27 Mar God’s Gift of Guilt
This post is in connection with our study in the book of Genesis on Sundays, specifically chapters 42-45, looking at God’s gracious work in the lives and hearts of Joesph’s 10 brothers. God uses Joseph to take them through a process, as he presses on their hearts, on their sin, seeking to see them own their sin, truly repent, and receive God’s forgiveness and his.
In our study of chapter 43, since it is so closely connected with 42, we had time to take an excursion to dig more deeply into the gift of guilt, the gift of our conscience, and the gift of repentance from God.
In this sermon we mentioned that false guilt, although widely believed in by the world, and sadly many in the church, is not Biblical. False guilt is false! There is no such thing as false guilt, regardless of how much it is talked about, taught, promoted, and believed in within our society.
Here are a few links or resources to help you understand what is called “False Guilt” by the world and why this concept is false!
First, a podcast discussing false guilt by ACBC and Dr. John Street can be listened to HERE.
Second, HERE is a long, in-depth reading on false guilt. This is for those who wish to dig into all aspects of this issue. This is copied from a large book (1200+ pages) by a solid Christian author and Biblical counsellor, Rich Thompson, “The Heart Of Man And The Mental Disorders: How the Word of God Is Sufficient” (second edition). If you fight through the heavy reading, you will have here in one article, perhaps one of the most extensive explanations and defences from Scripture on why false guilt is not Biblical.
This is an extensive article and explains it in great detail, but for those of you who can’t read the long article, I would like to provide a brief hypothetical situation to help give you a very basic explanation of why false guilt is false. I hope this will provide a basic understanding.
Situation: Someone was raised to believe that you can’t (dishonours God and is Biblically wrong) wear jeans to church. If now, as an adult, they come to church in jeans and they feel guilt, are they in sin?
“No” (they are not in sin) answer:
Thinking brought over from the secular realm would say, no this is false guilt as that is a standard, not from God’s Word, but from human legalism. So no sin and you should not feel guilty as it is a false standard. However, this is secular in thinking and not true, so false guilt is a false idea.
“Yes” (they are in sin and guilty) answer:
There is, actually, some objective guilt here. You embraced a standard that was not from God and put it on par with God’s standards. That is sin, that produced guilt, therefore you need to repent of that sin, and then seek to change your standards regarding what to wear to church to God’s standard for the future.
Paul tells us that “if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean” and that “everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:14, 23). So for you to wear jeans on that day, believing that this was violating God’s standard, you went against your conscience and even though your conscience was not informed by Biblical standards, Paul says to violate one’s conscience is sin (if you regard something as unclean, for you it is unclean).
The Bible teaches that a clear conscience does not guarantee you are not in sin. However, on the other side of things, if you violate your conscience, for any reason, you are in sin. You willfully went against what you thought was wrong, thus you were not focused on honouring God, obeying Him, but were focused on self or your own desires or beliefs, so that is sinful, hence real objective guilt for that sin, thus a real need to repent.
So from this hypothetical situation, we can see two realities, if we have what is termed “false guilt”, meaning we sense that we are guilty about something, that was not a sin in Biblical terms. That sense of guilt is not false, but not for the reasons we think. Two normal or typical sins are still present, even though the content of the thing pressing on our conscience, isn’t an actual sin (why people tend to think of this as “false guilt”).
- Any and every time we do or say something contrary to our own conscience, our conscience is warning against something or encouraging to something, yet we do the opposite, this is sin. According to Romans 14, to violate one’s conscience, even if the conscience isn’t informed by a Biblical standard, is sin.
- Any time we don’t honour God by obeying our conscience, but instead we follow our own desires, that is sin.
Both of these are real, objective guilt, and require ownership and repentance.
HERE are some helpful questions to ask when you feel guilty, and some more examples to help you think through this.
Third, there is biblical help available on a wide range of topics that affect our daily life, beyond just information on false guilt. I would love to let as many as possible know about a great (free) resource you have access to. It contains an amazing library of articles and blog entries as well as podcasts. This is a trusted ministry resource we are closely associated with in our Soul Care Ministry called ACBC – Association of Certified Biblical Counsellors.
You can find dozens of great articles HERE on a wide range of topics related to suffering, sin, trials, etc.
And HERE you can find over 500 trustworthy podcasts (many, if not most are transcribed so you can read them as well). This covers pretty much every topic you would want to learn something about regarding human suffering, struggles, trials, issues, etc., etc., all tackled from a trustworthy Biblical basis.
Blessings,
Norm
