Keeping Covenant and Catechizing Our Children (An Exposition of the Children’s Catechism)

Transcription

Keeping Covenant and
Catechizing Our Children
(An Exposition of the Children’s Catechism)
(by the Very Rev. Dr. Curtis I. Crenshaw © August 2007)
But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do
not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven”
(Matthew 19:14)
For the members of St Francis
To my beloved mother, Frances Deckard
Gillespie, who taught me the faith
My mother made me memorize hundreds of verses growing up,
took me to church every Sunday (“took me,” not sent me), taught
me the faith, encouraged me, believed in me, and has lived a
godly example before me. I have been exceedingly blessed.
God bless you mother. By His grace we will spend eternity
together, for you will take me with you, and also take with you
the other two generations in this picture:
Aid to Parents in Teaching the Children’s Catechism / 3
INTRODUCTION: (must read).
Who Teaches Our Children?
God requires the parents to teach their children the faith. All parents do, either by default or self-consciously. Most teach them by default,
by which I mean that just by their example they teach them, which is
usually a weak substitute. A few will consciously teach their children the
faith out of love for God, His covenant, and their children. The title of
this booklet, Keeping Covenant and Catechizing Our Children, is meant to
awaken in parents the need, the biblical requirement, to teach them who
God is, who they are, about His creation, and about His commandments.
The words “Keeping Covenant” mean that when we faithfully teach our
children the faith, we are keeping God’s covenant to be our God and the
God of our children. In other words, it means that we are extending the
faith to the next generation. It is not primarily the Church’s responsibility to teach children the faith but the parents’ responsibility. The Church
is a helper, and hopefully this booklet will be a help. Notice what God
says about teaching His children in these verses:
He [God] seeks godly offspring (Malachi 2:15).
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!
You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 And
these words which I command you today shall be in
your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your
children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your
house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down,
and when you rise up.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)
4
5
And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to
wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition
of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged (Colossians 3:21).
From the Malachi passage, 1 notice that God is the one who seeks
godly offspring. We as parents are to remain faithful to Him to bring the
“godly offspring” to fruition, which means to pray for them, with them,
1
The translation of the passage is not easy, but the other translations follow
the NKJ with the same sense: “godly offspring.”
to take them to church (not send them as too many parents do), to be
their teachers of God. And the earlier we can begin this the better it will
be.
The passage from Deuteronomy was one of the main passages in
the Bible the Jews used before Christ came (and still use) as a confession
of faith (there is only one God) and to teach their children the faith. In an
earlier passage Moses had commanded the Israelites to “teach them to
your children and your grandchildren” (Deuteronomy 4:9; see
also Deuteronomy 11:19). It is, of course, still binding on us, the main
way we can be sure that God will be the God of our seed, of our children
and grandchildren, is that we keep His covenant to train them. God told
Abraham that He would be the God of Abraham’s seed, but then He also
commanded Abraham:
For I [the LORD] have known [Abraham], in order that
he may command his children and his household after
him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him (Genesis 18:19).
If we parents do not obey God to teach our children, we are disobedient
and tempt God not to be the God of our children. If we believe Him that
our baptized children are in covenant with Him, we will teach them the
faith.
And no doubt Paul had the Deuteronomy 6 passage in mind when
he commanded the fathers to catechize their children. And notice that
Paul especially addressed the “fathers” to do the teaching. In our day of
feminism, of the feminization of Christianity, it is especially important
that fathers take the lead in this, though the mothers can also teach.
James Dobson in his latest book, Bringing Up Boys, states that it is virtually unknown for a man who has had a healthy, meaningful relationship
with his human father (or some father figure) to become homosexual.
Conversely, those who have not had a good relationship with their fathers often do become homosexual, and for the girls to become lesbians.
This parallels Romans 1:18ff where Paul states that the reason some
people go into homosexuality and lesbianism is that they have a wrong
view of God. In other words, if they get it wrong about God (the vertical
relationship as it were) then the tendency is to get it wrong regarding
mankind (the horizontal relationship). In other words, one’s view of God
(or lack of view) determines one’s view of everything else. If one is con-
fused about God, especially God as Father, he will often get it wrong
about humans. To put it bluntly, if God is feminized to the children,
which can be done by the mothers doing all the teaching about God, or if
there is no teaching about God, or the father is just a wimp, or the culture
is assumed to be normal in its sexual orientations today, the children will
be oriented the wrong way. They will feminize their human relationships so that boys will prefer boys and girls will prefer girls. One way
out of this is catechizing, especially the fathers taking the lead. Be men,
fathers, teach the faith with conviction, love, compassion, and then
spend a lot of time with your children just playing games (or something)
with them and loving them.
I have two children, a boy born first and then a girl. As of this writing, my son is 33 and my daughter 29. They are both happily married,
and my son has two sons and my daughter one son. When my son was
small and still at home, there were times when he was not responding to
my teaching, but was resentful. I recognized that it was my fault, that I
was just being the professor and not the companion. After all, we spell
love to our children with the four letter word T-I-M-E. Thus I took my
son on a weekend hunting trip several times, just the two of us. I never
said a word to him why I was doing it. I also would do other things at
times with him. Both times we returned from hunting, he was a new son
for a while, wanting to learn about God again. Teaching without love,
without spending time with our children, is harsh. Love without teaching is presumption and just so much mush. We must have both.
This Approach of this Booklet:
This booklet is not meant to be a theology, but only an aid to help
parents explain these wonderful truths to their children. Therefore, after
each Question, you will find in smaller print my comments. Please help
me to make this better with your suggestions. I’ve tried to make this easy
to use, and to help parents with small children and with somewhat older
children.
This catechism is not just for small children, but can be used with
teens. Even adults will profit from it, and Bishop Fincke uses it with his
adults. This catechism is a wonderful summary of the Christian faith. If
you will take a moment to review it, you’ll find that it has a well thought
out order. It begins with God and moves to mankind. Here is the general
outline:
Questions
Creation & God
1-13
The Bible
14-15
Mankind
16-21
Covenant
22-27
Salvation
28-71
A. Sin
28-38
B. Change of Heart
39-40
C. Not by Our Works
41-42
D. Person of Christ
43-48
E. Work of Christ
49-54
F. Application of Redemption
55-71
VI.
God’s Commandments
72-104
VII.
The Lord’s Prayer
105-121
VIII.
The Church
122-157
IX.
The Creeds
158-172
X.
Second Coming, Hell, & Heaven
173-182
One can see that the Catechism is Trinitarian, Incarnational, and Reformational in its understanding of salvation as a free gift, with emphasis
on God’s morality as seen in the Ten Commandments, ending with the
Lord’s Prayer, the Church and Sacraments, the Creeds, and the Second
Coming. Thus it begins with creation and God (just like Genesis) and
ends with the Last Day judgment (just like Revelation 20). This could be
used for Confirmation classes.
One word about my explanations: they are not meant to be exhaustive theological explanations, but hopefully enough to help you teach
your children. Sometimes my answers are very simple (sometimes perhaps not!), and usually they are for parents, but sometimes for the kids.
You will have to digest my discussions and then give the teaching in
your own words. Make your children stick with the literal answers, and
then you explain what they mean.
Where did this Catechism come from? I used it to teach my kids
when I was a Presbyterian minister. It is Presbyterian, but revised
throughout to conform to the Anglican way of thinking, especially in the
areas on the Church and the sacraments. I’ll comment on any Presbyterian distinctive that may get in the way as we go along.
At what age should we begin teaching our kids about God? From
the moment of birth, if not while in the womb, we are teaching them,
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
whether we are aware of it or not. But as soon as they can communicate
on a meaningful level I would suggest it. I have recordings of my daughter at age four and my son at age three saying the catechism.
Some people think that little kids cannot learn technical words like
“justify,” “sanctify,” “covenant,” and so on, but they indeed can! One
goal I had for my kids as they grew up was to learn the normal words for
things, so we taught them “defecate,” not “number two,” or “go potty.”
At this age, their minds are capable of absorbing a huge amount of new
material, and all words are new, so why not help them get a good start in
life with good vocabulary? They can learn one word as well as another.
Moreover, just as in every area of life there are technical words to learn
(such as hard drive, screen, computer, RAM, ROM, flash drive, CD,
DVD, and so on), so the same is true of Christianity. If we avoid the technical words, we essentially eliminate the truth. How could we speak
about computers in a meaningful way without the words just mentioned? Thus teach them the big words, but then explain them, which is
what this little book is about.
Do not get in a hurry to have your children learn this. We do not
want to impress anyone but God, and it is better to learn something well
than just to have unknown words and ideas in one’s head. Each time you
have your time of catechizing, be sure to review what you’ve learned, or
at least part of it. Also, fathers especially should be involved in teaching
their children, which is what Ephesians 6:1-4 states. I would also caution,
especially the fathers, that you spend quality time with your kids doing
other things. We can become so zealous for the faith that we forget to
have fun with them, and so we become the professor and not the one
who loves them in a practical way. They will rebel against this approach.
I give a lot more explanation for you parents than children need to
know on many of the questions, depending on their age and maturity. It
is for you to decide how much to have them learn. I’m just trying to help
you help them.
Some of the Questions will have memory cues, and these are designed to help your kids remember an answer. If no memory cue is
given, either I don’t have one or none is needed. The suggested verses to
memorize are just that—suggestions. I urge you to use the New King
James version, which is easy to read but also accurate. I have used it in
this book except where stated otherwise. But I strongly advise you to
have your children memorize many of them, especially around the car-
dinal doctrines of the faith, such as God as Trinity, the person and work
of Christ, and salvation. The verses underlined to memorize are very
important!
Some parents are overly anxious that they will tell their kids something wrong, or misunderstand the Question or Answer. Cheer up—you
will say some things wrong; so did I, but God the Holy Spirit will overcome. BUT we must take our responsibility seriously enough to make the
effort (Ephesians 6:1-4; Deuteronomy 6:4-7).
In general I have used simple language to help you with your kids,
though some words are technical and thus should be retained. Sometimes I have slightly changed the wording of the Question or of the Answer, but these have been rare.
THE QUESTIONS:
1. Q: Who made you. A: God.
No one made God. He has always been. Don’t worry if small kids
don’t get this—who does! I would explain that God did not need us, but
that He wanted us so He created us out of nothing. He just said the
words, and we came into existence.
¾ Verses to memorize: John 1:1-3:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him,
and without Him nothing was made that was made.
1
2. Q: What else did God make? A: God made all things.
There is nothing that God did not make, including you and me.
People make cars, but God made the things that we use to make cars. I
used to ask my daughter what God did not make—was it the furniture?
Was it cars? Was it trees? This helped to drive it home.
¾ Verses to memorize: John 1:1-3 (See above.)
3. Q: Why did God make you and all things? A: For His own
glory.
When we say God made us “for His own glory,” we mean so that
we can see how great God is. God did not need for us to praise Him or to
honor Him, but He desired it. When you win at a game, don’t you like
for others to know it? They don’t have to know it, but it is nice.
¾ Verse to memorize: Revelation 4:11:
You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and
power; for You created all things, and by Your will they
exist and were created.
4. Q: How can you glorify God? A: By loving Him and doing
what He commands.
One way you can love your dad and mom is by obeying them when
they tell you to do something or not to do something. We can love God
in the same way, which is by doing what He tells us to do, as in the Ten
Commandments.
¾ Verse to memorize: Ephesians 6:1:
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
5. Q: Why should you glorify God? A: Because He made me
and takes care of me.
If you have a pet dog, don’t you want him to show that he likes you
feeding him by wagging his tail and rubbing against you? So God likes
for us to tell Him that we love Him. He made us, and He gave us parents
to take care of us, which means that He takes care of us through our parents.
¾ Verse to memorize: Psalm 100:3
Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made
us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the
sheep of His pasture.
6. Q: Are there more gods than one? A: There is only one
God.
There is only one God, not two, or three. Wouldn’t it be sad if people worshipped a tree, or a bush, or a dog, or money, or toys, or something God made?
¾ Verse to memorize: 1 Corinthians 8:4:
Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to
idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and
that there is no other God but one.
7. Q: In how many persons does this one God exist? A: In
three persons.
But God is like a family: He has three Persons who can and do talk
to one another. He is not like a family when we know that the persons
cannot be separated as we can. Children often say God is three “people,”
and we must correct that—God is not human!
8. Q: What are the Persons? A: The Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit.
These three Persons in God have names: the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit. It is very important to remember their names, and in that
order. There is only one God who exists, and this one God exists in three
Persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and these three Persons are equal in every way to one another. No one of the Persons is
more God than the others.
Sometimes people ask me about Judaism or Islam that believes in
only one God, wondering if we all really believe in the same God. The
answer is emphatically No. Our God, the true and living God, is three
persons. God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. If that is denied, then we have idolatry.
¾ Verse to memorize: Matthew 28:19:
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit.
9. Q: What is God? A: God is a Spirit and does not have a
body like us.
When we say God is a Spirit, we do not mean that He is a ghost, but
that He does not have a human body, or any kind of physical body that
we can see. This further means that God can be in more places than one
at a time. Indeed, He is everywhere all the time! Jesus, however, has a
human body that can only be at one place at a time. But someone might
ask, “Is Jesus not God?” Yes, Jesus is God, but as God He does not have a
body and as man He does.
¾ Verse to memorize: John 4:24:
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship
in spirit and truth.
“In spirit” means we can worship Him anywhere, and “truth”
means we must worship Him according to His way, not our way.
10. Q: Where is God? A: God is everywhere.
The idea is that God is everywhere all the time. There is no place
where God is not, and there all the time. We do not mean that God’s
“arm” is on the moon and His “foot” on some distant planet, but that all
of God is everywhere all the time. Explain how good it is never to be left
alone.
¾ Verses to memorize: Psalm 139:7-8:
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee
from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You are
there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
11. Q: Can you see God? A: No, I cannot see God, but He always sees me.
Since God does not have a body, we cannot see Him, but He sees us
all the time. I would not want to make a comparison to Santa Claus as if
he had divine characteristics of being able to be everywhere at once and
thus to see everything, rewarding the child for his good works and punishing him for his bad works. This may confuse the child. Rather, let us
say that God sees us because He loves us and wants to take care of us,
that He gives us all that we need because He loves us, not because we
deserve it.
12. Q: Does God know all things? A: Yes, nothing can be hidden from God.
There is nothing God does not know about you, such as how many
hairs are on your head, how many toys you have, how many clothes are
in your closet, what kind of friends you have. He is interested in everything about you.
¾ Verses to memorize: Psalm 139:4, or John 21:17
where Peter says to Jesus: “Lord, you know all
things.”
In our day of ever increasing heresies, this question should be emphasized. One new heresy that is gaining in popularity even among
“evangelicals,” called the “Openness of God” movement, is that God
allegedly does not know all things. He is limited in His knowledge of the
future. The motivation for promoting such nonsense is to protect the
“free will” of mankind, for these men rightly note that if God knows all
things, then all things are certain. Thus, to eliminate certainty and to protect mankind’s pretended sovereignty, they sacrifice God’s omniscience,
presenting to us an ignorant God. Of course, this necessarily eliminates
God’s omnipotence, for an ignorant God who cannot anticipate the future, much less know it, cannot possibly have all power. They cannot live
with the mystery of God’s sovereignty and man’s accountability, but
they are trying to solve the unsolvable.
13. Q: Can God do all things? A: Yes, God can do all His holy
will.
God can do just about everything, such as make all the stars in the
sky, make the fish in the water, make the birds in the air, take care of us,
give us people who love us. But there are some things that even God
can’t do, such as sin. He can’t lie, or steal, or be mean to you and me.
Also, God can’t contradict Himself, like making a square circle, or make
a triangle with four sides. So can God do anything? No, He can only do
that which is holy and which is consistent with Himself.
¾ Verse to memorize: Titus 1:2:
“God cannot lie.”
14. Q: Where do you learn how to love and obey God? A: In
the Bible alone.
The word “alone” is important. God’s love letter to us is the Bible. It
is there alone that we learn about God. If someone at school tells you
what God is like, ask him how he knows that. The only way to know
people is if they tell us what they are like, or we live around them and
learn how they act. You cannot make up ideas about God and pretend
they are true.
¾ Verses to memorize: 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be
complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
15. Q: Who wrote the Bible? A: Holy men who were taught by
the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is like the Son of God coming to the earth: He was both
God and human yet one person. The Bible was written by both God and
humans, yet it is one book, not two, or three or sixty-six. The holy
prophets and Apostles wrote as God the Holy Spirit enabled them (2 Peter 1:19-21), so the result was one Book that has no mistakes. The humans
used their minds and sometimes did research (Luke 1:1-4), but what they
wrote was by the Holy Spirit so that it was without error.
¾ Verses to memorize: 2 Peter 1:20-21:
knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of
any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came
by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they
were moved by the Holy Spirit.
20
16. Q: Who were our first parents? A: Adam and Eve.
The first parents of the human race were Adam and Eve. It is very
important in our day to emphasize that they were real humans, not
myths. Once we make Adam and Eve just symbols, the same will apply
to Christ, for Paul makes a huge point that Christ was the Last Adam
(Romans 5:12f; 1 Corinthians 15). If there is no first Adam, why should
there be a Last Adam? Then we are leading them to deny the whole Bible. Unfortunately, in our day when the biblical definition of marriage is
threatened, we must emphasize that Adam was a man and Eve was a
woman.
17. Q: Of what were our first parents made? A: God made the
body of Adam out of the ground, and formed Eve from the
body of Adam.
Actually, Eve was formed from the side or rib of Adam. This can
become important later, as when Christ’s side was pierced with a spear.
In other words, Adam received his bride from his side, and Christ also
received a bride from His side. Eve was made from his side, and as
someone once said, she was not made from his feet to be trampled over,
nor from his head to be superior over her man, but from his side to be his
equal, to be a “helper comparable to him” (Genesis 2:18). Thus Adam
and Eve complete one another, and were designed by God to constitute a
family. We must emphasize that this is history, not fantasy or Alice in
Wonderland myth just designed to teach us some moral. Liberals love to
make fun of Genesis 1-3, and then they make up their own creation
story, and these days it just happens that their version allows for homosexual “families.”
