Dale Johnson: This week on the podcast, I have with me Dr. Francine Tan. She works here at ACBC, is a recent graduate of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, with her PhD in Applied Theology. So grateful for her, she’s going to help me today to answer some of your questions.
I have to say, this is a fun segment for us to be able to hear some questions that you have. It lets us know how you’re processing some of the content that we’ve put out. I love this level of engagement and how information is hitting you, and then the questions that you have. It’s one of the most exciting things that I get to experience when I’m standing teaching with my students, and I get to have that level of interaction, and this is a fun way for us to be able to do that. The question today, Francine, that we’re going to wrestle with is, can we explain the relationship between shame and guilt?
Can we explain the relationship between shame and guilt? I think this is a great question, because I think really at base, these are the types of things that counseling, soul care, is really about. When we get to the bottom of it is, what’s appropriate in our feelings of shame, what’s appropriate in our understanding of guilt? Is secular therapy really just trying to eliminate this very natural thing that we would feel in shame and guilt? I think if you understand the history of psychology, you would know that one of the primary things that Freud was trying to accomplish was a re-explanation of the concept of guilt.
He was trying to remove the concept of guilt, thinking that that’s what led to all of the disorders, the concept of hysteria, neurosis, and psychosis, and so on. This is very much at the root of what’s going on. Now, let’s take this out of the theoretical, from the history of psychology and what it was trying to do, and let’s bring this into having a conversation biblically about this concept of shame and guilt. Let’s talk about that relationship between shame and guilt if we’re thinking about this biblically, Francine.
Francine Tan: Maybe starting with definitions, I would define guilt as the moral and legal condition of deserving punishment for either an omission or commission of sin.
So, a person may feel guilty, but the feeling is not the same as this legal standing before God where the person is factually guilty. So you can feel guilty and not be guilty, or vice versa. You can be actually guilty for omission or commission of sin, but your conscience is seared and you don’t feel it. So, for example, James says in chapter 2 verse 1, “Whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, he has become guilty of it all.”
Dale Johnson: That’s an objective reality, right? So, the Word is dictating that, and it’s not based on our feelings. And the reason I think we have so many pitfalls in the current world that we live in is we sort of associate truth, reality, and identity with how we emotionally respond to something, how we feel about something.
But the Word actually sets a standard that gives an objective idea of being guilty. And so, I think that’s an important nuance that we have to clarify there.
Francine Tan: And then in contrast, right, we would say that shame, it’s a negative, painful emotion of disgrace or humiliation. Lexically, the word originates from this old English word called skamu or schema, which means disgrace or “being in a state of disgrace or loss of esteem or reputation.”
Now the Bible used that in different occasions. I’m thinking about Philippians 3, in contrast to the false teachers, where Paul says, you know, these people glory in their shame. They should be ashamed, but they glory in it. Or Hebrews 12:2, where it talks about Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame. So Jesus despised the shame of the cross.
Now that means it is a condition that is shameful for someone to be hanging naked on a cross. Yet, Jesus steadfastly endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him. So then shame in the Bible, you know, it can refer to what is disgraceful, what is humiliating that would put someone in that situation.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, I think that’s helpful. To give a positive idea, Genesis 2, when Adam and Eve were made and they were, the Bible says, “naked and unashamed,” right? So there was a reality that they were living in a way that was fully exposed, but they were not ashamed. And that was healthy and good. You see a contrast to that in Hebrews 4:12-13, for example, “where no creature is hidden before the sight of God,” verse 13, he says, “nothing is hidden from His sight. All are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.”
Now in our exposure, post-Genesis 3, there is an ashamedness, right? We feel ashamed for who we are when that’s exposed. So this concept of feeling shame is legitimate and real. Now, sometimes we may ask the question, do we like that? I mean, nobody likes that.
That’s why we’re trying all these different theories to not feel that way. That’s why we do all the different things that we try and do to excuse ourselves or to run from these types of ideas. What’s most important for us biblically is there is a relationship between guilt and shame. So when you’re legitimately guilty, a proper feeling that you would have is shame. When someone sins against you in some sort of egregious way, a proper feeling that you would feel in that moment is to be ashamed, to feel ashamed of what happened to you.
