In the preface, Gordon says that he based this catechism upon the Heidelberg Catechism, which was approved in its final version in 1563 and was written by Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus (who were both in their twenties when they first wrote). While the Westminster Shorter Catechism is unrivaled for instructing in sound doctrine, the Heidelberg remains in use nearly five hundred years later largely because of its devotional warmth. We see this distinction in the opening questions of both catechisms. The Westminster begins with establishing the end or purpose (telos) for all of mankind. In other words, it begins with what we were created to do. The Heidelberg, however, begins with the only source of real and lasting comfort that can be found in this broken and sin-stained world. As we will see, Gordon’s use of the Heidelberg is most evident in these first two questions.

QUESTION 1

Whenever I first read the questions to my wife, I don’t think I even finished reading the answer to this first question before she asked me: “Why does a catechism on sexuality begin with identity?”

And that is a great and necessary question to answer right from the start. I answered Tiff that she likely thinks of identity in the much the same way that anyone would have throughout most of human history. My identity is who I am, and that is likely to be expressed through many external factors. I am the son or daughter of X and Y. I am the husband or wife of Z. I am the father or mother of my children. I am a citizen of… And the list goes on.

For the ancients, understanding one’s identity was crucial for being able to live out the virtue of piety, which meant doing one’s duty to whomever that duty was owed. For the Romans, Aeneas was the standard of such piety. Throughout the Aeneid, he repeatedly sets aside his own interests and happiness in order to do his duty to the gods, his country, and his family. The most famous example comes in book 2, where Aeneas escapes the burning of Troy while leading his son by the hand and carrying his elderly father on his back. That was an act of masculine piety, guiding the next generation while also shouldering the weight of the previous generation. Indeed, the Roman government saw the catechizing potential of that image, so they imprinted it upon their coins. Again, to live piously required understanding one’s identity or place within society so that you could properly fulfill your duty.

Yet you may have noticed that that notion is rather foreign to us today. Samuel James writes:

Over the past several years, Christian theologians and others have described the emerging generation of Western adults as belonging to the spirit of “expressive individualism.” The scholar Robert Bellah defines expressive individualism this way: “Expressive individualism holds that each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed in individuality is to be realized.” In other words, what most people in the modern, secular world believe is that the key to their happiness, fulfillment, and quest for meaning in life is to arrange things so that their inner desires and ambitions can be totally achieved. If these desires and ambitions align with those of the community or the religion, great! But if not, then it’s the community or the religion that must be changed or done away with. Life’s center of gravity, according to expressive individualism, is the self.

pp. 5-6

For our discussion, this means that most Americans today do not approach identity as a statement (this is who I am) but as a question: Who am I? This is crucial to understand because as Carl Trueman notes:

at the heart of the issues we face today is the phenomenon of expressive individualism. This is the modern creed whose mantras and liturgies set the terms for how we think about ourselves and our world today. It is the notion that every person is constituted by a set of inward feelings, desires, and emotions. The real “me” is that person who dwells inside my body, and thus I am most truly myself when I am able to act outwardly in accordance with those inner feelings. In an extreme form we see this in the transgender phenomenon, where physical, biological sex and psychological gender identity can stand in opposition to each other. I can therefore really be a woman if I think I am one, even if my body is that of a male. But expressive individualism is not restricted to questions of gender. When people identify themselves by their desires–sexual or otherwise–they are expressive individuals. And to some extent that implicates us all. The modern self is the expressive individual self.

That is no exaggeration on Trueman’s end. We are all, in some sense, expressive individualists. James opens up his book with David Foster Wallace’s fable about the fish. An older fish swims past two young fish and asks them how’s the water. As the older fish swims away, the young fish look at each other and ask, “What’s water?” The point of the fable is that it is incredibly difficult to notice what is all around us. Expressive individualism is the water that the modern West swims in, and failing to notice it does nothing to change the fact that we are still swimming in it. Even simple notions like being a cat or dog person or a morning or evening person give away that we are all expressive individualists to some degree, since the very notion that I can be defined by what I like or dislike is fundamentally modern.

Practically, this means we and virtually any person that we know has an ingrained propensity to look within ourselves for happiness, fulfillment, and meaning. And it makes sense right? Shouldn’t we know best how to best satisfy and comfort ourselves? Despite the reality that we live in most comfortable, wealthiest, and safest time in human history, the pandemic levels of anxiety and depression screams that something isn’t quite right. Indeed, for the first time in human history young people are more likely to kill themselves than be killed by almost anything else. The world has never been better, but in some ways, we have never been more broken.

