LD 4: Cursed is Everyone

…so states the Book of the Law.

In my last post concerning Lord’s Day 3, I couldn’t help ending with the meritorious work of Christ’s righteous obedience after highlighting Adam’s failure in the Covenant of Works.  Both Adams, the First and the Last, were covenantal (or federal) heads commanded to earn rewards by way of their obedience.  Because of their covenantal contexts, both Adam and Christ’s actions had lasting consequences for their respective posterities.

In Adam
For those in Adam, his sin was imputed to everyone’s account.  This means every single person already stands guilty before God by virtue of Adam’s representation before all mankind.  Everyone is cursed.  Our ongoing sinfulness is a constant affirmation that every individual bears a sinful nature imputed to us by Adam’s fall in the Garden of Eden.  We stand with Adam if we place our trust in ourselves.  Our “good works” are about as meritorious as Adam’s sin was cause for banishment from God’s holy presence in the Garden.  In other words, if we are left to trust in our own efforts, the only result is condemnation from a holy God.  God hates sin.  He hates it infinitely, eternally more than the anger we would feel towards the worst possible injustice committed against us.  God hates sin and Adam’s exile from the Garden was a type of the condemnation that awaits those who believe their own works are worthy of eternal glory.  Only condemnation awaits for those in Adam alone.

• #1: Adam’s sin is imputed to each person’s account.

In Christ
For those justified by faith alone in Christ alone, the imputation continues.  I’ll explain how this is possible shortly, but for now Christ’s work continues the story of imputation in the Great Exchange; this is the gospel:

• #2: Believer’s sins are imputed to Christ’s spotless account through faith in Him.
• #3: Christ’s perfect righteousness is imputed to the believer’s account through faith in Him.

What does this all mean?
(#1) In Adam, God sees us as guilty, worthy of eternal punishment.  God’s righteous anger and loving mercy converge as He seeks to redeem a people for Himself.  He sends His Son to do what Adam failed to do: to perfectly obey the Father’s will.  Adam wasn’t able to earn heaven through obedience, and neither can we because we constantly sin, so the Father sent His Son to do what we couldn’t do.  Christ earns the glory of heaven for His people by perfectly obeying His Father in every possible way.

But the curse that Adam ushered in had to be paid.  God can’t simply forget sin committed against Him.  He must be faithful to His own Word, justice, and righteousness.  From creation God’s Word proclaimed,

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:16-17; emphasis mine)

Death, along with all its cosmic ramifications, was the ultimate sanction for Adam’s law-breaking.  With sin, God promised sure death.  From the outset, sin was meant to be punished.  Even now, all sins must be punished, and since God is and always will be true to Himself, justice must be either be paid personally by all those who reject Christ or for those in Christ by Christ Himself.

So Lord’s Day 4 teaches that God is both merciful and just (with the emphasis on His justice).  How are these twin truths simultaneously upheld?

God’s wrath and mercy converge at the cross…

Cursed is everyone… including Christ.  All sin must be paid, but the beauty of the gospel is that when we look at the cross we see our Savior become repugnant before the Father on our behalf, on my behalf.  Jesus took on our sins and took the punishment worthy of those sins.  His death on the cross was the

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Again, I can’t help ending with the meritorious work of Christ.  This is a text highlighted within LD 4:

10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” 11 Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” 12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.”  13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” (Galatians 3:10-13, emphasis mine)

Christ became God’s curse for me so that in Christ the Father would look at me with the blessing of Christ’s perfect righteousness.  When God looks at me He sees the perfection of Christ.  This is the best news in the world.  God satisfies His demands for justice against sin in Christ, while offering me the mercy my utter sinfulness longs for.  Curse of the law is paid by the passive obedience of Jesus, and the righteousness needed for heaven is accomplished by Christ’s active obedience.

There is nothing better than Christ’s perfect obedience to the Father.  By my union in Christ, this is my obedience too.

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Lord’s Day 4

Q & A 9
Q. But doesn’t God do us an injustice by requiring in his law what we are unable to do?
A. No, God created humans with the ability to keep the law. They, however, tempted by the devil, in reckless disobedience, robbed themselves and all their descendants of these gifts.

Q & A 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 is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”

Q & A 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.

