Good Liturgy Is the Best Instructor: How Your Church’s Order of Worship Teaches What Your Church Believes

Daniel R. Hyde

Every church has a liturgy, and every liturgy teaches. How does a Reformed order of worship catechize God's people from cradle to grave?

Read the PDF

---

Repetition is the mother of skills. I learned this maxim the hard way. The summer before I and several of the best players in the South Bay of Los Angeles went off to college to play basketball, we prepared by gathering every morning at 6:00am in the Manhattan Beach Mormon Church gym to train. During the course of our training there was physical repetition as well as mental repetition. One of the things we had to learn, with mouth and body, was that “repetition is the mother of skills.” Our trainer would yell out in his deep, Samoan voice, “Repetition is the mother of…” We, not stopping our line drills, wall sits, or defensive slides were to respond in kind despite the agony: “Skills!” And so it went, day by day, week in and week out.

What was true on the court is true in the church: good liturgy is the best instructor.

Most of us understand that to become skillful in any aspect of life we must repeat something over and over again. As men, we are not born good husbands and good fathers; instead, it takes practice and learning—sometimes the hard way—over time. For example, a good husband repeatedly hugs and kisses his wife before they part in the morning, reunite in the early evening, and before they go to bed in the evening. Yet, this is not seen by marriage experts as boring, but rather a healthy practice. The monotony is healthy.

When it comes to our religion, though, we as Americanized Christians don’t want repetition. Most likely the main reason is that we’ve been told (ironically, over and over again!) that repetition is dead, spontaneity is good; forms of worship quench the Spirit, but laid back, contemporary services are Spirit–led. If we had ever stopped to think about those claims, we might never have fallen under their sway. But here we are, children of evangelical revivalism and pietism.

I am a Generation–X Christian who grew up in modern–day evangelicalism, but who has come to the historic Reformed, Protestant understanding of the Christian Faith. As such, I have come to the settled conviction that a formal, well–thought out liturgy is the best instructor we have in the Christian Faith.[1] Good liturgy transcends our particular feelings and thoughts. It leads us to experience the historic Faith as understood by all people, in all places.

Liturgy is our most capable teacher because week by week we are led into God’s presence to hear His Word and receive His grace through the sacraments as we hear the same words of Scripture over and over again from the mouth of the minister and recite and sing God’s Word with our own lips. 

In explaining why good liturgy is the best instructor, let me first define my terms. 

What is Liturgy?

When I say “liturgy,” I mean the order, acts, words, and ceremonies in public worship. Now before you react in saying, “Did you say ‘liturgy’, let me assure you that this is no four–letter word. Instead, our English word “liturgy” comes from an ancient Greek word, leitourgia, which can mean generally any kind of service, but specifically speaks of religious service. A liturgy, then, is simply what is done in a worship service. 

As I wrote in What to Expect in Reformed Worship, every church, uses a liturgy. It is not something only Roman Catholicism or dead, “traditional,” churches use, but something used in every worship service in the world. Whether or not a particular church has a more structured or loose service, or whether a “liturgy” is printed in the bulletin and followed or not, every church has a liturgy. All churches use a liturgy every time they worship. Even in the churches I grew up in, where we were told, “But we just wanna worship in the Spirit.” This, too, followed a predictable pattern, which the praise band had thought out ahead of time.

What is Catechism?

If liturgy is the best catechism instructor we have, what is “catechism”? When I say catechism I mean the method of instruction in which the teacher asks a question and the student responds with the answer. Catechetical instruction is basically what is called “The Socratic Method.”[2] The word “catechism” also comes from a biblical word, the verb katēcheō, which occurs eight times in the New Testament.[3] It is a compound Greek word from kata, “down,” and ēcheō, “sound;” thus meaning, “I sound down.” As Donald Van Dyken says in his brilliant little book, Rediscovering Catechism:

To catechize is to sound down, to speak to someone with the objective of getting something back as an echo. Catechism sends a sound to probe a student’s understanding. We use the catechetical method of questioning to send out the Word in order to hear responses, to gauge the depths of someone’s knowledge, to probe the heart.[4]

Two Principles of a Good Liturgy

Instruction via Life

Life skills are learned by repetition. Repetitiveness is a virtue, not a vice. For instance, one educational book, the field of cognitive psychology has been harvested and applied to mathematics instruction. Research studies show that it takes about 24 separate sessions of repeated practice to have an 80% competence in a mathematical skill.[5] The authors of this book conclude their survey of this research in saying that “learning new content, then, does not happen quickly. It requires practice spread out over time.”[6]

Instruction via Worship

Worship requires practice over time, as well. The liturgy should be heard from cradle to grave, from birthing bed to death bed. In times of great joy what better words to sing than the “Reformed doxology”: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”? In times of great sorrow is there anything so comforting as praying, “Our Father, who art in heaven”? In ordinary times when the elders conduct family visitation, the words “I believe in God, the Father Almighty” are fitting. In times of repentance we have already been taught to cry out, “Lord have mercy on us; Christ have mercy on us; Lord have mercy on us.” 

Hearing, reading, saying, and praying the liturgy over the course of a lifetime, as congregations and families, teaches us much more than we can ever realize. The fact that we learn from our liturgy is undisputable, as the repetition will undoubtedly stick with us. The question to ask is, what am I learning each week from my church’s liturgy? Although all churches have a liturgy, not all churches have a good liturgy. It is biblically sound liturgy that is the chief instructor of the people of God in the theology of God’s Word. Unsound liturgy, of course, teaches us bad theology. The majority of churches I grew up in as well as that exist in Southern California, follow a similar liturgy:

Welcome

Praise & Worship (30 minutes; led by someone other than the pastor)

Announcements (led by yet another person)

Sermon

Offering

Blessing

This basic liturgy teaches us that man is welcoming us into worship (welcome), that we have come to offer praise to God (praise and worship), that we have come to hear about our lives and activities (announcements), that we have come to learn about God, or more likely how to apply Christianity to make our lives better (sermon), that we have come to give financially to God (offering); then, we are finally blessed by God (blessing).

We are taught by this liturgy that Christianity is about us, our needs, our self–worth, and our fulfillment. When we are catechized by this liturgy we learn over the course of our lives that God really needs us to worship Him. We also come to see church as a place where our needs are met. If you don’t believe that this is what this type of liturgy teaches, just think back to the last time you left church and the thought going through your head was, “What did I get out of church today?”

Seven Elements of a Good Liturgy

That’s what a bad liturgy teaches. What, then, should be in a good liturgy so that we learn about who God truly is and we worship Him in the way He has outlined for us in Scripture? Before we look at the specifics of a solid liturgy, there are two overarching principles that must be examined.

Corporate Participation of All

In The Nursery of the Holy Spirit, I wrote that liturgical worship activates participation.

First, our liturgy must include the corporate participation of the entire church, children and adults. Liturgy teaches us that we all, young and old, belong to the Church, the people of God. Liturgical worship is active, participatory worship. Children can hear it and learn it even before they read and then later as they begin to be able to read, see it with their own eyes upon the pages of the hymnal or bulletin. For example, a four–year old child can recite the Apostles’ Creed with the local church and the Church universal even before being able to read it in the hymnal or bulletin. Christianity is not a religion of adults for adults. Christianity is a covenantal religion. This means that God makes His covenant “between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations” (Gen. 17:7). Children are just as much members of the covenant/church as adults, as Jesus testified, saying, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14). As well, Paul described the children of believers as “holy” (1 Cor. 7:14), an Old Testament way of saying that they were set apart from the nations as a part of God’s people.

Unity with the Church of All Ages

Second, our liturgy must not catechize us to be chronologically arrogant. The Church of Jesus Christ has been around for thousands of years and we did not invent worship. The basic pattern of Liturgy of the Word and Liturgy of the Eucharist is evidenced in the books of Acts and 1 Corinthians and is seen in the Church Father Justin Martyr’s writings around A.D. 150 (First Apology, 67). When we sing the Psalms we join the people of God for the past 3,000 years. When we recite the creeds we join the orthodox Christians for the past 1,500 years. When we sing the Gloria Patri we sing an ancient song from the 3rd century of the Christian Church. When we pray “Lord have mercy on us; Christ have mercy on us; Lord have mercy on us,” we pray with the Church from the 4th century. And the list of responses, prayers, and songs that have been used from the earliest of days by the one Church across both Old and New Covenant days continues and teaches us the promises and glories of God from all times.

Specific Elements of a Good Liturgy

So what specifically should a good liturgy include and what do those elements teach us about God, ourselves, and our worship of Him?

God Calls Us Into His Presence

First, good liturgy begins with God. Public worship is primarily God’s service to us. Through the voice of His minister reading an opening Scripture text, He calls us to approach His throne of grace and worship Him (Heb. 4:16). By having an opening call to worship we are taught that it is and always has been God who initiates a relationship with us, His people. We are reminded, or rather, confronted, each week that we enter the holy presence of God not because we are worthy or that God needs us; but instead, because God in His grace has condescended to call us who are sinful to worship Him. 

Confession and Absolution

Second, although God welcomes us into His presence graciously, we still must remember that we are entering the presence of the God who is a “consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29). Because God is holy and we are sinful we need to hear weekly His righteous demands and we need to confess our sins (Law) as well as hearing how He has met those demands in Jesus Christ (Gospel). Because we participate in the liturgy so many times throughout our lives, we are taught the fundamental Protestant, Christian distinction between the Law and the Gospel.

By rehearsing again and again the reading of the Law, confession of our sins, and receiving of absolution, we learn that we did not save ourselves in the first place and that we still cannot save ourselves. Man by nature wants to help himself. That is one of the reasons liturgy is so important in the life of the saints. The liturgy will not allow man to help himself. The liturgy is Scripture laying bare what man by nature wants, then giving him instead what he needs—forgiveness. Every word of the liturgy reflects the true needs of the faithful and how God has met those needs. In our liturgy, before we sing the opening doxology, the words of David are recited responsively: (Minister): “O LORD, open my lips;” (Congregation): “And my mouth shall show forth Your praise” (Ps. 51:15; NKJV). We are taught that we cannot speak until God has put the words into our mouth. Man may want to be the actor, but in the Divine Service God is the actor. The liturgy, our gentle teacher, helps to keep that message straight.

Recitation of God’s Mighty Acts

Third, as God’s redeemed people who have received the assurance of their forgiveness from the minister, we respond in gratitude by declaring what God has done. This is done in our singing of songs of praise and in confessing our “undoubted Christian faith” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 22). Notice the link between singing and reciting. In the Psalms we read again and again that to praise God is actually to tell back to God what He has done while declaring His acts to the nations (e.g., Pss. 66, 78, 6, 98, 136). Thus, we repeat again and again what Jesus said, we are to acknowledge him before men (Matt. 10:32). This is why the historic Christian Church has always primarily sung the Psalms as well as recited the basics of our Faith in the Apostles’ and/or Nicene Creeds in the weekly worship of God’s people. As the Psalms teach us so many times, to recite God’s marvelous acts not only hides the Faith in our hearts and passes it on to the next generation, but also expresses to the unbeliever what we believe as a people.

Hearing God’s Word

Fourth, the center of our liturgy is the active hearing of God speaking to us through His Word, both in its reading and preaching, and the receiving of Holy Communion. Here let us examine the hearing of the Word. Weekly we hear the wonders that God has done for us His people in the sending of His Son to redeem us. Each week, God “works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the Holy Gospel” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 65; cf. Rom. 10:17). Hearing the word of God teaches us that Christ, and not ourselves, is the One to whom we look for redemption, as well as every other need in life.

The Word of God is also found in a good liturgy all throughout the worship service as we not only hear it read to us but as we recite them as responses at specific points in worship. This is another way to hide God’s Word in our hearts from the earliest of age. This not only teaches us what to believe but also how to respond in the particular circumstances of our lives, whether joyful or tragic. The very words and prayers that we need upon our lips are available to us because the liturgy has taught them to us. When we sin we can sing “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” When we need the assurance of God’s grace we can remember and believe that “for all of you who trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation…your sins are forgiven and you are no longer under the condemnation of God.” When we are persecuted as Christians we can recite, “And He shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead.” When we suffer in body and soul we can say, “We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” Most Christians are adamant about having their children memorize Scripture, so it only follows that we, as adults, should also spend time reciting scriptures in our service week by week.

Seeing God’s Word

Fifth, having heard the Word we then see the Word visible, as Augustine described the Lord’s Supper. Christian worship follows the general pattern of Israel’s sacrifices: drawing near to God, confession of sins, followed by a communal meal with God. This is the purpose of the Supper: to commune with the people of God, with Christ, upon Christ. A good liturgical form for the Lord’s Supper such as the historic Protestant forms will protect us from the virus of what has been variously called Zwinglianism, Memorialism, or Sacramentarianism. The Lord’s Supper is not merely a remembrance, but it is a sacrament – a participation in a divine mystery. This is why the use of the ancient sursum corda (“lift up your hearts…we lift them up to the Lord”) was and continues to be the heart of what we do in Holy Communion. After hearing the Word we see, touch, smell, and taste exactly what that spoken Word promised us. 

Prayers for the People of God

Sixth, a good liturgy will have an emphasis on prayer, based on the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. Everything from adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication needs to be in the various prayers of the liturgy. Since prayer is “the chief part of thankfulness” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 116) it teaches us as a corporate people to pray together to the Lord as well as teaches us that worship, and life in general, are not about us, but about loving God and our neighbor.

God’s Benediction

Finally, just as God has the first word in our service as we begin each week with God’s calling us to worship, so He gets the last word as we end each week with His Word sending us out with His blessing. We are taught through this that our worship culminates in public worship, but that we go out from worship as a worshipping people. God desires us to be the salt and light of the world and the benediction teaches us this.

Application for Ministers and Congregations

So what does this all mean for your congregation, especially if you do not follow an historic Lutheran or Reformed liturgy? Let us apply the principle that liturgical worship is the best instructor the church has in the Christian Faith with a few suggestions.

First, we need not be ashamed of using set forms of worship and set liturgical responses.[7] Here I write to those of you who are already Reformed or who are learning what that means. Unlike Lutheranism and Anglicanism, we have been overly influenced by Puritanism, revivalism, and pietism. Against Puritanism we must understand that set forms are not bad nor binding on our conscience if the forms are biblical. For example, track down all the biblical citations and allusions in the opening general confession of classic Book of Common Prayer. Against revivalism we must understand that set forms actually communicate to the unbeliever what we believe and what they need to believe as well. And against pietism we must understand that set forms do not quench the Spirit nor cause “dead orthodoxy,” but in fact have been used by the Spirit in the Church for ages and communicate to us what the Spirit is saying to the Church. 

