I. Olevianus’ A Firm Foundation (1567)
4. Q. Why is the redemption or reconciliation of humanity with God presented to us in the form of a covenant, indeed a covenant of grace?
A. God compares the means of our salvation to a covenant, indeed an eternal covenant, so that we might be certain and assured that a lasting, eternal peace and friendship between God and us has been made through the sacrifice of His Son. After a bitter quarrel, the disputants have peace of mind first and foremost when they commit and bind themselves to each other with a promise and sworn oath that on such-and-such a matter they want peace. God acts the same way toward us: in order that we might have rest and peace in our consciences, God was willing, out of His great goodness and grace, to bind Himself to us, His enemies, with His promise and His oath. He promised that He would have His only begotten Son become human and die for us, and that through the sacrifice of His Son He would establish a lasting reconciliation and eternal peace (Isaiah 54:8-10). He would be our God and bless us, that is, forgive our sins and impart to us the Holy Spirit and eternal life — and all this without any merit on our part. All we would have to do is accept the Son — promised and sent — by faith.
12. Q. What is faith?
A. Faith is not only a sure knowledge, by which I hold as true everything that God has revealed in His Word (for even the Evil One believes and trembles, as St. James says in chapter 2[:19]); it is also a heartfelt confidence that out of sheer grace, solely on the basis of Christ’s merit, forgiveness of sins, true righteousness, and eternal life are bestowed not only upon others but also me. Thus I can say from my heart with the apostle (Gal. 2[:20]): “Christ loved me and gave Himself for me,” i.e., He gave His body to suffer for my body, His soul for my soul.
15. Q. Give me some guidance as to what I should do to derive a firm confidence and sure comfort from the articles of faith.
A. First of all, for each and every article of faith think about God’s promise that if you believe it in your heart and confess it with your mouth [Rom. 10:9, 10], God promises and gives you what is stated in that article. For example, when you confess, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate,” you must not only remember the Passion story (for the Evil One knows it as well) but also believe that in this article God promises and assures you that He suffered for you and that it belongs to you as much as if you yourself had suffered. Or when you confess, “Was crucified” (namely, for me), God promises you that He had His Son suffer for you (as Paul says in Galatians 2[:20], “Who loved me and gave himself for me”) and that this, therefore, belongs to you no less than if you yourself had been nailed to the cross when Christ was, to pay for your sins. In sum, always remember that what is stated in each article is promised and given to you for salvation. That is why you also say, “I believe,” namely, that all this has happened also for my good and is promised and given by God to me as much as to the greatest of saints. In fact, you should be very certain that if you, poor sinner, had been all by yourself on the earth like a lone little sheep, nevertheless Christ would have left the ninety and nine already in heaven and come down to you from His heavenly glory to find you, put you on His back, and save you, as He Himself teaches in the gospel [Luke 15:3-7].
116. Q. What is the third benefit [from the ascension of Christ]?
A. Christ took the flesh and blood that He had assumed from us up into heaven as a guarantee of our ascension. He also sent down to us a further guarantee, which He received not from us but from the Father, namely, the Holy Spirit. This He did in order that the Spirit might live in our bodies and souls, be an indissoluble bond between our head in heaven and us, His members on earth, and assure us, like the money in a downpayment, of our eternal inheritance in heaven. John 14[:16]: “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.” John 16[:7]: “I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send him to you.” See also Acts 2; 2 Corinthians 1, 6; Ephesians 1; Romans 5, 8. The Holy Spirit assures believers of this so strongly that the holy apostle says in Ephesians 2[:6] that “God has made us to sit together in the heavenly paces with Christ,” as those who not only await heaven with a mere hope but already possess it in Christ our head. that is why by the power of the same Holy Spirit we should detach our hearts from these earthly things and “seek the things above, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand” (Col. 3[:1]; see also Phil. 3[:20, 21]).
121. Q. Now explain the meaning of this article, “From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.”
A. With my eyes turned to the heavens and my heart at peace in all distress, persecution, and rumors of war, I believe in and await the coming of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. I am fully confident that as He came the first time to earn our salvation, He will come again to impart to us the full fruit and enjoyment of that salvation He earned, in order that, as it is written, “having now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved from wrath by his life. For if when we were still enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Rom. 5[:9, 10]).
