Falling from Grace

Part 3, High-Handed Sin

Final post in this series reflecting upon “falling from grace.”

The point I made in the last post was that, in the Levitical imagination, sin does not imply separation from God. In fact, the entire sacrificial system was set in place because sin was expected. Consequently, atonement did not restore relation with God but maintained it.

This Levitical assumption would have been good news to my anxious childhood self, where I assumed that sin severed relation with God, changing my status from saved to lost and prompting a rushed and anxious scurrying back over the line with a quick prayer of confession. Properly understood, atonement stabilized and secured communion with God. And now that Jesus has provided a once for all sacrifice, this security has only deepened. Grace is not a fragile thing.

Still, what about all the Old and New Testament concerns about perseverance and endurance? As Paul says in Galatians 6: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” The prospect of falling away, giving up, and turning back is a pressing concern in Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation.

So, sin does not imply separation and grace is not fragile. But it does seem that falling from grace is a possibility. How to make sense of this?

Help, again, comes from the Torah.

In Numbers 15:30–31, a contrast is made between unintentional sin and “high-handed,” brazen sin:

But whoever acts high-handedly [i.e., “defiantly” (NET), “brazenly” (NLT)], whether native-born or an alien, affronts the Lord and shall be cut off from among the people. Because of having despised [“treated with contempt” (NLT)] the word of the Lord and broken his commandment, such a person shall be utterly cut off and bear the guilt. (NRSV)

In the rabbinic reception of this text, a contrast is being drawn in the Torah between two types of sin.

On the one hand were sins that arise from human frailty, weakness, or desire. The covenantal stance in these instances remains intact, as indicated by a remorseful, confessional posture. Such sin is repairable through the sacrificial system. This is echoed in 1 John 1. If we say we have no sin we are a liar. But if we confess our sin the Lord is faithful to forgive us because the blood of Jesus continually cleanses us. Sin is expected and atonement keeps the relationship secure and stable.

In contrast to this, the high-handed sin described in Numbers 15 is a defiant posture. “High hand” was a Hebrew idiom for brazen, insolent defiance. Such a sin is committed with contempt for God’s command, spurning, provoking, and casting off God’s authority. The yoke of Torah was being thrown off. The covenantal stance is being willfully rejected. This brazen rupture of relationship, the high-handed sin, falls outside of ritual remediation. This vision is carried over into the New Testament in Hebrews 10: “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment.”

The high-handed sinner was to be exiled and cut off from the community, handed over to a ritual and communal “death.” Instead of atonement, the sinner had to, in the words of Numbers 15, bear their own guilt. And yet, even if one has to bear their own guilt, suffering chastisement and death, this did not mean that forgiveness and restoration were impossible. Only that the sin falls outside of the Levitical remedies. Mercy and restoration would have to come from God directly, from beyond the sacrificial system. And this is something God does. The Lord “resurrects” Israel from the dead after she had been “cut off” in the exile. God forgives Israel’s high-handed rebellion, a mercy that God extends from beyond the sacrificial system. Israel carries her own guilt, but the Lord’s mercy brings that to an end. Not through Levitical remedy, but through a eucatastrophic act of mercy. Isaiah 40:

Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.

Stepping back, the point for our conversation about falling from grace is that sins of weakness and desire, when accompanied by humble confession and contrition, do not sever our relationship with God. For these sins, the blood of Christ provides continuous cleansing. Brazen and defiant sin, by contrast, rejects the covenantal stance by willfully severing relationship and seeking rupture. Contempt for God is diagnostic here.

To be sure, the balancing I am attempting here will not fully ease the minds those who suffer from a morbid scrupulosity. Some will still worry: When does a sin become brazen and high-handed? What if your confession is slow, sluggish, and delayed? Calvinistic readers might start to grin here. “See, there’s that anxiety creeping back into grace!” But let me be quick to point out that Calvinism has never been immune from anxiety, given how you worry about if you are, indeed, one of the elect. Sure, when you see a fellow believer “fall away” you can console yourself and protect your dogma with “they weren’t one of the elect” in the first place. But your doctrine has become functionally and pastorally meaningless. Sure, Arminians might be anxious over losing their salvation, but Calvinists worry about if they are saved in the first place. Seems like six of one half-dozen of the other. All we’re doing in this debate is anxiety shifting.

As I’ve tried to articulate in this series, I think the better view is to split the difference in the old debate by embracing the vision set forth the in Torah. There are two key pieces here. First, salvation is stable because sin does not imply separation. Sin is expected and the sacrificial remedy has been graciously provided, offering constant and continual cleansing.

That said, and this is the second piece, high-handed rebellion and contempt for God is out of bounds. Here the notion of covenantal stance is key: Are you wanting to sever your relation with God? To use a marital analogy: Are you handing God divorce papers? If so, you willfully remove yourself from all sacrificial remedies. You step away from the blood of Christ.

And yet, even then, God is able to restore relation. God raises Israel from the dead and woos back the spouse after the exilic divorce. This reunion, though, doesn’t come through atonement but through the painful consequences of exilic separation and divine chastisement. Grace transcends the sacrificial system.