Qu. 12. “According to God’s righteous judgement we deserve punishment both in this world and forever after: How then can we escape punishment and return to God’s favour?”
A. God requires that His justice be satisfied. Therefore the claims of His justice must be paid in full, either by ourselves or another.”
Today we’re back looking at the brilliant Heidelberg Catechism. The questions surrounding this one talk about hell. Many Christians today prefer not to think about hell. When was the last time you had a conversation about it? Many ignore or deny it or avoid thinking or talking about the subject. Many are squeamish when reading or talking about God’s wrath and coming judgement. Of course we need a balance, we don’t always want to be thinking about hell and never thinking about heaven. But at the heart of the gospel is the God-man, Jesus, dying in the place of sinners rescuing them from eternal suffering in hell. And for the sake of spurring on our evangelism, we must confess that hell is real and people will go there.
Despite what we may naturally think, left on our own, in our sinful state, God is not for us but against us. We are in colossal debt to God and a perfectly just God means we deserve punishment now and later. We can’t dig ourselves out of the pit, we can’t seek to pay God back, we have insufficient funds. Sin must be atoned for and must be punished.
Well, can something else pay the debt for us? I think we know that over and over again, animals were sacrificed in the place of human sinners. Did it work? No. Only flesh and blood can save flesh and blood (Heb 2:14-18). In fact the weight of God’s eternal anger is more than any animal or human can bear. Question 15 in the Catechism says this…
“What kind of mediator and deliverer should we look for then?
A. One who is truly human and truly righteous, yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, one who is also true God.”
We need a mediator who is a perfect human to save fallen humans, and a divine human to bear the curse of God. The only mediator that would work is someone who was truly 100% human, and someone who was truly 100% God. Now question 15, doesn’t name Jesus, but that is the only option on the table.
Most of the early church heresies dealt with the person of Christ. Some heresies denied Jesus deity (Arianism), some denying His humanity (Docetism). Some heresies tried to conveniently suggest he was part God and part man (Nestorianism). And some heresies got plain weird confusing the two natures (Eutychianism).
The thing is if we get this wrong, we get the gospel wrong. Jesus “suffered as God because only God had the power to save; He suffered as Man because only man owed the debt” (Michael Horton).
At the start our question stated, “the claims of His justice must be paid in full, either by ourselves or another”. This can only be achieved by Christ. When you see the cross, see your sin for what it is, Jesus dying in your place rescuing you from eternal suffering in hell.
Lloyd
Phil Robinson says
This makes me recall the saying “Hell on Earth”, we can trust the Lord will give us Heaven on earth in due course.