The Lord said to Moses:
"If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the Lord
by deceiving his neighbor about something entrusted to him or left in his care
or stolen, or if he cheats him, or if he finds lost property and lies about it,
or if he swears falsely, or if he commits any such sin that people may do -
when he thus sins and becomes guilty, he must return what he has stolen or
taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to him, or the lost property he
found, or whatever it was he swore falsely about. He must make restitution in
full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day he
presents his guilt offering. And as a penalty he must bring to the priest, that
is, to the Lord, his guilt
offering, a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In
this way the priest will make atonement for him before the Lord, and he will be forgiven for any of
these things he did that made him guilty" (Vayikra / Leviticus 5:20-26
[English: 6:1-7]; ESV).
Many people
are oppressed by a sense of guilt. Some spend their whole lives seeking to
become free from it. There are those who simply deny the reality of guilt. But
philosophical notions and psychological games are not going to solve this age-old
problem.
Of course
there is such a thing as false guilt. We may feel guilty over something that we
need not be. This is one of the reasons why we need to gain God's perspective
on such things by reading the Scriptures.
Besides
gaining a healthy sense of right and wrong, the Torah also teaches us how to
properly deal with wrongs as they arise. One aspect of that is our need to deal
with guilt in the sphere in which it occurred. If we have wronged other people,
then we must deal with the people we wronged. If we have sinned against God,
then it is with God we must deal.
The Torah
provides us with a most practical approach in dealing with our wrongs against
other people. When appropriate we need to return what we have stolen or abused
and add twenty percent. Simply saying sorry, paying fines and/or doing jail
terms do not resolve our guilt.
But
resolving guilt is not simply accomplished through restitution. What we don't
easily recognize is that when we wrong another person, we are also wronging
God. In the passage I read we see that not only was restitution to be made to
the person wronged, but also a penalty by way of a sacrifice to God was
required to be paid.
How does my
wronging of another person affect my relationship with God? The passage we read
refers to the wronging of another person as unfaithfulness to God. To abuse a
fellow human being is to turn our back on the Creator of us all.
King David
understood the spiritual implications of wrongdoing. When he confessed his sins
of adultery and murder he prayed, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and
done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:6 [English: 51:4]; ESV). Under the New
Covenant, even though the sacrificial requirements are fulfilled through the
Messiah, like David, we still need to admit our wrongdoings to God in order to
maintain intimate fellowship with him. We read, “If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9; ESV).
Now some may
get the impression that reckoning with the spiritual aspect of wrongdoing is
greater than the human aspect. We may think that if we strongly focus on how we
have offended God, then everything will be alright. But that is not what the
Torah teaches. When we wrong a fellow human being, we need to see that we have
both brought harm to the person as well as created a breach in our relationship
to God. Both need to be dealt with. It is only as we do both that we can truly
be free from guilt.
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