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BP 152

Is shame a good thing or a bad thing?

Charles Spurgeon said that shame is so abhorrent “to man that it is one of the ingredients of hell itself,” indeed “one of the bitterest drops in that awful cup of misery.”

In my experience, there appears to be two types of shame: a true shame and a false shame. Scripture tells us that true shame is an automatic human experience that follows sin just as thunder follows lightning. Shame tells us that we have transgressed against the holy God, that we have possibly sinned against others, and that we have done or thought something that goes against the grain of our God-created selves, thus also sinning against our own souls and maybe even our bodies.

Shame is not just a feeling, but a soul state that can be described as badness, wrongness, falling short of God’s glory and His holy standard, being less than what He created us to be. Shame feels dark, heavy, and makes us want to hide.

Jeremiah 3:25 says, “Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”

Tragically, sin and shame were born in the Garden of Eden at the Fall of humanity and are now in our very nature when we are born into this world. We don’t even have to reach the age of accountability to be impacted by shame. We are born with it in our bones, our DNA, and in our souls. Sin, shame, separation from God, and condemnation in heaven’s courtroom are the inherent legacies passed down to us from that first garden. Thanks, Adam and Eve.

The good news about shame is that it prompts us to move toward our God and seek repentance—if we listen to its voice.

In 2 Corinthians 7:9ff, Paul refers to a grief (shame itself, or something that flows from shame) that leads to repentance: “As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment!”

So then, “true” shame (or guilt) is a healthy but heavy presence that throbs within us when we sin. This throbbing is designed to create a godly sorrow in our hearts that, in turn, compels us to run to God in repentance to find forgiveness, cleansing, and restoration.

I mentioned that there is a “false” shame as well. What exactly is this phenomenon? Is it the same as true shame or is it concocted by Satan as a counterfeit to true shame? I suppose one could see false shame as similar to true shame. My only problem with that conclusion is that true shame is designed for relationship because it drives us toward God and others while false shame hisses at us to hide and avoid God, others, and even our own heart. One motivates intimacy while the other pushes for separation.

Accordingly, I am more inclined to see false shame as something different than the true shame that healthily arises within us and tells us to move toward God instead of away from Him.

For believers who know Jesus, false shame occurs when we have repented and been forgiven but the sense of badness, wrongness, and guilt remains. Why do some people experience this lingering shame, sometimes debilitating, even after they have felt godly grief and repented? Doesn’t Scripture say that we should approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and grace, not shame and condemnation?

Something is clearly amiss if we seek the God who is quick to forgive and restore but we still experience shame even after receiving God’s grace. Spurgeon said, “The eyes of mercy are quicker than the eyes of repentance. Even the eye of our faith is dim compared with the eye of God’s love. He sees a sinner long before a sinner sees Him.”

So, what is going on when a believer in Jesus experiences ongoing, sometimes crushing, shame? Jesus came to die for our sins and remove us from the curse of shame. But why do some of us still feel false shame even after the blood of Jesus has washed away our sin and made us new creations that are now perfect in God’s sight?

Many believers in Jesus ask for God’s forgiveness and claim 1 John 1:9. They say that they believe in their minds that they are forgiven and cleansed, but they somehow still feel shame, guilt, and badness in their hearts. It is as if they are clinging to the ancient, rancid shame instead of the old rugged cross.

This post is mainly about contemplating why people who have been covered by Jesus’ blood and infused with His righteousness still experience (false) shame. Below are possible reasons some saved individuals are wracked by guilt. As always, this list is not exhaustive but meant to stimulate thought about this topic.

