82. I made a mistake

John 9:41: "Jesus said unto them, if you were blind, you would have no sin: but now you say, 'We see'; therefore your sin remains."

Dealing with hurts and transgressions or sins people have committed towards us, is a difficult task. We often struggle because we have over-simplified dealing with these things by saying, 'you must just forgive and forget', or 'time heals all wounds.' I do not know about you, but I have never magically experienced amnesia after I've said the words, 'I forgive you.' And I've never seen a clock healing any wounds.

Dealing with transgressions or sins is not that simple. Before we can know what to do about the sins of others towards us, we need to know what God does with our sins that we have committed towards Him, as well as towards others, and what we ourselves should do when we have committed sin – specifically the sin of 'katah' or 'hamartia' that we looked at yesterday. The type of sin where we have accidentally done something wrong, where we did not purposely wanted to harm, but where we have aimed and missed the target or where we were straying from the path when our sinful natures got the best of us.

We started off by looking at the verse in Psalms 32:1 that says: "Blessed is he whose transgression (pesha / paroptoma / purposeful sin) is forgiven and whose sin (katah / hamartia / accidental sin) is covered. We looked at the sin of katah / hamartia yesterday, the sin of ignorance or the sin that was committed by mistake and which is covered by God. We spoke about what katah / hamartia is. It is to miss the mark, to stray from the path, when your timing is out or where you've departed from the actual standard.

The reason why we end up committing the sin of katah, is because of external conditions or because we haven't practised righteousness enough, because our tool (the bow) we are using to shoot towards the good intention, is faulty or because we lack knowledge. We do not realise what we are doing is wrong. Sometimes we sin because we make decisions too quickly or our human nature drags us away.

Everybody makes mistakes. Even the Bible says that we all have committed the sin of hamartia, which is the Greek version of katah. 1 John 1:8 says: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." Despite the fact that it is not intentional, it is still a type of sin. This is important to remember. The Bible says we have all sinned, we have all committed hamartia. Yes, it is a mistake, but despite the fact that it is unintentional, the Bible still calls it sin.

The guilt and the liability of hamartia and katah are much lower in comparison to the purposeful wilful sin like pesha, but it is no less still a sin.

The Bible gives a few definitions, if I could call it that, of the sin of hamartia.

· In the New Testament, 1 John 3:4 says: "Whoever commits sin (hamartia), an unintentional sin, still transgresses the law." It is still the transgression of the law, even though we've made a mistake.

· It also tells us in 1 John 3:8: "He that commits sin (hamartia), is of the devil." It means that we are manifesting the characteristics of Satan. God does not deal with the sin of hamartia so harshly yes, but it is still sin that comes from what is evil.

· We also learn from the Bible that hamartia or katah is a sin that does not lead to death. 1 John 5:17 says: "... there is a sin (hamartia) that is not unto death." What does this mean? It means that katah is not the type of sin where God says, "Enough is enough" and then destroys the person. He understands that it is a mistake. He understands that it is a wandering off, that it is the missing of the

target. But nonetheless, even though it is not a sin that has to lead to death, it does bring us to death's door.

· Romans 6:23 says: "For the wages of sin is death..." The sin that it speaks of here, is hamartia. It is the accidental sin. But no matter which level of sin we find ourselves on, whether it is accidental or whether it is purposeful, it is still punishable with death if we do not do what we are supposed to do with that sin. Even though its punishment is a low-level punishment, it is still punishable if we do not repent. Romans 6:23 further reads that: "... the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Why am I mentioning this to you? Because, when we look at hamartia, when we look at katah, when we look at unintentional sin, the sin of ignorance, the sin of 'I aimed for good, but I ended up doing bad', it is still a sin which costs a great price.