guilt shame doubt disapproval self-loathing
apathy unconcern happiness acceptance
From early on in our lives, we all have a sense of a need for approval and a feeling of disapproval when we mess up. Sometimes the feeling of disapproval is verbalized to us, “I am disappointed in you.” Other times it is given as a direct attack against our personality, “You’re a failure who can’t do anything right.” In the face of this ingrained sense of disapproval, some look at their faults with acceptance and approval. “That’s just who I am.” or “God [or whoever—fill in the blank] loves me unconditionally no matter what.”
As Christians, we know that sin is our “messing up”—sin is our failure to keep God’s commands and a failure to believe in him. In Christ, we also know God has forgiven our sin. These two realities still leave us with the question: how should we feel when we sin?
Let us consider a few things…
First, God in his love has completely paid for, removed, and forgiven our sins through Christ on the cross. As a pastor, I have run across two fairly common ideas in some people’s minds when it comes to sin. One is that even as Christians when we stand before God we will have to give an account of our sins, as if just before entering the joy of eternity we must feel one last sting of all the wrong we have ever done. The other is a description of God the Father as an angry judge glaring at us, going over that list, and demanding to know why he should let us into his heaven. Only then does Jesus, acting as our lawyer, stand up and say, “Because I have paid for their sins.” Neither of these are biblical truths and both produce unwarranted guilt in the lives of people who believe them.
If we have repented, and turned to Jesus in faith our sins are forgiven. Every. Single. Last. One. Of. Them. Period.
Colossians 2:13-14 says that God forgave us and canceled the record of debt (that list of sins) which stood against us, and he did so by nailing it to the cross. Romans 8:31-34 says that God is for us. He is the one who justifies, therefore no one can bring a charge against us. Christ is the one who died, was raised, and sits by the Father, so no one can condemn us. Jeremiah 31:34 says that in the new covenant, God forgives and no longer remembers the sin of those who know him. And Psalm 103:11-12 says as far as the heavens are above the earth, so how great is God’s love for his people; and as far as the east is from the west, so has he removed our sin from us.
Our Father is not an angry judge still looking for a reason to condemn us. Our Father is not a grudge-bearer looking to rehash all the wrongs we have done. In love, our Father saved us through Jesus, forgave us, and removed our sins from us.
Some say, “There is nothing we can do to make God love us anymore, nor to make God love us any less.” And through Christ that requires a hearty, “Yes and Amen!” If we trust in Jesus, our sins are completely paid for, removed, and forgiven on the cross.
Second, God has given us the righteousness of Christ. Quoting Genesis, Paul wrote in Romans 4:3, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Then in Philippians 3:8-9, “For [the sake of Christ] I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” And in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” And Peter also wrote, “[Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
Historically, this has been called the “Great Exchange.” Jesus, on the cross—our sins given to him, his righteousness given to us. This is the full beauty of the grace of God. We do not, indeed cannot, earn a right standing before God. We cannot cover over our sin. But God, by his own desire and love, showed us mercy by making Jesus become our sin and making us become Jesus’ perfect righteousness.
Again, if we are in Christ, no matter what we do, we cannot be any more righteous before God and we cannot be any less righteous before God.
These two things are inexpressibly wonderful truths. God loves us so completely that he sent his only Son, Jesus to remove every bit of our sin (past, present, future) and give us every bit of his own righteousness. And with this…
Third, God has adopted us as his children. We do not find it much more clearly stated than Romans 8:14-16. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons and daughters 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!’ The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
In sin, we were the enemies of Christ, dead, hopeless, and separated. When our sin fell upon Christ and the righteousness of Jesus fell upon us, we became sons and daughters, alive, hope-filled, and adopted. We belong to a family from which we can never be separated (8:38-39).
But even as God’s children, forgiven and perfectly righteous before him, we still sin so long as we live in this life. As Paul said, “Not that I have already obtained [the resurrection from the dead] or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12). We are not already perfect, we are not already there. We belong to Jesus fully and completely, so we can press on towards perfection and the resurrection (where we will fully meet our perfection). But we are not already there.
