“The conscience is a gift God has bestowed on us that tells us when we have sinned against Him and against our neighbor. It calls us to turn from our sin and to seek to change the patterns of behavior that have caused us to sin. This tug by our conscience can be counterproductive if we make no effort to change our behavior. It can also be counterproductive if we simply give in to despair and resign ourselves to our sinful behavior, as though there were no cure for our illness. The sense of guilt is meant to aid in the fight to turn around our bad behavior…In clinging to our guilt, we act as though there were no forgiveness. Clinging to guilt is not a sign of humility but rather a sign of unbelief, for we turn a cold shoulder to the very forgiveness that has been pronounced, as though it were not true.” (Abbot Tryphon)
“The ultimate remedy for living beyond guilt and shame is abiding in the protective love of Christ. All of our earthly maladies find respite in Him…God will wipe off the guilt of your defects by the virtue of that precious blood which has been shed for your reparation.” (David Hawkins, Stephen Charnock)
“His blood sets us free from guilt, and we are now free for gratitude-centered service that truly seeks to praise and magnify His glorious grace…Repentance then should not be accompanied by a paroxysm of guilt but by an awareness of one's estrangement from God and one's neighbor.” (Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese)
"Many people express disapproval at the notion of religious guilt and penitence. They think it unhealthy and masochistic. That is because they forget that guilt is the beginning of repentance, not the end of it...repentance ends not in guilt, but in thankfulness." (Archimandrite Vassilios Papavassiliou)
“…guilt is built into us from God as a gift so that we will have a solid awareness of our wrongdoing and then can make a choice to rectify it. But …lingering guilt over time is not from God but is a trap of the devil to keep us self-focused, confused, and thus block our spiritual growth.” (Sacramental Living)
"Legalism can take away joy because (1) it makes people feel guilty rather than loved; (2) it produces self-hatred rather than humility; (3) it stresses performance over relationship; (4) it points out how far short we fall rather than how far we’ve come because of what Christ did for us.” (Life Application Study Bible, Galatians 4:15)
“Legalism is a spirit killer and comes out of an individualistic, self-regarding view of sin and salvation. We need to resist legalism and not have undue confidence in our achievements or an overwhelming sense of guilt regarding our failures, which is the negative aspect of being centered on oneself. The latter can lead us to seek some means to propitiate God's wrath. God love us at our most unacceptable. It is God's identification with us and His loving acceptance of the worst that we can do that makes repentance and confession a way of rediscovering God and ourselves, and thereby of being set on the road to full and loving relationship with Him and others.” (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, Sacramental Living II)
“No matter how miserable guilt makes you feel or how terribly you have sinned, you can pour out your heart to God and seek His forgiveness.” (Life Application Study Bible, 2 Samuel 12:13)
“Guilt is not a punishment for sin…Guilt certainly exists as an indicator that sin has occurred, but confession and repentance are understood in more therapeutic terms, as a means by which the sinner is restored to communion with God and through which spiritual healing is affected and not as the process by which punishment is imposed.” (Father George Morelli)