Micah 7:8-20 Notes from Sunday, 08 and 15 May

The Gospel According to Micah

Rev Austin Reifel, Indy Reformed: 

08 May sermon, Micah 7:8-17

15 May sermon, Micah 7:18-20

Resources: 

Zeltenreich Reformed Church: https://youtu.be/FBiKUt6u15M

Calvin’s Commentary: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/micah/7.htm

Notes from 01 May sermon: People in the church are wrapped up in worshiping anything other than God – preachers, even other laymen, their own denomination’s power or perfection, politicians or even ideologies that are completely opposed to the truth of the Word. Indy Reformed 01 May https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/indyreformed/sermons/51222137257315/

7-8 – Confidence in God’s provision for his faithful saints. Micah is personally demonstrating what the remnant will do – trust in the promises of God, in who he is and what Micah’s end will be. This is trusting in God’s power to save men – even his enemies. Micah is confessing his faith.

9 – Christ our intercessor. Merit is all God’s (Christs), and we have no righteousness. See Heidelberg Catechism flow from Misery to Deliverance. Belgic Confession 15 and 20.

Calvin: When any one is seriously touched with the conviction of God’s judgment, he is at the same time prepared to exercise patience; for it cannot be, but that a sinner, conscious of evil, and knowing that he suffers justly will humbly and thankfully submit to the will of God.

… also manifest how God is light to the faithful in obscure darkness, because they see that there is prepared for them an escape from their evils; but they see it at a distance, for they extend their hope beyond the boundaries of this life.

10 – The adultress (in the dark of night) of Proverbs 7, false wisdom, Ashirem of Micah 5

11-14 – From Christ’s ascension to his return, this is the Ephesians 3 prayer, prayed for those who do not believe.

11-12 – The Gospel goes to the world, or Israel is freed from the bonds of Babylon. Trans is unclear, but reads as if the True Israel/True Jerusalem will attract people from all the world. God is building his kingdom from every tribe, nation and tongue.

13 – Spiritual wasteland as well as a cultural demise, where justice is destruction

14 – Pilgrims in the wilderness with a hope for what will come (Abraham looked forward to a promise that is eternal). I think it might be that this is declarative as well, “God will shepherd his people” even when they are dispersed and remote from each other (sounds like local church to me). Micah is praying here, praying in God’s will, knowing that he is repeating God’s promise from of old.

“I am the good shepherd. I will lay my life down for the sheep” – Christ is the fulfillment of that promise.

15-17 – God is pronouncing his plan. The Gospel goes to the world. Misery is known, and people come out repentant in dust. Also, promise to the church that her enemies will be deaf, mute, miserable and like fools, ultimately impotent and justice will be dealt. Thinking also of Nebuchadnezzar – how he is relevant to this passage with his evil, repentance and potential belief, changing his kingdom in the process. People repent in dust and ashes – just as they die in dust and ashes. This isn’t just a random coincidence. God’s judgement is even more pronounced and glorious when he judges sinners in their repentance. The Christian takes part in this judgement, wielding the sword given them at the moment of their own belief – the Holy Scriptures, which render the soul unto faith in Christ. This is the holy war in which we find ourselves, not some epic physical combat with the armies of Satan at the end of the ages, and not either with the God-haters of these latter days. We are to glorify God in his wondrous judgement of mercy where his justice is applied to Christ in the place of those who have hated him.

NEXT WEEK

18-20 – Gospel. The actual Gospel is here – it’s not completely hidden in the OT, but just openly revealed in the NT. Direct comparison with the pagan gods who have no Word upon which the believer can rest. There is no legitimate claim against a God who does not or cannot keep his promises. Our God does precisely that – he gives his Word and keeps it. God is steadfast in his love and faithfulness. We are his image-bearers, and in our redeemed state, our love and faith are made steadfast by him, through the Holy Spirit. This is assurance, sanctification, hope.

