Paul told the saints at Ephesus to put on the “helmet of salvation.” This was to say, an assured faith in Jesus Christ is essential for the believer’s battle with this world. Hope that is grounded on the promises of God is the armor best-suited to protect the mind as we push onward, upward, against so many opposing ideas and temptations.
By his dying, Christ defanged and beheaded the serpent of death in all its forms. Through faith, physical death becomes a door into bliss; spiritual death gives way to new birth and indwelling of the Spirit of life; the sentence of eternal death is commuted and life everlasting granted. Life triumphs over death in Christ!
It is a telling paradox that God, who is omniscient, remembers sins less than we Christians do. He chooses to regard our faults, “white as snow,” “far as the east from west,” and “buried beneath the deepest ocean.” But we run red-faced through the world digging up the memory of our past errors.
Q&A #1 - My Only Comfort: Studying With the Heidelberg Catechism
This is the first in a series. I have decided to spend the next several months using the Heidelberg Catechism, a historic Reformed confession of Christian doctrine, as a study aid in my daily bible reading. If you are unfamiliar with the HC, I highly recommend reading at least this first question and answer, as well as Q&A 60, “How do you know you are righteous before God?” The answer is among the most beautiful summaries of justification by grace alone through faith in Christ alone, ever written.
Feel free to read along with my thoughts, which, while not profoundly written, will touch on the deepest and most consequential ideas that shape the life and destiny of mankind. Without further ado…
1. Q. “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”
A. “That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, wherefore by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him.”
Let our hearts admit, “I am poor and weak. Satan is too subtle, too cunning, too powerful; he watches constantly for advantages over my soul. The world presses in upon me with all sorts of pressures, pleas, and pretenses. My own corruption is violent, tumultuous, enticing, and entangling… Therefore, on God alone will I rely for my keeping. I will continually look to Him.
Good works are inseparably natural fruits of sincere faith in Christ alone. But where works are trusted in addition to Christ’s merit, which alone is the basis for salvation, Christ’s gospel is not believed at all. Faith-in-faithfulness is not the faith of God’s elect.
The joy of rest which follows hard work or pain affords a small glimpse into the analogy of what it means to rest freely in Christ. The sufficiency of His work is the bed upon which our faith reclines and is restored.
Apart from the cross, the means by which God secured for His people everlasting peace, there would be no knowledge of His unconditional love and no guarantee of our resurrection to everlasting life.
If we would be certain of our true participation in Christ, we must make ourselves familiar with the promises and means of grace, testing ourselves that we are in the faith not with mouths only but with our hearts. We should affirm Christ as our treasure, His glory our delight.
Growth in godliness is directly related to one’s faith in the prayerful phrase, “Our Father in heaven.” Those in Christ are most blessed to believe God loves them freely as a real, perfect father, and to recline in His limitless power to do all things, even to exceed our highest expectations.