LD 3: Heaven Must Be Earned: A Tale of Two Trees and Two Heads

Gotta say this… Me blogging through the HC will never do the catechism justice, but this week, it’s especially glaring.  I’m in way over my head with trying to synthesize HC #6-8.  Here are some quick stats to give you perspective on why I feel this way.  What Ursinus teaches in these three questions and answers comes to about 120 words in English.  When he goes on to explain the same embedded doctrines covered in this third Lord’s Day, he takes about 40 pages in his commentary (pp. 27-66).  That spells trouble for me.  I’m convinced this tension is going to exist week in, week out.  Amazing how so few words turn into so many pages.  This is why the HC is so good; it’s both so brief and so dense.  Let’s see what I can do in about 1000 words, so on to Lord’s Day 3…

How bad are things?  Well (in Adam), very bad.

What makes man’s wickedness and perversion so wretched is the fact the man was created very good (in righteousness and holiness) with the complete ability to love God his Creator just as the law would demand: with all his heart.  He was perfectly able to do what God had commanded.  Unfortunately, HC #6-7 describe how great the reversal from God’s very good creation of man to man’s fall into corruption.  In one swoop, Adam’s created nature in holiness and righteousness becomes poisoned and totally depraved.  Immediately, Adam’s context of needing personal good works for eternal glory with his Creator shifts to needing salvation from his bad works of sin from his Redeemer. Adam cannot do anything to help the eternal damnable mess he has gotten himself into (as well as us).

So let’s turn to the Garden of Eden and explain the bolded sentence above from the perspective of the trees, where I’ll explain the significance of good works in Scripture’s story of redemptive history.

Heaven Must Be Earned: A Tale of Two Trees and Two Heads

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Within Adam’s creation (by virtue of the Image of God) was embedded the future hope that he would posses a body fit for heaven one day.  He was created with an earthly body in holiness and righteousness, but Adam’s context was a covenantal context where he had to obey God’s command to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Had Adam completed the obedience set before him by way of trial (known as the probation period), Adam would have been confirmed in his righteousness, only to wait for the guaranteed, future day of consummation.  For this reason, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is also known as the Probation Tree; it stood as the Garden’s symbol of the works required for a more perfect eternal rest.

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)

Adam was not in a situation where he needed grace because he was created without sin.  There is no need for grace where there is no sin.  His situation was to perform the necessary good work God asked him to do.  Held out before Adam was the promise that he would obtain eternal life on his own grounds by his own works (opposite the consequence of sure death for disobedience).  In essence, Adam was supposed to earn heaven by his own works; this is why heaven must be earned.  This is known as the Covenant of Works.  This original intent of the Law was to produce life; so says Lev 18:5, “5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD.”

But Adam failed at the moment of crisis which was centered at the tree.  At the Probation Tree he failed to uphold the law of life.  HC #7 states, “This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are born sinners—corrupt from conception on.”

When Adam sinned, he sinned for us.  His sin, immediately became ours.  His sin was imputed to our accounts, so that our nature, even before birth is already sinful and depraved.  The consequence of this is that we are, “so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil.”  This is how bad our situation is.

But what of the second tree?  The promise of eternal life held out to Adam is seen in the second tree…

The Tree of Life

Notice in Genesis 3:22 that had Adam obeyed (which at this point he had already failed), he would have earned a life lasting forever.  This everlasting life was qualitatively different from the life he was already living.  Genesis 3:22 says:

22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

The Tree of Life was a sign of the heavenly life to come.  Adam’s obedience would have brought him to the Tree of Life (or the Tree of Promise).  Adam was created in perfect holiness and righteousness with an earthly body, but that holiness and righteousness was meant to lead him to live a life characterized by those perfect standards.  Had he done that, he would have attained a heavenly body earned by the works of his holiness and righteousness confirmed in the righteous passing of his probation test.

He didn’t and now sin is imputed to us.  Not good.  Not good at all!

But the next verse in Genesis 3 is so full of hope:

23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.  24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.  (Genesis 3:23-24)

Though Adam was banished from the Garden of Eden (and for his own good!), the Tree of Life was noticeably preserved and not destroyed.  Adam’s works were no longer suitable to meet the law’s demands, so any attempt by him to earn the promise of eternal life associated with the Tree of Life would have earned him the exact opposite: hell.  He no longer could offer God the works required for heaven’s entrance.  For this reason, Adam’s banishment from the Garden was for his own good.

Two (Federal) Heads

Adam’s convenantal context carried with it massive biblical significance.  Romans 5:12-21 makes it clear that Adam was acting on behalf of himself and all his posterity.  Federal Headship is the biblical notion that one individual acts on behalf of the many.  What Adam was doing was for us; he was our federal head.  At the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam failed as our federal head and earned for us sin.  He failed to obediently uphold the Covenant of Works.