1. For some reason (which we will not address here), Satan’s lies and accusations scream at the individual while God’s voice of forgiveness is more of a whisper.
2. The voices and attitudes of Internalized parental/authority figures from the past speak loudly in the person’s mind, producing false shame. An example would be the angry, alcoholic father who would frequently bark at his child, “You will never amount to anything,” or the mother who would say, “I wish you hadn’t been born.” Possibly even subtle favoritism to another child could communicate a subtle constant shame to the child, or neglect or comparing the child to other children who are better in some way or more pleasing. All these could instill shame in the child that can linger into adulthood.
3. The individual might get something out of clinging to shame–some type of subconscious ‘reward’.
4. The fallen self (flesh) is more dominant than the new creation within the person. The fallen self remains drawn to sin and so shame is a common consequence for the disobedient individual who continues to practice sin and is not ready for the meat of faith.
5. This point may be a bit redundant, but another reason redeemed people experience false shame is because they grew up as a scapegoat. Someone in their past used them as an object of their projections. In other words, a parent, an abuser, a bully, some other person who felt deep badness inside from their own sin got rid of their shame by placing it on the child who served as a scapegoat. If people don’t have Jesus, they must find a way to send true shame away, to blame someone else for their evil. This projected true shame then becomes false shame for the human scapegoat. See what Leviticus 16:20ff has to say about the scapegoat: “When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.”
6. Annihilating parents or abusers go beyond scapegoating. Do you remember Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) in the Old Testament that I alluded to above? Two goats were involved in the temple ceremony on Yom Kippur. As mentioned in point five, one of the goats served as the scapegoat on whom all the sins of the people are placed as a foreshadowing of Jesus one day becoming The Scapegoat. The other goat, however, was killed for the sins of the people. In some situations, the child is not so much the living scapegoat but the sacrificed goat. This child is treated so horribly by the sinners around her that she is murdered, maybe sometimes bodily but more commonly in spirit. A life is required for terrible sin to be covered. In this case, a child’s life.
7. Some individuals who claim to be Christians are not experiencing false guilt but true guilt because then are not really a believer. They have not fully surrendered to Jesus.
8. Some believers experience shame as a type of self-condemnation fueled by self-hatred.
9. Pride could be at the root of false shame—trying to be good in one’s own strength instead of depending on Jesus’ blood.
10. Some believers who are depressed or self-loathing may entertain a deep-seated death wish and so they beat themselves up mercilessly. Such self-punishment leads to shame and hopelessness.
11. Feeling sorry for oneself might be a reason for holding on to false shame. If a person beats himself up and keeps complaining about how bad he is, his secret hope might be that others will rescue him from his self-berating words and build him up. Is this a type of manipulation? Maybe. For sure it is a symptom of dependency because he is relying on others to make him feel good instead of doing the difficult work inside his soul to draw near to God and trust Him.
12. There are those who experience false shame because they turn anger toward others onto themselves and then feel condemnation and shame because of that .
13. Perfectionism can drive false shame because the person is never able to live up to his or her impossible standards.
14. Obsessive thoughts (and compulsive behaviors) of badness driven by repressed emotions can lead to false shame.

Now that a few possibilities for lingering shame have been identified, it is important to say that persistent shame after Jesus died for our sins is not God’s will for our lives. He desires us to be free from condemnation (Romans 8:1) and instead be filled with Jesus’ love. If we are distracted by shame and badness, we will not have our eyes on Jesus and His grace, love, and mercy for us. We will focus on ourselves with negativity instead of loving others.

Later in Romans 8 it is written, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge [shame] against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn [shame]? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness [shame], or danger, or sword . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else [shame] in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Spurgeon said that for those who reject Christ, “Shame…and everlasting contempt shall be their perpetual inheritance.” But to the follower of Jesus he says, “Thou shalt never be ashamed, because thy master was ashamed for thee; thou shalt not be confounded, neither shalt thou be put to shame, for he hath taken away thy reproach and borne it on his own visage.”

What I will say in closing is that Jesus wants you to be free from true shame that results from sin and also from false shame that lingers possibly because of some of the reasons listed above. He wants you to be liberated from sinful habits that trigger true shame–often sexual sin but not limited to that–and He desires you to escape the false condemnation that lingers after He cleanses you and makes you perfect.

If you feel crushed by shame, if you cannot escape the long tentacles of badness, something is wrong. You should never settle for living under a dark cloud of shame or always feeling bad or not enough. Don’t tolerate that existence. Reach out to brothers and sisters who can help set you free from false shame by God’s grace even if that means reaching out to a professional shame exterminator.

“Joyful, joyful we adore you, God of glory, Lord of love. Hearts unfold like flow’rs before Thee, op’ning to the Sun above.” These words from The Hymn of Joy describe what God desires for His redeemed children. No more shame. No more badness.

Only a joy that opens the human heart. Of course, it will take a long journey to arrive at pure joy. But that is what God wants for us.

Shame and Satan want you to remove yourself from the world due to shame. God calls you to open your heart wide to Him. No more hiding. No more separation.

Come!

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” ~ Hebrews 4:16

“All of them are put to shame and confounded; the makers of idols go in confusion together.
But Israel is saved by the LORD with everlasting salvation; you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity” Isaiah 45:17

“Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed” ~ Psalm 34:5