HC 12

Q12. Since, according to God's righteous judgment we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, how can we escape this punishment and be again received into favour?

God demands that His justice be satisfied. Therefore full payment must be made either by ourselves or by another.

Proof texts

• Ex. 20:5 — [5] You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
• Ex. 23:7 — [7] Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked.
• Rom. 2:1-11 — [1] Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. [2] We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. [3] Do you suppose, O man — you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself — that you will escape the judgment of God? [4] Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? [5] But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. [6] He will render to each one according to his works: [7] to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; [8] but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. [9] There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, [10] but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. [11] For God shows no partiality.
• Isa. 53:11 — [11] Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
• Rom. 8:3-4 — [3] For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, [4] in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

For discussion

1. The Assembly cited Ex. 20:5 in support of this answer. Read it in context — how does it bear on what is claimed here?
2. 5 passages are cited here. Which does the most work, and is anything claimed that the proofs do not obviously carry?
3. WSC Q4 treats the same ground. What does it add, and why might it put things differently?
4. WSC Q5 treats the same ground. What does it add, and why might it put things differently?

Read alongside

WSC Q4 · WSC Q5 · WSC Q6 · WLC Q6 · WCF 2.1 · WCF 2.2 · WCF 2.3 · BC 2.1 · BC 2.2 · BC 2.3 · BC 2.4 · 1689 2.1 · 1689 2.2 · 1689 2.3