123. Q. But what do you need to do to really delight in the coming of Christ, as He bids us?
A. First, I must have a strong foundation for my faith. Second, I must exercise my faith with the fruits of a true faith. The foundation of faith, however, is not my merit — He gave himself for me. He stood trial in my place before God in the court of Judge Pontius Pilate, in order that I might never have to experience the judgment of damnation. He removed the whole of my curse from me and laid it upon Himself on the cross, a death cursed by God so that I might never hear the terrifying words, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the ever lasting fire” [Matt. 25:31]. Instead, I can be filled with the eternal blessing of the Father and be made an heir of the Kingdom of God, prepared for us not by ourselves, who were not yet born, but by Christ before the foundation of the world. This alone is my foundation, as also St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3[:11]: “No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” It is the body of Christ in which the whole of my curse was paid for and removed and in which the eternal blessing was obtained for and freely given me by grace through the Word of truth, the holy Gospel. Because I have this foundation and will look at the body of Christ with my own eyes, I have a love and a yearning for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. Second, being confident in my heart through faith that I am one of Christ’s blessed lambs, whom He “redeemed not with corruptible things, like gold or silver … but with his precious blood” [1 Pet. 1:18, 19], I shall be zealous to possess the marks with which Christ by His Holy Spirit normally identifies His lambs: the various exercises and fruits of faith … In the same way the bloodshed or suffering and death of Christ alone is the foundation and complete payment for us His lambs, as He Himself says in John 10[:15], “I lay down my life for my sheep” (Cf. 1 Pet. 1; 1 Cor. 6). There is no other payment either in heaven or on earth (Acts 10). “Therefore the inheritance is of faith so that it might be according to grace and that the promise might be sure” (as St. Paul says in Rom. 4[:16]). Otherwise we would always have to be doubting whether it would be fulfilled in us, if it rested on our merits. But after Christ bought His lambs at a great price, He also “branded” them with His Holy Spirit, who engenders their trust in Christ the Shepherd alone and motivates them to true thankfulness (2 Pet. 3:12-14; 1 Thess. 4:14, 17; 5:4-6, 8-10; Luke 12:37). By grace God also rewards our thankfulness, since we are already His children through Christ and He has graciously pardoned our sins. He is like a father who graciously and abundantly bestows gifts upon his child, the heir to all his property, even though the child’s obedience has not merited them and such great gifts are beyond comparison.
127. Q. What do you believe concerning the Holy Spirit?
A. That He, as well as the Father and the Son, is eternal God, who not only upholds all things but also enlightens, rules, and regenerates the elect unto eternal life. Second, I believe that He has been given to me personally (Matt. 28; 2 Cor. 1), so that, by true faith, he makes me share in Christ and all his blessings (Gal. 3; 1 Pet. 1; 1 Cor. 6), comforts me (Acts 9[:31]), and remains with me forever (John 14[:16]; 1 Pet. 4[:14]).