¾ Verse to memorize: Genesis 2:22:
Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man
He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
18. Q: What did God give Adam and Eve besides bodies?
A: He gave them souls that could never die.
Describing a soul is not easy, but you may use the illustration of the
wind. You cannot see it, but you can hear it and can sense its presence.
Explain that when the body dies, the soul, the invisible part of us, lives
on forever. It either goes to be with Jesus, or it goes to hell where people
are who do not love God. There they will suffer forever. I never felt bad
about explaining hell to my children, if done tastefully and not with
drama and sensationalism. It is real.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living being [or soul].
19. Q: Do you have a soul as well as a body? A: Yes, I have a
soul that can never die.
This question emphasizes that we also have a soul, not just a body.
The word “die” in this Answer means extinction, but in Holy Scripture
“die” means separation. Physical death, therefore, is the separation of the
soul from the body (James 2:26), and spiritual death is the separation of
the soul from God (Ephesians 2:1). The important point the Question is
making is that we shall spend eternity somewhere.
¾ Verse to memorize: Luke 16:22:
So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the
angels to Abraham’s bosom.
20. Q: How do you know that you have a soul? A: Because the
Bible tells me so.
The Bible is brought in without any defense, as it should be, for it is
indeed the word of the living God. Here by assumption, the child is
taught that the Bible is the final authority about God, life, death, salvation, morality, and so on. When rearing our children, Ruth and I taught
our kids that the Bible was God’s word, and then we subjected ourselves
to its authority both at home and at church. It was the one authority that
was never questioned.
21. Q: In what condition did God make Adam and eve? A: He
made them holy and happy.
We must teach our children that God does not create a mess—
Adam and Eve were made perfect, without sin, without anything around
to hurt them, like bees, spiders, etc. The question emphasizes that they
were “holy and happy.” “Holy” meant they did not sin and always
pleased God, and “happy” meant they always had fun and did not lack
for anything.
¾ Verse to memorize: Genesis 2:7 (See above.)
22. Q: What is a covenant? A: A binding agreement between
two or more people.
With this question, we enter the more theological part of the Catechism. Children must know what a covenant is since they will be living
in covenants all their lives: with the government, with their jobs, with
their spouses, and with God in the Church. So a covenant is an agreement between two or more persons. It is important that they say “persons” and not “people,” for God is not human but He is three Persons
who made a covenant of grace among Themselves to save us from our
sins. You can explain this by speaking of playing baseball, where the
team plays by rules in commitment to one another. The people and the
rules are the “covenant.”
Though there is not one verse for covenant, the concept runs all
through the Bible. Adam was in covenant with God (Hosea 6:7). We are
in the new covenant. The persons of Holy Trinity were in covenant with
one another to redeem us (Ephesians 1:1-14).
23. Q: What covenant did God make with Adam? A: The
covenant of works.
The covenant with Adam is here called the “covenant of works.”
This is controversial, especially in our day, and there are many who deny
a covenant of works. This is primarily a Presbyterian doctrine, and this
Catechism at this point is a Presbyterian Catechism. So, is there a covenant of works or not? Rather than enter into this controversy with kids, I
would just say that God entered into a covenant with Adam (Hosea 6:7
in the NASB, ESV), that they were in a relationship that both loved. (For
passages to study, see Galatians 4:22-31; Romans 5:12ff; 1 Corinthians
15:22ff, 45ff.)
24. Q: What was Adam required to do in the covenant of
works? A: To obey God perfectly.
There is little doubt that God required Adam to obey Him, for He
commanded him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
(Genesis 2:16-17). Of course, Eve was included in that command (Genesis
3:2-3), but the point being made is that Adam was the covenant head of
the race, which the Bible clearly maintains—Romans 5:12ff; 1 Corinthians
15:22, 45ff. Even now we are also required to obey perfectly.
¾ Verses to memorize: Genesis 2:16-17
25. Q: What did God promise in the covenant of works? A: To
reward Adam with life if he obeyed.
Where in Genesis did God promise Adam life if he obeyed? It is not
clear, but we do not want to open this can of worms, as we say. We could
just explain that if Adam had obeyed, surely God would have blessed
him.
Also, to a child it will sound funny to say Adam would have been
rewarded life if he obeyed, for how could he obey unless he had life? A
child will think of physical life. We must explain that this is life forever,
eternal life, and that one day we’ll have it in such a way that we’ll never
die again.
26. Q: What did God threaten in the covenant of works? A: To
punish Adam with death if he disobeyed.
There is no doubt that God threatened death for Adam (and Eve,
see verses in Questions 24) if he disobeyed Him. Explain that this is why
people die today, because Adam sinned, and now we have Adam’s
death. Explain that just as we get our dad’s nose or mom’s eyes, so everyone gets Adam’s death from his first sin. You could explain that like a
player on a baseball team, when one person strikes out, it counts for the
whole team. Adam was the only “player” on the human team, and Satan
struck him out. Therefore, the whole team of the human race lost. The
penalty was death. Later, Jesus hit nothing but homeruns for us.
¾ Verses to memorize: Genesis 2:16-17:
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of
every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
27. Q: Did Adam do what God told him to do? A: No, he
sinned against God. (See also Question 26.)
I changed the words of this question to keep away from the covenant of works controversy, but the essence of the Question is still there.
¾ Verse to memorize: Hosea 6:7:
But like Adam they transgressed the covenant. (ESV)
28. Q: What is sin? A: Sin is any lack of conformity to, or
transgression of, God’s law.
This is a difficult answer for kids, but the idea is that we do what
we are told not to do, and we don’t do what we are told to do. Use this
illustration: Did Mother tell you to do the dishes, but you did not? That
is wrong. And did Dad tell you not to play with those bad kids, but you
did? That also is wrong.
Also, the standard is God’s law, not just code we invent. Explain to
your kids that only God’s rules give us what is right and wrong, and that
any rule mankind makes is either an application of God’s law or an act of
rebellion. There is no neutrality, for there is only one lawgiver (James
4:12). Tell them (and demonstrate!) that you also are under God’s rules
and that you love them.
¾ Verse to memorize: 1 John 3:4:
“Sin is lawlessness.”
29. Q: What is meant by “lack of conformity”? A: Not being
or doing all that God requires. (See Question 28)
30. Q: What is meant by “transgression”? A: Doing what God
forbids. (See Question 28)
31. Q: What was the sin of our first parents? A: Eating the fruit
of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
They ate from the tree that God told them not to eat. We don’t know
what kind of tree it was, but probably not an apple tree. It was called the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The point is not the kind of
tree, but the disobedience of Adam (and Eve).
Satan told Adam and Eve that they would be like God, “Knowing
good and evil.” The temptation seemed to be that they could be their
own gods, “knowing” or most likely here the Hebrew means “determining” good and evil for themselves. Indeed, Satan told them they would
not die, and Eve at least took the bait. To this day, sinful people think
they can be their own gods and create their own moral rules.
32. Q: Who tempted them to this sin? A: The devil tempted
Eve, and she ate, and gave the fruit to Adam, and he ate.
The devil talked them into it. The Bible does not say where the devil
came from. And Adam was standing right there when Eve took the fruit
and ate it. The “you’s” in Genesis 3:3-5 are plural, indicating that both
Adam and Eve were commanded not to eat the fruit, and in Genesis 3:6
Moses says “she also gave to her husband with her.”
There are two extremes regarding the devil. One is that he makes us
sin so that we can use the excuse “the devil made me do it.” The devil is
not omnipotent, and he can only be in one place at a time. Often we sin
simply because we want to sin. Christ ruled over Satan when He was on
earth, and we can have victory over him now by the armor of the Gospel
(Ephesians 6:11ff). The other extreme is that he does not exist. But all
through the Bible he is seen to be a person, a wicked person, but still a
person.
33. Q: What happened to our first parents when they had
sinned? A: Instead of being holy and happy, they became
sinners, knowing misery and death.
When they disobeyed God, they immediately lost their happiness
and became unholy. In other words, it was like someone threw them into
a mud bath, and they lost their relationship with God, and eventually
died physically. And their misery included the thorns and hard work
Adam had to do the rest of his life and the pain Eve had in childbirth.
34. Q: Did Adam act for himself alone? A: No, he represented
all mankind.
Adam was like the captain of a ball team: what he did counted for
the whole team. In this case, the “team” was the whole human race, and
Adam struck out. The Old Testament says that Adam had been in covenant with God, for in Hosea 6:7 God says: “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant” (ESV). A version now and then will translate
“Adam” as “men” or something else like that, but that is not correct.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be
made alive.
35. Q: What happened to all mankind when Adam sinned?
A: All of us are born in sin and misery.
Now that Adam sinned, all of us are born with his first sin, “his
strike out,” not all the other sins he committed the rest of his life. When
the Bible says the sins of the fathers will not be imputed to the children
(Jeremiah 31:29-30), that of course is true. Only Adam’s original or first
sin becomes ours, not the other sins he committed later. Once Adam had
sinned, the covenant was broken, so none of his other sins are imputed
to us. One proof that we inherit Adam’s sin is this: If babies were born
without sin, they would not die; since they die, they must be born with
Adam’s sin.
¾ Verse to memorize: Psalm 51:5:
I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother
conceived me.
36. Q: What is the sin that we get from Adam called? A: Original sin.
In light of Question 35, we see that it is only Adam’s first sin that is
imputed to the human race so that all die, whether infants or the elderly.
We call this “original sin,” which is a good term for kids to learn. The
principle of covenantal commitment, of working in teams (such as at
work, in government, at school, at church), though, runs through all of
life, which means that what we do affects others, and what they do affects us. Adam has affected us terribly.
37. Q: What does every sin deserve? A: The wrath and curse of
God.
Every sin deserves the wrath of God, which means His judgment.
You can explain this like sending someone to jail, or to their room if
they’ve been bad. “Wrath” refers to God’s righteous anger, not out-ofcontrol anger. It is justice, not revenge, that God requires. Some do not
like to think that God judges or has anger, but we read that God loved
Jacob and hated Esau (Romans 9:13), that God is angry with the wicked
every day (Psalm 7:11), that He hates all evildoers (Psalm 5:5), and many
other such things. Even in John 3:36 we see that God’s wrath abides (present tense) on all those who do not trust in His Son. There is the curse of
the law, God’s law (Galatians 3:13), and that does not mean that God
swears at us but that His judgment is on all those who will not believe in
Jesus.
¾ Verses to memorize: John 3:36; Galatians 3:13:
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he
who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the
wrath of God abides on him (John 3:36).
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.
There are several words used in the Bible that are technical words
that we should learn and teach to our children. They are redeem (just
used in the verse above), reconciliation, and propitiation, and variations
on those words (liked redeemed, reconciled, reconciliation, and so on).
Here are the basic ideas:
•
Redeemed has reference to sin, that our sins have been
paid for, and are forgiven:
In Him we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7)
•
Reconciliation has reference to persons, that we personally have been made right with God:
who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus
Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18).
•
Propitiation has reference to God, that His justice has
been upheld:
Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His
blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness (Romans 3:25).
Thus when mankind sinned, there were three problems: the sin, the
sinner, and God. In our salvation, God alone takes care of all three in the
Cross of Christ!
38. Q: Can anyone go to heaven with this sin in his heart? A:
No, our hearts must be changed before we can go to
heaven.
We cannot go to heaven with sin in our lives, but our souls (hearts)
must be changed to be good like Jesus was good. God will make sure
this is completed at the moment of death, for at that time when “we see
Him, we shall be like Him” (1 John 3:2).
39. Q: What is a change of heart called? A: Conversion.
The Children’s Catechism from which this was taken has “regeneration” as the answer. But this would be confusing since “regeneration” is
used of being transferred into the Church in Titus 3:5. One version of the
REC Catechism says “salvation,” but this is too generic. A change of
heart is called “born again” in 1 John (1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18). “Salvation” is the broad term that includes all aspects of what God does in
our lives, such as justification, sanctification, glorification, and so on.
Thus I would suggest using “conversion” as the answer, though the
Greek word for “conversion” is often translated “turn” (Matthew 13:15;
18:3; Luke 1:16; Acts 3:19; 11:21; 15:3; 26:18-20; James 5:19-20).
In salvation, there are three tenses: having been saved from the
penalty of sin (past tense, justification), being saved from the power of
sin (present tense, sanctification), and will be saved from the very presence of sin (future tense, glorification). One cannot have one tense without having the others. They come as a package. First John 3:1-3 gives all
three tenses together.
Conversion actually has two parts to it, though they are inseparable:
negatively, it means to turn from sin; positively, it means to trust in Jesus
and His death and resurrection for forgiveness of our sins. In turning
from sin, one turns to Jesus, and this is done in one act. It is like walking
down a road that leads to destruction, and then one turns around, does a
180 as we say, and now is walking against the crowd toward life in Jesus.
In turning from destruction and sin, one turns to Jesus and life.
¾ Memory cue: I would use the word “change” to
think of coins, that one could convert a dollar into
four quarters.
Unless you are converted and become as little children,
you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
40. Q: Who can change a sinner’s heart? A: The Holy Spirit
alone.
Here is the word “alone” again, and should be emphasized. One
cannot change his own soul by himself. I use “soul” in place of “heart”
since “soul” is what is meant and since we used it earlier. Little kids especially may mistake “heart” for the ticker in our chests such as one little
boy who cried when his Sunday School teacher said he had to give his
heart to Jesus to go to heaven. When the teacher asked why he was crying, he said: “I need my heart to live.”
Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by
the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say
that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
41. Q: Can one be saved by doing good works? A: None can
be saved by works.
I changed the wording here to suit children and to avoid the whole
covenant of works problem. The idea here is this: Can anyone go to
heaven by his good works? No one can, of course, be that good, for one
sin messes everything up. The following verses, which are very important to memorize, state that we cannot merit our way into God’s grace
by our works, but also verse 10 clearly states that works are the necessary proof of our faith. Compare the two sets of underlined words:
¾ Verses to memorize: Ephesians 2:8-10:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of
works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in
them.
8
The word “that” in v 8 is a neuter pronoun in Greek and refers back
to “grace” and “faith.” Though “grace” and “faith” are both feminine, it
is good Greek to refer to a previous clause with a neuter pronoun. Therefore, both grace and faith are gifts from God, but then so are the good
works in v 10 His gifts! They were “prepared beforehand” by God for us
to do.
42. Q: Why can none be saved by works? A: Because all have
sinned by thought, word, and deed, and are condemned
by these.
We can’t go to heaven by our works because in addition to Adam’s
first sin, daily we commit sins by our thoughts, our words, and our actions. The underlined words are in logical order, for before we do wrong
(actions), we speak about it (words), and that in turn because we’ve
thought about it. Notice the quantifiers underlined in this verse:
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually.
One man put it this way: Man’s heart or soul is evil without exception (“every intent”), without mixture (“only evil”), and without intermission (“continually”).
43. Q: With whom did God make the covenant of redemption?
A: With His eternal Son.
I change this question from “covenant of grace” to “covenant of redemption.” Technically, the covenant of grace was made with the elect,
and the covenant of redemption was made between the members of the
Holy Trinity. Thus, that would mean that the Father made a covenant
with the Son and the Holy Spirit. The title “Christ” did not come about
until the Incarnation. The point of the question is that God the Father
and God the Son agreed to make us His children. The Father sent the Son
into the world (John 3:16), and the Son was very willing to come to save
us (Hebrews 12:2).
I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the
work that You have given Me to do.
44. Q: Whom did Christ represent in the covenant of grace? A:
His chosen people.
Now we have the covenant of grace since the covenant is with us
sinners. Here is Presbyterianism at its center, for Christ came to save His
people from their sins (Matthew 1:21), not all people. These are the people that the Father chose and gave to the Son as His own special people
(John 17:2, 6, 9). In theology (and in the Bible) these are called the elect.
The same thing is taught in Article 17 of the 39 Articles.
[Jesus is praying to the Father] “I pray for them. I do not
pray for the world but for those whom You have given
Me, for they are Yours.”
45. Q: What did Christ do in the covenant of grace? A: He kept
the whole law for His people, and He suffered the punishment for their sin.
There are two things that Christ did for His people: (1) He obeyed
the law for them, and (2) He suffered the punishment for their sins.
Sometimes people deny the first part (and it is very popular to do so in
our day), but in Hebrews 2:10 the Greek clearly indicates that “bringing
many sons to glory” is simultaneous with “to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings.” In other words, while He was living through life, His obedience counted for us. The BCP states in the Litany (p. 40): “By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation; by thy holy Nativity
and circumcisions; by thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation, Good Lord,
deliver us.” We must not think that only what Christ did on the Cross
was for our salvation, but His whole Incarnation was for us, every aspect.
¾ Verse to memorize: Mark 10:45:
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but
to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.
The Greek word for “for” is a technical word that means “in the
place of.” Thus we could translate: “to give His life a ransom in the place
of many.” This verse makes it clear that Christ was our substitute.
46. Q: Did the Lord Jesus Christ ever commit any sin? A: No,
He was holy, harmless, and undefiled.
The Bible is crystal clear that the Son of God never sinned, was able
in His sinless humanity to overcome temptations, and was completely
incapable of sinning according to His divine nature (John 8:46; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 4:15; 7:26; 1 Peter 2:22-24; 3:18; 1 John 3:5, and so
on). Theologians call this the impeccability of Christ: He was not able to
sin. The Catechism says He was “holy,” which means He had not just the
lack of sin but positive righteousness; that He was “harmless,” which
means that He did not come to judge (that will come later), and further
meant that He was humble and obedient (Philippians 2:1-11); and that
He was “undefiled,” which I take to mean that nothing could make Him
unclean but that He made everything He touched clean.
“Clean” and “unclean” come from Leviticus, and are terms that indicate that we become “dirty” before God, like playing in a mud puddle.
In other words, we get ourselves dirty with our sins and with the sins of
others just by living in this world. But Jesus always made everything He
touched clean. When Jesus touched the open coffin of the widow’s son
who had died (Luke 7:14), normally that would make a person unclean,
which meant he could not go into the temple, but Jesus could not be de-
filed. Thus he reversed the death of the widow’s only son. The mud
puddle of death could not make Him dirty, but He made the puddle all
clean.
