What does the Bible say about shame and regret?

The Shame and Regret of Sin After the Fall

What does the Bible say about shame and regret? We're going to answer that question. You can also discover more on gotquestions .org. Everyone experiences a certain amount of shame and regret over sins committed in the past.

The Bible has much to say about shame and regret, and there are numerous examples of people in the Bible who experienced these negative feelings. Can you imagine the shame and regret Adam and Eve lived with after their sin?

They spoiled the perfect creation God had made. Adam and Eve were in a perfect world, had perfect minds and bodies, and had perfectly close fellowship with God. When they chose to sin against God, all of God's creation was made subject to sin's effects, including disease, decay, death, and separation from God for eternity.

Every human being afterward was born with a sin nature, the natural inclination to sin. Thankfully, God is sovereign, and He had a plan even then to redeem His world through His Son, Jesus Christ, and give mankind a choice for salvation and eternal life with Him.

But Adam and Eve must have lived out their lives on Earth with much regret over their loss of innocence and its associated blessings. We know that they were ashamed at their nakedness. They must have lived the rest of their lives with regret.

After all, they remembered paradise. Another biblical example of shame and regret is the experience of the Apostle Peter. Right after the Passover meal, Peter tells Jesus that he would lay down his own life for his Lord.

Peter’s Denial and Restoration

Jesus responds by telling him that on that very night, Peter would deny three times even knowing the Lord. Later that night, out of fear of losing his own life, Peter denied ever knowing Jesus. After Peter's denial of Christ, he went outside and wept bitterly.

Later, Peter was restored and grew in his faith, becoming one of the founding fathers of the early church. Peter did indeed strengthen his brothers after being forgiven, just as Jesus foretold. While Peter must have lived with much shame and regret over his public denial of Christ, his deepened understanding of the person and work of Christ overcame his feelings of failure.

He realized that he was forgiven by the grace of God and he moved past his personal regret. The Bible teaches us that when we confess our sins and have faith in Christ's sacrifice and resurrection, we can become children of God.

Forgiveness, Assurance, and Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus

We are cleansed from all our unrighteousness and our salvation is eternally secure. As we grow spiritually by spending time with God daily in prayer and reading his word, we begin to trust that God has cast our sins as far as the east is from the west.

Yes, we regret our past mistakes, but that is not our focus. We keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Paul put it this way, brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of the goal, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Jesus Christ.

Shame and regret are part of what is behind us. We must learn to forget. Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What a comfort to believers. We are sinners, but we are justified.

We have a shameful past, but we have a better future. We used to walk in foolishness and rebellion, but now we walk in newness of life. God has forgiven those sins we feel shame and regret over. We can move on.

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