Calvin: The faithful take for granted that God had promised to the fathers that his covenant would be perpetual; for he did not only say to Abraham, I will be thy God, but he also added, and of thy seed for ever. Since, then, the faithful knew that the covenant of God was to be perpetual and inviolable, and also knew that it was to be continued from the fathers to their children, and that it was once promulgated for this end, that the fathers might deliver it as by the hand to their children; they therefore doubted not but that it would be perpetual. 

Rev Robert Godfrey (Zeltenreich): “We need to hear this, because what does Satan try to do every single day, but attack us with the power of sin and misery? He tries to convince us that our sins are too great to be forgiven, that we can’t repent enough, that temptation will win the day yet again. He keeps trying to stir in us the thought that sin has won the battle. So we need to hear these victorious words at the end of Micah, that the Savior has won, that sins aren’t just being fought against, sins have been cast into the sea, into the depths…”

18 – “Who is a God like you” – Micah’s name in pun. Only one God, of all the gods, forgives.

We have to grasp the goodness, favor, steadfastness of God in true religion. The Gospel moves us. 

19-20 – Micah is making statements of fact. This is not hopeful prayer, but confident statements. 

19 – The day of atonement when the sin is cast upon the goat which is summarily banished. This is Christ on the cross. Heidelberg Catechism 60

Exodus 15: the fate of Pharaoh’s army

20 – Translate: “You will give steadfast life and faithfulness to the True Israel

Communion Class Notes

From Church Officer Training, 17 May

References: 
Called To Serve - Brown (ed.)
Chapter 9: “Calvin on the Eucharist”
Chapter 10: “Table Manners”
Church Order of the URCNA, articles 41-46
Belgic Confession, article 35
Heidelberg Catechism, questions and answers 75-82
Canons of Dort 14, 17
With Heart And Mouth - D. Hyde
Calvin's Institutes 6
1 Corinthians

1. How was Calvin’s view of the Lord’s Supper different than Zwingli’s?
   1. Opposed to Zwingly, the supper is not just a memorial, but a true sacrament, means of grace and a sign connected to the thing signified by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a mystery, and Calvin says so in his writing, quite clearly. Zwingly was a rationalist, as was Rome – Calvin achieved the realistic view in his conception of the Supper, both objective in its flow from Scripture and its experiential aspect in sensory impression

2. Does Calvin’s view of the Lord’s Supper conform to the view outlined in in our confessions?
   1. Calvin’s view actually is the view of the Reformed churches. The Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards are outworkings of Calvin. 

3. What was Calvin’s argument with regards to frequency of communion?
   1. Calvin was thoroughly for a frequent observation of the eucharist. At least weekly. Geneva rejected his petition for frequent communion and he complied with the quarterly schedule. 

4. What frequency of the Lord’s Supper observance is permissible according to our confessions and church order?
   1. URCNA church order indicates no less than quarterly.

5. Why is it necessary for the elders to supervise the Table?
   1. Elders are commissioned to preserve the purity of Word and sacrament. They are to both promote the supper to those who are to be permitted and to engage, educate and limit, if necessary, those who may not be fit for the Table. Since the event comes with both blessing and curse, the mission is to protect those who do not understand or are not qualified and to ensure that the means of grace is offered rightly for those who will benefit from it.

6. Who is permitted to come to the Lord’s Table?
   1. Those who are confessing believers, baptized members of churches that confess the ecumenical creeds (“Bible-believing churches”) and are not openly rebellious, impenitent, unrepentant and are of maturity to discern the supper. IOW: Local members, similar non-members, no others.

7. What are the different categories and/or methods of fencing the Table?
   1. Open, which includes anyone who professes belief, which is usually a minimum of the simple gospel. Contemporary churches will either not require this profession or the requirement results in at best an unintelligible assent to general Christian doctrine.
   2. Closed, which limits participation to local church or denomination
   3. Close, which includes and excludes those in questions 5 and 6 above

8. Is the practice of “paedocommunion” permissible according to our confessions and church order?
   1. No. This is the sacrament that requires a conscious state capable of discerning the value and meaning of the event, to be able to receive it by faith. “Discerning the Body” includes knowing what is to happen. Conversely, an infant could not eat and drink judgement on himself, therefore the idea of paedocommunion is absurd.

