I Know the Gospel; Why Do I Still Feel Shame?

Anna felt the heat rising in her cheeks as she sat in the congregation listening to her pastor talk about the sanctity of marriage. She wanted the ground to swallow her up. Since she had discovered explicit texts and images on her husband’s phone, shame had overwhelmed her. How could she have been so naive to think that Chris only had eyes for her? To add to this, several people in the church knew about Chris’s sin after she made him confess to them—were they all staring at her right now, pitying her for being in a broken marriage or thinking about how she mustn’t be enough for her husband? “I know the gospel,” Anna thought. “So why do I still feel this shame?”

As Anna walked out of the service to find refuge in her car, she remembered her pastor’s prayer from Psalm 25 at the end of the service: “Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you” (v. 11). Anna’s shame turned to fear as she thought, “Am I not finding my refuge in God? Is it my own fault that I feel this much shame? Have I failed in this area of my life as well?”

Shame Compounds Our Suffering

As Anna experienced, the presence of shame can compound our suffering. Even when we’re not the ones who have committed the sin, the shame of being sinned against can defy logic and burrow its way into how we view ourselves and into how we assume others view us. In Shame Interrupted, Dr. Ed Welch gives a helpful definition of shame as “the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something that you did, something done to you, or something associated with you. You feel exposed and humiliated.”^[1]

To compound matters, Christians can sometimes feel ashamed of their shame! This might be because of unbiblical expectations that they’ve absorbed from their church or the wider Christian culture around them. Examples of this include a wife feeling shame because she has not been able to “forgive and forget” her husband’s sexual sin, or shame that her faith in Christ isn’t strong enough to make the shame of his sexual betrayal disappear.

“Why Do I Still Feel Shame?” A Common Misconception

In the earlier years of my walk with the Lord, I believed that Christians could be exempt from experiencing any significant “negative” emotions. For example, I thought that even during times of great suffering, trust in Christ should bring about a transcendent peace and joy that would leave no room for grief, sadness, or fear. This false belief had some grains of biblical truth in it, but overall, it set up false expectations that were emotionally and spiritually unhealthy.

As the Lord brought me through times of suffering, he taught me that my capacity for emotion is an important aspect of who he created me to be as his image bearer, and that the presence of my painful emotions didn’t necessarily indicate a lack of faith. The Psalms amazed me with their full expression of painful emotions, and the fact that they are given to us as examples of worship helped me freely pour out my heart before the Lord (Ps 62:8).

Similarly, I began to recognize that Jesus experienced many painful emotions throughout his life—grief and tears over the death of Lazarus (John 11:33–36), withdrawal to a lonely place after John the Baptist’s grievous death (Matt. 14:3–13), anger at sin (Mark 3:5, Matt. 21:12–13, Matt. 23:13–36), painful unmet longings for the people of Jerusalem to turn from their sins and come to him (Luke 19:41–44), sorrow that was almost unbearable in the Garden of Gethsemane which included physical signs of extreme emotional distress (Matt. 26:38, Luke 22:44). We’re told that there were many other times in Jesus’s life when he suffered greatly and experienced emotionally distressing times that weren’t documented (see Heb. 5:7, John 21:25). Was shame part of his experience too?

Jesus and Shame

Hebrews 12:1–3 tells us that Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame.” He was hated, betrayed, arrested, deserted by his closest friends, spat on, hit, mocked, had his beard pulled, was bloodied, physically weakened, misjudged, condemned to death, stripped naked, nailed like an object to a wooden cross, then left to die in public. If shame is the deep sense that you are unacceptable to both God and men, exposed and humiliated, then there is no doubt that Jesus experienced shame.

Through Jesus’s intensely shameful death, he took our shame completely on himself—including the shame from our sin, the shame from being sinned against by others, and the shame of being part of a fallen, broken, and finite world. Isaiah 61 looks forward to the work of Christ accomplished through his death and resurrection when it says, “Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy” (Isa. 61:7).

As believers, how we understand and communicate this removal of our shame is crucial both to our own spiritual welfare and the spiritual welfare of those we shepherd.

Pastoral Care for Shame

If you’re involved in caring for other believers, how might you answer a brother or sister who is asking, “Why do I still feel shame?” They may share one of the following questions with you:

• I believe that Jesus took my shame on the cross, but I still feel shame because of my sexual past. Does that mean I don’t really believe the gospel?

• My husband is addicted to pornography, and I feel a terrible shame about this even though I know it’s not my fault. How do I get rid of this shame if he doesn’t change?

• Since my wife cheated on me, I don’t want to see any friends or go to church. I feel like a complete reject and failure. How do I come out of hiding and live life after this?

• Since I was a child, I’ve felt like there’s something very wrong with me; that I’m just not good enough. If I didn’t feel shame, I don’t know whether there would be much of me left. What difference can Jesus make?

Although these questions deserve more individual consideration than we have scope for here, I want to give two biblical principles that speak into these types of situations.

1. Shame Has an Expiration Date

The person experiencing shame may need to be reminded of God’s promise that their shame will one day be removed in its entirety. The road of healing for those experiencing debilitating shame can often be long and arduous, and we sometimes need to be reminded of the journey’s end to keep us going. There are many incredible passages in Scripture that speak about shame, all of which point us to the future—to a time when the shame of God’s people will be completely and utterly removed (Isa. 50:7, Isa. 61:1–7, Ps. 25:3, Ps. 34:5, Matt. 5:1–12, 1 Pet. 2:6). Both the Old and New Testaments point to Jesus as the one who will accomplish this when he returns as Judge and King.

Shame, like suffering, has an expiration date. As painful as it feels right now, it will one day seem to us like a “light momentary affliction” (2 Cor. 4:17–18).

2. Jesus Quiets Our Shame

While we wait for Jesus to return, shame will feel familiar to many of us as we continue to experience the effects of sin. But Jesus, who knows first-hand about shame, speaks words of great comfort to us that are authoritative and powerful to bring about change in very personal ways.

When we turn to Jesus to listen to what he says, it is so important to start by remembering who he is. The first chapter in Revelation shares a stunning vision of the risen and glorified Lord:

“…in the midst of the lampstands [was] one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash round his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.” (Rev. 1:13–16)

This is our powerful and holy Savior who has associated himself with us!

When we appreciate who is talking to us—how great Jesus really is—this will add weight to his words, and we will listen more closely. It is this powerful and holy Savior who says to us, “You are mine! I have redeemed you and clothed you in dazzling garments that match mine. I delight in you! I am with you always, and I am waiting for you with joy.”

The Defeat of Shame—Now and Forever

For Anna, who is struggling with the shame of her husband’s sexual betrayal, these truths about Jesus won’t remove her experiences of shame immediately. However, as she grows in her relationship with Jesus and in believing the significance of his words to her, he will quiet this shame of betrayal until that day when he removes it forever. As Psalm 34:5 says, “Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.” This is a beautiful promise for right now, as well as a reminder of where we’re headed.

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^[1] Edward T Welch, Shame Interrupted: How God Heals the Pain of Worthlessness & Rejection (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2012), 2.