Guilt

Answerable to God

Theology has long spoken of two sides of sin. One is corruption, the way sin defiles and twists us; the other is guilt, the sinner's liability before God's law, deserving its penalty. The law speaks "so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God" (Romans 3:19). Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at one point "is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10).

The Old Testament word often translated iniquity, avon (עָוֺן), can mean, as the context requires, the wrong done, the guilt it brings, or the punishment it deserves. Sin, guilt and penalty belong together. So David, having confessed, says to God, "You forgave the guilt of my sin" (Psalm 32:5).

Guilt is not the same as feeling guilty. A dulled conscience may feel nothing while guilt remains; and a troubled heart may go on accusing us of what God has already forgiven. To such hearts John says, "Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts" (1 John 3:20). Paul likewise distinguishes godly sorrow from the "worldly sorrow" that "brings death" (2 Corinthians 7:10).

Christ bore our guilt

The gospel shows how guilt is taken away. God did not overlook sin; he laid it on the one who had none.

We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:6

Isaiah says the servant's soul "is made a guilt offering" (Isaiah 53:10): the asham (אָשָׁם) was the sacrifice that made amends for guilt. "We are saved from the ruin, to which by sin we become liable, by laying our sins on Christ," writes Matthew Henry Matthew Henry. So "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). The Heidelberg Catechism confesses the forgiveness of sins in these words:

That God, for the sake of Christ's satisfaction, will no more remember my sins, neither the sinful nature with which I have to struggle all my life long; but graciously imparts to me the righteousness of Christ, that I may nevermore come into condemnation.

Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 56

The forgiven do not suppress their guilt; by faith they lay it down where Christ has already carried it. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1 John 1:9). That verdict is justification.

Where the traditions differ

Traditions differ over whether Adam's guilt reaches his descendants. Lutheran and Reformed churches teach that the guilt of Adam's first sin is reckoned to all humanity (see imputation). The Orthodox churches teach that from Adam we inherit death and corruption, but not his guilt. The Catholic Church describes original sin as a state we contract rather than commit, and teaches that baptism remits its guilt (see original sin).

They also relate guilt and punishment differently. The Catholic Church teaches that when sin is forgiven its guilt and eternal punishment are taken away, but a ‘temporal punishment’ may remain, the purifying of the disorder sin leaves behind, which is worked out through penance in this life or in purgatory Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Council of Trent condemned the claim that after justification no debt of temporal punishment remains Council of Trent, Decree on Justification. The Reformation churches teach that Christ's satisfaction removed both guilt and penalty, and that the hardships believers suffer are not punishment but the discipline of a Father: "the Lord disciplines the one He loves" (Hebrews 12:6). See the lesson The cross and atonement and What is sin?