Guilt as an Objective Reality

Sin, guilt, and forgiveness constitute one of the main themes of Scripture. In the gospel of Luke, we have seen how the pardon of sin is an important aspect of the work of the Lord through our study of stories such as Jesus’ healing of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof by his friends and the sinful woman’s anointing of Jesus (Luke 5:17–26; 7:36–50). We will now pause our study of Luke to consider the theme of divine pardon, using Dr. R.C. Sproul’s teaching series Guilt and Forgiveness as our guide.

It is important to remember first and foremost that guilt is an objective reality that should be distinguished from guilt feelings. After all, it is possible to be guilty of transgressing God’s law and have little if any sense of guilt over it, and we are all likely familiar with the phenomenon of false guilt, of feeling as though we have violated the law of God even though we have not actually broken a specific commandment. Notice the references to sin and the law of God. In Scripture, righteousness is always measured by a fixed standard, and that standard is the law of God. In Paul’s exploration of the universality of sin in Romans 1:18–3:20, the Apostle makes it plain that sin occurs when we violate God’s moral law, whether we know that law from its placement on our consciences, its appearance in Scripture, or both. No one has kept this law perfectly, and in fact we have directly violated it in many ways, leading to the inescapable conclusion that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). It is objectively true that “none [but Christ] is righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10).

Guilt and guilt feelings do not always coincide, but God’s moral law enables us to determine the true status of our guilt regardless of our feelings. All people have a basic knowledge of this law because our Creator has placed it on our consciences (Rom. 2:14–16). Having access to the Scriptures gives one an advantage because in the written Word of God we find the moral law confirmed and laid out in greater detail. Yet no one is totally bereft of the knowledge of God’s basic requirements, even a person who has never read the Bible. The law is on the conscience of every person, and deep down, awareness of it remains even when we suppress it and do not experience feelings of guilt that correspond to our guilty consciences. We have a point of contact with non-Christians, for they really do know the moral law, and we can appeal to it when preaching the gospel to them.