2008-02-13 - Heidelberg 6.3

Heidelberg Catechism Series, Part 14

Question 6.3: Did God create people so wicked and perverse?

Answer: No. God created them good and in his own image, that is in true righteousness and holiness, so that they might truly know God their creator, love him with all their heart, and live with him in eternal happiness for his praise and glory.

In this third and last look at question 6, I would like to walk briefly thought a passage of Scripture. In the first chapter of Isaiah, we have the Lord speaking of the rebellion of His people. He says some pointed things about the spiritual revolting of His people. We are all too careless in the deep and important spiritual things of this life. We strive for holiness, righteousness, purity, and godliness. We end up with carelessness, insensibility to the things of God, ungodliness, and vanity. The early part of Isaiah 1 talks of "sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted against Me," 1:2. This is us! God did not create us to revolt from Him. He created us to live unto Him. He created us to know eternal things, eternal happiness, yet how often do we settle for the crumbs of Earth?

Do you catch the ungratefulness that is brought out here? God was good to us. He continues to be loving to us. But the Lord says, "An ox knows its owner, and a donkey its master's manger, but Israel does not know, My people do not understand," 1:3. We have forgotten His mercies. We even go further, and to our shame, we make the blessings of God's gracious providence unto us, the assistants to our sins. We are rightly viewed as ungrateful to a good, patient, and bountiful God. The ox knows its owner, but Israel does not know. Let us take this lesson from verse 3 given above: If we were half as obedient to God as the beasts are to us, our sin would be greatly lessened. We don't even know and acknowledge God half as much as the stupid ass knows his crib. Does this shock you? Let us rather be shocked by our sin.

This is not the whole story, thankfully. God is longsuffering, While we are "weighed down with iniquity," and have "abandoned the Lord," 1:4, the Lord speaks to us, saying, "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow; thought they are red like crimson, they will be as wool," 1:18. This should astonish us. We were created good, we became wicked and perverse - and yet God offers forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Who has hope? Who knows the promise, "I will never leave thee or forsake thee?" It is the child of God. It is the one who has fled to Christ from the unholy fracas of the world. We can only know this love in Christ. Christ is where perfect, uncreated love meets with us who are imperfect created image bearers, and He makes us whole.

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

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