Using a set form of worship with set words from the minister and responses from the congregation can benefit a congregation. Boredom and a lack of enthusiasm (if that is even a good thing) is not the fault of a good liturgy which is saturated with the Word of God, but it is our fault – our lack of preparation for worship, our lack of appreciation, our lack of reverence. In fact, changing your church’s order of worship just for the sake of change can actually do more harm than good. For example, in my first year or so of planting the Oceanside United Reformed Church, I would change the order of worship and the words in the liturgy almost every week. Finally, a father of two young daughters came to me and said that his children were confused and lost in worship as well as not able to participate as much because they didn’t know what would be said that particular Sunday. Utilizing set forms of worship actually equips the people of God, especially children, to participate in worship with understanding and passion. Once they have memorized what to say, they anticipate those words and are ready to say them when the moment comes.

Second, we need to help those under our care understand why we are using the liturgy we use by teaching them the meaning of it. As pastors and teachers we need to highlight various aspects of the liturgy in our sermons and Christian education programs. Tying our theology into our liturgy is natural and necessary. When we preach and teach on a text like Psalm 51 what greater time to speak of why we read the Law, confess our sins, and receive absolution every week in our worship? When we are teaching a Sunday School class on Peter’s confession of Christ in Matthew 16 what better time to speak to them about why we recite the Apostles’ and/or Nicene Creeds in worship? Doing this in our instruction also helps children and adults put the things together that they read in the Bible and their church’s catechism like pieces of a puzzle.

Conclusion

We need to learn that repetition is the mother of skills in all areas of life – including the worship of God. Learning this lesson may be painful and may take some time to get used to, but it will be rewarded with a worshipping congregation. Just think about what your congregation will know and be able to say back to God in any circumstance of life after learning your church’s theology methodically and surely over the years by repetition. Think also about the children in your congregation now, who will one day be the leaders of your church and the parents of another generation of children. They are not too young to begin learning the weekly pattern of worship that correctly reflects our theology, but must begin now to join with us. 

Good liturgy is the best instructor. 

---

Notes 

---

[1] To learn about the liturgy of the Oceanside United Reformed Church go to https://www.oceansideurc.org/liturgy.

[2] For an excellent exposition of catechesis see Dorothy Sayers, “The Lost Tools of Learning.” See also a little article by my colleague, the Rev. Dr. R. Scott Clark, “Why We Memorize the Catechism,” The Presbyterian Banner (August 2003), which is also online at https://heidelblog.net/2016/01/why-we-memorize-the-catechism/.

[3] In the New Testament this word is used four times by Luke and four times by Paul. Luke uses it in Acts 21:21 and 21:24 of generally being informed. But he also uses it of specific teaching in the Christian Faith. In Acts 18:25 we learn about Apollos who “had been instructed (katēchēmenos) in the way of the Lord.” Luke also uses this word in the prologue to his Gospel, written to Theophilus, “that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught” (katēchēthēs; Luke 1:4). Paul uses this verb exclusively for religious instruction. It is used of the instruction the Jews received in Romans 2:18: “you are instructed (katēchoumenos) from the law.” And he uses it for the instruction Christians receive, what we call “catechizing.” In 1 Corinthians 14:19, Paul says that “in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct (katēchēsō) others, than ten thousand words in a tongue.” Finally, he speaks in Galatians 6:6, saying, “Let the one who is taught (katēchoumenos, i.e., ‘the one catechized’ or ‘the catechumen’) the word share all good things with the one who teaches” (katēchounti, i.e., “catechizes”).

[4] Donald Van Dyken, Rediscovering Catechism: The Art of Equipping Covenant Children (P&R, 2000), 12.

[5] Robert J. Marzano et al., Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001), 66. The research behind this statistic can be found in A. Newell and P.S. Rosenbloom, “Mechanisms of Skill Acquisition and the Law of Practice,” in Cognitive Skills and Their Acquisition, ed. J.R. Anderson (Erlbaum, 1981) and J.R. Anderson, Learning and Memory: An Integrated Approach (Wiley, 1995).

[6] Marzano et al., Classroom Instruction That Works, 68.

[7] This is in contrast to Terry L. Johnson, ed., Leading in Worship (The Covenant Foundation, 1996), 17, who says that fixed forms of prayer and responses in worship crowd out free prayer, are artificial, difficult, and not Reformed. On the contrary, I was chairman of the URCNA Liturgical Forms Committee from 2010 to 2017 that produced an updated version of the historic Dutch Reformed forms and prayers.

---

On Liturgy and Worship, see:

• According to the Custom of the Ancient Church? Examining the Roots of John Calvin's Liturgy

• For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free: John Owen's A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, And Their Imposition

• Lost Keys: The Absolution in Reformed Liturgy

• Lutheran Puritanism? Adiaphora in Lutheran Orthodoxy and Possible Commonalities in Reformed Orthodoxy

• Not Holy But Helpful: A Case for the "Evangelical Feast Days" in the Reformed Tradition

• What to Expect in Reformed Worship: A Visitor’s Guide (Wipf & Stock 2013)

---

© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Good Liturgy Is the Best Instructor: How Your Church’s Order of Worship Teaches What Your Church Believes," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/good-liturgy-is-the-best-instructor. Used by permission.

Ministering after Miscarriages

Daniel R. Hyde

Seminary rarely prepares a pastor for the day a couple in his congregation loses a child to miscarriage. This lecture offers counsel on being prepared, being involved, and being a minister when a family’s life is broken.

Read the PDF

---

This lecture was first given to the students of the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA) at Westminster Seminary California on February 8, 2011.

---

Unless seminaries have changed, seminarians won’t deal with ministering after miscarriages. Or what if there’s a tragic accident? How do you minister to a family grieving the loss of child by SIDS? It’s the most challenging pastoral issue I learned to face in my first ten years as a gospel minister. Seminary didn’t prepare me to deal with it. Therefore, you need to be. You will deal with this terrible providence as a pastor. Your theology must be exercised and ready.

Miscarriage tears my heart out and leaves me speechless. Seeing unbearable grief on the faces of your beloved brothers and sisters does this. My grief is nothing compared to that of the priceless women and men who’ve actually experienced it. I know if you’re reading this, and you've gone through miscarriage, those feelings may be coming back. I grieve with you. I’ve also learned in pastoral ministry that those who can’t have children also feel traumatized. I’ve ministered to you, too. It’s one thing to confess the comfort of Canons of Dort 1.17 (see below); ministering it after miscarriages is quite another.

What’s my counsel on ministering after miscarriages?

Be Prepared

Ministering after miscarriages means being prepared.

Do you know miscarriages are prominent? It’s the most common type of pregnancy loss according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). The most rigorous recent estimate in a 2021 review in The Lancet, pooled nine studies, and puts the risk at 15.3% of all recognized pregnancies. That’s 23 million miscarriages worldwide each year. That’s forty-four every minute. Nearly 11% of women have experienced at least one. Let that sink in for a moment. That means in every congregation, you’re already ministering to women who’ve experienced miscarriage, whether you know it or not..

Sadly, it’s part of the frail, frustrating, and futile creation realm in this age (Rom. 8:18–22). Our old Reformation-era Form for Baptism calls this life “nothing but a continual death.” That’s the harsh reality. Be prepared.

Miscarriage causes a whole list of difficult questions. I often refer to 1 Peter 3:15 in my preaching about the Christian’s preparation to be a witness to Christ in the world. Every Christian is to be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” This passage applies to pastors, too. When our own people suffer a miscarriage and are looking to us for hope, give them an answer!

Theological Questions

Theologian Dan Doriani summarizes some of his own theological questions:

In the quieter moments of the next two days, very different questions troubled me—intellectual questions contradicting my convictions about the unborn and my feelings about our child. I wondered, is heaven populated with the unborn? Are all the unborn there? If so, are the Soviets, who are said to perform three abortions for every live birth, filling heaven with their monstrous practice? Or are only the progeny of believers there? Even so there must be billions, since miscarriage is so common. How does that affect their eternity? Or perhaps (the Bible says so little about these matters)—perhaps the orthodox doctrine is wrong. Perhaps my child was not yet a person, not yet “my child.” It is hard to imagine the life of a former fetus in heaven. (Doriani, “Miscarriage;” see below)

Practical Questions

Some mothers and fathers may have these kinds of questions. Be prepared—even that some may not. Again, Doriani goes on to list some of the more practical kinds of questions you'll face:

More painfully, I wondered, how did my son, so small, so undeveloped, die? Like a higher animal, feeling but without self-consciousness? Like a worm, all but insensitive? Like a man, carried off by angels, rejoicing? Our defense of the unborn, our speeches and sermons and “silent scream” videos force these questions. If abortion is murder, miscarriage is a death in the family. But it is a strange kind of death. Where is the funeral, the gathering of family? It is the death of someone whom no one knew, except perhaps the mother. There were other questions. Why was I in more pain than my wife? Why did one daughter act as if nothing had happened? And most troubling, why did I feel polluted, almost guilty? The next night I went jogging. Alone in the darkness with God, answers came. I began to understand my wife’s subdued response. She felt something was amiss, and had never attached herself to one she would never hold.

Be Involved

Ministering after miscarriages means treating it like another death of a family member in the congregation. As Doriani writes, “If abortion is murder, miscarriage is a death in the family.”

Being involved in the Reformed tradition means going to visit like you would for any death.

Being there means listening to grieve and questions. It also means not having pat answers ready. Listen; sympathize; grieve.

When you go, read the Word. Comfort like you would in any other visit.

Of course, involvement as a minister means praying together.

Then you leave.

Now what? Stay involved. Offer to contact the deacons to provide mercy meals. Ask if you can let the congregation know so they can pray. Is this announcement via email only? In the bulletin? In public prayer? However, involve yourself by exhorting the rest of the church family to be sensitive.

Be a Minister

Ministering after miscarriages means being a minister. What do you do?

Know Canons of Dort 1.17:

Since we must make judgments about God’s will from his Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in infancy.

I've written in great detail on the history and meaning of this article in Grace Worth Fighting For. I've also preached on “What If My Child Dies?” Here I’ll make just a few comments.

Canon 1.17 is the pastoral basis of the confessionally Reformed minister. Learn this article; use it.

As we know within the Dutch Reformed tradition, this is a debated issue. The debate is whether covenant children who die early in life are in heaven or not. The Westminster Confession offers a theologically correct assessment no Reformed believer will deny:

Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth. (10.3; emphasis mine)

Yet Dort reminds us we have to deal with things “below”: “we must make judgments about God’s will from his Word.” We don’t know the eternal decree of God. Therefore, we must judge things from within our creaturely bounds of the covenant and visible church. The delegates at Dort sought to answer a pastoral question pastorally.

The issue for those in churches that confess the Canons is whether they describe certainty about the children or only the attitude of the parents. An example of the former is Herman Bavinck (Reformed Dogmatics, 4:724–27; Saved by Grace, 69); of the latter, is Herman Hoeksema (Believers and their Seed, 149–58). Without getting into all the historical and theological weeds here, I’ll let you consult the resources below.

Read the Word

It goes without saying: we need to base our pastoral comfort upon the Word. Read Psalm 139 with a grieving mother, couple, and family. Hear David’s confidence of being in the Lord’s presence even in the womb. Read of his agony and hopeful response after his son’s death in 2 Samuel 12: “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (v. 23). Later, Rabbi Saul-turned-Apostle Paul said,

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep….For the Lord himself will descend from heaven…and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. (1 Thess. 4:13–14, 16–17)

Canon 1.17 comes from such passages. Children of believers are members of the covenant of grace. Thus, we read the Word to our broken members from within that rich and comforting status as the people of God. This means offering strong encouragement. They don’t need to doubt where their lost child is.

The lost child they may have never held in their arms isin the arms of Jesus!

Pray

Above all, draw near to the throne of grace together. The Psalms and the wonderful prayers of our tradition help. For example, we in the URCNA have three Prayers for the Sick and the Spiritually Distressed. Prayer 1 says in part:

Eternal God, the only Creator, Preserver, Judge, and Savior of the world, You alone hold the powers of life and death. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He had conquered death and hell, announced, “I was dead, but I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades in my hand.” Yet often our circumstances seem to testify against Your promise. What we see does not appear to agree with what we have heard. Yet, even at the cross, where You seemed so absent and Your Son seemed so cruelly and unjustly abandoned by You, we have been taught that He was thereby fulfilling Your purposes to redeem us from the power of darkness. We confess that our hearts are so bound to the realities that we see with our eyes in the moment, that we easily forget the greater realities that we hear with our ears through Your Word.

We also have a very old series of meditations entitled Consolation of the Sick. Several of these have appropriate meditations for such an occasion.

In sum, ministering after miscarriages is inevitable. It’s also indispensable.

Prepare now.

Be involved when it comes.

Most of all, be a minister of the gospel’s treasure as a jar of clay when life is broken (2 Cor. 4:7).

Some Resources on Miscarriage

Dan Doriani, “Miscarriage of an Early-Term Infant,” in The Hardest Sermons You’ll Ever Have to Preach, ed. Bryan Chapell (Zondervan, 2011). Paperback | Kindle [affiliate]

Henk Kleyn, “Malachi’s Short Story”

Glenda Mathes, Little One Lost: Living with Early Infant Loss (Reformed Fellowship, 2012). Paperback | Kindle [affiliate]

Reggie Weems, Help! My Baby Has Died (Day One, 2010). Paperback [affiliate]

David Wiersbe, Gone but Not Lost: Grieving the Death of a Child (Baker, 1992). Paperback | Kindle [affiliate]

Some Resources on Understanding Canons of Dort 1.17

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Baker Academic, 2008), 724–27. Hardcover | Kindle [affiliate]

—. Saved by Grace: The Holy Spirit’s Work in Calling and Regeneration, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman, ed. J. Mark Beach (Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), 69. Paperback | Kindle

John Calvin, "Letter CCCLXIV–To a Gentleman of Provence," in Selected Works of John Calvin, Volume 6 (Baker, 1983), 71–73.

Lee Gatiss, From Life’s First Cry: John Owen on infant baptism and infant salvation, St. Antholin’s Lectureship Charity Lecture 2008 (Latimer Trust, 2008). Kindle [affiliate]

W. Robert Godfrey, “Election and Covenant: The Synod of Dort and Children Dying in Infancy” (unpublished essay).

N. H. Gootjes, “Can Parents Be Sure?”Clarion 44:20 (October 6, 1995) and Clarion 44:21 (October 20, 1995).

John Owen, “Letter 83: To Lady Elizabeth Hartopp,” in The Correspondence of John Owen (1616–1683): With an Account of His Life and Work, ed. Peter Toon (James Clarke & Co. Ltd., 1970), 157–58.

