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!