Question 9: But does not God do man an injustice
                   by requiring in his law
                   what man cannot do?

Answer: No,
               for God so created man
                    that he was able to do it.
              But man, at the instigation of the devil,
                    in deliberate disobedience
                    robbed himself and all his descendants
                    of these gifts.

None of us can break iron with his hands. Anyone who demands this of us is doing us an injustice. Everyone can agree: that would be unfair. But God demands in his law what no man is able to do. Before, when man lived in paradise, he could do so. But now he cannot — it is an impossibility. Yet that is no reason for God to relax his demands. Does he not thereby do us an injustice? With this again far-reaching question, the blame for our guilt is sought not with us, but with God. The catechism wants to banish any suggestion in that direction.¹

Why God Demands So Much of Man⤒🔗

Incapable of doing anything good; inclined to all evil. There is absolutely no chance that such people can do what God requires of them, namely the same as Adam and Eve in paradise. The same law applied to them: the primal law.²

The only difference is that after the Fall, this law included all sorts of special commandments such as laws about idolatry, murder, adultery and stealing. This was not necessary in the beginning. It was not necessary to say to Adam in so many words that he should not serve other gods and so on. Such a thing did not occur to him. On the other hand, God gave Adam and Eve a very special commandment – the test of obedience – which no longer exists today. In the present world there is no longer a fruit tree from which no one is allowed to eat, purely because God forbids it.

The concrete interpretation of God’s commands was therefore different in paradise; and different again in the time of Moses when many new precepts were added; and different once again since Pentecost when the commandments about sacrifices and circumcision were lifted. But the core — what Jesus calls “the great commandment” — remained unchanged throughout all times: to love God with all one’s heart. That is the law we are talking about here.

The big difference with the early days in paradise is that God now demands “what man cannot do”. Is he doing us an injustice by doing this? That would be the case if this were the whole story. But it is only half the truth.

The other half — which is hidden in the Question — is that God created man in such a way that he was able to do it. He gave us everything we need to carry out his demands without problems and with joy. That we can no longer do it today is not because of God. It is our own fault. Therefore, he has every right to enforce his original, primal law unabated, even in spite of our inability.

So God does not do man an injustice when he maintains his demands. If that is not the case, then why is it so necessary for him to enforce his demands unabated? A creditor does no injustice to his debtor when he demands the last penny. But on the other hand, he could waive that right when his debtor cannot possibly pay. In that case such a creditor might wave his hand over his heart. That would even be to his credit.

What is God doing? He upholds his law. In doing so, he does not do us any wrong. For God has “created man in such a way that he was able to do this”. Does this only mean that he has a formal right to enforce his demands? In that case it is being determined in a cold and matter-of-fact way that our powerlessness is our problem and that God does not have to take any notice of it. But this is not how it is meant. God has indeed created man in such a way that he could do this. But what could and should man do? Love God! That is where the centre of gravity lies. God does not demand that we are still geniuses in math or able to name the animals, as Adam could. We do not have to be star performers and get an A⁺ in every possible subject. This is not demanded in any commandment.³

However, what God maintains unconditionally is his demand to love him and “to praise him forever”. That is why he made us the way he did: in his image, to know him, to love him and to praise him. That is and remains his great objective with all of creation. He never gives up on that goal. Otherwise he would deny himself. That is why he still insists that every human being knows, loves and praises him. That is why he does not only “do man any injustice,” but he is entirely just in upholding the primary commandment — the law of paradise.⁴

Deliberate Disobedience←⤒🔗

God does not have the slightest stake in our incapability to fulfill the law’s demand. So we are left on our own unless there is a third party involved. And there is. The catechism mentions the “instigation of the devil”. Paradise was not hermetically closed to him. He had free access. He also held much knowledge and power: he was able to address man in his own human language. He knew that the serpent was the shrewdest animal. Moreover, he was able to use this animal as his mouthpiece. Furthermore, he had knowledge of God’s agreements with Adam, so that he could cunningly capitalize on them. All in all, a formidable opponent.