Notes from discussion:

The table, as offered by the Reformed churches, is what sealed me to the Reformed, biblical system of theology, piety and practice.

How does a member of the Reformed churches approach the Supper as it is practiced in non-reformed churches? For instance, while on vacation, the only option is a church which may preach the Gospel, but teaches that the Supper is only a memorial and does not fence the table.” – Are our church standards to guide our participation outside the Reformed church? Or does communion of the saints have a place in consideration? Intinction practiced? 

It is remarkable that rationalists are all about the unmediated personal experience, mysticism, bordering the magical. The Reformed confession is realistic, objective, and yet has a mediated experiential model that does not violate the Scriptures.

If people knew what the Reformed churches actually believe about the sacraments, they might not be as likely to bypass directly to Rome or the Orthodox.

Bonus notes

“I’m not smarter with age, I have simply achieved a different type of stupid”

Bumper sticker idea

“The Reformed – Confessing the dogging of Rome since 1564”

Ephesians 2:1-10

Ephesians 2:1-10

References: 

Calvin’s commentary: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/ephesians/2.htm

Grace United Reformed Church, Torrance CA (Dan Borvan): https://youtu.be/_Vkb4UwoVk0

HC question 20: https://threeforms.org/heidelberg-catechism/#lords-day-7

Guilt Grace and Gratitude here. Know your misery, your redemption and what to do with it.

What you were and what you are:

Dead, now alive

In the world, now not of this world

Ruled by Satan, now by Christ

Under the power of sin, now of Christ

Verse 1: Dead in sin. You Were Dead. Not half-dead or handicapped or in a coma. Because of sin, you emerged on the world scene, dead. Valley of dry bones, Ezekiel 37.

Verse 3: 

“Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest.” 

Not all those who are in the world are saved. There is a difference, clearly stated here. John 3:18 and 36. Christ’s sacrifice is wholly sufficient to save everyone, however, Holy Scripture is clear that it is not God’s plan to save everyone. We are not universalists – distinct from many heretical movements throughout history, as far back as Origen all the way to Universalist and Unitarian, and PC(USA) churches today. Christian funerals demonstrate how ubiquitous universal salvation really is. 

Most funerals put the honoree into heaven because most ministers – most Americans believe in justification by death. This is universalism.

Calvin on justification: we are not half-dead, as Rome would contend, but thoroughly dead. There is nothing of merit in us.

Verses 4-6: Alive in Christ! But God has made us alive in Christ, who has all the merit, through his Spirit. And this is now, not something to come in an unexpected future day. God has raised us with Christ and has seated us with him in the heavenly places. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. 

We have participated in Christ’s suffering, death, resurrection and ascension. One day, this will be fully realized on Jesus’ return, but even now, we partake of his benefits because of this participation.

Verse 5: 

“Through faith,” not simply knowing truth, but affirming or assenting. Subscribing to, or via a confession of the truth. Know the Word, approve of the Word, and fully trust the Word (Knowledge, Assent, and Trust). Note the lack of “experience” in this formula.

Verse 7:

Why did God do this? “So that in the ages to come He might show the boundless riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Verses 8-9: 

“For by grace you have been saved through faith.” – external operation, not our own work or merit. HC 21 says it is a “freely granted” gift. That means no conditions are made for our faith. It is entirely of the H.S., receiving and resting in the promises of God (WLC 72). Faith is a passive instrument, not obedience or a work. This is so important that Paul is repeating from verse 5.

Verse 10: Good works – that we should walk in them. Return to original design: glorify God and enjoy him forever, aka, Love God and neighbor. Fruit of the faith in verse 8. 