God has empowered us with the ability to escape temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), but as we battle against the decaying remains of our old sinful self there are plenty of times where we will fail to see God’s way of escape and still fall into sin. And…
Fourth, our sin still grieves God. In Ephesians 4:30 we find this command, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” In context, Paul gave this command in the midst of examples of habits of the old life we need to put off and habits of the new life in Christ we need to put on. Those old habits—those sins, are what grieve the Holy Spirit. God fully accepts us through Christ and looks upon us in the righteousness of Christ, but God does not blindly approve of the sin we commit after we come to Christ. It grieves him because it remains an offense to him and it is contrary to the new nature he has graciously bestowed upon us.
But as God’s children, God will not judge us or condemn us for such sin. Instead, fifth, God in love disciplines us for our sin. Hebrews 12:6-8 states, “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline. If you are left without discipline…then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” A few verses later, we read how discipline seems painful not pleasant, but “later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Discipline can come in many forms—a rebuke from the Bible, a rebuke from a brother or sister in Christ, a feeling of guilt, a sickness, etc. God disciplines us, though, not to look at us and say, “You’re a failure there is no hope.” Rather, he says, “You are my child, I love you, and I want you to live in the fullness of righteousness.” After all, in his love, our Father wants what is best for us, and what is best for us is to be righteous and removed from our sin.
So then…back to the question: How should we feel when we sin?
1. We should remember that it is not sin which defines us, but our relationship to God in Christ. We are the righteous and forgiven children of God. Therefore we should not feel a great sense of shame, failure, or doubt. God still loves us, he still accepts us, and he has already removed the guilt for that sin.
2. We should feel grief as our sin grieves God, but it should not be a lingering grief. Knowing he had grieved the saints at Corinth, Paul wrote, “I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us” (2 Corinthians 7:9). Godly grief produces repentance. The grief we feel over sin should cause us to confess it to God and then realize his cleansing forgiveness of it (1 John 1:9). We repent, or turn from it, and turn back to living in the fullness of God’s grace.
3. Once we’ve repented, we should press on without looking back. Repentance may also require our confessing the sin to others (James 5:16) and seeking to reconcile any way we have wronged others (Matthew 5:23-24). But the sin was long ago nailed to the cross along with every other sin we have committed and will commit. Therefore, we should have no lingering focus on such sin.
Our focus should be on our identity in Christ, and growing to live that out more and more. That means, as Paul wrote, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). The forgetting what is behind and pressing on towards what is ahead separates us from lingering guilt and leads us to “rejoice in the Lord always” (4:4).
My answer – a sort of contented discontent, if you will.
I am content that in Christ, I have forgiveness and peace, am loved, etc.
I am discontent that so much of sin is still present in my life.
In my view, to give in to either side completely is unhealthy. We need to process both the heinous nature of our sin and the fact that God relates to us on the basis of Christ’s righteousness, not our own unrighteousness.
Oh, and excellent article.
Excellent, excellent, excellent. Thank you for this wonderful reminder.
Yep.
Hi Mike,
Your article is good, but I do have a question. How can Jesus pay for our sins and we be forgiven at the same time? To me, this seems impossible if we operate on the assumption of the Reformers that sin is a debt incurred at the violation of God’s law, which is itself an extension of his personal justice.
Sins can either be forgiven, or they can be paid for, but not both – as long as we operate on the assumption that sin is a debt we owe. A debt can either be discharged by being paid by the one in debt, or being forgiven by the one holding the debt. A forgiven debt cannot be paid, and a paid debt cannot be forgiven. For example, suppose I owed you $1 million. I cannot pay, because I don’t have that much money. Either someone will have to pay for me and satisfy the debt, or you could forgive me of the debt. But, once I am forgiven, there can be no payment; and if the debt is paid, there is no forgiveness.
So did Jesus pay a debt that satisfied the triune God, or are we forgiven of our debt? I really don’t think we can have it both ways.
Jim G.
Because of the Trinity, we can accurately say that Jesus has paid our sin debt, but The Father has forgiven us. Using your example, if I was to gift you 1 million dollars, your debt would be paid. After your debt is paid Mike could forgive you. I say could because, Mike having recieved his money could stil have ill feelings towards you for not being able to pay your own debt. Or he could be upset that the debt was there in the first place. God the Father however, does not do that. The Father has forgiven the debt. The relationship we once had with the Father, one of eminity because of sin, is now a relationship of peace, because of forgiveness. This is one of the many amazing things the God has done at the cross.
Thanks for the reply, Steve.