128 Q. Explain to me a little better the office of the Holy Spirit and thus the fruit that we reap from Him.
A. The office of the Holy Spirit and the benefit he applies to us is summarized in the titles or names that God’s Word ascribes to the Holy Spirit: First, the Scriptures call the third person of the Godhead the “Holy Spirit” because He both regenerates and sanctifies us (Rom. 9:11, 15). Second, He is called the “Spirit of adoption” (Rom. 8[:15-17]): “you did not receive a spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, dear Father’ … If we are then children, then we are also heirs — heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” Galatians 4[:6, 7]: “Because you are children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, dear Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a child, and if children, then heirs of God through Christ.” Third, he is called a “seal” and “deposit” of our inheritance, since He confirms in our hearts and assures us of the adoption of God and of all His promises (Eph. 1:13; 2 Cor. 1:22). For like a deposit He assures us that our inheritance, namely, eternal salvation, is being carefully preserved by the heavenly Father through Christ His Son (1 Pet. 1:4, 5, 9). He is also called “the firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8[:23]) because the comfort and peace of the Holy Spirit in our hearts in this life is like the first fruit of the full inheritance that we shall possess in the life hereafter. Fourth, he is called a “water,” because he benefits our souls in the way that water benefits our bodies. In John 4[:13, 14] Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “Whoever drinks of this water [namely, the water you are drawing] will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” And in John 7[:37-39] Jesus proclaims, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his body will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke [says the gospel writer] concerning the Spirit whom those believing in him would receive. See also Isaiah 35, 44; Ezekiel 36. Fifth, He is called a “fire,” because He kindles hearts with the genuine love of God and burns away and refines whatever is opposed to the Kingdom of God. Sixth, he is called the “anointing,” because he is dispensed by our Head and King, Christ Jesus, to sanctify us with Him as kings and priests to God Almighty. Finally, Christ often called him “the Comforter,” as in John 14[:26], 15[:26], and 16[:7], because He gives believers such counsel, comfort, and strength in every concern that in the midst of earthly affliction they may have peace and joy in their hearts. In sum, the Holy Spirit is that bond of union by which Christ abides in us and we in Him. As the branches incorporated into the vine receive their nourishment and life from the vine, so we are incorporated into Christ by the Holy Spirit so that we might have true fellowship with Him and receive eternal life from him (John 15:1).
131. Q. How do we know that we have the Holy Spirit?
A. From his effects. For just as you do not see the wind but feel its effects, the Holy Spirit too is known by His effects. The most important effects of the Holy Spirit in the children of God are the following: First, there is believing prayer, child-like confidence, and groanings to our heavenly father. Romans 8[:15] says, “You did not receive a spirit of bondage to fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, dear Father.'” Note also verses [26, 27]: “Likewise the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes mightily for us, with groaning which cannot be uttered. But he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is. For He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Second, the hatred of sin and love of righteousness, that is, the struggle against sin, is a sure indication that a person has the Holy Spirit. For flesh and blood has not revealed to us that we should resist sin, since its nature is to continue in sin. But God brings it about through his Holy Spirit, as St. Paul teaches in Romans 7[:5, 6]. Therefore, the struggle against the residual sin that afflicts us should not lead us to despondency but should give us reason for comfort in the face of this sin that brings us one heartache after another, for this struggle in us is a sure indication that we have the Holy Spirit. And if we have the Holy Spirit, we are members of Christ, whose perfect righteousness, obtained for us by His death, cloaks and covers in God’s sight the temptation and sins that we continue to struggle against. God neither sees nor remembers them anymore. But so that we continue this spiritual struggle with true faith, we are assured of victory, as the apostle Paul says, “The good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” [Rom. 7:19, 20]. And a few verses later [24, 25]: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” He then rounds out the comfort in Romans 8[:1]: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit,” that is, who in their lives resist the sins of the flesh through the Holy Spirit. Third, the effects of the Holy Spirit include the confession of Christ and His truth (so that Christ is glorified), thanksgiving, and hope in the help of the lord. these are clear indications that the Spirit of God lives in one’s heart. The holy apostle speaks of confession in Romans 10[:9, 10]: “If you confess Jesus with your moth, that he is the Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. for one who believes with the heart becomes righteous and one who confesses with the mouth becomes saved.” (For a true, saving faith, through which we have the Holy Spirit and are members of Christ, confesses Christ and is not ashamed of His truth.) He also teaches in 1 Corinthians 12[:3] that “no one can say that Jesus is Lord [that is, say from the heart that he regards Him as Lord in his heart] except by the Holy Spirit.” The Scriptures also teach that thanksgiving is a work of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 5[:18-21]. Finally, hope is the kind of work of the Holy Spirit from which each person can conclude that he is a child of God and of eternal salvation, and that he has the Spirit of adoption and deposit of salvation. This can be gathered from the beautiful promises found in various Psalms, such as “Blessed are all those who hope in him [Christ],” and in Romans 5[:1-5].
