Guilt

Tonight we're on lesson six in our study of hamartiology. Two weeks ago we looked at original sin, which is a state that every single person is born into as a result of Adam's and Eve's fall. So we're all born in a state of corruption. We're all born in a state of sin. And last week Caleb taught us about depravity, how, because of that state of corruption that we're born into, everything about us is corrupt, right? Our will, our desires, our actions, our attitudes, our hearts, even our conscience is corrupt. That's part of depravity. We're radically depraved, meaning every part of us is corrupted by our original sin.

Tonight we're looking at guilt, which is also a byproduct of original sin. Whereas depravity deals with our subjective, meaning our internal falling, how we're corrupt on the inside. When we talk about guilt, we're talking about what we call our external relation to God, our objective results of depravity and of original sin. And that we are guilty before God. Our relationship with God is changed because of original sin. We deserve punishment. And then punishment will be what we will study next week in detail. So let's look at our handout. Now we're going to start with Bible point number one.

Guilt is humanity's merit. What does merit mean? Have any of you ever been in maybe Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or any type of thing? And do you earn a merit badge, right? Merit is something — what? It's something you earn, right?

Guilt is humanity's merit of punishment. We have earned punishment because of our sin, because of our rebellion against God. The holiness of God demands absolute conformity to His perfect character. That's a second blank, perfect character. Because God is holy, He commands us all to be holy as He is. That's the standard, is His perfect character, okay? Any shortfall of this perfection is sin.

Sinners are an affront to the holiness of God. When we say we're an affront to the holiness of God, meaning that we are a challenge to the holiness of God, that we are — you could even say an insult to the holiness of God — when we mean an affront to the holiness of God. The reaction of holiness against sin is God's wrath. Wrath is the third blank.

God must punish sin, and His punishment is just, and it's expressed in His wrath. God's punitive justice is over and against the sinner as something to be feared. We're never to take God's punishment lightly. You don't want to be punished by God, right? We were just joking how maybe when we're called as a youngster, our dad lets us off a little bit lightly perhaps, you know? But it's a little bit different with God. He cannot let you off. He must punish sin.

Guilt is thus the relation — that's the fourth blank — the relation of the sinner to God's righteousness. It is man's desert of punishment.

So guilt is all about our relationship with God. It's that God justly views us as unholy, and we merit condemnation. We merit punishment. We merit God's wrath. Look at Psalm 7:11. We often think of God as God is love, right? Because that is one of His attributes. So we know God as that, but God is first and foremost holy. Is He not?

And Psalm 7:11 says this, "God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day."

God's anger is a measured anger. It's a just anger. It's a firm anger, a righteous anger that's totally set against sin. And sin should cause us to be angry, right? I'm not talking about an unhinged, fly off the shelf kind of anger, but a cool settled anger because it's against the character of God, it's rebellion against God. And so God is angry with the wicked every day.

Flip over on the back.

Romans 1:18. Many of you know this verse by heart. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men."

Is there any ungodliness? Is there any unrighteousness of men that does not have the wrath of God for its answer? No. It says all — all of our unrighteousness, all of our unlikeness to God is met by the wrath of God.

John 3:18, we read a couple of weeks ago, saying that even our unbelief merits condemnation, right?

And then of course, John 3:36 says, "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." The wrath of God abides on everyone who does not believe in Christ because they are unrighteous and they're apart from the blood of Jesus. So therefore they stand under the full condemnation of God. They deserve that punishment because of their rebellion, because of their original sin, their share in Adam and Eve's rebellion.

The application is this for number one: Can God not punish? That's the blank. Can God not punish sin? Why or why not?

Can God just — we can choose as parents, right? We can say, "Well, you know what? I'm going to let little Kenny off the hook. He's been a pretty good boy, and yeah, he forgot to take out the trash. I'm going to let him off the hook. I'm not going to punish him." Right? Can God not punish sin? Exactly right. He would fail to be just. And as Ken said, he is perfectly just. So God must punish sin. And all sinners are guilty and therefore are liable for this punishment. Okay?

