Guilt

The state of a person justly charged with a crime; a consciousness of having done amiss.

See SIN.

SEE SIN.

We now come to a word about which there has been a good deal of difference of opinion, namely, Asham (אשׁם), the usual rendering of which in the LXX is πλημμέλεια, a mistake, and in the A. V. trespass or guilt. [Probably these passages in Leviticus ought to be translated otherwise. See chap, :xvi § 3.] [The English word guilt is probably derived from A. S. geldun, to pay a fine.]

Some critics hold that whilst Chatha denotes sins of commission, Asham designates sins of omission. Others have come to the conclusion that Chatha means sin in general, and Asham sin against the Mosaic law. An examination of all the passages in which the word occurs leads to the conclusion that Asham is used where a sin, moral or ceremonial, has been committed through error, negligence, or ignorance. A loose code of morality might permit such offences to be passed by, but not so the law of Moses. An offence against the person of another is an offence, whether it be known or found out at the time or not. When it comes to our knowledge, we are liable, i.e. we are to regard ourselves as having offended, even though it has been unwittingly; and compensation must be made. So also when the offence is a breach of ceremonial law, or if it is an act of idolatry (for which the word Asham is frequently used), when the matter is brought to a man’s cognisance, he is not to content himself with the excuse that he acted in error, but is to acknowledge himself as Asham, and is to offer an Asham or guilt-offering [See chap. xvi.] for his trespass.

The following passages are the most notable in which the word occurs:--

Lev 4:13, ’If the whole congregation of Israel sin through err or (A. V. ignorance), and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done (somewhat against) any of the commandments of the Lord (concerning things) which should not be done, and are guilty,’ &c.; so also in verses 22 and 27 in these cases a commandment has been broken unwittingly; it afterwards comes to the knowledge of the offender, and he is Asham.

Lev 5:2-3, ’If a soul touch any unclean thing, and if it be hidden from him, he also shall be unclean and guilty . when he knoweth it, he shall be guilty;’ verse 4, ’ or if a soul swear . and it be hid from him, when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty;’ verses 5, 6, ’ and it shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that he hath sinneth in that thing, and he shall bring his trespass-offering;’ verse 15, ’If a soul commit a trespass (maal), and sin through err or (or ignorance), in the holy things of the Lord; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the Lord a ram . for a trespass-offering;’ verse 17, ’If a soul sin, and commit any of these things that are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord; though he wist it not, yet he is guilty, and shall bear his iniquity; and he shall bring a ram . and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance where in he erred and wist it not, and it shall be forgiven him. [ is it not in some degree implied here that a man is, in a measure at least responsible for his ignorance.] It is a trespass-offering: he hath certainly trespassed against the Lord.’

It is unfortunate that unity of rendering has not been preserved in these passages, as there is nothing to show the English reader the connection between the words guilty and trespass. But see R. V. Compare Gen 42:21; Num 5:6-7; Jdg 21:22; 1Ch 21:3; 2Ch 19:10; 2Ch 28:10; 2Ch 28:13; Ezr 10:19; Psa 69:5; Pro 30:10; Jer 2:3; Jer 50:7; Eze 22:4; Eze 25:12; Hos 4:15; Hos 5:15; Hos 10:2 (compare 2Sa 14:13).

It may be gathered from a consideration of these passages that whilst Chatha marks the peculiar nature of sin as a missing of the mark, Asham implies a breach of commandment, wrought without due consideration, and which, when brought to the notice of the offender, calls for amends or atonement.

Words for sin in the NT

Most of the Greek words which have been referred to in the foregoing sections are to be found in the N.T. The original sense of ἁμαρτάνω and Chatha seems to be referred to in a most important passage in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom 3:23), ’All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’ The sinner is one who has missed or come short of the mark. An important definition of sin is given by St. James--’to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin’ (4:17). It would seem to be implied that where there is no knowledge of what is right or wrong there is no sin; and with this agree the words of our Lord to the Pharisees, ’If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth’ (Joh 9:41). The profession of knowledge involved responsibility, and caused the Pharisees to be condemned, out of their own mouth, as sinners. Absolute ignorance is excusable, even though it is a missing of the mark, but negligence is not (see Heb 2:3).