Not that you’re responsible for that, but that it’s a proper feeling. When your sin is exposed by the Lord’s Word, there is a proper feeling of shame because you now recognize your guiltiness before the Lord. So there’s an appropriateness to this relationship that when I’m objectively guilty, a proper feeling that I would feel is shame. Now the beauty of the gospel of Christ is that we don’t have to be afraid of that guiltiness and the feeling of shame, because how the Bible describes the beauty of Christ and what He’s paid for is that now He clothes us in His righteousness. We are no longer legally guilty before God, and now we are no longer ashamed to stand in His presence because of the finished work of Christ and the renewing, the washing of the regeneration by the Word of our own hearts and what the Lord does. So now there’s an objective way that that is taken away.
So, it’s important that we start to build, okay, what is the concept, what’s the relationship? The Bible definitely gives a different perspective of these things, and it’s helpful to keep them in proper relationship as we think about it. This is why when you understand these concepts – guilt and shame – biblically, now you see the depth and beauty of the sufficiency of the Bible, that the Bible actually speaks so deeply to what it is that we as human beings wrestle with on a daily basis, with the struggles that we have in this sin-cursed world.
So, as we think about shame and guilt, it’s not only that there’s a proper measuring stick, but we also have to be careful that we can feel guilty about things that we’re not guilty of. We can feel shameful about things that we’re not responsible for.
The Bible definitely gives perspectives of things like that, as well as maybe a different spin on that. I think of Jeremiah 6, where the shepherds of Israel are feeding on the sheep rather than feeding the sheep. The Bible says that the Word of God is a reproach to the people. Their ears, he says, are uncircumcised, and that they go about committing abominations. So these are things that they should feel guilty for, because they’re abominations before God.
But now it says they go about committing these abominations, but they don’t even blush. They’re not ashamed of what they’re doing at all. So there’s a reality where we can do things that we are guilty before God and should be shameful for, but because we’re not raising the Word of God as the proper measuring stick, we don’t see ourselves guilty, and therefore we don’t respond appropriately with shame because of our own sin. So, we have to think about all these nuances.
Now the world, as the world experiences and understands these things, if they describe shame as the problem or feelings of guilt as the problem, then they’re going to do what the Bible is describing. How do we not feel guilty? One way that the Word diagnoses that we don’t feel guilty is remove the Word. Don’t consult the Word. Make the Word a reproach to you. Close your ears to what the Word has to say. Use some other measuring stick, whether that be some other moral standard, a cultural norm, a family of origin. All of these types of things now become a measuring stick by which our conscience is informed, and then our conscience, whatever it’s informed by, is what creates this concept of guilt, and then the feelings that come along with it in terms of shame.
If we’re wrapping all this together, essentially what we see is counseling systems are intended to be some form of addressing those issues of the conscience with guilt and shame, creating what normal humanity should be like, which is some sort of moral standard. When a person breaches that, meaning they feel disordered in some way, and then they’re giving some sort of offer of how to repair that, and that is work on the inner man, the conscience, if you will. And if it’s not aligning with the Word, it’s not properly helping us to feel guilt and shame, and then therefore we’re not properly looking for the right answer of which the Bible provides in abundance in the form of the work of Christ.
I ran through that pretty quickly, so slow us down and help us to think through some of that.
Francine Tan: So helpful, because any emotion or feeling, it is a light bulb that’s pointing to something at the heart level, that emanates from the inner man, as you so helpfully put it. So don’t ignore feelings of shame or guilt. Examine your heart. Go to God and His Word, not in an endless scrupulosity kind of way.
Pastor Robert Murray McShane helpfully says, “for every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.” So, if there’s any guilt from sin, confess it, and 1 John 1:9, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If there’s any shame as a consequence of sin, or rightly in a disgraceful situation, or you need to retrain your conscience against the culture, against what you’re in with the Word of God, and remember that what matters is how God sees you. And if you are in Christ, then He sees you as loved, righteous. Isaiah 1:18, washed as white as snow, or the Apostle John in 1 John 2 says, little children, abide in Him, abide in Christ, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.
