Intentional/unintentional sin?

I just wanted to write down my thoughts after reading Numbers 15. It is about the penalty concerning unintentional sin and presumptuous sin. The chapter was suggested to me after I brought up my view that having the desire alone or having the action alone does not constitute to sinning. Numbers 15 mentioned about unintentional sin and there was punishment to that, so it may suggest that having the action itself is sinning. That got me rethink my view.

I think the sin that was mentioned in Numbers 15 was referring to those acts that violates the Ten Commandments "that the Lord has commanded you by the hand of Moses" (Numbers 15:23). So at that point of time, if any act that was contrary to the Ten Commandments, that's sin. However, as we have already discussed in the recent Bible study, sin can be interpreted as anything that is not pleasing in the eyes of God. This goes far broader than the Ten Commandments in our present context.

I would interpret the chapter as such: In the context of the Old Testament, God has given the law to the people "as a means of defining themselves ethnically as against the 'unclean' Gentiles" (quote taken from "Encounter with God"). That was a specific set of rules at that time and that's how they automatically judged an act as sinful or not. Therefore sinning in the context of the Numbers was acting against the Ten Commandments. What Numbers 15 emphasized however, i think is the huge difference in penalty for unintentional sin and presumptuous sin. I think the focus is on the fact that something unintentional is not the cause of God's wrath. However if the sinful act is presumptuous, that really brings "reproach on the LORD" (Numbers 15:30).

On the other hand, the death and resurrection of Jesus has brought us forward to another age. We are no longer living just by the law given to the people at the time of the Old Testament, but by the grace of God, or the Spirit of God. We have also discussed that sin is more to the Ten Commandments. Therefore, how we define sinning (not sin, but committing sin) is probably also different. Maybe my suggestion that sinning is a result of both the sinful desire and the sinful act can still hold.

That's just my thoughts.

Anna