Bible point number two, guilt is man's obligation — that's the first blank — obligation to render satisfaction to God's justice for the sins he has committed.

We all have obligations, do we not? We have obligations to our family, right? Mothers and wives, you want to take care of your children. You want to take care of your husband, right? Fathers, husbands, you want to take care of your wives, you want to take care of your children. Do we not have brothers and sisters? We have obligation to our parents, right? What is the fifth commandment? Honor your father and mother, right? If you still are blessed to have living parents, we have an obligation to honor our parents, right? Well, guilt is man's obligation to render satisfaction to God's justice for the sins he has committed. God is just and He requires payment for our sins, right?

Can we meet that obligation? No. Never, because we're unrighteous, right?

God's justice for the sins he has committed. Every sin, whether a state, disposition, or act, is an offense against God. Every sin is an act of treason against God. Sin as antagonism to God's holy will involves guilt.

This guilt or obligation to satisfy the outraged holiness — holiness is the third blank — holiness of God, is explained in Scripture by terms such as debtor and debt. So the fourth blank is debtor and the fifth blank is debt. Scripture talks about our sin as being a debt, an obligation owed to God. We have fallen short of the righteousness that is owed to God. So we owe Him this debt, right? Let's look in the back.

Matthew 6:12, Jesus in His prayer where the disciples said, "Teach us to pray," He says, "And forgive us our — what? Our debts as we forgive our debtors," or "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us." Right? The word can be translated debt because we owe an obligation to God. We owe a debt of righteousness because He is holy and He deserves absolute perfect obedience. And when we fall short, He demands satisfaction for that. Okay? Look in Luke 11:4, "And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us." This is just the Lord's Prayer but in the Gospel of Luke. Okay? So we speak of debt and debtors in regards to the debt that we owe — our debt of righteousness to God. And we are debtors.

Romans 6:23, it's part of the Roman road.

Who knows that one? Any of our kids know? Yes. Abigail?

Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death." Exactly right. Good job. The wages, our obligation, what we owe God is our life, right? When we transgress against the holy living God. And the day that you eat of this fruit, what was Adam and Eve told? "You shall surely die." Exactly right. The application is this. Why do we owe — that's the blank — obedience to God? Why do we owe obedience to God? Yeah, He's the creator, right? He gets to make the rules, right? We sing the Psalms, and one of our favorite Psalms is that, "Know ye that the Lord, He is God. He has made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture." Right?

God created Adam and Eve and He set them in the garden, right? And He told them to tend and keep the garden. And He told them, "You can eat of any tree except this one." Right? So we owe Him our obedience. We owe Him our life and our breath, right? Could we exist apart from God? No, we have a contingent existence, totally dependent on God for breath and life and everything. We are creatures made by God.

Bible point number three, guilt is incurred only through direct — that's the first blank — direct transgression, either on the part of man's nature — nature is the second blank — or person — that's the third blank.

What we mean by that is this: guilt is incurred only by our direct actions, either in a part of who we are, because we all are said to have sinned in Adam and Eve's first sin, or in our person through our personal transgressions in our daily lives, right?

Am I responsible for Casey's sin? No, I'm responsible for only those sins I've had a direct hand in doing, right? In both my nature as a human being and also in my personal capacity, my personal responsibility.

We sometimes speak lightly of original sin, as if we are only accountable for personal sin, the sins that we actually do on a day-to-day basis.

But it's only in light of the original sin that our personal sins can be explained, right? It's only in that we transgressed in Adam and Eve. In Adam and Eve we sinned, and as part of being the original rebels against God, therefore all of our actions are rebellious. We sin because we are sinners, right?

Our sinful acts are but a conscious ratification and participation in Adam's rebellion. Our guilt lies both in what we are — that's the fourth blank — and what we do.

