The Guilt Offering for Sins and Compensation serves as a divine mandate for accountability, teaching us that true repentance must be accompanied by restorative action. While other sacrifices focus on the heart’s devotion, this offering specifically addresses the need to compensate for damages caused to God or our neighbors. By exploring these principles, we learn how to bridge the gap between seeking pardon and making things right through integrity and truth.
1. Cases in which You Have to Offer Guilt Offerings
The Guilt offering is the way of compensating for the sins you committed. If people of God commit sins, they must give a sin offering to God and repent their sins. But for some kinds of sins, you must not only repent your sins from your heart but also take the responsibility for your wrongdoings.
Let me give you an example. You borrowed something from your friend but damaged it by mistake. What should you do? It is not enough to say, “I am sorry.” You should not only say sorry but also compensate for it. If you cannot compensate with the same thing, you must pay the amount of the damage that has been done. Only then, will your repentance be true repentance.
If you borrowed your friend’s camera, but you dropped it and damaged it, or you lost it, then, if you just say, “I broke your camera. What should I do?” it means your heart is not right. What should you do?
Obviously you have to buy a new one or fix it. You don’t even have to ask. If you ask in that way then you ask expecting your friend to say, “It doesn’t matter, you didn’t do it on purpose.” But it is not the right attitude to ask, “What should I do?” You obviously have to compensate for it and you know it.
It is the same when you repent. When you sin against God, you must show actions in accordance with your repentance, and when you sin against your brother that results in loss or damage for him, you must compensate him in addition to asking for his pardon. This chapter titled ‘Guilt Offering’ will explain to you how you repent and properly compensate.
Leviticus5:1 says, “Now if a person sins after he hears a public adjuration to testify when he is a witness, whether he has seen or otherwise known, if he does not tell it, then he will bear his guilt.” Even though people swear to tell the truth in the witness seat, many of them fail to do so for their own benefits. For example, suppose that your son committed a crime, but another man was charged. In that case, the man can be set free or be sent to prison according to your witness or testimony.
If you keep silent about your son’s crime, your son will escape from the penalty. Then, would you be able to tell the truth? If you just keep quiet, your son will not be punished. Instead, another man will receive the punishment. If the man is sent to prison because of your silence, people may not know the truth of the situation, but God sees everything.
In addition, your enemy Satan and devil see your untrue action and accuse you because of your falsehood. God’s children should tell the truth not only in the witness seat but at all times. If you, a child of God, hurt or damage another person by telling something not true, you must give guilt offering to God.
What we should remember is that we should distinguish when to tell the truth and when to keep quiet about the truth.
Suppose a man suggested you work together with him in a business. You first visited a guidance pastor and heard from him that it would be better not to work with him. So, you decided not to work with that person. Then, how will you explain to him about your refusal? Although you consulted your guidance pastor, it is your decision and you are responsible for it. If you reply to him, “I consulted my guidance pastor, and he advised me not to work with you,” you are not telling the truth but transferring your responsibility to your guidance pastor. It is to expose and cause embarrassment for him when it was you who asked him for advice and help.
Also, when you tell the truth, testifying to the truth for justice as a witness is very different from talking about untruthfulness of other people in public. For example, suppose I talk about a man saying, “He is very courageous!” In that case, some say to me, “No. Senior Pastor. He is very hot-tempered.” Even though he should not say such a thing in that situation, he acts according to his own self-righteousness and does evil by talking about another’s wrongdoings. Also, some people distort or change what they heard in their own thoughts and feelings when they repeat it to others. In many cases, people talk like they have seen or heard something firsthand. They say something assuredly as if they had seen it directly, although they did not actually see it, but heard it from another person.
You will only tell the truth in everything if you have goodness and truth in you. You will not say evil things, nor blame others, nor distort the truth. You will not either answer something irrelevant to the question. When you cause damage to others by being a false witness, it is a transgression in God’s eyes and you must give guilt offering for it.