The story is well known, as is the conclusion that is sometimes easily drawn from it: without the devil things would never have gone wrong in paradise. Who is able to prove that? And even apart from this, the Fall cannot be explained from the devil’s cunning tactics. The fact that man suddenly did sin remains an inexplicable act of folly.

We should not try to be wiser than God and pretend that it would have been better if he had allowed Adam and Eve to quietly have their way — without the possibility of sinning. He did not want a man who could not possibly break his law, but who did not want to. Therefore, he seriously put man to the test. He wanted to give him room to display an absolute trust in him. He gave them a magnificent paradise. Adam and Eve were allowed to revel in an intimate friendship with God. They enjoyed life. Thus they were rewarded for their love of God. This worked as a grandiose confirmation that they were doing the right thing in trusting and obeying him. Yet apparently God did not find their trust in him convincing enough in this way. Therefore, he gave them in a special way the opportunity to show how deep their trust was rooted. That was the reason why they were not allowed to eat from the fruit of the one tree.

This command, this test of obedience, contained what in itself appears to be an incomprehensible requirement. We know of no prohibition of God that demanded such blind obedience as this one. The motive for this command was none other than that God forbade it — the end of the argument. The tree looked promising and was freely accessible, not marked with red flickering warning signs. One could touch it and apparently reach its fruit with ease — healthy fruit that wouldn’t give a stomach-ache to anyone. That is how God gave man a wonderful opportunity to show how he fully trusted his Creator. This probationary commandment was proof of his perfect wisdom.⁵

No matter how much temptation arose from the serpent’s words, man was forced to come to a decision himself and to carry it out. The serpent did not pick the fruit for Eve or place it in her hands. She had to do that herself. Eve took and ate. In this respect, the temptation for Adam was slightly greater because he received the fruit directly from Eve: “she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate”.⁶ Both went intently against God’s prohibition: “in deliberate disobedience”.

It was no small thing that can be dismissed as simply a bite of a forbidden fruit.⁷Eve took the fruit and ate because she thought she would become wise as a result (Gen. 3:6). That is that she wanted to decide for herself — like God — what is good and what is evil.⁸ That is how it started. This is the original sin of “the man”: seeking to be a law to himself; desiring to be “autonomous”.

The catechism does mention the devil by name, but immediately cuts off any excuse as if man simply had become a victim. It was not a “force majeure”. Man robbed himself of all his gifts to be able to do God’s will. The devil did not do that. It happened through wilful rebellion. We can try our best to point out how cunningly the serpent acted, but that Eve and Adam succumbed — on account of their sinlessness — cannot be made plausible in any way. This break with God is a foolish absurdity committed by man(kind). Am I that man?

Who Is “Man”?←⤒🔗

QA 9 consistently speaks about “man” — up to three times. That sounds rather distant. Who is man? It varies. One time it speaks of “man...and all his descendants”. There we can think of Adam. His responsibility in the Fall is distinguished here from that of his posterity. But it is also said that man acted at the instigation of the devil. Then we think first of Eve, who was in conversation with the serpent. She went first; Adam followed. On the other hand, the question itself speaks in a more generic way of “man” to whom God’s law applies. Then we too are included. So it all gets mixed up a bit, which proves all the more how closely we are connected to Adam (and Eve). In any case, his “deliberate disobedience” is charged entirely to our own account. All have sinned.⁹ As a result our inability to do any good is our own fault.

All in all, there is no reason for God to drop the holy standard of his law. Indeed, he has every reason to maintain his claim on man(kind). No one can escape judgment by appealing to his impotence. But the questioning author of the catechism has as yet some other arrows in his arsenal.

Question 10: Will God allow such disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished?

Answer: Certainly not.
              He is terribly angry
                   with our original sin
                   as well as our actual sins.
              Therefore he will punish them
                   by a just judgment
                   both now and eternally,
                   as he has declared:
                        Cursed be everyone
                        who does not abide by all things
                        written in the Book of the Law, and do them (Gal. 3:10).

