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
"My punishment is too great to bear," Cain told the LORD.
"We're all guilty because of what we did to our brother!" they told each other. "We kept on watching his suffering while he pleaded with us! We're in this mess because we wouldn't listen!"
He graciously loves thousands, and forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. But he does not leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the ancestors on their children, and on their children's children to the third and fourth generation."
"If someone sins because he has failed to testify after receiving notice to testify as a witness regarding what he has observed or learned, he is to be held responsible."
"When a person commits a truly treacherous act and sins inadvertently concerning the sacred things of the LORD, then he is to bring a trespass offering to the LORD from the flock as compensation for his guilt. It is to be a ram without defect, estimated as to its value in silver shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel.
or the thing about which he had given a false oath. He is to restore it in full, add a fifth to it, then give it to whom it belongs the very day he's found guilty.
The male goat will bear on itself all their sins to a solitary land as Aaron sends the goat out to the wilderness.
causing me to oppose them and take them to the land of their enemies so that the uncircumcised foreskin of their hearts can be humbled and so that they accept the punishment of their iniquity
"Instruct the Israelis that whenever a man or woman does something contained in the list of the sins of man, thereby acting treacherously against the LORD, then that person stands guilty.
They said, "If you send the Ark of the God of Israel back, don't send it empty, but rather be sure to send back to him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed and will know why his oppression has not been removed from you."
The money from the guilt offerings and from the sin offerings was not brought into the LORD's Temple, because it was allocated to the priests.
The LORD looks down from the heavens upon humanity to see if anyone shows discernment as he searches for God.
God looks down from the heavens upon humanity to see if anyone shows discernment as he searches for God.
May they be erased from the Book of Life, and their names not be written with the righteous.
When he is judged, may he be found guilty; may his prayer be regarded as sin.
"Yet the LORD was willing to crush him, and he made him suffer. Although you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring, and he will prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will triumph in his hand.
Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong; because he poured out his life to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he carried the sins of many, and made intercession for their transgressions."
The LORD made it known to me, and so I understood. Then you showed me their malicious deeds.
LORD, pay attention to me. Listen to the voice of my accusers!
Butthe LORD is with me like a fearsome warrior. Therefore, those who pursue me will stumble and won't prevail. They'll be put to great shame, when they don't succeed. Their everlasting disgrace won't be forgotten.
In the porch leading in front of the gate there were two tables on either side for slaughtering burnt offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings,
Then he told me, "The north and south chamber, which are opposite the courtyard, are consecrated areas where the priests who approach the LORD will eat consecrated offerings and lay the consecrated grain offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings, because the area is holy.
They are to eat the grain offerings, sin offering, and guilt offering. Everything consecrated in Israel is to belong to them.
about which he said, "This is where the priests will be boiling the guilt and sin offerings and baking the grain offerings so they don't bring them through the outer courtyard, thus diminishing the people's holiness."
Their hearts are divided; from now on they are to be found guilty. God will tear down their altars, he will destroy their stone idols.
Whatever the devouring locust left behind the locust swarm has consumed! Whatever the locust swarm has left behind, the young locust has consumed! Whatever the young locust has left behind, the ravaging locust has consumed!"
"I afflicted you with blight and fungus; and the locust swarm devoured the harvest of your gardens, your vineyards, your fig trees, and your olive trees, but you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.
"Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not listen to them. In fact, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they were so wicked in what they were doing."
"Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah. Tell him, "I'm going to shake the heavens and the earth.
And the angel asked me, "What do you see?" I answered him, "I'm looking at a flying scroll. It's 20 cubits long and ten cubits wide."
Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had taken place, because they didn't repent.
But the servant who did things that deserved a beating without knowing it will receive a light beating. Much will be required from everyone to whom much has been given. But even more will be demanded from the one to whom much has been entrusted."
"For this is how God loved the world: He gave his unique Son so that everyone who believes in him would not be lost but have eternal life.
Jesus told them, "If you were blind, you would not have any sin. But now that you insist, "We see,' your sin still exists."
No one is taking it from me; I lay it down of my own free will. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it back again. This is what my Father has commanded me."
"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have any sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin.
"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have any sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin.
If I hadn't done among them the actions that no one else did, they wouldn't have any sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.
If I hadn't done among them the actions that no one else did, they wouldn't have any sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.
Therefore, God will not justify any human being by means of the actions prescribed by the Law, for through the Law comes the full knowledge of sin.
But God demonstrates his love for us by the fact that the Messiah died for us while we were still sinners.
Certainly sin was in the world before the Law was given, but no record of sin is kept when there is no Law.
What should we say, then? Is the Law sinful? Of course not! In fact, I wouldn't have become aware of sin if it had not been for the Law. I wouldn't have known what it means to covet if the Law had not said, "You must not covet."
For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am merely human, sold as a slave to sin.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in union with the Messiah Jesus.
You, however, are not under the control of the human nature but under the control of the Spirit, since God's Spirit lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of the Messiah, he does not belong to him.
For what the flesh wants is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit wants is opposed to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, and so you do not do what you want to do.
Indeed, all of us once behaved like them in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and senses. By nature we were destined for wrath, just like everyone else.
It is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.
and to wait for his Son whom he raised from the dead to come back from heaven. This Jesus is the one who rescues us from the coming wrath.
as they try to keep us from telling the gentiles how they can be saved. As a result, they are constantly adding to the number of sins they have committed. However, wrath has overtaken them at last!
how will we escape if we neglect a salvation as great as this? It was first proclaimed by the Lord himself, and then it was confirmed to us by those who heard him,
For it is impossible to keep on restoring to repentance time and again people who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have become partners with the Holy Spirit,
How much more severe a punishment do you think that person deserves who tramples on God's Son, treats as common the blood of the covenant by which it was sanctified, and insults the Spirit of grace?
"He himself bore our sins" in his body on the tree, so that we might die to those sins and live righteously. "By his wounds you have been healed."
I saw another sign in heaven. It was both spectacular and amazing. There were seven angels with the seven last plagues, with which God's wrath is completed.