Guilt and Shame Removed

by Rev. David Petersen

What is the Office of the Keys?*

The Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.

Where is this written?*

This is what St. John the Evangelist writes in chapter twenty: The Lord

Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven' (John 20:22–23).

What do you believe according to these words?*

I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.

We use the word guilt to describe the feeling of regret, sorrow, and responsibility that we suffer when we are aware of our sins. Guilt rarely abides only in our minds. We feel it in our backs or stomachs. We might be able to push it aside for a time, but then it haunts us at night and robs us of sleep.

King David prays, “When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer” (Psalm 32:3–4). Aware of our sins but left on our own, our consciences will either drive us to despair, like Judas and alcoholics everywhere, or become hardened to the point that we are little more than unfeeling sociopaths. We cannot live with guilt. It drives us to despair or turns our hearts to stone.

But guilt is removable. David continues, “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5). Iniquity is an old-fashioned word for guilt. We confess our sins to God, and for Jesus' sake, He forgives us. That confession expresses our regret and sorrow over our actions along with an admission of our responsibility and fault in hurting others. It also includes the hope that God is gracious and merciful in the Messiah and will keep His promises to us. So we confess with confidence, not in despair. “I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord” is the joyful and expectant statement of David as he turns from his sins and runs toward the promised mercy of the Lord. By grace, the Lord forgives. He removes guilt because He has offered Himself as the guilt-offering in our place.

Yet the consequences of our sin mostly remain. David found mercy, but his son by Bathsheba died and Absalom rebelled against him. If you have stolen from your neighbor, you should give back what you took. If your sins against God are also crimes against the state, you might well have to endure the punishment of the state. Your sins are no longer remembered in heaven. You will not be punished by God for your sins. The guilt is removed. But that doesn't undo the damage on earth; grace is not magic.

Along with removing our guilt, grace creates good works, including repentance, in us, so that we want to amend our sinful lives and make recompense for our sins where possible. All this is to say that the grace of God does not free us to sin or to profit from forgiven sins. Rather, it frees us from guilt, from that terrible feeling of sorrow and regret, which keeps us from sleep and robs us of peace. Forgiveness frees us from the punishments of hell and reunites us to God now. That freedom empowers us to live as God's servants, so we extend this forgiveness to others, and we also love and desire justice.

That creates other problems. The fallen world is not just, and our fallen minds struggle with idea of justice. In the West, we tend to think that justice means we are only accountable or responsible for our own actions. When people feel bad for things done against them or for the actions of their societies, we often call this false guilt. We would do better to reserve that term for the feeling of guilt people sometimes suffer over good works. For example, postpartum depression can create a false sense of guilt and mourning over newborn children. That terrible burden is a false burden created by Satan. The best word to describe the dirty feeling of rape victims, of those who have been slandered, or of those involved in fatal car accidents, is shame. It is not their fault and they are not to blame, but they are hurting and they need help.

Contact with evil, whether it is our fault or not, hurts us. It not only hurts us physically and psychologically but also spiritually. What victims say over and over again is that they feel dirty. What complicates things that our responses to evil events are rarely perfect. Often we did selfish or easy things along the way that wound up making things worse. And thus we feel both guilt and shame. It is often tough to know where one ends and the other begins. But in this sense, it doesn't matter, because what we need in all cases, for both guilt and shame, is cleansing and forgiveness. It really doesn't matter how much to blame we are, if at all, or whether or not we are compromised, or even if we did make it worse (which we can never know and is simply Satan sowing seeds of doubt upon us). What matters is that Jesus died to reconcile us to His Father, that He rose again for our justification, that He came take away our sins, our guilt and shame, and make us His. He loves David the sinner. He loves us just as much. So what you feel is real. It is not simply a mental problem. But there is a solution for your pain, for your guilt, and for your shame: the gifts of God in Jesus Christ—Holy Communion, Holy Absolution, Holy Marriage, Holy Word, Holy Prayer, Holy Baptism, Holy Hymns, and Holy Church.

Rev. David Petersen is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and is also on the Higher Things editorial board. His e-mail address is David.H.Petersen@att.net.