You know that He was manifested to take away our sins,
and in Him there is no sin.
47. Q: How could the Son of God suffer? A: Christ, the Son of
God, became man that he might obey and suffer in our nature.
I teach a whole course at Cranmer House just on this one question.
This seems to be based on John 1:14, “the Word became flesh.” It is critical that we emphasize that Christ was one person, the Son of God, and
that when He came to the earth that He had created that He added to
Himself a human nature. For small kids, it is probably enough just to say
that Christ was one person, and that He was both God and man. You
could say that He could talk to God as God and could talk to us humans
as a human. He lived both ways. Also, God can’t die, but a man can.
Thus He became a man so He could pay for our sins by dying on the
Cross.
¾ Verse to memorize: Hebrews 2:14:
Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh
and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that
through death He might destroy him who had the
power of death, that is, the devil.
48. Q: What is meant by the word “Atonement”? A: Christ
satisfied divine justice by His sufferings and death in the
place of sinners.
“Atonement” is a big word, but it means that Christ took our punishment that we deserved for our sins. I used to explain this to my son as
someone taking his spanking for him. This does not mean that God hates
us or that God delights in whippings, as it were, but because we have
disobeyed Him, He loves us too much to let us get away with our sins.
But He knew that we could not take the kind of spanking that we really
deserved so He sent His Son to take it for us. (Once when I was about to
spank my son, he cried: “Daddy, can Jesus take my spanking for me?” I
had to think fast to get out of that one!)
¾ Verse to memorize: Romans 3:26:
Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood . . .
That He might be just and the justifier of the one who
has faith in Jesus.
49. Q: What did God the Father do in the covenant of grace?
A: He promised to justify and sanctify those for whom
Christ should die.
¾ Memory cue:
Just have them memorize this as is. By “covenant of grace” it means
God’s unilateral agreement with His elect people. You can say “justify”
as “just-a-fly” and “sanctify” was “sank-a-fly.”
50. Q: What is justification? A: It is the act of God in forgiving
sinners and treating them as if they had never sinned.
The word “act” is very important, and is basically what the whole
Protestant Reformation was about. It is deliberately distinguished from
the word “work” in the next question. Justification is a one-time act, not
an ongoing process, because it is based on the once-for-all work of Christ
on the Cross. Since the work of Christ cannot be improved, justification
cannot be improved. Thus an act is all that is needed. However, sanctification is a work that is an ongoing process because it is the work of the
Holy Spirit inside us. We can always be improved so this is a continual
work. The order of these two questions is also very important, for one
must be justified (Question 50) before he can be sanctified (Question 51).
Think of it this way: a child is adopted into a family (act of justification), and then his whole like he learns how to be the right kind of person to live in that family (work of sanctification). But one must belong to
the family first (justification), before any of the benefits of the family can
be his, but once they are his, he will learn all his life how to love the one
who adopted him (sanctification). But one cannot have adoption without
living in the family, or to put this in theological terms, one cannot have
justification without sanctification. The two necessarily go together. The
adoption is a one-time act, but the living is for the rest of one’s life, but
they are related as cause (justification) to effect (sanctification). Here is a
simple chart of comparisons between the two ideas:
Justification
Act
Imputation
Based on what Christ has done
on the Cross 2000 years ago
Objective: Christ performed it
Once for all
Legal, forensic
Change of status with God
Deliverance from penalty of sin
Sanctification
Work
Impartation
Based on what the Spirit is
doing in us now
Subjective: done in us
On-going process
Moral, transformation
Change inwardly
Deliverance from the power
of sin
Both necessarily go together and necessarily in this order: justification then sanctification. We could also argue, if justified then also being
sanctified (Romans 6:1). But if one is not being sanctified, then no justification has occurred (1 John 2:3-4).
Now let’s see the answer to this Catechism Question: It is an act,
forgiving sinners and treating them as if they had never sinned. I confess
that I’ve never liked this answer, not that it is so wrong, but incomplete.
It implies that the person is just neutral, no sin, but justification grants us
righteousness, a positive position before God. Justification is a one time
act that cannot be improved because it is based on the work of Christ on
the Cross, which cannot be improved. Moreover, it has two aspects:
negatively, it is the forgiveness of sins (Romans 4:6-8), and positively, it
is the imputation or gifting of righteousness to the person (Philippians
3:9). I used to explain this to my son this way. I would enter his bedroom
wearing an old, black coat. I said the black coat represented by sins. I
walked up to an imaginary Cross in his room, confess my sins to Christ.
Then I took off the black coat (forgiveness) and put on a white coat
(righteousness). That is justification. The inside of me did not change, for
that is sanctification, but it WILL happened in all those who know God
(Romans 6:1ff), but that is not the point in justification.
¾
Verses to memorize: Romans 4:4-5
Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as
grace but as debt. 5 But to him who does not work but
4
believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is
accounted for righteousness. (See also Philippians 3:9 in
the NKJ.)
51. Q: What is sanctification? A: It is God’s work in making
sinners holy in heart and conduct. (Must see Question 50.)
We sometimes think that we are the author of our holiness, or at
least that we are in control of the process. We think we can turn the
spigot of grace on or off, but any hindrance in applying grace to us has
been removed by the merits of Christ. It is God the Holy Spirit who applies this grace. We do cooperate with it, but necessarily so. Consider
these two verses:
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
for it is God who works in you both to will and to do
for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13).
12
13
Verse 12 does not mean to work “for” your salvation—that would
be a works salvation—but to live it out; that is, work it out. That is the
command given, our cooperation or our part, if you will. But the reason
for the command is given in verse 13: it is God who produces in us both
the willing and the working. We can do the command in v 12 because
God is supplying the grace in v 13.
52. Q: For whom did Christ obey and suffer? A: For all those
who are God’s children.
Here again we are in the center of Presbyterianism. Anglicanism has
not made “limited atonement” a necessary doctrine for its system. Some
Anglicans believe it (J. I. Packer would seem to, but I’m not sure.) Others
get very upset if they hear someone say Christ died as a substitute only
for the elect. The important thing is that Christ died to save people, however you see it. A case can be made either way, but the heart of the Gospel is substitution. If Christ was not our substitute, then we are on our
own, which means we must merit heaven by ourselves. We must not
compromise that part.
¾ Verse to memorize: Mark 10:45:
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but
to serve, and to give His life a ransom for [Greek=”in the
place of”] many.
53. Q: What kind of life did Christ live on the earth? A: A life
of poverty and suffering.
We should not have an image of Christ going around with a frown
on His face all the time as if He were constantly sucking lemons. Nevertheless, the point is that though He could have chosen to be born in a
royal palace, He chose—and He was the only child who ever chose when
and where He would be born—to be born in a stable. God Almighty
humbled Himself (Philippians 2:1-11), and then suffered for our sins, not
only on the Cross, but also His whole life.
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of
the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to
lay His head.”
54. Q: What kind of death did Christ die? A: The painful and
shameful death of the Cross.
This must be a reflection of Philippians 2:8: “And being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the
point of death, even the death of the cross.”
But the catechism emphasizes two things: painful and shameful. (1)
This kind of death was horribly painful, but be careful about going into
too much gory detail. You know you children best, but when mine were
small I just stated that hanging on a cross with nails in your hands and
feet was very painful. But Jesus did it because He was taking our sins on
Himself, showing how much He loved us.
(2) The second thing is that His death was shameful, which means
that His kind of death was only for criminals. Moreover, He was killed in
public between two criminals, and for someone innocent of any crime,
this was especially embarrassing and shameful. It was also shameful to
be so killed in the presence of His own disciples, most of whom left Him,
but many of the women stayed with Him to the end as He died on the
Cross. And most importantly, it was shameful in the presence of His Father.
¾ Verse to memorize: Philippians 2:8:
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled
Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even
the death of the cross.
55. Q: Who shall be saved? A: All those who repent of sin, believe in Jesus Christ, and lead holy lives.
There are three parts to this question: (1) repentance, (2) faith in Jesus, (3) and good works. The three are inseparable. Ephesians 2:8-10
comes to mind and is an excellent passage for kids to memorize:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of
works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in
them.
8
These verses put things into perspective. We are saved, which is the
past tense, meaning that the penalty of sin, eternal death, is removed.
(See Question 39, but just a quick review: There are three tenses to “salvation,” having been saved from the penalty of sin [past tense: justification], being saved from the power of sin [present tense: sanctification],
and will be saved from the presence of sin internally and externally [future tense: glorification]. But this question deals with the past tense.)
Here in Ephesians 2:8-10, it is the past tense that is emphasized. (For
all three tenses together, see 1 John 3:1-3: “called children of God” is past
tense; “we shall be like Him” is future tense; “purifies himself” is present
tense. We either have all tenses or none. They are inseparable.)
Repentance is almost a lost doctrine today, but faith and repentance
necessarily go together. Repentance speaks about sin, and faith about
Jesus. Because of our sins (repentance), we run to Jesus for forgiveness
and for His righteousness to be given to us (faith). It because of our sins
that we run to Christ for forgiveness. It is like walking down a broad
road heading to destruction, and suddenly we see what is happening.
Thus we turn from destruction (repentance) and turn to Christ (faith).
(See Acts 2:38; 20:21; 2 Corinthians7:9-12; Mark 1:15). Both faith (James
2:14ff) and repentance (Acts 26:17-20) are revealed by works. In other
words, good works are the necessary fruit of both faith and repentance,
which is what Ephesians 2:10 above says: “created in Christ Jesus for
good works.”
¾ Verses to memorize: Ephesians 2:8-10; Luke 13:3
56. Q: What does it mean to repent? A: To be sorry for sin, to
forsake it, and to return to being obedient to God and His
word. (See Question 55.)
Repentance, as was just said in Question 55, has as its object sin, to
be sorry for sin and to forsake it. See 2 Corinthians 7:9-12 for a clear passage on sorrow in repentance. Some think we are promoting a works
salvation when the Catechism says “being obedient to God and His
Word,” but the Catechism is promoting obedience as the necessary fruit
of repentance (see Acts 26:17-20), not the root. Explain to your kids that
good works are like apples hanging on an apple tree. They do not make
the tree an apple tree, but they show us what kind of tree it is.
For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world
produces death.
57. Q: What does it mean to believe or to have faith in Christ?
A: To trust in Christ alone for salvation.
There are two key words here: “trust” and “alone.” The idea of trust
is personal commitment, not just learning ideas about God. It is like living with daddy and mommy, believing what they say, knowing that
they do what is best for their children, loving them. “Alone” means that
Christ is all we need to get to heaven, not additions like Mary or our
works. Only Christ died on the Cross for our sins. The Protestant Reformers used to say that we are justified by faith alone, in Christ alone,
by grace alone, to the glory of God alone, and by Scripture alone. That is
the idea.
It is has been almost universally agreed that there are three aspects
to saving faith: an understanding of the Gospel (notia), an assent to the
Gospel facts (assensus), and then a trust in the person of Christ (fiducia).
Of course, children don’t need to know all this.
¾ Verses to memorize: Ephesians 2:8-10 (see above)
58. Q: Can you repent or believe in Christ by your own
power? A: No, I can do nothing good without the help of
God’s Holy Spirit.
We do not have the moral ability to believe in Christ by ourselves,
but the Holy Spirit must enable us to do so (Acts 13:48; 16:14; 1 Corinthians 2:14; John 6:44, etc.). I would just tell your children that if we believe, it is because God the Holy Spirit helped us do it. By “help” the
Catechism does not mean that we did most of it, and God only did a
small part, but the idea is that He did it all. We don’t mean that He believes for us; no, it is our faith, but the faith is the gift of God (Ephesians
2:8) in some way that does not force us to do that which is contrary to
our wills. (There is an answer for this, but it is beyond the scope of this
Catechism.)
¾ Verse to memorize: Acts 16:14:
The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by
Paul.
59. Q: How can you get the help of the Holy Spirit? A: God
told us that we must pray to Him for the Holy Spirit.
This question bothers some people because it says that we are to ask
for the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it is based on these verses: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more
will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
(Luke 11:13). Therefore, the Question is on target.
We also pray in the Liturgy, “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me”
(Psalm 51:11). Then Hebrews 6:4-6 speaks of turning away from God and
apparently losing the work of the Holy Spirit. There are several questions from various points of view that are raised. If one has the ability to
ask for the Holy Spirit, why does he need Him? If we can lose the Holy
Spirit, does that mean we can lose our salvation? Others say that the Old
Testament saints did not have the Holy Spirit permanently and thus had
to ask, and Luke 11:13 above is still under the Old Testament, but surely
this is way off base, for no one can live the Christian life without the
permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whether in the Old Testament
or the New Testament. To say one can live without the continual power
of the Holy Spirit is a works salvation.
But it seems to me that David’s prayer in Psalm 51:11 and in Hebrews 6 (and Hebrew 10:26-39) are covenantal, meaning that members of
God’s covenant, His Church, can apostatize, thus revealing they were
never elect in the final sense of that word. Books have been written on
this subject, and it is way beyond the scope of this little work. To give a
short and possibly misunderstood answer, in both testaments we can
pray for the Holy Spirit not to leave us and to have Him reside with us in
a fuller sense. Moreover, this is the prayer of a disciple, which therefore
is not the original reception of the Holy Spirit, but a prayer for more empowering, more fruit in one’s life, more grace to please God. Just tell
your kids that we can’t get more of the Holy Spirit (He is a person and
either we have Him or we don’t), but He can get more of us as we learn
to live in humble dependence on Him.
60. Q: How long has it been since Christ died? A: Almost 2,000
years.
How did this Question get in here at this place? It would seem that
it is a transition to the Person and work of Christ, which is a rich section
of the Catechism. The point of 2,000 years is to show that Christianity is
historical, not just a philosophy, like Buddhism. We are dealing with real
history, not Alice in Wonderland fairy tales. What Christ did is objective
history on a real cross in the land of Judea just outside Jerusalem, all of
which still exist today. (Well, maybe the wooden cross is gone.) Emphasize these historical truths that are still with us in today’s news.
61. Q: How were God’s chosen people saved before the coming of Christ? A: They believed in the Savior to come.
Salvation in both testaments is essentially the same: faith in Messiah. The difference between Old Testament and New Testament salvation is not kind but degree, not substantive but administrative. In other
words, they used bloody sacrifices to teach what God was like and to
point to the coming Christ. We use the Lord’s Supper to teach that Messiah came. Christ is the center of the Bible and of world history (See Luke
24:44-45; Acts 10:43; John 8:56-58, and dozens of others.) Teach you children this understanding of the Question: The Old Testament people
looked forward to the coming of Christ, and we look back. Certainly we
have more understanding of Christ than the Old Testament saints, but
the salvation and the object of faith are the same. There is one people of
God and one Head of those people, Christ (Ephesians 2:11-19; Galatians
4:26-31; 6:16; Hebrews 11:39-40; 12:22-24; Revelation 21:12-26). Old Testament Israel does not constitute a separate people from the New Testament Church (Galatians 6:16).
¾ Verse to memorize: Acts 10:43:
To Him [Christ] all the prophets witness that, through
His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.
62. Q: How did they show their faith? A: By offering sacrifices
on God’s altar.
“God’s altar” would most likely be the bronze altar of the tabernacle
and then the temple where one first entered the presence of God. This
was where the animals were sacrificed. We even have an altar in the
New Testament, which is the Lord’s Supper (Hebrews 13:10). But the
point of the Question is that in the Old Testament they offered blood sacrifices of lambs, goats, bulls, and so on, pointing to the final Lamb to
come, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Some people think God is an ogre to
require a sacrifice for sins, but He is infinitely righteous, requiring that
all sin be judged. He does not arbitrarily forgive as in Islam, making
their god a compromiser with sin.
¾ Verse to memorize: Hebrews 11:4:
By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he
was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it
he being dead still speaks.
63. Q: What did these sacrifices represent? A: Jesus, the Lamb
of God, who was to die for sinners.
The Old Testament sacrifices represented Jesus, “the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). They were a picture of
Christ, who came the first time as an innocent lamb, silent before His
accusers, who willingly gave Himself for us, “who for the joy that was
set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).
¾ Verse to memorize: 1 Corinthians 5:7b:
Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
64. Q: How many offices does Christ have? A: He has three offices.
I changed the name from Jesus to Christ, for it is as Messiah that He
has these offices. “Jesus” is His human name. I also changed the wording
from “what offices” to “how many offices” since the answer concerns
quantity. The word “office” sounds like where dad works, so explain to
your children that “office” means that Jesus has three ways of doing
things. Tell them that dad does three things: he works in an office, he is
mom’s husband, and he is their dad. So Jesus has three ways of doing
things for our salvation, but in His case, He did (and does) them all together, at the same time, so that these three things cannot be separated.
65. Q: What are the offices? A: He is a prophet, a priest, and a
king.
The Answer says “He is,” not “was.” The Lord still functions in all
three ways. Again, we must emphasize that these three functions cannot
be separated so that at one minute He is a priest and at another minute a
king. They are three views of all the many things He does for us.
¾ Verses to memorize: Prophet: John 14:9; Priest: Hebrews 4:14; King: Matthew 28:18:
He who has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14:9)
Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has
passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us
hold fast our confession (Hebrews 4:14).
All authority has been given to Me in heaven and
on earth (Matthew 28:18).
66. Q: How is Christ a prophet? A: Because He teaches us the
will of God.
In John 3:2 when Nicodemus said to the Lord that He was “a
teacher come from God,” that was only partially true. He was also God
who came to teach. The truth that makes Christ the final prophet is just
that: He was God in the flesh. So He is not a prophet just because He
teaches but primarily because His every action revealed God. Because
He was God, He could say that “He who has seen Me has seen the Fa-
ther” (John 14:9). Thus everything He did was a revelation of God. If we
want to know what God is like, read the Gospels, for God in the flesh,
the Son of God, is teaching in virtually every sentence by words and
deeds. Also, like the prophets of old who wrote about God, Jesus taught
us much about God in such passages as the Sermon on the Mount and in
all the other things He said.
