A Commentary on the Shorter Catechism (1883)

If an assembly of philosophers had been convened at Athens to compose a catechism of religion and morals for the youth of Greece, to a certainty it would have opened with the very question before us. For almost all the…

The student who would understand and appreciate the Shorter Catechism must at every turn attend to the construction and development of this orderly and elaborate work. The foundations of all religion, natural and…

The two first Questions in the Catechism are introductory to the body of the work, as has already been pointed out. And the whole superstructure is exhibited in outline in the present Answer: “what man is to believe…

The compilers of the Catechism have taken our Lord’s words to the woman of Samaria as the basis of their answer to the loftiest of all questions, and they have filled up the definition with an enumeration of the divine…

Having given us our Lord’s definition or description of what God is, and having supplemented that definition by gathering round it a cluster of His scriptural attributes, the Catechism proceeds to ask, God being such,…

Familiar to us as the doctrine of the Trinity is, yet it must never be forgotten what it cost the early Church to bring this fundamental truth out of the Scriptures and get it inserted in the Creed. There was an immense…

The decrees of God—A decree is a determination, an edict, a rule. It is an order from one having supreme authority, deciding what is to be done by a subordinate. “The word decree, or decrees, in the sense in which it is…

creation—The act of creating: especially the divine act of bringing all things beyond the Divine Nature into existence. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” “Chaos heard His voice: him all his…

God created man—As if to mark off and signalize the creation of man from that of all the other creatures, there is a striking change in the manner in which the sixth day’s work is recorded. Hitherto the Creator had…

providence—The word providence belongs to a large and well-known family of English words. The idea that lies under them all is that of foresight: foreseeing what is coming, and making due provision for it. The term…

Immediately after the definition of providence given in the eleventh Answer, there is an illustration supplied in the twelfth. “What special act of providence did God exercise?” and the Answer before us is the reply.…

being left to the freedom of their own will—It is a very mysterious thing that God should so “innovate upon His own eternity” as to summon into existence a race of creatures, and bestow upon them the perilous gift of…

Sin—Wickedness, iniquity, crime. Skeat follows Curtius in tracing the root to a Teutonic base, A.S. to be. “Language regards the guilty man as the man who it was.” Cf. Gen. iii. 12, 13; 2 Sam. xii. 7; Rom. vii. 9. “Sin…

the forbidden fruit. “There was no evil in the fruit itself. The evil of the matter lay in man’s eating it against the express command of God. God forbade it to be eaten, for the trial of man’s obedience. And the…

The covenant—See Answer 12. Adam—A Hebrew word signifying red, ground colour. But the generic term Adam becomes in the case of the first man a denominative. The name may possibly have been given to embody the history of…

sin and misery. Sin is both guilt and disease. Man’s depravity, therefore, is the object both of vengeance and compassion, as the Catechism proceeds to set forth.

This Question deals with some of the most profound and important matters in the whole range of revealed and experimental religion. And the Answer supplies a clear, careful, and every way admirable statement of Pauline,…

All mankind by their fall—On “The Fall,” see Answer 13. lost communion with God—Communion is only possible when there is community of mind, when the communing minds are animated by the same spirit. Now, though the…

With this question we enter on the region of Christology, the doctrine of Christ, or Soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, “the Immanuel’s Land of theology.” “We have already sailed over one sea, that of man’s…

The metaphor of purchase, ransom, redemption, runs through the whole of Scripture, and supplies to Scripture much of its most instructive and impressive language. So deeply, indeed, is this idea of redemption seated in…

Christ, the Son of God, became man—“It was not that, being man, He afterwards became God; but, being God, He afterwards became man” (Athanasius). “While it may be true to say ‘Man is God,’ as well as to say ‘God is…

The offices—Our English word office is derived from the Latin officium, and both in derivation and use it means any special trust, duty, or charge laid upon or taken up by one person to perform for another. The name is…

the office of a prophet—The title prophet fits in finely to the definition and description of an office given in the preceding Answer. For as an office is some place or function that some one occupies or performs for…

the office of a priest—Priest, Lat. Presbyter, an elder, an old man. “Salvation is of the Jews:” so much so, that the very vocabulary of our salvation was once the mother-tongue of God’s ancient people. Jewish words,…

the office of a king—See the amplification of this Answer in Larger Catechism, Answer 45. “The king-becoming graces\ Are justice, verity, temperance, stableness,\ Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,\ Devotion,…

Christ’s humiliation—Lat. humilis, near the ground. From same root also human and homage. This is a Scripture term as applied to our Lord (Acts viii. 33; Phil. ii. 8). And the successive steps of His humiliation are…

Christ’s exaltation—See Larger Catechism, Questions 51–56. his rising again from the dead on the third day—The conception of the resurrection of Christ is almost confined, in modern times, to the fact that “after three…

