Heidelberg Catechism
Q & A 18
Q. And who is this mediator—
true God and at the same time
truly human and truly righteous?

A. Our Lord Jesus Christ,¹

who was given us
to set us completely free
and to make us right with God.²

Note: mouse over footnotes for Scripture references (does not work in IE 6).

As Reformed Christians, we affirm that salvation is all of Christ and none of us, because no one but he could have accomplished it. He is unique, and not in any minor way; he is the only one who could encompass the work that needed to be done and the price that needed to be paid so that we might be saved, and no one else could even have begun to approach it. We don’t have to be worthy, we have no claim on pride in our own salvation, we cannot undo or lose this great gift—it is all of Christ, bestowed on us through his Holy Spirit by his incomparable grace and unfathomable love toward us who were his enemies, until he redeemed us despite ourselves and made us his friends.

Heidelberg Catechism
Q & A 16
Q. Why must he be truly human
and truly righteous?

A. God’s justice demands
that human nature, which has sinned,
must pay for its sin;¹
but a sinner could never pay for others.²

Note: mouse over footnotes for Scripture references (does not work in IE 6).

This is the keystone of the dilemma: no one who is not truly and fully human, fully participating in human nature and human life, could possibly serve as the mediator we need and pay the penalty for human sin—it had to be one of us; what human beings had put wrong, another human being must put right. At the same time, no one who participated in human sinfulness, no one who was himself or herself guilty of sin, would have the ability to pay that price. “Pretty good” isn’t good enough for the salvation we need; not even the best human being we’ve ever known or heard of is up to the task. No one less than a completely perfect human being could do it.

Q & A 17
Q. Why must he also be true God?

A. So that,
by the power of his divinity,
he might bear the weight of God’s anger in his humanity
and earn for us
and restore to us
righteousness and life.¹

Logically, then, we need a savior who is both fully human and fully God, since only God can be perfect enough to satisfy his own demands. And yet, there’s more to it than that. Only God could bear the weight of what had to be done; only God could endure bearing the near-infinite guilt of all human sin and suffering. Only God could lay down a life of infinite worth, in a deliberate choice of infinite love, as an act of infinite grace, to wash away that near-infinite guilt.

Heidelberg Catechism
Q & A 13
Q. Can we pay this debt ourselves?

A. Certainly not.
Actually, we increase our guilt every day.¹

Note: mouse over footnote for Scripture references (does not work in IE 6).

God’s justice must be satisfied; restitution for our sin must be made. Unfortunately, it’s beyond us to do it—we can certainly work to improve ourselves, but we can never even get to the point of perfection in this life, let alone become good enough to start paying the price for past sin. If we’re going to get out from under this debt, we’re going to need help. But from whom?

Q & A 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 what a human is guilty of.¹
Besides,
no mere creature can bear the weight
of God’s eternal anger against sin
and release others from it.²

In other words, nobody and nothing else in this world is able to pay the price for us either. Which leaves . . . who?

Q & A 15
Q. What kind of mediator and deliverer
should we look for then?

A. One who is truly human¹ and truly righteous,²
yet more powerful than all creatures,
that is, one who is also true God.³

This is the crux of the matter. If there was ever to be any hope for our salvation, it could only come from God; if anyone was ever to satisfy the demands of God’s justice and deliver us from the penalty due our sin, it could only be God himself.

Heidelberg Catechism
Q & A 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.¹
Therefore the claims of his justice
must be paid in full,
either by ourselves or another.²

Note: mouse over footnote for Scripture references.

This begins Part II of the Heidelberg Catechism, its account of our deliverance from sin and death; but where we might expect this to begin with an immediate declaration of the good news, the text demurs. Its authors knew that we can only understand the good news of the gospel as good news if we have come fully to appreciate the bad news from which it sets us free. The good news isn’t that God thinks we’re good enough as we are; the good news is that we aren’t good enough as we are—indeed, we’re worse than we think we are—but that God loves us anyway, and that though we cannot be good enough to satisfy him, he made a way to be good enough for us.

Understanding that begins with understanding the greatness of God’s righteousness and holiness and the absolute character of his hatred of and intolerance for sin; grace must begin with the satisfaction of his justice, either by ourselves or by another. As M. Eugene Osterhaven writes (44-45),

God requires that the creature made in his image give him unconditional obedience and love, and that man love his neighbor as himself. this is the essence of the law. Law and obligation are necessary because God is God. . . .

Man thus stands in debt to God. He owes him the obedience of perfect love but does not give it. Nor is there any escape from full payment. . . .

God is not a man who forgets. He is rather a righteous judge who will “render to every man according to his works” (Romans 2:6). He does not live in some distant place and he does not forget those whom he has made in his own image nor their moral relationship to him. He is the Lord of heaven and earth and he tells all men everywhere that someday they shall stand before him to give account (John 5:28-29; II Corinthians 5:10).

This is why James doesn’t say, “Mercy replaces judgment,” but rather says, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” God’s judgment doesn’t disappear, nor is it set aside, it is redirected in his mercy.

Heidelberg Catechism
Q & A 11
Q. But isn’t God also merciful?

