Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Making All Things New For Ordinary People

Both Powlison’s article Making All Things New and the movie Ordinary People touch on aspects of life that I have struggled with for a long time: the issues of guilt and shame. I think the difference between these two have often been elusive to people. Moreover, the results of both guilt and shame, if gone unchecked or dealt with in an unbiblical way, lead to a life of morbid introspection, ingratitude, and hopelessness which the world tends to simply call low self-esteem.

In both the article and the movie, these two components of the aftermath of sin show up in the realm of sexuality. Although this plays a very small part in Ordinary People, the main character, Conrad, states that one of his problems is that he masturbates too much. He feels the guilt and shame about it, and brings this issue up several times. It seems that he is using this self-pleasure as a way to try to dull the pain of shame and guilt he has surrounding his brother’s death. While anger and self-forgiveness are the issues that the counselor deals with, the issues of guilt and shame are left uncovered.

I suppose that these two elements are dealt with in a round about way, through this idea of self-forgiveness. I went through a similar form of counseling with a Christian counselor who was greatly influenced by the cognitive-behavioral field of psychology. I was told that I needed to forgive myself and love myself or I would never be able to truly love my neighbor- you must love your neighbor as yourself. However, God revealed to me in subsequent years that what the world calls low self-esteem is not a lack of love for one’s self. Ephesians 5:29 says “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it”. Sin by definition is a love and worship of one’s self. Furthermore, if a person’s guilt and shame can be wiped away by the blood of Christ, people must hold on to these feelings for some self-serving purpose.

Powlison bluntly points out that guilt “exalts you opinion of yourself as supremely important; shame exalts the opinions of other people” (Sex and the Supremacy of Christ,74). What powerful statements. When we feel guilty, we turn in on ourselves and put all our hope and confidence, which manifest themselves in a lack thereof, in our self-evaluation and self-adjudication. Conrad did this, believing that he was unworthy of love and acceptance of others, especially of his mother, because of the events surrounding his brother’s death.

When we feel shame we hold to the thought that no one thinks well of us, that others have the same negative opinion of us as we do of ourselves. Therefore, any labels the world may throw out at us stick, and we begin to assess our identity by these labels. What is not addressed is the fact that Christ died on the accursed cross to bear our shame as well as our guilt. As Christians, our identity is in Him, not in how we might be labeled by the world or by ourselves.

In a sense these feelings of unworthiness that accompany guilt and shame are true. We are sinners deserving of nothing but death and eternal torment. But these feelings that are derivative of our sin ought to drive us to the throne of grace where sins can be eternally forgiven, leaving us free of both guilt and shame, Christ having born both on the cross.
This truth is not easy to appropriate, however, especially in the face of these feelings. I know the following quotation from Powlison is true by experience, but the road to understanding this and living by it was a long and difficult one:

"If the Lord is merciful, then mercy has the final say. It is beyond our comprehension that God acts mercifully for his sake, because of what he is like. Wrap your heart around this, and the aftermath of sin will never be the same. You will stand in joy and gratitude, not grovel in shame. You’ll be able to get back to the business of life with fresh resolve, not just with good intentions and some flimsy New Year’s resolutions to do better next time. This is our hope. This is our deepest need. This is our Lord’s essential, foundational gift" (74).

Although the Lord has given me much victory in this battle, I still at times find myself wrestling with feelings of worthlessness and self-pity. I pray that the Spirit of God will bring these issues into the light and expose them for what they are: sinful self-love. But more than that I pray that the Lord will continue to conform me more and more into the image of His Son, so that there is less and less guilt and shame that I have to process.

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