Dale Johnson: I think as we talk through this, one of the things that the Bible really is helpful in categorizing for us are the things that we’re responsible for and the things that we’re not. Because sometimes we make ourselves feel guilty for things that we’re not responsible for, and with that comes some level of shame. And then we try to, you know, deal with that in lots of different ways. Retail therapy, or eating ice cream, or whatever it is that we do, that’s sort of how we respond to it.
We start this downward spiral of being trapped in our own devices because our thinking is then not consistent with what the Word says. We start to feel certain ways that are not consistent with the Word. It is such an important factor as we all grow in maturity to Christ that the primary aim of the Bible is to help our conscience now be radically transformed and molded to the Scriptures. And in that, it’s so helpful, it’s so freeing. Why?
Because it doesn’t mean I’ll never feel guilty again. In fact, I think that’s the opposite testimony, because the reality is, if you think of Paul, at the end of his life, he’s not just saying he’s the least of all the apostles, he’s now saying he’s the chief of all sinners. Why? Because now he sees even more clearly as the light of Scripture has been flipped on in the darkness of his own heart. As he lives life, he’s seeing just how wretched a man that he is.
But here’s the beauty of that: it makes Christ all the more glorious that Christ would save us even at that level of wretchedness. And so, as we grow in the Lord Jesus and our conscience is conformed to the Word, yes, we will see things in greater detail of what we’re genuinely guilty for. We may even feel that level of shame of who we are and what we’ve done at a given time.
But then we hear that call of Christ, because we know what the truth of Scripture is, is that, as you mentioned, He forgives, but He also clothes. He clothes in His righteousness, and we walk firmly, as Paul says in Ephesians 1: in Him. We walk in Him and what He secured on our behalf. And there’s a way to deal with not supposed shame, but legitimate shame that we feel. Legitimate guilt. And that the Lord has given answer for that.
And there’s such freedom and satisfaction in walking in the beauty of what Christ has done. We see Him all the more gloriously, because now we see the depth of our hearts in ways that we didn’t before. And now we understand the depth of the riches of the beauty of Christ in that process. So, this is a part of the relationship between shame and guilt. Helpful in clarifying those different aspects of the way that guilt and shame is presented to us, both in positive, right, consistent ways, and ways that we perceive things that are false and wrong. And so, the Bible is full of the dynamic of how we understand those things, and then how we respond appropriately to it.
Francine Tan: Absolutely. You know, as we go on in our walk with the Lord, we’re only going to see more of our need for Him, more of our sin, and then just marvel at so great a salvation we have in Christ. So they are opportunities to minister the gospel to the person sitting across you, to your counselee.
And, you know, and I hope too, you know, for our listeners, that this would be an encouragement for you not to despair or wallow in those feelings, but again, to keep turning to Christ, to keep looking at Him.
Dale Johnson: I like that you took it into the counseling room, because I think this is one of the most important things is, it is, especially when you’re early on in the counseling process with someone, or maybe you’re a novice at this process. When somebody feels guilt and shame, nobody likes that. We don’t enjoy that. Nobody enjoys that.
We feel, certainly, cultural pressure to do whatever we can to just, you know, make people not feel that way anymore. In reality, I think we can use the Scriptures to help explain what’s actually happening in the person’s life, whether it be good or bad, according to the Lord. And then we are able to then point them appropriately for whatever the need of the moment is, in a way that genuinely satisfies whatever their longing is in that moment. And the shame and guilt that we would feel, if it’s legitimate, is a longing that we have. That’s what creates a hunger and a thirst for us, of which we get the beautiful opportunity then to provide the wonderful water of life that satisfies every single thirst.
And this is the beauty of what we love about biblical counseling, is to see the Lord do that type of work in the hearts of those who are genuinely like us and very needy. So Francine, thanks for the conversation today. Listeners, thanks for the questions. It’s been really stimulating and very helpful to start to clarify and see how these things relate specifically in the counseling room.
