A Follow-Up on Repentance, Guilt, and Justification

If you're interested in thinking more about the implications of the post on "getting right with God" and the gospel, here are some recent posts that develop the conversation a bit more.

Kevin DeYoung on guilt:

Christians tend to motivate each other by guilt rather than grace. Instead of urging our fellow believers to be who they are in Christ, we command them to do more for Christ.

More DeYoung, this time on confession and repentance:

The cleansing, mind you, is not like the expunging of a guilty record before the judge. That’s already been accomplished. This cleansing is more like the scraping of barnacles off the hull of a ship so it can move freely again. We need confession of sin before God like a child needs to own up to her mistakes before Mom and Dad, not to earn God’s love, but to rest in it and know it more fully.

And Darryl Hart on Calvin, guilt, and conscience:

[T]he significance of conscience in the life of every person means that justification can in no way be merely a book keeping matter, as if our account is credited with Christ’s righteousness way over there but then we need to have a moral transformation way deep down over here inside us for salvation to play out. Justification solves the guilty conscience problem. It’s a remedy for what is basic and deep down in each human being.