Q. 132. What do you believe when you confess, “I believe a holy catholic church”?
A. I believe that the Son of God, out of the entire human race, which is mired in sin and eternal death, gathers unto Himself from Adam to the end of the world a people chosen for eternal life by grace and not by merit, whom he through the preaching of the Word and power of the Holy Spirit here in this life regenerates from eternal death through faith in Him. As He Himself testifies in John 5[:25], “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear of the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” See also Ephesians 2. He also makes an eternal covenant with and betrothes Himself to this people as if they were a bride (Hos. 2; Isa. 54), that they might be His body in true faith through the testimony of the Holy gospel and covenant sign of Holy Baptism. He promises His church that He will remember her sins no more (Jer. 31[:34]) because He has given Himself for her, will sanctify her daily, until He finally presents her to Himself holy, pure, and spotless in body and soul, and she lives and reigns with Him forever. All of this he does out of grace, because He loved her and gave Himself for her (Eph. 5[:25]).
139. Q. Explain to me, then, the forgiveness of sins, which you possess in faith and confess with your mouth in this next article, “I believe the forgiveness of sins.”
A. I believe that all that is sin and is called sin, whether residual sin (like the corrupt, evil disease that continues to hold me in its grip, so that I never love God with all my heart or my neighbor as myself) or actual sins (like thoughts, words, and deeds that are contrary to God’s commandments) — I believe, I say, that all this, as tightly as it may still cling to me, has been freely remitted and pardoned and will remain so forever. This happens by grace through faith in God’s promise in the gospel, through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Indeed, it has been pardoned in such a manner that even all memory of both the transgressions and the punishment has been erased from God’s mind, as surely as if I had never sinned or had no more sin in me. Therefore, I trust God through Christ that now in this life I am saved, as the Holy Spirit said through David in Psalm 32:1, 2, “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin God does not count against him.”
141. Q. Since there is nothing more difficult to believe than the forgiveness of sins, give me some reasons or grounds on which to base (or establish) our belief that believers are certainly forgiven of their sins.
A. The reason and ground for our certainty of forgiveness of sins through Christ is the promise and oath of God, confirmed in actual fact in the death of Christ, as explained in the preceding articles about Christ. There is no condition that we have to keep the commandments; it is a free gift appropriated through faith or trust in the merit of Christ, without any merit of works. Faith must look directly at this voluntary promise and oath of God in Jesus Christ made for the sake of His merit (for in him all the promises of God have their “Yes” and “Amen” [2 Cor. 1:20]), as Hebrews 6[:17-20] says.
152. Q. What do you believe when you confess the last article, “I believe the life everlasting”?
A. I believe not only that there is a life everlasting but also that it is promised and freely given to me. As it has already now begun in me through faith in Christ, it will also be fully revealed in me: “This is the promise that he has promised us — eternal life” (1 John 2[:25]). I believe that eternal life is ours and has already begun in us through faith in the Son of God, in whom there is life from the beginning. And I believe that it will be fully revealed in us. All this is all borne out in the Word of God in 1 John 5[:9-13]; 3[:2] and John 5:24-25, 28.
156. Q. But how can it suffice for believers to know that their full salvation is not experienced in this life when they have not yet reached that goal, namely, life everlasting?
A. Whoever believes that everlasting life is prepared for him believes also (God has promised it to him!) that God will keep him constant in true faith until he is brought into life everlasting. Otherwise he could not truthfully say that he believes in life everlasting, that is, that it belongs to him. Scripture testifies to this in many places: 1 Peter 1[:3-5]: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation …”; 1 Peter 1[:23]: “you were born again, not of corruptible seed by incorruptible, through the word of the living God”; 1 John 10[:13]: God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it”; Philippians 2[:13]: “It is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure”; Romans 8[:35, 39]: “Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness? … No created thing shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”; John 10[:28-30]: “I give my sheep eternal life [says Christ], and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one”; and Philippians 4[:7]: “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