The relationship of ἀνομία to ἁμαρτία is clearly shown in 1Jn 3:4, ’Whosoever committeth sin committeth iniquity (ἀνομίαν): and sin is iniquity.’ So again with regard to the connection existing between, ἀδικία, departure from right, and ἁμαρτία, we read (1Jn 5:17), ’All unrighteousness is sin.’ A similar relationship between ἀσέβεια and ἁμαρτία is implied in the juncture of ἀσεβει̂ς and ἁμαρτωλοί in 1Ti 1:9, 1Pe 4:18, and Jud 1:15. With regard to all these words, it is to be noticed that the N.T. leans up on the O.T., and that the vivid teaching of the latter is taken for granted as authoritative by the writers of the Christian Scriptures.

The labour and wearisomeness of sin is not dwelt up on in the N.T., and the words which imply it are usually found in a more noble sense, in connection with toil for Christ. With regard to κόπος, one passage may be referred to as an illustration of this fact, namely, 1Co 3:8, where we read that every minister shall be rewarded according to his own labour (κόπον). He shall be rewarded not by the results produced--This would have involved the use of the word ἔργον--but by the amount of labour expended; hence κόπος is used. A few verses further down ἔργον is used with great propriety, where we read that the fire shall test a man’s work, of what sort it is. Here the point of the passage is that it is not the outward show or bulk, but the real value of the work done, which shall be the test of a man’s faithfulness at the Great Day. The words κόπος and μόχθος are found together in 2Co 11:27, 1Th 2:9, and 2Th 3:8. While the former implies pains and labour, the latter signifies toil of such a sort as produces weariness Where πόνος is used, it is generally to indicate a tax up on one’s physical strength, whether arising from toil or from pain in Rev 21:1-27; Rev 4:1-11, we are told that there shall be none of it in the new heaven and earth. The etymological relationship between πόνος and πονηρία is undoubted, though no passages in the N.T. clearly refer to it, and the double use of the word Amal is exactly analogous to it. Πονηρία is often to be understood in the N.T. as signifying rapacity, which is the fruit of covetousness. It is also used of ’evil spirits.’

GUILT is the state of the sinner before God, whereby, becoming the object of God’s wrath, he incurs the debt and punishment of death. So closely are Sin, Guilt, and Death connected, both in the OT and NT, that the terms are almost interchangeable, and can be adequately discussed only in relation to one another (see art. Sin). It will suffice in the present article to show that the removal of guilt was the object of Christ’s death, and that the recognition of sin as guilt is in consequence a prominent, if not the primary feature of the teaching of the NT concerning sin.

1. The gospel, as first preached by the Baptist (Mat 3:2) and Jesus Himself (Mar 1:16, Mat 4:23; Mat 10:7), was the Kingdom of God. Even the Fourth Evangelist, who usually presents it as Eternal Life, witnesses to this fact (Joh 3:3; Joh 3:5). The message, therefore, as coupled with the summons to repentance, involves a restoration of personal relations, God reigning in the midst of a reconciled people. Baptism, though the symbolism of cleansing is employed, is ‘unto remission’ (Mar 1:4, Luk 3:3) rather than to the washing away of sins; remission being not a vital act by which sinners are made just, but a personal favour (Mat 6:12, cf. 1Jn 1:9) by which they are accounted righteous. The risen Lord expressly carries on this view of His atoning work into the proclamation of the completed Christian gospel. Remission of sins was to be preached in His name among all the nations (Luk 24:47, cf. Mat 28:19). To this message the primitive preaching shows an exact fidelity (Act 2:38; Act 5:31; Act 10:43; Act 13:38; Act 26:18). The expression ‘blotted out’ in Act 3:19 emphasizes forgiveness as the cancelling of an account. And the statement of St. Paul in Act 17:30 (cf. Rom 3:25), that God had ‘overlooked’ the times of ignorance, again gives prominence to the personal relation.

