Christian Guilt

In Hebrews 9:13-14 we read, "For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God."  We, are no longer bound by guilt, by shame, or by trying to earn salvation before God.  That also means that we, who are in Christ, are no longer bound to try and redeem ourselves before men.  If God has forgiven us our sins, then what can a man say to bring shame upon us?  We, who stand washed in the blood of Christ, have a perfect forgiveness, no one can hold any sin against us, because all our wrongs have been paid for by the perfect Lamb of God.

Before I go on, I do want to say that this forgiveness does not mean that we are not responsible for the wrongs we have committed against others on earth.  A murderer who comes to faith may be forgiven by God, but to claim before the authorities, "I'm innocent of this murder because Christ has forgiven me" is just foolishness.  Yes, we may be able to stand before God and have bold assurance that he will not hold our sins against us, but if we refuse to seek the forgiveness of those we have wronged, or if we refuse to go before the authorities and pay for our crime, then we are still sinning in that we are not submitting to that authority which God has placed over us.  The forgiveness of Christ does not change our past, it makes us a new creation, so that we have an assurance of salvation before God, and a confidence of our forgiveness even when men may condemn us.  Worldly condemnation does not mean we must bow under the burden of guilt, but it means that we must take responsibility for what we have done.

This forgiveness should affect us deeply.  We should be able, and willing, to go to those who have been wronged, acknowledge that they have been wronged, and then tell them that we want to make right what we have done.  We may not have money, but we can help with time and with many other resources that are available to us.  What we have confessed before God though, we do not need to be embarrassed to confess before those who know they have been wronged, but in humility we can show that Christ really is living in us by how we live our lives.

I bring this up because I look around much of the deep South in America today and I realize that as of  yet there has not been racial reconciliation for wrongs that occurred 150 years ago.  I had family on both sides of the slavery issue, and I had family on both sides of the treatment of American Indians, so I understand that this is long standing and deeply painful issue.  But, we who are Christians can take the steps to begin reconciliation at least within our churches.  We do not need to be a divided people with black churches and white churches where "different worship cultures" keep us separated.

Racial differences seem to make a lie out of what Scripture says, that in Christ there is neither slave, nor free, male nor female, Greek nor Jew.  I recognize that Paul is not talking in absolutes in that section of Scripture, as we certainly see that men and women do not become androgynous when they become Christians.  But, Paul is saying that the forgiveness we have through Christ unifies us all under him, so that when I look to my brother or my sister, I should see an image of Christ, a part of his body, not a black man or a white man, not an Asian woman or a Hispanic woman.  As we continue to divide our churches based on racial and social lines, we continue to perpetuate the system that brought about such guilt, lasting until less than a generation ago.

Slavery may have been ended with the defeat of the South in 1865, (though it was not officially outlawed in all Northern states until a little later) but the Jim Crow laws that sprang up after the end of Slavery continued into the 1960s.  The racial divisions of the South were not done away with until after both of my parents were teenagers or young adults.  Even at that I can remember my grandmother using rather incorrect language in reference to people of different races, not because of any animosity she may have felt, but because that was simply the vocabulary with which she grew up.  The harm done by the American system of slavery has been long lasting, and it will not be quickly forgotten.  The fact that many people still make quite a living off of racial tensions should demonstrate to us that racial reconciliation still has some distance to go.  Just because slavery came to an end does not mean that equality was its immediate successor.

However, now we are 40-50 years past the time of Jim Crow.  I grew up going to integrated schools, and I have never known a time where I did not have a friend, or multiple friends, of different colors and racial backgrounds.  I have seen how Christ has unified us, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Indian (here I refer to Asian Indians) and many other races besides.  The church does not have to be held by back guilt any more, thinking that because we have wronged those of another color that we cannot find reconciliation with them.  Moreover we have the opportunity to be a church that reaches out and says that what was done in the past was wrong, and we are looking to help every Christian come to full maturity in Christ, whatever the color of his skin may be.

I know I'm not the first to have this idea.  The fact is that many churches are already opening our doors, but we are doing it very slowly.  Integrated churches are still few and far between.  I can honestly say that I have only known a couple of churches of the Southern Baptist tradition that have had more than one or two non-white members out of a congregation of 100-200 or more.  This should stand to our shame.

We have been forgiven in Christ.  We do not need to be ashamed of the sins of our past.  But, we need to acknowledge the sins of our past and begin to make reconciliation, reaching out to those who have been wronged and trying to make things right.  We need to take responsibility for what has happened in the past, but we do not need to be enslaved by that history.  The blood Christ is sufficient to forgive us of all our sins, we do not need to let anyone use those sins to shame us, but we need to be faithful in serving the one who bought us.