Guilt

Guilt (by David Peterson)

Found only in the Gospel of John, the story of a woman caught in adultery is presented to Jesus who was asked to condemn her. Their test of Him leads Jesus to a radical way to handle this dilemma. In John 8:7 scripture says; When they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Jesus is, in effect, convicting them of their own sin unless they drop their stones. Their own guilt led them to walk away.

Reverend Martyn Lloyd-Jones once wrote this; “Repentance means that you realize that you are a guilty, vile sinner in the presence of God, that you deserve the wrath and punishment of God, that you are hell-bound. It means that you begin to realize that this thing called sin is in you, that you long to get rid of it, and that you turn your back on it in every shape and form. You renounce the world whatever the cost, the world in its mind and outlook as well as its practice, and you deny yourself, and take up the cross and go after Christ. Your nearest and dearest, and the whole world, may call you a fool, or say you have religious mania. You may have to suffer financially, but it makes no difference. That is repentance.”

Regardless of the repentance issue, much of the above is what those guilty men must have seen within themselves in this trap they set for Jesus.

Horatius Bonar wrote the hymn “All that we were—our sin, our guilt” in 1845. The first stanza follows;

All that we were—our sin, our guilt,

Our death—was all our own:

All that we are we owe to Thee,

Thou God of grace alone.

Bonar cites God’s grace as the solution to our sin and guilt.

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, help us to see how easy it can be to condemn others and still not see our own guilt. Teach us to be not so short-sighted and more compassionate of others. Amen.