The student will be rewarded who keeps his eye on the structure of the Catechism. Note that as Question 20 introduced Christ and His redeeming work, so the Question now before us in like manner introduces the Holy…

The Spirit applieth—The word literally means to join or fold together, also to lay on, as of an emollient on a diseased or injured part. In the scriptural and doctrinal use of the word in the text, it describes that…

Effectual calling—Effectrix vocatio, Aug. Cruden gives a table setting forth fourteen different uses of this word in Scripture, beginning with the first and simplest use, “And God called the light Day” (Gen. i. 5). And…

effectually called—See Answer 31. in this life—See Answer 36. In this life, God, of His free grace and by His Holy Spirit, justifies, adopts, and sanctifies every soul He effectually calls (Rom. viii. 30). The attentive…

We owe the full and clear exhibition of the great Christian doctrine of justification, as we here possess it, to the labours of the Reformation divines. The Greek Fathers, after centuries of study and discussion,…

Adoption is an act whereby a man takes into his family one who was not originally a member of it, and gives him the standing and privileges of a son. “Neither is there only a natural, but also a voluntary and civil…

The word sanctification, with its cognates saint, sanctuary, and such like, occurs a great number of times, and in a great variety of senses, in the Holy Scriptures. The word, like the work it describes, grows from less…

The benefits—Compare Ps. ciii. 2–5. These benefits are first mentioned in Answer 32, and they are there connected with effectual calling. What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life?…

Questions 37 and 38 occupy the department of theology which is designated Eschatology, or the doctrine of the Last Things. The benefits that the effectually called partake of in this life having been set forth in…

At the resurrection—The resurrection of the dead is exclusively a doctrine of the word of God. It nowhere appears in the religions of paganism. That the soul should continue to live after death was the faith and hope of…

The duty which God requireth of man—Duty, what is due, what is owed as a debt: that which we ought to do. In seeing anything to be right, we see at the same time that it is our duty to do it. Duty is that act, or word,…

the moral law. Mos, a Latin word signifying manners or conduct, hence morals, morality. Philosophers sometimes call the conscience the moral sense, because it concerns itself with matters of conduct and character. The…

summarily comprehended—We have in the text and context first the moral law, then the summary of that law in the ten commandments, and then the ten commandments again summarized. Now where was the moral law published in…

The sum—The sum of a summary. (See Answer 41.) The pith and marrow of the moral law. to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind—The original of this answer is found in Deut. vi. This passage…

The preface—Lat. præfatio, something spoken before; the introduction to a book; something the author wishes the reader to know before he commences to read. The Gospel of Luke and the Revelation of John are both…

This is the first commandment, and it was of the first necessity at the time it was published. For the whole human family having fallen from the knowledge of God and from all communion with Him, and a God being…

The unity and sole supremacy of Jehovah is the subject of the first commandment, and in the same manner the spirituality of the Divine Nature is taught and guarded in the second. Locality, limitation, shape, and all…

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain—The first commandment teaches us that Jehovah is God alone: He has no equal and no rival. The second commandment goes on to instruct us that God is a spirit, and…

Remember the sabbath day—Sabbath is from the Hebrew Shabath, to rest, the day of rest, the Sabbath day. This name is the most ancient name of the day, and till New Testament times it was the only scriptural and…

From the beginning of the world—The opening of the book of Genesis contains the account of the appointment of the seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath, and though there is no direct reference to the keeping…

The sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting—The question of what constituted and what invaded and broke up this holy rest was a frequent cause of dispute between our Lord and the scribes and doctors of His day.…

forbiddeth . . . profaning the day by idleness—“Freedom from all occupation, both physical and mental and moral, is indolence, and thoughtlessness, and apathy, which cannot possibly produce that sanctification which is…

his challenging a special propriety in it—“And so a sin, which for the outward act is small, may in regard to the inward of it be a great one. As that act of the man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day, a small thing in…

Honour thy father and thy mother—All revealed religion reposes on the four first commandments of the Decalogue, and in like manner all our best domestic, social, and political life has its earliest, deepest, and most…

Thou shalt not kill. Were this all that the sixth commandment contains, it might surely be passed by without comment. It is not to be thought that any one who reads this page will ever imbrue his hands in his brother’s…

There are two principal and indeed essential relationships in every household and home of the human kind, in every house that is also a home. There is first the relationship of parent and child, and there is also the…

All questions connected with the sanctity and inviolability of human life are covered by the sixth commandment, and all dangers and duties that arise in connection with the preservation of personal purity are searched…

The Larger Catechism, in discussing this commandment, calls special attention to unseasonable speech or loquacity, tale-bearing, backbiting, detraction, aggravating small faults, discovering infirmities, impairing our…