¾ Verse to memorize: Mathew 5:17:
Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the
Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
67. Q: How is Christ a priest? A: Because He died for our sins
and pleads with God for us.
Christ was not only the sacrifice as the Lamb of God, He was also
the priest who did the sacrificing. A priest did primarily two things: he
sacrificed the lamb for the people, and he interceded in prayer for the
people. The intercession or prayer was always based on the sacrifice. No
priest would have ever considered going into the presence of God in the
Old Testament without having first offered a sacrifice, so the intercession
and sacrifice cannot be separated. Notice how these passages put sacrifice and intercession together:
•
He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (Isaiah 53:12).
•
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who
died, and furthermore is also risen, who is
even at the right hand of God, who also
makes intercession for us (Romans 8:34).
•
And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our
sins. . . . (1 John 2:1-2).
•
(See also Hebrews 7:25-28; 9:24-26 and other
places.)
¾ Memory cue:
I used to tell my kids that Jesus died for them and prays for them
when they sin, saying something like He paid and prayed. You could use
the illustration of someone paying a price for an item at a store and then
asking that it be given to him. Once the price is paid, the item must be
given to the one who paid for it when he asks for it. So Jesus paid for us
and then keeps us.
¾ Verses to memorize: 1 John 2:1-2:
My little children, these things I write to you, so that
you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 And He
Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only but also for the whole world.
1
68. Q: How is Christ a king? A: Because He rules over us and
defends us.
Again, there are two parts to this question: He rules over us and defends us. Notice the tense is present: He rules now and defends us now.
Christ’s kingship is part of who He is and does now, and He is not waiting for some far off millennium before He can reign on earth now. That
would separate His priesthood from His kingship, and both from His
being a prophet. The three go together.
Moreover, Christ has always ruled on earth, but especially in His
Messianic office. Isaiah said when He was born He would rule:
For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and
the government will be upon His shoulder. And His
name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of
His government and peace there will be no end, upon
the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it
and establish it with judgment and justice from that time
forward, even forever. (Isaiah 9:6-7)
6
Notice He shall rule “from that time forward, even forever.” But what
time is “that time”? It would have to be the time of the Incarnation, when
the “Child is born” and the “Son is given.” Luke confirms this in Luke
1:32:
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.
When Satan tempted the Lord, as soon as He commanded Satan to
leave Him, he did. When Jesus cast out demons, they always obeyed.
When Satan told the Lord when tempting Him that all the kingdoms of
the world belonged to him, he was a liar, for God the Father stated they
were His and He offered them to His Son legitimately (Psalm 2:6-12).
Christ is ruling NOW, and when He returns, He does not establish a new
kingdom but delivers to the Father a conquered kingdom, and that is the
end of history as we know it:
made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the
firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. 24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule
and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign till He
has put all enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that
will be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:22-26)
22
Part of point of the Lord’s Ascension is that He rules the universe,
not just the earth at some future time, thus He must ascend far above the
earth to be enthroned as Lord of the universe. For Him to come back to
the earth and rule here after ruling the whole universe would be a demotion.
For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His
feet.
69. Q: Why do you need Christ as a prophet? A: Because I am
ignorant of what God is like.
“Ignorant” does not mean stupid, but lacking knowledge of God.
The only way we can know anyone is if the person reveals himself to us;
otherwise, we remain ignorant of him. This is especially true of God.
But the natural man does not receive the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he
know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
70. Q: Why do you need Christ as a priest? A: Because I am
guilty for my sins.
“Guilty” means not a guilt trip, but liable to punishment because
we have sinned. Thus we need a priest to take our punishment and to
“talk” (intercede) to God for us to make everything right.
¾ Verses to memorize: 1 John 2:1-2 (See above.)
71. Q: Why do you need Christ as a king? A: Because I am
weak and helpless.
We fallen humans tend to have an exalted view of our abilities, but
we have very little control over our circumstances. Have you ever noticed how much Christ controls our lives by His gracious providence?
Are you doing today what your major was in college or what you
planned to do five years ago?
¾ Verse to memorize: Revelation 19:15:
And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron.
72. Q: How many commandments did God give on Mt Sinai?
A: Ten Commandments.
Now we move into the moral section. After many questions on God,
Christ, and grace, we have morality, which is the way Paul arranges
many of his epistles: law arising out of grace. In other words, Paul gives
the grace of God first, and then gives commands for his readers to obey.
Even the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:3ff arise out of the grace of
Exodus 20:2: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
Moreover, we must recognize that there are not competing moralities, for only God can give morality (James 4:12). Just as we cannot invent the laws of physics to govern physical bodies, or the laws governing
transistors in chips, neither can humans create moral law into existence.
Every law enacted by Congress, the state legislature, or a local parish, is
either an application of God’s one law or an act of rebellion—there is no
neutrality. Moreover, God’s law is like white light: it is one, but it can be
“broken down” into its various hues, so to speak, like using a prism to
see the rainbow of “colors” to His law. The Lord summarized God’s law
as loving God and loving one’s neighbor as oneself (Matthew 22:37-39).
Or, again it can be summarized as the Ten Commandments, with the
first four commands (First Table of the Law) emphasizing our relationship with God and the last six (Second Table of the Law) emphasizing
our relationship with one another. Here is a summary of the Ten Commandments:
1A. WORSHIP TOWARD GOD (commands 1-4)
1B. First Commandment:
Object of worship is God only
Required:
Worship God only
Forbidden:
Giving glory to the creature
Blessing:
Knowing the Triune God
Penalty:
Eternal separation from God
2B. Second Commandment: Manner of worship is as He says
Required:
Worship as God says, using symbols rightly
Forbidden:
Worshipping creation
Blessing:
Mercy from God for many generations to come
Penalty:
Judgment to the 3rd and 4th generations
3B. Third Commandment:
Attitude of worship: reverence and fear
Required:
Using God’s name with fear, reverence, and awe
Forbidden:
Taking God lightly or for granted, presumption,
denying His word in the Bible
Blessing:
Confidence toward God and man
Penalty:
God will judge all evil thoughts (Matt 12:36-37)
4B. Fourth Commandment: Time of worship: one day in seven
Required:
Gospel rest
Forbidden:
Idleness, lack of worship, putting other things
before Him on this day
Blessing:
Rest for body and soul
Penalty:
Sick in body and soul; God brings unrest
2A. DUTY TOWARD MAN (commands 5-10)
5B. Fifth Commandment:
Rule of Authority: Humble obedience
Required:
Obey and respect God-given authority
Forbidden:
To disobey or disrespect God’s authority
Blessing:
Long life, security
Penalty:
Shortened life
6B. Sixth Commandment:
Rule of Life: High value of human life
Required:
Honor and preserve human life
Forbidden:
Murder or unjust anger at someone
Blessing:
Right to life
Penalty:
Forfeit one’s life for actual murder
7B. Seventh Commandment: Rule of Chastity: Respect for self
and others
Required:
Preserve one’s own and others chastity
Forbidden:
Any sexual thought or act contrary to marriage
Blessing:
Right to marry and have a spouse
Penalty:
Destruction of oneself, others, and one’s home
8B. Eighth Commandment: Rule of Property: Right to own
Required:
Honor our and other’s property, protect it
Forbidden:
Theft in any form either by government
or us. We are not even to steal time,
either God’s or our employer’s.
Blessing:
Right to own property and enjoy God’s
daily provision
Penalty:
Restoration two fold
9B. Ninth Commandment:
Rule of Speech: right to reputation
Required:
To promote ours and others’ reputation
Forbidden:
To injure one’s reputation by lying, half truths,
or by withholding some truth
Blessing:
Good name
Penalty:
Bad name
10B. Tenth Commandment: Rule of Desire: Contentment
Required:
Content with our position in life and with our
neighbor’s place
Forbidden:
All murmuring, complaining, and covetousness
Blessing:
True riches in heaven
Penalty:
Anxiety, God’s displeasure, being possessed
by things
¾ Memory Cue: We have ten toes to walk in God’s
commandments, and ten fingers to do His commandments.
¾ Verses to memorize: Matthew 22:37-39:
Jesus said to him, “’You shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor
as yourself.’”
37
73. Q: What are the Ten Commandments sometimes called? A:
The Decalog, meaning “the ten words.”
“Deca” means ten and “log” from “logue” or “logos” means
“word.” Thus often Jews and Christians to this day refer to the Ten Commandments as the Decalog, the ten words.
74. Q: What do the first four commandments teach? A: Our
duty to God.
¾ Memory Cue: These are often called the First Table
of the Law, emphasizing our duty to God. In the
past when teaching these to children, I’ve used two
tables of stone, and put the first four commandments on the first table, and the last six on the second table of stone. I have an arrow pointing up
from the first tablet, emphasizing our duty to God,
and an arrow pointing horizontally from the second table of stone, emphasizing our duty toward
mankind. Of course, all the commandments tell us
how to love God, and all the commandments tell us
how to love one another, but the emphasis in the
first four is God and in the last six is our neighbor.
Some want to debate whether the Ten Commandments are for today or not, and they want to confine them to the Old Testament. Rather
than to get involved in that in this short Children’s Catechism, the
Church has historically said they are for today. (For passages to read, see
Matthew 5:17-19 where the Lord said He did not come to destroy the
Commandments, and mentions a number of the Ten, giving their true
interpretation. We shall be judged by them [James 2:10-13], and Paul often quoted them as binding [Romans 13:9-10].)
¾ Memory cue: To help with memorizing, I have just
summarized the law, much as is given below on
the stones, except the Sixth Commandment is not
“kill” but “murder,” as we shall see later.
GOD
MANKIND
75. Q: What do the last six commandments teach? A: Our duty
to all around us. (See Question 74.)
76. Q: What is the sum of the Ten Commandments? A: To love
God with all my heart and mind, and soul, and my
neighbor as myself. (See Question 72 above for the passage
to memorize.)
77. Q: Who is your neighbor? A: Everyone I come in contact
with is my neighbor.
Good answer. See the parable of the Good Samaritan for the Lord’s
longer answer: Luke 10:29ff.
78. Q: Is God pleased with those who love and obey Him? A:
Yes, He says: “I love those who love Me” (Proverbs 8:17).
Would we think that God would be pleased with those who did not
obey Him?
And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we
keep His commandments and do those things that are
pleasing in His sight.
79. Q: Is God displeased with those who do not love and obey
Him? A: Yes, “God is angry with the wicked every day”
(Psalm 7:11).
Many do not like to think that God can be angry. Some want God to
love all people equally in the sense that He is obligated to do so, that
what He does for one He must do for all (the American democratic spirit
applied to God). But God loved Jacob and hated Esau (Romans 9:13), and
those who do not believe in Jesus are already condemned and under the
judgment of God (John 3:36; see also Psalm 5:5; 11:5; Romans 1:18ff).
80. Q: What is the first commandment? A: The first commandment is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”
This Commandment emphasizes that we must have only one God,
the true and living God who made heaven and earth, and never depart
from Him. We must honor Him above all else. Only to Him do we surrender ourselves and everything about ourselves unconditionally. We
never surrender unconditionally to another human, for they may sin and
turn away from God. We are not to have any idols, such as money:
Covetousness is idolatry (Colossians 3:5).
For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person,
nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God (Ephesians 5:5).
81. Q: What does the first commandment teach us? A: To worship God alone.
The First Commandment teaches us to love and worship only the
true and living God, not Allah in Islam, or the Jesus in the Jehovah’s
Witnesses, neither of whom exist.
Jesus said to him, “You shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
mind.”
82. Q: What is the second commandment? A: Rather than
memorize the long answer, just have your kids learn this:
We are not to “worship and serve the creature rather than
the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Romans 1:25).
This commandment brings up the whole subject of images in worship. Here is a better translation of the Hebrew on this commandment:
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
5 you shall not bow down [worship] them nor serve
them.
4
And the divine interpretation of Exodus 20:4 given in Romans 1:25
(see two paragraphs above) confirms the translation of Exodus 20:4 I’ve
given. The problem is not symbols per se, but the use of them. Do you
recall the serpent on the pole in Numbers 21? The Israelites were being
bitten by poisonous snakes under the judgment of God, and God told
Moses to make a serpent, put it on a pole, and all those who looked at it
(in faith) would be healed. He did that. No one worshipped the snake on
the pole; it was a symbol of their sin and of God’s grace. (Later it was a
type of Christ on the Cross! [John 3:14], which means we can use the
Cross as a symbol, but we are not to worship it.)
But centuries later when the Israelites began worshipping the serpent on the pole, Hezekiah destroyed it with God’s blessings (2 Kings
18:4). It was fine to use the serpent on the pole as a symbol, but when
they offered incense to it, worshipping the created thing, that was too
much.
God required His people to reverence the Ark of the Covenant, and
only certain people, priests, were allowed to touch it. When some did
touch it who were not supposed to, they died (1 Chronicles 13:10;
1 Samuel 6:19). Thus, it is acceptable to have the cross as a symbol, and
even to reverence it in the sense of worshipping Christ, but we had better
not worship it but Him. Some even oppose having a Cross in the sanctuary, but is it right to think about a Cross in the mind? If so, can’t we look
at one on a table?
In Revelation 4:1-10, we see the 24 elders with crowns of gold on
their heads in white robes, and there is a throne, and there was a rainbow, precious stones, but in the midst of all those symbols, the 24 elders
worshipped God, not the symbols.
Basically we have an incarnational principle in the use of images in
worship, for Christ was the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).
As such, people worshipped Him in His human form, being a physical
representation of God, as it were. Likewise, we can use physical symbols
for worship as long as we don’t worship them.
¾ Memory Cue: Have them visualize the number two
turning into a swan, and as it swims in the water, it
sees its image—do not worship carved images.
¾
Verse to memorize: Romans 1:25:
Who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator,
who is blessed forever.
83. Q: What does the second commandment teach us? A: To
worship God properly and to avoid idolatry. (See Question
82.)
84. Q: What is the third commandment: A: Shorten this to:
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in
vain.”
¾ Memory Cue: Visualize the number three falling on
its face and becoming a giant “N” in the word
Name—no name in vain. Written in cursive, the letter “n” will have three prongs for the Third Commandment.
85. Q: What does the third commandment teach us? A: To
reverence God’s name, word (Bible), and works.
The answer gives three things we are to reverence: (1) God’s name,
(2) His word, and (3) His works. (1) God’s name means the actual word
“God” and also the name “Jesus Christ,” which is the name above every
name (Philippians 2:9-11), which is so much maligned today on TV and
in the movies. We often hear people say “O, Jesus Christ.” If not done in
reference and fear, this is also a violation, as is also the common expression “O, my God.” But there is much more to this than just God’s name.
Anything contrary to God’s character is taking His name in vain.
(2) His word is the Bible, and if a preacher says God told him something that is contrary to Holy Scripture, he is attributing something to
God’s holy name and character that is not true, which is a violation of
this commandment.
(3) And by “works” it means saying God did or did not do something that is false, like saying He will let good people into heaven. There
are no good people (Romans 3:10-12).
86. Q: What is the fourth commandment? A: You can make
this answer much simpler: “Remember the Sabbath Day to
keep it holy.”
Since the Puritans came along in the 1500s, they have made this
commandment controversial. Before them, it was mostly seen as not for
today in its Old Testament form, and as an old covenant commandment
with the new covenant commandment being the Lord’s Day commandment (Revelation 1:10). It is my view that the Sabbath is no longer binding, but was a type of Christ:
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions
of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new
moon or a Sabbath. 2 These are a shadow of the things to
come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Col 2:16-17,
ESV)
The Old Testament Sabbath was a picture of Gospel rest, looking to
the Messiah to come. Now that Messiah has come, we are not under the
prohibition not to work, for receiving from God while not working was a
picture of the Gospel rest Jesus would give us when He came. But we are
still under the command to worship, for that is a New Testament doctrine as well (Hebrews 10:25: “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves
together”). Moreover, we still look for the final rest in Jesus, a “Sabbath
rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9), which obviously means the
day was symbolic if it will only be fulfilled in the future.
As a practical matter, an agrarian society Like Israel could take off
from working, but in our industrial society, it is virtually impossible, for
it takes steel mills days to heat up, and utilities are necessary, and on we
could go.
The Puritans of today, as seen primarily in Presbyterians, have invented a new list of rules to regulate people with, much like the old list
the Pharisees had, such as don’t eat out on Sunday, don’t warm up food
2 The Greek word for “Sabbath” here is plural, but all through the New Testament the plural is used for the singular. Thus the NKJ is wrong to translate this
“sabbath days,” as if this were not the weekly Sabbath but other high days. One
could translate this “Sabbath days,” with a capital first letter, thus indication the
weekly Sabbath.
on Sunday, don’t get gas, don’t play a sport, don’t, don’t, don’t . . . You
get the idea.
Many of the early fathers used the following passage to demonstrate that there never was an absolute prohibition against working even
in the Old Testament:
For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought
to kill Him, because He had done these things on the
Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father has
been working until now, and I have been working.”
18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that
God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.
(John 5:16-18).
16
¾ Memory Cue. Visualize the number four as an
open four that resembles a pew, and a man is sitting in the pew, which he does on the Lord’s Day.
¾ Verses to memorize: Colossians 2:16-17 (ESV, as
given above)
87. Q: What does the fourth commandment teach us? A: That
one day in seven is devoted to and given to the Lord.
All our time belongs to God, and we dedicate all our time by the
giving of the part, which is a principle that runs all through the Bible. We
dedicate all our money (or all our lives) by giving back to God His tithe.
One day in seven is indeed holy to God, but the strict regulations about
working have been removed. Parents will have to decide what they will
let their kids do on the Lord’s Day.
88. Q: Which day of the week do Christians worship? A: The
first day of the week, called the Lord’s Day.
The Lord’s Day (Revelation 1:10) has been universally interpreted
by the early fathers to mean Sunday, and Paul indicates that worship
already in his day was on the “first day of the week” (1 Corinthians 16:12) because of the resurrection of Christ on Sunday.
89. Q: Why is it called the Lord’s Day? A: Because on that day
Jesus rose from the dead. (See Question 88.)
90. Q: How should the Lord’s Day be spent? A: In the worship
of God with His people, in prayer, in the reading and hearing of His word, and at His Table.