That's the fifth blank. Our guilt lies in what we are. We are sinners. We are rebels against God. And in what we do, which is our action in joining in and expressing that rebellion against God. Look at Romans 5:12. We read this a few weeks ago when we looked at original sin. "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and thus spread to all men because all sinned."

Because Adam was the head of humanity, the race fell in Adam, right? And we can trace our fallen humanity right back to Adam.

Flip over on the back.

Look at Ezekiel 18:20. "The soul who sins shall — what? Die." "The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son."

In this world, sometimes we are liable legally for others' debts. Maybe we co-signed a note with somebody, right? We're figuring we could help maybe our father or help our son purchase a car, right? And then perhaps they don't pay. Guess who's responsible for it? You are, right? But here we're talking about our sin. It says, "The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself."

What that means is simply this. You're only responsible for the sin that you're directly involved in. I am not responsible for someone else's sin, okay? I'm responsible for the sin that I have consciously participated in. Look in John 9:1-3.

"Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' So whose fault is it that he was born blind? His parents must have sinned because he's born blind, because that's what they thought. They figured that if you had sickness or you had misfortune in your life, it was because of somebody's sin — is what they're thinking. Jesus answered, 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.'" In this particular instance, it was for the glory of God because God was going to heal this man through Jesus Christ.

Flip over on the front. Let me bring this to a head here with application number three. What about societal or ancestral guilt? The blank is guilt. What about societal or ancestral guilt? Let me explain what I mean by that. Have you ever heard someone say, "You know, us Westerners, we have blood on our hands because we have prospered at the expense of third-world countries. Being capitalist, we have taken resources from other countries and we have disadvantaged and we have oppressed them, and therefore we have societal guilt as Westerners." Is that true?

No. We're not guilty for others' sins. Yes, there may be people who've taken advantage, but that doesn't mean that because I'm living in the United States that therefore I am guilty.

What about ancestral guilt? We hear that a lot, especially come election time, with the talk of reparations, as if I'm responsible for something three, four hundred years ago that maybe my ancestors did or did not participate in. I have no idea. No one even has adequate history going back that far. The point is this. You may hear sometimes in some churches what we call woke ideology being preached, saying, "You are guilty because of your skin color or you're guilty because of your citizenship." Right?

That's not what guilt is about. Guilt is about our personal transgression of a law of God, either in our nature or in our person.

That's what we are accountable for.

Bible point number four, guilt is the objective result of sin. What we mean by objective result is it means that — objective means what is outside of us. It's about our relationship with God, whereas depravity is the subjective result of sin. It totally warps our entire person and our being, right?

It is not to be confused with our subjective awareness of it. In other words, you're guilty whether you know it or not. There are some people who go around as if they have never sinned, and if you ask them, they'll say, "I have no guilt. I have done no wrong. I haven't broken the Ten Commandments." Have you ever heard someone tell you that? Yes.

Guilt is objective. It's outside of us. It's about our relationship with God, regardless of whether we're cognizant of our own transgressions. Guilt is primarily a relation to God — that's the first blank — not to conscience. It's weird, meaning that you have no awareness or feeling about your sin, but does that mean that you're guiltless? Just because you don't feel it? No, not at all. Progress in sin is marked by a deadening of the conscience. You can sin so much and so often that the voice of conscience that originally was screaming, "You are doing wrong. Don't do this," becomes muffled. Before you know it, you can't even hear it. So doing wrong and doing evil comes second nature to you. You can actually, in a perverse sense, take joy in doing evil because your conscience is so pushed down and smothered by your sin. But that doesn't mean that you're without guilt, right? Just because you're not feeling it.

Progress in holiness — that's the second blank — is marked by an awakened conscience that is grieved by sin. Sin is the third blank. As you grow in Christ's likeness, your heart is changed, right? The minute that you put your faith and trust in Christ, He gives you a new heart. He's creating you a clean heart and renewing a right spirit within you. And now you begin to love what God loves. And you begin to hate what God hates. And when you sin, it bothers you.