Romans 5 also states that the Second Adam was Christ.  He too was in a covenant; his was a covenant of works to the Father.  Like Adam, Jesus had to obey Him perfectly.  And like Adam, Jesus was acting on the behalf of all his people.  In Romans 5, Paul is declaring that Jesus is now our federal head.  But unlike Adam, Jesus obeyed the Father perfectly.  By His obedience, Jesus merited eternal life for us.  His good works earned heaven for us.  The absolutely mind-boggling part of all this is what we offer Christ and what He gives us:

• All we give Jesus is all our sins.
• Jesus, the Last Adam, gives us the perfect righteousness that the Father requires of heaven through faith.

This is history’s greatest transaction: Heaven is earned, but not by us; it is earned for us by Christ.  This is my Savior who loves me and gave Himself for me.  He is who I need.  His works are what my sins need.  Without Christ I’m dead in sins.  Christ obeyed perfectly and now his righteousness is imputed to us.  This is not only good, but very good!

How good are things?  Well, (in Christ) it’s already so glorious, but in heaven it’ll be that much better.

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Lord’s Day 3

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

Q & A 7
Q. Then where does this corrupt human 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.

Q & A 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.

LD 2: My Tutor Says I’m Guilty

Law. Sin. Guilt.  Misery.

Not very comforting words.  If Lord’s Day 1 teaches that the entire HC is about comfort, it needs to be asked: what’s so comforting about the words law (introduced in #3), sin (#2), guilt (#12), and misery (#3)?

Well not much, but keep in mind that the catechism doesn’t end today (thankfully).

Remember the HC’s spanning triad: Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude (or perhaps by the better synonyms of Law, Gospel, and Sanctification).  Lord’s Days 2-4 (#3-11) concern our Guilt before God because of the law of God.

Section #1: Guilt/Law

The law and the gospel… you can’t have one without the other, but one is definitely sweeter than the other.  The law condemns and the gospel justifies.  The law leads to punishment and in the gospel that punishment has been paid.  So it seems obvious that…

The gospel > The law

Not so fast.  While some would like to embrace the grace of God at the expense of one’s guilt before God, removing guilt strips the need for grace.  This is why any gospel discussion must be prepped with the law.  Guilt must always come before grace; the law must precede the gospel.  Here’s what the law of God is and does:

• The law sets the standard of God’s perfect holiness.  The law is beautiful because it reflects God’s holy nature.
• The law is a mirror reflecting our utter sinfulness.  The law is beautiful because it highlights our ugliness.
• The law proclaims our need for someone perfectly holy.  The law is beautiful because it upholds a standard of perfection.
• The law is our tutor driving us to Christ.  The law is beautiful because it teaches us about holiness Incarnated.

Take the law away, and there’s no need for Christ.   There is no comfort in Christ where the need for Christ is absent.  So the gospel’s sweetness is made so by the tutorial nature of the law itself.  Galatians 3:24 says:

²⁴Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

So yes, the gospel is greater than the law.  However, we must look at the law differently, because the angle that Scripture approaches sheds light on the importance of the law.  There is no good news without good works.  When the law is kept, the gospel can be embraced by grace.  The problem is Lord’s Day 2 makes it clear that we cannot uphold the law.  Remember, the law is an unchanging standard from an unchanging, holy God.  The need for good works never vanishes.  Someone must keep the law, because that standard of perfection remains.  The whole of Scripture is absolutely clear that this someone is not us.  More on this in the coming weeks, but for now, let me briefly build on what I just said… Take the law away, and you take away the purpose of the work and obedience of Christ.  Unacceptable in Christianity.  So let’s get a handle on the law…

Lord’s Day 2.

