Is God Kind or Stern? Reflections from the Heidelberg, Week 1

This week, we began a class on The Heidelberg Catechism that I’m calling ‘The Basics’.  In the class, I explained that the baby who learns the basics of walking will continue to use those basics as an adult for any number of tasks, whether walking across the street to give a neighbor a gift, or running into a burning fire to save someone.  In a similar way, Christians really must learn the ways of the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments so that they will think, feel, and live the Christian faith in all seasons.  Whether one’s faith is ‘on fire’, reaching out like flames into the world – this person, that person, connections, coincidences that AREN’T coincidences – or if one’s faith is dry – undernourished on account of anxieties, fears, or sins – these ways of thinking, feeling, and living provide us ancient and authoritative steps back into the story of God and his people.  We all need to be habitually re-oriented to this story.

One of my favorite questions from that first class was about a strange word I’d used to describe the Heidelberg Catechism: ‘kind.’  I was asked to talk about how the Heidelberg Catechism was ‘kind’ when Calvinism as a whole has a reputation of being ‘stern.’  What came to mind was that Calvinism – the tradition inspired by pastor/theologian/reformer John Calvin – conveys such a strong God that those who champion this God have little patience for any of the odd quirks of humanity.  I am a subscriber to Ken Myers’ Mars Hill Audio podcast and he recently interviewed James Bratt, the author of a biography of Abraham Kuyper, a Calvinist theologian, professor, journalist, and statesman from the Netherlands who lived in the 19th century.  In describing some of the influences of Kuyper’s young life, Bratt talked about a Calvinism which described a God of such strong sovereignty that there really wasn’t much emphasis on the way we know God through Christ.  Intriguingly, Bratt described the risks of adhering to a faith in a remote distant, stern Creator without much emphasis on Christ in that it gave way to the equally remote, distant, but kind, benevolent god of Unitarian Unversalism.  Both miss out on Christ.  Instead, the Heidelberg Catechism invites us into its lessons about God, people, and world by asking “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”  Its answer drives us primarily and exclusively to Christ: “That I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ…”  In Christ, God comes to give us comfort.  Properly understood, this is Calvin’s vision as well.  God is strong, sovereign, and holy.  But through Christ, we see that his judgment has been poured out at the cross.  Through Jesus’ sacrifice, we have been received anew into God’s house to know him and to gaze upon his beauty, and to live for him in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit and not by our own strength.  God's kindness in Christ shows us the true face of God without losing the serious business of God's holiness by allowing it to degenerate into a sort of humorless, stern frigidity.