I've had people tell me, "I'm so frustrated. I keep committing the same sins over and over again, and it pains me. I know I'm letting God down." And I always encourage them. The very fact that you're bothered by that shows that you have an awakened conscience because God will not let you be at peace and be in rebellion against Him if you are His child, right? It should grieve you when you sin as a Christian. And so the fact that you care about God's approval, that you struggle and wrestle with sin and you desire not to do it, is an evidence — not of your weakness, not of your sinfulness — but that you have a renewed heart, a heart that is aligned with God's, that you are trying to work out this depravity that's still in your life, right?

Romans 3:19. "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and that all the world may become guilty before God." The law shows us that we're all sinners, right? Even if you're not feeling it, even if your conscience is dead, so to speak, if it's seared, the law says you're guilty. You're objectively guilty before God.

Flip over on the back.

Psalm 51 is David's great confession. He had committed adultery with Bathsheba. He had murdered Uriah, her husband.

He was confronted by the prophet Nathan and realized that he was a sinner.

And look what he says. His repentance here is so heartfelt. This shows an awakened conscience, someone who's been born again. He says, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving kindness." He's not saying, "I deserve Your forgiveness." He's saying, "Have mercy on me because of Your loving kindness, Your mercy, Your grace." "According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions." He's owning it. He's saying, "I have transgressed Your law." He says, "Blot them out." He says, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions. And my sin is always before me." It bothers him so much what he had done. Verse 4, "Against You, You only have I sinned." It's the very nature of guilt. It involves our relation to God, that we deserve punishment. He's confessing that. "Against You, and You only have I sinned." Yes, he's sinned against Bathsheba. Yes, he's sinned against Uriah. But ultimately, he's sinned against God.

"And done this evil in Your sight, that You may be found just when You speak and blameless when You judge." He's agreeing with God's judgments. He's agreeing with God's verdict that he is a guilty man, and he's throwing himself on the mercy of God. Right?

Flip back over on the front. Application for number four. "Are you grieved" — that's the first blank — "by sin? Do you daily confess" — that's the second blank — "your sin? Are you grieved by sin?

Are you concerned about your walk with the Lord? If you feel this frustration, this struggle between the flesh and the Spirit, that's a good thing.

It shows that you have a heart that's been regenerated, a heart that is sensible, a heart that has been made from a heart of stone and turned into a heart of flesh, right? That loves the things that God loves and hates the things that He hates. So yes, we should be grieved by our sin. And do you daily confess your sin?

Sometimes we like to wallow in our grief, don't we? We like to wallow in our guilt. It's like, "I've blown it again. I lost my cool." And so kind of like Martin Luther before he became a Christian as a monk, he would flagellate himself, whip himself all throughout the night, trying to atone for his sins. You can't atone for your sins. The only way to get rid of that guilt is through confession, right? It was 1 John 1:9 that says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So we've got to go to Him in confession. That's why Jesus says, "Father, forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors."

Bible point number five, Scripture recognizes different degrees, degrees of guilt. Degrees is the first blank, attached to different kinds — second blank — kinds of sin. Scripture recognizes different degrees of guilt attached to different kinds of sins. Now, in evangelical circles, this is often poorly misunderstood.

It's poorly received and it's not understood correctly. During the Reformation time, the Catholic Church had some strange doctrines, which we'll talk about in just a minute, but they distinguished between what we call a sin of mortal sin and a sin of what we call venial sin.

And because that was the doctrine of the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation, the Reformation broke away from that, and some have said, "Well, there is no distinction then among sins. There's no degrees of sin." But that's not true. Scripture speaks of degrees of sin.

This principle is exemplified in the different sacrifices for different sins in the Mosaic law. That's the third blank — law. In the Mosaic law, are there not different sacrifices for different sins?