Suffering as Beauty

"I am thankful for the joy you have in God's good gifts and the orchestrations of his will. Hurt is one of the most powerful conveyors of beauty. I believe it is a proof of God's hand in all things. When we run to him in tears, and he is our only comfort, that is beauty. And when that running to him is expressed in comforting each other, that is providence. And beauty."

Heinlein said that people laugh because it hurts so much and that laughter is the only thing that cures the hurt.

Augustine said that weeping relieves the hurt.

I think comfort is thoroughly explained in Heidelberg Catechism Question One: 

Q.	
What is your only comfort
in life and death?
A.	
That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both 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 all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head;  indeed, all things must work together for my salvation.  Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him. 

What I am getting at, though, is the way in which that works out. We can state the answer to this question and believe that we believe it. The confirmation of this truth is far more complicated. We begin to believe the truth when we see God's providence in light of what our Savior has done. The result of belief in the Gospel is a joining to all the others who belong to Christ.

Comfort in suffering is a product of our faith - we should be comforted in knowing the facts (believing them) of what God has done for us. In Christ.
We are comforted also, in this mortal life, by the believers who remind us of this, who weep with us, who laugh with us and who simply care for us when we are too hurt to do for ourselves. The two, belief and the acts of our family members, are not separable. The man who sits beside you on the heap of ashes and simply sits, as you lament and claw at your affliction, is there in God's providence. For a Christian, empathy, sympathy and commiseration among all other forms of fellowship are the Providence of God. It is not simply a similar human who can relate to your suffering. 

This is what comes out of being united in Christ - one flesh. And a Christian who won't do that is a very poor Christian indeed. Likewise one who will not allow another to come alongside is a very poor Christian indeed.

"But what about those who do not believe? Do they not provide the same benefit to a Christian or another who does not believe, when they come alongside in suffering?"

In some ways, I suppose one could make a case. God's providence is not limited to the boundaries of the Church. He comforts his children through any means imaginable. A tree or a complete jerk can console the hurt. These things in the life of an unbeliever who is suffering is God's goodness or what could be called Common Grace. When creation was complete, the Lord said it was good. He gives much to those who do not deserve it and to those who will never see the fulfillment of being gathered to him as a hen gathers her chicks.

For someone to bring comfort, God wills it. That means Joe the rank pagan is as capable of sitting on the ash heap of Augustine the saint and to be a source of help. But when Anselm the saint sits beside Augustine the saint, the unity of Christ is there. And the truth that can be shared in knowing Christ is the stuff of beauty. As with the Holy Sacrament, we are "lifted up" in our comfort by sharing time and space with another who will rejoice with us in eternity.

So consider the sad state when Joe and Tom, neither of them in Christ, are together in the suffering of one or the other. They have the words, the sympathy. Tom knows Joe's story all too well. They've both suffered loss. But neither has the context of God's providence. They lack the complete picture of how beautiful hope and comfort are. So comfort here is fleeting, temporary, and may salve for a lifetime, but there is nothing after - no hope of resolution. No hope in the promise that one day every tear shall be wiped away. No confidence in Christ-who-suffered-completely, who can commiserate and console in a way that transcends the crippled means devised by humans to laugh or weep or simply sit in silent comradeship. 

Can a two-sided triangle be a triangle?

Study: Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 4

Lord’s Day 4
	HC9
	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, at the instigation of the devil, in willful disobedience, robbed himself and all his descendants of these gifts.
	HC10
	Q. Will God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished?
	A. Certainly not. He is terribly angry with the sin we are born with as well as our actual sins. God will punish them by a just judgement both now and in eternity, having declared: “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.
	HC11
	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.

	The questioner in this case is trying to get out of responsibility for his total depravity (as depicted in questions 3-8) by changing God. The catechism is specifically refuting that which is taught in most churches today regarding God’s nature, his view of sin, of his justice, even his mercy and grace. These questions illustrate how we dearly desire to remain in our sin, unrepentant and free to continue on our merry way. The answers deny our desperate wishes to escape God’s justice.

