The Only Cure For Human Guilt

The Almighty Creator God still saves sinners even today in 2016. Sometimes we don’t believe that. We bank our happiness on other things that man has invented or dreamed up. But God Almighty says to us, “I’m better than you think I am, and you’re much worse than you think you are; come now, let us reason together, saith the LORD.” Our friends and family disappoint us. Our own good intentions let us down. Sooner or later our very bodies will give out on us. We must look beyond ourselves and stake everything on Christ Jesus Himself, who alone saves guilty sinners from the wrath to come. The Gospel is very good news for bad people like us. But how can a holy God love sinners who deserve His wrath?

The greatest miracle of the Gospel is right in the center of it. In Romans 4:5, Paul says that God “justifies the ungodly.” That’s a real problem. When God justifies the ungodly, He upsets the whole moral order of the universe, doesn’t He? Everyone knows that God punishes bad people and rewards good people, right? It’s His job, but the Gospel disagrees. The Gospel says, “God justifies the ungodly.” What does that mean? It means that God declares guilty people innocent freely. It means God treats bad people as if they were good people. This goes beyond human reason, this takes a divine miracle. It doesn’t matter if you’re a conservative or a liberal person. However you may define virtue and vice, you have a sense of right and wrong – this is called conscience. You form judgments. You expect God to. But how can God justify the ungodly?

Justification is a real good thing God does for sinners. Every one of us is ungodly, and we know it. Good people (self-righteous folks) always go to Hell, and Bad people (sinners) in need of the Savior go to Heaven. Do-gooders who trust in themselves wind up in the lake of fire, and no-gooders can go to Heaven through Jesus Christ's finished work. We’ve all failed to be the people we ought to be. We all regret something we have done in the past. A deep uneasiness about ourselves is why we live in denial. When we discover self-excusing evasion in our politicians, we demand an honest reckoning for their wrongdoing. But do we require the same unsparing justice on ourselves? Cover-up is the self-righteous strategy of every guilty conscience. We always try to blame others. A troubled conscience lies behind our finger-pointing and self-justification. We try to reassure ourselves, we try to shift the blame to others. Our problems are always someone else’s fault. Parents blame their children, husbands blame their wives, and so on. We pass the buck because we can’t bear our guilt. We so desperately want for someone to bear our guilt for us. We dump on others without realizing what’s happening in our thoughts. Our real problem is moral guilt before God. Guilt is the perilous stuff that weighs upon every human heart. Our guilt is intolerable, unbearable. Our guilt feels like a ton of bricks on our heart at times. If we reject Christ, we'll have to answer to God for what we have done all by ourselves, we’ll be condemned and crushed before Him by our human guilt. Only the Blood of Jesus Christ can rid you of your guilty past.

Every sinner always tries to hide and cover up his sins. We lie about it, we cover it up, we try to run away, we change the subject, we shred the documents, we clear the history on the web browser, we delete the emails, we destroy the evidence, and we get angry and say, "How could you even think I would do something like that?" We are like the little child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, we just smile and hope that mommy won't notice. Every one of us has wanted a second chance after some failure. Every one of us understands that. We’ve all been trapped in consequences we didn’t intend, but we did set them in motion. Every one of us looks back at something in our past and agonizes, “If only I could relive that moment. If I could only trade in my past record for a better one!”

Dark is the stain of sin and guilt that we cannot hide, what can avail to wash it away? Look to Calvary's Cross! there is flowing a crimson tide - whiter than snow you may be today. God's grace will pardon and cleanse within - His grace is greater than all our sins. God's mercy exceeds our sin and our guilt, look to Calvary now, there where the Blood of God was spilt. Man tries to medicate his conscience with earthly antidotes for human misery such as entertainment, romance, overwork, and self-achievement. What will make our unbearable guilt go away? Who can bear it for us? God became a man and bore our sins in His own body; Jesus took our place.

When we try to shift blame to one another, we create a mess. But there is redemption and spiritual release from sin’s bondage and guilt in God’s blood shed on Calvary’s Cross. God justifies ungodly sinners only through Christ’s FINISHED work on the Cross. God accepts unacceptable sinners at Golgotha. JEHOVAH desires to save undesirable wretches. God honors shameful people; God adopts the beggars and outcasts into His family. God treats fools as princes and harlots as princesses as Jesus steps into our place at the Cross and bears our real moral sin-guilt far away upon Himself. That’s how God our Judge becomes God our Justifier. You need God Himself to forgive you, and only the Lamb of God can bear away a sinner’s guilt. God Almighty wants to glorify His Son by washing your sins away with Christ’s sin-pardoning blood. The only barrier that is keeping you from Christ is when you cling to your guilt by clinging to your human goodness (self-righteousness). Faith in the shed blood of Christ (Romans 3:23-25) is God’s way of release for guilty people – and there is no other.

Every one of us needs a Scapegoat. Jesus Christ was willing to be the Scapegoat for all of us sinners. In the Gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ says to us, “I am that willing Scapegoat for your guilt. Up on the Cross, I was crushed under your unbearable sin and guilt. I took all your guilt, because I love guilty sinners. If you’ll trust Me, here’s the deal: All my innocence and purity will be yours, and all your guilt and shame will be Mine forever. Deal or no deal? Will you continue to try and cope with your guilt by your own devices? Trust Me now, and I will wash your sins away with My precious blood and bear your guilt away with My infinite mercy.”

Christ Jesus really was a man of sorrows, but they weren’t His own sorrows. He didn’t deserve them. They were our sorrows. This is the love of God which passeth knowledge, this is the unspeakable gift of God. Jesus substituted Himself for us at the Cross. God has done what we’d have no right to do – God has shifted all the blame to Jesus Christ for our sins as He died for guilty sinners. God pointed His holy finger at Jesus Christ on the Cross and said, “You must pay for the world’s sin!” God passed the buck to Jesus and laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Jesus bled for your sins. This is what the Bible calls imputation, from the Latin verb *imputare*, which means “to charge (to someone’s account).” Guilt must be paid for; it can’t be swept under the rug. When you are wronged or injured – even in a fender-bender – the injured party demands justice, someone has to answer for the damage done, it’s someone’s fault, either you or the other person. The damage and cost don’t just go away. If it’s going to be put right, someone has to pay the cost. And so it is with God. There’s no way He can turn a blind eye to our evil that has damaged His holiness. We have all sinned against God’s holy law.

God is holy and strictly just; He must punish all sin. How can God confront your sin problem? How is the damage to God paid for? Out of infinite love and divine mercy for us, God becomes a Man and charges our infinite sin-debt to Himself, a Sinless Substitute. This is the love of God: Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, put Himself in the place of sinners. The unbearable weight of our sin and guilt was charged to His account, He suffered for it, He sank under it, He endured all the wrath of God for us. For God hath made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. Christ died for the ungodly.  

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. "Faith in His Blood" is the nucleus of the Gospel (Romans 3:25). Your soul is sinful-filthy-guilty, your heart is obscene, and your nature is foul. Repent towards God, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, that is, trust to Christ alone for He is the all-sufficient Lamb. Only the atoning work of Immanuel reconciles sinners to God. You have not an atom of righteousness to boast of - Ye must be born again. Salvation is all a gift - let no man boast, for Jesus came to save the lost. God's mercy can never be earned, and His grace can't be deserved. God will only forgive you for Jesus' sake - put all your confidence in Christ's ability, not yours. Come to Christ now at Calvary's Cross by faith in His soul-cleansing blood, and exchange your sin for His righteousness *freely*. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.