One of the most used (over used) resources in the modern church is often guilt. As Baptists, we don’t have the corner on the market when it comes to guilt, but we definately have more than our fair share of usage. I’ll admit I have used it from the pulpit, classroom, article and the occasional blog. We use guilt to promote faith, but should we? One of the things I see very often is people struggling with guilt and not knowing what to do. Guilt can sometimes be a trap for people, but it doesn’t need to be. Guilt had to be understood in it’s proper context so people can be free of it’s devastation. The problem is so often people don’t know the difference between guilt that comes from the world or the devil, and conviction that comes from the Holy Spirit. I have shared with many how to be free from the crushing weight of guilt. This is so important to me because I struggle with guilt.
When sometime happens in our lives that we mess up and we hurt someone and cause an issue. We now have conviction that comes from the Holy Spirit. When conviction comes, there are things that can be done. At the very minimum, we confess, repent, apologize. Sometimes there is restitution to be made, often we have to be humbled. The conviction comes and brings us to restoration. Conviction always leads us to restoration and reconciliation. Always. In this situation, if we have done these things, the feelings are now guilt. Guilt has no outcome, nothing to do and no where to go. We have already done all we can do, confessing again won’t make us more forgiven, and if we have done all we can to make it right with the person, we can’t go anywhere else. Guilt comes from the devil and it cripples us or causes us hurt. So often, guilt keeps us from having a close relationship with God and really connecting with others. It’s a prison that many are trapped in.
Life in Christ is about being free from guilt and condemnation. We have freedom in confession and repentance. We have freedom and life in Christ, and we need to proclaim freedom and hope for all people. Guilt shouldn’t be a prison for us or those we minister too. We need to proclaim freedom from guilt. That will require us to never use guilt.
“Guilt comes from the devil and it cripples us or causes us hurt. ”
I guess you say this because Satan is the accuser of the brethren and I understand that even when we are forgiven the enemy would have us believe we are still guilty.
But isn’t it just as true to say, “Guilt comes from violating the will of God.” Because, that is closer to the actual definition of guilt?
I think there is a valid distinction between guilt and conviction. The Spirit convicts. Guilt is a form of self-condemnation. I think that is the distinction here, perhaps.
“God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified”
“The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life”
” I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand, I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self as well).”
I’ve never heard contemporary preaching employ guilt or manipulation more forcefully than Peter or Paul did. I would also be at wit’s end coming up with a textual basis for making pastors feel guilty for making people feel guilty.
😉
The different Bart is when Peter and Paul preach truth that leads to conviction, there are steps. They are preaching for people to confess, repent and be made right with God. Guilt has no outcome, doesn’t bring hope or reconciliation. Discipline brings life, guilt isn’t discipline.
Well, then, I’ve just misunderstood that you were using a definition of guilt that was non-standard and not included in the post. My apologies.
It always depends on what the definition of “it” is. God bless.
I can’t help but to think King David, When he said my sin is ever before me. The Apostle Paul said I’m the least among the brethern, because I persecuted the church. I believe these men of God had painful memories. These men knew they were guilty, and didn’t deserve forgiveness. With this in mind, I have painful memories of my own sin. I know Christ died and bore my sin on the cross. I know I was forgiven and saved from my sin. When I was saved, like Paul, I acknowledged, of sinners I was chief.
Although my sin has been cast from me, I still have painful memories until this day. I believe with all my heart the reason we remember our sin and remember our guilt is to keep us close to God. Without him how lost I would be
I can’t help but to think “of” King David
My guilt drove me to the Savior. I knew I was guilty of sin….sin against God. I knew that I needed to get right with God. I knew that God was not happy with my sin…at all.
David
I think that the guilt that Vol is identifying here is that of which the Scripture describes as godly sorrow. When the Holy Spirit convicts a lost person of the fact that he/she is a sinner before a just and righteous God, that person will experience the guilt of his/her sin. This is true and biblical godly sorrow. Such must be experienced for one to be “driven to Christ” for salvation as Vol rightly testifies. Without such godly sorrow (guilt before God as a sinner) no person will be saved. The presence of godly sorrow in a person’s life is the work of the Holy Spirit. Such cannot be “manufactured” in the human heart.
I believe that there is legitimate guilt and there is also illegitimate guilt in the life of the believer.
Legitimate guilt is that which occurs in a believer’s life when we sin and the Holy Spirit brings our sin to our attention. upon confession of our sin, as God’s children, He removes our sin and its guilt as far as the east is from the west. Praise His Holy Name!
The guilt that comes creeping into our lives about past sin that has been truly confessed is illegitimate guilt. Such guilt is crippling in the life of a believer and causes many problems.
