LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
The Place and Purpose of Guilt in Christian Counseling
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
10/2022
The Place and Purpose of Guilt in Christian Counseling
In order to pursue this matter as fully as possible, contrasting biblical teaching with
modern distortions, with the hope of arriving at the place where God wants us to be, I shall
focus for a time largely upon a book co-authored by Bruce Narramore and Bill Counts, called
Guilt and Freedom (recently changed to Freedom from Guilt).10 This book sets up most of the
issues among Christian counselors concerning the place and purpose of guilt. I shall set forth
some of its leading concepts, react to them and attempt to compare and contrast these with
what the Scriptures teach. The book represents—and, perhaps, best sets forth—what has
become a dominant strain of evangelical thought about guilt and forgiveness.
We must deal with guilt in depth because of its close relationship to forgiveness. The two
can never be separated without peril. Forgiveness involves guilt; it presupposes guilt. Guilt is
culpability for wrong done to God or God and man. All the words for forgiveness, as we have
seen, have to do with lifting the burden of guilt, with canceling the debt charged to our
account, with removing what was held against us. Narramore and Counts (from now on
referred to as N/C) have chosen to discuss a very important subject; the only problem is that
they try to lead us into a freedom from guilt by a way that, while purporting to be biblical, is
not.
What is the purpose of guilt? N/C claim that guilt fails to achieve any good purposes. This
is a strange claim to those who know their Bibles. The Bible, throughout, assumes what we
have all experienced: that God made us so that we have a sense of guilt11 whenever we are
guilty of wrongdoing. That is to say, the awareness that one has done wrong leads to bad
feelings. The conscience (the capacity for self-awareness and self-judgment, leading to self-
condemnation or exoneration) in such situations triggers bad feelings in order to warn us that
something is wrong and must be dealt with. That is the standard, traditional viewpoint that
most Christians have taken of the totality of biblical teaching: A sense of guilt is an alarm and
motivating factor to lead us to repentance.
Not so, say N/C. They want to exchange all that sort of thinking for (what they say is) a
more scriptural stance toward this question. They speak of people who adopt the traditional
position as playing (or being in danger of playing) what they call “guilt games.” Because of the
sense of guilt (which they see as altogether wrong), Christians do such supposedly improper
things as trying “to obey the Bible to the hilt,” “admitting” their wrong and “asking
forgiveness.”12 But this is “too hard,” they tell us, and (anyway) many confess sin only to get rid
of bad feelings.13 Then, N/C say, all of this leads to “a solid conclusion—guilt doesn’t work”14
(the sense of guilt is what they are speaking about, remember). This solid conclusion, however,
constitutes a frontal attack upon the structure of man as God made him, and much of what God
is up to in His relationships to men if the traditional understanding of the Bible is correct. To say
that guilt is a “total failure,” as we are informed on page 33, certainly goes pretty far, and
assures us that what we are reading is not a slight modification of previously held concepts, or a
warning about abuses of them, but a radical and absolute denial of traditional interpretations
and an attack leveled at them because they see those interpretations as seriously wrong and
dangerous. That, in fact, is exactly what N/C are up to: they want to supplant the former view
with their own newer conception. What must we say about all this?
First, if N/C are correct, God must have wrongly made us. Forgiveness and confession of
sin are but a farce on the N/C system. They are merely words, drained of all their essential
content, into which new and strange meanings have been poured. Words are both
misunderstood and misconstrued; psychological content has been sewn up in them after pulling
out their biblical stuffings.
It is always important to ask (particularly in the field of Christian counseling) whether the
writer derives the meanings he gives to words as well as his ideational constructs from the Bible
through hard exegetical work designed to yield the correct biblical usage, or whether he obtains
them from an outside source. Are the terms used as their biblical writers used them, or have
they been shaped by the author of the book to fit a system of thought that he brings to the
Bible? Narramore accepts a good bit of Freudianism; does his Freudianism influence his
interpretation of the Bible? The answer is yes; many of the key scriptural terms have been
reworked to fit a modified Freudianism. The pigeon-holes are set up; Bible verses and terms are
then tucked into them.