Are there not different things that the law requires for even the same sin, but that happens in a different way? Maybe it happened in ignorance without knowledge or accidentally — the punishment's lesser, right? So if it happened intentionally, the punishment is greater, right, in the law. We see that. And if all sin was the same, then would not God be unjust in prescribing different penalties for different types of sins, right? If all sin's the same, one size fits all should be, right? We also — this is also seen in the New Testament descriptions of judgment. Jesus talks a lot about the coming judgment. So every man's going to be judged according to his works, right? And some will be held to a greater degree because they have more sin to account for. Look at Romans 2:5-6 on the front of our page here.

"But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourselves wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds." It's a scary picture, is it not? Because of your lack of belief, your lack of fidelity to God, you're storing up — treasuring up — but you're not treasuring up gold and silver. You're treasuring up wrath against you in the day that God's wrath will be revealed in the righteous judgment of Christ. And everyone's going to be held accountable for his or her deeds. Okay? Look over on the back. I'll show you some examples here from the New Testament as well.

Luke 12:47-48, this is a parable of Christ. He says, "And that servant who knew the master's will and did not prepare himself or do according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes." He's talking about a servant who knew his master's will, but he didn't follow his will. So therefore he's going to have many stripes because he had knowledge of what the master expected, right? So he's going to be punished more heavily. Verse 48, "But he who did not know — he who did not know what his master's will was — yet committed things deserving of stripes shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required, and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more."

Both the Romans and the Jews put Christ on the cross, right? But the Jews actually had more culpability than the Romans, right?

Did not Jesus tell them that all of the law testified of Him? He says, "And you slew all the prophets who've come to you of old." He says, "Great judgment's going to come upon you." Within this generation, and we saw that — in AD 70 Jerusalem was wiped off the map, the temple was destroyed just as Jesus had prophesied. Not one stone was left on top of another. Sadducees were gone. Pharisees were gone. The Levitical priesthood was gone. All that in one fell swoop because the judgment was so severe. They had the knowledge, but they rejected Messiah, right?

Look at John 19:10-11, another example. This is Jesus before Pilate. "Then Pilate said to Him, 'Are you not speaking to me? Do you not know that I have the power to crucify you and the power to release you?' Jesus answered, 'You could have no power at all against Me, unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, the one who delivered Me to you has a greater sin.'" Judas was probably being spoken of there, right? Or the Jews who gave Him over to Pilate as well. Here we see a distinction between sin and a greater sin, right? So there are gradations of sin.

Let's look back on the front. First of all, let's look at erroneous descriptions of degrees of guilt. In other words, things that are not true about degrees of guilt. First of all, we see sometimes the trivialization of sin by relativism. Let me first read what I have written in the margin: James 2:10. You don't have to flip there. I'll read it for you. James 2:10 says this. It says,

"For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point is guilty of all." So if you keep all the commandments hypothetically and you just broke one, then you're guilty of it all. And what he's saying is that it only takes one transgression to be a transgressor, right? It only takes one instance of rebellion to be a rebel. But he's not saying that all sin is of equal consequence here. And he's not trying to minimize sin. In fact, he's doing the opposite. In context, about Roman society, where it was the norm in society to be a respecter of persons, to treat the high and the mighty better than the lowly. And he's saying, "That should not be the case among you. When someone comes into your congregation that is wealthy, you don't put down the common folk in your congregation and fall all over the rich person. You treat everybody the same." Saying, "You may think that that's a small thing, but that's a serious thing. That's a rebellion against God." So he's not minimizing sin. He's actually maximizing sin is what he's doing. But many people will take that verse and they'll say, "Hey, you break one sin, you're guilty of them all," and they'll use it as a way of relativizing sin. There are congregations that claim the name of Christ that will say, "You know what? Society's evolving. The family's evolving." You can be a church member if you're living together with someone that's not your husband or your wife, as long as it's a faithful, committed relationship, a loving relationship, right? You can be a member of our church if you're married to someone of the same sex, which is no marriage at all. But that is rampant all over the United States. It's a shame. They've relativized sin. They've said there's no distinction between sin. And that is not true at all. Some sins are more consequential than others and also are more of an abomination than other sins. All sin — one sin will send you straight to hell. One sin makes you a rebel. But we're not to minimize sin, ever minimize sin.