It is the guilt rather than the infection of sin which appears in the teaching of Jesus. The analogy between disease and sin, which the miracles of healing suggest, might appear to show the contrary. But it is doubtful whether the transition from the sickness of the body to that of the soul would have presented itself to the Hebrew in this form, and not rather through the conception of suffering as the punishment of sin. It is this, for example, that makes the problem of the ‘marred visage’ of Jehovah’s Servant (Isa 52:13-15; Isaiah 53). And the interpretation given by our Lord Himself in the case of the paralytic seems to be decisive. His power to cure the body is the evidence, not of His power to heal the soul, but of His authority (ἐξουσία) to forgive sins (Mar 2:10). It is the ‘debts’ which remain as the permanent result of past ‘trespasses,’ for which we ask forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer (Mat 6:12, Luk 11:4); and when we crave deliverance, it is not from the sick will, but from the ‘Evil One’ (Mat 6:13), the personal enemy of God who has received a guilty allegiance. The importance of this aspect of sin is further marked by the requirement of human forgiveness as the condition because the pattern of Divine remission (Mat 6:14; Mat 6:16; Mat 18:21-35). What, therefore, is removed is not, in the first instance, the subjective consequences, but an objective result of sin. If it be urged that Christ discharges the latter only in virtue of the fact that He destroys the former, as expressed in the words ‘it is he that shall save his people from their sins’ (Mat 1:21, but cf. Rom 5:9), the reply is that Jesus is here represented as Saviour in the sense in which Messiah was to save, and that this is determined by the meaning of ‘salvation’ as developed in the theology of the OT. The root idea of the Messianic salvation is liberation not remedy (Exo 14:13; Exo 15:2, Isa 45:17; Isa 46:13; Isa 52:10, Luk 1:69; Luk 1:71; Luk 1:77).

Again, attention must be paid to the prominence given to judgment, especially the Day of Judgment, in the Synoptic narrative (Mat 5:21-22; Mat 7:1-2; Mat 10:15; Mat 11:20-24; Mat 12:36-37; Mat 12:41-42; Mat 16:27-28; Mat 19:28; Mat 19:24 ^passim Mat 19:25 ^passim Mat 26:64, Luk 12:58-59). The unquenchable fire is not merely the automatic result of sin bringing forth death, but punishment inflicted by judicial sentence (Mar 9:43; Mar 9:48, Mat 25:41). The wicked are workers of iniquity giving account for idle words and deeds (Mat 12:36; Mat 16:27). Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, however it be interpreted, incurs condemnation as the unpardonable sin (Mar 3:28-29, Mat 12:31-32). It is the personal relation, and therefore the guilt of sin, which appears in the parables of the Lost Sheep, etc. (Luke 15). The joy of the angels is represented as arising out of the reconciliation between the Father and the penitent (Luk 15:10). The expiatory character of the Cross is not so fully evident. But Jesus gives His life a ransom (Mar 10:45 ||); the Agony was a cup given by His Father (Mar 14:36 ||); the sorrow of death was the forsaking by God (Mar 15:34 ||); the peace of Calvary the self-committal to the Father (Luk 23:46).

2. The Gospel of St. John, dwelling, as it does, upon the gift of God as life, truth, and light, might seem on a superficial reading to obscure, if not to ignore, the view of sin as guilt. But even the Prologue couples grace, or God’s free favour, with truth as that which came by Jesus Christ, and that in antithesis to the Law given by Moses (Joh 1:17). The witness of the Baptist is to the Lamb of God (Joh 1:29; Joh 1:36), a sacrificial term involving expiation (Joh 19:36; cf. Exo 12:46, Num 9:12, 1Co 5:7, Joh 6:52 with Westcott’s note). To believe on the name of the Son of God is to escape judgment (Joh 3:18; Joh 5:24). It is ‘accusation to the Father’ which the Jews have to fear (Joh 5:45). Through Christ we come to the Father (Joh 14:6). The commission of the risen Christ to His disciples is to forgive and retain sins (Joh 20:23; cf. Mat 16:19; Mat 18:18). It is the confession and forgiveness of sins which the First Epistle represents as effecting the cleansing from sin and unrighteousness through the sacrificial blood and heavenly intercession of our Advocate with the Father (1Jn 2:1-2). The use of ἁνομία, ‘lawlessness,’ as a synonym for ἀμαρτία, ‘sin,’ implies the guilt of a broken law (1Jn 3:4). The condemnation or acquittal of the heart reflects the judgment of God (1Jn 3:20). In the Apocalypse, sin is set in relation to Him that sitteth on the throne (Rev 4:2), incurring His wrath (Rev 6:16), noted in His books (Rev 20:12), and receiving His plagues (Rev 15:1).

