How to forgive yourself; or instead....

by Dan Phillips

Tuesday, we springboarded off a WikiHow article on "How to Forgive Yourself." I concluded with this:

So where does this whole idea come from? I think a lot of it comes from psychologized, man-centered nonsense.

But I also think some of it doesn't, at least not as directly. I think some of it comes from Christians who have sinned, who know they've sinned, and who nonetheless continue in guilt and misery. What shall we tell them, then?

So, what of those situations? Since I'm not writing a book on the subject, let's just dart into some of the possible causes of a lingering, unassuaged sense of guilt:

FIRST: Given that "lingering" is a relative term, one possibility is that this is a normal part of the conviction process, part of the Holy Spirit bringing one to a full grasp of the enormity of what he's done. After David's sin with Bathsheba, the brief narrative alludes to no inner conflict within David; merely that he marries Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:27). Yet he himself gives us a window into his internal life in that period, in Psalm 32:3-4 --

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

I take it, then, that David was feeling the pressing weight of conviction for his unrepented sin during this period. The closeness he'd enjoyed with the Lord was gone, and he was haunted with nagging guilt and restlessness (cf. Proverbs 28:1, 17).

In this case, the confrontation by Nathan was the lance that pierced the boil and released the infection of truth-based guilt (2 Samuel 12:1ff.). The spear went straight into David's heart, he accepted the reproof, humbled himself, and repented. David found sweet relief when he confessed and acknowledged his sin, and knew the purifying and forgiving grace of God (Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 11; 51). The genuineness of his repentance was shown in part by how he accepted the consequences of his sin.

SECOND: injured pride. In this case, the stinging, lingering pain is not a heart aching over the affront done to God, and God's name and glory -- but the embarrassment of letting myself down. Here I'd thought of myself as such a fine Christian, and I did that. My friends so look up to me; what will they think? What will happen to my reputation? How could such a great guy/gal do such a thing?

All the worse if we've resisted rebuke for awhile, insisting that our sewage doesn't stink, that the sin we sinned wasn't sin when we sinned it. Then we feel we'd have to eat humble pie... which is exactly what we need to do. But our defense and attempted prettification of our sin didn't un-sin the sin, and if'we're Christians, we know that at some level.

In this case, Satan has successfully misdirected us. We've lost the whole focus of the situation. Sin is sin because it is an affront against God. What makes it awful is what it does to His glory, and what it cost Him to redeem us from it. There is no excuse and no buffer for it. Getting our eyes on ourselves and our own wounded dignity and majesty indicates that:

1. We think far too highly of ourselves; and
2. We think far too lowly of God

Only with such an orientation can we let loose with nonsense about needing / being unable to forgive ourselves.

In such cases, we must humble ourselves before God, ask Him to open our eyes to see our sin as He sees it, start analyzing it Biblically, and take it to the Cross.

THIRD: works-righteousness. This is related to the previous, though it feels more like humility. I cling to the feelings of misery and guilt and shame, because I have an unspoken (and perhaps unconscious) belief that I am myself atoning for my sin thereby. I am not bringing bulls or lambs or chickens to any altar; but I am bringing my frowns and moans and sighs and moroseness. Maybe enough of that will satisfy... will satisfy....

Well, whom? See, here's where we so often get mired in the bottomless swamp of our own subjectivity. Do we really think we'll appease God by these sacrifices? Odds are we don't really think it out that far, as we're being ruled by our emotions. The truth is, however, that it is ourselves we are trying to appease, and we cherish murky hopes of reaching some point of satisfaction that we have "suffered enough."

In this case, we must repent of our "repentance" that is not repentance. If we feel that our feelings (of misery) can atone for our feelings (of guilt), we haven't yet grasped the weight of sin as objective wrong against the holy God.

What is more, we have not seen that there is only one suffering that atones for sin, and it is not our suffering. It is the suffering of Christ that atones for our sin (Hebrews 9:26; 1 Peter 3:18). How can the Father declare that He is satisfied with Christ's suffering (Romans 4:25), yet we insist that we are not?

FOURTH is pretty obvious: we simply have not repented. Instead, we have rationalized our sin, redefined it in some way that it is not sin, made excuses and distractions and dodges and scenarios. God does not forgive rationalizations, He does not forgive excuses, He does not forgive dodges and blame-shifting. Those, we keep, until they neutralize our prayers and destroy us (Proverbs 28:9, 13a; 29:1). God forgives sins, when we repent of them as sins (Proverbs 28:13b; 1 John 1:9).

Nuts, isn't it? By our refusal to deal with sin as sin, we cling to it and all the miseries and harm that it brings in its train.