	Dr. Ursinus, “If a prince were to give a nobleman a fee and he were to rebel against him, he would lose it not only for himself, but for his posterity also; and the prince would do no injustice to his children by not restoring to them that which was lost by the rebellion of their father. And if he does restore it, it is because of his goodness and mercy.” God has not taken away our ability to keep his law perfectly. We have cast away our ability to do so. This section is calculated to lead us to acknowledge and deplore our inability. 

	So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. - Romans 7:21-25

	Dr. Beeke, “When we are children and our parents ask us to do something, we say ‘I can’t do it’ - by which we mean, ‘I won’t do it.’ We are trying to avoid responsibility. When Adam ate from the tree, he committed suicide and murdered countless multitudes, willfully. We are willing participants in Adam’s murderous choice. And the flames of hell will never go out because even there, we will go on sinning and heaping guilt upon ourselves - we will never “get better” though we spend a thousand years in hell.

	Sin is not just violation of God’s law, it is violation of our own original design, and rejection of God’s nature, even God himself. Sin is not offense against the law, but offense against the giver of the law. Think of it like this: God is not conforming to the law, his own standards, but is simply performing in keeping with his own character. Therefore, God punishes us for not only our evil actions, but for our evil hearts, for original sin must also be punished, that which infects all men as well as that which each man does on his own. 

	Rev Borvan, “Fallen man can only choose between types of evil. He is not able not to sin.” Our blessed hope is that, in the age to come, we will only be able to choose good.
The Purpose Of This Lesson in the Catechism is to lead us to TRUST IN HIM, to depend on HIM for mercy and forgiveness. It is to lead us to CHRIST. This is how we escape our horrible destiny of eternal punishment. There is no other solution. This is how we can have a God who is the God of both Justice and Mercy at the same time.

	How can God be both righteous and merciful at the same time? He provided his Son to receive the judgement that we deserve. His son received, though he was innocent, that supreme penalty. This is substitutionary atonement, called the Great Exchange. Christ became sin for us, took our sin upon himself, and then God poured out his justice on Christ.


Sources:
Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 4
Rev Dan Borvan, God’s Justice 24January2021
Dr. Joel Beeke, Divine Justice Justified 02March2003
Faith In Practice Podcast HC Q&A 9-11 06April2021
Dr. Zacharias Ursinus Commentaries on the Heidelberg Catechism

Study: Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 3

Lord’s Day 3

HC6

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 God in eternal happiness, for his praise and glory.

HC7

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

HC8

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.

This section of the catechism is entitled Part I, MISERY. The title is not arbitrary or just something the authors came up with to be creative. Misery is in place to tell us first off that we are to encounter How Bad Things Are for us, between us and God. Misery is to drive us to Christ. Not just once, as the anxious bench has taught for ages, but over and over again, we should be driven to Christ. This is why the Church gathers every sunday. We must continually run to Christ and he is given to us in Word and Sacrament, in the Church, week after week, year after year, till he returns or calls us Home. THAT is how miserable we are, how miserable are our conditions, and how gracious, merciful, good, and powerful is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Rev VanderZwaag: The problem isn’t the great list of sins we have, but the great list of goodness that we keep.

The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. It only takes one sin to receive the death penalty. It is the multitude of self-righteous arguments which prevent us receiving forgiveness.

Rev Borvan: A work that is truly good must be motivated by true faith, conform to the standard of God’s law, and must be done for the goal of God’s glory. 

Therefore, the unbeliever does not have the capability to do a good work, due to the standards God has set.

We ran from God before he cast us out. In fact, God cast us out because we ran from him. We were reflections of God’s perfections (not so in appearance, but in actions and thinking, in love and holiness). Colossians 3:14 – Love, the bond of perfection. 

Eschatology is wrapped up in the creation of man. It is woven into creation from the beginning. God created us for fellowship with him at the start, and this implies he will do something about the Fall. We are pointed to a redemption, even as early as when Adam sinned, and this is addressed in scripture immediately with God’s response to Adam’s sin in Genesis 3.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

    and you shall bruise his heel.”