3. It is difficult to set forth St. Paul’s theory of guilt without entering upon the whole question of his view of sin. But a few considerations will make it clear that he looks at sin, in the first instance, as incurring guilt. It is represented as an act committed against God (Rom 1:21). All its essential features are recapitulated in each individual sin or transgression. It is only through the Law that it can appear as what it is (Rom 3:20, Rom 7:7). It can only be separated from its actual manifestations by being represented, not as a predisposing cause of these, but as itself an act of disobedience on the part of Adam (Rom 5:19). Death is not so much its consequence as its punishment or wages (Rom 5:12, Rom 6:23), not following automatically, but inflicted by the sentence of an offended God (Rom 1:18, Eph 5:6, Col 3:6). It involves responsibility (Rom 1:20), desert (Rom 1:32), condemnation (Rom 5:16; Rom 5:18). The work of Christ is primarily an act of righteous obedience (Rom 5:18-19, Php 2:8), undoing the act of disobedience in which all sin is included; an offering for sin condemning sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3), and wiping off the score of trespasses (Col 2:14). Its effect in the broadest view is a reversal of the sentence of condemnation (Rom 8:1) and reconciliation with God (Rom 5:10, 2Co 5:18-20). St. Paul’s view of the function of law must here be remembered. The analogy of a therapeutic drug, administered in order that the disease may declare itself, is apt to mislead. This is not in the Apostle’s thought. For trespasses or transgressions are themselves sin, not merely its symptoms (Eph 2:1; Eph 2:5). It is the removal of these, not of a cause distinguishable from them, which is the purpose of the Cross (Rom 4:25; cf. Rom 5:8; Rom 8:32). Death, which passed upon all men in consequence of transgression (Rom 5:12), reigned from Adam to Moses (Rom 5:14). The figure is that of a ruler to whose sway all men have as a penalty been judicially consigned, and from whose custody the free favour of God in Christ releases them. ‘All have sinned’ (Rom 5:12), whether with or without an explicit publication of law. St. Paul would not have allowed that through an involuntary taint of heredity men had at any time suffered without personal guilt. The Gentiles have the Law, being enlightened by conscience (Rom 2:14-15; cf. Mat 25:31-46). Though the Law is not explicitly revealed, they are in effect transgressors. If in Rom 4:15 St. Paul declares that ‘the law worketh wrath,’ because ‘where there is no law, neither is there transgression,’ in Gal 3:19 he says rather that the Law was added (προσετέθη), came in between the promise and its fulfilment, because of transgressions; i.e. to bring home unmistakably to those who were already guilty the conviction of their offences.

So we are brought to the evidence of the doctrine of justification. Without pressing the forensic metaphor to a point inconsistent with St. Paul’s thought, which would relegate the whole theology of guilt to a region of formal conceptions unchecked by experience, we are bound to remember that the Apostle is concerned with the probation of guilt assumed to exist, which is necessary before the sinner can throw himself upon the offer of free salvation secured to him through the gospel. Justification is not in itself a change of character, a transformation of life, but an alteration of status (Rom 5:1-2, Eph 2:13), a reversal of relations whereby the ‘servants of sin’ (Rom 6:17), ‘the children of wrath’ (Eph 2:3) become ‘children of grace,’ ‘sons of God’ (Gal 3:26). It is the antithesis of trespasses (Rom 4:25), no more to be confused with sanctification, which is its fruit (Rom 6:22), than is transgression with uncleanness, which is its issue (Rom 1:24). To be justified from sin is to have escaped—either by paying the penalty of death (Rom 6:7) or by believing in Christ Jesus (Rom 3:24-25)—from what in a figure is regarded as its claim or dominion over the life (Rom 6:12-14), involving an obedience or yielding of the members. This is entirely in harmony with the conception of sin, from which St. Paul starts, as a voluntary withdrawal of allegiance admitting of no excuse.

We shall be saved from confusion with regard to the Pauline view of guilt, and the necessity of conforming the whole doctrine of sin to this primary idea, by considering what he means by ‘adoption’ and ‘grace.’ There is no clear instance in any Epistle of the use of the word χάρις in its later ecclesiastical sense of an infusion of spiritual strength (see Sanday-Headlam, Romans, note on Rom 1:5 χἁρις). In some passages, apart from other considerations, the term admits of this interpretation (e.g. Eph 4:7). But the root idea is the free favour of God through Christ (Rom 4:4; Rom 5:13). It is not, therefore, an imparted gift, but an attitude of the Divine Mind. Again, the conception of sonship, as applied to the relation of the believer to God, while not excluding community of nature, gives prominence rather to the elective purpose of the Father (Eph 1:5). It is not reached as a deduction from membership in Christ, as though the highest action of Divine grace were nothing more than the operation of a natural law. Modern theology, with its leading idea of solidarity, has tended to obscure the personal action of the Father in admitting mankind to fellowship. St. Paul’s thought, on the other hand, is guided by the Hebraic conception of the son and heir, with its notion of privilege rather than primogeniture (Exo 4:22, Jer 31:9, Psa 89:27, Col 1:15, Heb 12:23; cf. Job 18:13, Isa 14:30). Thus the Christian attains his rank in the family of God by ‘adoption’ (Gal 4:5, Eph 1:5; cf. Gal 3:28, where sonship is presented as a privilege granted δια τη̈ς τίστεως). The Spirit which makes him a member of Christ is the ‘Spirit of adoption’ (Rom 8:15), freely given by God to those whom He takes for His children (Gal 4:8, Rom 5:5; Rom 8:9-11, 1Co 12:13). Membership in Christ is thus rather the result than the cause of the filial relation. The Christian life depends, not upon the eradication of evil, but upon the forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7), the clearing of the guilty on the part of a personal God in consequence of the personal satisfaction offered by Christ (Rom 3:21; Rom 3:28; Rom 5:8, cf. Exo 34:6-7). This view of sonship, as involving God’s elective purpose and mans free response, frequently underlies St. Paul’s argument. Isaac is the child of promise (Gal 3:18; Gal 4:23; Gal 4:28, Rom 4:20; Rom 9:8-9), Abraham the father of the faithful (Gal 3:7, Rom 4:12). The redemption of the body is itself an ‘adoption’ (Rom 8:23).

