Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 105
Question 105
What are the sins forbidden in the first commandment?
The sins forbidden in the first commandment are, atheism, in denying or not having a God; Idolatry, in having or worshiping more gods than one, or any with or instead of the true God; the not having and avouching him for God, and our God; the omission or neglect of anything due to him, required in this commandment; ignorance, forgetfulness, misapprehensions, false opinions, unworthy and wicked thoughts of him; bold and curious searching into his secrets; all profaneness, hatred of God; self-love, self-seeking, and all other inordinate and immoderate setting of our mind, will, or affections upon other things, and taking them off from him in whole or in part; vain credulity, unbelief, heresy, misbelief, distrust, despair, incorrigibleness, and insensibleness under judgments, hardness of heart, pride, presumption, carnal security, tempting of God; using unlawful means, and trusting in lawful means; carnal delights and joys; corrupt, blind, and indiscreet zeal; lukewarmness, and deadness in the things of God; estranging ourselves, and apostatizing from God; praying, or giving any religious worship, to saints, angels, or any other creatures; all compacts and consulting with the devil, and hearkening to his suggestions; making men the lords of our faith and conscience; slighting and despising God and his commands; resisting and grieving of his Spirit, discontent and impatience at his dispensations, charging him foolishly for the evils he inflicts on us; and ascribing the praise of any good we either are, have, or can do, to fortune, idols, ourselves, or any other creature.
Scripture references for paragraph 1
Berean Standard Bible. Public domain text and source credits.
Psalms 14:11The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their acts are vile. There is no one who does good.
Ephesians 2:1212remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
Jeremiah 2:27-2827say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their backs to Me and not their faces, yet in the time of trouble they beg, ‘Rise up and save us!’
28But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them rise up in your time of trouble and save you if they can; for your gods are as numerous as your cities, O Judah.
1 Thessalonians 1:99For they themselves report what kind of welcome you gave us, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God
Psalms 81:1111But My people would not listen to Me, and Israel would not obey Me.
Isaiah 43:22-2422But you have not called on Me, O Jacob, because you have grown weary of Me, O Israel.
23You have not brought Me sheep for burnt offerings, nor honored Me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, nor wearied you with frankincense.
24You have not bought Me sweet cane with your silver, nor satisfied Me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened Me with your sins; you have wearied Me with your iniquities.
Jeremiah 4:2222“For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”
Hosea 4:11Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a case against the people of the land: “There is no truth, no loving devotion, and no knowledge of God in the land!
Hosea 4:66My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
Jeremiah 2:3232Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number.
Acts 17:2323For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you.
Acts 17:2929Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.
Isaiah 40:1818To whom will you liken God? To what image will you compare Him?
Psalms 50:2121You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought I was just like you. But now I rebuke you and accuse you to your face.
Deuteronomy 29:2929The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.
Titus 1:1616They profess to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.
Hebrews 12:1616See to it that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his birthright.
Romans 1:3030slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.
2 Timothy 3:22For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
Philippians 2:2121For all the others look after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.
1 John 2:15-1615Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world.
1 Samuel 2:2929Why then do you kick at My sacrifice and offering that I have prescribed for My dwelling place? You have honored your sons more than Me by fattening yourselves with the best of all the offerings of My people Israel.’
Colossians 3:22Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Colossians 3:55Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.
1 John 4:11Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Hebrews 3:1212See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God.
Galatians 5:2020idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions,
Titus 3:1010Reject a divisive man after a first and second admonition,
Acts 26:99So then, I too was convinced that I ought to do all I could to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
Psalms 78:2222because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.
Genesis 4:1313But Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.
Jeremiah 5:33O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.
Isaiah 42:2525So He poured out on them His furious anger and the fierceness of battle. It enveloped them in flames, but they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.
Romans 2:55But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
Jeremiah 13:1515Listen and give heed. Do not be arrogant, for the LORD has spoken.
Psalms 19:1313Keep Your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless and cleansed of great transgression.
Zephaniah 1:1212And at that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish the men settled in complacency, who say to themselves, ‘The LORD will do nothing, either good or bad.’
Matthew 4:77Jesus replied, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Romans 3:88Why not say, as some slanderously claim that we say, “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved!
Jeremiah 17:55This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes the flesh his strength and turns his heart from the LORD.
2 Timothy 3:44traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
Galatians 4:1717Those people are zealous for you, but not in a good way. Instead, they want to isolate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them.
John 16:22They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.
Romans 10:22For I testify about them that they are zealous for God, but not on the basis of knowledge.
Luke 9:54-5554When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do You want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?”
55But Jesus turned and rebuked them.
Revelation 3:1616So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to vomit you out of My mouth!
Revelation 3:11“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of the One who holds the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation for being alive, yet you are dead.
Ezekiel 14:55so that I may take hold of the hearts of the people of Israel. For because of their idols, they are all estranged from Me.’
Isaiah 1:4-54Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children of depravity! They have forsaken the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.
5Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.
Romans 1:2525They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.
Romans 10:13-1413for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14How then can they call on the One in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach?
Hosea 4:1212My people consult their wooden idols, and their divining rods inform them. For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray and they have played the harlot against their God.
Acts 10:25-2625As Peter was about to enter, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet to worship him.
26But Peter helped him up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
Revelation 19:1010So I fell at his feet to worship him. But he told me, “Do not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who rely on the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
Matthew 4:1010“Away from Me, Satan!” Jesus declared. “For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”
Colossians 2:1818Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you with speculation about what he has seen. Such a person is puffed up without basis by his unspiritual mind.
Leviticus 20:66Whoever turns to mediums or spiritists to prostitute himself with them, I will also set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.
1 Samuel 28:77Then Saul said to his servants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I can go and consult her.” “There is a medium at Endor,” his servants replied.
1 Samuel 28:1111“Whom shall I bring up for you?” the woman asked. “Bring up Samuel,” he replied.
1 Chronicles 10:13-1413So Saul died for his unfaithfulness to the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance,
14and he failed to inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.
Acts 5:33Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and withhold some of the proceeds from the land?
2 Corinthians 1:2424Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are fellow workers with you for your joy, because it is by faith that you stand firm.
Matthew 23:99And do not call anyone on earth your father, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.
Deuteronomy 32:1515But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked— becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
2 Samuel 12:99Why then have you despised the command of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You put Uriah the Hittite to the sword and took his wife as your own, for you have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites.
Proverbs 13:1313He who despises instruction will pay the penalty, but the one who respects a command will be rewarded.
Acts 7:5151You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.
Ephesians 4:3030And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Psalms 73:2-32But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped.
3For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Psalms 73:13-1513Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure; in innocence I have washed my hands.
14For I am afflicted all day long and punished every morning.
15If I had said, “I will speak this way,” then I would have betrayed Your children.
Psalms 73:2222I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before You.
Job 1:2222In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.
1 Samuel 6:7-97Now, therefore, prepare one new cart with two milk cows that have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up.
8Take the ark of the LORD, set it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending Him as a guilt offering. Then send the ark on its way,
9but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”
Daniel 5:2323Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.
Deuteronomy 8:1717You might say in your heart, “The power and strength of my hands have made this wealth for me.”
Daniel 4:3030the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great, which I myself have built by the might of my power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”
Habakkuk 1:1616Therefore he sacrifices to his dragnet and burns incense to his fishing net, for by these things his portion is sumptuous and his food is rich.
Source and edition
Westminster Larger Catechism. NonlinearFruit/Creeds.json, Unlicense. Creeds.json, English transcription
Unlicense. Source transcription.
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