Lord’s Day 2
Q5. Can you keep all this perfectly?
No, by nature I am inclined to hate God and my neighbor.
Scripture Proofs — King James Version
Romans 3:10, 23
“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. … For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
1 John 1:8, 10
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. … If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
Genesis 6:5
“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Jeremiah 17:9
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Romans 7:23–24
“But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
Romans 8:7
“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
Ephesians 2:1–3
“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
Titus 3:3
“For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.”
Modernized Commentary — Zacharias Ursinus (1616)
In this section of the catechism dealing with human misery, we need to consider primarily the subject of sin, along with its effects and punishment. Several related topics connect to this discussion: the creation of humanity, the image of God in humanity, the fall and first sin, original sin, the freedom of the will, and afflictions. Regarding our misery, we must consider in general terms what it is, where it comes from, and how it can be known.
The word "misery" is broader in meaning than the word "sin," because it covers both the evil of guilt and the evil of punishment. The evil of guilt is sin in all its forms; the evil of punishment includes every kind of affliction, torment, and destruction of our rational nature, as well as subsequent sins that serve as punishment for earlier ones. David's census of the children of Israel, for example, was itself a sin, and at the same time a punishment for his earlier sins of adultery and murder, meaning it carried both the evil of guilt and the evil of punishment. Human misery, then, is the wretched condition we have lived in since the fall, consisting of two great evils: first, that human nature is corrupted, sinful, and cut off from God; and second, that because of this corruption, all people stand under the threat of eternal condemnation and deserve to be rejected by God.
We come to know this misery through the law of God, because "through the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom 3:20). The law declares, "Cursed is everyone who does not uphold all the words of this law by carrying them out" (Deut 27:26). The two questions that follow in the catechism show us how the law brings our misery to light. Question 4: What does the law of God require of us?