4. The Epistle to the Hebrews brings out the various elements in the conception of human guilt with conspicuous clearness. We have to do with the living God (Heb 3:12; Heb 4:12; Heb 10:31), who is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29), self existent and separate from creation (Heb 12:18-21), the supreme lawgiver and judge (Heb 10:30, Heb 12:23), whom to see, therefore, demands a purifying separation on the part of His suppliant worshipper (Heb 9:14, Heb 10:22). What men need is boldness to approach His throne (Heb 4:16, Heb 10:19), and so to enter into His rest (Heb 4:1 ff.). But there is an obstacle, typified by propitiatory rites and attested by universal experience (Heb 9:6-10, Heb 10:3; Heb 10:11). The comers thereunto need a τελείωσις (Heb 2:10-11), the accomplishment of a preliminary act of satisfaction (Heb 2:17, Heb 5:9) which shall render them competent. The experience, which justifies the fulfilment of rites felt to be inadequate, is the fear of death (Heb 2:15), the spirit of bondage (ib.), the evil conscience (Heb 10:22). This is not the same thing as ignorance, error, or infirmity (Heb 5:2), all of which are recognized as present in human character and requiring to be dealt with. It is the consciousness that the offerer has a past which repentance cannot separate from him in respect of his relation to the Everliving (Heb 10:2-3; Heb 10:26-27), a record of offences for which none but One who Himself ‘ever liveth’ can atone by an abiding intercession (Heb 7:25, cf. Heb 10:12). The conscience must be purged from dead works (Heb 9:14, Heb 10:22), which are to be distinguished from their present results in character. The ‘redemption of transgressions’ (Heb 9:15; cf. Act 17:30, Rom 3:24-25), the removal of a burden (Rom 2:15 ἔνοχοι δουλείας, cf. Jas 2:10), is the method whereby consecration to God’s service and boldness of access are secured. Even sanctification itself in Hebrews (Heb 12:14, cf. Heb 2:9-11; Heb 10:10; Heb 10:14; Heb 13:12) is, not indeed the formal consecration of the sinner, but the removal of the ‘weight’ of guilt (Heb 12:1), of which the fulness of faith (Heb 10:22) is the counterpart in spiritual experience.

