To discover the purpose of guilt and what to do with it, we have to go back to the beginning. The day that Adam and Eve broke the rules given to them changed history. Along with anger, depression, and blame, guilt entered the world that day. With guilt came fear and judgment. Fear always accompanies guilt, and guilt always accompanies judgment—since judging can’t take place without a pronouncement of guilt, which induces a fear of punishment. What a mess. We do something wrong and see ourselves as guilty, and once we do that, we live in fear of being punished for wrongs, or insist on the punishment. If that’s not bad enough, since we believe we’re guilty, that means we see everyone else as guilty when they mess up, too. John Jacob Raub, of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky and author of Who Told You That You Were Naked? writes:
When we see others are not what they "should be," it merely reflects what we
feel—that we are not what we "should be." If we see guilt and punishment as
our due, we will automatically see the world as guilty and deserving of
punishment. All the judgments, condemnation and punishment we are
unconsciously putting on ourselves for not measuring up, we put on them (others)
for not measuring up. Others and situations become the arena where we play
out our inner sense of guilt and self-punishment. We couldn’t see others as bad
and hurt them, if we hadn’t first seen ourselves as bad and hurt ourselves.
Self-punishment! That’s hell! After Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit:
"Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized (judged) that
they were naked (bad)" (Gen 3:7). God did not say to Adam that he was
naked, that he was bad or that Adam was guilty. God did not make those
judgments against Adam. Adam said this about himself. He judged himself.
Can you see the domino effect of guilt? If an opinion is formed that you’re bad or inadequate, that has an impact on how you see other people—bad and inadequate, too. If you’re bad and inadequate, you can’t possibly feel good about yourself at the same time. So then, a self-love that measures zero influences the relationship you have with yourself and others, and not in a good way, AND that determines your course in life. You can’t be financially successful if you don’t believe you deserve to experience financial success. You can’t be loved if you don’t believe you deserve to be loved. It’s difficult to know if a feeling of low self-worth creates guilt, or whether guilt creates low self-worth. In his book, Guilt & Grace, Paul Tourneir titled the first chapter "Inferiority and Grace." He argues that there can be no clear distinction between guilt and inferiority since all inferiority is experienced as guilt. And isn’t that the truth?
Some people are like the man who wrote to the IRS stating, "I can’t sleep, my conscience is bothering me. I feel so guilty. Enclosed find a check for $50. If I still can’t sleep, I’ll send you the balance." In the source of truth—the Bible—the word conscience doesn’t appear in the Old Testament, and although it’s used 31 times by New Testament writers, the word is never clearly defined. Despite this, it’s fair to say that Christians connect a guilty conscience with sin. You sin, you feel guilty. You regret it, you feel like a louse. But, what is sin? And, who defines a wrong?
The Biblical word for sin is hamartia (ham-ar-TEE-ah). It literally means "missing the mark." Notice it doesn’t mean you’re a worthless worm deserving of a seven-year locust infestation. The New Testament uses the word "sin" to describe wrongdoing—missing the mark. Adam and Eve were the original owners of concrete wrongdoing. Yet, Scripture doesn’t define guilt as a feeling like we do when we feel guilty.
Biblically, true guilt is a state, a condition; not a feeling. The Bible says true guilt is a condition—a state of responsibility for a misdeed—not an emotion (Matthew 1:21, Acts 22:16, Hebrews 1:3, Hebrews 8:12, Revelations 1:5). The Apostle Paul wrote that our state of conscious is the result of moral principles that are "written in" our human hearts, and placed in us by God, before we were able to even think about right and wrong (Hebrews 8:10). Well, if true guilt isn’t a feeling, then what are those icky, haunting, lousy feelings we experience with sin?
Those icky haunting feelings of self-contempt and self-condemnation that rip through us when we’ve done something wrong, or failed to do something right, are not from true guilt. Feeling like a louse isn’t the result of true guilt—it’s the result of shame or false guilt. Before The Fall, it appears Adam and Eve never experienced a condition of true guilt, or shame that occurs from false guilt. They wouldn’t have known either if Satan had left them alone, and today Satan still uses guilt to produce lousy feelings of shame, if we allow it. The sole purpose of a true guilty condition is to inform us that something isn’t right within us; it’s a sign that our heart and soul is in an unhealthy state and in an unhealthy relationship with God. True guilt serves as a truth serum that lets us know that we’ve sinned. It’s that gentle feeling of remorse brought about by the Holy Spirit that nudges us when we’ve disobeyed God.
