The Impossible Burden (of Self-forgiveness)
How many times have you heard those words? Maybe they came from a friend, or a counselor, or a book you read. Maybe you’ve said them yourself to someone you care about, someone you want to set free from the burden of guilt and self-condemnation. I’ve heard and said them myself. I’ve tried to follow those words, but the burden of guilt never went away.
I’ve lived a sinful life. I’ve said and done many things I am deeply ashamed of. I’ve hurt others and disgraced myself. And there are witnesses—people who will never forget, and people who will never forgive. How can I be free from the burden of all that guilt and shame? I can’t undo what I’ve done. And I know, deep in my heart, that I have no more authority to forgive my own sins than I have the right to forgive my own debts.
After King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged the murder of her husband, Uriah, he cried out to God in a prayer that is shocking unless you understand the nature of sin:
“Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight” (Ps 51:4a).
“You only?” But what about the murdered man? What about the exploited woman? Don’t they matter? Yes, Uriah and Bathsheba mattered. But they mattered because God said they did. It was God, who created mankind in His own image, who said, “You shall not murder” (Ex 20:13). It was God, who designed marriage to be a picture of His own faithfulness, who said, “You shall not commit adultery” (Ex 20:14). I am not the righteous standard. My pride is not the judge, God is.
David understood that every life he destroyed was God’s, and every law he broke was God’s. Though he had disgraced himself and destroyed his own reputation, it was not his self he had offended, it was the God who made him, the God whose image he was called to reflect to the world. And so, David knew where he had to go with his guilt, to the same God whose law said that he deserved to die—not once, but twice— for his crimes. “Hide your face from my sins,” David cried, “and blot out all my iniquities” (Ps 51:9).
Was David ever able to look himself in the mirror again? We don’t know. What we do know is that looking at himself was not his concern, “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me” (Ps 51:11). What David cared about was not being able to look at himself in the mirror, it was being able to look God in the eye—the God who loved him, the God he had betrayed.
This is how I came to Christ, and, if you are a Christian, this is how you’ve come, too—with nothing but a load of sin and guilt for Him to absorb, and with one great hope, that “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6b). God’s is the only judgment that matters. Christ is the only sacrifice sufficient for our sins. And when we realize what it cost Him to forgive us, our self-image becomes of little consequence. When we look in the mirror, it’s His face we want to see.
Have you sinned? Are you trying to escape your feelings of guilt and shame? Stop trying to forgive yourself. You don’t have the right. Look to Christ. Let go of the impossible burden of self-forgiveness and accept His.
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Mt 11:28-30).
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This article was originally published here in August of 2020. I chose to re-run it because my pastor was preaching on a passage that twenty-five years ago sent me running hard and fast away from God. At that time the Sermon on the Mount was presented to me as a new and more terrifying law than the one that thundered from Sinai. Divorced from the voice of our “gentle and lowly” Savior, condemnation was all I could hear. In my pastor's sermon, however, heard Christ’s words married to the Gospel—the good news that he came to perfectly fulfill God’s Law and to pay the penalty for our sin. He didn’t come to condemn us; we were already condemned. He came to save us! He didn’t come to add to our burden of sin but to take it away. My prayer for you today is that you will not give up hope, or live in fear, or hide from God as I did, but that you will run hard and fast to him, confess your sin and receive with gladness the forgiveness he paid for with his life but freely and joyfully gives.
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