Cornelis P. Venema, “The Election and Salvation of the Children of Believers Who Die in Infancy: A Study of Article I/17 of the Canons of Dort.”Mid-America Journal of Theology 17 (2006): 57–100.

---

Related writings:

• A Catechism on Pastoral Theology

• Anointing the Sick with Oil: A Missing Aspect of Pastoral Ministry in the Reformed Tradition

• “Continuing in Prayer,” in Faithful and Fruitful: Essays for Elders and Deacons, ed. William Boekestein and Steve Swets (Reformed Fellowship, 2019).

---

© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Ministering After Miscarriages," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/ministering-after-miscarriages. Used by permission.

Anointing the Sick with Oil: A Missing Aspect of Pastoral Ministry in the Reformed Tradition

Daniel R. Hyde

Reformed churches have a strong tradition of elders as officers of prayer and care. Yet one thing has been missing since the sixteenth century. This study works through James 5:14–15 in its context, weighs the medicinal, Roman Catholic, historic Reformed, and Pentecostal readings, and argues that anointing with oil remains a valid ministry for Reformed elders today.

Read the PDF

---

What follows is a paper I was tasked to write sometime between 2000–2002 when the Oceanside United Reformed Church was still a church plant. I have slightly edited it for style and clarity, but the substance remains the same. In other words, it is to be viewed as one preliminary paper researching the topic and not as a definitive statement.

---

As Reformed churches, we have a strong tradition of the elders in a congregation being officers of prayer as well as care by visiting the flock.[1] That being said, there is and has been something missing from this ministry of prayer and care since the establishment of the Reformed churches in the sixteenth century—the anointing with oil and prayer over the sick according to James 5:14-15.

Described as “one of the most fascinating passages in the whole letter of James, and one which has excited a great deal of difference of opinion and not a little controversy,”[2] James’ words have been an all-too-easily dismissed and overlooked aspect of New Testament ministry within the Reformed tradition. The reason for this, historically, has been polemics with the Roman Catholic Church over the sacrament of extreme unction. This debate also has a contemporary twist in Reformed theology’s difference with Pentecostalism over the issue of the “sign gifts” (e.g., tongues, prophecy, words of knowledge).

The question of why Reformed churches do not practice what James seems to command, was one I was completely unaware of. That was, until a Berean in my parish wrote the consistory, asking us why we did not practice what these verses speak of. I was then assigned the task of researching the history of Reformed exegesis on this text and to bring a report to a future consistory meeting. My conclusion, as one converted and educated within Pentecostalism and later brought to a Reformed understanding of the Faith, is that there is a legitimate use of anointing with oil and prayer as prescribed by James; and this while holding to the classic “cessationist” viewpoint of the finality of God’s spoken Word in the Person of Christ (Heb. 1:1–2, 2:1–4) and inscripturated in the canon of the New Testament (cf. Belgic Confession, articles 3–7).

The purpose, then, of this essay is to demonstrate that what James 5:14–15 describes is a valid, ongoing ministry of the church that we as Reformed churches need to recover. This text will be interpreted in its context by examining the linguistic meaning of “oil,” by interacting with the various viewpoints on the interpretation of the anointing spoken of in this text, and then applying the results of this study to contemporary Reformed pastoral ministry.

James’ Use of “Oil” (ἐλαίῳ)

Our first step in approaching James 5:14, is to get a handle on what exactly the oil James prescribes for anointing. Then we will answer the question of what was James’ purpose for prescribing the use of oil. Generally speaking, in the ancient world, oil had two uses: first, as a medicinal agent, and, second, as a symbolic agent.

The Medicinal View

Because it could be used as medicine, some have concluded that James meant the oil of anointing merely for a healing/recuperative effect. This interpretation is based on three basic facts.

First, common agents such as oil, as well as wine, were used in the ancient world as medicine.[3] Biblically speaking, this use of oil as a medicinal agent goes as far back as Isaiah 1:6. On James 5:14 Robert Gundry emphasizes the fact of oil as medicine, saying, “Since olive oil was a common household remedy, James may have its medicinal properties in mind, as though to say, ‘Treat with medicine and pray for recovery.’”[4] Commonly cited as biblical corroboration is Paul’s famous advice to Timothy, who was suffering with some sort of ailment: “No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments” (1 Tim. 5:23).[5]

The second fact that is cited in treating the oil of James 5:14 merely as a medicinal agent is that linguistically, James uses the same Greek word for “oil” that Luke 10:34 uses when referring to oil as a medicine. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke says, “He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.” We see this view advocated in the study notes on Luke 10:34 in the New Geneva Study Bible, which says, “Oil and wine were common remedies of that time and expressed the Samaritan’s compassion.”[6] As well, appeal can be made to Mark 6:13, in which the apostles went out, casting out demons as well as anointing the sick, who were then healed.

Third, it is sometimes said that James chose the verb ἀλείφω rather than χριω in speaking of “anointing.” The former word is marshaled as meaning “rubbing” oil on a person medicinally, rather than pouring or smearing oil in symbolically. The account of the apostles’ anointing and healing in Mark 6:13 is said to corroborate this view.

Response to the Medicinal View

This interpretive position is historically and linguistically reasonable. Yet, the traditional Reformed response to the view that the oil of James 5:14 was merely medicinal since, is exemplified by John Calvin, who simply said, “I cannot agree with those who think that it was medicine.”[7] Reformed biblical interpreters have followed Calvin in disagreeing with the medicinal view of oil for five reasons:

First, although it is without question that oil was used medicinally in the ancient world, it was not exclusively used for this purpose, as we will see below.

Second, Luke’s reference in the Parable of the Good Samaritan to oil being used as medicine in no way restricts James’ use from referring to another function. Just because Luke uses the word one way does not mean it must mean that in James.

Third, and most importantly, when the use of the word for “oil,” ἐλαίῳ, is considered in its context, it becomes clear that James prescribes its use because there is something more going on than just the healing of the body. James conceives of a link between physical healing (v. 15a) and a “spiritual” healing (v. 16), which is described as the forgiveness of sins (v. 15b), if sins have been committed.

Fourth, if James meant for oil to be used on the sick strictly as a means of healing the body, then why does he say that the elders of the church need to be the ones administering the oil along with prayer? The elders are the shepherds of the spiritual life of Christ’s sheep-pen, not medical doctors.

Fifth, the use of ἀλείφω does not argue against a symbolic anointing, even if it meant only to rub oil upon a person. Neither does the use of this word in Mark 6:13 prove a medicinal view. There Mark clearly shows the healings being “signs of the apostles,” along with the exorcisms, as confirming the unique authority of their preaching.

The Symbolic View

The second major view of the oil mentioned in James 5:14 emphasizes its use in Scripture as a visible sign of something, whether the Holy Spirit or simply consecration to God. This was the position of Calvin, and is that of this author, as James speaks of oil in a symbolic manner. There are two main reasons for saying this:

First, throughout the unfolding of redemptive history in Scripture, oil was used by the faithful primarily as a symbol in order to visibly signify a spiritual reality. As Douglas Moo points out,

Anointing with oil is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament as a symbolic action according to which what is anointed is set apart for God’s service or blessing[…]By anointing the sick person with oil, then, the elders are symbolically setting that person aside for the Lord’s special attention as they pray.[8]

We see this use of oil as a symbol in several representative texts. In Psalm 45:7, the sons of Korah magnify the king, whom “God has anointed[…]with the oil of gladness.” When the New Testament uses this part of Psalm 45, it is of the King, our Lord Jesus Christ, and his being anointed with the Holy Spirit (Heb. 1:9).[9] Further back in the revelation of the Old Covenant is Exodus 29:7, in which Aaron and his sons were anointed with oil to symbolize their being set apart for priestly service. Finally, Psalm 133:2–3 describes the pleasantness of “brothers dwell[ing] in unity” with the simile, “It is like the precious oil on the head[…]It is like the dew of Hermon.” Again, the New Testament explains to us that this blessed unity spoken of among the brethren of God’s people, is a fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:3). Thus, oil in Scripture is used symbolically for the Holy Spirit, consecration for God’s service, as well as the unity of the family of God which is brought about by the Holy Spirit.

Returning to our reasons for understanding that the oil of James 5:14 is not merely a healing agent, but an outward sign of a spiritual reality, is the second reason. As alluded to above, the anointing in James 5:14 is linked not only to physical healing but spiritual—the forgiveness of sins: “And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven” (5:15).

It is important to note in passing, the pastoral explanation of this text. Note well that James does not link inseparably sickness with sin. There is not necessarily a link between the two, nor an inevitable conclusion to be drawn about a sick parishioner who needs the prayer of his/her elders. All one has to note are the words of our Lord on this matter (John 9:2–3). What James does state, however, is that when a person is healed physically by the means of anointing and prayer, a person is forgiven if he/she has sinned and has confessed that (v. 16).[10]

Truly, something more is going on in James 5 than mere physical healing, which we see in the forgiveness of sins which comes solely from the Lord, not from the oil. The medicinal view cannot account for this aspect of the text. After all, how does ordinary recuperation from a common remedy effect the forgiveness of sins? The oil of James 5:14, then, is not merely medicine, but a symbol of something beyond itself, something mysterious. That “something” is the One we call the Holy Spirit.

What is the Meaning of James’ Symbol?

Since James is speaking of “something more,” the question is, what exactly is the meaning and application of this anointing. There seem to be three major opinions regarding the meaning and ongoing function of the oil in James 5:14 among those who take it as a symbol.

Roman Catholic View

The practice of Rome as we know it today can be traced back in history to several notable occurrences. By the third century A.D., the oil used in anointing had to first be consecrated by the local bishop. Then, as time passed the anointing with oil was solely performed by priests by the tenth century. By the 12th century this anointing came to be called “extreme unction” and was reserved only for those dying. Then in the thirteenth century the “sacrament of the dying” was declared to be one of the seven sacraments.

In Rome’s polemics against Protestantism at the Council of Trent (1545–63), the sacrament of “extreme unction” was said to be “insinuated indeed in Mark, but recommended and promulgated to the faithful by James the Apostle, and brother of the Lord.”[11] Rome’s dogma is that the “oil blessed by a bishop”[12] represents the “grace of the Holy Spirit; whose anointing cleanses away sins, if there be any still to be expiated.”[13] For this reason, extreme unction came to be called “the completion[…]of the whole Christian life.”[14] In this understanding of the anointing prescribed by James, the “raising up” mentioned in James 5:15 is not physical healing, but a strengthening of the soul of “those especially who lie in such danger as to seem to be about to depart this life.”[15] Thus, extreme unction is given so that the sick person can bear “more easily the inconveniences and pains of his sickness; and more readily resists the temptations of the devil.”[16]

Response to the Roman Catholic View

Although agreeing with Rome that the oil signifies something more than physical healing, the arguments adduced by the Reformed polemicist and theologian Francis Turretin (1623–87) compel this Reformed minister against the teaching that this anointing is equated with the Roman sacrament of extreme unction.[17]

First, nowhere in Scripture is there any mention of the institution, substance, and form of administration of this sacrament by our Lord.

Second, the type of healing of James, like that of Mark 6:13 (in which, according to Trent, is “insinuated indeed” extreme unction), speaks of bodily healing, while extreme unction does not.

Third, James commands “anyone among you” who is sick to be anointed and prayed over while extreme unction only applies to the deathly ill.

Fourth, James commands “the elders” to be present when this anointing is administered while extreme unction is administered and attended by only one priest.

Fifth, James’ anointing was for the absolute end of healing and the conditioned end of remission of sins, while extreme unction inverts this.

The Historic Reformed View

It was in the context of polemical theology with Rome that Reformed exegetes came to their position. Reformed exegetes from the Reformation through our day, understand this anointing with oil and subsequent healing as being something that is no longer to be practiced by the Church. This was the position of Martin Bucer[18] (1491–1551), John Calvin[19] (1509–64), Zacharias Ursinus[20] (1534–83), Johannes Wollebius[21] (1586–1629), John Owen[22] (1616–83), Francis Turretin[23] (1623–87), Matthew Henry[24] (1662–1714), and B.B. Warfield.[25] Their reasoning went like this: since the supernatural “sign” gifts of the New Testament apostles have ceased, and since the outward sign of anointing with oil signified not an uncertain healing, but a certain, miraculous healing, therefore, to continue administering the outward sign of oil without the gift of healing would be to lie and give a false testimony to sick, wounded sheep.[26]

Response to the Historic Reformed View

Contemporary Reformed theologians and pastors generally agree with the Reformed exegetical tradition on these verses in rejecting the Roman Catholic application of James 5:14 to extreme unction, in maintaining that the anointing is not medicinal but rather for healing, and in holding to the “cessationist” view of the “sign” gifts of the apostolic age.

This writer disagrees with the conclusion that because of the cessation of the miraculous gifts, the anointing with oil in James is also to cease among us. This author disagrees because James 5:14 speaks not of the apostles doing the anointing, praying, and healing, but of the ordinary,[27] established church leaders—“the elders of the church.” As well, the general context of James 5:13–18 is the “prayer of a righteous person,” which has “great power,” and the specific qualifier James mentions in healing the sick is “the prayer of faith.” To these points we shall return below under our application.

The Pentecostal View

A more recent interpretation is that of Pentecostal or Charismatic churches, which maintain that the gift of healing is a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Characteristic of this view is the official doctrinal statement of the Assemblies of God (AG). This carries the same weight that the Reformed confessions do for us:

Divine healing is an integral part of the gospel. Deliverance from sickness is provided for in the atonement, and is the privilege of all believers. (Isa. 53:4–5; Matt. 8:16–17; James 5:14–16)[28]

To this is added the AG’s statements of generally held positions, codified in their “General Christian Doctrines.” While these are not on the same level as the “Statement of Fundamental Truths,” they express the common view of their ministers. The twelfth of which is “Laying on of Hands and Anointing the Sick with Oil,” which reads,

Why does the Assemblies of God follow the practice of laying hands on the sick and anointing them with oil? What greater purpose does this offer over regular prayer? Laying hands on the sick was a common practice in the Early Church. Jesus often laid hands on people before healing them (Mark 6:5; Luke 4:40; 13:13). Paul laid hands on a sick person and he was healed (Acts 28:8). Jesus said concerning His followers, “they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well” (Mark 16:18).

Anointing with oil for many different purposes was commonly practiced throughout the Scriptures. The New Testament mentions it specifically in connection with praying for the sick. On one occasion Jesus sent out the twelve disciples on a mission; they “anointed many sick people with oil and healed them” (Mark 6:13). In a congregational situation, the usual procedure is for a sick Christian to call for the elders of the church to pray over him and to anoint him with oil (James 5:14–16).