Observation: Our culture has lost its sense of evil. The media reports every evil in the spectrum, yet the purpose of the revelation of such events is to further a political goal. How often is a news article about a vicious criminal accompanied by a simple commentary of the evil to which the accused obtained, rather than a redirection to what the individual represented, or the tragic causal factors that prompted the delinquency of the individual? We have movies and other media content which provide us with stories of good vs. evil, but increasingly, the evil, of Cruella Deville, or Loki, is revised to accommodate the background story, the inner thoughts, to explain away or rationalize the evil. Evil is celebrated, though even then, it is not understood. So the evil really is, not that death and destruction trail in the wake of men, but that men don’t even believe in evil anymore.

As a powerful example, as media became ubiquitous and accessible to the masses in modern society, Superman, the original 1978 movie, at 47 minutes in, makes the statement, “Live as one of them, Kalel, …hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage, they can be a great people, Kalel, they wish to be, they only lack the light to show the way, for this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you, my only son.” – And at 90 minutes- “Here I am like a kid out of school, holding hands with a god. I’m a fool.” Two fallacies are made here. One, a horrible replication of the Messiah, and the other, the assertion of human-kind’s inherent goodness. Question: Has anyone made a connection between the 1960s-1970s types of overt messianic movie themes, inherent goodness of men and the controversies surrounding mainline protestantism and the related separation of the Reformed from PCUSA, and CRC churches (PCA and URCNA events)?

Adam didn’t just fall into sin. Adam disobeyed, actively, by choice, willfully. And his was public disobedience that introduced sin to the world. In Adam, all have sinned. And we cannot simply blame Adam, for we now do the same as he did. Active disobedience, by choice, willful sin are ours alone. Imputation is a very important term for all Christians. Impute: to credit or ascribe (something) to a person – guilt for wrong action. This is a declaration, in the case of Adam, made by God, not some chance occurrence. Adam chose a course, God judged him, and the course was set for us, therefore God judged us as well. And the curse followed.

Ephesians 4:17-19 affirms that we are both cursed and choose for ourselves to sin, wilfully, and this is contrasted in the following verses that in Christ, the curse has been lifted (insofar as we are condemned and trapped in sin) and that we are enabled to desire the goodness for which we were created in the first place. Our old nature is to hate God and hate our neighbor. Our new nature is to love God and our neighbor.

Canons of Dort Third and Fourth Main Points, Article 3: Therefore, all people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath, unfit for any saving good, inclined to evil, dead in their sins, and slaves to sin; without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit they are neither willing nor able to return to God, to reform their distorted nature, or even to dispose themselves to such reform.

Importance of Q8: We are all sinners, every one. There is none righteous, not one. Romans 3 and Isaiah 64:6 – We are not generally okay or basically good. Only by the restraint of God does anyone not commit perpetual acts of the gravest evil. God’s goodness always gets credit for good acts among men. Even Christians do good, not of themselves, for we would then think we could obtain righteousness on our own efforts, but because of the Holy Spirit who enables our holy deeds and thoughts and desires. We cannot even guess the depths of our depravity and how, without God’s goodness, we would all be terrorists, Hitlers and Christ-killing pharisees.

Sources

Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 3

Canons of Dort

Rev Foppe VanderZwaag Probing the Depth of Our Fall 02/23/2003 Sermonaudio

Faith In Practice Podcast HC Q&A 6-8 03/29/2021 

Dr. Zacharias Ursinus Commentaries on the Heidelberg Catechism

Rev Dan Borvan, Grace URC, Torrence CA Not Made for This 01/17/2021

Study: Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 2

Lord’s Day 2

HC3

Q. How do you come to know your misery?

A. The law of God tells me.

HC 4

Q. What does God’s law require of us?

A. Christ teaches us this in summary in Matthew 22:37-40: “ ‘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 greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets.

