How could anyone imagine that Christianity is about sin rather than about the forgiveness of sin? How could anyone look at the cross and see only the shame of what we did to Christ, rather than the glory of what he did for us? The prodigal son had to 'come to himself' (acknowledge his self-centredness) before he could 'come to his father'. The humiliation of penitence was necessary before the joy of reconciliation. There would have been no ring, no robe, no kiss, no feast if he had remained in the far country or returned impenitent. A guilty conscience is a great blessing, but only if it drives us to come home.
This does not mean that our conscience is always a reliable guide. There is such a thing as a morbid, overscrupulous conscience, and it would be mischievous to seek deliberately to create one. Not all guilt feelings are pathological, however. On the contrary, those who declare themselves sinless and guiltless are suffering from an even worse sickness. For to manipulate, smother and even 'cauterize' (1 Tim 4:2) the conscience, in order to escape the pain of its accusations, renders us impervious to our need for salvation.
Is it, then, healthy or unhealthy to insist on the gravity of sin and the necessity of atonement, to hold people responsible for their actions, to warn them of the peril of diving judgment, and to urge them to confess, repent and turn to Christ? It is healthy. For if there is 'false guilt' (feeling bad about evil we have not done), there is also 'false innocence' (feeling good about the evil we have done). If false contrition is unhealthy (an ungrounded weeping over guilt), so is false assurance (an ungrounded rejoicing over forgiveness). It may be, therefore, that it is not we who exaggerate, when we stress the seriousness of sin, but our critics, who underestimate it. God said of the false prophets in Old Testament days: "They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace. Superficial remedies are always due to a faulty diagnosis. Those who prescribe them have fallen victim to the deceiving spirit of modernity which denies the gravity of sin. To make a true diagnosis of our condition, however, grave as it is, could never be unhealthy, provided that we go on immediately to the remedy. So the law which condemns us is nevertheless God's good gift, because it sends us to Christ to be justified. And the Holy Spirit came to 'convict the world of guilt' but only in order that he might more effectively beat witness to Christ as the Saviour from guilt (John 16:8, 15:26-27).
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People need to understand what the bible means by 'sin' too: I know too many people who say that they have never killed or stolen or cheated (their idea of sin) and thus they must be right with God. It can be difficult to correct people's idea of sin, but it is a piece of the puzzle that needs to be given in order for people to understand that what Jesus did on the cross wasn't just for all the murderers and rapists out there, for them too.
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