In biblical times oil was commonly used as a healing agent (Luke 10:34). But when used by the early Christians for anointing purposes it was merely a symbolic reminder to God’s healing power. Today as then, the anointing oil itself has no healing power. Healing takes place by the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38), of whom oil is a symbol (Zech. 4:4–6).

In the Assemblies of God we believe neither the laying on of hands nor anointing with oil is indispensable for healing, for often in Scripture healing takes place without either. But at times the touch of a praying person and the application of oil are an encouragement to faith, and such a practice is enjoined by Scripture (James 5:14–16).[29]

Response to the Pentecostal View

In response, this author assumes that the Scriptures teach that the “sign” gifts of the apostles, among which is healing, has ceased as an ordinary part of New Covenant ministry.[30] But the most compelling biblical response to the view of the AG that healing as “an integral part of the gospel” and “provided for in the atonement,” is that the Scriptures define the nature and purpose of the atonement as the healing of our true and most serious sickness: sin.

Contemporary Application

While we do not agree with either Rome nor Pentecostalism, James’ command that the sick call for the elders of the church to administer anointing with oil accompanied by prayer should continue in Reformed churches today. This conclusion is based on the following.

First, the primary purpose of James’ instructions at the end of his epistle is for Christians to be engaged in prayer. The ancient church historian Eusebius described James himself as a man of prayer saying, “His knees grew hard like a camel’s because of his constant worship of God, kneeling and asking forgiveness for the people.”[31] In the immediate context of the verses at issue here, is the sharp contrast between swearing “either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath” (5:12) with “The prayer of a righteous person[…]in the name of the Lord” (5:16, 14). The anointing with oil and even the healing are peripheral in the flow of James’ argument. What matters is that the elders of the church pray for those who “call” for prayer. We miss this if we emphasize too much on how oil is to be administered, what kind of oil is to be used, how are we going to implement this? What James calls us to is a ministry of prayer we have missed for generations.

Second, James speaks of the one who is “sick” (ἀσθενεῖ), that is, “weak,” and “powerless”[32] in the body and not just “spiritually sick.”[33] As Douglas Moo points out, when this word is referring to some sort of “spiritual weakness,” this is made clear with a qualifying phrase, such as “in conscience” (1 Cor. 8:7) or “in faith” (Rom. 14:1,2).

In the Gospels, which seems to have influenced James the most, this word always refers to physical illness (Matt. 10:8, 25:36, 39; Mark 6:56; Luke 4:40; John 4:46, 5:3, 7, 6:2, 11:1, 2, 3, 6). As well, the verbs “save” (v. 15) and “heal” (v. 16) are used in the Gospels (e.g., cf. Matt. 9:21–22; Mark 3:4; Luke 7:50; John 11:12) to speak of physical restoration.[34] The term for “sick” in verse 14 is related to the word for “the one who is sick” (τὸν κάμνοντα) in verse 15. This second term is only used one other time in the New Testament, in Hebrews 12:3, where it speaks of the one who is weary and worn out. It seems clear, then, that James speaks of one who is too weak to get out of bed and attend public worship; this is why he/she must “call for the elders of the church” to have them “pray over him.”

What this means is that this text prescribes anointing by the elders for all those who are seriously sick. This is in contrast both to Rome’s restriction only to the deathly ill as well as Pentecostalism’s license in having “healing services” for any kind of illness or even just for those who desire to be anointed after a worship service and prayed for. The initiative is on the sick person, not the church to have special times of anointing and healing for anyone with fatigue, stress, or a cold. Practically, this means that the church must be educated on this topic, as well as be made aware of the elders’ practice so that they can knowledgeably call for the elders. This can be done in home visitation, new members’ classes, by way of a standing announcement in the bulletin, as well as through Christian education classes.

Third, it is “the elders of the church” (τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους τῆς ἐκκλησίας) whom we are told are to pray over the seriously sick. This group entails not just the minister, priest, healer, or “district elder,” but the entire “presbytery,” or corporate eldership. Therefore, the gathering of “the elders” for prayer over the seriously ill under their care is what is being alluded to here.

It is important to keep in view that James is speaking of the ordinary officers of established churches, as opposed to those with the extraordinary offices of apostle or prophet (Eph. 4:11) or those endued with the gift of healing (1 Cor. 12:9). The New Testament authors use the word “elder” (πρεσβύτερος) fourteen times in relation to the ruling members of the local congregation. They are mentioned as been the fixtures of the church of Jerusalem (11:30, 15:2, 21:18) and having been appointed in the churches of Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and Antioch (Acts 14:23 cf. 20:17), while in the epistles they are described in more detail (cf. 1 Tim. 5:17, 19; Titus 1:5; 1 Peter 5:1). In none of these texts are elders given supernatural power; rather, they are designated as shepherds (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:1), rulers (1 Tim. 5:17), overseers (Acts 20:28) and some are even teachers (1 Tim. 5:17). This evidence is important because the gifts of healing and miracles were not tied to the elders in the New Testament, and thus, this practice did not cease when the apostles ceased.

What this means for us is that we need to be aware that being an elder in a Reformed church entails being willing to assemble at a hospital or home over one of our brothers or sisters. The eldership has no place for fear, timidity, or sense of being uncomfortable. Our sheep look to us, and we must lead.

Fourth, the oil James prescribes does not heal magically, nor even does prayer. Only the Holy Spirit can heal. When we anoint with oil, we are setting aside a sick person as especially devoted to the Lord as an object of care,[35] while confessing that it is the Holy Spirit alone, the “Lord and Giver of life” (Nicene Creed) who can raise the sick one up both from physical ailment (v. 15) as well as spiritual depths (vv. 15b, 16).

What is so wonderful is that James’ epistle indicates that God the Holy Spirit does his healing work through the means of “the prayer of faith”[36] of the elders, accompanied by the outward sign of oil.[37] Thus we can answer those who say that healing was a necessary result of this anointing, by saying that James qualifies the “guarantee” of healing with the phrase “the prayer [vow] of faith.” Pastorally speaking, then, when a person is not healed, it is not their lack of faith but in a real sense, even the weak prayers of the elders; ultimately, though, whether the Lord will heal or not is his prerogative and a part of his secret counsel. In view of this we must lift up our eyes in hope and respect.

Lastly, although the apostolic age and the “sign” gifts have ceased, no one can limit or negate the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit throughout the generations. We must recapture our sense and reliance upon the Holy Spirit as Reformed Christians. It was the Calvinists who re-emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit in their writings, preaching, and confessional documents. As Sinclair Ferguson, says,

No right-thinking Christian would deny that God continues to be active in the world, to do wonderful things for his people, and especially to answer their prayers in keeping with his promises. It is still appropriate for the sick not only to consult a doctor but to ‘call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord’. The promise remains that ‘the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up’ (Jas 5:14–15). People continue to be healed by God — through, above and even against means. Indeed, writes John Owen, ‘It is not unlikely but that God might on some occasions, for a longer season, put forth his power in some miraculous operations.’[38]

Thus, it is precisely because we as Calvinists believe in the Lord and Giver of life that we need to add to our elders’ existing ministry of prayer and care, the anointing and prayer over the seriously sick in our day. This is not only exegetically respectable, but also pastorally necessary.

Postscript: A Proposed Order of Prayer

¶ After the sick member has called for the elders, the elders assemble at an appointed time to the place where the sick member is located.

¶ Then, one of the elders leads a reading of the words of James 5:13–18.

¶ A brief explanation of several points in James 5:14–15 ensues:

First, James calls us to be a people of prayer in every station in life, whether we are suffering, cheerful, sick, or in need of forgiveness (other texts such as Pss. 50:14–15, 62:8 may be read).

Second, James calls the elders to be concerned for the well-being of the whole person, spiritually as well as physically.

Third, although the Scriptures do not necessarily link sickness as a result of specific sin, this time of prayer provides an opportunity for the sick to repent of sin and seek forgiveness.

Fourth, the use of oil in anointing is not a sacrament nor a “magical” element, but a sign of setting aside a person for God’s special care. As well, oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, who is the Lord and Giver of life.

Fifth, we must rest, ultimately, in the sovereignty and good pleasure of God, who many times has even better plans for us than to heal us physically.

¶ If the sick person desires to make confession of sins which burden their conscience, the elders are to ask them to confess them at this time, upon which, they are to exercise the keys of the kingdom and declare the promises of God’s forgiveness (texts such as 1 John 1:9 should be read and applied).

¶ After this, the sick person is to be anointed with oil upon their forehead “in the name of the Lord.”

¶ The elders then pray for the sick person.

---

Notes

1.  See article 23 of the Church Order of Dort, as found in The Psalter (Reformation Heritage Books edition; Eerdmans, 1999), 181–82; Psalter Hymnal (Christian Reformed Church, 1934), 118. Cf. the comments upon this article in Idzerd Van Dellen and Martin Monsma, The Church Order Commentary (Credo Books, reprinted 2003), 107–111.

2.  J. A. Motyer, The Message of James, The Bible Speaks Today (IVP, 1985), 189.

3.  Douglas Moo cites the second-century physician Galen in this light. The Letter of James, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2000), 239.

4.  Robert H. Gundry, A Survey of the New Testament (3rd ed.; Zondervan, 1996), 436.

5.  Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

6.  New Geneva Study Bible (Thomas Nelson, 1995), 1625.

7.  Commentaries on the Epistle of James, trans. Rev. John Owen, Calvin’s Commentaries, 22 vols. (Baker, reprinted 1996), 22:355–56.

8.  Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Baker, 1989), 1162.

9.  Cf. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle to the Hebrews, trans. Rev. John Owen, Calvin’s Commentaries, 22 vols. (Baker, reprinted 1996), 22:46; John Owen, Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit, The Works of John Owen, 16 vols. (Banner of Truth, reprinted 1994), 3:171; Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 31–32.

10.  The question, then, has been asked, “Does this mean that the sick person is not yet forgiven?” The first thing to keep clear is that there is a difference between our being once for all forgiven when we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone and the ongoing forgiveness that we need as those simultaneously justified and sinful (cf. Matt. 6:12; 1 John 1:9). To this must be added the fact that the New Testament does give evidence that sickness can be linked to public, gross immorality (e.g., 1 Cor. 11:30). Whether or not this still happens, I do not know. All I know is that there is something going on in the New Testament era that is beyond my comprehension.

11.  The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Fourteenth Session, On the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, chapter I, in The Creeds of Christendom, ed. Philip Schaff, rev. David S. Schaff, 3 vols. (Baker, reprinted 1993), 2:160.

12.  Ibid., 2:160, Session 14, chapter I.

13.  Ibid., 2:161, Session 14, chapter II.

14.  Ibid., 2:159, Session 14, chapter II.

15.  Ibid., 2:162, Session 14, chapter III.

16.  Ibid., 2:161, Session 14, chapter II.

17.  Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., 3 vols. (P&R, 1997), 19th Topic, Question 31, XXXII.

18.  Martin Bucer, The Common Places of Martin Bucer, trans. and ed., D.F. Wright, The Courtenay Library of Reformation Classics 4 (The Sutton Courtenay Press, 1972), 91; cf. Bucer’s Censura on the 1549 Book of Common Prayer in Martin Bucer and the Book of Common Prayer, trans. E.C. Whitaker, Alcuin Club Collections No. 55 (Mayhew-McCrimmon, 1974), 124–26.

19.  Calvin, James, 22:356; Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Eerdmans, 1997), 4.19.18–21.

20.  Zacharias Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. G.W. Williard (1892; repr.; P&R, 1985), 353.

21.  Johannes Wollebius, Compendium Theologiae Christianae in Reformed Dogmatics, ed. J.W. Beardslee (Oxford University Press, 1965), 128.

22.  John Owen, A Discourse of Spiritual Gifts, The Works of John Owen, 16 vols. (Banner of Truth, reprinted 1995), 4:465.

23.  Turretin, Institutes, 556–58.

24.  Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (Hendrickson, 1991), 2419–20.

25.  B.B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles (Banner of Truth, reprinted 1976).

26.  Thus Calvin, in typical satirical fashion, says of the Papists who continue the outward sign, that they “are not the true followers, but the apes of the apostles.” Calvin, James, 22:356.

27.  On the distinction between extraordinary and ordinary offices in the Church see Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (4th edition; Eerdmans, reprinted 1994), 585–87.

28.  “Statement of Fundamental Truths,” article 12, Assemblies of God (USA), https://ag.org/beliefs/statement-of-fundamental-truths (Accessed 1 September 2026).

29.  “Laying on of Hands and Anointing the Sick with Oil,” Assemblies of God (USA), General Christian Doctrines. https://web.archive.org/web/20030212054637/www.ag.org/top/beliefs/christian_doctrines/gendoct_12_sick.cfm (Accessed 1 September 2026).

30.  See O. Palmer Robertson, The Final Word: A Biblical Response to the Case for Tongues and Prophecy Today (Banner of Truth, reprinted 1997); Anthony A. Hoekema, What About Tongue Speaking? (Eerdmans, 1966); Richard B. Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost (P&R, 1979); Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit (IVP, 1996).

31.  Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, trans., Kirsopp Lake (Harvard University Press, 1965), I:170–71.

32.  Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, trans. & rev. W.F. Arndt, F.W. Gingrich, and F.W. Danker (University of Chicago Press, 1979), 115.

33.  Contra C. Armerding, “‘Is Any Among You Afflicted’: A Study of James 5:13–20,” BibSac 95 (1938): 195–201; C. Pickar, “Is Anyone Sick among You?” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 7 (1945): 165–74; D.R. Hayden, “Calling the Elders to Pray,” BibSac 138 (1981): 258–86.

34.  Moo, James, 237.

35.  See G. Shogren, “Will God Heal Us? A Re-Examination of James 5:14–16a,” Evangelical Quarterly 61 (1989): 99–108.

36.  Cf. Edmund Clowney, The Church, Contours of Christian Theology (IVP, 1995), 243.

37.  Rowland S. Ward believes the phrase “the prayer of faith” is “the sick person’s believing response to the grace of God in confession rather than the prayer of the elders.” Blessed By the Presence of the Spirit: The Authentic Charismatic Church (New Melbourne Press, 1997), 78.

38.  Ferguson, The Holy Spirit, 234–35.

---

Related writings:

• A Catechism on Pastoral Theology

• A Well-Ordered Church: Laying a Foundation for a Vibrant Church [with William Boekestein] (Evangelical Press, 2015)

• “Continuing in Prayer,” in Faithful and Fruitful: Essays for Elders and Deacons, ed. William Boekestein and Steve Swets (Reformed Fellowship, 2019).

• For another excellent, contemporary Reformed exposition of this passage, see Chris Hutchinson, “The Oil of Gladness: a Neglected Ministry.”