If one identifies the source of guilt in the life of a believer it seems to me that God the Holy Spirit is the Father of legitimate guilt in the life of a believer and Satan is the father of illegitimate guilt in the life of a believer.
There is a difference between genuine guilt that leads to repentance and an “imputed” guilt that is the subject of this post. Anyone who has had a mother knows the difference between the genuine guilt of getting caught with a hand in the cookie jar and the “imputed” guilt and shame that comes with an unjustified lecture about our own inadequacy as a child. In a word, if you find your Sunday sermons sounding like something your mother would say to shame you into compliance, you’re probably doing it wrong. If your sermons sound more like Jesus saying, “neither do I condemn you, go and stop sinning,” then you’re probably doing it right.
Thanks Rick, that sums it up.
I think some of my fellow commenters here are right to distinguish between different kinds of guilt, but I think it requires a more robust distinction. There is a difference between being guilty (bearing guilt), and feeling guilty (which isn’t always a bad thing).
But the guilt spoken of here is actually a pattern of using feelings of guilt to manipulate people. Satan and his spiritual minions do this. Many people do this for selfish reasons. Other people do it with good intentions. For example, when you get something from World Vision in the mail you see pictures of needy kids and you feel a little guilty for not doing more to help them. So you are inclined to give. So, right or wrong, they use guilt to drum up funds for doing good things.
So the question posed can be restated: is it wrong to induce feelings of guilt instead of letting the Holy Spirit convict? This begs the question that the two are always mutually exclusive. It is right to feel guilty for the sin we have committed up to the point where we feel intense joy and gratitude at the grace in God’s forgiveness that we have been given. I’d say that many people haven’t felt guilty enough and have taken their salvation for granted. Other people hang on to their guilt in spite of the news that God has removed it from them and taken it upon himself.
With this information, the key is to make sure to preach guilt and grace both robustly enough to work against both extremes.
Dr. Adrian Rogers used to say that the Holy Spirit uses guilt to bring us to salvation, or to make a Believer quit living in sin. That’s a good kind of guilt. He also taught that there was a false guilt. The Devil would use this guilt to make us feel condemned about sins, which we’ve already confessed to God. The Devil would us false guilt to keep us defeated, and bound by shame…when the truth of the matter is 1 John 1:9.
David
I’d still love to see actual scripture employed in this discussion.
In short:
Preaching the truth produces guilt:
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
(John 15:22 ESV)
We must preach the whole counsel of God:
Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. (Acts 20:26-28 ESV)
This entails not only the guilt that is produced, but also that there is no condemnation:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
(Romans 8:1 ESV)
And we are given an appropriate response to teach as part of this whole counsel that we should bear this guilt no longer in the flesh, but live in the spirit rejoicing and praising God:
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
(Romans 8:12-15 ESV)
Jim, thanks. I think a better conversation will result from the work you’ve put into your comment.
Now, you are not the author of the post, and so if I overly conflate the arguments from the original post and your own thoughts, then I apologize for doing so. It seems to me that Dan is making a case against a particular practice (or perhaps a particular objective) in preaching. He is arguing against something. Your argument seems to be an argument in favor of something—in favor of proclaiming the release from condemnation that is in the gospel.
It seems to me that, to go from your argument to Dan’s conclusion, one would have to believe that: (1) One should preach as though lost people are not present, and (2) for disobedient or disorderly Christians, preaching that employs “guilt” or “manipulation” is never appropriate.
I think that both of those presumptions are easy to disprove, the former from common experience and the latter from the examples of preaching in the New Testament.
So are you seeking to refute my argument as you understand it or Dan’s conclusion?
Oh, I’ll refute anybody who’ll fight with me. 😉
Actually, Dan has clarified above that, for the purposes of this post, he is using a personal definition of “guilt” that carefully excludes positive uses of guilt in the New Testament. So, I guess I’m not seeking to refute anything anymore.
Dan Barns has a point about “excessive guilt” and requiring more to forgive ourselves than God does, but he overstates his case. If you have sinned, you should feel guilt. If you repent, you can know that you are forgiven, but forgiveness isn’t the same as healing of the psychological damage your sin has caused yourself. That’s not guilt, but it still hurts.
The point on not using “guilt” in sermons is wrong and borders on hyper-Calvinism.
God be with you,
Dan
well, the word ‘guilt’ in English does have an interesting origin
the old English (Anglo-Saxon) word gylt
meant “crime, sin, fault, fine, debt,”
so, hence the term ‘forgive us our debts’ in some versions of the Lord’s Prayer, where ‘debt’ is substituted for ‘trespasses’ . . .
The word ‘gylt’ shows up in the Anglo-Saxon (old English) wording of the Lord’s Prayer, this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wl-OZ3breE&feature=related