177. Q. What, then, is that other benefit that we receive from Christ?
A. It is the new birth or renewal of the Holy Spirit that Christ works in us through His good and Holy Spirit. In this new birth or renewal of heart there is a threefold effect of Christ to consider, from which we conclude that we are members of Christ through faith. The first effect of Christ in us is the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, who “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” whereby we can lay aside the bondage to fear and cry out, “Abba, dear Father,” as the apostle writes in Romans 8[:16, 15]. Likewise Galatians 4[:5]: “Because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, by which we cry out, ‘Abba, dear Father.'” The second effect of Christ in us whereby He regenerates us, is the putting-to-death of the old self, that is, the corrupt, sinful nature, so that we ourselves become enemies of that nature within, and so that by the grace of the Spirit of Christ it becomes progressively weaker until finally it is removed entirely. The third effect is the making-alive by the Spirit or coming-to-life of the new self, so that by the power of Christ working in us, our minds are inclined from now on to delight to walk in a new life. This threefold effect of Christ in us can be summed up in the word “regeneration” because one is thereby changed, renewed, and, as it were, created anew unto eternal life (Eph. 2). It is also called “sanctification,” “conversion of the heart,” and “renewal of the mind in the likeness of God” (Eph. 4[:23, 24]). Therefore, whoever experiences the beginnings of these three effects and wholeheartedly desires to continue in them should have an inner certainty that he has faith and thus also possesses Christ with all his benefits to the point of perfect righteousness and salvation. Whoever, then, is a believer is also elect, for the Scriptures testify that each and every true believer has been elected from eternity unto eternal life (1 Pet. 1:2; Rom. 8:28, 30; Eph. 1:11, 13). Therefore, when you are in the throes of despair about whether you are elect, you must not let your thoughts try to scale the heights of God’s decree. You must rather hold on to the Word, which promises that all believers have been elected by grace unto eternal life, and that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are believers. One can then use the three effects of Christ in us like stairs to reach the conclusion that since we have the effect of Christ in us (however weak it may seem to us) we also have the cause of that effect, namely, Christ through faith. And if we have faith, then we are also elect, for faith is given to none but God’s elect (Rom. 9).
Source: Caspar Olevianus, A Firm Foundation: An Aid to Interpreting the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. and ed. by Lyle D. Bierma (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994)
II. Others on Olevianus’ Doctrine
Lyle D. Bierma: “… we can see in A Firm Foundation already that the focus of Olevianus’s covenant theology is personal and practical. He appeals to the covenant of grace not primarily to explain the continuity of salvation history in the Old and New Testaments or to support the practice of paedobaptism but to provide the believer with assurance of salvation. Why is the reconciliation of humanity with God presented to us in the form of a covenant, he asks in Q. 4 of A Firm Foundation. In order that we might be ‘certain and assured’ (gewiss und versichert) that a permanent, eternal peace between God and us has been made. Just as two warring parties attain peace of mind only when they have bound themselves to each other in an oath of peace, so too god chose to bind himself to us with an oath and promise of reconciliation ‘so that we might have peace and quiet in our consciences …’ This peace of conscience is essentially an assurance of forgiveness based on God’s covenant promise that he would remember our sins no more (Jer. 31:34)” (A Firm Foundation: An Aid to Interpreting the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. and ed. Lyle D. Bierma [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994], p. xxix).
R. Scott Clark: “Further, he [i.e., Olevianus] argues, faith is something created in the elect through gospel preaching. Because faith is the work of the Holy Spirit, certainty is an ‘essential property’ of faith. It is confident in the promise of the gospel, which sees God’s eternally benevolent will toward the elect in Christ, that God will never be angry with us. Certainty belongs to faith because faith has as its object the promises, which cannot be separated from Christ. It is not the virtue of one’s faith which is efficacious, but that faith is the fit instrument to lay hold of the promises by a ‘certain testimony’ (indubitato testimonio). It is not, however, as though Olevian envisioned that Christians would have a perfect faith in this life. There remains in every believer a part of the soul which remains unregenerate, or not dominated by the ‘knowledge of God’ (cognitio Dei). In that portion of the soul, ‘terrors of the conscience’ (terrores conscientiae) will continue to afflict the faithful. Nevertheless, the believer ought to fight against such doubts and rest on the promise of God that he will never leave his people. For this reason, Christ has instituted the means of grace to strengthen the infirmity of our faith” (Caspar Olevian and the Substance of the Covenant: The Double Benefit of Christ [Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2005], p. 155).