We agree with the answer to this question, but would add that we
are not forbidden from doing other things, such as lawn bowling, as John
Calvin did on Sunday. He was not the Sabbatarian that his followers became. I would shorten this answer to something like “We must worship
God on Sunday.”
91. Q: What is the fifth commandment? A: Honor your father
and your mother “that it may be well with you and you
may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:3).
Honoring one’s parents is much broader than just obedience,
though that is included when the kids are small and at home:
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right
(Ephesians 6:1).
But when the parents are older, the children are required to take
care of them:
Honor widows who are really widows. 4 But if any
widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn
to show piety at home and to repay their parents; for
this is good and acceptable before God. (1 Tim 5:3-4)
3
He answered and said to them, “Why do you also
transgress the commandment of God because of your
tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your
father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or
mother, let him be put to death.’ 5 But you say, ‘Whoever
3
says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might
have received from me is a gift to God”— 6 then he need
not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the
commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.”
(Matt 15:3-6)
¾ Verse to memorize: When the kids are small, here is
a good verse: Ephesians 6:1 (see above)
¾ Memory cue: I used to draw the number five, and
make it into the face of a smiling father. Notice the
wavy hair the father has. He is smiling because his
children are obeying him:
Moreover, this commandment has a promise attached to it:
“Honor your father and mother,” which is the first
commandment with promise: 3 “that it may be well with
you and you may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:23).
2
The promise is to live long on the earth. And though there are exceptions to this, yet obedience to godly authority makes for a happy and
long life, for rebellion is self-destruction.
92. Q: What does the fifth commandment teach us? A: To obey
and love our parents and all in authority.
This commandment teaches us to love and obey our parents, which
is easy enough to learn, but it also teaches obedience to all godly authority. This is a very important commandment, for it contains one of the
greatest principles that children will learn—that legitimate authorities
represent God’s authority. And parents, this authority is the first principle of the Gospel; it is an evangelistic tool God has given you to ensure
that your kids will embrace Him as God and come to faith in Jesus Christ
as the their Lord and Savior. You must use your authority to make them
obey, and you must never allow them to win over you, to nullify your
authority, for that is rebellion against God. If they are allowed to do that,
they will not bow to God’s authority directly when they are on their
own.
93. Q: What is the sixth commandment? A: “Thou shalt not
murder.
The Sixth Commandment does not say not to kill but not to murder,
and there is a world of difference between the two. There are various
Hebrew words for kill, some meaning “to kill in war,” another meaning
“to slaughter an animal sacrifice,” and so on. But this one in this context
means to commit murder, to deliberately take someone’s life because of
personal revenge or anger. We must realize that Christians are NOT
really pro-life but pro-righteousness. This means that the innocent baby
in the womb (innocent of capital crime, not innocent of Adam’s original
sin) should live but that the murderer must die. Here is what God says
about both:
For the murderer: Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man
his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made
man (Genesis 9:6).
[Regarding abortion:] 22 If men fight, and hurt a woman
with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no
harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as
the woman's husband imposes on him; and he shall pay
as the judges determine. 23 But if any harm follows, then
you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for
wound, stripe for stripe. (Exodus 21:22-25)
We can see from this last passage that the “fetus” in the womb is
considered a child with rights, and any fatal injury to it is a capital offense. Thus it is perfectly consistent for Christians to demand the death
of a murderer but to allow the unborn to life, for both positions are projustice.
Of course the Lord taught us that anger with our brother without a
righteous cause is murderer (Matthew 5:22), which John also stated:
Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know
that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (1 John
3:15).
Contrary to popular opinion, the Lord did not intensify the Old Testament law in the Sermon on the Mount, for this is Old Testament law (see
Deuteronomy 19:15-20; Leviticus 19:17).
¾ Verses to memorize: 1 John 3:15 (see above)
¾ Memory Cue: Picture the number six turning into a
snake with fangs. When a snake bites (assuming it
is poisonous for this cue), it kills. Just turn “kill”
into “murder.”
94. Q: What does the sixth commandment teach us? A: To
avoid angry passions, and to love all human life that God
gives. (See Question 93.)
95. Q: What is the seventh commandment? A: Thou shalt not
commit adultery.
I was once teaching a Bible class of sixth and seventh grade girls
when a sixth grader asked: “Mr Crenshaw, what is circumcision?” I
quickly told her to ask her parents. Here parents have an opportunity,
depending on how old the kids are, to explain the facts of life. If they are
young, however, you could just say that mommy and daddy are not to
be married to anyone else but one another. I used to say that one can
have only one wife or husband, or that a daddy can have only one
mommy and a mommy only one daddy. Moreover, the Lord taught us
that lust in the heart is also adultery (Matthew 5:27-28), but this is also
just good Old Testament (Proverbs 6:25; Job 31:1, 9-12), not an intensification of the Old Testament law.
¾ Memory cue: Picture the number seven sprouting
to become a tree (see the bushy part at the top right
and the large trunk that was the stem of the seven).
Then see an adult hanging on a tree, adult tree.
96. Q: What does the seventh commandment teach us? A: To
be pure in language, heart, and conduct.
We are to be pure in our lives, guarding our eyes and our thoughts.
For teens, that means staying away from Internet temptations (for dads
too!), and not to allow an occasion to arise where we might be compromised. As a minister, I have to talk to women sometimes. I explain that I
must protect the Lord’s reputation, and to do so, I need someone else
around: my wife or some other leader in the parish.
97. Q: What is the eighth commandment? A: Thou shalt not
steal.
The answer is simple enough and needs little explanation. Rather
than steal, we must do the opposite: help others when they are in need
for food, clothing, and other things. (See Ephesians 4:28.)
¾ Memory cue: Change the number eight into two
apples, one on top of the other, and notice that each
of the apples below has a stem. Use this cue: “I ate
(for the number eight) the apple I stole.”
98. Q: What does the eighth commandment teach us? A: To be
honest and to work.
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may
have something to give him who has need.
99. Q: What is the ninth commandment? A: Thou shalt not
bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Bearing false witness is a very common problem, for we all think we
can discern the motives of others. We ignore the words they say and interpret them in a negative way. You can tell your kids that this means
either that we don’t believe people when they say something to us
(which may be right in some cases!), or we deliberately lie against them.
Also, bearing false witness may be when we put someone down or talk
mean about them. In other words, under normal circumstances, we are
to believe the best about people, to believe them when they tell us something, and not to lie against them.
Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you
speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of
one another.
¾ Memory Cue: Imagine the number nine becoming a
giant magnifying glass with our neighbor under
the glass so we can find something wrong with
him/her.
100. Q: What does the ninth commandment teach us? A: Always to tell the truth, and to take care of the good reputations of others.
We must always use words to help people, not to hurt them. People
have a right to their reputations, according to this commandment. And a
good name is more valuable than silver or gold (Proverbs 22:1).
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but
what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.
101. Q: What is the tenth commandment? A: Thou shalt not
covet.
I shortened this to “Thou shalt not covet.” Covet means that we are
not content with what God has given us, but we want what someone else
has, or else we want to destroy what someone else (this is actually envy,
which is stronger than coveting) so they can’t have it if we can’t get it.
For kids, tell them to be happy with what they have, such as toys,
clothes, and so on. The idea is to be content. One person can say that he
would love to have a new car or toy, but leaves it up to the Lord. That is
not coveting, but being content either way. Another person will wrench
his soul to get a new car, perhaps strain his monthly budget to get it.
That is coveting. In the first case, the person is master of things. In the
second case, things master the person.
¾ Verse to memorize: 1 Timothy 6:6 (for your own
edification, also read verses 7-10)
Now godliness with contentment is great gain.
¾ Memory cue: Visualize the number ten turning into
a bat and ball, and then use this cue: “I surely
would love to have my neighbor’s bat and ball.”
That is coveting.
102. Q: What does the tenth commandment teach us? A: To be
content with God’s gifts to me. (See Question 101.)
103. Q: Can any person keep these Ten Commandments perfectly? No mere human, since the fall of Adam, ever did, or
can keep the Ten Commandments perfectly.
Of course there is one exception: the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone else sins by breaking them. Paul is very emphatic about
this:
As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;
there is none who understands; there is none who
seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; they have
together become unprofitable; there is none who does
good, no, not one.’ 13 “Their throat is an open tomb; with
their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of
asps is under their lips”; 14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 destruction and misery are in their ways; 17 and the
way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear
10
11
of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds
of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin (Romans 3:10-20).
¾ Verse to memorize: Romans 3:23:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
104. Q: Of what use are the Ten Commandments to us? A: They
teach us our duty, and show our need of a savior.
The Ten Commandments do at least two things: they teach us what
pleases God, and also they show us that we are sinful and thus need the
Savior, the Lord Jesus, who died on the Cross for our sins (1 Corinthians
15:3). God greatly desires for us to respond to Him in love and obedience
to His commandments. But this obedience does not make us God’s children, but reveals if we are His or not. (See also Questions 103, 55, and
56.)
105. Q: What is prayer? A: Prayer is talking to God our Father,
praising and thanking Him for all things, and asking for the
things we need.
Now that we have learned about God, the Holy Trinity, Christ the
Son of God, salvation, His law or commandments, we now learn about
prayer. We see that prayer is both praise (thanking Him) and asking (for
the things we need, and sometimes even for the things we want). As the
Catechism says, prayer is just talking to God, like we do at church. In
other words, now that we’ve leaned how to know God, we must learn
how to talk to Him.
106. Q: In whose name should we pray? A: In the name of Jesus
Christ.
So how can we go to someone as important as God and expect Him
to listen to us? It is because He loves His Son, Jesus, and we can go to
Him with Jesus as the one who takes us there. We just pray in Jesus’
name, or in His ability to have the Father hear us (John 14:14; 15:16;
16:23).
Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give
you.
107. Q: What has Christ given us to teach us how to pray? A:
The Lord’s Prayer.
We call this the Lord’s Prayer, but actually He did not need to pray
it, for He had no sins to confess.
108. Q: Say the Lord’s Prayer: A: (The children should learn the
Lord’s Prayer verbatim as it occurs in our Book of Common
Prayer since we say it at every worship service.)
Here is the way the Lord’s Prayer is designed:
It begins with God: “Our Father who art in heaven,” and it ends
with God: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”
Then there are three petitions about God and three petitions about
ourselves. God comes first. Each petition is a command in Greek. The
sixth petition has two parts to it.
Three prayers about God
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven
Three prayers about ourselves
Give us this day our daily bread
Forgive us our trespasses . . .
Lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil
Notice that “thy” occurs in each of the three petitions about God,
and that “us” appears in each of the three petitions about ourselves.
This is a beautifully designed prayer that covers all aspects of our
lives.
109. Q: How many petitions are in the Lord’s Prayer? Six.
110. Q: What is the first petition? A: (Should learn each petition
verbatim): Hallowed be thy name.
111. Q: What do we pray for in the first petition? A: That God’s
name may be honored by us and all people.
When we say God’s name is honored, we of course mean that God
Himself should be honored; that is, we want all people to know and love
this one God.
112. Q: What is the second petition? A: (Learn verbatim.) Thy
kingdom come.
113. Q: What do we pray for in the second petition? A: That the
truth of God’s word would be believed and obeyed by all
people on earth.
We want God’s kingdom, His Church, to be all over the world, and
for it to grow bigger and bigger. We want all people to believe in Jesus,
to have Him as their Savior as we do.
114. Q: What is the third petition? A: (Learn verbatim.) Thy
will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
115. Q: What do we pray for in the third petition? A: That we
on earth would serve God as the angels do in heaven.
God’s will is perfectly done in heaven by those who have gone to
heaven, and by the angels who have always been there. And we pray
that this will happen on earth. Does this seem impossible? No, one day it
will be true, but now we ask for it to come little by little. Moreover, we
should do all we can to tell people about this God, to help others to
know and obey Him. We should vote for good men who will serve in
government who will want to do His will, and we should go to churches
where preachers and the people want to know Him and do His will.
116. Q: What is the fourth petition? A: (Learn verbatim.) Give
us this day our daily bread.
117. Q: What do we pray for in the fourth petition? A: That God
would give us all things needful for our bodies and souls.
Simple enough, but we need to know that God does not always heal
the body now. He will at the Last Day at the resurrection. Also, the soul
will finally be healed and made perfect in holiness when we die or when
the Lord comes, whichever comes first (1 John 3:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:17).
God is concerned with our physical well being as well as our invisible
souls.
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
118. Q: What is the fifth petition? A: (Learn verbatim.) And
forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass
against us.
119. Q: What do we pray for in the fifth petition? A: That God
would pardon our sins for Christ’s sake, and enable us to
forgive those who have injured us.
There are two parts here. First, we must learn to confess our sins to
God all the time and not just in church. Second, we must learn to confess
our faults to one another (James 5:16) and to forgive those who confess
their sins to us, even if it hurts us (Ephesians 4:32).
¾ Verses to memorize: 1 John 1:9; Ephesians 4:32:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
(1 John 1:9).
And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, just as God in Christ forgave you (Ephesians 4:32).
120. Q: What is the sixth petition? A: (Learn verbatim.) And
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
But does God really lead us into temptation? I thought that He did
not tempt anyone (James 1:13). This is true enough, yet the Lord Jesus
was “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”
(Matthew 4:1). God does not do the tempting, but He allows it for our
good, not too much and not too little:
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is
common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow
you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with
the temptation will also make the way of escape, that
you may be able to bear it (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Notice that the “way of escape” sometimes is “to bear it,” not to get out
of it.
Also, some modern translations translate Matthew 6:13 as “deliver
us from the evil one,” which would be Satan. But one tends to imply the
other (evil implies Satan and Satan implies evil), so that being delivered
from evil, which is sin, would surely mean to be delivered also from Satan (and vice versa also).
¾ Verses to memorize: 1 Corinthians 10:13 (See
above.)
121. Q: What do we pray for in the sixth petition? A: That God
would keep us from sin. (See Question 120.)
122. Q: What is the Church? A: The Church is the body of
Christ, the fellowship of all believers in Him.
Explain that the Church is like one big family in the whole world,
and that we are all brothers and sisters. Yet as time goes on I would emphasize to your children that the church is one, in the Old Testament
called Israel and in the New Testament called the Church. Yet Israel
could be called the Church (Acts 7:38 where “congregation” is the Greek
word for Church; Hebrews 2:12 where “assembly” is the Greek word for
Church), and the Church is called Israel (Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:1112, 19), and so on.
Dispensationalists like to say there are two peoples of God, Israel
and the Church, but this implies two heads, which would mean two saviors and two kinds of salvation. If there is one Head, and all people are
saved the same way, what is the point of two peoples?
In other words, there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5), and since baptism took the place of circumcision (Colossians
2:11-12), we could say there is “one Lord, one faith, one circumcision/baptism.”
Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
123. Q: Who is the Head of the Church? A: Jesus Christ is the
Head of the Church.
By “head” we mean the one who governs the Church, who takes
care of the Church. Indeed, everything that happens in the world is for
the ultimate good of the Church, for such is the gracious providence of
Christ. Also, we mean that no single human is the head of the Church,
but only Christ is.
Christ is head of the church.
124. Q: Who are the members of the Church? A: All baptized
Christians.
That all baptized Christians are members is clear from these passages: Romans 6:4-5; 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 6:15, and the passage to
memorize below.
The answer to this Question does not say that all baptized people
will go to heaven. A lay person asked me several years ago from another
denomination if there would be REC people in heaven. My answer was
that there will be former REC people in heaven, for in heaven there are
only Christians. But just as we can join some organizations simply by
adhering to the rite of entry, so all those baptized in the Name of the
Holy Trinity are formally members of Christ’s church.
¾ Verse to memorize: Galatians 3:27:
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have
put on Christ.
125. Q: What is a sacrament? A: An outward, visible sign of an
inward, spiritual grace.
This is a very good answer, but of course there have been untold
thousands of pages written to explain this. Most of us in the REC prefer
to say the sacraments are mysteries, meaning we only have a partial understanding of them. It is when people seek to remove the mystery and
define everything that they get into trouble. Better to leave this answer
alone.
126. Q: How many sacraments are there? A. Two. (See the next
Question.)
127. Q: What are they? A: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Rome holds to five others as sacraments (holy orders or ordination,
marriage, extreme unction, penance, and confirmation), but baptism and
the Lord’s Supper are dominical sacraments; that is, instituted by the
Lord Himself for His Church. Moreover, baptism and Holy Communion
have to do with the covenant in the Church, baptism being entrance into
that covenant and Holy Communion the maintenance of the covenant.
The other five we see as having sacramental value, but not as the formal
sacraments that the Lord instituted. Since baptism is entrance into the
covenant, it is only to be done once, and since Holy Communion is maintenance in the covenant, it should be done often.
Something else must be emphasized here. It is the Church that decides who will be baptized, not the individual. The modern emphasis on
“believer’s baptism” makes the individual sovereign over the Church,
informing the Church when he/she is ready, and later, if the individual
decides that his/her faith was not genuine at the first baptism, he/she
informs the Church that it must be done over! This makes a mockery of
Christ as the Head of the Church, making Him dance to the tune that we
play, saying that we will decide if His baptism (and make no mistake
that it is HIS) was valid or not. This is individualism gone awry. I know
a very sweet Christian lady who has been baptized three times because
two times she decided (not the Church) that the other two times she did
not really mean it when she said she believed in Jesus. On the contrary, it
is not we who decide to join Christ’s Church, but it is He who decides to
join us through His ordained and appointed ministers. And once we
have received the sign of entrance, we must never receive it again, for
the first time Christ was serious.
128. Q: Who appointed these sacraments? A: The Lord Jesus
Christ. (Also see Question 127.)
The words “Lord Jesus Christ” are not first, middle, and last names,
but carry very significant content. “Lord” is His title, which means He is
God (John 20:28; Romans 10:9 with v 13). “Jesus” is his given, human
name, which means Savior: “You shall call His name JESUS, for He will
save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). “Christ” is His office as
Messiah, which means He was the final prophet, priest, and king. We are
“prophets” only in a reflective sense of giving out His word to others.