The cross-examiner goes to the extreme. He has to. His back is against the wall. God does us full justice when he demands perfect obedience from us. However, we prefer to decide matters on our own, and to be our own boss. That inevitably ends in severe condemnation. Unless God might allow such disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished...? Will God allow that to happen?

The question gives no motive as to why God would want that. In a short while we hear that he is indeed “also merciful”. In both cases, the idea is that the punishment cannot last forever — a notion that fits the image many people have of God today. They reason that it is inconceivable, for whatever reason, that sin is such a huge issue to him that punishment needs to last indefinitely.

The question comes down to this: will God — sooner or later — refrain from further punishment? Will everything — sooner or later — work itself out? Is that a real option? Here we encounter a recurring question that is relevant for the whole world.

God Is Terribly Angry←⤒🔗

The answer leaves nothing of the illusion that God would ever allow “such disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished”. Anything is possible with him — even complete acquittal. But it is always impossible that sin would go unpunished. That is why the question that is posed here evokes such a strong reaction. It is as if we hear the storm of God’s wrath mounting and intensifying. Leaving sin to go unpunished? “Certainly not, but God is terribly angry”. And what is immediately striking is this: he gets angry much sooner than we are. We only recognize sin when it is done consciously and expressed in bad thoughts, words and deeds, not before. That is why we do not consider anyone so innocent as a baby. We see nothing wrong in such a small child. No one gets angry about the sin of a baby. God does. He is already filled with anger at the sin that is “innate” to us. Not because he foresees what the later consequences will be. He already abhors the wrong disposition itself in newborn children. He is not only angry at the wrong that comes out later and that we do consciously, but also at the depravity that is in us from birth. That is what the Bible teaches us. We do not just do evil — as soon as we begin to come to our senses — but we are evil, from birth.

The letter to the Ephesians tells us that “by nature [we were] children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3). That is a devastating revelation. “By nature” means as we are such according to our disposition from the first moment of our existence. If nothing else happens, God’s wrath rests on us from that moment. Therefore, also for the smallest children God’s grace is as indispensable as it is for the elderly. We have no idea how deeply this innate sin awakens God’s wrath. “It is, therefore, so vile and abominable in the sight of God that it is sufficient to condemn the human race.¹⁰ According to the baptismal form, “we and our children were conceived and born in sin” and already for that reason God’s wrath rests on us and on our children. This is what the sprinkling of the water of baptism teaches us, even though this same sprinkling confirms to us the washing away of these sins through the blood of Christ.

Added to this are the “actual sins”. These are like the branches that grow from the root of our innate sin. Each person is responsible for what he does. Adults are not condemned only because of original sin. Christ will “repay each one for what he has done” (Rev. 22:12).

That does not alter the fact that in every sinful act God sees our total depravity. For him it is all one whole: in the wrong we do he sees how depraved we are right from the first second of our existence.

He is deeply disappointed in people from whom he asks for love, but does not receive it. He is not angered because people break the rules, but because they do not love him. His blazing wrath is the flipside of his burning love for man who had been created by him as “good”. That is why his wrath is so great.¹¹

Does God also resent the sins of those who belong to Christ? Or is that a thing of the past? Those who partake of the Holy Supper may confess that “they should have perished eternally” under his wrath.¹²

Should have... Thankfully, they no longer have to. Christ underwent God’s wrath for them. This does not mean, however, that he is no longer angry at the sins of Christians. It is not for nothing that Christ taught his followers to pray for forgiveness of their daily sins. Sin is sin. That is why the form says that every participant “deserves God’s wrath”. No one can escape it. The catechism shows this with a quotation from Scripture, “as he has declared”—and then follows God’s own curse for “everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law”. This affects everyone, whether he is a believer or not. God’s wrath on sin and the associated punishment and curse are a reality that every sinner needs to reckon with. And that applies also for the believer.
How?