The second case of guilt offering is explained in Leviticus 5:2-3 which says, “Or if a person touches any unclean thing, whether a carcass of an unclean beast or the carcass of unclean cattle or a carcass of unclean swarming things, though it is hidden from him and he is unclean, then he will be guilty. Or if he touches human uncleanness, of whatever sort his uncleanness may be with which he becomes unclean, and it is hidden from him, and then he comes to know it, he will be guilty.”
Leviticus chapter 11 onward mentions the names of unclean beasts, livestock, and insects, and explains in what situation men become unclean. Even when they touched something unclean without knowing it, they were guilty and they had to give a guilt offering.
But today, in the New Testament, it does not mean that we must not touch each of unclean things. There is spiritual meaning in being guilty by touching unclean things. Unclean things spiritually symbolize all unrighteous things and deeds and sins that are not true before God.
Before knowing God and the truth, you thought it was not a sin but since you came to know God and the truth, you realize it is not right according to the truth. Also, when you were still in the world even though you saw some violent or immoral things through various media, you did not think those things were unrighteous. But as you learn the truth and cast your sins away, you naturally keep yourself away from those things. However, you may see or hear unclean things even after you accept Jesus Christ.
Of course men of spirit can keep their hearts in truth and stand firm no matter what they see or hear. On the contrary, men of flesh cannot keep their hearts in truth but take unclean things with unclean feelings. So they must repent and give a guilt offering the moment they find it.
There are many things that are not usually considered as sins although the Bible declares them as detestable to God. For example, homosexuality, lying with an animal, carrying a charm to ward off bad luck, and visiting fortunetellers are examples of thing very detestable before God. But you may regard them trivial when you do not know the truth.
Homosexuality is such a detestable thing in God’s sight. If you, as believers, engage in such acts or entertain such thoughts, God will immediately forsake you. The same goes with lying with an animal.
Carrying a lucky charm to many seems trivial, but it is so detestable before God. It is same as carrying demons with you saying you believe in God. It is same as saying, “Demon, please protect me.” Lucky charms are connected with demons. People think demons cannot come if they have these, but it is the opposite that is the case.
Also, fortune-telling is to stand against God. These are very detestable before God, but sometimes people do not take it seriously when they do not know the truth. But God’s children must be holy and have nothing to do with those unclean things.
The third case of guilt offering is explained in Leviticus 5:4. “‘Or if a person swears thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, in whatever matter a man may speak thoughtlessly with an oath, and it is hidden from him, and then he comes to know it, he will be guilty in one of these.”
God certainly prohibits us from swearing, “I will do something evil.” And He prohibits us from swearing, “I will do something good,” as well. James 5:12 says, “But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.” In Matthew 5:37 Jesus warned not to swear, saying, “But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.”
Then, why does God prohibit any kind of swearing?
If you swear to do something evil, He has no choice but to prohibit it because it is wicked. But He still prohibits you from swearing to do something good, because men are unable to keep his vow 100%. Men’s hearts change continually according to the benefits or feelings involved. Man cannot keep his heart steadfast to their determination. If you swear to do something, your enemy Satan and the devil will disrupt you in various ways so that you will not keep your oath. For example, suppose that you swore to do something at a certain point in time. Satan may try to cause you to fall asleep, oversleep, or forget, if only for a moment, at that moment or cause any number of distractions or hindrances. Finally you break your vow.
And now let me give you an extreme example. You swore that you would surely do something tomorrow. But if you die in a traffic accident today, how can you keep your promise? Thus, you should not swear anything according to your feelings, but entrust all your ways to God the Master of all things in a humble manner. It is a matter of course that you must not swear evil things. In addition, even when you want to do something good, you should not swear but ask God to give you the strength to accomplish it.
Suppose there is a man who stopped praying to God for some time. He should not swear rashly, “I will not stop praying to God any more. From now on, I will attend prayer meeting every day.” But rather he should ask God, “Father God, Help me pray continually. Control my mind and lead me to pray every day. Keep me from the obstruction of the enemy Satan and the devil.”
Or, if your cell leader or somebody tells you, “If you attend Daniel night prayer meeting and pray, you will receive blessings and answers.” Then, you can say, “Yes, I will try to attend it. Please pray for me to attend Daniel prayer meeting.” This way, Satan cannot hinder you.
But if you swear something according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you must surely keep it.