698
GUILT
GULF
i. The Epistle to the Eebrems brings out the various elements in tlie conception of human guilt with conspicuous clearness. We have to do with the living God (He 3'- 4^- 10^')> who is a consuming fire(12'''), self -existent and separate from creation (121'--'), the supreme lawgiver and judge (10^° 12-^), whom to see, therefore, demands a purify- ing separation on the part of His suppliant wor- shipper (O" 10"-). What men need is boldness to approach His throne (4'" 10'"), and so to enter into His rest (4"''-). But there is an obstacle, typified by propitiatory rites and attested by universal experience (9'''"' lO'- "). The comers thereunto need a reXeiuo-is (2'°- "), the accomplishment of a preliminary act of satisfaction (2" 5") which shall render them competent. The experience, which justifies the fulfilment of rites felt to be inade- quate, is the fear of death (2'^), the spirit of bondage (ib.), the evil conscience (10^^). This is not the same thing as ignorance, error, or in- firmity (5=), 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 reijentance cannot separate from him in re- spect of his relation to the Everliving (lO--^- -"• -'), a record of offences for which none but One who Himself ' ever liveth ' can atone by an abiding intercession (7^, of. 10'-). The conscience must be purged from dead works (9''' 10-'-), which are to be distinguished from their present results in char- acter. The 'redemption of transgressions' (9'^; cf. Ac 17'", Ro 3=^- ==), the removal of a burden (2''* Ivoxoi. dovXdas, cf. Ja 2'°), is the method whereby consecration to God's service and boldness of access are secured. Even sanctification itself in Hebrews (12", cf. 29-" lO'"- " 13'=) is, not indeed the formal consecration of the sinner, but the removal of the 'weight' of guilt (12'), of which the fulness of faith ( 10^-) is the counterpart in spiritual experience.
5. That guilt is original, i.e. attaches to all man- kind, and may be predicated of each individual before particular evidence of transgression, is im- plied in the facts of redemption (see art. Sin), and explicitly taught in the NT. In the famous passage Ro 5'^"^' 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 parado.x 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 chil- dren (Ex 20' 34'), while n.t the same time the teaching of P'zekii'l Ij.ilaiices it by an emphatic vindication of tin- Nr|..ualc n's|ionsibility of each soul (Ezk 18^- -"). .\|i,(il Iron 1 the narrative of the Fall, which indiiulc^ a jn'iialty involving the seed of the woman (Gn 3''- '"), this is, perhaps, as far as the OT carries us. But the Book of Wisdom (2=*) represents death as entering the world through the envy of the devil, and Sirach (25") 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 tlie Apocalypse of Baruch {54'^- '^), that ' each of us is the Attam of his own soul,' looks like an attempt to express a mystery which alone can reconcile these divergent views. According to Weber {Altst/nag. Thcol. p. 216), the nett result of Talmudie 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 tt'. ) disallows original sin as part of the doctrine of the older Rabbis ; for, in common with other writers, he acknow- ledges the frequent assertion of inherited guilt. That St. Paul was familiar witli 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 (Ro 6'''"), and the power of which is the outraged law (1 Co 15=8). Literature.— See art Sin. J. G. SIMPSON.
GULF (xa<r/ia, from x<>-^'"^t to yawn, gape, open wide, Lk 16-'" only. Chasma (shortened, citasm) is the exact transliteration of the Greek, l)ut this word, in general use, is later than the AV. Tindale has ' a great space,' and the Geneva VS ' a great gulfe,' with 'swallowing pit' in the margin). — It is interesting to compare with this other represen- tations of the division between the worlds of the unseen. In Plato's vision in the RepiMie there is an intermediate space where judges are seated, who divide to the right hand or to the left accord- ing as men are found just or unjust. Return to the upper world is possible ; but when any incurable or unpunished sinners tried to ascend, ' the opening, instead of receiving them, gave forth a sound, and then wild men of tieiy aspect, who were standing by and knew what the sound meant,' seized and carried them to be cast into hell (Jowett's Plato, iii. 512 f. ). Virgil's vision is of ' a cavern, deep and huge, with its vast mouth, craggy, sheltered by its black lake and forest gloom, o'er which no birds niiglit speed along unharmed ; such an exhalation, pouring from its black jaws, rose to the vault of heaven ; wherefore the Greeks named the spot Avernus.' The ' dreadful prison-house ' is guarded by a ' gate of ponderous size, with pillars of solid adamant ; so tliat no mortal might, nay, nor the dwellers in the sky, are strong enough to tlirow it down in war' {JUneid, vi. 236 f., 553 f.). Coming to Jewish representations, the Book of Enoch speaks of three separations between the spirits of the dead, — 'by a chasm, by water, and by light above it' (ch. 22). In Rabbinical teaching (cf. Weber, JUd. Theol.^ 341) the separation between Paradise and Ge-hinnom is minimized ; it is but 'a wall,' 'a palm-breadth,' a 'finger- breadth,' 'a thread.' With this representation the 'great gulf of the parable is in striking contrast. It would be obviously wrong to interpret literally, or even to insist upon some spiritual counterpart of tlie detail of tlie parable, as it would be wrong to base upon the jjarable as a whole any doctrine of the future over and above its clear moral lesson and warning. But the solemn words of Jesus as to the po.ssibility and danger of the fixity of char- acter in evil must not be lightly set aside (see Eternal Sin).