We are “priests” only in celebrating what He did on the Cross. And we
are “kings” only in bringing His rule to bear. (Read Revelation 5:10.)
I used to teach my kids all three “names” so they would have some
understanding of who He was (is).
¾ Verses to memorize:
of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This
cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for
you” (Luke 22:20).
129. Q: Why did Christ appoint these sacraments? A: To distinguish His disciples from the world, to comfort them, and to
give them grace.
These sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion indeed distinguish us from the world, but they also give us grace. It is not that grace
resides in the water or the bread and wine as a physical object, but that
they are means of grace by faith. One big difference between us and
Rome is that they see these sacraments as containing grace in the elements, but we see them as means of grace that must be used by faith. If
Rome is right, then a mouse eating left over bread is eating grace, but for
us faith is the all important matter. That does not mean, however, that
we can stay home, pretend faith, and just think about the bread and wine
and have Holy Communion. It can only be done in the context of God’s
ordained ministers and with bread and wine.
130. Q: What sign is used in baptism? A: Water, whether by
sprinkling, pouring, or dipping.
All Christians agree that we must use water. I’m not aware of any
controversy in the history of the Church over that. But the mode of baptism continues to be controversial from the Reformation to our day. In
the Reformation, the original Baptists poured, but today they all submerge. Notice I did not say immerse, for one can immerse his body in
water without putting his whole body under the water. The earliest pictures we have of baptism are people standing in a river and having water poured on his/her head. That would satisfy all the images in the
Gospels. The Didache, a very early manual of how they did things in the
early church, most think written in the 100s, states that “running water”
is preferred, which would seems to be a river or stream, but it also says
that if that was not available other modes were acceptable. Most today
tend to use pouring as the symbol of the Holy Spirit poured out on the
person receiving baptism? (Acts 2:17, 18, 33; 10:45; Romans 5:5).
131. Q: What does the water signify? A: That we are cleansed
from sin by the blood of Christ.
All through the Bible water signifies cleansing (Psalm 51:7; Ezekiel
36:25; John 3:3, 5; Acts 22:16; Ephesians 5:26; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 10:22;
1 Peter 3:21, etc.).
But is the person actually cleansed by the blood of Christ when baptized? Does anything happen to one who is baptized but later rejects that
baptism and perishes? Yes, something happens, for it is Christ’s baptism,
not ours.
Baptists want this precisely defined to their satisfaction. The Roman
Catholic Church accommodates them and says they are personally regenerated in their hearts, converted, let’s say. Baptists reject this and go
to the other extreme, saying that nothing happens at baptism. Presbyterians say something happens if the person is elect; otherwise, nothing
happens. We believe in unconditional election also (Romans 9 is one of
my favorite passages), but we do not use it as the defining paradigm for
our theology. It is part of our system, but the covenant is the better definition.
So is a child regenerated at baptism? We enter a long controversy,
and it is not my intention to try to solve it here. (If you want a technical
paper from the Greek on Titus 3:5 and baptismal regeneration, go to
www.cranmerhouse.org, and there you will find my paper. Even if you
don’t know Greek, you’ll benefit from it.) In our BCP after a child is baptized, it says “seeing this child is now regenerate.” Rome rejoices and
many Protestants reach for the heresy books. But there are two ways the
word “regeneration” has been used both in church history and in the
Bible. In the early church it often meant transferred into the Church. In
the Bible it can mean that also (Titus 3:5; John 3:5). After the Reformation
the word “regeneration” took on new life, being used by most as a technical term for a change of heart, born again, converted, and so on. I’m
personally convinced this is John’s primary use of “born again” in his
Gospel and especially in 1 John.
So what happens in baptism? I can’t define it all for you, but the
person is at least “regenerated” in the sense that he/she is placed into
the Church and original sin remitted. The presumption is that his/her
sins are washed away. Whether that includes a personal change of heart
or not cannot be known for sure, but perseverance is the hallmark of the
true Christian. It could be conversion even for an infant, for God is sovereign. What a beautiful picture of salvation is the baptism of an infant,
for the child does nothing and yet receives grace! That is good Reformation theology! John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit while still
in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15), which obviously meant he was converted.
132. Q: In whose name are we baptized? A. In the name of the
Trinity: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Lord told us to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), and the Church has done
precisely that down through the centuries. So why does the book of Acts
say that they baptized “in the name of Jesus”? The oneness people today
who deny the Holy Trinity make a major case out of that. In Acts the
idea is that they baptized on the authority of Christ, not with the actual
formula “in the name of Jesus Christ.” You can validate this by comparing Acts 2:36-38 with Acts 4:5-7, 12, just to name a few passages.
A question I sometimes ask those who are being examined for ordination is this: If someone comes to your parish and has only been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, would you re-baptize him/her? It is a
trick question; the answer is that they have not been baptized at all so the
person would be baptized for the first time. God is the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit.
of the Holy Spirit.
133. Q: Who are to be baptized? A: Believers and their children.
Of course volumes have been written on this answer. One has to get
over the idea that God deals only with individuals but also with families,
with a corporate group, as it were. (He does deal with individuals, of
course.) The family is a covenant group, and God has promised to be the
God not only of the parents but also of the children. This is great motivation to bring children into the world! If Christians would have the longterm view, we could take over the world by covenant births!
But can we defend infant baptism? This is not the format for an extended discussion, but we can say several things. (1) In the Old Testament children were included in the covenant. Virtually no one debates
that. Should we expect anything less in the New Testament? Or to rephrase this, the old covenant included children, and the new covenant is
only the old covenant fulfilled. Would it now not include the children?
Indeed, how would have all the Jews who were in Jerusalem for
Pentecost have understood Peter in his sermon when he said that “the
promise [of the Gospel] is to you and to your children, and to all who are
afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call”? (Acts 2:39). Remember
that the word “promise” is a covenantal term. It would seem that the
children would be included in their family covenant as they had been in
the Old Testament (“to you and your children”) and that “all who are
afar off” were the Gentiles, for the expression “afar off” was a covenantal
term for those outside the covenant (see Ephesians 2:13, 19-22).
(2) Children were set apart to God if only one parent was converted
(1 Corinthians 7:14). This would argue for including them in the covenant. There is even a sanctifying effect for the unbelieving parent. From
the analogy of Scripture, we know that adults were only baptized when
converted so this verse would not argue for their baptism. But the children are a different matter all through the Bible.
(3) There is indeed an infant baptism in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 that is
very clear:
Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware
that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed
through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the
cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food,
4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank
of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock
was Christ.
1
This is the exodus from Egypt, and Paul says that the nation of Israel, the whole nation, including the infants, in passing through the Red
Sea was baptized, that ALL the people were baptized, which he makes
very emphatic by repeating it five times. Moreover, notice that ALL were
not only baptized but also partook of Holy Communion (ate and drank
Christ).
The early Church was emphatically aware that Moses was the
greatest personal type of Christ in the Old Testament, and the book of
Matthew is structured to show this. Thus being baptized into Moses was
a type of being baptized into Christ.
(4) Baptism now takes the place of circumcision:
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the
sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried
with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised
with Him through faith in the working of God, who
raised Him from the dead. (Colossians 2:11-12)
11
The grammar clearly indicates that they were circumcised by baptism. 3 Both point to an inward reality.
¾ Verses to memorize: Acts 2:38-39:
Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of
you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children,
and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God
will call.”
38
134. Q: Why should babies be baptized? A: Because they are the
children of Christians, under God’s covenant, and welcomed by God into the congregation of Christ. (See Question 133.)
This answer is expanded considerably from the Presbyterian version, and is so much better! It really emphasizes the covenant: as children of believing parents, they are “under God’s covenant” and therefore welcomed into Christ’s Church.
3
“Circumcised” in v 11 is the main verb and “buried” is an adverbial participle of means, stating how the circumcision was carried out. Thus they were
circumcised by being “buried in baptism.”
I’ve wondered what the theological basis is for teaching children
about God from a Baptist perspective since they are not members of the
Church and since they are “natural men” (1 Corinthians 2:14) and thus
unable to receive anything about God and Christ.
Yet they teach their children and have youth groups as if they were
members. But baptism is the entrance to membership. By this they have
painted themselves into a corner, for if one can be a member without
baptism, baptism means nothing. With the Baptists, baptism is only the
individual and his “decision” for Christ, not Christ’s decision for
him/her through the Church. I’m not trying to be unkind toward our
Baptist brethren, for they are often better Christians than most, but it is
an area of inconsistency with them.
By inference we should note that babies who are not the children of
Christian parents should not be baptized. They are not part of God’s
covenant.
¾ Memory Cue:
Tell your children that because you’re a Christian that God has included them also, that they are in your family covenant and thus in
God’s family covenant in the Church.
135. Q: Does Christ care for the little children? A: Yes, for He
says: “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid
them; for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14).
It is obvious from the verse quoted from Mark 10:14 that Christ
cared much for children. In the verse the Greek word for “children” usually means those below puberty. So likewise the word for children in the
parallel in Luke 18:16 means children who are below puberty. But in the
previous verse (Luke 18:15), the Lord makes clear that He had in mind
infants, for the Greek word there clearly means infants. Also, in both
Mark and Luke when the Lord said “of such is the kingdom of God,” He
meant that the kingdom of God belonged to children and infants. The
Lord is not saying that people like the infants have the kingdom. Rather,
He is saying that these children themselves have the kingdom.
136. Q: To what does your baptism commit you? A: To be a
true follower of Jesus Christ in His Church.
Again this answer has been considerably improved over the Presbyterian one (which had “to be a true follower of Christ”), but this answer
given by our bishops says to be a “true follower of Jesus Christ means to
do so in His Church.”
A vow has been made for your children to be a follower of the Lord
Jesus. This is like a marriage vow so that you are “married” to Jesus and
have promised, either personally or by your sponsors when you were
baptized, to be faithful to Jesus.
The doctrine of the Church has fallen on bad times in the last few
decades, and it is the individual that reigns supreme. We must see that
salvation is not an abstract gift given to one apart from the Church.
When I was a Baptist, it was often said that God put salvation in one’s
hand like a gift, and then the Church was never mentioned. Rather, we
have the gift given in the context of the Church. In other words, one does
not have the free gift apart from the Church. People get very upset when
this is stated, and think we mean that the Church died for our sins, that
the Church can hand out or withhold grace at its will, that one is enslaved to the hierarchy of the Church for salvation to be distributed in
bits and pieces.
But we are not Romanists; we do not believe that grace is necessarily communicated by some magical touch, whether faith is present or
not. Instead, we believe that grace comes through the Church as a means,
and it does so in answer to faith.
Sometimes Protestants forget that it was John Calvin who stated
that we should not think God is our Father unless the Church is our
mother (Institutes, 4.1.4.).
But today we have the smorgasbord approach to salvation and the
Church: people will select what they like and leave the rest, often attending the church that entertains them best. They will not come to worship
when the weather is too bad, for they might have a wreck. Or, they will
not attend when the weather is too good, for then they can go play. Perhaps they are just too busy with activities with the kids on Sunday, or
people have come in from out of town. The point is that the Church is
just something to be added on when convenient, not something necessary to one’s salvation. This answer to this Question contradicts that!
137. Q: What is the Lord’s Supper? A: The eating of bread and
drinking of wine in remembrance of the death of the Lord
until He comes.
This answer has three parts: (1) eating and drinking, (2) remembrance, (3) the Lord’s return.
(1) The elements are important: bread and wine. Wine is not grape
juice, but was invented by Welch in the 1800s. I’m sure that grapes in the
first century could have had juice from them, but that was not the modern grape juice. The Greek word for wine always means the fermented
drink from grapes. I don’t know any exception in any Greek literature of
the ancient world.
Let us also note that the Lord’s Supper is not coke and crackers, and
it is not just thinking about the elements at home. It is “eating of bread
and drinking of wine.” While we do not believe that the bread and wine
are transmuted into the literal body and blood of Christ, nevertheless
one cannot have Holy Communion without these elements. Moreover, if
one considers the context of this Question, the Holy Communion takes
places in the Church with the appropriate ministers, not as an individual
prerogative at home. Paul is actually saying in 1 Corinthians 11 where he
discussed Holy Communion that it is done in the context of the Church
gathering. The expression Paul uses to indicate a local gathering of a
church is “come together.” (You must read 1 Corinthians 11:17, 18, 20,
22, 33, 34 in the NKJ Version.)
(2) Most people tend to think that “remembrance” is only a mental
exercise of something that one knows and has perhaps forgotten, but this
is a covenantal term that means something like “to renew covenant
through doing ritual.” The Greek word for “remembrance” is used in the
Old Testament Greek version for part of the ritual in the sacrifice (Leviticus 24:7; Numbers 10:10), for God to remember His covenant and so not
to discipline David (Psalm 38:1), or to deliver David according to God’s
covenant (Psalm 70:1). In the New Testament it used three times of Holy
Communion (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25) and once of the Old
Testament sacrifice (Hebrews 10:3). So in both Old Testament and New
Testament the idea is covenant renewal, which means a reminder to God
of His promises, and a reminder to us that our forgiveness of sins comes
through Jesus and that we owe Him worship and obedience.
(3) Moreover, as Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 11:26, this Supper proclaims the Lord’s death until He comes. In other words, there is a Second
Coming, despite the full preterists today who tend to deny such. This is
the consummation of all things, and so each time we take Holy Communion we are reminded of the Last Day judgment and of the final victory of the Lord in His return.
138. Q: Why is bread used at the Lord’s Supper? A: Because Jesus took bread, broke it, and said: “This is my body given
for you.” (Luke 22:17-20).
It has often been commented that bread is the most common food in
the world, which makes it easy for everyone to celebrate Holy Communion. And of course, we use bread because the Lord Jesus commanded it.
139. Q: Why is wine used as well? A: Because Jesus took the
cup and said: “This is my blood of the new covenant.” (1
Corinthians 11:23-32)
Wine had a long history in the Old Testament, and it was used during the Passover service. We now know from Jewish sources that when
the Passover was celebrated, the cup of wine—though not commanded
in the Old Testament Passover—was nevertheless used. And the third
cup of wine during the Passover supper was called the “cup of blessing,”
which was the cup the Lord blessed for use in the Holy Communion.
140. Q: Who should partake of the Lord’s Supper? A: All baptized Christians who are in favor with God and His
Church.
This is an excellent answer, and puts the emphasis on the objective
covenant of God with His people. In other words, those who are in the
covenant (baptized) and are in favor with God as reflected in being in
good standing with His Church may take Holy Communion. The Question says who “should” take the Lord’s Supper, not who “could.” Therefore, all those so qualified should. Notice that this includes children.
This Question emphasizes that all those baptized and not excommunicated are in a formal relationship with God, full members of the
covenant with are no halfway positions. Yet this is controversial, and I
would not want to divide a parish over it. My pastoral way of dealing
with paedo-communion (children taking Holy Communion) is to encourage it but to leave it up to the parents.
141. Q: What is the Church like? A: In the Creeds, it is called
One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.
The word “nature” is difficult for kids so I have changed it to “like.”
¾ Memory Cue: I would hold up one finger for One,
then change my hand into a hole to see through,
pretend to see a catholic person in a church with
Apostles in it.
142. Q: What is meant by “One”? A: The Church is one because
it is one body under one Head (Jesus) and all Christians belong to it.
¾ Memory cue: Picture a large, fat body with a fat
head on it (body and head), and inside the body are
many people (“all Christians belong to it”).
There are not two peoples of God, Israel and the Church, but one
people of God, Israel that became the Church. Thus, there is only one
Church, not two:
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were
called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith,
one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above
all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)
4
The point being made is that there is really only one Church, that
there is one Head of this Church, Jesus Christ, and that all true Christians
belong to it. We must be careful not to think that this “invisible” Church
can exist apart from the visible church. There are various visible
churches, such as Eastern Orthodoxy (with its various branches or “denominations”), the Roman Catholic Church (it also has its various
branches), Anglicanism, and various Protestant branches. The first three
go back to the Apostles by Apostolic succession. The Protestant churches
go back by theological succession, holding to the same teaching as the
Apostles.
It would be ideal if all Christians were in the same denomination,
but even that would not guarantee that all the members would go to
heaven. Yet in this life, all are equally part of the organized, visible
church through baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity. We do not
know who the elect are, and the assumption from our view is that all
Christians are elect. God even calls them that (1 Peter 1:2; 2:6-9; 5:13).
I have never understood why unity has to be under one denominational umbrella for there to be unity, but some today think that if that is
not the case that we are sinning. Pardon me if I disagree. That would be
ideal, but not required to have unity. The Lord’s high priestly prayer in
John 17 is a prayer for unity in belief, not as one denomination.
The three Creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian), especially the
Nicene Creed, provides the unity for all Christians in a common theology. Even for those who reject that part of the Nicene Creed that says the
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “and the Son,” they still hold to the
Creed. Most would adhere to the other two Creeds. These Creeds are
traceable back through the centuries, with the Apostles’ Creed being the
oldest, and all reflect Apostolic teaching. Thus our unity is in belief, not
necessarily in one visible denomination. You can have one denomination
with various groups in it that are incompatible, or you can one several
denominations that are basically compatible with one another.
But some insist that we must join a church that can trace its denomination back to the Apostles, and that if one is in a denomination
that does not go back to the Apostles he is sinning. Then that leaves
three: the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism.
Some become indignant and say that Anglicanism only began in the Reformation, but that is false. This little study on the Children’s Catechism
cannot trace Anglicanism all the way back as it is way beyond the scope
of my purpose (and beyond my ability). But Anglicanism did break
away from the Roman Catholic Church in the Reformation, or we might
say that Rome broke from Anglicanism. Nevertheless, we can trace ourselves back to the Apostles.
Then some would say that only the Roman Catholic Church or
Eastern Orthodoxy has never had a schism, but which branch of Eastern
Orthodoxy are we speaking about? There are about 15 or so competing
“denominations.” The monophysites (Christ has only one nature) and
the Chalcedonians (Christ has two natures, being both God and man in
one person, which the vast majority of Christians has accepted) do not
get along at all. There is a schism.