A peculiar interest attaches to the tenth commandment, from the fact that it was the chief instrument employed by the Holy Ghost in the awakening and conversion of the Apostle Paul. In that priceless fragment of his…

No mere man—“That admirable discrimination, united with conciseness and perspicuity, which characterizes the whole of our Shorter Catechism, is strikingly visible in the Answer before us” (Dr. Ashbel Green). It would…

Some sins in themselves—“The Stoic philosophers, and some few of the less considerate Christians, have pretended that all sins are equal. Their reasons for it are not worth the mentioning; for the conceit is so…

Every sin deserveth—This Answer only casts into a form of words fitting its place in the development of catechetical doctrine what is the universal teaching of Scripture on the nature and heinousness of sin. James, the…

A new section of the Catechism commences with this Question. The last Answer has stopped every mouth, and made all the world guilty before God, much as the 19th Answer had shut up the human race to “God’s wrath and…

Faith in Jesus Christ—“Faith, belief, Lat. with English suffix -th. The suffix was added after the adoption of the word, in order to make it analogous with truth, ruth, wealth, health, and other similar words. Earlier…

Repentance—This word originally meant merely an afterthought, a second thought. Before it had any moral or religious sense attached to it, the word signified the sight we get of an action when we look at it after it is…

The outward and ordinary means—See Answer 85. The inward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption, faith and repentance, having already been discussed, we come now to the outward means, and…

The Spirit of God maketh the reading—“God’s own words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men, until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit therefore who spoke by the mouth of…

We must attend with diligence—Trench, in his seventh lecture on The Study of Words, as if he had had this very answer in his eye, says: “But ‘attentive’ and ‘assiduous’ are words which it is worth our while to realize…

effectual means of salvation—For effectual see Answer 31. What is a mean of salvation? A mean of salvation signifies any appointment of God, whereby He promotes and accomplishes His design of saving our souls; so the…

A sacrament—This is a theological and ecclesiastical and not a biblical word. The term sacrament is not found in Holy Scripture. In this respect it stands on the same footing as Trinity, incarnation, consubstantial, and…

The Church of Rome having departed from apostolic teaching and practice in regard to the sacraments, has added to Baptism and the Supper these five, namely, Confirmation, Penance, Ordination, Marriage, and Extreme…

Liddell and Scott in their Greek Lexicon give only the classical senses of the word baptism. The example, taken from Homer, is that of a smith tempering the red-hot steel by plunging it in water. The word was used of…

Baptism is not to be administered—This Answer consists of two parts,—the first part takes up the case of adults, and the second touches on the case of infants. That the teaching of the Catechism as to the admission of…

The Lord’s Supper—The second sacrament of the New Testament has several names given to it in Scripture according to the way it is looked at, and according to the feature in this ordinance that is specially pointed…

It is required—By Christ and by His Church. that they examine themselves—“Look and behold in quhat estate your hart is in with God, and in what estate your conscience is with your neighbour. Others can nocht try you so…

We come now to the subject of Prayer, the third and last of the three great Christian ordinances enumerated in Answer 88. As will be seen on examination, the structure of the Catechism takes a new departure with that…

The whole word of God—It is a most interesting and instructive study to trace how one psalm or prayer is incorporated with another, and how the matter and language of prayer thus grow as Scripture and the life of the…

The preface—The Lord’s Prayer consists of three parts: a preface, certain petitions, and a conclusion. And the preface is:— Our Father which art in heaven—“God lovingly inviteth us, in this little preface, truly to…

Hallowed be thy name—We have already had this word hallow before us in the Fourth Commandment. And it bears the same meaning when it is applied to the name of God as when it is attached to the day of God. In this…

Thy kingdom come—It is a common saying that experience is the best schoolmaster. And that proverb is proved true even in the present instance, where the scholars are inquiring disciples, and the schoolmaster is the…

Thy will be done—Connecting the previous Question with the present, Calvin says, “The most important part of God’s kingdom lies in His will being done.” Divines have drawn out the Scripture doctrine of the Divine Will…

The fourth petition—“It is known,” says Archbishop Leighton, “to be the ordinary course of skilful orators to place the meanest part of their speech in the middle; and in this let the ear of any understanding mind be…

Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors—“We have now done with the supplications of this prayer, and are come to the deprecations. The supplications are those petitions which we make to God for obtaining of that…

Lead us not into temptation—The familiar word temptation is used in two very different senses in Holy Scripture. For example, in the twenty-second chapter of the Book of Genesis we read that “God did tempt Abraham;” and…

For thine is the kingdom—The conjunction for grounds the whole prayer on the fact that the kingdom prayed for in the second petition is God’s kingdom, and the power put forth in it, and petitioned to be put forth in…