Reference: Guilt
Hastings
1. Guilt may be defined in terms of relativity. It is rather the abiding result of sin than sin itself (see Pearson's Exposition of the Creed, ed. James Nichols, p. 514 f.). It is not punishment, or even liability to punishment, for this presupposes personal consciousness of wrong-doing and leaves out of account the attitude of God to sin unwittingly committed (Le 5:1 ff.; cf. Lu 12:48; Ro 5:13; see Sanday-Headlam, Romans, p. 144). On the other hand, we may describe it as a condition, a state, or a relation; the resultant of two forces drawing different ways (Ro 7:14 ff.). It includes two essential factors, without which it would be unmeaning as an objective reality or entity. At one point stands personal holiness, including whatever is holy in man; at another, personal corruption, including what is evil in man. Man's relation to God, as it is affected by sin, is what constitutes guilt in the widest sense of the word. The human struggle after righteousness is the surest evidence of man's consciousness of racial and personal guilt, and an acknowledgment that his position in this respect is not normal.
We are thus enabled to see that when moral obliquity arising from or reinforced by natural causes, adventitious circumstances, or personal environment, issues in persistent, wilful wrong-doing, it becomes or is resolved into guilt, and involves punishment which is guilt's inseparable accompaniment. In the OT the ideas of sin, guilt, and punishment are so inextricably interwoven that it is impossible to treat of one without in some way dealing with the other two, and the word for each is used interchangeably for the others (see Schultz, OT Theol. ii. p. 306). An example of this is found in Cain's despairing complaint, where the word 'punishment' (Ge 4:13 English Version) includes both the sin committed and the guilt attaching thereto (cf. Le 26:41).
2. In speaking of the guilt of the race or of the individual, some knowledge of a law governing moral actions must be presupposed (cf. Joh 9:41; 15:22,24). It is when the human will enters into conscious antagonism to the Divine will that guilt emerges into objective existence and crystallizes (see Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, Eng. tr p. 203 ff.). An educative process is thus required in order to bring home to the human race that sense of guilt without which progress is impossible (cf. Ro 3:20; 7:7). As soon, however, as this consciousness is established, the first step on the road to rebellion against sin is taken, and the sinner's relation to God commences to become fundamentally altered from what it was. A case in point, illustrative of this inchoate stage, is afforded by Joseph's brothers in their tardy recognition of a guilt which seems to have been latent in a degree, so far as their consciousness was concerned, up to the period of threatened consequences (Ge 42:21; cf. for a similar example of strange moral blindness, on the part of David, 2Sa 12:1 ff.). Their subsequent conduct was characterized by clumsy attempts to undo the mischief of which they had been the authors. A like feature is observable in the attitude of the Philistines when restoring the sacred 'ark of the covenant' to the offended Jehovah. A 'guilt-offering' had to be sent as a restitution for the wrong done (1Sa 6:3, cf. 2Ki 12:16). This natural instinct was developed and guided in the Levitical institutions by formal ceremony and religious rite, which were calculated to deepen still further the feeling of guilt and fear of Divine wrath. Even when the offence was committed in ignorance, as soon as its character was revealed to the offender, he became thereupon liable to punishment, and had to expiate his guilt by restitution and sacrifice, or by a 'guilt-offering' (AV 'trespass offering,' Le 5:15 ff; Le 6:1 ff.). To this a fine, amounting to one-fifth of the value of the wrong done in the case of a neighbour, was added and given to the injured party (Le 6:5; Nu 5:6 f.). How widely diffused this special rite had become is evidenced by the numerous incidental references of Ezekiel (Eze 40:39; 42:13; 44:29; 46:20); while perhaps the most remarkable allusion to this service of restitution occurs in the later Isaiah, where the ideal Servant of Jehovah is described as a 'guilt-offering' (Isa 53:10).
3. As might be expected, the universality of human guilt is nowhere more insistently dwelt on or more fully realized than in the Psalms (cf. Ps 14:2; 53:2, where the expression 'the sons of men' reveals the scope of the poet's thought; see also Ps 36 with its antithesis
See Verses Found in Dictionary
And they said one to another, We are truly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he begged us, and we would not hear. Therefore this distress has come upon us.