---

© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Anointing the Sick With Oil: A Missing Aspect of Pastoral Ministry in the Reformed Tradition," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/anointing-the-sick-with-oil. Used by permission.

The Thirty-Nine Articles and the Belgic Confession: A Review Article

A response to an Anglican comparison of the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Belgic Confession, arguing that its central claims rest on reading theological significance into the order of the Belgic’s articles and on an unstated “Calvin versus the Calvinists” framework. He counters that the Belgic follows the Trinitarian shape of the Nicene Creed, that its placement of election is pedagogical rather than substantive, and that the Reformed churches of the Continent understood themselves as catholic rather than innovative.

Written as a review article in The North American Anglican, this piece engages John P. Boonzaaijer's "Restoration vs. Innovation: Comparing the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Belgic Confession" (Winter 2008). It frames the exchange within the cosmopolitan spirit of the sixteenth century, when Reformed catechisms, confessions, and liturgies were treated as expressions of an international movement rather than the property of any one church—illustrated by Beza's Harmonia Confessionum (1581), its Cambridge translation (1586), and Cranmer's letter to Calvin proposing a Protestant council to answer Trent.

It commends three things in Boonzaaijer's article: its attention to the biography of Guido de Brès and the confession’s own theological and social milieu, its careful treatment of the text and internal structure of the Belgic, and its irenic, bridge-building posture.

The critique falls under three heads. First, Boonzaaijer imputes meaning to the sequence of the Belgic’s articles. It shows that the God-then-Scripture-then-Trinity ordering predates the Belgic across a dozen Reformed confessions from the Tetrapolitan (1530) to the Second Helvetic, that describing the Belgic as “systematic theology” is anachronistic, and that its actual architecture tracks the Nicene Creed. On baptism, he answers the charge that the Reformed reduced it to infant dedication by appealing to Belgic articles 33–34 and to the Dutch Reformed Form for Infant Baptism with Luther’s Great Flood Prayer. On election, he draws on Richard Muller to argue that placement in Reformed dogmatics was a matter of genre and docendi via, not substance.

Second, the article identifies an undertone of R. T. Kendall's discredited “Calvin versus the Calvinists” thesis, noting that the Belgic already confesses an infralapsarian double predestination in harmony with the Canons of Dort, and reminding Anglican readers that Dort was the one truly ecumenical Reformed synod—with the British delegation seated at its head and Joseph Hall preaching the opening sermon on Romans 9.

Third, it argues that the “continuity versus innovation” framing is a polemical Anglican claim rather than a historical one, since the Reformers from Knox to Vermigli to de Brès consistently asserted that they were rejoining the ancient catholic church rather than founding a new one.

---

---

See my commentary on the Belgic Confession at my Books

page.

---

On the Belgic Confession, see:

• Why I Love the Belgic Confession

On Being a Church Planter

Mid-America Journal of Theology 20 (2009): 159–75

Daniel R. Hyde

Confessionally Reformed church planters have long been left to sift through church growth, Pentecostal, and Emerging Church literature for whatever might apply to them. Written by a church planter after nine years, this essay offers principles and aptitudes drawn from Reformed theology instead.

Pastors who want to plant confessionally Reformed churches have had little written for them. What guidance exists has usually meant sifting the church growth movement, Pentecostal church planting material, or at best the Emerging Church and the Acts 29 Network for whatever fragments transfer. A few resources had begun to remedy this by 2009: Westminster Seminary California's 1999 missions conference, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church's 2002 manual, and Mid-America Reformed Seminary's 2008 church planting workshop.

Writing at the moment when even the American press had noticed “the New Calvinism,” this journal article takes up the gap from the vantage of a man who had been planting since before he graduated seminary in 2000. The aim isn’t principles alone but their application to practice, to the person and character of the planter himself, on the conviction that theology is, in William Ames’s phrase, the teaching of living to God, and that church planting is punishing work physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

The first half sets out three foundational principles drawn from Acts 2:42. The planter must be devoted to theology, confessing the Word not by private interpretation but with the ancient creeds and the Reformed confessions he has subscribed. Everything is theological, and theology is what steadies a man; the article illustrates this with the Lord’s Day evening early in his ministry when four parishioners went to the hospital within five minutes of each other, and the Heidelberg Catechism’s teaching on fatherly providence was what kept him sane. The same commitment governs preaching, where the message and the method can’t be separated and the ministry is no place for ingenuity. He must be devoted to liturgy, making Lord's Day worship non-negotiable and holding Reformed worship with confidence rather than apology, since worship follows from theology and not in spite of it. Hyde notes that historic liturgical worship has drawn to his congregation the very young people the Emerging Church has been courting. And he must be devoted to community, taking up the Reformed practice of family visitation as his own, knowing his sheep by name, and practicing hospitality, which is love in action and which few visitors have ever received from a pastor.

The second half turns to aptitudes: the skills, gifts, and traits the work requires. A planter needs genuine passion for planting rather than a call taken for want of other options, since a man who wanted a large or established congregation will make himself and his people unhappy. He needs to be personable, out in the community rather than shut in his study, though personable is not the same as being a personality; Abraham Kuyper's critique of the American minister who starts his own church and gathers a circle around a talented speaker still applies. He needs to handle disappointment, including core members falling into public sin and earnest inquirers who never return, and to learn what a colleague taught Hyde early on, that the church planter is not the Holy Spirit. He needs self-motivation, the ability to delegate what is not essential to his calling, and some means of handling stress. The essay closes on the pace of the work: John Owen, prince of Puritans, pastored a congregation that grew by roughly eleven souls a year, and that is the kind of slow, steady growth a planting ministry should pray for.

---

---

For more on church planting, see my co-edited book on my Books page

---

On Pastoral Ministry, see:

• A Catechism on Catechetical Preaching

• A Catechism on Pastoral Theology

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “On Being a Church Planter.” Mid-America Journal of Theology 20 (2009): 159–75.

The Holy Spirit in the Heidelberg Catechism

Mid-America Journal of Theology 17 (2006): 211–37

Daniel R. Hyde

Only one question and answer in the Heidelberg Catechism is explicitly devoted to the Holy Spirit, which has led some to charge it with pneumatological thinness. This essay traces the Spirit through the Catechism's structure and content to argue that there is no doctrine in it from which the Holy Spirit is absent..

Commentaries on the Heidelberg Catechism offer a common complaint: the Catechism offers only the barest outline of the Holy Spirit's person and work, has nothing to say about evangelism and mission, and confines the Spirit's activity to the secret places of the heart in a way that opened the door to later pietism.

This journal article answers that charge on two fronts. Historically, the Heidelberg is an ecclesiastical document with limited aims—a curriculum for children, a basis for catechetical preaching, and a form of unity for a region torn by theological and political strife. It can’t be faulted for failing to anticipate modern questions. Theologically, the person and work of the Spirit are woven into the Catechism from beginning to end. Karl Barth was nearer the mark in calling it a theology of the third article.

The essay works through the Catechism in four movements. It begins with macrostructure, where the Spirit stands behind the comfort of Q&A 1 and the guilt-grace-gratitude division of Q&A 2. It then takes up the Spirit's deity as confessed with the ancient church, next his work upon Christ in the incarnation, anointing to the threefold office, ascension, session, and gathering of the church, and also his work upon the believer in regeneration, faith, sanctification, prayer, assurance, spiritual warfare, and the Sabbath rest begun in this life.

A final section answers the charge of mysticism directly. Far from working secretly on the individual soul, the Spirit in the Heidelberg is bound to the public means of grace: the Spirit is the efficient cause of faith and preaching its instrumental cause; he is named in all six questions on baptism; and in the Supper he takes the place of the technical language of Christ's mode of presence, uniting believers to Christ's body in a formulation designed to hold Zurich, Geneva, and the Melanchthonians Lutherans together.

The essay cuts in two directions at once—a corrective to charismatic accounts that isolate the Spirit from Christ, and a rebuke to any hyper-Calvinism that would leave the Christian's life cold.

---

---

On the Heidelberg Catechism, see:

• Everything You Need to Know About Being Dutch Reformed

• The Principle and Practice of Preaching in the Heidelberg Catechism

• Why I Love the Heidelberg Catechism

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “The Holy Spirit in the Heidelberg Catechism.” Mid-America Journal of Theology 17 (2006): 211–37.

The Principle and Practice of Preaching in the Heidelberg Catechism

Puritan Reformed Journal 1:1 (January 2009): 97–117

Daniel R. Hyde

Why is preaching so central to Reformed worship? This article reads the Heidelberg Catechism’s teaching on preaching as being the Holy Spirit's medicine, prescribing guilt, grace, and gratitude for the believer.

Why do Reformed churches give such prominence to preaching? Why are sermons not just short reflections, but extended expositions of God’s Word? This article explores the principle and practice of preaching through the lens of the Heidelberg Catechism.

With clarity and depth, it shows how like the ancient church, the Catechism places preaching at the very center of Christian worship and life, as the chief means by which God justifies and sanctifies His people. Tracing its threefold structure of guilt, grace, and gratitude, it demonstrates how preaching functions as spiritual medicine: diagnosing sin with the law, prescribing the gospel of Christ, and guiding believers in grateful obedience.

Drawing from the writings of Ursinus, Olevianus, and Bastingius, as well as the Palatinate Church Order, it explains how the Reformed tradition viewed preaching as the Spirit’s primary instrument to create faith, build up the church, and open the very gates of the kingdom of heaven.

---

On preaching, see:

• A Catechism on Catechetical Preaching

• Handling a High Mystery: The Westminster Confession on Preaching Predestination

• Opening Up Romans

• The Value and Power of Expository Preaching

---

On the Heidelberg Catechism, see:

• Everything You Need to Know About Being Dutch Reformed

• Why I Love the Heidelberg Catechism

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “The Principle and Practice of Preaching in the Heidelberg Catechism.” Puritan Reformed Journal 1:1 (January 2009): 97–117.

Handling a High Mystery: The Westminster Confession on Preaching Predestination

Puritan Reformed Journal 2:2 (June 2010): 235–58

Daniel R. Hyde

How should a pastor preach predestination? This article explores the Westminster Assembly divines' pastoral handling of a doctrine meant to give humility and comfort.

Predestination has long stirred debate, confusion, and even fear within the church.

This article explores how the Westminster divines treated this “high mystery” in their Confession of Faith, offering guidance for preachers and comfort for believers.

Blending history, biblical insight, and pastoral wisdom, it traces the doctrine’s treatment from Augustine through the Reformation and Synod of Dort to the Westminster Assembly, showing how it has been taught for the glory of God and the assurance of His people.

Readers will discover how predestination, far from being a cold abstraction, is meant to inspire humility, strengthen holiness, and provide deep consolation in Christ.

For pastors, students of theology, and thoughtful Christians, this article uncovers the rich, practical, and doxological heart of a doctrine often misunderstood yet vital to the Christian.

---

On preaching, see:

• A Catechism on Catechetical Preaching

• Opening Up Romans

• The Principle and Practice of Preaching in the Heidelberg Catechism

• The Value and Power of Expository Preaching

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “Handling a High Mystery: The Westminster Confession on Preaching Predestination.” Puritan Reformed Journal 2:2 (June 2010): 235–58.

Regulae de Observatione Sabbathi: The Synod of Dort’s (1618–19) Deliverance on the Sabbath

Puritan Reformed Journal 4:1 (January 2012): 161–83

Daniel R. Hyde

The Synod of Dort issued six rules for the Lord’s Day that were neither lax nor legalistic, bridging Continental and Puritan views.

What does it mean to keep the Lord’s Day holy?

This article explores the Synod of Dort’s (1618–1619) six “rules for the observance of the Sabbath,” placing them in their theological, social, and ecclesiastical context. It also traces the Dutch Reformed struggle to reform Sabbath observance amid the challenges of post-Reformation Netherlands, the Eighty Years’ War, and a largely non-Reformed populace.

This article seeks to demonstrate that Dort’s pronouncement was neither lax nor legalistic but a moderately Puritan articulation of the fourth commandment—affirming both rest from ordinary work and consecration to worship, while allowing for works of charity and necessity. Through comparison with English Puritan theologian William Ames, it shows that Dort’s position harmonized with mainstream Reformed orthodoxy and helps bridge the supposed gap between “Continental” and “Puritan” views.

This article is also a pastoral call for today’s church, arguing that Dort’s regulae remain relevant for guiding Christians in witness, unity, and identity as they seek to honor the Lord’s Day in a secular age.

---

On the Canons of the Synod of Dort, see:

• Everything You Need to Know About Being Dutch Reformed

• Grace Worth Fighting For: Recapturing the vision of God’s Grace in the Canons of Dort

• The Canons of Dort: A Guide

• Why I Love the Canons of Dort

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “Regulae de Observatione Sabbathi: The Synod of Dort’s (1618–19) Deliverance on the Sabbath.” Puritan Reformed Journal 4:1 (January 2012): 161–83.

In Defense of the Descendit: A Confessional Response to Contemporary Critics of Christ’s Descent into Hell

The Confessional Presbyterian 3 (2007): 104–17

Daniel R. Hyde

Should Reformed churches drop “he descended into hell” from the Apostles’ Creed? This article traces the clause’s history and defends keeping it.

This article argues for retaining the phrase “he descended into hell” in the Apostles’ Creed as a vital part of Christian confession and comfort.

It surveys the historical development of the clause, tracing its presence from early creeds and theologians such as Rufinus, Augustine, and the Reformers, who often interpreted it as referring not to a literal descent into hell but to Christ’s full experience of death, God-forsakenness, and bearing divine wrath on the cross.

It also critiques contemporary calls to remove the phrase from Reformed liturgy (such as those by Randall Otto, Michael Williams, and some in the Dutch Reformed tradition) and instead defends its theological and pastoral significance, emphasizing that it assures believers of Christ’s solidarity with them in suffering, his victory over death, and their hope of resurrection.

For the full treatment of this topic, see my Books page.

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “In Defense of the Descendit: A Confessional Response to Contemporary Critics of Christ’s Descent into Hell.” The Confessional Presbyterian 3 (2007): 104–17.

Benefitting from Luther’s Small Catechism…as a Calvinist

Mid-America Journal of Theology 28 (2017): 67–76

Daniel R. Hyde

Luther’s Small Catechism belongs to the whole church, not just Lutherans. This article explores what Reformed Christians gain from it, and where they differ.

This article explores the enduring value of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism for Reformed Christians, despite historical theological differences between Lutherans and Calvinists.

It highlights Luther’s lasting influence even within the Reformed tradition, particularly through catechesis, law-gospel clarity, the centrality of the first commandment, Trinitarian exposition of the Creed, pastoral applications of the Lord’s Prayer, and his sacramental theology.

