When I counsel people, shame often emerges from their hearts—sometimes as a result of their own sin and sometimes from others’ sin.
An abuse victim says, “It’s my fault.”
Someone who just hurt another says, “Nobody will accept me.”
Children whose parents are divorcing ask, “Is there something wrong with us?”
A person on the receiving end of a breakup exclaims, “Nobody would want to be with me.”
A person caught in sin says, “How could I bring this on my family?”
Someone who’s been addressed with hurtful words can start to believe them. I’m a failure. I’m a nobody. I’m unlovable.
In this world broken by sin, we’re covered in shame. Yet at the heart of Christ’s mission—and a key part of his atoning work on the cross—is removing our shame.
Shame in the Individualistic West
Many Christians in Western cultures have missed this important truth, though it’s deeply ingrained in Scripture. The term “guilt” and its various derivatives occur 155 times in the Bible, whereas “shame” and its derivatives occur 345 times. Despite this, we often give greater attention to guilt. We must recover the biblical emphasis on the truth that Christ bore our shame.
But what is shame? Jackson Wu says, “Shame is the fear, pain, or state of being regarded unworthy of acceptance in social relationships.” He contrasts shame with guilt:
Guilt focuses on a person’s actions or behavior. . . . Shame is more general and holistic. It focuses on a person’s worth. Whereas guilt says, “my actions were bad,” shame instead says, “I am bad.”
A significant aspect of Wu’s definition of shame is that it’s about social standing. Shame is inherently communal; it’s about your reputation with others. In Scripture, to shame someone means to publicly humiliate or disgrace her, whereas to honor means to publicly acknowledge her value. This explains why Western cultures often struggle to understand shame—it’s harder to grasp an inherently communal idea in a highly individualized society.
Shame in the Biblical Narrative
The biblical world didn’t have an individualistic Western framework. It was more like societies often referred to as honor/shame cultures. The themes of honor and shame appear throughout the Bible’s narrative account of sin and salvation. As Don Carson says, “The emphasis on shame in the Bible is not first and foremost with reference to peers and to family, but [in relation] to God.” Though Adam and Eve were originally naked, they “were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). But their sin led to shame. We see this when they realize their nakedness and attempt to hide from God.
Western cultures often struggle to understand shame—it’s harder to grasp an inherently communal idea in a highly individualized society.
One way sin is defined biblically is as dishonoring God (Rom. 1:18–21). This results in God’s judgment and an accompanying state of shame (Dan. 12:2). For example, the Lord responds to Israel’s sin by saying, “I will change their glory into shame” (Hos. 4:7). And yet, when the Lord brings salvation, this reverses sin’s shaming effects: “I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth” (Zeph. 3:19).
Shame at the Cross
Shame is at play in Jesus’s death. Crucifixion was a form of capital punishment invented not only to slowly torture someone but also to publicly shame him. Reserved for the scum of society like rebels, slaves, and outcasts, crucifixion stripped its victims of their clothes as well as their dignity. Criminals were hung naked—arms stretched out and alone—along busy Roman roads, to be taunted and mocked as they struggled for breath while vultures and vermin gnawed at their near-lifeless bodies.
In their accounts, the Gospel authors didn’t emphasize or sensationalize the gruesome details of Jesus’s death, but they did highlight the shame of the cross (spitting, mocking, gambling over clothes) in ways we in the West are prone to overlook or minimize.
When the Gospel writers tell the story in this way, they show us that on the cross, Jesus bore our shame. He was stripped naked (an indicator of bearing Adam’s shame from the garden of Eden) and mocked as a pretender king. The cross wasn’t just punishment he took for our guilty verdict—it was public humiliation meant to devalue Jesus’s personhood and smear his reputation. Yet as the Gospels make clear, he who was lifted up in mockery was truly being enthroned in honor and glory.
He Bore the Shame for You
Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2), which means he didn’t enjoy the shame he bore but was willing to bear it because of the joy it’d produce. After bearing our shame, Jesus was “crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death” (2:9). Moreover, his death “[brought] many sons to glory” (v. 10).
Jesus was crucified to bear your shame and to adopt you into a family where you share in the King’s honor.
In a wondrous exchange, Jesus bore our shame so we could receive his honor. This is why the cross is good news. Jesus didn’t just die. He died for us. He laid down his life for you. He was crucified to bear your shame and to adopt you into a family where you share in the King’s honor.
So as you reflect on the cross, remember that when Jesus died, your shame died. He took it with him to the grave, and that’s where it stayed. Through faith, we can receive his grace, his peace, his love, his joy, and his honor in the place of our shame.
The Gospel Coalition