#112 GOD’S ANSWER FOR GUILT

A feeling of guilt is no accident.  It is a constitutional part of man.  It has great spiritual values.  It also can be terribly abused.  Consider this principle in child rearing.  In his book, Guilt and Grace, Paul Toumier says, a guilty conscience is the seasoning of our daily lives.  All upbringing is a cultivation of a sense of guilt on an intensive scale." Toumier then points out that while we could not rear children without the guilt factor, yet it can be abused.  That's biblical, for we read, "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged."(Colossians 3:21) So in child rearing guilt can either be a destructive force or a blessing.

Narramore defines guilt as "feelings of sinfulness, evil, wrong-doing, and failure to measure up." The feeling is common.  A fast typist can make slower ones feel guilty.  A young man who had been guilty of shoplifting as a teen, felt guilty entering a department store even after his reform.  As one reads of Jesus' visit in the home of Mary and Martha, Luke 10:38-42, he can nearly hear Martha in the kitchen, rattling dishes so her sister will feel guilty and come to help.  The modern day counterpart is the wife doing the same thing so her husband will quit reading the newspaper and come to set the table.

"Guilt-by-association" and "blanket condemnation" are also often employed.  And isn't it guilt that the "swingers" of today are trying to eliminate in their insistence on freedom to change moral lifestyles?  Their cry for "freedom" seems to say, "no guilt, no repression." The Bible teaches the need of man to feel guilt.  Without guilt there is no grace.  Without condemnation there is no salvation.  Paul develops this theme in Romans, bringing the non-Jew under condemnation in chapter 1, and then the Jew in chapters 2 and 3. He concludes: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."(Romans 3:23) Again he insisted “ ...all men sinned."(Romans 5:15) And "The wages of sin is death."(Romans 6:23) Thus, the Bible in no way side-steps guilt and condemnation!  We are sinners, worthy of condemnation.  Archibald MacLeish has said, "We have no choice but to be guilty.  God is unthinkable if we are innocent." But we make a mistake to present the plight of man without the plan of God, to speak of guilt without grace.  Condemnation merely opens the door to grace and salvation.

Many live with the burden of "false guilt." Self-condemnation often stems from self-rejection rather than God's rejection.  Men need to accept the forgiveness of God.  Paul insisted that all are lost, Romans 3:23.  But his very next thought was “ . . . they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."(Romans 3:24) Guilt is solved by forgiveness.  Many are guilt-ridden unnecessarily.  In Christ's blood there is cleansing.  "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."(Isaiah 1:18) That was the dynamic result when Christ was preached in New Testament times: "Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission (forgiveness) of sins."(Acts 2:38) "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord."(Acts 22:16) "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."(11 Corinthians 5:17) "Baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."(I Peter 3:21)

This is the good news of Jesus Christ!  Regardless of how dark our past may have been, God, through the blood of his son, will cleanse us as we respond to him in faith, repentance, confession and baptism.  Even those who helped to crucify God's own Son were relieved of their guilt, Acts 2:36-42.  Additionally, his blood continues to cleanse us after we become his children as long as we continue to repent and prayerfully confess our sins, I John 1:7-9 and Acts 8:1224. God's forgiveness can produce assurance, eliminating feelings of condemnation and rejection.  False guilt can be eliminated by a more mature understanding of God's nature.  When He forgives, He forgets.