Second, an erroneous description of the degrees of guilt is the Catholic teaching of mortal versus venial sin. Mortal sin — this goes back to the Middle Ages — was a sin that would cause you to be separated from God. It would nullify God's grace in your life. It would nullify God's justification in your life. You would lose your salvation if you committed these sins. And the only way to restore it would be to have penance and confession and absolution and to have fresh taking of the Eucharist, a fresh infusion of grace into your life. Which Calvin said back at the Reformation, that's nuts. All sin is mortal sin, right? And the day that you eat it, you surely die. The soul that sins must die. The wages of sin is death, right? And then this venial sin of lesser consequence — often sin of ignorance perhaps or sin of weakness — and it was kind of excusable. More polite sins. Maybe it's you didn't have your quiet time that day, you didn't pray that day. Or you forgot to put your money in the offering plate. That was excusable. But you would not fall from grace. Whereas mortal sin, if you committed that and you didn't make penance and didn't get absolution and you died, you'd go to hell. Right? So that's a wrong description of the degrees of guilt.

Also, sometimes we'll talk about the sins of commission versus the sins of omission. Commission are the sins that we actually do. Omission are the sins where we fail to obey God. But isn't failure to obey God actually an act of commission itself? That's what James tells us. In James 4:17, it reads this, "Therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." Exactly right. So those are erroneous descriptions of gradation of sin. But what are the biblical descriptions about the degrees of guilt?

I think we can see four different ones in Scripture. These are ones that are commonly discussed in theological textbooks. First is a sin of ignorance. Okay? Let's look at Matthew 11:20-24. Jesus is declaring woe to these cities who heard the gospel. He says, "Then he began to rebuke the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done because they did not repent." He displayed the works of God. He's spoken the words of God, but they would not repent. He says, "Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." If you read, of course, in the Old Testament, the book of Ezekiel, you know Tyre and Sidon's great fall. Alexander the Great ransacked those cities. "But I say to you, it'll be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you." These were pagan cities that were involved in the most vile acts that you could imagine. And He's saying, "This is going to be worse for you than it is going to be for them in the day of judgment, because you heard the truth. You heard the gospel. You saw My works before you, and yet you would not repent." Verse 23, "And you, Capernaum, who were exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you." So there is what we call a sin of ignorance as compared to sin of knowledge. The more knowledge, the more light you have, the more accountable you're going to be, right? 1 Timothy 1:13 — I'm not going to read it, but that's where Paul talks about in his former days before he became a Christian, he lustily pursued the persecution of the church. And he says that he found grace because he did it in ignorance. He actually thought he was serving God. He thought he was doing a good thing during that time.

We also see the sin of what we call infirmity. Sin of infirmity means just the sin that's due to human weakness. Sometimes we make a promise, "I'm going to be there and I'm going to make sure that I do this and help you there," but something comes up, right? We're not able to do it. Or maybe we speak — have we ever spoken without full knowledge and we say something meaning well, but it ends up hurting a person because we didn't really understand the circumstances behind it, right? We may not — it's because of our weakness, our lack of knowledge and wisdom, and our lack of foresight, that we hurt someone that we didn't intend to. We also see the sin of infirmity in regards to just the normal susceptibility to the weakness of the flesh. Have you ever had a day or a week or a month when nothing went right? A dog died, you lost your job, you got in a fight with your wife.

Ever just one thing after another and all of a sudden you reach your breaking point and you lose your cool, you snap — you know, you get angry and you shouldn't have, right? That's the weakness of our flesh. Is it not? When we're sick and we're feeling terrible, it's real easy to express lack of faith, isn't it? It's real easy to get angry. It's real easy to act out of sorts, so to speak, not according to our new nature, but to give in to the flesh, right? That's a common experience in this life.

