Guilt or Grace?

February 17th 2025. I have always believed in the Doctrine of Grace since I became a Christian at the age of 14, but it is taking a lifetime to really grasp the meaning and scope of it. Early on I learned the acrostic-definition God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Also I learned it’s connection with the doctrine of Justification by Faith, especially when it was explained that to be “justified” meant “just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned”. My theological studies, confirmed by my relations with other church ministers, taught me that Grace was very much a Protestant doctrine – borne out at an ecumenical fraternal in the 1970’s, when – during a discussion about Believers being assured of Heaven – the Catholic Priest chipped in “…..as long as they’ve toed the line!” (To be fair, this view of Catholic priests as having no doctrine of Grace, was reversed over twenty years later, when at a public ecumenical meeting to understand our denominational emphases, a visiting Catholic theologian presented such a refreshing exposition of the Doctrine that I doubt Luther or Calvin could have bettered!)

To come back to my title, Guilt and Grace are mutually exclusive. Coming to a decisive faith at the age of fourteen, I was expected in my evangelical church youth fellowship to give a Testimony – regularly! You heard some that seemed a bit far-fetched – like “I lived a life committing terrible sins, then I was gloriously saved – at the age of five”! (I am exaggerating!) But, coming to faith as a teenager, when hormones could be running riot without permission, and there were girls in the group, there were plenty of reasons to confess sinful thoughts to God at bedtime prayers! For me, personally, it took decades before I really grasped the full meaning of Grace (and it was the “Freedom in Christ” course, mentioned in an earlier post, that helped me with this). I came to realize that (a) no sin that I might commit will make God love me less, (b) no form of ‘penance’ (not the same as repentance) will cause God to love me more, (c) Satan will have no grounds on which to accuse me before the Father, and (d) even though nothing that I do, say, or think escapes God’s notice, he chooses only to see me clothed in the pure righteousness of Christ!

Guilt, as I have come to realise, is quite useless at enabling me to turn away from a bad direction I’ve been going in. Satan loves us to wallow in guilt and make us feel we will never get better so there’s no point in praying about it. The only ‘effort’ that we can exercise to change a sinful direction or pattern is to Believe God for the salvation he wrought through Christ at Calvary, and to thank him for the Grace he showered on us with forgiveness and Holy Spirit-renewal!