While acknowledging points of divergence—such as the numbering of the commandments, use of images, and differing sacramental emphases—the article emphasizes Luther’s focus on faith, daily renewal in baptism, and the centrality of God’s promises over human works as points of commonality with Reformed theology.

Ultimately, Luther’s Small Catechism is commended as a timeless resource for teaching and devotion, belonging not only to Lutherans but to the whole church of Jesus Christ.

---

On Lutheran-Reformed Differences and Similarities, see:

• Lutheran Puritanism? Adiaphora in Lutheran Orthodoxy and Possible Commonalities in Reformed Orthodoxy

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “Benefitting from Luther’s Small Catechism…as a Calvinist.” Mid-America Journal of Theology 28 (2017): 67–76.

For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free: John Owen’s A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, And Their Imposition

The Confessional Presbyterian 4 (2008): 29–42

Daniel R. Hyde

John Owen’s 1662 case against imposed liturgies was based on the theological principle that Jesus Christ freed believers to worship by God’s Word alone. This article explores his theology of liberty, conscience, and worship.

This article shows that Owen’s central concern in worship was Christian liberty: believers are freed by Christ to worship according to God’s Word alone, and are not bound by state-imposed liturgies or human traditions.

Rooted in the regulative principle of worship, Owen insisted that imposed forms burden the conscience and undermine the Spirit’s work in the church.

This article highlights how Owen’s defense of freedom in worship was both theological and pastoral, aimed at guarding the church’s joy and faithfulness under Christ’s sole authority.

---

On Liturgy and Worship, see:

• According to the Custom of the Ancient Church? Examining the Roots of John Calvin's Liturgy

• Christmas Eve Festival of Lessons & Carols

• Good Liturgy Is the Best Instructor

• Good Friday and Easter at Oceanside United Reformed Church

• Lost Keys: The Absolution in Reformed Liturgy

• Lutheran Puritanism? Adiaphora in Lutheran Orthodoxy and Possible Commonalities in Reformed Orthodoxy

• Not Holy But Helpful: A Case for the "Evangelical Feast Days" in the Reformed Tradition

• What to Expect in Reformed Worship: A Visitor’s Guide (Wipf & Stock 2013)

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free: John Owen’s A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, And Their Imposition.” The Confessional Presbyterian 4 (2008): 29–42.

Lutheran Puritanism? Adiaphora in Lutheran Orthodoxy and Possible Commonalities in Reformed Orthodoxy

American Theological Inquiry 2:1 (January 2009): 61–83

Daniel R. Hyde

Sixteenth and seventeenth century Lutherans rejected liturgical rites that undermined justification by faith, sometimes sounding remarkably “Puritan.” This article explores the concept of adiaphora and common ground with Reformed liturgical theology.

This article delves into the often-misunderstood Lutheran concept of adiaphora—“indifferent matters” in worship such as ceremonies and rituals. It traces its development from the Augsburg Confession through tumultuous controversies to the Formula of Concord.

Challenging simplistic caricatures, it highlights how Lutherans rejected rites that undermined justification by faith alone, sometimes adopting a "Puritan-esque" stance against Roman Catholic impositions, while retaining practices for peace and order.

Exploring historical polemics with Rome and Calvinists, the article uncovers surprising common ground between confessional Lutheran and Reformed orthodoxies, particularly in the free celebration of evangelical feast days like Christmas and Easter as expressions of Christian liberty rather than obligation.

This study fosters greater appreciation for Lutheran liturgics and bridges divides in Reformation theology for scholars and enthusiasts of church history and worship practices.

---

On Lutheran-Reformed Differences and Similarities, see:

• Benefitting from Luther's Small Catechism…as a Calvinist

---

On Liturgy and Worship, see:

• According to the Custom of the Ancient Church? Examining the Roots of John Calvin's Liturgy

• Christmas Eve Festival of Lessons & Carols

• For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free: John Owen's A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, And Their Imposition

• Good Liturgy Is the Best Instructor

• Good Friday and Easter at Oceanside United Reformed Church

• Lost Keys: The Absolution in Reformed Liturgy

• Not Holy But Helpful: A Case for the "Evangelical Feast Days" in the Reformed Tradition

• What to Expect in Reformed Worship: A Visitor’s Guide (Wipf & Stock 2013)

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “Lutheran Puritanism? Adiaphora in Lutheran Orthodoxy and Possible Commonalities in Reformed Orthodoxy.” American Theological Inquiry 2:1 (January 2009): 61–83.

Not Holy But Helpful: A Case for the “Evangelical Feast Days” in the Reformed Tradition

Mid-America Journal of Theology 26 (2015): 131–49

Daniel R. Hyde

May Reformed churches celebrate “special” days like Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost? This article argues these evangelical feast days are matters of Christian liberty: not holy, but helpful.

This article examines how the historic Reformed Catholic churches rejected the medieval burden of numerous obligatory holy days, but retained freedom to celebrate certain “evangelical feast days” such as Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost.

These days were not seen as holy in themselves or as contributing to salvation but as helpful signposts to commemorate Christ’s redemptive work.

The article also critiques certain objections based on the “regulative principle of worship” (RPW), showing that Reformed liturgical practice historically distinguished between the essential elements of worship and its circumstantial expressions.

Drawing on historical practices in the Palatinate, Strasbourg, and the Dutch Reformation, as well as theologians like Bucer, Bullinger, and Turretin, it demonstrates that evangelical feast days fall within the realm of Christian liberty and serve the church’s edification.

Their value lies in focusing believers on the objective, historic, and eschatological work of Christ, offering both spiritual nourishment and opportunities for evangelism, particularly in a secularized culture.

Ultimately, it concludes that these feast days are “not holy but helpful,” enriching the church’s life without binding the conscience.

---

On Liturgy and Worship, see:

• According to the Custom of the Ancient Church? Examining the Roots of John Calvin's Liturgy

• Christmas Eve Festival of Lessons & Carols

• For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free: John Owen's A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, And Their Imposition

• Good Liturgy Is the Best Instructor

• Good Friday and Easter at Oceanside United Reformed Church

• Lost Keys: The Absolution in Reformed Liturgy

• Lutheran Puritanism? Adiaphora in Lutheran Orthodoxy and Possible Commonalities in Reformed Orthodoxy

• What to Expect in Reformed Worship: A Visitor’s Guide (Wipf & Stock 2013)

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “Not Holy But Helpful: A Case for the “Evangelical Feast Days” in the Reformed Tradition.” Mid-America Journal of Theology 26 (2015): 131–49.

Lost Keys: The Absolution in Reformed Liturgy

Calvin Theological Journal 46:1 (April 2011): 140–66

Daniel R. Hyde

Why did the absolution disappear from Reformed worship in the modern era? This is a study of its use by Reformed churches such as the liturgy of Geneva with John Calvin and the liturgy of Strasbourg with Martin Bucer, and the case for restoring this use of the keys of the kingdom in contemporary practice.

This article uncovers the historical significance of public absolution in sixteenth-century Reformed worship, where reformers like John Calvin and Martin Bucer declared forgiveness as a vital exercise of the “keys of the kingdom.”

Tracing its decline within the Dutch Reformed tradition after the 1581 Synod of Middelburg, and its failed revival in the early twentieth-century Christian Reformed Church due to fears of Roman Catholic influence, the article argues for its restoration to Reformed liturgical life today.

It emphasizes the role of absolution in proclaiming the gospel, assuring believers of God’s mercy, and fostering spiritual joy, presenting it as a ministerial act grounded in Christ’s authority, rather than a priestly ritual.

This study calls for reclaiming this “lost key” to enrich contemporary Reformed worship.

---

On Liturgy and Worship, see:

• According to the Custom of the Ancient Church? Examining the Roots of John Calvin's Liturgy

• Christmas Eve Festival of Lessons & Carols

• For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free: John Owen's A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, And Their Imposition

• Good Friday and Easter at Oceanside United Reformed Church

• Lutheran Puritanism? Adiaphora in Lutheran Orthodoxy and Possible Commonalities in Reformed Orthodoxy

• Not Holy But Helpful: A Case for the "Evangelical Feast Days" in the Reformed Tradition

• What to Expect in Reformed Worship: A Visitor’s Guide (Wipf & Stock 2013)

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “Lost Keys: The Absolution in Reformed Liturgy.” Calvin Theological Journal 46:1 (April 2011): 140–66.

According to the Custom of the Ancient Church? Examining the Roots of John Calvin’s Liturgy

Puritan Reformed Journal 1:2 (June 2009): 189–211

Daniel R. Hyde

John Calvin claimed the Genevan liturgy restored ancient practice. This article tests that against the Didache, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian, and finds it holds.

This article argues that John Calvin’s claim that his Form of Church Prayers reflected the practices of the early church was historically accurate.

It places Calvin’s liturgy in the broader Reformation effort to return the church to its patristic roots rather than innovate, showing how figures like Bucer, Bullinger, and Vermigli similarly argued that Protestantism was a restoration, not a departure, from the ancient faith.

It also surveys Calvin’s writings (e.g., Reply to Sadoleto and Necessity of Reforming the Church), where Calvin defended Reformation worship and doctrine as aligned with the church fathers and Scripture.

It then compares Calvin’s Geneva and Strasbourg liturgies to the earliest Christian liturgies described by Pliny, the Didache, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian, highlighting shared features like confession, psalm-singing, Scripture reading, preaching, prayers, and the Lord’s Supper.

The conclusion is that Calvin’s simple, Word-and-Sacrament–centered liturgy successfully embodied the “custom of the ancient church.”

---

On Liturgy and Worship, see:

• Christmas Eve Festival of Lessons & Carols

• For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free: John Owen's A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, And Their Imposition

• Good Friday and Easter at Oceanside United Reformed Church

• Lost Keys: The Absolution in Reformed Liturgy

• Lutheran Puritanism? Adiaphora in Lutheran Orthodoxy and Possible Commonalities in Reformed Orthodoxy

• Not Holy But Helpful: A Case for the "Evangelical Feast Days" in the Reformed Tradition

• What to Expect in Reformed Worship: A Visitor’s Guide (Wipf & Stock 2013)

---

For citations, excerpts, translations, etc. of this academic journal article, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, “According to the Custom of the Ancient Church? Examining the Roots of John Calvin’s Liturgy.” Puritan Reformed Journal 1:2 (June 2009): 189–211.

Why I Love the Canons of Dort

Daniel R. Hyde

TULIP is a nineteenth-century American invention; a Dutchman would have said “tulp.” On what the Canons of Dort actually say about grace.

Read the PDF

I don’t remember the precise moment I encountered the Canons of Dort. What I do remember is it was while in college in my dorm’s computer lab. More importantly, I remember instantly falling in love with the Canons as I discovered the roots of my faith and of the holy catholic church. As my mind was enlightened with truth, my heart was enlivened with awe, humility, and praise to the Triune God who saved me by his grace.

As a pastor I’ve taken many notes on the beloved Canons, read anything I could find on them, taught them to inquirers in my congregation, to my church family in Sunday school settings, and even used them as guides for preaching the doctrines of the Word (see my article “A Catechism on Catechetical Preaching”). Years ago I published a commentary on the Belgic Confession of Faith entitled, With Heart and Mouth. Back in 2019, as the four hundredth anniversary of this 1618–19 Synod (a gathering of church and political leaders from across Europe in the Dutch town of Dordrecht) was around the corner, I wanted to put something together on the Canons. I’m grateful to The Davenant Press for partnering with me in bringing Grace Worth Fighting For to print. 

In this article, let me give you several reasons why I love the Canons of Dort.

God’s Grace to Sinners

First and foremost, I love the Canons of Dort because they express God’s grace to sinners. When you read them for yourself, you’ll see that they do not merely describe from afar static doctrines; they profess God’s personal grace to personal sinners. One of the reasons I wrote Grace Worth Fighting For is because of how prevalent these caricatures and misperceptions of “Calvinism” are in evangelical Christian circles. I cannot tell you how often I get asked by visitors to our congregation or by members trying to explain to their friends, what is “predestination” all about? I like to encourage them to take a step back and talk about the God of predestination so that it’s personal. As you read the Canons, you’ll see that, contrary to populist opinion, “double predestination” (which itself needs to be carefully defined) is not behind every corner, controlling every other doctrine. You’ll see that predestination is not a central dogma to the Reformed theological system; it’s there, but only because God reveals it as an expression of his grace.

Applying Catholic Theology

Second, I love the Canons of Dort because they express and apply catholic theology to a particular controversy. In other words, if you come to the Canons having just read your daily devotional of Boettner, Hoeksema, Sproul, or Steele & Thomas hoping for confirmation of these exponents of “the Reformed view” of one of the petals on the TULIP, you’re in for a few surprises. 

Do you think that the Reformed made a clean break with medieval versions of election and reprobation? Think again. 

Do you think “Christ died for the elect, period,” is the Reformed view of so-called “limited atonement?” Keep reading. 

What about the Canons’ article on “irresistible grace?” The Reformed at the time of Dort abhorred that word “irresistible.” 

“Once saved, always saved” is the Reformed view on perseverance, right? Like I said; surprises abound. 

This is one of the areas I’ve grown in over the years as I’ve read, studied, and taught through the so-called “doctrines of grace.” It seems human nature gravitates to extremes, as we’ve experienced in our national political discourse; sadly we do the same in our theology. The Canons, as the definition of various aspects of God’s grace, ironically lay out a “catholic” (not Roman, but universal Christian) and consensus view and not fire-breathing, cage-phase Calvinism.

Realistic View of the Christian Life

Third, I love the Canons of Dort because they express a realistic view of human nature and of the Christian life. Like I said above, the Canons are no mere 35,000-foot view of philosophical Calvinism; they’re all about a personal God’s grace to persons. What you’ll see as you read through them is that real men wrote them. These were men who were professors of young, immature students; men who pastored in rural, lowly educated parishes; men who pastored in cities where the slogan could very well have been, “What happens in Dordrecht, stays in Dordrecht.” The Canons are full of pastoral insight: there are all kinds of people who respond in all kinds of ways to God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Even within the community of Christians, there are strong believers, there are weak believers, there are those prone to stumble and fall, and everything in between. Because of our variegated human experience of sin and grace, pastors are not to deal with everyone in precisely the same way. This theme comes up again and again in the Canons’ discussion of assurance of faith.

More than TULIP

Fourth, I love the Canons of Dort because they express so much more than TULIP. “Don’t you believe in the TULIP thing?” That’s one of the common things I hear when I tell people I’m a Reformed pastor. TULIP is the acronym for Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance (or Preservation) of the saints. It’s supposedly what the Synod of Dort decided on contra the Arminians. Yet, this is a nineteenth-century American over-simplification, actually re-orders the order of the Canons, and would’ve been an impossible acronym for a seventeenth-century Dutchman since his word for “tulip” would have been tulp. 