5. That guilt is original, i.e. attaches to all mankind, and may be predicated of each individual before particular evidence of transgression, is implied in the facts of redemption (see art. Sin), and explicitly taught in the NT. In the famous passage Rom 5:12-21 nothing is said of a transmitted tendency to sin, though it has been often supposed that this is implied. But St. Paul does say that death ‘passed unto all men’ through Adam’s transgression. The context shows that death is here regarded as a punishment inflicted by God. And guilt is implied in the remarkable sentence ‘all have sinned,’ which interprets the statement that ‘through one man sin entered.’ How St. Paul reached this apparent paradox seems clear from a consideration of Jewish theology. The OT bears abundant witness to the belief that the sins (plural) of the fathers are ‘visited’ upon the children (Exo 20:5; Exo 34:7), while at the same time the teaching of Ezekiel balances it by an emphatic vindication of the separate responsibility of each soul (Eze 18:4; Eze 18:20). Apart from the narrative of the Fall, which indicates a penalty involving the seed of the woman (Gen 3:15-16), this is, perhaps, as far as the OT carries us. But the Book of Wisdom (Wis 2:24) represents death as entering the world through the envy of the devil, and Sirach (Sir 25:24) declares that sin originated from a woman, and ‘because of her we all die.’ The teaching of the Rabbis, however, differentiating the actual transgression of Adam from the potentiality of sin involved in his creation, expressly asserts that death was decreed against the generations of Adam. Elsewhere death is spoken of as incurred by the personal guilt of each individual, and the statement of the Apocalypse of Baruch (54:15, 19), that ‘each of us is the Adam of his own soul,’ looks like an attempt to express a mystery which alone can reconcile these divergent views. According to Weber (Altsynag. Theol. p. 216), the nett result of Talmudic teaching appears to be that ‘by the Fall man came under a curse, is guilty of death, and his right relation to God is rendered difficult.’ It is probably only in the sense of transmitted taint that Edersheim (Life and Times, etc. i. p. 165 ff.) disallows original sin as part of the doctrine of the older Rabbis; for, in common with other writers, he acknowledges the frequent assertion of inherited guilt. That St. Paul was familiar with this prevalent view hardly admits of doubt, or that he availed himself of it to interpret the relation of Jesus the Messiah to the whole human race, as giving the victory over sin, the wages of which is death (Rom 6:23), and the power of which is the outraged law (1Co 15:56).

Literature.—See art. Sin.

J. G. Simpson.

GUILT.—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 (Lev 5:1 ff.; cf. Luk 12:48, Rom 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 (Rom 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’ (Gen 4:13 EV [Note: English Version.] ) includes both the sin committed and the guilt attaching thereto (cf. Lev 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; Joh 15:22; Joh 15:24). 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. [Note: translate or translation.] 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. Rom 3:20; Rom 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 (Gen 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 [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘trespass offering,’ Lev 5:15 ff; Lev 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 (Lev 6:5, Num 5:6 f.). How widely diffused this special rite had become is evidenced by the numerous incidental references of Ezekiel (Eze 40:39; Eze 42:13; Eze 44:29; Eze 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. Psa 14:2; Psa 53:2, where the expression ‘the sons of men’ reveals the scope of the poet’s thought; see also Psa 36:1-12 with its antithesis—the universal long-suffering of God and the universal corruption of men). In whatever way we interpret certain passages (e.g. Psa 69:28; Psa 109:7 ff.) in the so-called imprecatory Psalms, one thought at least clearly emerges, that wilful and persistent sin can never be separated from guiltiness in the sight of God, or from consequent punishment. They reveal in the writers a sense ‘of moral earnestness, of righteous indignation, of burning zeal for the cause of God’ (see Kirkpatrick, ‘Psalms’ in Cambr. Bible for Schools and Colleges, p. lxxv.). The same spirit is to be observed in Jeremiah’s repeated prayers for vengeance on those who spent their time in devising means to destroy him and his work (cf. Jer 11:18 ff; Jer 18:19 ff; Jer 20:11 ff. etc.). Indeed, the prophetic books of the OT testify generally to the force of this feeling amongst the most powerful religious thinkers of ancient times, and are a permanent witness to the validity of the educative functions which it fell to the lot of these moral teachers to discharge (cf. e.g. Hos 10:2 ff., Joe 1:4 ff., Amo 4:9 ff., Mic 3:4 ff., Hag 2:21 f., Zec 5:2 ff. etc.).

4. The final act in this great formative process is historically connected with the life and work of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of the Atonement, however interpreted or systematized, involves belief in, and the realization of, the guilt of the entire human race. The symbolic Levitical rite in which ‘the goat for Azazel’ bore the guilt (EV [Note: English Version.] ‘iniquities,’ Lev 16:22) and the punishment of the nation, shadows forth clearly and unmistakably the nature of the burden laid on Jesus, as the Son of Man. Involved, as a result of the Incarnation, in the limitations and fate of the human race, He in a profoundly real way entered into the conditions of its present life (see Isa 53:12, where the suffering Servant is said to bear the consequences of man’s present position in regard to God; cf. 1Pe 2:24). Taking the nature of Adam’s race, He became involved, so to speak, in a mystic but none the less real sense, in its guilt, while Gethsemane and Calvary are eternal witnesses to the tremendous load willingly borne by Jesus (Joh 10:18) as the price of the world’s guilt, at the hands of a just and holy but a loving and merciful God (Joh 3:16 f., Rom 5:8, Eph 2:3 f., 1Th 1:10, Rev 15:1; cf. Exo 34:7).