So what of the law?  First and foremost, I need to hear it declared to me… and often.  The law of God tells me very simply and emphatically, “No!”  No, I cannot keep the law, because I tend to hate God and my neighbor.  This is a universal knockout punch because the law of God is summarized in Matthew 22 as loving God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  In the clearest possible terms, HC #5 teaches that rather than love God, I tend to hate Him.  Matthew 22 continues on with my neighbor, and regarding my fellow-man, I am to love them as I would myself.  The problem here is I have it reversed.  I’m too good at loving myself in a purely selfish way and an expert at not only forgetting my neighbor all together, but hating them.  That’s textbook sin, and sin leads to misery.  Here’s the breakdown:

• Sin = breaking of God’s law (and in this case, it’s Matthew’s summary in 22:37-40).
• Sin ushers in misery.
• Misery is worse.  Much worse.  How?
• Misery = guilt + punishment (the heaviness of misery brings with it the full weight of hell)

So LD 2 leaves us in a state of misery, because the law of God tells us so, which our nature and actions constantly confirm.  Again, what does the law tell us?  That we hate God and our neighbor.  What’s the point of all this?  We can’t help ourselves, and more than that, we need God’s help… desperately.  My tutor, the law of God, says I’m guilty and that I need Him who has fulfilled the law in every way… Christ.

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Lord’s Day 2

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

Q & A 4
Q. What does God’s law require of us?
A. Christ teaches us this in summary in Matthew 22—”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 first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

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

LD 0: Heidelberg Catechism Introduction for 2011

Thankfully, I’ve already made my way through the catechism’s concluding section on the Lord’s Prayer, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now it’s on to the rest of the catechism where I should have begun from the outset (I couldn’t wait to properly start in January so I just had to pick it up mid year in September 2010).  Well…

• If you’re rusty on your Christian doctrine, then stick with me each week.  If at the very least stop by just to read the Heidelberg Catechism for a refresher; trust me, that alone will be worth a weekly glance.
• If you’re new to Reformed Theology, then my brief surveys of the Heidelberg Catechism’s Lord’s Days will give you a good primer on what I’m convinced is the most biblically faithful theological system.
• If you’re new to Christianity, then you’ll get a firmer grip on what the Christian gospel is.  I can’t give you anything better in this life than a clearer picture of the gospel.

Hopefully it’ll be worth your time.  Now on to an overview of the HC:

Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude

Guilt, Grace and Gratitude (or Law, Gospel, and Sanctification) sum up the Heidelberg Catechism. This is also the cycle the Christian will repeatedly experience all the days of his life until he goes home where he will experience eternal Glory. This threefold partition of the HC takes you through the entire calendar year. HC#2 structures the remainder of the catechism for us:

2. How many things are necessary for you to know, that in this comfort you may live and die happily?

Three things: the first, how great my sin and misery is; the second, how I am redeemed from all my sins and misery; the third, how I am to be thankful to God for such redemption.

So here’s the catechism’s self-determined outline:

• Lord’s Days 2-4 (#3-11) concern our Guilt before God
• Lord’s Days 5-31 (#12-85) concern our Grace from God
• Lord’s Days 32-52 (#86-129) concern our Gratitude towards God

The HC is tidy and clear, perfect for reflection and instruction. This is why the catechism has been front and center at my site; perhaps a more appropriate tagline over the present “deacons likewise must be…” should be “gratitude through reflection and instruction.” My goal is to serve as a deacon out of the overflow of the Spirit’s work in me through His Word. A Deacon’s Life was always meant to be both reflective and instructional.

If guilt, grace, and gratitude, don’t tug at your heart, then how about looking a little deeper into outline of the HC? Broken up another way, here are the major sections:

FIRST PART OF MAN’S MISERY

SECOND PART OF MAN’S REDEMPTION

• THE APOSTLES’ CREED
• OF GOD THE FATHER
• OF GOD THE SON
• OF GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT
• THE SACRAMENTS
• OF HOLY BAPTISM
• OF THE HOLY SUPPER

THIRD PART OF THANKFULNESS

• THE LAW OF GOD (TEN COMMANDMENTS)
• PRAYER (LORD’S PRAYER)

I get excited at how far reaching the HC is. Wouldn’t you like to have a firmer grasp on all these topics (like the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer)? All of this never gets old to me; I read it over and over and over again. Many desire to memorize all the questions and answers, but few actually do. Unfortunately, I’m a part of the many, but I hope to change that one day and be a part of the few. Still, this is pretty much my passion, even if I’m awful at memorization.

I would challenge you to take a good look at the HC for 2011 (actually every year for that matter!). For this reason, I recommend Kevin DeYoung’s The Good News We Almost Forgot. It’s basic and brief, so it won’t be too much to handle.

Here’s the author’s dedication:

To Ian, Jacob, Elsie, and Paul,

Daddy loves you more than you know.

I hope you grow up to like the Heidelberg Catechism half as much as I do.

Nice little coincidence that Jacob and Paul are members of his family. You have no idea how much I wish this upon my family too! Join me this year.