So we must repent, which is Bible-oriented and God-centered and involves specificity and mortification, and possibly a commitment to restitution (an essential element of mortification).

FIFTH, a simple lack of faith. Twenty-five years ago, I would have felt this was far too simplistic. But I've come to see that it's dead on the money.

Jesus announces that He is about to pour out His blood to establish the new covenant, with its element of the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28). He does pour out His blood, forsaken by God for our sins (Matthew 27:46), and announces that "It is finished" (John 19:30). He is buried. When He rises from the tomb, He signals the Father's acceptance of His sacrifice as sufficient to bring us a righteous legal standing before Him (Romans 4:25). In His blood, through faith, we have forgiveness and a fully-righteous standing (Romans 3:25; Ephesians 1:7).

It is for this reason that John says that, when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just/righteous to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Though we need not sin and should not sin, if we do sin we have an attorney to plead our case before the Father -- Jesus Christ, the righteous.

I want to close with that though, as developed to my own great comfort and encouragement by Charles Spurgeon. It comes from his meditation for the evening of October 4, and it's worth quoting at length:

“If any man sin, we have an advocate.” Yes, though we sin, we have him still. John does not say, “If any man sin he has forfeited his advocate,” but “we have an advocate,” sinners though we are. All the sin that a believer ever did, or can be allowed to commit, cannot destroy his interest in the Lord Jesus Christ, as his advocate. The name here given to our Lord is suggestive. “Jesus.” Ah! then he is an advocate such as we need, for Jesus is the name of one whose business and delight it is to save. “They shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” His sweetest name implies his success. Next, it is “Jesus Christ”—Christos, the anointed. This shows his authority to plead. The Christ has a right to plead, for he is the Father’s own appointed advocate and elected priest. If he were of our choosing he might fail, but if God hath laid help upon one that is mighty, we may safely lay our trouble where God has laid his help. He is Christ, and therefore authorized; he is Christ, and therefore qualified, for the anointing has fully fitted him for his work. He can plead so as to move the heart of God and prevail. What words of tenderness, what sentences of persuasion will the anointed use when he stands up to plead for me! One more letter of his name remains, “Jesus Christ the righteous.” This is not only his character BUT his plea. It is his character, and if the Righteous One be my advocate, then my cause is good, or he would not have espoused it. It is his plea, for he meets the charge of unrighteousness against me by the plea that he is righteous. He declares himself my substitute and puts his obedience to my account. My soul, thou hast a friend well fitted to be thine advocate, he cannot but succeed; leave thyself entirely in his hands.

Amen.

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How to forgive yourself: a Biblely appraisal

by Dan Phillips

Here's a site called WikiHow, which publishes a wild array of "how-to" articles. Some of the topics include:

How to appreciate death metal, mosh in a mosh pit, care for a library book, start a jazz collection, survive a freestyle rap battle, convert bicycle tires into studded snow tires, save money on gas, get out of a cellular service contract, open rigid plastic clamshells safely

Now comes "How to Forgive Yourself."

So, before reading it all though, here's the article I would write, were that the title I was assigned. Ahem.

There are two steps to forgiving yourself.

1. Make yourself God, so that your moral offenses are committed primarily against yourself rather than against God
2. Since you can't do #1, bail out on the whole project and come up with a more Biblely analysis of the situation.

The end.

I can hear what "Statler and Waldorf" (as Marley and Marley) from the Muppet Christmas Carol might say:

- That was the [article]?
- It was dumb!
- It was obvious!
- It was pointless!
- It was... short.
{pause}
- I loved it!
- I loved it!

However, the actual WikiHow article shows no concern with being Biblical, so it's a lot longer. It traverses the usual therapeutic route, viewing guilt as a negative feeling, a psychological rather than a moral/spiritual issue, and assuming that the sooner we're rid of it, the better. Period. Then a little video from some mind-science guru serves to poison-cherry the pie. The worldview assumed is relativistic and Godless (— did I just say the same thing, twice?), with me and my feelings at the center (— thrice?).

Puzzlingly, one of the contributors to this article bears the screenname 1sweetchristian, whose self-introduction says "Hi my name is Sarah. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am learning how to trust Him with all my heart and be obedient to His will." That is a wonderful goal, and may God bless her; however, I don't see any impact from that perspective on the article.

Sin is a word for which we should keep as strictly-defined a definition as possible, straying only under duress. The apostolic definition is lawlessness (1 John 3:4; cf. Romans 5:13). The definition from Piper's Baptist catechism also works: "Sin is transgression of the revealed will of God which teaches that we are to act in perfect holiness from a heart of faith to the glory of God."