Though at times (of course) guilt is ineffective—the Bible itself teaches that a sense of
guilt doesn’t always (or even most of the time) lead to repentance among men—that doesn’t
mean that it is wrong, or even ineffective. Because the majority head down the broad way to
destruction, does that mean that salvation is ineffective? God’s prophets plead, try to arouse a
sense of guilt, etc., but often the people will not heed. That doesn’t mean that guilt as a
motivator is a failure; it means that people may harden their hearts—even to such strong
feelings within. Moreover, to call the sense of guilt a “total failure” is far from the truth; the
Scriptures are replete with evidence to the contrary. And such language is not only an attack
upon a system, it amounts to a debunking of God’s own approach; throughout history God has
used this method (often very successfully!).
Again, to say that a sense of guilt was not built into man, but came only through parental
training (N/C) denies the obvious fact that Adam fled, covered up, blameshifted, etc., out of a
sense of guilt. Who was Adam’s parent? He had none. Unless you want to say that God
socialized a sense of guilt into him by His command, warning and penalty, you must say it was
innate. Either way, the Source was God, not human parents. When God asks, “Who told you
that you were naked?”. He refers to the awakening of the sense of guilt that Adam’s conscience
brought upon him when he sinned. Conscience—the capacity for self-evaluation and self-
judgment—had been there from the beginning, but until Adam sinned had always rendered a
positive judgment about his actions and attitudes. Now, with the sin, his conscience began to
accuse him and turned loose within him a feeling of misery that we call the sense of guilt. So,
then, even if the majority of sinners proclaim that their sense of guilt doesn’t motivate them
(this is questionable, however; it could be demonstrated that unsaved persons are motivated
by this sense of guilt to do all sorts of wrong things), that misuse of the sense of guilt does not
make it an improper motivating force (cf. Rom. 3:4). Norms cannot be set by how many people
do or don’t do something; we do not vote to determine what is and what isn’t righteous—God
tells us. The sense of guilt as a motivator, in a man who is basically oriented toward pleasing
God, does work—quite well!
What do the Scriptures themselves have to say about these matters? Psalm 51 sets forth
the traditional view:
Vs. 1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according to the
greatness of Thy compassion blot out my transgressions.15
This is a penitential psalm. After David sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba, and Nathan
exposed his sin in the nouthetic encounter recorded in II Samuel 12:10, he wrote this psalm. In
it he describes the misery of the period during which he impenitently refused to confess his sin.
The entire psalm exposes the inner misery of a man suffering from a sense of guilt. This
prepared him for the final confession to God when Nathan came.
Vs. 3. I am conscious of my transgressions and my sin is ever in mind.
He cannot get away from his guilt; it gnaws at him. The sense of sin dogs him day and
night. Now notice the next verse:
4. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Thy sight; so that Thou
are justified in Thy sentence and pure in Thy judging.
Was God simply smiling at David with no barrier between except those wrongly erected
by David himself? Was God accepting and nonjudgmental? That is what N/C want us to believe,
as they say later in the book. But look at the text—God had judged and sentenced David. It
looks as if there was a charge against him; he was liable to punishment. God declared David
guilty, and David said that He was justified and pure in doing so. Who is right? David or N/C?
Now look at verses 8 and12:
8. Cause me to hear joy and gladness, so that the bones which Thou hast broken may
rejoice.
12. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation.…
Clearly, David knew that it was God who brought the misery he was suffering into his life;
it was not some residue of poor parental socialization. It was God Who broke his bones (a
figurative expression denoting severe misery occasioned by excruciating pain. Few things cause
such sharp pain as broken bones). That sounds like more than the “constructive sorrow” of
which N/C will speak later on.
17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and penitent heart, O God, Thou
wilt not despise (cf. Ps. 34:18).
God desires broken hearts and spirits in His sinning children (cf. Joel 2:13).16 He brings
misery to break their rebellion, pride and self-centeredness. Brokenness, humility, is not wrong,
but to be sought. Who breaks the spirit and heart? God Himself. But He breaks them not to
leave them that way, as Isaiah said (58:15: He “t; cf. also Ps. 147:3).