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the sons, and on the sons of sons, to the third and to the fourth generation.
And if a soul sins and hears the voice of swearing, and is a witness, and he has seen or known, if he does not tell it, then he shall bear his iniquity.
If a soul commits a trespass and sins through ignorance in the holy things of Jehovah, then he shall bring for his trespass to Jehovah a ram without blemish out of the flock, together with an amount set by you, by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering.
or all that which he swore about falsely, --he shall even repay it in its principal, and the fifth part he shall add to it, to whomever it belongs. He shall give it on the day of his guilt offering.
And the goat shall bear on him all their sins to a land in which no one lives. And he shall let the goat go in the wilderness.
I also will walk contrary to them and will bring them into the land of their enemies. If then their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they then pay for their iniquity,
Speak to the sons of Israel: When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to commit a trespass against Jehovah, and that person is guilty,
And they said, If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty. For you shall certainly send a guilt offering to him. Then you shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why His hand is not removed from you.
And Jehovah sent Nathan to David. And he came to him and said to him, There were two men in one city, one rich and one poor.
The trespass silver and sin silver was not brought into the house of Jehovah. It was the priests'.
Jehovah looked down from Heaven on the sons of men, to see if there were any who understood and sought God.
God looked down from Heaven on the sons of mankind to see if any was discerning, who was seeking God.
Let them be blotted out of the Book of Life, and not be written with the righteous.
Yet it pleased Jehovah to crush Him; to grieve Him; that He should put forth His soul as a guilt-offering. He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the will of Jehovah shall prosper in His hand.
Therefore I will divide to Him with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He has poured out His soul to death; and He was counted among the transgressors; and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for transgressors.
And Jehovah made me know, and I knew. Then You showed me their doings.
But Jehovah is with me like a mighty, awesome one. Therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not overcome me. They shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not be blessed. Their everlasting shame shall never be forgotten.
And in the porch of the gate were two tables from here and two tables from there, for the slaughtering of the burnt offering and the sin offering and the trespass offering.
And he said to me, The north chambers and the south chambers which are in front of the separate place, they are holy chambers, where the priests shall eat, those who approach to Jehovah shall eat the most holy things. There they shall lay the most holy things, and the food offering, and the sin offering, and the guilt offering. For the place is holy.
They shall eat the food offering, and the sin offering, and the guilt offering; and every dedicated thing in Israel shall be theirs.
And he said to me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the guilt offering and the sin offering, and where they shall bake the food offering, so that they may not bear them out into the outer court to sanctify the people.
Their heart is divided; now they shall be guilty. He shall break down their altars, and He shall spoil their images.
That which the creeping locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten. And that which the swarming locust has left, the locust larvae has eaten. And that which the locust larvae has left, the stripping locust has eaten.
I have stricken you with blasting and mildew. When your gardens and your vineyards, and your fig trees. and your olive trees increased, the creeping locust devoured them; yet you have not returned to Me, says Jehovah.
Then they shall cry to Jehovah, but He will not answer them. He will even hide His face from them at that time, as they have done evil in their doings.
Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth.
And he said to me, What do you see? And I answered, I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits.
Then He began to upbraid the cities in which most of His mighty works were done, because they did not repent.
But he not knowing, and doing things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For to whomever much is given, of him much shall be required. And to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, We see. Therefore your sin remains.
No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down from Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again. I have received this commandment from My Father.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
If I had not done among them the works which no other did, they would not have had sin. But now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father.
If I had not done among them the works which no other did, they would not have had sin. But now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father.
because by the works of the Law none of all flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law is the knowledge of sin.
But God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Let it not be said! But I did not know sin except through the law. For also I did not know lust except the law said, You shall not lust.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another; lest whatever you may will, these things you do.
among whom we also had our way of life in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
on account of which things' sake the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience,
and to wait for His Son from Heaven (whom He raised from the dead), Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come.
forbidding us to speak to the nations that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always; but the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost.
how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by those who heard Him;
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy of punishment, the one who has trampled the Son of God, and who has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that dying to sins, we might live to righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed.
And I saw another sign in Heaven, great and marvelous: seven angels with the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.