Thought for the Day 25/05/21 - Ignorance is no defence?

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Yesterday I drove the length of the M4 plus a bit to get to Islington and back in the day. Long story, but ...

I was driving roads I hadn't driven for a while and that had changhed a lot, it seemed, during lock down.

I wasn't up to speed on the changes and a few times over, I had one of those 'moments' where the traffic flow required me to be moving but I justn't didn't know where to go ... you know the sort of thing?

I was pretty glad of Google maps and that nice lady's voice inside my phone telling me the route ... but it wasn't ALWAYS obvious quite what the score was, or where I was, let alone where I should be going.

Around home, on roads I often drive, I tend to know the speed limit, but with all the road works going on along the M4 ... up in England, not nearer to home  ... it wasn't always easy to know what the speed limit was at all.

It gave me quite a start when suddenly the lady in navigating for me on my phone said urgently: 'Police mobile speed trap ahead'. 

I looked up to see two police cars on the bridge in front of me and looked down to see ... that I was 2 MPH inside the limit! (Phew!)

But if I hadn't been, there would have been no point saying I'm sorry, I don't come here often, I didn't know'!

Ignorance is no defence in English Law.

The English legal system has a principle which states that 'Ignorantia juris non excusat'.

And being translated from the Latin ... of which most people these days ARE ignorant ... that means: 'ignorance of the law excuses not'. 

Ignorance is no defence in law.

There would have been no use trying to explain to those Police officers sitting in their car above the bridge, or (more likely) to the faceless bureaucracy that posted a penalty notice to me through the post) that I hadn't driven that way for ages, everything looked different and I didn't KNOW the speed limit had changed ... ignorance would be no defence.

But is that the situation with God?

In the words of our Verse for the Day:

“If a person sins and violates any of the Lord’s commandments 

which must not be violated

(although he did not know it at the time, but later realises he is guilty), 

then he will bear his punishment for iniquity"

                                                                                     Leviticus 5:17

Ignorance is relevant in Scripture ... until you know, and then it's not ignorance any more!

With God, it's pretending ignorance that is no defence

Leviticus 5, from which our Verse for the Day comes, covers three basic scenarios that involved covered guilt, but in each one the remedy for that involves putting things right when they're discovered both with people and with God.

Now, Leviticus is a hard read, but the principle of our Verse for the Day in Leviticus 5 is summarised helpfully for us in Proverbs 28:13

"Whoever conceals their sins 
does not prosper, 
but the one who confesses and renounces them 
finds mercy."

The Point

God doesn't judge sin we're unaware of.

That may well be why Paul goes to such lengths in Romans 1-3 to show that not only the Jewish people who had the laws of the Old Tesatament to make them realise that they were sinful people in need of God's mercy, but also the Gentile peoples of the world who were without the knowledge of the Law but who had the knowledge of God imprinted on the consciences ... all alike know that we are all sinners, falling short of the glory of God who all need to be put right with God by grave through faith alone on account of our failings. 

(Check Romans 3:21-26 for the detail).

We're therefore ALL in the same storm, if not in the same boat, but we're all able to be put right with God by the same means.

That means involves:

• acknowledging and repudiating our sinfulness from the heart (that's where repentance starts out)
  
  
• by seeking to repent and 
  
  
• make restitution in the area of KNOWN sin (putting things right with people ... so far as we can) and by 
  
  
• turning to Christ to put it right with God for us.

The Takeaway

Restitution (so far possible) may be a particular part of repentance that we need to get hold of again - it seems not to get very much made of these days - but Biblically that is part of the essence of what we mean by 'repentance'.

And the other part is confessing our sins to God and seeking to be put right again with Him by grace through faith alone.

And yet, whilst all this very certainly needs to be said, the key take away from this Thought for the Day needs to be the one summed up in Proverbs 28:13.

Because this doesn't seem to work with the M4 traffic cops, but where God is concerned (thankfully!) it is true that ...

"Whoever conceals their sins 
does not prosper, 
but the one who confesses and renounces them 
finds mercy."