God appreciates broken hearts in sinners; N/C tell us God doesn’t want them to feel bad.
They say that when you sin you ought not to feel guilty; instead, you ought to rejoice because
of what God has done for you in Christ. There should be no pangs of guilt at all. Clearly, David
and N/C are at odds.
But if Psalm 51 tells us that a sense of guilt is proper, Psalm 38 even more strongly says
the same thing. I shall not quote the psalm or even verses from it. Surely, there is no indication
that God smilingly accepted him in his sin, non-judgmentally looking upon him with favor, with
no barriers between.17 Rather we read of God’s “indignation,” “hot displeasure,” etc. That’s
quite a difference. God Himself has been shooting arrows into David (not literally, of course, but
in judgment); His hand has been resting heavily on David. Plainly, God was actively bringing
misery into David’s life because of his sin. There is no other way to read the psalm. The misery
of the sense of guilt is vividly expressed in verses 2–10; nothing could be added to make the
situation seem more miserable. It is all summed up in one succinct phrase: “I am anxious
because of my sin” (vs. 18b). What is going on here? God was at work bringing David to
repentance. God was chastening him, and if there ever was a picture of the sense of guilt, it is in
this psalm. And the misery of guilt could be removed only by confession (vs. 18a).18
N/C try to separate what they call “theological guilt” (culpability) from what they call
“psychological guilt” (the sense of guilt). The first, they call “and objective fact”; the second, a
subjective “feeling” (p. 34). This distinction is neat, easy and convenient; the sinner’s standing is
seen entirely apart from his state. Of course, there is a logical, paper disjunction that may
(must) be made for the sake of analysis. But unless one’s conscience has been “seared with a
hot iron” and he is “past feeling,” I would like someone to tell me how a Christian makes the
distinction in actual life. David couldn’t, Paul couldn’t, Peter couldn’t. How can a true believer,
who basically seeks to please God, acknowledge his guilt as an objective fact and not in some
way be inwardly moved by it? (cf. Ps. 38:18). A plainer invitation to antinomian Pharisaism
hardly could be imagined. The doctrine is dangerous. In counseling, should it catch on, it could
cause much damage. Fortunately, so far it does not seem to have been accepted widely.
N/C do allow for something that they call “constructive sorrow”19 (taken from II Cor. 7:8–
10), but they say that it doesn’t “involve feelings of self-condemnation.”20 In discussing their
obedience to his former letter regarding an offender, Paul does make a distinction between two
kinds of pain: worldly pain and godly pain (vs. 10). The word lupe, sometimes translated
“sorrow,” is the standard word for pain. Paul’s letter was so painful; he almost regretted
sending it (that doesn’t sound like taking a purely “objective” view of their sin!). But because of
the results (God used it to produce pain leading to repentance) he was glad he did. This was a
very painful sorrow that produced such results (among those for whom it was appropriate21) as
“fear” and “mourning” (i.e., wailing, lamentation—vs. 7). And its results were effective. The
description is not of a mild, objective response with some slight sorrow attached that led to
constructive action. Rather, the reaction was intense! tense! The entire section rings with strong
emotion. The distinction is not between two kinds of sorrows—different in intensity;22 rather it
is between two kinds of sorrows—both painful experiences that differ in source and result. The
sorrow that came from the world led to further sin, only to be the cause of further regret and
sorrow; that which came from God led to good results, never to be regretted. The problem was
not whether there was fear (there may be fear for different reasons) or not, but why the painful
experience occurred. Godly sorrow led to self-condemnation among offenders all right, but that
motivated them to repentance. In other words, godly sorrow over the guilt of one’s offenses
can be successful in leading to repentance. It is interesting that in the N/C book on guilt there is
virtually nothing said about repentance. Of course, that is consistent with the basic viewpoint of
the book. There is really no place for biblical repentance; that is why the concept is missing.
Biblical repentance always requires self-condemnation; confession of wrongdoing toward God.
But this godly sorrow, Paul says, led to repentance.
