Have no doubt, guilt is very powerful. Guilt is also a gift from God. We are meant to feel guilty for doing something we shouldn’t, in order to draw attention to the fact that we should stop doing something! When guilt is operating correctly in our lives, the discomfort from our guilt will drive us to stop doing the behavior that induces the guilt. That would be an example of appropriate comfort seeking behavior. I am uncomfortable because of the guilt I feel, so I stop doing the things that make me feel guilty. Now I am more comfortable and I am no longer doing that which I should not.
Guilt is powerful. It can operate in our lives positively or negatively. First the negative power of guilt.
Guilt is a problem when we are no longer responsible (and possibly never were responsible) for the actions that have induced the guilt. What do I mean? Now I am going to be a little more directly theological than I have been to date.
As Christians, we live under the grace of God’s forgiveness for our sins. We have done wicked things in the past, we have turned from God’s ways and pursued our own. That is the clear and consistent testimony of Scripture. It begins with the story of the fall in Genesis. Adam and Eve turn from God’s instructions, and choose their own way. They eat the forbidden fruit.
Isaiah universalizes the fall to everyone: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”1 Any honest person can look at himself and see how much he has chosen to go his own way, rather than God’s ways. Isaiah compares us to sheep, an animal that easily goes astray.
The Apostle Paul really boils it down: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”2 These statements both individualize and universalize the reality of sin. I have sinned. I have gone astray and gone my own way. That’s the individual aspect. Since this is true of everyone, it is a universal problem.
Christians are those who acknowledge their guilt, and accept their dependence on the gift of God’s forgiveness, given to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The hope of the Christian faith is that God offers us a new life through his forgiveness. That new life is expressed as a new creation. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”3 Understanding this is so important. Too many are paralyzed by negative guilt. They do not actively accept that God has set their guilt aside, and that they are now sharing in the righteousness of Jesus. They still beat themselves up for their past deeds and willfulness and allow that sense of guilt to paralyze themselves from enjoying the fullness of a rich relationship of passionate love with God. They keep themselves from moving further up and further into God’s kingdom.
It is not God that is the originator of this guilt. It comes from somewhere else. The Bible says that God is not condemning us.
“What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”4Who has the ultimate right to criticize us, find fault with us, accuse us and condemn us? Jesus is our creator, Jesus is the one who has lived life on this earth completely without ever failing God. He has authority as our creator. He has moral authority as the sinless one. As the preceding passage points out, he is doing the exact opposite of condemning us. He pleads our cause before God. He’s on our side.
So if the guilt some still feel isn’t from God, then where? There are other possibilities. The chapter in Romans goes on to describe those who may be out there accusing us. Verse 38 speaks of angels and demons, past and future, powers, heights and depths. The enemies of God are also our enemies. They seek to keep us separated from experiencing God and his love and grace. Leading us to discount the complete forgiveness God has for us will accomplish that goal. So one source for inappropriate or negative guilt is the full array of the enemies of God.
There can be other sources as well. Our own patterns of thought can be deep ruts that keep us from breaking free into newer more healthful ways of thinking. Some have had the misfortune of having a parent berate them continually through their lives. From early on they accepted that they were useless, that they would always be failures, that they were irredeemably bad. These early beliefs and negative self-images make it easy to feel guilty over past, forgiven deeds and attitudes, in spite of the clear proclamation of forgiveness.
Next, the usual result of the negative side of guilt.
2 Romans 3:23
3 2 Corinthians 5:17
4 Romans 8:31-34
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