You Just Need to Forgive Yourself, Right?
It’s not uncommon to hear distraught people say that they just cannot forgive themselves. Or, they may feel that if they only could forgive themselves that everything would be better. Further, people who are burdened by sin or guilt are told by others that they just need to forgive themselves.
Just do a quick search on Google on forgiving oneself and the results are plenteous. Healthline, one of the more popular health and medical websites, says, “As painful and uncomfortable as it may feel, there are things in life that are worth enduring the pain for to move forward, and forgiving yourself is one of them.” [Source] The article then goes on to provide a twelve-step plan to forgive yourself. The medical website giant WebMD also has an article on the importance of forgiving yourself. [Source] Even Dave Ramsey, the money mogul whose books and training videos are often taught in churches, has a long article on his website about the importance of self-forgiveness. [Source]
Here’s the problem. You can’t forgive yourself.
The idea of self-forgiveness is made up psycho-babble to help people try and cope with guilt. In one of Morgan Freeman’s thriller films, Along Came a Spider, his character, Alex Cross, says, “Forgiving yourself is one thing you can’t do.” His character is right. It is logically impossible to forgive yourself.
Forgiveness requires two or more parties.
Forgiveness requires an offense. If I do something wrong to a friend, I need to seek that person’s forgiveness. It would be asinine to forgive myself for the offense. Yet, this is precisely what the world teaches.
This errant advice is not limited to the secular world. This mindset permeates the church too. I remember counseling someone years ago at a church who was involved in adultery. She believed that she needed to forgive herself and everything would be better.
Guilt is a powerful thing. It will eat away at the soul if it’s not dealt with. I think this is why the ideas of forgiving oneself is so popular. First, it’s incredibly easy to do. You can just wave a magic wand and say the words, “I forgive you, self”, and poof – you’re forgiven. Not so fast, partner. If you’re reading this, and you’ve gone down this road, you probably quickly realized that forgiving yourself did nothing to resolve your guilt because it can’t and won’t. It may be easy to do, but it does absolutely nothing for your dilemma.
Again, it is impossible to forgive yourself. The pure logic of what forgiveness is destroys any thought of self-forgiveness. Further, the Bible no where even hints at the idea. In fact, the Bible would actually be at odds with the idea of forgiving one’s self.
If you’re gotten this far in this article, and you’ve been in a pit of despair over your guilt, the Bible has some wonderful news, and it has nothing to do with forgiving yourself.
Guilt comes from a conscience that is given to you by God. That conscience is like a computer program that sends a warning message to you when you have sinned against God. There is the problem! The offense is ultimately against God. Every sin we commit is an affront to the holy, perfect, sinless God of all creation. Our conscience is actually one of the many evidences of our being made by God. The only cure to the guilt of sin is the confession of that sin to God and the desire to repent of that sin. God promises forgiveness to those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ, since Christ has taken on the full wrath of the punishment Christians deserve. Therefore, God can be just and the justifier of sinners. Further, the grace of God teaches that we are to seek forgiveness from those we have offended, not ourselves. So, it may also require you to humbly ask for forgiveness from the person(s) you have offended.
So, there is wonderfully good news for those who have trusted in Jesus Christ.
He is our forgiveness. He is our hope. Jesus is where we run to in repentance first and foremost as we battle sin in our lives as we wait expectantly for his return. Turn to the pages of Scripture for the way to forgiveness. Turn away from the false idea of self-forgiveness.