Triumphantly N/C say, “The Bible … never tells us to feel psychological guilt” (p. 36). Of
course, this is true, technically speaking, because it doesn’t use those terms. But the argument
is specious. The whole Bible stresses the need for sinning Christians to become aware, of, feel
sorry about and repent of sin. There is no call for morbid introspection; the sorrow always
should lead quickly to repentance. Perhaps James sums up the biblical position as simply as any
writer:
Be distressed and sorrow and cry; let your laughter be turned to sorrow and your
gladness to dejection. Be humbled before the Lord and He will exalt you (James 4:9, 10).
So God never wants us to feel bad! So He never erects barriers to be removed by
repentance! Nonsense!
N/C say that the “feeling” [regularly, they confuse judgments that lead to bad feelings
with feelings themselves] that “ I have failed; I should have done better” is wrong (p. 34). In
other words, repentance for a believer is wrong (the essence of repentance is to acknowledge
the fact that one has failed God and must do differently in the future). But I ask, was Jesus
wrong when, again and again, in the letters to the seven churches, He calls Christians to
repentance? Look at some of the detailed directions and comments that He gives along with
that call.
In Revelation 2:4–5, Jesus tells the Ephesian believers, “I have this against you” (vs. 4—a
phrase used throughout these letters). But to have (or hold) something against someone (we
have seen in our discussion of forgiveness) is to hold him guilty. N/C have no place for this;
there can be no barriers from God’s side. Yet over and over in these letters Jesus erects this sort
of barrier. Someone—Jesus or N/C—is wrong! The solution to the problem (i.e., what removes
the barrier Christ erected) is not simply to smile and thank God that all is well in Christ, but to
repent (vs. 5)!
When N/C claim that God doesn’t want us to have a sense of guilt arising from our sinful
failures and that He doesn’t motivate us by this sense of guilt, by feelings of “lowered self-
evaluation” or by “fear of punishment” (vs. 33), what do they do with the following passages?
1. Revelation 2:20–22. Is the “great affliction” of verse 22 to be feared? If so, why—if not
to motivate to change? Why are there such warnings throughout these seven letters, and
elsewhere in the Bible?
2. Revelation 3:2, 3. So, God doesn’t want us to say, “I have failed”? Why tell the saints in
Sardis, “I haven’t found a thing that you have done complete before my God”? They are to
“wake up” and “strengthen” the few bits and pieces that they have left—which are “about to
die”—or else (warning) He will visit them in judgment (“as a thief”). If Jesus hasn’t been
painting a picture of failure, what has He been doing? Nothing was done completely—
everything they started they didn’t finish, they ruined along the way, etc. Very little worthwhile
left—and that about to die: there is a picture of almost total failure. And for failing—unless they
repent—Jesus warns them to watch out for a judgment upon their church (motivation by the
sense of guilt and fear—just what N/C deny).
3. Revelation 3:16, 17. There must not be “lowered self-evaluation,” say N/C. Here Jesus
says, “You’re lukewarm” and you make Me sick; “I’m going to vomit you out of my mouth” (vs.
16). Just the words themselves tend to lower self-esteem (Haim Ginott, et al., would say talk
about the act; not about the person; Jesus doesn’t follow that advice at all)! But that isn’t all;
listen to what else He says, “… you say, ‘I am rich … and have need of nothing’” (vs. 17). Then
He continues, “and don’t know that you are miserable and pitiable and poor and blind and
naked” (vs. 17). If words ever were calculated to lower one’s sense of self-worth, these words
were.
4. Revelation 3:19. Here, in our last reference to the seven letters (there is plenty more; I
simply don’t want to waste space), Jesus sums up His purposes and methods; He lets us know
what He is up to in writing such things: “I convict and discipline those about whom I care; so be
zealous and repent.” When N/C speak about conviction and discipline, it looks quite different
from what we discover in these letters. In fact, we can say (without the slightest fear of
contradiction by unbiased readers) that Jesus and N/C are on opposite sides of this issue.
But notice it is pastoral “care” that Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, is exercising in
such treatment of His flock. But that care is so deep that He will not countenance for one
moment sins that destroy lives. Instead, by calling sin “sin,” by crushing pride, by warning of
potential punishment, by calling to repentance, Jesus wishes to bring conviction that motivates
a sense of sorrow over guilt and leads to change. He didn’t just smile and let it all pass by.