HC 5

Q. Can you live up to all this perfectly?

A. No. I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbor.

Misery: Elend (German) – Old High German Use: to be in the state of banishment. Outcast

Religion: Re (again) and ligera (bind) – to be bound back to God again

Misery is more than just guilt or unhappiness. It is the punishment for sin, destruction of ourselves in mind and body via sin. Ursinus says we are miserable both in our own alienation from God and in God’s rejection of us as sinners. This misery can be attributed not just to our conception of a “broken relationship” with God, but that we are literally cursed because of our sin (Deuteronomy 27:26). It’s not just that we have hurt our Best Friend and cannot be reconciled. There is an eternal, all-encompassing death-and-torture sentence on our heads, a concept that is found nowhere in our modern, enlightened world. When is the last time we have heard of someone actually being cursed?

Ursinus: “To love God with the whole heart, is, upon a due acknowledgment of his infinite goodness, reverently to regard and esteem him as our highest good, to love him supremely, to rejoice and trust in him alone, and to prefer his glory to all other things, so that there may not be in us the least thought, inclination, or desire for anything that might be displeasing to him; yea, rather to be willing to suffer the loss of all things that may be dear to us, or to endure the heaviest calamity, than that we should be separated from communion with him, or offend him in the smallest matter, and lastly, to direct all this to the end that he alone may be glorified by us.”

Beeke’s explanation: Kids, you go to brush your teeth and if the light is off, you can’t see yourself. You turn on the light but there’s no mirror, you can’t see yourself. But if the light is on, and there is a mirror, you can see yourself. You need the Holy Spirit (the light) and the Law of God (the mirror) to see what you really are.

HC 3 is the first use of the law: The first purpose of the law is to be a mirror. On the one hand, the law of God reflects and mirrors the perfect righteousness of God. The law tells us much about who God is. Perhaps more important, the law illumines human sinfulness. Augustine wrote, “The law orders, that we, after attempting to do what is ordered, and so feeling our weakness under the law, may learn to implore the help of grace.” The law highlights our weakness so that we might seek the strength found in Christ. Here the law acts as a severe schoolmaster who drives us to Christ. – Sproul

Sproul’s statement is important. In our culture, we do not accept a law outside ourselves. We determine what is right and wrong in ourselves, reserving just a sliver of potential for other humans to maintain authority (police, government, other authorities) but we are thoroughly opposed to the idea of a deity, anything that is other than a human being, having authoritative statements, much more so against one that claims total sovereignty as does God.

Despite all our wrangling to avoid the law with reason, attempts to humanize God, or simple avoidance, Paul is very clear in Romans 1:19-20. We know. We cannot not know. And our conscience, no matter how we strive to stifle and suffocate it, says one horrible truth.

“I am condemned.”

Noteworthy is the simplicity of HC 4, wherein Christ tells us the very basic, Love God and Love Neighbor, which should highlight the difference between what the Church says and what the world (and many Christians also) believes. This is not about counting beans, stealing, sex or whatever nit-picking, but a wholistic inability to do anything that meets God’s standards. We are thoroughly sinful and need a life-change, not a moral correction leading to a specific set of personally applicable sins. In the end, law-keeping, in the Very Specific Perfection which is commanded by God is only achievable by Christ. We simply need to know to whom we must turn in our misery. Q5 should produce the questions, “Where do I go? What do I do?” because I cannot do all the things God has commanded.