You could give Mike the million on my behalf and the debt would be paid. (Thanks, by the way – I really appreciate it, now, if you could just send another million my way life would be good… j/k).
But if that is the case, the debt is paid and there is no forgiveness possible. Remember, the only thing that matters here is the debt. I may now be in YOUR debt, but that is another matter altogether. There are no “hard feelings” in an economic transaction. A debt is either paid or forgiven.
Jim g.
“There are no “hard feelings” in an economic transaction.”
You’ve never borrowed money from family.
Jim…
I think the Bible is clear that forgiveness is sin being paid for and vice versa. The biblical view of forgiveness is not merely emotional it does not simply change how God feels about us or views us–i.e. it does not simply mean that God chooses to pass over and forget our sin. But forgiveness is functional, it actually does change us and our standing before God.
Paul said of Christ in Colossians 1:14, “In [him] we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.” That redemption goes with that “legal” declaration of the weight of our sins against God. We stood guilty, and our sins stood owed. That payment was due to no one but God himself and we have nothing to offer, being even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags. So Paul also said a chapter later, “And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he sat aside, nailing it to the cross.”
In both these passages we have the Holy Spirit himself inspiring the idea of paying for sins (redemption, canceling the debt by nailing it to the cross) corresponding to forgiveness.
We owed God X for our sins. Essentially, God paid himself that X amount by making himself (in the Son) our sins and pouring out his wrath upon Jesus for our sake. God satisfied his justice in paying for our sins, but also emotionally and functionally forgave us in two ways: 1) making it so we owed nothing for our sin-debt, and 2) making it so that the righteousness of Christ became ours so it is as if our sin-debt never belonged to us
Which is why in Hebrews 9&10 it can talk about how the OT sacrifices never actually paid for our sin, but these pointed to Jesus. Where the blood and bulls and goats could never take away sin, by Jesus’ single sacrifice “he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” And thus, “Where there is forgiveness of these there is no longer any offering for sin.”
Again, forgiveness and a sin-offering go hand-in-hand. Since the offering has been fully paid, we have full forgiveness.
Hi Mike,
I appreciate your appeal to Scripture. And I fully agree that God grants us forgiveness of sins. I am just not willing to grant that Jesus’ death is a specific payment for sins, in the sense of payment of a debt owed. So I disagree that “the Bible is clear that forgiveness is sin being paid for and vice-versa.” I think it is far from clear that this is the case. Let me explain.
When we mix payment and forgiveness, we mar the plain understanding of forgiveness. The plain meaning of forgiveness is that the one owed “eats” the debt, and does not require the debtor (or his agent – see Christ) to pay. Once payment is made, there is nothing to forgive. Once forgiveness is granted, there is nothing to pay.
Take the commandment for us to forgive those who sin against us. If we forgive someone who wrongs us, we have no right to demand or even expect any satisfaction from that person. The forgiveness cancels the debt. If we still harbor any expectation of satisfaction of any kind, we have not forgiven that person. Moreover, in the realm of interpersonal forgiveness, we are expected to forgive without any payment whatsoever, even seventy times seven times. That is the plain meaning of forgiveness – no payment and no strings attached.
But the prevailing Protestant model of atonement requires that God be paid so that forgiveness might occur. This mars the plain understanding of forgiveness and turns it into something else – a transaction where payment brings about forgiveness. It creates a model where God cannot forgive until his sense of justice is satisfied – which is the polar opposite of what we are commanded to do in the power of his Spirit. We are commanded, as God-the-Spirit-filled-and-led members of the body of God-the-Son-Christ, to forgive freely without payment, while God-the-Father cannot forgive without payment. Doesn’t this seem to attack the unity of the Godhead, if the Father acts differently than the Son and Spirit act in the lives of his people? Yet this often-unstated assumption of this model is so rarely questioned that it never ceases to surprise me.
Jim G.
I think based on those scriptures and others, the idea of payment and forgiveness together does not mar the plain biblical meaning of forgiveness.
When we forgive others “as Christ forgave us”… we are doing two things:
1) We are truly forgiving them knowing that we don’t have to expect satisfaction from them, b/c the sin they commit against us is more greatly committed against God, and he has already provided satisfaction…
or 2) We are choosing not to hold it against them by seeking our own retaliation, b/c in their rejection of Christ God will bring ultimate vengeance and justice for the hurt…
Hi Mike,
Let me ask you a question…is forgiveness even possible (in any sense) without some kind of satisfaction being made? If my two year old reaches up and smacks me in the face, can’t I just forgive her without at least subconsciously appealing to some form of satisfaction/penal payment? And another, how does Jesus forgive the paralytic lowered through the roof? There is no explicit or implicit allusion to satisfaction in that text whatsoever.
