What makes us responsible before God for our sins?

When Christ Jesus was hanging on the stake being tortured to death he said: "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

A man named Uzza thought the ark of the covenant was going to upset and fall, and simply reached out his hand to steady it and keep it from falling. Uzza was struck dead by God for the irreverent act.

Saul of Tarsus was guilty of killing Christians and was forgiven.

Annanias told a lie and withheld money he owned anyway, and was struck dead by holy spirit for his crime.

What makes the difference. Why does God forgive one for a very serious crime and punish another for what appears at first glance to be a lesser crime? The answer is both very important, and very simple: Knowledge. Saul was tricked by his religious leaders to believe he was rendering God a sacred service by attacking Christians, and so he was forgiven because he was ignorant. Uzza was a priest of Jehovah, and was well educated about how they were to transport the ark of the covenant. He disregarded those laws, and when that lack of obedience nearly caused the ark to fall, Uzza further sinned by breaking another law and touching the Ark. Uzza had been taught touching the ark brought the penalty of death. He had knowledge and was not ignorant, and so he was responsible. Many of those putting Jesus to death were not his foot step followers and did not fully understand he was God's son and our mediator and savior. He thus encouraged forgiveness for their sins of ignorance. Annarias was a follower of Jehovah and had seen his miracles in behalf of his people including the walls of Jericho falling down to give the city to them. He knew Jehovah had declared everything was to be destroyed and yet he disregarded that direct order. His family went along with him in his sin of theft and deceit. Achin was killed for his disobedience based on his knowledge.

We suspect some will might think it better to remain ignorant. Knowledge brings responsibility! If we take advantage of knowledge, along with responsibility it brings rewards beyond measure.

Being ignorant is not a bad thing you see. We are all ignorant of some things. Even the perfect son of God was ignorant to some degree. The Bible tells us Jesus learned obedience from the things he suffered. Jesus had of course been obedient all his life, including the time he spent with his Father before he was born as a man. He didn't yet know though, what it meant to be obedient when it cost him something. All his obedience during all his days had only resulted in blessings for him and others from his Father. As he offered himself up on the stake, he was obedient under personal cost; Great personal cost. It was something even the perfect son of God could learn and so, to that degree, he was ignorant. All who are sons of God will always be ignorant, because there will always be things our Father knows that we do not know. There is nothing wrong with that. If we want to be God's friends though, we must be willing to allow him to educate us to certain things. We have to allow ourselves to learn to love our Creator and our neighbor for example. If we don't, we will continue causing all the reasons for pain and suffering the world is groaning and being in pains because of today. If Jehovah is going to create a paradise where all who are righteous can live forever, we must learn not to do harm there. That's pretty basic; Don't you agree? How though are we going to learn what we need to know?

Simple really isn't it: The Bible! Over the six thousand years of man's existence, God has done two distinct and clear things. {Of course he has done many things.} Those two things are: 1. That he produced a means of salvation for mankind, and: 2. That He recorded what He has done in the Bible.

Today we can learn all we need to know from the Bible in our period in the stream of time. We expect some will now start to wonder: Why doesn't God just appear in a burning bush and tell us what he wants us to know? It goes back to his getting to know what our true love is. When Jesus was on the earth, he didn't have any problem getting people to follow him. The problem was, many of them were following just for the food he provided. It's not bad they wanted to be fed, but it didn't uncover whether they loved the Christ, or just loved being fed. Many probably didn't know themselves. That is what we all must learn about ourselves, and what we must demonstrate to our Father. Do we serve him because we love him, or because we look forward to the rewards he holds out to us. It's not an easy thing to know. It's not wrong to love the reward and look forward to it. I certainly do! Still, the primary reason for our service must be love of Jehovah and our neighbor. Otherwise we will not be loyal and obedient no matter what the cost. Since God is perfect and all his ways are good absolute obedience is essential for good to exist. Any form of disobedience or digressing from Jehovah's way of doing things is bad and will result in harm. We must know that. The Bible and how Jehovah has recorded what we need to know in the Bible gives the opportunity to be loyal and to demonstrate our obedience based on our faith in the thing heard by us.

The more we can understand about this the more perfect the arrangement becomes. It is most certainly too wonderful for us to fully comprehend but to what ever degree we can do so, it is a blessing that is great.

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