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 saith unto Jehovah, 'Greater is my punishment than to be borne;
And they say one unto another, 'Verily we are guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul, in his making supplication unto us, and we did not hearken: therefore hath this distress come upon us.'
keeping kindness for thousands, taking away iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and not entirely acquitting, charging iniquity of fathers on children, and on children's children, on a third generation, and on a fourth.'
And when a person doth sin, and hath heard the voice of an oath, and he is witness, or hath seen, or hath known -- if he declare not, then he hath borne his iniquity:
When a person committeth a trespass, and hath sinned through ignorance against the holy things of Jehovah, then he hath brought in his guilt-offering to Jehovah, a ram, a perfect one, out of the flock, at thy valuation in silver -- shekels by the shekel of the sanctuary -- for a guilt-offering.
or all that concerning which he sweareth falsely, he hath even repaid it in its principal, and its fifth he is adding to it; to him whose it is he giveth it in the day of his guilt-offering.
and the goat hath borne on him all their iniquities unto a land of separation. 'And he hath sent the goat away into the wilderness,
also I walk to them in opposition, and have brought them into the land of their enemies -- or then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and then they accept the punishment of their iniquity, --
Speak unto the sons of Israel, Man or woman, when they do any of the sins of man, by committing a trespass against Jehovah, and that person is guilty,
And they say, 'If ye are sending away the ark of the God of Israel, ye do not send it away empty; for ye do certainly send back to Him a guilt-offering; then ye are healed, and it hath been known to you why His hand doth not turn aside from you.'
And Jehovah sendeth Nathan unto David, and he cometh unto him, and saith to him: 'Two men have been in one city; One rich and one poor;
The money of a trespass-offering, and the money of sin-offerings is not brought in to the house of Jehovah -- for the priests it is.
Jehovah from the heavens Hath looked on the sons of men, To see if there is a wise one -- seeking God.
God from the heavens looked on the sons of men, To see if there be an understanding one, One seeking God.
They are blotted out of the book of life, And with the righteous are not written.
In his being judged, he goeth forth wicked, And his prayer is for sin.
And Jehovah hath delighted to bruise him, He hath made him sick, If his soul doth make an offering for guilt, He seeth seed -- he prolongeth days, And the pleasure of Jehovah in his hand doth prosper.
Therefore I give a portion to him among the many, And with the mighty he apportioneth spoil, Because that he exposed to death his soul, And with transgressors he was numbered, And he the sin of many hath borne, And for transgressors he intercedeth.
And, O Jehovah, cause me to know, and I know, Then Thou hast showed me their doings.
Give attention, O Jehovah, unto me, And hearken to the voice of those contending with me.
And Jehovah is with me, as a terrible mighty one, Therefore my persecutors stumble and prevail not, They have been exceedingly ashamed, For they have not acted wisely, Confusion age-during is not forgotten.
And in the porch of the gate are two tables on this side, and two tables on that side, to slaughter on them the burnt-offering, and the sin-offering, and the guilt-offering;
And he saith unto me, 'The north chambers, the south chambers, that are at the front of the separate place, they are holy chambers, where the priests (who are near to Jehovah) eat the most holy things, there they place the most holy things, and the present, and the sin-offering, and the guilt-offering, for the place is holy.
The present, and the sin-offering, and the guilt-offering, they do eat, and every devoted thing in Israel is theirs.
And he saith unto me, 'This is the place where the priests do boil the guilt-offering and the sin-offering, where they bake the present, so as not to bring it out unto the outer court, to sanctify the people.'
Their heart hath been divided, now they are guilty, He doth break down their altars, He doth destroy their standing-pillars.
What is left of the palmer-worm, eaten hath the locust, And what is left of the locust, Eaten hath the cankerworm, And what is left of the cankerworm, Eaten hath the caterpillar.
I have smitten you with blasting and with mildew, The abundance of your gardens and of your vineyards, And of your figs, and of your olives, Eat doth the palmer-worm, And ye have not turned back unto Me, An affirmation of Jehovah.
Then do they cry unto Jehovah, And He doth not answer them, And hideth His face from them at that time, As they have made evil their doings.
'Speak unto Zerubbabel governor of Judah, saying: I am shaking the heavens and the earth,
And he saith unto me, 'What art thou seeing?' And I say, 'I am seeing a flying roll, its length twenty by the cubit, and its breadth ten by the cubit.'
Then began he to reproach the cities in which were done most of his mighty works, because they did not reform.
and he who, not having known, and having done things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few; and to every one to whom much was given, much shall be required from him; and to whom they did commit much, more abundantly they will ask of him.
for God did so love the world, that His Son -- the only begotten -- He gave, that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during.
Jesus said to them, 'If ye were blind, ye were not having had sin, but now ye say -- We see, therefore doth your sin remain.
no one doth take it from me, but I lay it down of myself; authority I have to lay it down, and authority I have again to take it; this command I received from my Father.'
if I had not come and spoken to them, they were not having sin; but now pretext they have not for their sin.
if I had not come and spoken to them, they were not having sin; but now pretext they have not for their sin.
if I did not do among them the works that no other hath done, they were not having sin, and now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father;
if I did not do among them the works that no other hath done, they were not having sin, and now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father;
wherefore by works of law shall no flesh be declared righteous before Him, for through law is a knowledge of sin.
and God doth commend His own love to us, that, in our being still sinners, Christ did die for us;
for till law sin was in the world: and sin is not reckoned when there is not law;
What, then, shall we say? the law is sin? let it not be! but the sin I did not know except through law, for also the covetousness I had not known if the law had not said:
for we have known that the law is spiritual, and I am fleshly, sold by the sin;
There is, then, now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit;
And ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God doth dwell in you; and if any one hath not the Spirit of Christ -- this one is not His;
for the flesh doth desire contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit contrary to the flesh, and these are opposed one to another, that the things that ye may will -- these ye may not do;
among whom also we all did walk once in the desires of our flesh, doing the wishes of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath -- as also the others,
because of which things cometh the anger of God upon the sons of the disobedience,
and to wait for His Son from the heavens, whom He did raise out of the dead -- Jesus, who is rescuing us from the anger that is coming.
forbidding us to speak to the nations that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always, but the anger did come upon them -- to the end!
how shall we escape, having neglected so great salvation? which a beginning receiving -- to be spoken through the Lord -- by those having heard was confirmed to us,
for it is impossible for those once enlightened, having tasted also of the heavenly gift, and partakers having became of the Holy Spirit,
of how much sorer punishment shall he be counted worthy who the Son of God did trample on, and the blood of the covenant did count a common thing, in which he was sanctified, and to the Spirit of the grace did despite?
who our sins himself did bear in his body, upon the tree, that to the sins having died, to the righteousness we may live; by whose stripes ye were healed,
And I saw another sign in the heaven, great and wonderful, seven messengers having the seven last plagues, because in these was completed the wrath of God,