The Gift of Grief: How God Uses Sorrow

Second Corinthians is sometimes called Paul’s “painful letter.” Context tells us there was an unnamed individual in the Corinthian church who committed a serious, though unspecified, offense. Concerned that the sin issue would be dealt with, Paul urged the believers to practice church discipline and restore the one in error following his repentance (2 Cor. 2:1–11).

Clearly, this situation had burdened the congregation, which is why Paul wrote as he did in chapter 7:

Even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas world grief produces death. (2 Cor. 7:8–10)

With these words, Paul urged the Corinthians not to run from the experience of sorrow but to embrace it. God’s immediate plan for these believers was that they would be not happy but grieved—albeit grieved unto a more stable, lasting happiness in the end.

The apostle anticipated that their grief would lead them to repentance and joy in Christ. J. B. Phillips captures this dimension of sorrow in his paraphrase of verse 10: “The sorrow which God uses means a change of heart that leads to salvation—it is the world’s sorrow that is such a deadly thing.”

This raises an important question for us today: What is godly sorrow, and why does it matter so much in the life of the believer and for the health of the church?

Godly Sorrow Defined

In these verses, Paul distinguishes between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. There is a kind of grief over sin that believers ought to welcome and encourage rather than avoid. At the same time, Paul is careful to acknowledge that not all sorrow for sin is godly. Not all the tears of remorse that people shed culminate in repentance that leads to life.

We can learn to recognize godly sorrow—the good kind of grief—by knowing its characteristics.

First, as Paul suggests, godly sorrow begins with God and His glory, not with man and his need. In other words, this sorrow comes by looking out and unto God, not within and to ourselves. There is all the difference in the world between people feeling sorry for themselves and people experiencing grief over their sin against God. 

Next, godly sorrow is neither insincere nor superficial. This is not “crisis sorrow”—a temporary grief that comes about when people encounter hardship: For a time, they’re unsettled, perhaps even turning to God for comfort, but as soon as the storm subsides, they’re back to smooth sailing as if the trial hadn’t happened at all. In those instances, their grief is a response to crisis, not to the endemic nature of sin.

There is all the difference in the world between people feeling sorry for themselves and people experiencing grief over their sin.

Godly sorrow is different, in that its fruit is lasting change.  When we understand the doctrine of God in His holiness—and ourselves in the light of His holiness—we are brought low and transformed. This was true for the Corinthians, who, having been grieved for a little while, emerged on the other side full of earnestness toward Christ and each other (2 Cor. 7:11).

George Whitefield, the eighteenth-century evangelist, wrote on numerous occasions about how men and women responded to his preaching with grief. Their hearts were broken beneath the weight of God’s law read and God’s grace offered. And this grief issued in practical, observable, behavioral change.  

Godly sorrow, finally, always is an appropriate response to real guilt. Much of modern psychology dismisses the kind of sorrow Paul commends in 2 Corinthians—a sense of core, gut-level alienation from God because of sin that leads men and women to repentance. “That’s just negative self-talk,” many counselors will say. “We need to get you thinking more positively about yourself.” But rightly experiencing godly grief actually begins by acknowledging that we are guilty in God’s sight because of sin.

Apart from turning to Christ in faith and repentance, there is no remedy. Every other supposed solution to godly grief falls short. This is why in Gospel proclamation, we must continuously emphasize the bad news of our condition and the good news of God’s provision in Christ.

Godly Sorrow Displayed

Paul’s joy over the Corinthians’ sorrow wasn’t misplaced; it was deeply theological. Their grief led them to see themselves and Christ more clearly (v. 9). It produced repentance. If the church is to widely recover this concept of godly sorrow, then we, too, have to be about the business proclaiming these truths from the Bible.

Isaiah is perhaps the classic example of what happens when sinful humanity comes face-to-face with the holy God. In his vision of the Lord enthroned, Isaiah witnessed the seraphim worshipping, crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts” (6:3). The vision continues with the prophet confessing, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (v. 5).

The fruit of godly sorrow is lasting change.

Isaiah recognized he was both desolate and excluded. The prophet’s glimpse of God in His holiness produced grief over his sinfulness. The issue was not simply that Isaiah was finite and God is infinite; it was that God is totally pure and cannot look at sin, and Isaiah was besmirched and filthy in His sight. And it was only after the seraph touched his lips with the burning coal—a symbol of God’s cleansing work—that Isaiah could experience joy in God’s presence (v. 6).

Neither Isaiah nor Paul downplayed the experience of sorrow when confronted with the realities of man’s sinfulness and God’s holiness. They understood that godly sorrow has a place in the believer’s life. The question for us is simple: Do we?

Recovering Godly Sorrow Today

At a time when media strategies and therapeutic preaching prevail in many churches, there can be little room for men and women to experience heartfelt grief over their sin. If churches aren’t proclaiming it, why should we expect people to experience it? In these deficient contexts, our friends may become a little more fulfilled, more religious—but godly sorrow leading to repentance and real transformation will be the exception, not the norm.

So what’s the way forward? A deeper understanding of sin and holiness in the preaching and discipleship. Pastors must be willing to speak plainly about the human condition and the holiness of God. Churches must cultivate environments where conviction is not avoided but embraced as a gift from God. And believers must learn to welcome sorrow, not as an end in itself but as a means to deeper joy and communion in Christ.

May our churches be filled again with true biblical proclamation—the kind that teaches sin, repentance, and holiness. And may those who sit under that kind of proclamation be “grieved into repenting” (2 Cor. 7:9), turning to Christ for comfort.

This article was adapted from the sermon “The Assault on Sin” by Alistair Begg.