3:4

          Dear reader, note the verse with which we began this post:  do you think Paul, the author, was being intentionally redundant by saying “offenses and sins” or was he trying to describe two different things?  Take a look at this page and ask yourself if all the different Hebrew and Greek words for which “sin” is given as a gloss definition really mean the same thing.  (Hint:  click on the tab next to “Primary Results” that says “LexiConc.”)  You do not need to be the proud owner of The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon to see that different meanings are intended both in substance and in effect.  Open your heart to the teaching and leading of the Lord Spirit–He will lead you into the truth of it as you dig deeper.  Frankly, most of the time such fine tools will confirm His leading.  Can you see that to ascribe the punishment of “unending death” to every offense and every missing of the mark is “degrading your brother in your eyes”? Understand the reason for the rule and you will see that it doesn’t matter who administers the punishment, whether God or man.  Father wants us to judge with mercy, not degradation.

          Back to hamartia and hamartano:  we contend that you can miss the mark without committing a legal offense against God’s law, but you cannot commit a legal offense without missing the mark, also.  We also contend the apostle John wrote from a Hebrew background and understanding of Torah and the sacrifice system.  He understood that His Lord (and yours) had fulfilled the laws of that system, because He said that He had come to accomplish that very thing–not to abolish those laws.

          Approximately 250 years before the common era, also called the Christian era (“B.C.E.”) that commenced with the birth of Messiah Jesus, a translation of various books now comprising the Old Testament into Greek from the original Hebrew was undertaken in Egypt.  It is called the “Septuagint”.  Although not entirely without controversy, it does provide a basis for comparison of Greek and Hebrew words that cannot be claimed to have a pro-Christian bias, since it was accomplished about two centuries before Christ was born.  Using this tool, anyone who cares to dig deeply enough can see how the translators used hamartia and hamartano.  That is, by finding the places where the translators used those two Greek words, we can see if they agreed with Dave’s position.  In other words, did the translators ever use hamartano (the verb) in more than one way?  The answer is:  yes, they did.

          Without exception, the translators used hamartia (legal offenses) in place of the Hebrew noun chatta’ath in every instance the latter word appears in the Old Testament.  This remarkable consistency is even more noteworthy when we understand that chatta’ath itself means not only the sin, (that is, the offense), but also is used to mean the sin offering, or that which was offered to God to expiate the offense.  This bears witness to the wonderful truth that Christ became sin (chatta’ath) in order to become the sin offering (chatta’ath) for us and in our place!

          Now for the verb (chata) from which the noun (chatta’ath) derives:  In approximately 93 different verses where the original Hebrew word is chata, the translators used a word other than hamartano;  and in approximately 56 different verses, hamartano was used where the original Hebrew word was NOT chata!    All of these examples are too numerous to list here.  The point is, the ancient translators felt that hamartano had a broader range of meanings than simply the one word we now call “sin”.  Therefore, we are justified in assigning a broader meaning to the verb hamartano to allow for a range of the degree of severity.  Furthermore, we may loosely refer to this assignment of meaning as a “translation” without intending the technical usage of scholarly translation, although scholarship vindicates the meaning we have assigned.

          We are sincerely grateful to Dave, because he required us to dig in and prove that which we have believed.  No part of the body of Christ is less important than any other part, and when one part hurts, the whole body hurts.  In the same way, no man hates his own body, or says to one part “I have no need of you”, but instead nourishes and cherishes it–all  of it.  For the word of the Lord is:  He will be all in all.  Praise you, Lord!

Blessed are You, O Lord, our wonderful and giving God, who knew no sin or offenses, and who was offered up for all of our failures!  All men will rise up and call you righteous, wise and blessed!  Thank you for always leaving us a witness, lover of our souls.  Baruch ata.

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