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 Cain said to Jehovah, My punishment is too great to be borne.
Then they said one to another, We are indeed guilty concerning our brother, whose anguish of soul we saw when he besought us, and we did not hearken; therefore this distress is come upon us.
keeping mercy unto thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but by no means clearing the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.
And if any one sin, and hear the voice of adjuration, and he is a witness whether he hath seen or known it, if he do not give information, then he shall bear his iniquity.
If any one act unfaithfully and sin through inadvertence in the holy things of Jehovah, then he shall bring his trespass-offering to Jehovah, a ram without blemish out of the small cattle, according to thy valuation by shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass-offering.
or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; and he shall restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto; to him to whom it belongeth shall he give it, on the day of his trespass-offering.
that the goat may bear upon him all their iniquities to a land apart from men; and he shall send away the goat into the wilderness.
so that I also walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of their enemies. If then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity,
Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or woman shall commit any of all the sins of man to work unfaithfulness against Jehovah, and that soul is guilty,
And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; ye must at any rate return him a trespass-offering: then ye 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; the one rich, and the other poor.
The money of trespass-offerings, and the money of sin-offerings, was not brought into the house of Jehovah: it was for the priests.
Jehovah looked down from the heavens upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
God looked down from the heavens upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous.
When he shall be judged, let him go out guilty, and let his prayer become sin;
Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath subjected him to suffering. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see a seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand.
Therefore will I assign him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong: because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and was reckoned with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
And Jehovah hath given me knowledge, and I know it; then thou shewedst me their doings.
Jehovah, give heed to me, and listen to the voice of those that contend with me.
But Jehovah is with me as a mighty terrible one; therefore my persecutors shall stumble and shall not prevail; they shall be greatly ashamed, for they have not prospered: it shall be an everlasting confusion that shall not be forgotten.
And in the porch of the gate were two tables on this side, and two tables on that side, to slay thereon the burnt-offering and the sin-offering and the trespass-offering.
And he said unto me, The north cells and the south cells, which are before the separate place, they are holy cells, where the priests that come near unto Jehovah shall eat the most holy things; there shall they lay the most holy things, both the oblation and the sin-offering and the trespass-offering: for the place is holy.
They shall eat the oblation and the sin-offering and the trespass-offering; and every devoted thing in Israel shall be theirs.
And he said unto me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass-offering, and the sin-offering, and where they shall bake the oblation, that they bring them not out into the outer court, so as to hallow the people.
Their heart is divided; now shall they be found guilty: he will break down their altars, he will destroy their statues.
that which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.
I have smitten you with blasting and mildew; the palmer-worm hath devoured the multitude of your gardens, and your vineyards, and your fig-trees and your olive-trees: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith Jehovah.
Then shall they cry unto Jehovah, but he will not answer them; and he will hide his face from them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings.
Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth;
And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I see a flying roll: the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits.
Then began he to reproach the cities in which most of his works of power had taken place, because they had not repented.
but he who knew it not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. And to every one to whom much has been given, much shall be required from him; and to whom men have committed much, they will ask from him the more.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal.
Jesus said to them, If ye were blind ye would not have sin; but now ye say, We see, your sin remains.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it again. I have received this commandment of my Father.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
If I had not done among them the works which no other one has done, they had not had sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.
If I had not done among them the works which no other one has done, they had not had sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.
Wherefore by works of law no flesh shall be justified before him; for by law is knowledge of sin.
but God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us.
(for until law sin was in the world; but sin is not put to account when there is no law;
What shall we say then? is the law sin? Far be the thought. But I had not known sin, unless by law: for I had not had conscience also of lust unless the law had said, Thou shalt not lust;
For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am fleshly, sold under sin.
There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.
But ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God's Spirit dwell in you; but if any one has not the Spirit of Christ he is not of him:
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these things are opposed one to the other, that ye should not do those things which ye desire;
among whom we also all once had our conversation in the lusts of our flesh, doing what the flesh and the thoughts willed to do, and were children, by nature, of wrath, even as the rest:
On account of which things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
and to await his Son from the heavens, whom he raised from among the dead, Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath.
forbidding us to speak to the nations that they may be saved, that they may fill up their sins always: but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost.
how shall we escape if we have been negligent of so great salvation, which, having had its commencement in being spoken of by the Lord, has been confirmed to us by those who have heard;
For it is impossible to renew again to repentance those once enlightened, and who have tasted of the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
of how much worse punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and esteemed the blood of the covenant, whereby he has been sanctified, common, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, in order that, being dead to sins, we may live to righteousness: by whose stripes ye have been healed.
And I saw another sign in the heaven, great and wonderful: seven angels having seven plagues, the last; for in them the fury of God is completed.