The Bible is really serious about this. How serious?  Well, think of someone who really, really sinned badly against people — sexually used one, had another killed, betrayed the trust of scores and hundreds. Of course, you know I am thinking of King David. And you know right where I'm going, to his head-scratching confession in Psalm 51:4 — "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight." On the face of it, this is simply an absurd statement. "You only"? What of Bathsheba? What of his own wife/wives? What of Uriah?

Yet David knew the truth that most deeply offends atheist, humanists, everyone who's bought the big lie: sin is only sin because God defines it as sin. Sin is sin because God says it is sin. Spouse betraying spouse, children failing to honor parents, neighbor slandering or robbing neighbor — all these are sins because God says they are sins.

Apart from God, there would be no sin. All sin is, in the final analysis, against God; for without God there would be no sin. And so, as I have heard D. A. Carson say well more than once, in all sin, God is the primary offended party.

Back to the notion of forgiving yourself. It simply is faddish, man-exalting nonsense to speak of forgiving yourself. In your sin, you aren't the wronged party. If you (or I) really think that it is meaningful to speak of forgiving ourselves for our sins, then I don't think we've got that whole repentance thing straight. It isn't our own forgiveness which we need. It is, of course, God's forgiveness, a forgiveness that cost the Son of God His lifeblood (Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 9:13-14, 22; 10:4).

It is only meaningful to speak of forgiveness of ourselves, then (A) by God, (B) of sin (C) against God, extended to us only (D) because of the shed blood of Christ, through whom alone we can find forgiveness. Secondarily, it is meaningful to speak of horizontal forgiveness of people upon repentance (that is not the focus of this post; but I can recommend a great book on the subject). But we know that God does command us to repent of our wrongs against others, to pursue restitution for those wrongs. We do those things because God calls us to do them. He defines my sin against my brother, He calls me to repent and pursue restitution and reconciliation (and commands me to forgive those who repent of sins against me). It's still all about God, and it's a subject of direct Biblical teaching.

Forgiving myself, however? Never. Biblically meaningless at best.

"Ah," a deeper scholar might say, "but what of 1 Corinthians 6:18?"

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Yes, what of it? Would anyone argue that immorality is not a sin against God? That it is not a sin against the person used? Would anyone say that he should ask his own body to forgive him? Is it not fairly plain that the meaning is that the sin harms, wrongs, defiles the body — not that the body becomes the offended party, of which forgiveness must be sought and from which it must be received? How would such an apology proceed? Never mind, I don't want to go there.

Worse, the usual application is made to sins that really are clearly sins against God, and/or sins against others. The man who has committed adultery says, "God has forgiven me, but I just can't forgive myself." The woman who has failed her husband or her children in some way says "God has forgiven me, but I just can't forgive myself." And on it goes.

So where does this whole idea come from? I think a lot of it comes from psychologized, man-centered nonsense.

But I also think some of it doesn't, at least not as directly. I think some of it comes from Christians who have sinned, who know they've sinned, and who nonetheless continue in guilt and misery. What shall we tell them, then?

My, such a long post already.

Better finish up Thursday, Lord willing.

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Abortion, psychobabble, and the Gospel

by Dan Phillips

I haven't read this book about "silent sufferers of abortion" (the women, not the children) and, on the strength of the writeup, am unlikely to.

The writeup is titled "Encouragement to Embrace and Empower Silent Sufferers of Abortion." It is about women who have had abortions, and their spiritual problems. Among many other things, it says the book touts their "need to forgive themselves and realize that they are not alone...." The book will also explain (we are told)

• Why even pro-life women feel forced into abortions
• Why Christians should have compassion for those suffering from past abortions

Three thoughts push themselves forward:

First, fault me if you like, but I have deep care and regard for women who have repented after an abortion. I have in mind unbelievers who come to Christ, and look back on that sin, and see it for what it is. Equally, I think of ill-taught Christian women, who had been misled into thinking that aborting an inconvenient or imperfect child is a moral option, and then have come to grips with what the Bible teaches regarding abortion.

Some may barbecue me for this, but do you know how easy it is for a woman to rationalize this act, today? It takes clear-eyed moral courage to look at this act as God would, to shun the myriad of seductive rationalizations our lost culture (— and, God help us, some "evangelicals") offer, and to take responsibility for this sin as sin. I find myself at a loss to describe what I imagine that process must be like, emotionally and mentally — going from rationalization to realization, to repentance.

