Reformation 500 WEEK 34: Heidelberg Catechism QA’s
92-95
Question 92: What is the
Law of God? “And God spoke all these words, saying: I
am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. [First Commandment] You shall have no other gods
before Me. [Second] You shall not make for yourself a carved image – any
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor
serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those
who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My
commandments. [Third] You shall not take the name of the Lord your God
in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. [Fourth]
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all
your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you
shall do no work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant,
nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your
gates. For in six days the Lord made heavens and the earth, the sea, and all
that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the
Sabbath day, and hallowed it. [Fifth] Honor your father and your mother,
that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
[Sixth] You shall not murder. [Seventh] You shall not commit
adultery. [Eighth] You shall not steal. [Ninth] You shall not bear false
witness against your neighbor. [Tenth] You shall not covet your
neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male
servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that
is your neighbor’s.”
We were created
in God’s image to imitate God by obeying His law – which harmonizes with His
eternal and unchangeable wisdom. God created Adam and Eve with a knowledge of
His law (Rom. 2:14-15). “The law was engraved upon the heart of man in his
creation, and is therefore known to all naturally” (Ursinus, 104). “Since the
fall, however, which resulted in the corruption and depravity of our nature, a
considerable part of the natural law has become obscured and lost by reason of
sin [Rom. 7:7], so that there is only a small portion concerning the obedience
which we owe to God still left in the human mind. It is for this reason that
God repeated, and declared to the church the entire doctrine and true sense of
His law, as contained in the Decalogue [i.e. the Ten Commandments]” (492). God
wrote the Ten Commandments in stone (Exodus 31:18) as His permanent
will for mankind. The other laws (both ceremonial and judicial)
were temporary, designed only for Israel in the Promised Land, and were
abolished by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:14-16).
But the Ten
Commandments were not abolished. Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to
destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill”
(Matt. 5:17). Jesus fulfilled the law “by teaching it and restoring its true
meaning and sense, which He did by freeing it from the corruptions and glosses
of the Pharisees, as appears from His sermon on the Mount” (Ursinus, 496). He fulfilled
the law by obeying it perfectly and suffering its curse on the cross (Gal.
3:13). “Christ fulfills the law in us by His Spirit, by whom He renews us in
the image of God [Rom. 8:4] …. This obedience is commenced in us in this life
by the Spirit of Christ, and will be perfected in the life to come” (Ursinus,
496). We were “created, and have been redeemed by Christ and regenerated by the
Holy Spirit, that we might keep this law … both in this life and in the life to
come [2 John 1:7; 1 John 2:3-4; 1 Cor. 7:19]” (Ursinus, 491).
The preface to the law, “I am the
LORD your God, who delivered you from bondage,” makes it clear that God redeems
His people from the bondage of sin in order that they might obey His law out of
thankfulness for salvation (John 14:15; 15:14).
Question 93: How are
these Commandments divided? Into two tables: the first of
which teaches, in four commandments, what duties we owe to God; the second, in
six, what duties we owe to our neighbor.
The Ten
Commandments were written on “two
tablets of stone” (Ex. 34:1), for they contain all we owe to God and our
neighbor. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with
all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great
commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as
yourself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:37-40).
Question 94: What does
God require in the first Commandment?
That, on peril of my soul’s salvation, I avoid and flee all idolatry, sorcery,
enchantments, invocation of saints or other creatures; and that I rightly
acknowledge the only true God, trust in Him alone, with all humility and
patience, expect all good from Him only, and love, fear, and honor Him with my
whole heart; so as rather to renounce all creatures than to do the least thing
against His will.
To have other
gods is not to have the true God (the God of the Bible), or to worship anything
that is not God. The unbelieving and ungodly have always “worshipped and served
the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). Sorcery, enchantments, or
praying to unseen spirits are just some of the many ways people try (vainly) to
find answers and help apart from the true God (see Deut. 18:10-12). God saves
us so that we might begin in this life to love and desire Him more than anyone
or anything else, so that our greatest desire is to please Him, and to fear to
do the least thing against His will (Luke 14:26-33). “As the deer pants for the
water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God, my soul thirsts for God, for the
living God” (Ps. 42:1-2). “Make me walk in the path of Your commands, for I
delight in it” (Ps. 119:35).
Question 95: What is
idolatry? Idolatry is to conceive or have something else in
which to place our trust instead of, or besides, the one true God who has
revealed Himself in His Word.
Part of putting
off the old man and putting on the new man is to avoid and flee all idolatry.
Since we believers are not perfectly sanctified in this life, the sin of
idolatry still clings to our heart, and therefore we must daily fight against
it: “do not become idolaters as were some of them…. Therefore, my beloved, flee
from idolatry” (1 Cor. 10:7, 14).
“Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). Every day we need
to be reminded to put God first. “Seek first the kingdom of God” (Matt.
6:33).
NOTE: These Posts were written and designed as bulletin inserts by Pastor David Fagrey of the Grace Reformed Church of Rapid City, SD .
Link to this blog entry as a bulletin insert: Reformation 500 Heidelberg Catechism 92-95
For a double-sided PDF for easy printing: Reformation 500 Week 34
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