Contents

The Heidelberg Catechism

Text: CRC/RCA 2011 · Read it at the source

Lord’s Day 1
- 1 What is your only comfort in life and in death?
- 2 What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?
Lord’s Day 2
- 3 How do you come to know your misery?
- 4 What does God’s law require of us?
- 5 Can you live up to all this perfectly?
Lord’s Day 3
- 6 Did God create people so wicked and perverse?
- 7 Then where does this corrupt human nature come from?
- 8 But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil?
Lord’s Day 4
- 9 But doesn’t God do us an injustice by requiring in his law what we are unable to do?
- 10 Does God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished?
- 11 But isn’t God also merciful?
Lord’s Day 5
- 12 According to God’s righteous judgment we deserve punishment both now and in eternity: how then can we escape this punishment and return to God’s favor?
- 13 Can we make this payment ourselves?
- 14 Can another creature—any at all— pay this debt for us?
- 15 What kind of mediator and deliverer should we look for then?
Lord’s Day 6
- 16 Why must the mediator be a true and righteous human?
- 17 Why must the mediator also be true God?
- 18 Then who is this mediator— true God and at the same time a true and righteous human?
- 19 How do you come to know this?
Lord’s Day 7
- 20 Are all people then saved through Christ just as they were lost through Adam?
- 21 What is true faith?
- 22 What then must a Christian believe?
- 23 What are these articles?
Lord’s Day 8
- 24 How are these articles divided?
- 25 Since there is only one divine being,1 why do you speak of three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
Lord’s Day 9
- 26 What do you believe when you say, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth”?
Lord’s Day 10
- 27 What do you understand by the providence of God?
- 28 How does the knowledge of God’s creation and providence help us?
Lord’s Day 11
- 29 Why is the Son of God called “Jesus,” meaning “savior”?
- 30 Do those who look for their salvation in saints, in themselves, or elsewhere really believe in the only savior Jesus?
Lord’s Day 12
- 31 Why is he called “Christ,” meaning “anointed”?
- 32 But why are you called a Christian?
Lord’s Day 13
- 33 Why is he called God’s “only begotten Son” when we also are God’s children?
- 34 Why do you call him “our Lord”?
Lord’s Day 14
- 35 What does it mean that he “was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary”?
- 36 How does the holy conception and birth of Christ benefit you?
Lord’s Day 15
- 37 What do you understand by the word “suffered”?
- 38 Why did he suffer “under Pontius Pilate” as judge?
- 39 Is it significant that he was “crucified” instead of dying some other way?
Lord’s Day 16
- 40 Why did Christ have to suffer death?
- 41 Why was he “buried”?
- 42 Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die?
- 43 What further benefit do we receive from Christ’s sacrifice and death on the cross?
- 44 Why does the creed add, “He descended to hell”?
Lord’s Day 17
- 45 How does Christ’s resurrection benefit us?
Lord’s Day 18
- 46 What do you mean by saying, “He ascended to heaven”?
- 47 But isn’t Christ with us until the end of the world as he promised us?1
- 48 If his humanity is not present wherever his divinity is, then aren’t the two natures of Christ separated from each other?
- 49 How does Christ’s ascension to heaven benefit us?
Lord’s Day 19
- 50 Why the next words: “and is seated at the right hand of God”?
- 51 How does this glory of Christ our head benefit us?
- 52 How does Christ’s return “to judge the living and the dead” comfort you?
Lord’s Day 20
- 53 What do you believe concerning “the Holy Spirit”?
Lord’s Day 21
- 54 What do you believe concerning “the holy catholic church”?
- 55 What do you understand by “the communion of saints”?
- 56 What do you believe concerning “the forgiveness of sins”?
Lord’s Day 22
- 57 How does “the resurrection of the body” comfort you?
- 58 How does the article concerning “life everlasting” comfort you?
Lord’s Day 23
- 59 What good does it do you, however, to believe all this?
- 60 How are you righteous before God?
- 61 Why do you say that through faith alone you are righteous?
Lord’s Day 24
- 62 Why can’t our good works be our righteousness before God, or at least a part of our righteousness?
- 63 How can our good works be said to merit nothing when God promises to reward them in this life and the next?1
- 64 But doesn’t this teaching make people indifferent and wicked?
Lord’s Day 25
- 65 It is through faith alone that we share in Christ and all his benefits: where then does that faith come from?
- 66 What are sacraments?