Also, we must ask about the schism of 1054 when East and West
split into Eastern Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church respectively? Who was right? Which one split from the other? It appears that
they split from one another. Thus there is no church that has not had a
schism, at least outwardly. But all still hold to the Nicene Creed, with the
exception of the filioque clause that the East rejects. But both East and
West consider one another Trinitarian.
Here is what Thomas Cranmer said about the one church:
In the Scriptures, the word “Church” has two main
meanings . . .; one of which means the congregation of
all the saints and true believers, who really believe in
Christ the Head and are sanctified by His Spirit. This is
the living and truly holy mystical body of Christ, but
known only to God. . . . The second meaning is that of
the congregation of all who are baptized in Christ. . . .
(Gerald Bray, Documents of the English Reformation, p.
189).
In other words, there is an invisible Church known only to God, but
it is based in the visible Church. The invisible Church is one, united truly
under Christ the Head.
¾ Verses to memorize: (See the Ephesians 4:4-6
above.)
143. Q: What is meant by “Holy”? A: The Church is holy because Christ died for it and because it is in union with
Christ.
The Church is holy because Christ died for her sins, and thus He
has forgiven the Church her sins, cleansed her of all unrighteousness.
And the Church is holy because of our union with Christ, and He is holy.
Some people reject the church because they say there are many
hypocrites in the Church. They look at Christians and their sins and
think it is a farce that we confess that the Church is holy. But the individuals in the Church are a work in progress, having still much sin.
Moreover, we don’t mean by “holy” that we don’t sin, but that because
of what Christ has done for us on the Cross our sins are forgiven, and
because of our union with Him by His Holy Spirit, we are holy. It is like
being a member of a club. One’s membership gives one rights and status
that may or may not be lived out. The same is true in the Church. But the
members of Christ’s Church who are converted will produce works as
the necessary evidence of their faith, but all members have the status.
For union with Christ, consider these verses:
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members
of the household of God, 20 having been built on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ
Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the
whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy
temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built
together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)
19
¾ Verse to memorize: We “grow into a holy temple in
the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21 above)
144. Q: What is meant by “Catholic”? A: “Catholic” means
“universal.” It means that Jesus intended the Church to be
the same everywhere and always.
“Catholic” does not mean Roman Catholic but “universal.” We believe many of the same things as the Roman Catholic Church, but we are
not Roman Catholic. But believing the Creeds as most Christians do is
universal or catholic belief.
145. Q: Why are there different Churches? A: Our sinful nature
and false teachings have caused divisions in the Church.
It is our fault, not God’s fault, that there are so many differences in
our beliefs and practices, though we all believe in the same God and in
the same Christ. It is in lesser beliefs where we differ. But we must never
compromise the teaching of the Creeds or of the Bible to try to bring artificial unity. Liberals want unity over truth, and some want truth over
unity, dividing over every thing. The creeds give us the basis for unity in
truth but without all the lesser beliefs.
146. Q: What is meant by “Apostolic”? A: A Church is Apostolic because it follows the teaching of the Apostles and because its ministers are descended from the Apostles.
There are two parts to this answer: We are apostolic because (1) we
follow the teaching of the Apostles and (2) because we can trace our ministers back to the Apostles. Churches that are not fully Apostolic, whose
ministers cannot be traced back to the Apostles, are nevertheless still
valid if they hold to the Apostles’ doctrine. The statement that is often
made is that bishops and/or Apostolic succession is for the “well being”
of the Church but not for the “being” of the Church. A denomination can
have Apostolic succession and teach terrible doctrine in some areas
(Rome), or not have Apostolic succession and have much better doctrine
in some cases. But all things being equal, it is advantageous to have both
Apostolic succession and theological succession.
¾ Memory cue: Tell your kids that Apostolic means
that the REC ministers have had the hands of the
Apostles laid on them and that they take a vow to
support what the Apostles taught.
147. Q: Who were the Apostles? A: The Apostles were the first
disciples of Jesus, plus the Apostle Paul, to whom He gave
spiritual authority over His Church.
The Apostles were the original eleven, then Matthias was added to
take the place of Judas the betrayer (Acts 1:21-26), making twelve. Paul
was the thirteenth, “born out of due time” as he said (1 Corinthians 15:8).
There had to be Matthias to complete the original twelve, twelve being
the number of the tribes of Israel. These twelve were the complete
Church (Revelation 21:12-14). Paul was the extra one, like the Levites
who were the thirteenth tribe of Israel in the Old Testament. These Apostles had spiritual authority over the Church:
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father
has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said
this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the
Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:21-23)
¾ Memory Cue: Twelve Apostles plus Paul.
If you want your kids to learn the original twelve, here is what I’ve
used: (Matthew 10:2-4)
All Babies Make Sounds (one each): Andrew (brother of Peter), Bar-
tholomew, Matthew, Simon (the Canaanite)
Prior To (doubles to two each): Peter, Philip, Thomas, Thaddaeus
Jumping (doubles again to four): James (son of Zebedee), John
(brother of just mentioned James), James (son of Alphaeus), Judas Iscar-
iot (who betrayed Him; Matthias took the place of Judas after the
Lord’s Ascension in Acts 1:20ff)
148. Q: Do we have Apostles in the Church today? A: No, today
the Church is served by the Bishops, Presbyters (priests),
and Deacons.
In the New Testament there were three Church offices: Apostle,
presbyters, and deacons. Today the Apostle has been replaced by bishops. Like the Apostles, the bishop has authority over many churches,
while the presbyters and deacons have authority in only one local
church. Already in the New Testament we see a young man functioning
like a bishop when Paul gave Titus authority to make presbyters, called
elders:
For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in
order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in
every city as I commanded you (Titus 1:5).
149. Q: Did the risen Jesus give any other teachings to the
Apostles before He returned to God the Father in heaven?
A: He opened the minds of the Apostles to understand the
Old Testament.
(The next 15 or so questions have very long answers, and I’ve tried
to shorten most of them.)
The placing of this Question here is puzzling in the midst of teaching on church officers, and with its content about understanding the Old
Testament. The points on baptizing and preaching the Gospel were already covered in earlier questions (Questions 8, 128, 132). It is certainly a
good Question with an apt answer that Jesus gave His Apostles supernatural insight into the Old Testament. And the passage is one I’ve used
many times just for this answer (Luke 24:44-46). It is very important for
us to know that Christ was in the Old Testament, revealed there, and
that He is the object of faith in the whole Bible, not just the New Testament.
Moreover, I’m not sure what the word “other” means in this Question. “Other” teachings than what?
150. Q: What are bishops? A: Bishops are the chief pastors of a
group of churches, called a diocese. Bishops ordain Presbyters and Deacons, and they administer Confirmation.
You may want to change “administer” and just say “they confirm
people in the faith. There are three parts to this answer. Bishops are: (1)
the chief or head pastor over many churches in an area called a Diocese;
(2) they ordain (admit) to the ministry presbyters and deacons; (3) and
they confirm people. To make it shorter for younger children, just say:
Bishops are the boss, admit others to the ministry, and Confirm.
151. Q: How are men chosen to be bishops? A: They are chosen
by the whole Church, and consecrated by at least three
other bishops who ask God to give His Holy Spirit to him
“for the office and work of a bishop.”
Since bishops have authority over many churches, they are chosen
by the whole denomination, not just one local parish. Much prayer goes
into this. Once a presbyter is chosen, he is presented to the whole denomination who votes on him. If the church votes yes, he is consecrated
to his office by at least three other bishops; and these bishops lay hands
on him, praying for the Holy Spirit to help him do “the office and work
of a bishop.” This is a very high calling and not to be taken lightly. But in
unusual cases there can be the consecration of a new bishop by just one
bishop.
152. Q: Who appointed the first Bishops? A: The Apostles chose
and set apart the first Bishops to serve as pastors of churches after they died.
Some today adamantly reject the office of Bishop, saying there is no
such thing in the New Testament, so perhaps a little explanation will
help. It is true that in the New Testament “elder” (another word for the
same thing as “presbyter”) is used synonymously with bishop (Titus 1:59). But in 1 Timothy 3:1ff, only the word “bishop” is used and only in the
singular, for there is only one bishop who is the chief pastor of a diocese.
Moreover, though the word “bishop” is not actually used of Titus, nevertheless he functions as one, as can be seen in Titus 1:5 below. Notice that
he did what Paul and Barnabas did in Acts 14:23, “appointed elders,”
and Paul and Barnabas were apostles. Thus we have one functioning as a
bishop under Paul’s supervision, and bishops have taken the place of
Apostles, functioning as those who ordain from Titus’ day to ours.
For this reason I [Paul] left you in Crete, that you should
set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you (Titus 1:5).
So when they [“apostles Barnabas and Paul,” v 14] had
appointed elders in every church, and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they
had believed (Acts 14:23).
Notice also that Timothy also could ordain, meaning that he also functioned as a bishop:
Do not lay hands on [ordain] anyone hastily, nor share
in other people’s sins; keep yourself pure (1 Timothy
5:22).
Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which
is in you through the laying on of my [Paul’s] hands (2
Timothy 1:6).
153. Q: Can we have a church without Bishops? A: Yes, but the
Church has always recognized bishops, presbyters, and
deacons as the desirable form of ministry. (You may add
this part of the answer: We also believe that God hears the
prayers of all who call upon him in faith. Therefore, Christian bodies without Bishops are still our brothers and sisters in Christ.) (See also Question 146.)
The full answer is the desirable one, but for the sake of brevity, you
may want to use the shorter form. The answer is Yes, we can have a
church without bishops, though the three-office view is the one from the
time of the Apostles to today. This answer does not “unchurch” those
who do not have bishops, which means that they are still Christians. In
other words, we should hold our convictions but be charitable to those
who have a different view.
154. Q: What is a presbyter? A: He is the minister chosen by the
Bishop and the people to be their local pastor.
Notice that both the bishop and the local parish choose a pastor.
155. Q: What are the duties of a presbyter? A: He preaches the
word of God, gives spiritual direction to his flock, and administers baptism and the Lord’s Supper. All this is done
under the direction of the Bishop.
Obviously there are four things here: (1) preach the word of God, (2)
give spiritual direction, (3) to administer (or for children, “do”) the two
sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. (4) All this is done under
the authority of the bishop, who is the head or chief or main pastor of
each parish in his diocese.
Occasionally someone not familiar with Episcopal church government will ask me if my bishop can tell me what to preach. My answer is
usually that not only can he tell me, but he can send me a sermon and
require me to preach it and tell me what day to preach it! This government is a great blessing as bishops watch out for our souls.
156. Q: What are the duties of a deacon? A: He is ordained to
serve and assist the Presbyter in his duties under the supervision of the Bishop.
In other words, a deacon must help the parish minister but under
the direction of the bishop, who can move the deacon to some other
work, if he needs to.
157. Q: What is the “priesthood of all believers”? A: Every
Christian is a priest who is to offer himself, his soul and
body, as a “living sacrifice” to God in praise and thanksgiving.
All Christians are priests. This is not just a New Testament doctrine
but also an Old Testament one:
And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the
children of Israel. (Exodus 19:6)
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).
To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in
His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to
His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. (Revelation 1:5b-6)
The answer states that we are to pray (for others), and to present
our souls and bodies to God, especially in the worship service, which is
in our liturgy of Holy Communion. Here is what we say after the Communion in the Prayer of Oblation in the 1662 service:
And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy,
and living sacrifice unto thee. . . .
Here are the excellent verses that this liturgy comes from and
should be required for all children (and adults!) to memorize:
¾ Verses to memorize: Romans 12:1-2:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And
do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what
is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
(Romans 12:1-2)
¾ Memory cue: We all pray and give to God our bodies and minds.
158. Q: What are the creeds? A: They are very old statements of
the teaching of the church. There are three creeds: The
Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian
Creed.
¾ Use this acronym: A girl’s name: A-N-A for Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian.
159. Q: What is the Apostles’ Creed? A: It is a very old statement of the Christian faith used at baptism.
160. Q: What is the Nicene Creed? A: It is an official statement
of belief adopted by the early church that is said before we
take Holy Communion.
The Nicene Creed is the most widely used creed and was written
over a period of time. It updates, as it were, the Apostles’ Creed, especially concerning the person of Christ. Since the deity of Christ had been
challenged, the Nicene Creed added some significant parts to the belief
about Him. Also, there were significant statements added about the Holy
Spirit. In other words, the Nicene Creed is thoroughly Trinitarian and
Incarnational. Indeed, the Creed is built around the Trinity. This Creed
was first issued at the Council of Nicea in AD 325, and then expanded
and re-issued at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. It was a creed
that was embraced by an ecumenical council and made binding on the
whole church. 4
161. Q: What is the Athanasian Creed ? A: It is an ancient and
the longest statement of the faith used by the Church in
making clear its true catholic beliefs.
The Athanasian Creed is too long to memorize, but it is a very great
creed! The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion claims it as one of the creeds
of Anglicanism. It is divided into two halves: the first half is about the
Holy Trinity, and the second half is about the Incarnation, the two great
and necessary doctrines of Christianity. Moreover, the Creed proclaims
that it is giving the sum of saving knowledge, and anyone who would
deny it, would be damned. It is well worth studying. I have attached it
and the other creeds to the end of this study.
162. Q: Do these creeds teach anything not supported in the Bible? A: No. The creeds are short summaries of the teaching
of the Bible.
4
For more information, see Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo, p. 9ff. Excellent work!
These three creeds are the minimum of what Christianity is all
about. These creeds, especially the Nicene Creed, give the basis for unity
of all the branches of Christ’s Church. Even those who proclaim “no
creed but Christ” will still basically believe what these creeds teach,
which is the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the deity and work of the
Holy Spirit, that there should be local churches, and the practice of baptism and Holy Communion.
163. Q: What are the Articles of Religion? A: They are 39 statements of belief and practice written by the bishops of the
Church of England at the time of the Reformation.
These 39 statements summarize English Reformation teaching. They
were designed to bring together the Reformation, though that was never
achieved, and (1) they were designed to be elaborations of the creeds,
and thus to confirm unity with the ancient church, (2) to refute Roman
Catholic extremes; and (3) to refute Anabaptists extremes. Thus they
were considered to be the Via Media, the middle way, as it were, between
the extremes of Rome and the Anabaptists while uniting the Reformation. (They accomplished the first two but did not unite the Reformation.)
At one time, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion were considered to
be the definitive standard for Anglican belief, but because of increasing
heresy, the Church of England and The Episcopal Church in the USA
have abandoned them as a standard and only refer to them as an interesting historical element of the past. But the REC and most of the Anglican world still consider the Articles binding. The REC has them in the
back of their BCP, and considers them part of the Constitution of the
REC.
164. Q: What is the Church of England? A: It is the ancient part
of Christ’s Church from which we have received our bishops, our history, and our manner of worship.
The really short version could be that we come from the CE, and it
goes back to the Apostles. We know that the British church goes back to
the 300s, but anything beyond that is difficult to establish. The English
Church maintained its distinction for many centuries, then was part of
the Roman Catholic Church, and then in the 1500s became itself again
under Henry VIII and Cranmer.
165. Q: What was the Reformation? A: In the 1500s, the Reformation Churches freed themselves from certain false teachings and superstitions to return to the Bible.
Generally the “official” date for the beginning of the Protestant Reformation is considered to be when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on
the door of the church in Wittenburg, October 31, 1517. It was not Luther’s desire to begin another denomination, but to debate other scholars
on points of doctrine that the Roman Catholic Church had developed
that were contrary to the Bible. But someone took those theses down,
translated them from the Latin (which few could read) into German, and
distributed them throughout the land. Thus was born what has come to
be called the Protestant Reformation, the reforming of the Church back
to what it had been at one time in its beliefs.
166. Q: Is “reformed” the opposite of “catholic”? A: No. The
Reformation (or Reformed) churches returned to the most
basic teachings of Holy Scripture as taught in the uncorrupted early church, making them catholic.
It was the desire of the Protestant Reformers to restore the Church
to its catholic or universal beliefs of the early Church, which means that
“Reformed” is a return to being catholic. Also, since “catholic” means
universal, the Church is not for any particular nation or culture but for
the whole world.
167. Q: Are the creeds and the 39 Articles more important than
the Bible? A: No, they must agree with the Bible.
You may want to add the rest of the answer for older kids: “Only
God’s word contains all things necessary for salvation. Its teaching is
final.” Though the creeds are deemed very important, it is necessary that
we consider the Bible to be the only infallible standard for faith and practice. Some have misunderstood the Reformation statement of “sola scriptura,” “by Scripture alone.” This does not mean just the Bible and me,
nor does it mean that the Bible is the sole authority, but it means that the
Bible is the final standard, the only infallible authority.
The Church has erred both in councils and in its teaching, but the
Bible does not, and cannot err. The 39 Articles states in Article VI:
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be
proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it
should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be
thought necessary to salvation.
The bottom line is that both the Creeds and the Church have great
authority and are a great help in our understanding of the Bible, but that
the Bible is our only infallible standard for salvation.
168. Q: What came first, the Bible or the Church? A: The
Church came first, and then the Bible was written by holy
men of God.
I’ve tried to change the answer slightly to make it clearer and
shorter.
For some who challenge the supremacy of the Bible, like the Roman
Catholic Church, the temporal priority of the Church means a logical
priority in authority to the Bible. In other words, the Church allegedly
determined the Bible, wrote it, determined which books would be in it,
and thus today should have the final authority over the Bible, or at least
an equal authority to it.
But many of the statements just made reveal logical and theological
fallacies. The Apostles wrote the New Testament, and the Apostles had
authority over the whole Church. The Apostles were over the Church for
a while, but they are gone. The way the New Testament books came to
be recognized was that the Church at large recognized the voice of the
Chief Shepherd (Jesus) in its writings, and thus submitted to the authority of those writings. It was the authority of the Chief Shepherd behind
those writings who was and is the supreme authority, not the Church.
Moreover, one fallacy assumed by the Roman Catholic Church is
that recognition of authority is deemed to be the bestowal of authority.
For example, one may recognize the authority of a policeman, but that
does not mean that he gave the policeman his authority. If so, then try it
next time you’re stopped for a ticket. Tell him that your authority is
prior, that you’re older than he is which means your authority is greater
or just as great, that you might or might not let him give you a ticket!
