WLC 110

Q110. What are the reasons annexed to the second commandment, the more to enforce it?

The reasons annexed to the second commandment, the more to enforce it, contained in these words, For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments; are, besides God's sovereignty over us, and propriety in us, his fervent zeal for his own worship, and his revengeful indignation against all false worship, as being a spiritual whoredom; accounting the breakers of this commandment such as hate him, and threatening to punish them unto divers generations; and esteeming the observers of it such as love him and keep his commandments, and promising mercy to them unto many generations.

Proof texts

• Ex. 20:5-6 — [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, [6] but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
• Ps. 45:11 — [11] and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him.
• Rev. 20:3-4 — [3] and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. [4] Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
• Ex. 34:13-14 — [13] You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim [14] (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),
• 1 Cor. 10:20-22 — [20] No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. [21] You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. [22] Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
• Jer. 7:18-20 — [18] The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. [19] Is it I whom they provoke? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves, to their own shame? [20] Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.”
• Ezek. 16:26-27 — [26] You also played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. [27] Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior.
• Deut. 32:16-20 — [16] They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger. [17] They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. [18] You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth. [19] “The LORD saw it and spurned them, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. [20] And he said, ‘I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.
• Hos. 2:2-4 — [2] “Plead with your mother, plead — for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband — that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; [3] lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. [4] Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom.
• Deut. 5:29 — [29] Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!

For discussion

1. The Assembly cited Ex. 20:5-6 in support of this answer. Read it in context — how does it bear on what is claimed here?
2. 10 passages are cited here. Which does the most work, and is anything claimed that the proofs do not obviously carry?
3. WSC Q45 treats the same ground. What does it add, and why might it put things differently?
4. HC Q92 treats the same ground. What does it add, and why might it put things differently?

Read alongside

WSC Q45 · HC Q92