An example of this is Matthew 26:40. Matthew 26 is where Christ is in Gethsemane. "And then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to the disciples, 'Sit here while I go and pray over there.' And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, 'My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.' And He went a little further and fell on His face and He prayed, saying, 'O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.' Then He came to the disciples and found them — what? Sleeping. And He said to Peter, 'What? Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.'" That's what we mean by the sins of infirmity. Our flesh is weak, right? Our spirit is willing, but our flesh is weak.

Another example — this is in the same chapter. Peter, if you keep reading in Matthew 26, Peter denies Christ three times, right? He's afraid for his life. His whole world is being rocked. And he says it not just once, but three times, right? And then the Lord looks at him and he knows he's guilty, right?

So we have sins of ignorance. We have sins of infirmity due to the weakness of our flesh. We also have the sin of presumption. This is a higher degree of sin, right? You know, in the Old Testament, there was no sacrifice for the sin of presumption. In other words, if you commit a sin willingly and rebelliously against the Lord, knowing that it was wrong, there was no sacrifice for that. You'll see this in Numbers 15:30.

Numbers 15:30-31. "But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord," which literally means blasphemes the Lord, takes His name in vain. "And he shall be cut off from his people." It means he shall die. "Because he has despised the word of Yahweh and has broken His commandments. And that person shall be completely cut off. His guilt shall be upon him." He has high guilt because he's rebelled against the Lord.

Think about David. I'm not going to read it, but in 2 Samuel 11, after he lies with Bathsheba and finds out that she's with child, what does he do? He brings Uriah back off the battlefield, tries to cover up the sins, figuring he'll spend the night with Bathsheba and his sin will be covered. But what does Uriah do? Uriah is a noble man. He's saying, "My fellow comrades are up at the front lines. How can I enjoy the comforts of this life?" So he slept outside, right? So what does David do? He writes a letter — orders. He says, "I want you to send Uriah to the front of the lines where the most valiant men are. Then I want you to pull back, leaving him exposed." That was a presumptuous sin, right? But even in the Old Testament, there's grace. Even though there was no sacrifice for it, was David killed by God for that? We just read Psalm 51, "Against You and You only have I sinned," right? And in the New Testament, praise God, even our presumptuous sins are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, right? Because many of our sins are not just sins of infirmity, sins of our weakness, but sins that we willingly do, right? And we lean into them, saying, "Well, I'm going to do it anyway." And that — praise God — is covered by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The fourth degree, or the fourth description of degrees of guilt, is the sin of unrepentance. And this one — even in the New Testament, there is no atonement for the sin of unrepentance. Okay? Matthew 12:31 — let me read that to you.

Spoken about several times in the New Testament, Matthew 12:31-32, "Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." That's what we sometimes refer to as the unpardonable sin. It's resisting the work of the Holy Spirit, refusing to yield to Him, refusing to confess by the Spirit that Jesus is Lord, refusing to cooperate — so to speak — I want to say cooperate by yielding ourselves to His call, to His gospel. And as a result, that's the only sin — the sin of unrepentance — that can't be forgiven.

I wanted to read to you a very fearful pronouncement of judgment against this in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 10:26-31. This is speaking of those who were in the church, who abandoned the church, and they went back to Judaism. They went back to practicing the Old Testament law and its sacrifices. They said Christ isn't sufficient for us. It says, "For if we sin willfully after we've received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more punishment do you suppose will be thought worthy, who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of Grace? For we know Him who said, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' says the Lord. And again, the Lord will judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." To reject God, to trample the offer of salvation under your feet is to trample Christ under your feet. And it's a fearful thing to fall into His hands. And that's the only sin that's unpardonable. That has the greatest degree of guilt, right? Every sin that you do in this life, until your last breath, you have the chance to turn and plead for God's mercy. You have the chance to repent, to ask God to create you a clean heart, to renew a right spirit within you, to call upon the Lord to be saved. But if you refuse to do that,

there is no assuagement of your guilt. There is no doubt that God will not forgive you. And that's the only sin that God cannot forgive. The first blank is only, the last blank is forgive. Can God forgive murder? Yes. He forgave David and Moses, right? Can God forgive adultery? Yes. Can God forgive grand theft auto? What's the only sin that He can't forgive? Not believing in Him — exactly right.