So, then, does God “make us feel guilty” as N/C put it (p. 36)? Is it possible to have what
they call “guilt-free living” (p. 37)? No. Not when Jesus treats us that way. And, thank God we
can’t—we would be totally unconcerned about God if we lived that way. Now, when they speak
of “guilt-free living,” they aren’t simply saying that if we didn’t sin we could live guilt-free. No;
exactly not that! We would all agree to that (theoretically possible) fact. What they are saying,
N.B., is that even while living a life in which we go on sinning we can still live guilt-free (i.e., free
from the sense or feeling of guilt)!23 Such thinking does not square with God’s encouragement
of a broken spirit and penitent (lit., “crushed”) heart (Ps. 51:7).
We have been looking at some prime issues raised by N/C. What do they offer in addition
on their non-judgmental system? With what would they replace the traditional view of
Scripture? With what they admit is a view that “may seem incredibly far out” (p. 36). I can only
concur in this estimate; their view is far out—outside the Bible. They warn against preaching
and counseling that (they claim) dumps guiltloads on people. Instead, as the title of the book
says, they claim to free Christians from a sense of guilt. How (we have already seen much of the
system)?
1. By reminding us that what Christ has done for us should bring us a glorious self-image.
This fact should carry us safely through sin-experiences, guilt-free (i.e., free from “psychological
guilt” = the sense of guilt). John Bettler has pointed out (see note 23 for source) that what we
need isn’t a good or bad self-image, but an accurate one. Then, we can deal with our problems.
Good self-images cannot be pumped up by telling yourself how great you are in Christ or by
trying to ignore the consequences of your sin before God. True, in Christ we are perfect; and
that is important. It is even very important for a Christian to know that this is true. But that
doesn’t alter the fact that in ourselves we are far from perfect. Justification (what we are in
Christ) must not be confused with sanctification (what we are in ourselves). What we are in
Christ gives us no warrant for ignoring the actual guilt in our own lives today, nor for not feeling
bad over it. Indeed, if anything, it should increase our sense of guilt. If we have already
achieved something in Christ that we are failing to do in ourselves, we know that it isn’t
necessary for us to fail. In Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 Paul’s constant argument is that since
you have something in Christ, you know you can have it in yourselves. He reasons: “Be (in
yourselves24) what you are (already in Christ); your state must measure up to your standing.” So
this argument—confusing sanctification with justification—fails.
2. Next, N/C say, “We are so valuable … that Christ paid the ultimate price to restore us to
fellowship with God” (p. 49). Is that why Christ died? Was it because we were so valuable He
couldn’t bear to lose us? Was the incarnation like Jesus crawling around on His knees in the
mud trying to retrieve as many precious pearls as He can? No! Where is the vaunted N/C
emphasis upon grace? There was nothing in us weak (no power), sinful (lawbreakers) enemies
(who opposed Him) to commend us to Christ. Our salvation is wholly of grace. We deserve
nothing but the opposite. What makes us valuable is Christ’s death; N/C have the trailer before
the car! What God told Israel again and again when their self-image began to balloon was, “I
didn’t choose you because you were any better than anyone else.” Unless N/C believe God
thought all human beings were lost pearls, what they say leads again to pharisaical views (of
course, if they do think all are pearls, they must think Christ failed, since most of the “pearls” go
rolling down the broad road that leads to destruction). Salvation is by grace.
3. Again, N/C prove themselves bad theologians when they say that not all that is good
comes from God (p. 52). Some (wrongly, they claim) teach that all good comes from God and
none from us. Rather, N/C affirm, much comes from us. They ask, “At what point does God end
and we begin” (p. 52)? No theologian would put the question that way (again, we see the
importance of theology rather than psychology as the basis for counseling): God never “ends”!
All the good that we do (and, against Charles Solomon, we do it; Christ doesn’t do it for us,
instead of or in place of us), we do by God’s direction and strength provided for us in the Word
and by the Spirit.
