In the Old Testament in the old covenant, the only sins that could be atoned for by sacrifice were unintentional sins. People who willfully broke the covenant of YHWH were to suffer the death penalty. Do you get that? Anyone who deliberately or willfully sinned deserved the death penalty. I would have been in trouble. How about you?
That is why Christ came as a sin offering to remove the curse of sin and death offering from off of us. He took it on Himself.
Romans 8:1–4 (NASB95)
1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Thanks be to Jesus, the sin is gone, the guilt is gone and the condemnation is gone. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. He is merciful and full of grace. Not giving us what we deserve and instead giving us what we do not deserve.
John got it. 1 John 2:1 (NASB95) My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
Love you, Pastor Randy