Bible point number six, guilt and depravity are separate in both nature and fact. In other words, they're separate things altogether. Depravity is the pollution that results from sin. Caleb wonderfully taught us about that last week, how we're totally corrupted or polluted by sin. It is subjective in that it wholly corrupts man's being. Guilt is the objective result of sin. Guilt places — that's the first blank — man under — that's the second blank — God's judgment. So we must be punished. By Christ's atonement, Christians are free — that's the third blank — from guilt, but are not yet — that's the fourth blank — free from depravity.

Because of what Christ did on the cross — which we're going to be studying in depth come February — we're going to study first the person of Christ, and then we're going to study the work of Christ as applied by the Holy Spirit to our heart. Christ, because of His atonement, we are free from guilt if you are in Christ. What does Romans 8:1 say? It says on our sheet, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."

Sometimes you carry guilt that you should not carry. If you've confessed your sin, God has cast it as far as the east is from the west. He's buried it in the depths of the sea, the sea of His forgetfulness, right? He's put it behind His back. He remembers it no more, okay? Because Christ paid the price, said, "It is finished." The atonement is complete. Christ was a worthy sacrifice, infinitely righteous, infinitely pure for our total degradation and our total sin and depravity. So by Christ's atonement, Christians are free from guilt, but we're not yet free from depravity. As Caleb talked about last week, sin has affected and polluted every part of us, and all throughout this life, we are going to be working out that depravity, getting it out from us through the process of sanctification, right? Christ is continually, through His Spirit and through His Word, conforming us into His image, right? Day by day. So because of Christ, we are free from guilt and we're not yet free from depravity, but one day — one glorious day — when we are in heaven and we see Christ, we'll be transformed. And then we'll be perfectly in His image, right? Then we'll no longer have the struggle with the flesh. We'll no longer have the pollution that results from sin in our life.

Let's look at application for number six. How can you conquer your sense of guilt?

We often carry guilt with us, even when we are forgiven. We still sense that we are guilty, right? How can we conquer our sense of guilt? Christ can — exactly right. And what are some of the ways that Christ allows us to overcome our sense of guilt? I heard prayer. Prayer is one of the ways, right? You pray. What does Romans 8 tell us? That the Spirit bears witness with us that we're His children, right? Yes. Psalm 119 says, "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee." We have promises in Scripture, do we not? We just said one of them earlier. First — exactly right. So many of the promises in Scripture talk about coming and buying without price, right? That God will make us clean. He'll make us whole. So we go to His Word, we go to Him in prayer, we hold fast to His promises, and that's how we overcome our sense of guilt in Christ Jesus.

Bible point number seven, our last point. Christ was free from depravity in that He was without sin. Christ did not have Adam as His father, did He? Right? He was free from depravity in that He was without sin. He was like us, took on humanity in every respect except without sin. Yet Christ was made to be sin for us by reason of His humanity.

When once Christ added human nature to His person — He was one person with two natures, a human nature and a divine nature — He took upon the guilt of humanity. He, in solidarity with humanity, took on the guilt. The whole weight of our guilt He could bear justly on the cross because He was truly man and truly God. Christ bore in His person the guilt of humanity to take away our sin. The third blank is guilt, the fourth blank is away. Because He took on flesh, He was able to bear our guilt and so take away our sin.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." So as we are free from guilt but not yet free from depravity, Christ was free from depravity, but He willingly took upon our guilt to pay our price for us. John 1:29 says, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." He was our sin bearer, right? To take away our sin. The application is this: trust in Christ alone to take away your sin. You indeed are guilty — for who you are and for what you do. You can never remove that guilt from yourself, but Christ can. Trust in Him to take away your sin.