The Heidelberg Catechism

The Heidelberg Catechism (of which I will be occasionally posting 5 Lords Days)

Preface – The Heidelberg Catechism was written in Heidelberg at the request of Elector Frederick III, ruler of the most influential German province, the Palatinate, from 1559 to 1576. This pious Christian prince commissioned Zacharius Ursinus, twenty-eight years of age and professor of theology at the Heidelberg University, and Caspar Olevianus, twenty-six years old and Frederick’s court preacher, to prepare a catechism for instructing the youth and for guiding pastors and teachers. Frederick obtained the advice and cooperation of the entire theological faculty in the preparation of the Catechism. The Heidelberg Catechism was adopted by a Synod in Heidelberg and published in German with a preface by Frederick III, dated January 19, 1563. A second and third German edition, each with some small additions, as well as a Latin translation were published in Heidelberg in the same year. The Catechism was soon divided into fifty-two sections so that a section of the Catechism could be explained to the churches in preaching each Sunday of the year.
The great Synod of Dort (1618-1619) approved the Heidelberg Catechism, and it soon became the most ecumenical of the Reformed catechism and confessions. The Catechism has been translated into all the European and many Asiatic and African languages and is the most widely used and most warmly praised catechism of the Reformation period.

Lord’s Day 1
1 Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own,
But belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

2 Q. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?
A. Three things: first, how great my sin and misery are; second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such a deliverance.

PART I – Man’s Misery

Lord’s Day 2

3 Q. How do you come to know your misery?
A. The law of God tells me.

4 Q. What does god’s law require of us?
A. Christ teaches us this in summary in Matthew 22 –

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

5 Q. Can you live up to all this perfectly?
A. No. I have a natural tendency to hate God and my neighbor.


Lord’s Day 3

6 Q. Did God create man so wicked and perverse?
A. No. God created man good and in his own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might truly know God his creator, love him with all his heart, and live with him in eternal happiness for his praise and glory.

7 Q. Then where does man’s corrupt nature come from?
A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are born sinners – corrupt from conception on.

8 Q. But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil?
A. Yes, unless we are born again, by the Spirit of God.


Lord’s Day 4

9 Q. But doesn’t God do man an injustice by requiring in his law what man is unable to do?
A. No, God created man with the ability to keep the law. Man, however, tempted by the devil, in reckless disobedience, robbed himself and his descendants of these gifts.

10 Q. Will God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished?
A. Certainly not. He is terribly angry about the sin we are born with as well as the sins we personally commit.

As a just judge he punishes them now and in eternity.

He has declared: “Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.”

11 Q. But isn’t God also merciful?
A. God is certainly merciful, but he is also just. His justice demands that sin, committed against his supreme majesty, be punished with the supreme penalty – eternal punishment of body and soul.


PART II – Man’s Deliverance

Lord’s Day 5

12 Q. According to God’s righteous judgment we deserve punishment both in this world and forever after: how then can we escape this punishment and return to God’s favor?
A. God requires that his justice be satisfied. Therefore the claims of his justice must be paid in full, either by ourselves or by another.

13 Q. Can we pay this debt ourselves?
A. Certainly not. Actually, we increase our guilt every day

14 Q. Can another creature – any at all – pay this debt for us?
A. No. To begin with, God will not punish another creature for man’s guilt. Besides, no mere creature can bear the weight of God’s eternal anger against sin and release other from it.

15 Q. What kind of mediator and deliverer should we look for then?
A. He must be truly human and truly righteous, yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, he must also be true God.