The Apostles wrote their books but the later Church recognized
their authority; they did not give the Apostles or the Chief Shepherd
their authority. Virtually no one in the early church claimed to be equal
to the Apostles in authority, and one criterion to decide if a New Testament book were inspired or not was whether it was penned either by an
Apostle or supervised by one.
And when one heretic by the name of Marcion tried to rewrite part
of the New Testament in the first half of the 100s, he was excommunicated from the Church by his own father, and his writings were not accepted since he had put his authority above the sacred writings. In other
words, the Church was both guarding and submitting to the text it had
received. The Church did not put its authority above the sacred writings
but under them.
Moreover, for someone to state that the Church must be equal in authority to the Bible because it came first in time is a logical fallacy, for the
assumption is that first in time means first in authority. Also, if one says
that the Church must be infallible to declare the New Testament infallible is another fallacy that “it takes one to know one.” Does this mean that
everyone who recognizes Jesus to be infallible is also infallible? Of course
not.
Paul rebuked Peter (Galatians 2:11), demonstrating Peter’s fallibility, and Peter recognized that Paul’s writings were Scripture without
bestowing original or divine authority on them. It was recognition:
Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be
diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and
blameless; 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our
Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,
16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these
things, in which are some things hard to understand,
which untaught and unstable people twist to their own
destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. (2
Peter 3:14-16)
14
Finally, some people want to attribute divine authority to the
Church (in the sense of infallibility in doctrine and canon) because people who constituted the Church came first and then wrote the New Testament books, but unless God dropped the Bible down from heaven, it
was not possible for it to happen otherwise. It was necessary to have
people who knew God before they could write the New Testament Scrip-
tures. Historical necessity does not constitute logical necessity, or we
could say that historical priority does not necessitate theological priority.
169. Q: Who decided which writings would become part of the
Bible? A: The Church, under the guidance of the bishops,
recognized those books that God inspired, and placed them
in the Bible.
Did the Church through its bishops decide which competing books
would be included in the New Testament? That all depends on what we
mean. The Church as a whole in its various locations, not just the bishops, did proclaim which books were canonical. But as the 39 Articles
states: “The Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ” (Article 20).
So the early Church was only a keeper and not an inventor of the New
Testament.
But the choice of the New Testament books was also not arbitrary so
that certain Church authorities allegedly wanted some books and not
others so they chose the ones that would help them keep their positions
and authority (as some claim). As the Apostles wrote their works, the
Church recognized the voice of their Chief Shepherd in them. There were
several things that presented themselves in those books that caused the
very early fathers to recognize their authority, such as (1) apostolic authority, (2) used by all, and (3) the books were according to the rule of
faith.
(1) By apostolic authority, they meant that New Testament books
had to be either written by an apostle or supervised by one. Thus Matthew was written by the Apostle Matthew, and Mark was written by
John Mark but supervised by Peter.
(2) Moreover, the New Testament books were in common use by the
churches throughout the known world, the unity of mind demonstrating
that the Holy Spirit was speaking in the work in question.
(3) Before there were any New Testament books, the Apostles
preached the Gospel, delivering to their converts a rule of faith, the principles of the Gospel. Thus they had a standard to discern which New
Testament books were genuine and which were not. Once the New Testament books were completed, the rule of faith was the New Testament
itself.
There is a very early statement defining the New Testament books
in a short work called the Muratorian Canon, dated in the 100s, that
gives virtually all the New Testament books we have today. This list was
compiled centuries before any “official” list was published. In other
words, no one had officially declared that these books were the canon,
no council had said these books were the ones. They were just recognized by the three criteria given above.
170. (What happened to Question 170? I talked to one of our
bishops who helped to produce this, and he said this was a
mistake in numbering; nothing is missing.)
171. Q: Does this mean that only the Bishops or the Church can
tell us what the Bible means? A: No. The Bible can and
should be read by all baptized Christians. But we recognize
the teaching ministry of bishops and presbyters as valid to
the life of the Church.
The short answer is: No, all Christians should read it but also listen
to God’s ordained men who teach it. There is a balance to understanding
the Bible. On the one hand, one very great principle taught us by the
Protestant reformers is that the Bible is for everyone. Thus William Tyndale translated the Bible into English, Luther translated it into German,
and the worship services were in the languages of the people instead of
Latin. On the other hand, Christ has called and given His men to serve
the people of God in the Church through teaching.
Even the Apostles could be held to the standard of teaching according to the Bible of their day, which was the Old Testament:
Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas
away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went
into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more fairminded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received
the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures
daily to find out whether these things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the
Greeks, prominent women as well as men. (Acts 17:1012)
10
Notice that lay people held Paul and Silas accountable for their
teaching of the Old Testament.
But Christ has given His men to His Church to build up people in
the most holy faith:
And He Himself [Christ] gave some to be apostles,
some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and
teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we
all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no
longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about
with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in
the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him
who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole
body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every
part does its share, causes growth of the body for the
edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)
11
In v 11, the Greek indicates that “pastors and teachers” are one office, and should be rendered “pastor-teachers.” And notice what they do:
equip “the saints for the work of the ministry.” Moreover, another purpose of these gifted men to the church is to guard it from heresy so that
Christians will not be “tossed to and fro and carried about with every
wind of doctrine” (see verse 14 above).
Thus accountability is back and forth, from pastor and bishop to
laypeople. This “circle” keeps everyone honest, and there is no one who
is a law unto himself.
172. Q: What authority did Jesus give to the Church after His
resurrection? A: To go into the world, gave them His Holy
Spirit with new life in Christ, and gave them authority over
the spiritual life of the Church.
This answer is a little confusing. It seems that it has already been
covered in other questions. I think that I would prefer this answer:
Christ gave them authority over the world and gave
them His Spirit to have authority over the spiritual life
of the Church.
This answer is based on John 20:21-23:
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had
said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any,
they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they
are retained.”
21
The Second Council of Constantinople AD 553 (paragraph 12) condemned Theodore for saying that when Jesus breathed on the disciples
they did not receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-23). Ambrose agreed in
Concerning Repentance (Ch 2, Para 8).
The answer is basically two things from John 20:21-23: (1) Christ
sent them into the world with His authority; (2) the Holy Spirit gave
them increased authority in the Church, which Ambrose interpreted as
authority as priests to forgive sins in Christ’s Name.
Some people get very upset when we say that priests have the authority to forgive sins. They think we mean that we can, on our own authority, arbitrarily forgive or withhold forgiveness, giving us power to
cast into hell. But that is not the point of the Lord. From other passages
we know that we forgive based on the Gospel and in the name of Christ,
who is the ultimate forgiver.
173. Q: Did Christ remain in the tomb after His crucifixion? A:
No. He rose bodily from His tomb on the third day after
His death.
The bodily resurrection of Christ is creedal, one of the bedrock beliefs of the Church, without which we are still in our sins (1 Corinthians
15:12-17).
We have to say “bodily” resurrection because the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that Christ rose from the dead as a spirit creature but not in
the same body in which He lived on earth. And it is very important that
we understand that Christ was truly human in every way except sin so
that He had a real human body and a rational human soul. The early
fathers used to say what Christ did not assume in His incarnation He did
not redeem. So if He did not have a human body like ours, our human
bodies are not redeemed. If He did not have a human soul and mind, our
souls and minds are not redeemed.
Look at it this way. When mankind fell into sin, both he and creation were then in bondage to sin and death. When Christ came to the
earth (incarnation), it was very important that He take our humanity,
fallen creation (but remain sinless) to have continuity with fallen mankind and fallen creation. Thus Christ’s humanity came from Mary; it was
not created special for Him outside her body. That’s why the Virgin Birth
is so important: Christ came through the Virgin Mary. In other words,
His humanity was not created from nothing (ex nihilo) so that He did not
have any identity with us, but it was created out of Mary (ex Maria). If
His humanity had been created completely apart from our humanity,
that would have meant He would have been a new human, unconnected
with the fallen race. We would then have had two parallel human races
as it were: Adam’s race that needed redemption and a new man that was
not connected with us. But His continuity with us is one thing that made
Him the ideal and perfect Savior.
We must not break the chain of creation, incarnation, resurrection,
and Ascension. Creation fell, thus Christ’s incarnation made an identity
with that creation. It was redeemed by Christ’s death on the Cross but
also by His bodily resurrection and Ascension. If we break the chain and
say that His bodily resurrection was a different body from that which He
had before His death, then fallen creation stayed in the tomb. Something
different came out. But we know from what the Lord said to Thomas
that it was the same body:
Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and
look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it
into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing”
(John 20:27).
Then we must have the same response as Thomas:
And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and
my God!” (John 20:28)
And of course Christ did arise on the third day, as He said He
would. But it is interesting that all four Gospels say that He rose on the
“first day of the week.” Anglicans are not Puritan Sabbatarians, but
Lord’s Day worshippers. The first day of the week, as the early fathers
constantly pointed out (See Jean Danielou, The Bible and the Liturgy), was
the beginning of a new creation week. Thus the Lord is redeeming a new
people and is restoring a new people to Himself. We are a new creation
(2 Corinthians 5:17).
174. Q: Where is Christ now? A: At the right hand of God, interceding for sinners.
“Right hand” is the place of favor. We always want to be on God’s
right, never on His left (Matthew 25:33)! Jesus is on God’s right hand.
It is important to realize that though Christ’s work on the Cross was
completed (John 19:30: “It is finished”), yet He continues to apply that
work to us as the High Priest who intercedes for us.
But what does it mean for Christ to intercede for us? It means that
He prays for us, but not like you and I pray for one another. We may
pray for another person to repent, that they may have forgiveness of
sins, but His prayer is based on Himself, on His work on the Cross, and
His status with the Father. Thus His merit is applied to us so that when
(not if: 1 John 1:8, 10) we sin, He keeps us saved. In other words, He is
like a lawyer in court who tells the judge that he has paid my fine, and
the judge lets me go.
We must understand that the Lord’s high priestly intercession was
like the Old Testament high priests in at least one way: the Old Testament priest would not dare enter the presence of God without the blood
of the lamb. It was on that basis alone that he interceded for Israel, confessing their sins, and found forgiveness from God.
In the same way, Jesus “reminds” the Father that He has shed His
own blood for us, and that therefore we should be let go, which means
that we will go to heaven when we die. (See Question 67 for passages on
this.) Consider this verse:
Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those
who come to God through Him, since He always lives to
make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25).
In other words, this verse says that Jesus keeps us saved by His intercession.
There is no other person in all the universe who could pray for us in
this way (1 Timothy 2:5), for He is God, and therefore God the Father
listens to Him, and He is man so He is like us also. Yet He is one person
so that as God-man He is our savior. As God He can save us for sure,
and as man He understands the problems we go through:
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted
as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
Finally, being at the Father’s right hand means that Jesus is alive
and that He is the victorious King over all the universe:
But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for
sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 from
that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. (Hebrews 10:12-13)
12
made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the
firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. 24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule
and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign till He
has put all enemies under His feet. (1 Corinthians 15:2225)
22
Jesus is Lord over everything!
175. Q: Will He come again? A: Yes. He will come again to
judge the world.
The Bible teaches that Jesus will come a second time to end the
world as we know it. At that time our bodies shall be raised from the
dead, and we will reign with Him forever and ever.
There are some today, called full preterists, who deny the Second
Coming as being in the future, but they say the Second Coming was in
AD 70 when Jerusalem was destroyed. That is a denial of the creeds and
is therefore formal heresy. The Second Coming is in the future. There
must be a consummation of history so Christ will be glorified in having
redeemed His people and in presenting to the Father a conquered world
(1 Corinthians 15:22-25 just cited above). Moreover, Satan cannot be allowed to be free forever and to cause harm. Sin has to be completely removed from the world, Satan judged and removed from the earth. Also,
everyone will have to be judged for their sins:
“Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which
all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come
forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of
life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of
condemnation.” (John 5:28-29)
28
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as
He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white
apparel, 11 who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you
stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was
taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like
manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:10-11)
10
176. Q: Can we know when Jesus will return? A: No. Jesus said
it is not for us to know. Only God the Father knows. We
should live each day as if Jesus were coming today.
Jesus clearly told us that no one knows the time of His Second Coming except the Father (Mark 13:32), which means we must be ready all
the time. (When Jesus said He did not know the time of His coming, He
was speaking as a man; as God He knows all things.)
It is like your parents saying they will pick you up and take you to
your favorite place, so be ready. You don’t know when they will come,
which means you must be ready all the time.
There are some today who think they can know when Jesus will
come so they write a lot of books predicting that He will return very
soon, perhaps in the next few years. They have predicted His return
many times in the last 150 years or so, and it is sad because it makes all
Christians look bad when they are inevitably wrong. Those who are not
Christians do not understand, so they think all Christians believe that we
can know the time of the end of the world.
177. Q: What happens to us at death? A: The body returns to
dust, and the soul lives forever.
There are two things that happen to us at death: (1) the body returns
to dust and (2) our souls live forever somewhere, either with Jesus or in
hell away from Jesus.
There is no such thing as what some call “soul sleep,” which means
that when people die they have no more consciousness until the resurrection. For Christians, when we die our souls go to be with Christ:
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent
from the body and to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).
For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 But if I
live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor;
yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 For I am hard
pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and
be with Christ, which is far better. 24 Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. (Philippians
1:21-24)
21
178. Q: Will the bodies of the dead be raised to life again? A:
Yes, “the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be
raised.”
There is a bodily resurrection for everyone, whether Christians or
not:
[Jesus said:] 28 “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is
coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His
voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to
the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to
the resurrection of condemnation.” (John 5:28-29)
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:52)
This general resurrection will happen when the Lord returns at the
end of the age. This puts finality to the world, brings in a new world
where only righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). Things cannot go on forever with the devil causing misery and sin throughout the world. The
Lord’s death promises an end to all this misery.
179. Q: What will become of the wicked in the day of judgment? A: They shall be cast into hell forever.
Hell is the final abode of those who do not believe in Jesus. It is becoming more and more popular to believe in annihilation, that people
who go to hell will not exist anymore.
But the Bible is very clear that such is not true and that those in hell
suffer forever:
And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but
the righteous into eternal life (Matthew 25:46).
And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and
ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship
the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark
of his name (Revelation 14:11).
180. Q: What is hell? A: A place where the wicked suffer forever. (See former Question.)
181. Q: What will happen to Christians? A: They will live forever with Christ.
Whether Christians will live forever in heaven or on earth is a minor
debate. All agree that heaven is at least the place where we go at death
now, but when the Lord returns, it seems that the earth will be our final
abode. Anyway, the important point is that Christians will live forever
with Christ, whether that is in heaven or on earth:
And have made us kings and priests to our God; and we
shall reign on the earth (Revelation 5:10).
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that
we who are alive and remain until the coming of the
Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the
trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the
air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17)
15
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth
(Matthew 5:5).
For the promise that he would be the heir of the world
was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but
through the righteousness of faith (Romans 4:13).
Where Christ abides is heaven, and we’ll be with Him forever!
182. Q: What is heaven? A: A glorious and happy place where
Christians worship and praise God forever.
Heaven is where Christ is, and wherever we live, we’ll have Christ
as our Lord and savior forever. We don’t know much about what God is
preparing for us, but it will more wonderful than anything we can imagine:
In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so,
would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for
you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
come again and will take you to myself, that where I am
you may be also. (John 14:2-3 ESV)
2
But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor
have entered into the heart of man the things which God
has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians
2:9)
THE CREEDS:
THE APOSTLES’S CREED: (must be memorized verbatim)
I believe in God
the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary:
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried:
He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead:
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty:
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost:
The holy Catholic Church;
The communion saints:
The forgiveness of sins:
The resurrection of the body:
And the life everlasting. Amen.
THE NICENE CREED: (must be memorized verbatim)
I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
And of all things visible and invisible:
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
The only-begotten Son of God;
Begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God,
Light of Light,
Very God of very God;
Begotten, not made,
Being of one substance with the Father,
By whom all things were made:
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from
heaven,
And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,
And was made man,
And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered and was buried,
And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures,
And ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of the Father.
And he shall come again with glory to judge both the
quick and the dead:
Whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost,
The Lord and Giver of life,
Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,
Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped
and glorified,
Who spake by the prophets.
And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.
And I look for the resurrection of the dead,
And the life of the world to come. Amen.
THE ATHANASIAN CREED:
1. WHOSOEVER will be saved, before all things it is necessary
that he hold the Catholic Faith:
2. Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled,
without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
3. And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in
Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
4. Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.
5. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and
another of the Holy Ghost.
6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost, is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.
7. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy
Ghost.
8. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Ghost
uncreated.
9. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and
the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.
10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.
11. And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.
12. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one Uncreated, and one Incomprehensible.
13. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the
Holy Ghost Almighty.
14. And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.
15. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is
God.
16. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
17. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy
Ghost is Lord.
18. And yet not three Lords, but one Lord.
19. For as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge
every Person by himself to be God and Lord;
20. So are we forbidden by the Catholic Faith to say there are three
Gods, or three Lords.
21. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.
22. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten.
23. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made,
nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
24. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three
Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
25. And in this Trinity none is before or after another; none is
greater or less than another.
26. But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together, and coequal.
27. So that in all things, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in
Unity is to be worshipped.
28. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
29. FURTHERMORE, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that
he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
30. For the true faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
31. God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the
worlds; and Man, of the substance of his Mother, born in the
world;
32. Perfect God, and Perfect Man: of a reasonable soul and human
flesh subsisting;
33. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to
the Father, as touching his Manhood.
34. Who although he is God and Man, yet he is not two, but one
Christ;
35. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God;
36. One altogether: not by confusion of substance, but by unity of
Person.
37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and
Man is one Christ;
38. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, and rose
again the third day from the dead.
39. He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the
Father, God Almighty; from whence he shall come to judge the
[living] and the dead.
40. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies,
and shall give account for their own works.
41. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting;
and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
42. This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believes faithfully, he cannot be saved.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it
was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without
end. AMEN.

Keeping Covenant and Catechizing Our Children (An Exposition of the Children’s Catechism)

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