As I’ve said, the Canons of Dort are about God’s grace, not detached and distant doctrines. And even when they discuss those doctrines as aspects of God’s amazing grace, they do so in well-rounded biblical ways, mindful of the catholic Christian past, and with plenty of practical application throughout. For example, if you read a modern introduction to TULIP you’re more than likely not going to read anything about the practical problem predestination poses to the Christian mom and dad whose infant daughter or son has just died. But the Canons do!

Conclusion

I love the Canons of Dort. I love them for proclaiming who God is: gracious. I love them for being catholic and not insular. I love them for being expressions of real men to me, a really sinful man. I love them because they don’t give me just five petals from a tulip flower; they take me to the roots of those petals.

I encourage you to take up and read the Canons of Dort and be enraptured in the love (even again) of the God they proclaim.

See the page dedicated to my historical, theological, and practical commentary on the Canons of Dort for its 400th anniversary.

---

More in this series:

• Why I Love the Belgic Confession

• Why I Love the Heidelberg Catechism

---

On the Canons of the Synod of Dort, see:

• Everything You Need to Know About Being Dutch Reformed

• Grace Worth Fighting For: Recapturing the Vision of God’s Grace in the Canons of Dort

• Regulae de Observatione Sabbathi: The Synod of Dort's (1618–19) Deliverance on the Sabbath

• The Canons of Dort: A Guide
  

---

© 2025 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Why I Love the Canons of Dort," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/why-i-love-the-canons-of-dort. Used by permission.

Why I Love the Heidelberg Catechism

Daniel R. Hyde

A disillusioned 19-year-old Pentecostal found a 400-year-old catechism in a used bookstore. On the Heidelberg's history and theme of comfort.

Read the PDF

Hey fellow sinners! How do you know you are SAVED? Why do you believe what you SAY you believe? Tragically many Christians…do not have a clue as to WHY they believe it from the Holy Scriptures…If you will study this inspiring little volume in one hand with your Bible in the other, you will know why you believe what you say you believe…I commend this historic volume to you knowing the body of Christ will be stronger and better equipped to build the Kingdom together!

I had been a Christian all of two years. I was disillusioned by my Pentecostal experience. Then I heard the Heidelberg Catechism mentioned on the White Horse Inn radio show and I had to find a copy. I checked the college bookstore; no luck (unsurprisingly!). I went to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa’s bookstore; no way Jose! Then I found a Christian bookstore with a large used section. I wandered around, scanned dozens upon dozens of shelves. Eureka!

I was a 19-year old, disillusioned, Pentecostal college student searching out a 400-year old catechism. I opened it, read the above Foreward, and noticed the words came from Paul Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network! This couldn’t be right. A Word of Faith preacher recommending the catechism I heard on the White Horse Inn? Amazingly, it’s true.

I still have that little paperback on my shelf to remind me “I once was lost, but now am found.” I want to invite you to take up this Heidelberg Catechism so that you’ll discover its joys and treasures for yourself.

Highlights of the Heidelberg: The Who, What, When, Where, & Why

When

The Heidelberg Catechism was published January 19, 1563. That was only 90 years since the final fall of the Roman Empire at Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, 46 years since Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses, and just 1 month since the Council of Trent ended.

Where

It was written and published in Heidelberg, the capital city of the Palatinate. This was a German-speaking region within the Holy Roman Empire with ancient roots dating back to the 6th century during the time of the Frankish King, Childebert I.

By 1546 Protestantism was the religion of the realm. Yet Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, crushed the Protestants in 1547 at the Battle of Mühlberg, and the Augsburg Interim re-introduced Roman Catholicism. The 1555 Peace of Augsburg granted secular princes the right to determine their realms’ religion between Lutheranism and Catholicism. In 1556 Otto Heinrich began to reign as an enthusiastic Lutheran. Yet by adding professors of various theological stripes to Heidelberg University, he caused factions between strict Lutherans, Melanchthonian Lutherans, and Zurich-minded Reformed men. Otto’s successor, Frederick III, sponsored a Disputation from June 3–7, 1560 on the mode of Christ’s presence at the Lord’s Supper leading to him supporting the Reformed cause.

What

A “catechism” is not a Roman Catholic thing but a small “c” catholic thing, meaning, an ancient Christian thing. The roots of catechisms come from Old Testament creeds and confessions like the Shema (Deut. 6:4) and the New Testament’s “Christ is Lord!” “Catechism” comes from the Greek verb κατηχέω, which is a compound word from κατα, “down,” and ηχέω, “sound;” thus meaning, “I sound down” (Luke 1:4; Acts 18:25; 21:2, 24; Rom. 2:18; 1 Cor. 14:19; Gal. 6:6). Catechism is teaching by using questions and expecting an answer. The early Church needed a basic way to guide new converts and members into knowledge of what they believed. They had to be “catechized.” The basic outline was the Apostles’ Creed, the Sacraments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments.

Who

Its “father” was Elector Frederick III. He is said to have read over it several times when in draft form to compare it with the Word. When he was called to defend it before the Imperial Diet of Augsburg against the charge that it was written by Heinrich Bullinger, he said he could show in his own handwriting how he improved it in several places!

When published, Frederick appended a letter which claimed it was written “with the advice and cooperation of our entire theological faculty…and of all Superintendents and distinguished servants (or, ministers) of the Church.” Since the Palatinate had come into the Reformation with several factions and viewpoints within its ministers and faculty, anonymity and collective authorship stressed the unity of the Elector’s reformation between Calvinist, Zwinglian, and Philippist influences.

Why

Frederick’s appended letter described the problem being that the youth of his principality were “disposed to be careless in respect to Christian doctrine, both in the schools and churches.” Some weren’t instructed at all while others were instructed in an unsystematic way without a clear catechism. The Catechism was the remedy. It was intended to do three things: 1) provide a “fixed form and model” of Christian doctrine for his realm; 2) instruct the youth of the Palatinate in school and church; and 3) enable the pastors and schoolteachers of the Palatinate to preach/teach. Thus, the Catechism was written for the preachers, people, and pupils of the Palatinate. We can see this in its 129 questions and answers, which were organized into 52 Lord’s Days (zondag). It was also required to be read aloud every Sunday in every congregation in just 9 readings (lectiones).

The Theme of the Heidelberg: Living and Dying in Comfort

Let’s focus on the Heidelberg Catechism’s two opening programmatic questions and answers, Q&A 1 introduces the theme of the Catechism: Living and Dying in Comfort. Here’s Q&A 1:

What is your only comfort in life and in death?

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.

What is “Comfort?”

Don’t impute an image of feeling “comfy” or being “comfortable” when you hear comfort (trost/troost, German/Dutch; consolatio, Latin). One of its main authors was Zacharius Ursinus (1534–83), who wrote, “Comfort is that which results from a certain process of reasoning, in which we oppose something good to something evil, that by a proper consideration of this good, we may mitigate our grief, and patiently endure the evil.”

When I compare and contrast the good of Jesus Christ’s grace with the evil of my sins, I experience trost, consolatio, comfort; I experience certainty. Ursinus explained that comfort is “the assurance and confident expectation” that we will have a “full and perfect enjoyment” of our salvation “in the life to come, with a beginning and foretaste of it already, in this life.” Comfort speaks of the assurance that I ultimately will be in the presence of God.

Having comfort is so urgent and vital. Sudden and tragic deaths remind the world that life under the sun is fallen, fragile, fleeting, and feels futile. We’re all going to die. In the words of Solomon, whether you’re righteous or wicked, good or evil, clean or unclean, make a sacrifice to God or not: “as the good one is, so is the sinner…the same event happens to all” (Ecc. 9:2, 3).

Personal Comfort

What is your only comfort…That I am not my own. This isn’t some frozen or static question. It’s personal; it’s passionate! Whenever you read question 1, you’re confronted with recommitting yourself to the Triune God. This isn’t merely a head-knowledge kind of question and answer either. Heidelberg teaches that our subjective comfort is rooted in and produced by what is objectively good. Comfort is Christological. Heidelberg begins with who we are in Christ.

The Christ of our Comfort

After we say what our only comfort is, we go on to express why Jesus is our only comfort: that I am not my own, but belong…to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14:7–8); I belong to Jesus Christ; he’s the key to comfort. Belonging to Christ is “uniquely Christian comfort” because it’s

…a comfort consisting in the assurance of the free remission of sin, and of reconciliation with God, by and on account of Christ, and a certain expectation of eternal life, impressed upon the heart by the holy Spirit through the gospel, so that we have no doubt but that we are the property of Christ, and are beloved of God for his sake, and saved forever.

What’s Christ done to make us his own? The answer goes on to list theological descriptions of what Jesus did; these aren’t merely theological words, but responses to the devil’s accusations.

First, he has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood. To say fully paid (plenissime satisfaciens) is a direct apologetic against Rome’s insistence on continual satisfaction. The debt I owe to God for all my sins (pro omnibus peccatis) has been paid in full by Jesus. How? With his “precious blood” and “not with perishable…silver and gold” (1 Peter 1:18, 19 cf. Heb. 1:3; 2:17; 5:9; 9:12, 26).

Second, he has delivered (liberavit) me from the tyranny of the devil. Because of Adam’s original sin and our actual sins, practically, we belonged to the devil. Jesus said, “Truly, truly…everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). Since the devil’s temptation and instigation led to Adam’s sin that led to death, Jesus died then rose again to crush the devil’s power! He entered the strong man’s house (Satan) to plunder his goods (us) by binding him! (Matt. 12:29; Mark 3:27).

Third, 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. Jesus not only purchased salvation for us, he preserves us in it. Ursinus said, “Our safety does not lie in our own hands, or strength; for if it did, we should lose it a thousand times every moment.” Jesus said, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:28–30).

The Application of our Comfort

Now that I’m Christ’s, there are two practical aspects the Catechism brings up.

First, because I’m Christ’s by his Holy Spirit [he] also assures me of eternal life. Paul said that if we have the Spirit, we have Christ, because he’s “the Spirit of Christ” who “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:9, 16).

Second, because I’m Christ’s by His Holy Spirit, he makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. In Titus 2, Paul said Christ “gave himself for us” for two reasons: “to redeem us from all lawlessness” and “to purify for himself a people for his own possession” (Tit. 2:14).

Confidence in Life and Death

Q&A 2 continues the theme of comfort with an outline split into three big parts:

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 I am delivered from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

Some say Q&A 1 is “the mountain peak” while Q&A 2 is “the valley.” But Q&A 2 speaks of enjoying (fruens) comfort and living and dying happily! We know it’s a joyful and happy thing to live in the confidence of belonging to Jesus. But note both Q&A 1–2 also say it’s a happy thing to die in the confidence of belonging to Jesus. From prison Paul wrote, “it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death” (Phil. 1:20). Then comes the famous line: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). That’s joy!

The Depth of Misery

I must know how great my sin and misery are. Do you know that “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick…For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:12, 13). Do you know how great your sins against God are and how miserable you’d be apart from his grace?

Note Paul’s oxymoronic statement in Ephesians 2:1–2: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” We were like zombies—dead yet alive; alive physically, but inside empty and “dead.” Therefore, we lived our lives “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). He writes as a Jew “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3). Did you hear that? We all “were by nature children of wrath.” Not only were we “dead” by actually committing “transgressions and sins” but we were also dead by originally committing transgression and sin in our father Adam (Rom. 5:12).

The Deliverance from Sin

I must know how I am delivered (liberer) from all my sins and misery. How am I delivered from original and actual sins? “But God!” (v. 4) These are the two simplest yet greatest words the world has ever heard! These two small words magnify the free grace of God toward us as sinners by contrasting what we deserved as “objects of wrath” with what God has given us, his grace.

Even when we were dead in our trespasses of God’s holy Law, “but God!” Even when we were dead in our sins, “but God!” Even when we walked according to the course of this world, “but God!” Even when we walked after the ways of the Devil, “but God!” Even when we fulfilled the desires of the flesh and mind, “but God!” Even when we were by nature children of wrath, “but God!” And “being rich in mercy” and “because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses” (v. 4) God “made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (v. 5). We were dead; he made us alive! We were hollow zombies; he made us Spirit-filled images of God. We were six feet under the ground, he took us into his heavenly banquet room. We were in burial linens, he clothed us with pure white robes.

The Life of Gratitude

I must know how I am to thank God for such deliverance. This is what Paul said, when he asked, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1) He answered, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness” (Rom. 6:13).

Look at Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” That word “created” is used elsewhere to speak of the entire created realm (Rom. 1:20) but here Paul has our personal new creation in view. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17) Now you can “walk” in “good works” in contrast to walking in trespasses and sins, according to the world’s ways, in the devil’s footsteps as before. This is the life you are now able to live in the Spirit as God’s resurrected people.

Conclusion

Take up the Heidelberg Catechism and embrace your “comfort” of serving the Savior who gave himself for your sins.

Het troostboek van de kerk—“the church’s book of comfort.” That’s what Dutch Reformed Christians have called the Heidelberg Catechism for generations. It still is!

---

More in this series:

• Why I Love the Belgic Confession

• Why I Love the Canons of Dort

---

On the Heidelberg Catechism, see:

• Everything You Need to Know About Being Dutch Reformed

• The Principle and Practice of Preaching in the Heidelberg Catechism

---

© 2025 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Why I Love the Heidelberg Catechism," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/why-i-love-the-heidelberg-catechism. Used by permission.

Why I Love the Belgic Confession

Daniel R. Hyde

Guido de Brès died for it, yet it's the least known of the Three Forms of Unity. On the Belgic Confession's history, theology, and piety.

Read the PDF

Sinclair Ferguson memorably wrote that of the three Persons of the holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit wasn’t the forgotten, but the unknown member of the Godhead. Similarly, among the Three Forms of Unity—the historic confessions of faith of (Dutch) Reformed churches—the Belgic Confession is certainly the most unknown. Those of us in Reformed churches are familiar with our beloved Heidelberg Catechism through regular catechetical preaching. Philip Schaff once described the Heidelberg as being “baptized with the pentecostal fire of the great Reformation” and being “the product of the heart as well as the head, full of faith and unction from above.” I remember the first time I read its opening question, “What is your only comfort in life and in death.” I felt like the new wine of Reformed truth was entering into me as a new wine skin. We’re familiar with the Canons of Dort—the capstone of our confessions and armament against Arminianism. This document gives expression to the “doctrines of grace” or so-called “five points of Calvinism” (see my commentary). I, too, recall reading the Canons for the first time and being struck by the precision of its doctrines of predestination, the sufficiency and efficiency of Christ’s satisfaction, the nature of sin, the power of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, and the preserving work of the Triune God. I was moved by how these doctrines led to devotion, precision led to piety, and exposition led to experience. Although unknown, though, I love the Belgic Confession. I even wrote a book on it. Let me offer three reasons why.

