What Being Ashamed Is All About
By James Montgomery Boice
IN Romans 10:11, we read, "For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." It is a quotation from Isaiah 28:16 and 49:23.Romans 10:11 That quotation teaches two truths of the gospel that are repeatedly expounded in the New Testament: (1) the way of salvation is belief on Jesus Christ, and (2) this way is open to everyone that is, to the Gentile as well as to the Jew. There's an added truth in this verse, though it is being ashamed. I want to explore that in this message.
It's hard to talk about shame today because very few people in our day are ashamed of anything or even think in such terms. On the contrary, ours is an exceedingly shameless age. Shame implies guilt for wrongdoing. If no one believes he ever does anything wrong, then there is no need to feel guilty about anything; and if there is no need to feel guilty, there is no need to be ashamed.
Vacuum. I have discovered this by what is not being written today. Let me explain. As I began this study I turned to many books on pop-psychology, counseling and self-discovery, thinking I would discover therein much interesting material about overcoming shame. I couldn't find any. Apparently, it is not considered to be among what are popularly called "felt needs". Next I looked in my books of anecdotes and quotations. But there were no stories or snappy sayings there.
In the end I turned to the massive\ Oxford English Dictionary where I found pages of definitions of "shame", supported by scores of quotations from the English writers. But here is the interesting thing. The quotations from which this great dictionary derived their definitions are numerous only from the early centuries of the English language. They become less frequent as the centuries go by and cease at the latest somewhere in the last century.
"Shame" in the Bible
What a difference when we turn to the Bible. The words "shame" or "ashamed" occur 149 times in the Old Testament and 32 times in the New Testament. Obviously, shame is an important Biblical idea.What does shame mean? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as a "painful emotion arising from the consciousness of something dishonoring, ridiculous or indecorous in one's own conduct or circumstances...or of being in a situation which offends one's sense of modesty or decency."
But the Bible carries the meaning much further and deeper than that. It's definition contains several important elements.
1. Disappointment. The first element is best described by the words "acute disappointment", which means being let down by someone or something in which we have believed. We find this usage in Romans 5:5: "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." The NIV even translates the first part of that verse to read, "And hope does not disappoint us."
Concerning our text, we can thus say that "the one who trusts in Jesus Christ will never be disappointed by Him" either in this life or the life to come.
2. Being confounded. The second category of texts carries the idea of shame a bit further, envisioning a situation in which a person is confounded or left speechless. In Ezekiel 16:63 God says of those who have done evil, "That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame."
One of the most offensive things about sin is that it is never silent. Whatever the offense, the one who has made it will find an excuse, blaming God or others or the environment or his or her genes. But this will cease in the day of God's judgment. In that day all sin and all the circumstances leading up to it will be laid bare, the shame of the wicked will be acute and profound, and they will be utterly speechless, silent, abashed, humiliated and disgraced, without a single thing to say.
3. Exposure. Perhaps the most important element in the Biblical idea of shame is exposure, particularly exposure of our sins and sinful nature in God's presence. This idea is found in the earliest pages of the Bible in the story of the fall of Adam and Eve.
We read in Genesis 2:25, which describes the condition of our first parents before the fall, "They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." Rightly so, of course. They had nothing to be ashamed about. They had not sinned.
But when they sinned, they felt shame and tried to hide their nakedness by making clothes of fig leaves. Later, when God came to them in the garden they tried to hide from him by retreating into the shrubbery.And how about the day of God's final judgment? Jesus said of the wicked in that day, "Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us" (Luke 23:30). That's how great will their dread be of this ultimate exposure.
4. Disgrace. The final element in the Biblical idea of shame is disgrace or extreme humiliation. It is what Daniel was speaking of when he wrote of God's judgment. "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12:2). There are scores of similar texts elsewhere.
