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Heidelberg Catechism, Question 12

Question 12

Since then, by the righteous judgment of God, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, is there no way by which we can escape that punishment, and be again received into favor?

God will have his justice satisfied (Deut. 27;26); and therefore we must make this full satisfaction, either by ourselves (Ezek. 18;4), or by another (2 Cor. 5;21).

Scripture references for paragraph 1

Berean Standard Bible. Public domain text and source credits.

Deuteronomy 27:26

26‘Cursed is he who does not put the words of this law into practice.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

Exodus 20:5

5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

Ezekiel 18:4

4Behold, every soul belongs to Me; both father and son are Mine. The soul who sins is the one who will die.

Matthew 5:26

26Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

2 Corinthians 5:21

21God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 8:3

3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh,

Romans 8:4

4so that the righteous standard of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Isaiah 1:27

27Zion will be redeemed with justice, her repentant ones with righteousness.

Source and edition

Heidelberg Catechism. RCA English, E. R. Good & Bro., Tiffin, 1879. RCA English, E. R. Good & Bro., Tiffin, 1879

Public Domain (historic text); CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikisource transcription). Source transcription.

Transcription licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0.

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