There are two forms of guilt—true guilt and false guilt. Guilt is either a true, real condition, or a false, unreal condition. The condition of true guilt exists when you disobey God’s teachings. A guilty condition prompts you to confess, repent and seek God’s forgiveness. Since Jesus Christ died for the punishment of your sins and to restore your original favor in God’s eyes, God forgives your disobedience permanently and you are again, blameless and guiltless in Heaven’s eyes. False guilt is experiencing the same condition when you haven’t disobeyed God’s teachings, or when you have disobeyed, repented, but the state of guilt remains. If you’ve disobeyed God, confessed and repented, and still experience guilt, it’s a false guilt. If you haven’t disobeyed God’s teachings and experience guilt, it’s a false guilt.
When confession doesn’t seem to restore you there’s a reason. You can agree that something is true only when you’re not agreeing with something else that’s opposite at the same time. You can’t believe that you’re worthy and accepted by God when false guilt is very much alive in you in the form of self-degrading thoughts. You can’t agree that opposite truths are true. You need to reject Satan’s lies and cease believing them—including those you’ve told yourself about your inadequacy and weaknesses. You can’t be involved in the murder of your own design and creation, and at the same time agree that you’re God’s worthy and special child.
False guilt is shame. Shame destroys and devours your true identity convincing you that you’re undeserving, inadequate, and rejected by God and deserving of rejection by others. Shame causes an incorrect view of yourself. Shame chains you to a prison of fear—fear of punishment, fear of rejection, fear of your adequacy, and fear of God. In shame, you live in fear. Shame says "you’re a mistake, you’re bad." You may feel bad for existing, for being alive, for having needs, although Scripture NEVER says that it’s bad that you exist. God never tells you that it’s bad that you’re alive. In fact, God tells you just the opposite. John Jacob Raub writes:
We are tempted to deny our true identity as God’s free children, and instead
choose guilt over innocence, punishment over pardon, slavery over freedom,
and these destructive choices can be made in an almost infinite number of
ways—conscious or unconscious—both equally deadly. Fear of punishment
leads to self-punishment. What we fear we do to ourselves.
For those with the condition of false guilt, no amount of compensation can remedy it. It’s a sentence of self-punishment that often lasts a lifetime. In Boundaries, Dr. Townsend and Dr. Cloud write:
People who have an over strict, critical conscience will condemn themselves
for things God himself doesn’t condemn them for. They’re afraid to confront
their unbiblical and critical internal parent. When we give in to guilty feelings,
we are complying with a harsh conscience. This fear of disobeying the harsh
conscience translates into an inability to confront others because it could cause
more guilt.
Correcting false guilt requires that we take responsibility for our actions and refuse to take responsibility for the wrongs or sins of other people. Some people would rather take the blame for what someone did to them rather than face the imperfections in the person who did it. Some people would rather take the blame and take responsibility for a parent’s mistake than admit that the parent made one. In their book Boundaries, Dr’s. Townsend and Cloud refer to guilt as an "internal should." They argue that due to God’s Grace, guilt is not from God, but from a controlling, critical parental voice in our head. God never uses guilt to shame, criticize, or punish you. God never uses false guilt or shame, period. A critical, guilt producing conscience is not from God.
When you stop and correct your thinking, you’re in the process of transforming your life. You change your life by changing your thoughts. And, if you’re not happy and successful, you’re not thinking the right thoughts. Norman Vincent Peale writes in The Amazing Results Of Positive Thinking:
The Bible says " . . . be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans
12:2). Thoughts are things. Thoughts are dynamic, thoughts are vital and
creative, thoughts actually change conditions. If you hold defeatist thoughts,
hate thoughts, dishonest thoughts, failure thoughts—these are destructive. If you
have honest thoughts, love thoughts, if you have service thoughts, success
thoughts—these are creative. By the renewing of your mind you can be
transformed as a person. Your condition may be transformed by the substitution
of positive thinking for negative thinking.
To become the happy and successful person you want to be, it’s necessary to learn from mistakes and sins, then forget them and go forward, not backwards by recalling them. "Forget those things that are behind, and reach forth unto those things which are ahead," (Philippians 3:13). When you stop resenting yourself and others, when you forgive yourself and others, your mind and heart are now in a position to receive the happiness and success you want. When you live with gratitude, minus the thoughts about what you lack, and share your blessings with others, your heart and mind are now in a position to receive abundance. Happiness, success and abundance don’t come from simply praying for them, you have to think them, they have to be a part of the thoughts you choose to focus on.
The best cure to all the reasons why we feel guilty is to believe the truth and reality of God. He asks us to keep learning and growing as Christians. He disapproves of sin and disobedience and He sacrificed His Son so we could find forgiveness and life in abundance. Surely, He doesn’t want us to wallow in self-condemnation and guilt. Such an attitude has no Biblical basis and insults His sacrifice—His Son’s death in our place. The ultimate answer to guilt isn’t found in psychology—it’s found in the Biblical teachings about forgiveness. Because God forgives, we can be forgiven. Because God forgives, we are forgiven. And our guilt is vanished. Poof!
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