Believers vs. Unbelievers
We come now to the main point of this study and it is that those who do not trust Christ, though they may be shameless now, they will be shamed in God's judgment, while those who trust Christ here, though they may be made objects of great ridicule, scorn and shame by unbelievers, will have no shame hereafter.The unsaved. The worldly sometimes talk about us Christians as having faith in faith, whereas they build on facts. But everyone has faith in something, even unbelievers. Some people trust their good reputations, for example. As long as people think well of them, they suppose they will always be able to get by. Others trust their achievements, their investments or bank accounts. Still others put their faith in their family, friends and acquaintances.
But these "good" things do not always last even here. Reputations fail, achievements are overshadowed or forgotten, wealth is lost, and friends and acquaintances reject us.
And the situation is even worse when we think in terms of heaven. The only reputation we sinners have in heaven is for having rejected God, broken his law and scorned his warnings. Achievements? The only achievement God will recognize is perfection. Jesus says, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). Wealth will not help us in God's judgment either. We even say, "You can't take it with you." Finally, even friends will fail us in that day, for at the judgment each will be too concerned for his own standing before God to worry about anyone else.
In that day, therefore, the people who have had no shame here will have their shame exposed, and they will be totally disgraced.
The saved. The case with Christians is quite different. Though believers may be made objects of ridicule, scorn and shame by unbelievers, they will have no shame hereafter.
If the object of their trust, Jesus Christ, were not who He is, believers might be ashamed that they confessed Him openly before other men and women. They might be disappointed for having placed Him first in their lives.
But Jesus is indeed who the Bible declares Him to be. He is the very Son of God, our Savior. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords, He is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. He is the Good Shepherd. He is the light of the world. He is the bread of heaven. He is the living water. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He is the way, the truth and the life. He is the Word of God. He is the lamb of God. He is the faithful and true witness and more.
How can anyone be disappointed with Jesus? How can anyone be confounded or disgraced when his or her hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ alone? But aren't Christians sinners too? Yes, they are. But they are sinners whose sin has been forgiven and whose nakedness has been covered over by the righteousness of Christ.
I go back to the story of Adam and Eve in Eden. Our first parents were made innocent but lost their innocence through their sin of eating the forbidden fruit. Before that they were naked and felt no shame. But afterwards they knew shame and proved it by trying to hide their nakedness, even when God came to them in the garden. That is where we left off earlier. But it is not the end of the story.
God came to them in the garden to expose their sin and deal with it, for God cannot ignore sin and all sin must be exposed in his presence, But having exposed the sin and judged it, God did not stop there. We are told in Genesis 3:21 that God killed animals and made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
What a wonderful picture that is! There was no way Adam and Eve could go back to the innocence they had enjoyed before the fall. Lost innocence can never be restored. But they could go forward, and the way forward was through the clothes of skin that symbolized the righteousness of Jesus Christ given to all who put their trust in him.
Shame? Yes. But it's shame recognized, confessed and dealt with permanently in God's own way. And sin is real, and so is all the shame that should accompany it. But the atonement provided by the sacrifice of Christ at the cross is also real. Restitution has been made. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1).
Call to repentance
"Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed," says our text. This is the same truth found in the familiar John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Nevertheless, verse 18 in that chapter further declares, "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."Do not delude yourself, therefore, into thinking that everything will be all right for you. Apart from Christ you are in deadly peril. The day will come when the Judge of the earth will summon you to His High Court, and you will be required to account for your life and explain your wrongdoing. What will you say in that day when the holy God confronts you? What possible excuses can you give? The Bible says that in that day every mouth will be silenced and the whole world will be held accountable (Rom. 3:19).
Revelation 6:15-17 speaks of such people, echoing the words of Jesus which I quoted earlier. "And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us fro" the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?"
But the rocks will not fall. The rocks obey their Master in heaven. Neither they nor anything else will help to cover the exposure of those who have rejected Christ and spurned the gospel of God's grace. Your shame will be profound if you are not in Jesus Christ. Do not wait until the day of Godís judgment overtakes you, when all acts of repentance and faith will be too late. Flee to Christ now! Trust him while there is still an opportunity to do so.
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The late Dr. James Montgomery Boice was the pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, 1716 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103.