Second, I affirm with all my heart that there is absolute and full and free forgiveness in Jesus Christ for all women who have had, and have repented of, an abortion. I cannot imagine that I have forgiveness myself for my countless sins, but some other category of repentant sinner is denied forgiveness. After all, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), and his blood secures redemption and forgiveness from sin (Ephesians 1:7), and His death wipes all repentant, believing sinners' slates absolutely clean (Colossians 2:13-15). Sin is sin is sin.

My sins deserved an eternity in Hell. My autonomy, my rebellion, my arrogance, my disbelief, my blasphemy, my idolatry, the innumerable sins I committed in my mind and affections and imagination... all of them merited nothing but the raging hot wrath of God. None of them was excusable. None of them was someone else's fault. Every one of them was mine.

And Christ died to redeem me from every one of them.

Each sin is unique, and each sin is the same. Fatuous self-absorption is sin, no less than abortion nor any other. I think asking whether {Sin X} "can be forgiven" is less useful than asking whether sin can be forgiven. In that case, the Christian answer must be an unhesitating "Yes." Period.

HSAT:

My third thought is that I am extremely uncomfortable with the language of this article. My need, as a sinner, is never "to forgive myself." I am not the offended party in my sin, ever! The offended party is God, in any and every sin. It is His forgiveness I need; and I need the forgiveness of any human being I have wronged. But my forgiveness...? I think the very question puts me right back where sin started me: usurping the place of God. Speaking of the need for me to seek and find my own forgiveness for my sin puts me where God alone belongs.

Now, doubtless what people mean when they speak thus is often that I need to receive, accept, believe God's forgiveness. With that, I agree. But say so. Say that. Don't psychobabble.

Further, I'm uncomfortable with the "here's why {anyone} sinned, so feel compassion" line, as if a rationale for sin enables pity for the sinner.

Let me explain why, by shifting the discussion. I'm sure many readers are thinking, "How convenient for you, Phillips. How easy! You know you're not even biologically capable of being in this situation, so what a tidy, safe little target it makes for you." Understood.

So, suppose instead of a woman having an abortion, we were talking about adultery. No, I haven't done, and the very notion is a moral horror to me — but (unlike abortion) I am biologically capable. Can we use adultery, then?

So, we're talking about a man who has committed adultery. Should he forgive himself for it? Are you interested in a discussion of why he did it, so you can feel more compassion for him? Do you want to hear about how cold, distant, and disrespectful his wife was? Do you want to hear about how she shamed him publicly, and shunned him privately? Do you want to hear about our society, the pressure it puts on men, the allurements to infidelity, and so on?

No, I'm sure you don't. I don't, either! In fact, I'd bet cash money that the percentage of readers ready to sympathize with Sinner A dropped dramatically when I shifted to Sinner B.

But why? Is sin sin, or is it not? Are some sins special sins?

Now, let me be up-front as to why I belabor this.

First and briefest, this topic cries out for moral clarity.

Second, I am concerned whenever any sin is made more attractive by being made less repellent.

But third, I am concerned for the women themselves. The road of psychobabble and amelioration ("Sure-I-sinned-but...") is never the road to real healing and restoration.

Get this and get it good: rationalizations can't be forgiven. Mistakes can't be forgiven. Regrettable-but-understandable choices can't be forgiven.

But SIN can be forgiven through Christ, and is forgiven through Christ.

So what makes a sin a sin? What are the characteristics of sin?

• Sin is primarily committed against God
• Sin is always inexcusable
• Sin is always ugly
• Sin is always unnecessary
• Sin is so always so wasting and devastating and repellent to God that only the death of the Son of God could deal with it fully and finally
  

So you see, anything that dulls or pretties up any of those factors tends to un-sin sin; and if it isn't really sin, then it can't really be forgiven — and a sinner can't really be freed.

The paths of rationalization or amelioration are not the paths of real healing — for any sinner. By trying to improve on the Gospel, we end up doing actual disservice to sinners.

The book (we're told) is concerned with relief for the guilt of women who have had an abortion. Should they feel guilty? I would re-word the question: should a sinner feel guilty?

Yes. And that guilt should drive him to the Cross of Jesus Christ, where his or her guilt will find its one and only real, full, sufficient, objective, subjective, everlasting solution.

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10)

AFTERWORD: I'll add one last thought to an already-too-long post. To whatever degree the author's concern is born of any Christian tendency to treat repentant women who've had an abortion as if they're a special class of unclean pariah — I would share that concern. No redeemed sinner has the right to treat any other repentant, redeemed sinner with condescending, condemning disdain, as if your sin is more disgusting than my sin.

But that is perhaps a thought for another post.

POST-AFTERWORD: I just stumbled on a post from the start of the year that expands on some of the themes here.

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