‘By submitting to the awful experience which forced from Him the cry, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” and by the Death which followed, He made our real relation to God His own, while retaining—and, in the very act of submitting to the penalty of sin, revealing in the highest form—the absolute perfection of His moral life and the steadfastness of His eternal union with the Father’ (Dale, The Atonement, p. 425).

It is only in the life of Jesus that we are able to measure the guilt of the human race as it exists in the sight of God, and at the same time to learn somewhat, from the means by which He willed to bring it home to the consciousness of men, of the full meaning of its character as an awful but objective reality. Man’s position in regard to God, looked on as the result of sin, is the extent and the measure of his guilt.

‘Only He, who knew in Himself the measure of the holiness of God, could realize also, in the human nature which He had made His own, the full depth of the alienation of sin from God, the real character of the penal averting of God’s face. Only He, who sounded the depths of human consciousness in regard to sin, could, in the power of His own inherent righteousness, condemn and crush sin in the flesh. The suffering involved in this is not, in Him, punishment or the terror of punishment; but it is the full realizing, in the personal consciousness, of the truth of sin, and the disciplinary pain of the conquest of sin; it is that full self-identification of human nature, within range of sin’s challenge and sin’s scourge, with holiness as the Divine condemnation of sin, which was at once the necessity—and the impossibility—of human penitence. The nearest—and yet how distant!—an approach to it in our experience we recognize, not in the wild sin-terrified cry of the guilty, but rather in those whose profound self-identification with the guilty overshadows them with a darkness and a shame, vital indeed to their being, yet at heart tranquil, because it is not confused with the blurring consciousness of a personal sin’ (Moberly, Atonement and Personality, p. 130).

5. The clearest and most emphatic exposition of the fruits of the Incarnation, with respect to human guilt, is to be found in the partly systematized Christology of St. Paul, where life ‘in the Spirit’ is asserted to be the norm of Christian activity (Rom 8:9 ff.). ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom 8:1) is a reversal of the verdict of ‘Guilty’ against the race (cf. Col 3:6 f., 1Th 2:16), in so far as man accepts the conditions of the Christian life (cf. Gal 5:17 f.). Where the conditions are not fulfilled, he is not included in the new order, for ‘if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.’ His guilt is aggravated by ‘neglecting so great salvation’ (Heb 2:3; cf. Joh 15:22; Joh 15:24, Mat 11:20 ff.), and the sentence pronounced against the disobedience of the enlightened is, humanly speaking at least, irreversible (Heb 6:4 ff; Heb 10:29 ff.).

J. R. Willis.

gilt: The Christian idea of guilt involves three elements: responsibility (Greek aitı́a, “cause,” depending upon a man’s real freedom), blameworthiness (Latin reatus culpae, depending upon a man’s knowledge and purpose) and the obligation to make good through punishment or compensation (Latin reatus poenae; compare Greek opheı́lēma, “debt,” Mat 6:12). In other words, in thinking of guilt we ask the questions of cause, motive and consequence, the central idea being that of the personal blameworthiness of the sinner.

I. In the Old Testament

1. The Ritualistic and Legalistic Conception

Not all of this is found at once in the Old Testament. The idea of guilt corresponds to that of righteousness or holiness. When these are ritual and legal, instead of ethical and spiritual, they will determine similarly the idea of guilt. This legalistic and ritualistic conception of guilt may first be noted. Personal blameworthiness does not need to be present. “If any one sin, and do any of the things which Yahweh hath commanded not to be done; though he knew it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity” (Lev 5:17). The man is guilty, not because he might or should have known; he may merely have touched unwittingly the body of an unclean beast (Lev 5:2, Lev 5:3). The guilt is here because the law has been transgressed and must be made good (compare Lev 5:15, Lev 5:16; Lev 4:2, Lev 4:3, Lev 4:13, Lev 4:22, Lev 4:27; see also Lev 5:2, Lev 5:3, Lev 5:4, Lev 5:17).

Moreover, the element of personal responsibility is sometimes lacking where guilt is assigned. The priest may sin “so as to bring guilt on the people” (Lev 4:3). One man’s wrongdoing may “cause the land to sin” (Deu 24:4). Israel has sinned in Achan’s greed and therefore suffers. Even when the guilty man is found, his children and his very cattle must bear the guilt and punishment with him, though there is no suggestion of their participation or even knowledge (Josh 7; compare 2 Sam 24). Here the full moral idea of sin and guilt is wanting because the idea of personality and personal responsibility has not come to its own. The individual is still merged here in the clan or nation.