Jim G.
JIM G.
you have touched on God’s ‘mercy’ . . . rather gracefully
I think there are times we might forgive and not recognize how it fits into what Jesus accomplished on the cross; but from the way the Bible describes terms, I don’t see biblical forgiveness occurring outside of the work of Jesus, whether we recognize it as such or not.
No there is no explicit allusion in that passage, but we have to keep in mind that we cannot theologically divorce a single passage from the grand narrative of Scripture. Whether he explicitly states it or not, all forgiveness that Jesus gave comes back to his payment of sin upon the cross.
Hi Mike,
At least you are consistent and honest, I’ll give you that. And you have been kind and irenic.
And I know you don’t see the terrible hole into which you have dug yourself. But it is there nonetheless. In your paradigm, there is no such thing as forgiveness. It does not exist – at all. Forgiveness is just another word for payment in your theology. That is the great weakness of Penal Substitution as THE central atonement motif. It cannot differentiate between payment and forgiveness.
Of course I know that a text cannot be divorced from the grand narrative. But at the same time when a plank of one’s “grand narrative” is completely absent from a key text, we must give pause and ask whether or not our “grand narrative” might be a little skewed. I’ve got to go give kids a bath. Be back later tonight.
Jim G.
Honestly, I don’t see it as a hole.
In that biblical picture of forgiveness we have been granted freedom, not merely a declared freedom but an actual freedom. It is not merely that our sins are forgotten and passed over, it is that our sins are actually lifted up from us and completely removed.
The debt owed isn’t merely forgotten, it is truly wiped away.
That’s not a troublesome non-forgiveness parading as forgiveness… rather that is a beautiful, rich, and true forgiveness that completely wipes out our sin before God.
It’s as Hebrews 9:22 says, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” But with that shedding, “We have redemption through [Jesus’] blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). So that ultimately our sins are actually removed from us as far as the east is from the west!
That is a beautiful thing…
Hi Mike,
At last something on which we can agree. I wholeheartedly agree that it is a beautiful thing that we no longer carry around the burden of sin.
I’ll give it a rest. I’m evidently talking past you and you are not getting through to me, either. I don’t operate from penal substitutionary assumptions, so that probably explains it. Anyway, thanks for some good dialogue.
Jim G.
Good stuff.
“Again, if we are in Christ, no matter what we do, we cannot be any more righteous before God and we cannot be any less righteous before God.”
The ‘no matter what we do’ is something that people cannot grasp in meaning, if they were to take it outside of the context of ‘if we are in Christ’. The whole meaning of ‘if we are in Christ’ needs to be understood fully before the phrase ‘no matter what we do’ begins to make sense, not only to Christians but to others.
The case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer comes to mind, as he is now considered by many (myself included) to be a Christian martyr.
Were his motives for wanting to kill Hitler a ‘sin’, or were they something else entirely?
It is not so ‘easy’ to sit in judgement of people like Bonhoeffer, without going very deep into the questions of ‘the state of a person’s heart’, which only God may comprehend fully. We may not enter there, in that sanctuary of another’s conscience where a man meets alone with God.
I am often moved by the ‘Love Sermon’ of St. Augustine who said ‘Love, and do what you will’ . . . here is Augustine’s sermon in full:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTV6z1DdDpg&feature=related
Late to the game, but great post.
Great article. I talk with people in recovery often who feel trapped in guilt about how we feel. When we sin as Christians, we are convicted. Conviction always has an outcome. There is something to confess, restore, amend, change, flee from, we confess and repent and we are made right with God. Conviction brings restoration.
Guilt however has no where to go. If you are a believer and you confess, repent and seek God, guilt comes from the Devil. It traps you, it enslaves you and you have nothing to do, no reconciliation and no grace to be found. Reject guilt.
Mike, I rather let God take care of my “feelings” about sin I commit. I find His Holy Spirit a wonderful coach and a terrific referee and a merciful judge through the trials and tribulations of my soul.