• The world thinks we have to do all the things God has commanded. 
• Jesus says we can’t do all the things God has commanded.
• The world rejects Jesus
• Jesus does all the things God has commanded for us.
• God does not reject Jesus
• Jesus does all the things God has commanded for us
• God does not reject Jesus

Sources:

• Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 2
• Dr. Joel Beeke, Knowing Our Sin & Misery Experientially – 2 02/16/2003 Sermonaudio
• Faith In Practice Podcast HC Q&A 3-5 03/15/2021
• Dr. Zacharias Ursinus Commentaries on the Heidelberg CatechismR. C. Sproul The Threefold Use of the Law

Study: Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 1

Lord’s Day 1
HC 1 
Q. What is your only comfort in life and 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 delivered me 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, also assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
HC 2
Q. How many things must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?
A. Three: first, how great my sin and misery are; second, how am I delivered from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

Notes: 
This is trinitarian. I belong to Christ, the Father, the Holy Spirit
This is a blessing, but not a liberation into autonomy. This is a covenantal blessing that includes a new citizenship, a contract that brings the expectation that I am now free (able) to live for Christ. But this does not mean I can lose this citizenship by making choices (committing sins) that are not in accordance with this requirement to live for Christ - I cannot be separated from the Love of God because I am not my own, and I will certainly, by the power of the Holy Spirit, live for Christ, and though I cannot do so perfectly, my status still does not change because the validity of my citizenship is due to adoption and due to the fully perfect and sufficient fulfillment of my contractual obligations by Christ. All that is left is to do his will to the extent I am given to do, all in thanksgiving for his work (Lord's Day 32, Gratitude).
My chief end and goal is to live for him - glorify him and enjoy him forever (WLC 1) and this means all is for life, death, and eternity.
I may have many comforts right now, but what about my soul? I have few comforts right now, but I have God - I am his possession. I don’t belong to myself, but Christ possesses me and I am the willing doulos. My freedom is in disowning myself and surrendering to him - My freedom is in belonging to Christ. 
When I was a child, hurt and dirty, my mother took me, washed me, put me in a chair and fed me, then put me to rest in a bed. And I have no more than to remember that I was hers and could bring her joy (imperfectly as a child could). Christ does this. He washes, feeds and gives us rest, and all there is for us is to please him.
I lose all things to possess all things through the blood of Jesus Christ. He must increase but I must decrease. Having drunk the water of life, I now have peace - precious peace - the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, that guards my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus: Ephesians 4:7.
The hairs will fall, but not one without the Father’s knowledge. Suffering comes, but none can take away the comfort I have in him. All suffering, afflictions are by the hand of my father - and he guides all these things, in his will, to a good and perfect end. All these hard things weigh nothing compared to the blessings that come out of them. All these things, all things in my life serve to my salvation. 
Ursinus, 
"Our safety does not lie in our own hands, or strength; for if it did, we should lose it a thousand times every moment."
"The turning of all our evils into good. The righteous are, indeed, afflicted in this life, yea they are put to death, and are as sheep for the slaughter; yet these things do not injure them, but rather contribute to their salvation, because God turns all things to their advantage, as it is said: 'All things work together for good to them that love God.' (Rom. 8:27)"
"But thy faith is weak, and thy conversion imperfect. Ans. Yet it is nevertheless true and unfeigned, and I have the blessed assurance that 'to him that hath shall be given.' 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.' (Luke 19:26. Mark 9:24)"
The only way to experience this, to encounter this, is to know my sins and misery. This is the means God uses to bring me to my only comfort. "My only comfort" intimates experience, therefore the experience of sin and misery must lead to and be replaced by my only comfort in life and death (HC 2).
When I am told that I am delivered from all my sins and misery, the meaning is that I am delivered from ALL my sins and misery. The past, right now, and for the future. Christ's work was and is efficacious for every past failure and offense for life - we all must understand that every single sin is an act of covenant-breaking! It's not "just some plain old sin" problem. So when I'm told that I am delivered here, it HAS TO MEAN that nothing I can do will take me from this hope, nor get me more fully into this hope. Christ said "It is finished". And my only hope in life and death is the balm and cure for ALL my misery. The past, right now, and for the future.

Sources:
Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 1
Dr. Joel Beeke, True Comfort - 1 02/09/2003 Sermonaudio
Faith In Practice Podcast HC Q&A 1&2 02/22/2021
Dr. Zacharias Ursinus Commentaries on the Heidelberg Catechism