“Cursed”←⤒🔗

The word is full of dark menace. Cursed is anyone who does not meticulously keep all that is written in the law. Yet this is not the core of Paul’s message in Galatians 3. Rather, he calls his readers not to expect it from the law. For that is what these Christians were doing. They relied on their good works, apart from Christ. This seriously upset Paul. He wrote to them with deep emotion; he called them foolish and asked who had bewitched them (Gal. 3:1). The law demanded what they could not accomplish by any stretch of the imagination. If they still went along with this law, their final verdict would be: cursed. With that shocking revelation, Paul seeks to immediately drive them back to the gospel of grace alone.

A little further on Paul uses the word “cursed” for a second time: “cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Gal. 3:13). This is in reference to Christ. He hung on the cross, in our place. In him we see what happens to people who do not keep God’s law perfectly. He bore the curse that the law had in store for us. Thus he “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Therefore, the law can no longer afflict us with its curse. And from that same cross, “the blessing of Abraham” comes to us (Gal. 3:14).

The point of Paul’s harsh words especially addressed to Christians is therefore: do not seek your refuge in the law, because then you are lost. Then you must obey it completely and utterly. You are not able to do that. There is a curse on it; also for Christians! They too still deserve God’s punishment. Let them therefore find their refuge in Jesus, because blessings are only with him. Nowhere does Scripture say that God’s punishments will cease automatically. It must mean a lot to us that someone who knew better than anyone the heavy burden of this punishment — Jesus — speaks of “eternal punishment”.

The questioner still does not give up. He still sees one possibility to escape eternal punishment. It bears witness to the pastoral wisdom of the catechism that precisely this question receives attention next.

Question 11: But is God not also merciful?

Answer: God is indeed merciful,
              but he is also just.
              His justice requires¹³
                   that sin committed
                   against the most high majesty of God
                   also be punished with the most severe,
                   that is, with everlasting,
                   punishment of body and soul.

The questioner is right. God is indeed merciful. Why does the answer not pick up on that a little more generously? Why continue so rigidly along the lines of his justice or his righteousness?

Merciful, Yet Also Just←⤒🔗

God has pronounced his “cursed” upon anyone who does not keep all that is written in his law. That is literally in the Bible. But the questioner knows the rest of the Bible also. God has equally said of himself that he is merciful.¹⁴ To be merciful means to have compassion. To whom? Who else but those people who are in bad shape and cannot handle the situation? We do not ask them for the full 100 percent. We meet them in their helplessness as much as possible. That is called mercy. This is, therefore, what we may expect from God. After all, he is also merciful, is he not? He is not frugal either. He is even “rich in mercy and compassion”.¹⁵ It is no wonder that the question appeals to this in this critical emergency situation. It is his third and last attempt in this Lord’s Day to somehow get away from under the heaviest penalty — i.e., without Christ.

Now let us have a look at the Answer. It sounds almost surly. It immediately admits that God is merciful, but does not elaborate on it. Instead, it immediately insists that God is “also just” and carries on about that aspect.

We should not think that the catechism does not know what to make of that word “merciful” and therefore remains silent about it. The problem is that although the questioner uses the word “merciful”, he understands it in quite a different way: “some kind of accommodating attitude so as not to make the punishment too difficult. He actually allows God’s justice to be overshadowed by his mercy. Because of his mercy, he is expected to take some distance from his stern law”.¹⁶

The catechism sees through this strategy. Hence its restraint: while God is indeed merciful, he is also just. He is the one just as perfectly as the other.¹⁷

“Just” is not another word for “stern”, but for “faithful”. God remains faithful to all the agreements he has made with man. He cannot be otherwise, because his law...that is he himself! In this he demands: love Me. Anyone who does not want to love the Lord hurts the supreme majesty in the depths of his heart. Then what is left for such a person? Only his wounded love. That is expressed in his wrath, in eternal punishment for body and soul. That is a frightening reality.

But surely God is merciful...? Yes, he is, completely. However, this is not at the expense of his justice, but because he gave us Christ.¹⁸

He is the way to God; his blood our ransom paid;
in him we face our Judge and Maker unafraid.
Before the throne absolved we stand;
His love has met the law’s demand.¹⁹