- 67 Are both the word and the sacraments then intended to focus our faith on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as the only ground of our salvation?
- 68 How many sacraments did Christ institute in the New Testament?
Lord’s Day 26
- 69 How does holy baptism remind and assure you that Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross benefits you personally?
- 70 What does it mean to be washed with Christ’s blood and Spirit?
- 71 Where does Christ promise that we are washed with his blood and Spirit as surely as we are washed with the water of baptism?
Lord’s Day 27
- 72 Does this outward washing with water itself wash away sins?
- 73 Why then does the Holy Spirit call baptism the water of rebirth and the washing away of sins?
- 74 Should infants also be baptized?
Lord’s Day 28
- 75 How does the holy supper remind and assure you that you share in Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross and in all his benefits?
- 76 What does it mean to eat the crucified body of Christ and to drink his poured-out blood?
- 77 Where does Christ promise to nourish and refresh believers with his body and blood as surely as they eat this broken bread and drink this cup?
Lord’s Day 29
- 78 Do the bread and wine become the real body and blood of Christ?
- 79 Why then does Christ call the bread his body and the cup his blood, or the new covenant in his blood, and Paul use the words, a sharing in Christ’s body and blood?
Lord’s Day 30
- 80 How does the Lord’s Supper differ from the Roman Catholic Mass?
- 81 Who should come to the Lord’s table?
- 82 Should those be admitted to the Lord’s Supper who show by what they profess and how they live that they are unbelieving and ungodly?
Lord’s Day 31
- 83 What are the keys of the kingdom?
- 84 How does preaching the holy gospel open and close the kingdom of heaven?
- 85 How is the kingdom of heaven closed and opened by Christian discipline?
Lord’s Day 32
- 86 Since we have been delivered from our misery by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why then should we do good works?
- 87 Can those be saved who do not turn to God from their ungrateful and unrepentant ways?
Lord’s Day 33
- 88 What is involved in genuine repentance or conversion?
- 89 What is the dying-away of the old self?
- 90 What is the rising-to-life of the new self?
- 91 What are good works?
Lord’s Day 34
- 92 What is God’s law?
- 93 How are these commandments divided?
- 94 What does the Lord require in the first commandment?
- 95 What is idolatry?
Lord’s Day 35
- 96 What is God’s will for us in the second commandment?
- 97 May we then not make any image at all?
- 98 But may not images be permitted in churches in place of books for the unlearned?
Lord’s Day 36
- 99 What is the aim of the third commandment?
- 100 Is blasphemy of God’s name by swearing and cursing really such serious sin that God is angry also with those who do not do all they can to help prevent and forbid it?
Lord’s Day 37
- 101 But may we swear an oath in God’s name if we do it reverently?
- 102 May we also swear by saints or other creatures?
Lord’s Day 38
- 103 What is God’s will for you in the fourth commandment?
Lord’s Day 39
- 104 What is God’s will for you in the fifth commandment?
Lord’s Day 40
- 105 What is God’s will for you in the sixth commandment?
- 106 Does this commandment refer only to murder?
- 107 Is it enough then that we do not murder our neighbor in any such way?
Lord’s Day 41
- 108 What does the seventh commandment teach us?
- 109 Does God, in this commandment, forbid only such scandalous sins as adultery?
Lord’s Day 42
- 110 What does God forbid in the eighth commandment?
- 111 What does God require of you in this commandment?
Lord’s Day 43
- 112 What is the aim of the ninth commandment?
Lord’s Day 44
- 113 What is the aim of the tenth commandment?
- 114 But can those converted to God obey these commandments perfectly?
- 115 Since no one in this life can obey the Ten Commandments perfectly, why does God want them preached so pointedly?
Lord’s Day 45
- 116 Why do Christians need to pray?
- 117 What is the kind of prayer that pleases God and that he listens to?
- 118 What did God command us to pray for?
- 119 What is this prayer?
Lord’s Day 46
- 120 Why did Christ command us to call God “our Father”?
- 121 Why the words “in heaven”?
Lord’s Day 47
- 122 What does the first petition mean?
Lord’s Day 48
- 123 What does the second petition mean?
Lord’s Day 49
- 124 What does the third petition mean?
Lord’s Day 50
- 125 What does the fourth petition mean?
Lord’s Day 51
- 126 What does the fifth petition mean?
Lord’s Day 52
- 127 What does the sixth petition mean?
- 128 What does your conclusion to this prayer mean?
- 129 What does that little word “Amen” express?