- #HC1 What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from...
- #HC2 What do you need to know in order to live and die in the joy of this comfort? First, how great my sins and misery are; second, how I am delivered from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to be thankful to God for such deliverance.
- #HC3 From where do you know your sins and misery? From the law of God.
- #HC4 What does God’s law require of us? Christ teaches us this in a 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. This is the great and first commandment. And a...
- #HC5 Can you keep all this perfectly? No, I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbour.
- #HC6 Did God, then, create man so wicked and perverse? No, on the contrary, God created man good and in His image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might rightly know God His Creator, heartily love Him, and live with Him in eternal...
- #HC7 From where, then, did man’s depraved nature come? From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise, for there our nature became so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin.
- #HC8 But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined to all evil? Yes, unless we are regenerated by the Spirit of God.
- #HC9 Is God, then, not unjust by requiring in His law what man cannot do? No, for God so created man that he was able to do it. But man, at the instigation of the devil, in deliberate disobedience robbed himself and all his descendants of these gifts.
- #HC10 Will God allow such disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished? Certainly not. He is terribly displeased with our original sin as well as our actual sins. Therefore He will punish them by a just judgment both now and eternally, as He has declared: Cursed be every...
- #HC11 But is God not also merciful? God is indeed merciful, but He is also just. His justice requires that sin committed against the most high majesty of God also be punished with the most severe, that is, with everlasting, punishment o...
- #HC12 Since, according to God’s righteous judgment we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, how can we escape this punishment and be again received into favour? God demands that His justice be satisfied. Therefore full payment must be made either by ourselves or by another.
- #HC13 Can we ourselves make this payment? Certainly not. On the contrary, we daily increase our debt.
- #HC14 Can any mere creature pay for us? No. In the first place, God will not punish another creature for the sin which man has committed. Furthermore, no mere creature can sustain the burden of God’s eternal wrath against sin and deliver ot...
- #HC15 What kind of mediator and deliverer must we seek? One who is a true and righteous man, and yet more powerful than all creatures; that is, one who is at the same time true God.
- #HC16 Why must He be a true and righteous man? He must be a true man because the justice of God requires that the same human nature which has sinned should pay for sin. He must be a righteous man because one who himself is a sinner cannot pay for...
- #HC17 Why must He at the same time be true God? He must be true God so that by the power of His divine nature He might bear in His human nature the burden of God’s wrath, and might obtain for us and restore to us righteousness and life.
- #HC18 But who is that Mediator who at the same time is true God and a true and righteous man? Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption (I Corinthians 1:30).
- #HC19 From where do you know this? From the holy gospel, which God Himself first revealed in Paradise. Later, He had it proclaimed by the patriarchs and prophets, and foreshadowed by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of the law. Fina...
- #HC20 Are all men, then, saved by Christ just as they perished through Adam? No. Only those are saved who by a true faith are grafted into Christ and accept all His benefits.
- #HC21 What is true faith? True faith is a sure knowledge whereby I accept as true all that God has revealed to us in His Word. At the same time it is a firm confidence that not only to others, but also to me, God has granted f...
- #HC22 What, then, must a Christian believe? All that is promised us in the Gospel, which the articles of our catholic and undoubted Christian faith teach us in a summary.
- #HC23 What are these articles? III.1.I believe in God the Father almighty, III.1. Creator of heaven and earth. III.2.I believe in Jesus Christ, III.2.His only begotten Son, our Lord; III.3.He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, III.3...
- #HC24 How are these articles divided? Into three parts: the first is about God the Father and our creation; the second about God the Son and our redemption; the third about God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification.
- #HC25 Since there is only one God, why do you speak of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Because God has so revealed Himself in His Word[2] that these three distinct persons are the one, true, eternal God.
- #HC26 What do you believe when you say: I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth? That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and all that is in them, and who still upholds and governs them by His eternal counsel and providence, is,...
- #HC27 What do you understand by the providence of God? God’s providence is His almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, frui...
- #HC28 What does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by His providence? We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love; for...
- #HC29 Why is the Son of God called Jesus, that is, Saviour? Because He saves us from all our sins, and because salvation is not to be sought or found in anyone else.
- #HC30 Do those believe in the only Saviour Jesus who seek their salvation and well-being from saints, in themselves, or anywhere else? No. Though they boast of Him in words, they in fact deny the only Saviour Jesus. For one of two things must be true: either Jesus is not a complete Saviour, or those who by true faith accept this Savi...
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