A. God is certainly merciful,¹
but he is also just.²
His justice demands
that sin, committed against his supreme majesty,
be punished with the supreme penalty—
eternal punishment of body and soul.³

Note: mouse over footnote for Scripture references.

Andrew Kuyvenhoven writes (33-34),

The last of the three excuses attempts to play off God’s justice against God’s mercy. Polytheists . . . do that; they call on one god for protection against another. But our God is one (Deut. 6:4), and in the heart of our Father-Judge are no such contradictions. . . .

You and I have to do with a righteous God. He always punishes sin, temporally, eternally, in body and soul. Now our sins are either punished in Jesus—then it is all over—or we have to bear our own punishment.

Dr. Kuyvenhoven is right: God’s justice and mercy are not opposed, but united; and his mercy does not come by simply ignoring his justice. How it does come, how that happens, is the gospel.

Heidelberg Catechism
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.¹
He has declared:
“Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do
everything written in the Book of the Law.”²

Note: mouse over footnote for Scripture references.

God will not let sin slide, because he cannot; it would be unjust, it would be against his nature, it would be wrong, and it would be inherently contradictory. At its core, sin is the assertion of our own self-will against God’s will in a declaration of mistrust: it is the insistence that God neither knows nor truly cares what is best for us, and that we’re better off going our own way. That is a defiant falsehood in the eye of the one who is Truth, a falsehood straight from the pit of Hell; he could not simply ignore it without ceasing to be true, nor would he be doing us anything but ill if he could. Nor, in truth, would his doing so be welcomed; having rebelled against God, why would we want him to come crawling to us to take him back?

Heidelberg Catechism
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.¹
They, however, tempted by the devil,²
in reckless disobedience,³
robbed themselves and all their descendants of these gifts.⁴

Note: mouse over footnote for Scripture references.

Jerome De Jong writes (35-36),

After having considered the greatness and the extent of man’s sinfulness, disobedience and wretchedness, the Catechism concludes this division on human guilt by suggesting three possible objections. . . .

The initial objection concerns the Creator himself. Is not God unjust? . . . Is it right for God to require what man cannot do? But what is it really that God requires—a series of regulations and commandments and ordinances? Let us remind ourselves again that the entire law is summarized in one word: love! If man now has become a sinner, must God now say that it is no longer necessary for the sinner to love him? Of course not; God remains the same. His requirements do not change. But supposing this to be correct, can man fulfill the requirements of the law? The answer is No, but the answer was Yes! God created man able to perform and to do all the good pleasure of God. But Adam deliberately turned his back on God and disobeyed.

Dr. De Jong elaborates on this with the example of a contractor who agrees to build a home, then takes the money for materials and spends it on a drinking binge; he asks, reasonably enough,

Is it unjust for the original party to demand that his home be built? Can the contractor claim immunity because of his weak character? The contractor was given the means with which to build the house and willfully squandered them.

To be sure, as Kuyvenhoven admits (32), this doesn’t exhaust our objections on this point:

Still, we bristle in self-defense: That temptation happened . . . millennia ago. Why should we be doomed for what none of us remembers?

Here again, it’s a matter of perspective. We protest like individualists. But the Bible says that the very fact that we are able to think of ourselves as unrelated, disunited individuals presents evidence of our sinful perspective. God’s revelation views the human race not as a pile of gravel but as a giant tree. We are not pebbles thrown together but twigs and branches on a tree, all organically united.

We form a corporate unity. In many respects you and I have never doubted it. The national debts . . . are your and my debts. Yet when the debts were incurred, some of us were not yet born and none of us were asked. Similarly, the debt of the human race is yours and mine.

It’s an interesting illustration, since nobody really does deny our liability for the national debt; perhaps it’s because the corporate unity represented by the nation is visible, tangible, and human-created. It’s a reminder that, however hard we may try to avoid the fact, our responsibility in life goes beyond merely that for which we want to admit responsibility.

Heidelberg Catechism
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,¹ unless we are born again,
by the Spirit of God.²

Note: mouse over footnote for Scripture references.

This is the doctrine typically referred to as “total depravity,” and it’s one that confuses some people. Andrew Kuyvenhoven’s explanation (28) is helpful here:

Sin is worse than we are inclined to think, and salvation is bigger than any church can tell.

The Bible teaches that, by nature, people are “totally depraved.” This is again a technical term, and it might be helpful to say, first, what it does not mean. We don’t mean to say that people are as bad as they can possibly be. Most of the time, most of them are not. Neither do we mean that ordinary decent people cannot perform acts of kindness, helpfulness, courtesy, and so on. Many people do, and we thank God for the milk of human kindness and the paint of civilized surroundings.

By total depravity, we mean that sin has affected every part of every human being. . . .

The only solution to total depravity is total renewal. No person can do anything that is really acceptable to God unless he or she has a new heart.

The Christian life is a life of total dependence on the grace and the power of God. There is no “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” here, and no suggestion that if you just work harder, you can be good enough (nor the corollary that if anything’s wrong in your life, it must mean you’re not trying hard enough); nor is there any trace of the idea that to keep your salvation, you have to keep working harder. Rather, there is the call to joyful acceptance of our deliverance by Jesus Christ, who set us free from our slavery to sin, who took our death and gave us life.