Repentance, confession, satisfaction, absolution,
follow each other in order. Without repentance confession is vain; without confession satisfaction is impracticable; without satisfaction there is no absolution. In the present case, the sense of absolution was conveyed to the soul of the sinner by the acceptance of his offering for trespass, after which he ceased to be, what he was before, virtually excommunicate from God's people. The greater moral offenses were punished either by death (Exodus 21:12-17; Exodus 31:15; Exodus 32:27; Le Exodus 20:9-16; Exodus 24:1-18:23; Numbers 25:5; Deuteronomy 13:9; Deuteronomy 19:11; Joshua 7:25), or by formal excommunication, when the offenders were cut off from the people of the Lord, though their lives were spared (Leviticus 7:20, Leviticus 7:21; Genesis 17:14). But there was, and there is, an excommunication, not formally pronounced, when a man feels that his sin has separated between him and his God. In these cases the sin offering or the trespass offering restored to communion, but they might not be offered, that is, absolution might not be effected by them, unless preceded by repentance and confession, and, where the nature of the case admitted of it, by satisfaction for the wrong done.