Celebrated for its History

The history of the Belgic Confession is why I love the Belgic Confession. Its history is the stuff of legend: a persecuted minority, a repressive regime (Spain), and heroic preachers. One of those preachers in the southern Low Countries (now Belgium) was Guido de Brès. The family business was making idols for Roman Catholics. Yet God heard his mother’s prayers, just as he heard those of Monica for Augustine. de Brès’ became a minister of the Gospel. His ministry was like Paul’s: “as dying, and, behold, we live” (2 Cor. 6:9). He preached in a town for a season, then entered exile in London, Geneva, and throughout the Low Countries. The Reformed churches came to believe the time was right to publicly confess their faith. They desired to show the Roman Catholic magistrate that their faith was apostolic and ancient. de Brès tossed a package containing this Confession over the wall of the magistrate leading to a manhunt that led to his death.

Why do I love this history? Very simply: it testifies that the doctrine we confess with our lips is worth the price of our lives. Will you love this confession by professing its truths before a dark and dying world or will you hide its light “under a bushel?” (Matt. 5:15)

Celebrated for its Theology

The theology of the Belgic Confession is why I love the Belgic Confession. It contains the “old paths” (Jer. 6:16) of the prophets and apostles, ancient church fathers and ecumenical councils. Reformed theology is truly Reformed Catholic (Christian) theology. Like the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds it begins with God (art. 1) and ends with his eternal kingdom brought by the return of King Jesus (art. 37). It speaks of how we know God: “He makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word” (art. 2). It speaks of the most blessed and all-glorious Triune God (art. 9). It speaks of his creation and providence (arts. 12–13), man’s heinous sin (arts. 14–15), God’s predestinating work a la ancient Augustinianism (art. 16), the person and work of the Son (arts. 17–26), and the existence and reality of a holy catholic church (arts. 27–36).

I’ve had so many inquirers come to our church over the past 20 years. They come after years of legalism in churches and pouring out their hearts to God for answers to life’s big questions. I remember one man to whom I gave a copy of the Belgic Confession, told him to read and then get back to me. His summary was, “I felt like it was Christianity 101 that I’ve always believed.” That was music to my ears. Why? The “Reformed faith” isn’t a cultic set of doctrines and rituals. It’s not a secret club for a few frozen chosen. Reformed Christianity is Christianity. Therefore it has the answer to sinners’ deepest longings and needs. How did this realization bring peace to the soul and experience of grace to the heart of this inquirer?

Celebrated for its Piety

The piety of the Belgic Confession is why I love the Belgic Confession. In the theology of the prophets, apostles, church fathers, and ancient creeds we find the deep-rooted piety our souls need. As Dorothy Sayers once wrote, “The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man—and the dogma is the drama.” The heroic history and catholic theology of the churches under the cross (kerken onder het kruis) in the Low Countries was not dry, dusty, or dead orthodoxy. Its living faith that led to orthopraxy. Guido de Brès and the Reformed churches professed theology in a way that expressed praxis pietatis, the practice of piety. Let me give some examples:

Scripture

We don’t just confess the Scriptures are the inspired Word of God. They are because “God, from a special care which He has for us and our salvation, commanded his servants…to commit His revealed Word to writing” (art. 3). When you read the Word at home and hear the Word read in worship, do you realize that you are experiencing God’s special care for your soul?

Trinity

We don’t just confess the Trinity is true because of a list of Bible proof-texts. The Confession says our Christian experience is a testimony to the reality of the Trinity: “Moreover, we must observe the particular offices and operations of these three persons towards us. The Father is called our Creator by His power; the Son is our Savior and Redeemer by His blood; the Holy Ghost is our Sanctifier by His dwelling in our hearts” (art. 9; emphasis added). Although this sense may ebb and flow in this life, we “expect hereafter to enjoy the perfect knowledge and benefit thereof in heaven” (art. 9).

Sin

We don’t just confess the doctrine of original sin. We don’t just say baptism doesn’t wash it away (per Roman Catholicism). “By [God’s] grace and mercy [it’s] forgiven them.” Affirmation leads to action: “Not that they should rest securely in sin, but that a sense of this corruption should make believers often to sigh, desiring to be delivered from this body of death” (art. 15). Don’t despair because of your original sin, but desire deliverance from it!

Jesus

We don’t just confess the doctrine that Jesus is our Mediator at the right hand of God in the Apostles’ Creed: “He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” This confession is of immense practical benefit for assurance.

Our Mediator “ought in no wise to affright us by His majesty or cause us to seek another according to our fancy,” as Roman Catholic theology implies with Jesus as Judge and the many saints and intercessors besides him (art. 26). Instead,

“there is no creature, either in heaven or on earth, who loveth us more than Jesus Christ…If, then, we should seek for another mediator who would be well affected towards us, whom could we find who loved us more than He who laid down His life for us, even when we were His enemies?…And who will sooner be heard than the own well-beloved Son of God?”

In our sinful hearts, though, we convince ourselves of the contrary: “But I’m too sinful, too unlovable, to unworthy.” Yet listen to this: “Let us not forsake Him to take another, or rather to seek after another, without ever being able to find Him”—and here’s my favorite line in all of the Confession—“for God well know, when He gave Him to us, that we were sinners” (art. 26). Doesn’t that want to cause you to sing?

Amazing love! How can it be?

That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Conclusion

These are just a few of the gems of piety that flow from the doctrines contained in this historic Reformed Confession. This is why I love the Belgic Confession. I pray it becomes the same for you.

See my commentary on the Belgic Confession at my Books

page

---

More in this series:

• Why I Love the Heidelberg Catechism

• Why I Love the Canons of Dort

---

© 2025 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Why I Love the Belgic Confession," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/why-i-love-the-belgic-confession. Used by permission.

His Commandments Are Not Burdensome

Daniel R. Hyde

Does 1 John 5:3 teach that Christ carried the law's burden for us? This article reads Calvin and others on the verse and makes the case that this is the right doctrine, but the wrong text.

Read the PDF

If someone looks at [God’s commands] in the wrong way and says that they are heavy to bear, he is merely revealing his own weakness.

—Andreas Presbyter, Catena on 1 John 5:3

Right Doctrine, Wrong Text

When I was in college, I was required to read G.K. Beale’s edited volume, The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New (Baker Books, 1994). That title has always stuck with me as a mantra for exegeting Scripture, preaching the Word, and writing books. You can preach and teach the right doctrine, but do so by stretching the language of the wrong text.

Tullian Tchividjian on 1 John 5:3

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Tullian Tchividjian stretched Scripture in such a way in his May 18, 2014 post “Unburdened.” This post first appeared at The Gospel Coalition, but since also his content was removed, it took me quite a while to find this old post on The Wayback Machine. He took as his text 1 John 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” Tchividjian especially focused in on the latter half of the verse: “his commandments are not burdensome.”

After mentioning the 613 mitzvoth (“commandments”) of the Old Testament, the Sermon on the Mount, as well as our own pet laws we try to keep, Tchividjian wrote, “The idea that God’s commandments are not burdensome seems to diametrically oppose our experience: to us, they feel super burdensome.” All of have this experiential problem. He then juxtaposed this with Jesus’ promise of rest and a light burden in Matthew 11. Tchividjian put the problem this way: “How do the obviously burdensome commandments of life become not burdensome? How is it that Jesus’ yoke is easy when he is the one asking us to be perfect?” Here is how Tchividjian reconciled the conundrum:

The answer, though incredibly profound, is actually quite simple. Though the commandments are indeed burdensome, that burden has been laid on the shoulders of another. Jesus Christ, who demands that we be perfect, achieves perfection in our place. Jesus Christ, the culmination of the Old Testament story, fulfills the Old Testament laws. That same weight that threatens to break our backs actually did crush our savior.

God’s commandments are not burdensome because we do not carry them. The weights that we bear every day are simply aftershocks of our human attempts to save ourselves. The weights we feel are a phantom; they’ve already been taken to the cross, carried up the Via Dolorosa on Christ’s back. We are free. We are, in Christ, unburdened.

This is true today, and every day.

This is right doctrine, wrong text:

• The right doctrine—Christ’s vicarious obedience and suffering justifies us from the burdensome curse of the law.

• The wrong text—the newborn child of God’s has a newfound joy in sanctification.

1 John 5:3 in Context

Notice the context of 1 John 5:3. Robert S. Candlish (affiliate link) said verse 3 “is not an incidental remark merely; it is of the essence of the apostle’s argument.” What is that argument? Matthew Poole (affiliate link) summarized it as John teaching that those who believe in Jesus with a “lively, efficacious, unitive, soul-transforming, and obediential faith” have been born again or regenerated by God himself (v. 1). Because we have been made new in Christ we now love God and therefore love our fellow born again believers (v. 1)—“our true love to them supposes our love to him, and is to be evinced by it.” John then gives the evidence of this love for our brothers and sisters in Christ: love of God and obedience to his commands (v. 2). He then defines this divine-ward love of the child of God: “that we keep his commandments” (v. 3). Then the key phrase: “and his commandments are not burdensome” (v. 3). How can John say this? Not only because the “holy and righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12) law of God contrasted with the “heavy burdens, hard to bear” of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 23:4; Luke 11:46), but “because the new life imparted to members of the family of God carries with it a new desire to do His will and a new power to give effect to that desire.”

Here a question for us to consider is this: is there any hint in the text that John is describing the doctrine of the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ to justify us? No, there is not. On Tchividjian’s reading, he turns a description of the child of God’s relationship to God’s commandments into a description of the active and passive of obedience of Christ. If this were true, the pericope should be read to say:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone whosince Jesus loves the Father he loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that weJesus love[s] the children of God, whenbecause wehe love[d] God and obey[ed] his commandments. For this is the love of God, that wehe kept his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome to us because Jesus took their burden.

Changing all the descriptions above from us to Jesus is silly, isn’t it? But in our hyper-sensitive Reformed world, some do this in order not to be branded a legalist, moralist, neo-nomian—or worse yet, “Puritan.” Because the doctrine sounds right, this sort of exegesis and homiletics passes as “rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). 

Reveling in Christ’s Active and Passive Obedience

As a pastor of a congregation that is typically full of young Christians, newly Reformed evangelical Christians, along with many Westminster Seminary California interns, I know it is attractive to revel in the active and passive obedience for justification and forget all about the new birth, the Holy Spirit, and sanctification. I know it is attractive after hearing law and gospel so muddled in evangelical preaching that it was unpalatable to read every Scripture as either law merely in its pedagogical use or gospel. I know how powerful it is to hear that Christ has removed the curse of the law from me once for all; but Christ has done more. That “more” is often left out. “Christ” has also sent his Spirit into my heart and “is also renewing us by his Spirit into his image” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 86). First, he rescued me; now he’s begun to renovate me from the inside out. Therefore, in the aforementioned post, Tchividjian does not offer a responsible reading of Scripture. He, and any who would interpret such a text similarly, offers a model of ministering the Word unlike the pattern of our forefathers.

John Calvin on 1 John 5:3

Let me encourage you—especially young seminarians—to read John Calvin’s exegetical comments on 1 John 5:3 in light of Tchividjian’s and ask yourself: who has the right doctrine and the right text? Calvin said John added the line in question “his commandments are not burdensome” because of how easy it is for our zeal in serving God to be dampened: “For some who have followed a godly and holy life with a cheerful mind and great enthusiasm, afterwards grow weary, finding their strength inadequate. Therefore, to stir up our efforts, John says that God’s commandments are not grievous.”

Calvin then dealt with the seeming contradiction or practical difficulty of the law being described as an unbearable yoke in one passage (Acts 15:2) and that it was spiritual in another (Rom. 7:14). He said this meant “there must be a great difference between us and the God’s Law.” Was Calvin’s reconciliation, though, to say 1 John 5:3 is all first use of the law that Christ fulfilled? No. Listen to Calvin: “this difficulty does not arise from the nature of the Law but from the vice of our flesh. And Paul expressly declares this; for, after he has said that it was impossible for the Law to give us righteousness, he immediately puts the blame on our flesh.” As born again, justified believers, our enemy is not the law, but our sin nature. He then elaborated with the comparison between David in the Old Testament and Paul in the New, brining it full circle to John’s text:

Paul makes the Law the minister of death, declares that it works nothing but the wrath of God, that it was given to increase sin, that it lives that it may kill us (II Cor. 3.7; Rom. 4.15). David, on the contrary, says that it is sweeter than honey and more to be desired than gold, and among other commendations, he says that it cheers hearts, converts to the Lord and quickens. But Paul is comparing the Law with man’s corrupt nature, and this is where the conflict arises. But David shows how they are affected whom God begets again by His Spirit. Hence the sweetness and delight for which the flesh has no relish. And John has included this difference, for he confines these words, God’s commandments are not grievous, to God’s children, lest anyone should take them generally. Thus he suggests that it is through the power of the Spirit that it is not grievous or vexatious for to us to obey God.

Calvin recognized, though, that even this did not fully answer the question since even as those “ruled by the Spirit of God…wage a hard contest against their own flesh. And however hard they struggle, they perform hardly the half of their duty; nay, they almost fail under their burden, as if they lay between the anvil and the hammer.” Sounds like the “normal” Christian experience, doesn’t it? Then Calvin said this:

I reply that the Law is called easy in so far as we are endowed with heavenly power and overcome the lusts of the flesh. For however much the flesh may wanton, believers feel that there is no delight save in following God. We must also observe that John is not speaking of the bare law, which contains only commands, but joins with it the fatherly kindness of God, by which the rigour of the Law is softened. When we know that we are graciously forgiven by the Lord if our works do not satisfy the Law, it makes us far quicker to obey; as it is said in Psalm 130.4, ‘But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.’”

So, are we “unburdened” from the curse of the law by the wonderful work of Jesus Christ? With Tullian Tchividjian and all the saints, we say, “yes!” Praise God! Amen? This is right doctrine.

But, in Tullian Tchividjian’s post, he posits it from the wrong text. That text—1 John 5:3—says that we who are unburdened are also blessed—blessed to be the born again sons and daughters of God; blessed that the ascended Lord Jesus Christ has given us his Holy Spirit to love God’s law because it is no longer a burden but a delight (Ps. 1:1–2; Rom. 7:22). And as we in the Dutch Reformed tradition say, delighting in that law “with all seriousness of purpose, [we] do begin to live according to all, not only some, of God’s commandments” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 114)—loving our God and loving his people.

To the praise of God’s glorious grace!

© 2025 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "His Commandments Are Not Burdensome,” https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/his-commandments-are-not-burdensome. Used by permission.