Our Misery: What the Heidelberg Catechism Teaches About Human Sin

The Heidelberg Catechism knows that comfort cannot be received cheaply. Before offering the remedy, it insists on an honest diagnosis. Lord’s Days 2–4 are titled ‘Our Misery’ and address three questions: How do we know our misery? What does the law require? Are we capable of keeping it?

The Law as Mirror

Q. 3 asks: 'From where do you know your misery?' Answer: 'Out of the law of God.' This reflects the Reformed doctrine of the law’s first use — as a mirror showing us our sin. We come to understand our need of a savior through the concrete demands of God’s law, which requires love of God and neighbor with the whole heart, and which we cannot keep.

By Nature Prone to Hate

Q. 5 asks whether we can keep the law perfectly. The answer is unflinching: 'No; for I am by nature prone to hate God and my neighbor.' We are not neutral beings who fail occasionally; we are beings whose natural inclination runs contrary to God’s commands. This is what the Reformed tradition means by total depravity.

Original Sin

Q. 7 traces this to its source: the fall and disobedience of Adam and Eve, 'whereby our nature became so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin.' Our problem is not environmental but constitutional — inherited from the first Adam, and remedied only by union with the second Adam, Jesus Christ. The brevity of Part One is itself a statement: the catechism diagnoses honestly and turns immediately to the remedy.