The central idea in all this is not that of the individual, his responsibility, his motive, his blame. It is that of a rule and the transgression of it, which must be made good. For this reason we see the ú ideas of sin and guilt and punishment constantly passing over into each other. This may be seen by noting the use of the words whose common root is ’shm, the distinctive Hebrew term for guilt. In Lev 5 to 7 in the adjective form it is rendered “guilty,” in the noun as “trespass offering.” In Hos 5:15 it seems to mean punishment (see margin, “have borne their guilt,” and compare Eze 6:6), while in Num 5:7, Num 5:8 the idea is that of compensation (rendered “restitution for guilt”).

2. Prophetic Teaching

With the prophets, the ideas of sin and righteousness come out more clearly as ethical and personal, and so we mark a similar advance in the conception of guilt. It is not ritual correctness that counts with God, incense and sacrifices and new moons and Sabbaths, but to cease to do evil, to learn to do well (Isa 1). Thus the motive and the inner spirit come in (Mic 6:8; Isa 57:15; Isa 58:1-12), and guilt gains a new depth and quality. At the same time the idea of personal responsibility comes. A man is to bear his own sins. The children’s teeth are not to be set on edge because the fathers have eaten sour grapes (Jer 31:29, Jer 31:30; Eze 18:29-32; 2Ki 14:6; compare 2Sa 24:17).

II. In the New Testament

1. With Jesus

Here as elsewhere Jesus came to fulfill. With Him it is the inner attitude of the soul that decides. It is the penitent publican who goes down justified, not the Pharisee with his long credit account (Luk 18:9-14). That is why His attitude is so kindly toward some notorious sinners and so stern toward some religious leaders. The Pharisees are outwardly correct, but their spirit of bigotry and pride prevents their entering the kingdom of heaven, while the penitent harlots and publicans take it by storm.

Because it is not primarily a matter of the outward deed but of the inner spirit, Jesus marks different degrees of guilt as depending upon a man’s knowledge and motive (Luk 11:29-32; Luk 12:47, Luk 12:48; Luk 23:34). And yet Jesus does not lighten the sense of guilt but rather deepens it. The strength of the Old Testament thought lay in this, that it viewed all transgression as a sin against God, since all law came from Him. This religious emphasis remains with Jesus (Luk 15:21; compare Psa 51:4). But with Jesus God is far more than a giver of rules. He gives Himself. And so the guilt is the deeper because the sin is against this love and mercy and fellowship which God offers us. Jesus shows us the final depth of evil in sin. Here comes the New Testament interpretation of the cross, which shows it on the one hand as the measure of God’s love in the free gift of His Son, and on the other as the measure of man’s guilt whose sin wrought this and made it necessary.

2. With Paul

Paul also recognizes differences of degree in guilt, the quality of blameworthiness which is not simply determined by looking at the outward transgression (Act 17:30; Eph 4:18; Rom 2:9; Rom 3:26; Rom 5:13; Rom 7:13). He, too, looks within to decide the question of guilt (Rom 14:23). But sin is not a matter of single acts or choices with Paul. He sees it as a power that comes to rule a man’s life and that rules in the race. The question therefore arises, Does Paul think of guilt also as native, as belonging to man because man is a part of the race? Here it can merely be pointed out that Rom 5:12-21 does not necessarily involve this. Paul is not discussing whether all men committed sin in Adam’s fall, or whether all are guilty by virtue of their very place in a race that is sinful. It is not the question of guilt in fact or degree, but merely the fact that through one man men are now made righteous as before through one sin came upon them all. This no more involves native guilt as a non-ethical conception than it does the idea that the righteousness through Christ is merely forensic and non-ethical. Paul is simply passing over the other elements to assert one fact. Rom 1 suggests how Paul looked at universal sin as involving guilt because universal knowledge and choice entered in. See also SIN.

Literature

Mueller, Christian Doctrine of Sin, I, 193-267; Schultz, Old Testament Theology; Kaehler, article “Schuld,” Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopadie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche.

See Sin.

Being responsible for and accountable for an offense. Biblically, it is the state of being under a present or pending consequence due to a sin against God’s Law. It is also an emotional state as well as legal condition. Guilt feelings are used by the Holy Spirit to inform the sinner of broken fellowship with God (Isa 59:2; Joh 16:8). Because of our guilt before God, we need reconciliation (Rom 5:6-9).