The Heidelberg began by speaking comfort into a world filled with pain and death that were ever-present and inescapable, asking:

What is your only comfort in life and death?

That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who, with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; yes, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.

Gordon’s adapts that question and answer to answer the need of our own day. Why is it comforting that we have a new identity in Jesus Christ? The phrasing of the question shows that Gordon is making an appeal against the expressive individuals that we all are. We almost impulsively reject the notion that anything outside of ourselves could define our identity and that we would find that comforting. Yet the new identity that Jesus Christ imparted upon all whom He has redeemed is still the only true and lasting comfort, both in this life and even in death.

The answer contains four sentences. Because the first sentence must be understood in light of the second, it may be more helpful if the answer read: “Because God has redeemed my life with the precious blood of his Son and has also delivered me from the lie of Satan in the Garden, I am being remade into the image of Christ, to have a true identity–in body and soul, throughout the whole course of my life, to enjoy God and glorify him forever.”

It was Satan’s lie that first ushered in humanity’s identity crisis. Although we were made in God’s image, after His own likeness, Eve was tempted with the promise of becoming even more like Him, of becoming divine: “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil'” (Genesis 3:4-5). Don’t believe God; He’s just trying to keep you from becoming as powerful as Himself! That is the satanic lie that was uttered in the Garden and continues to echo in every human’s heart to this day. Our acceptance of that lie distorts and corrupts our imaging of God.

Being triune, God eternally loves, enjoys, and glories Himself as the supreme Good. The Father loves, enjoys, and glorifies the Son and the Spirit. The Son loves, enjoys, and glorifies the Father and the Spirit. And the Spirit loves, enjoys, and glorifies the Father and the Son. In an act of pure grace, God created us to share in His eternal joy in Himself. We, therefore, most image God whenever we love, enjoy, and glorify Him, in the same way that He loves, enjoys, and glorifies Himself. We least image God whenever we turn our love, enjoyment, and glory inward upon ourselves. And that is the default state of every human heart. Of course, the ancients were no better off just because expressive individualism hadn’t been introduced yet. They obviously felt it necessary to promote piety because we are not naturally pious. Furthermore, the pagan understanding of piety does not always align with true piety as revealed in and defined by Scripture.

We, therefore, need to be remade into the image of Christ, who is the only person to ever fully and perfectly image God (see Colossians 1:15 and Hebrews 1:3). Although every human still bears the remnants of the imago Dei, it is so corrupted by sin that we need a new and true identity in Christ, imago Christi. This new identity in Christ does not simply apply to our body or soul but to both. We are being wholistically remade into our Savior’s likeness throughout the whole course of our life, for the purpose of sharing in His eternal love by enjoying Him and glorifying Him forever.

The third sentence continues to show how our redemption through Christ and recreation into His image is comforting to us. He also watches over me in such a way that he might free me from all sexual impurity as the temple of his indwelling; in fact, all things must work together to remake me into the image of his Son. Clearly, the language of Romans 8:28 is being alluded to here: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” That verse is often used simply as a reminder of God’s providential hand over all our suffering in this life, which is wonderfully true! Yet it is also proclaiming much more. Notice how Paul continues his thought in verses 29-30:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

The good in verse 28 that God is providentially bringing to those whom He has called is ultimately being conformed to the image of His Son. Although we think of our good in terms of being safe, comfortable, and happy, God, who defines goodness in Himself, calls being made like Him good. Indeed, Hebrews 12:10 expresses the same reality as the catechism: “For [our earthly father] disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but [God] disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.” Our good is the sharing of His holiness.

This goodness is wholly unnatural to our sinful nature and can only be understood through the illumination of the Spirit within us. The world around us gives its over to unrestrained sin and calls itself free, not realizing that it is a slave to its sin. They cannot see how holiness could ever be freedom and how their sins could be chains. As Paul said in Ephesians 4:18, “they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” Sadly, “when someone is spiraling toward the darkness, the light doesn’t get any better as he goes.” Conformity to Christ can only be seen as the freedom that it is through the power of the Spirit to cause our blind eyes to see. Therefore, while we must boldly proclaim the comfort and hope that we have in Christ, we must also pray for those who hear to be given ears that they may truly hear and find this true comfort.

Indeed, as we look beyond ourselves to the Christ for our true identity, His indwelling Spirit also comforts us by assuring us of God’s steadfast love. And what could be more comforting than to have the assurance that the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth loves us as our Father! For the same Spirit that is conforming us to the image of Christ also “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:16-17).

QUESTION 2

The second question is also very similar to the second question of the Heidelberg Catechism:

How many things are necessary for you to know, that you in this comfort may live and die happily?

Three things. First, the greatness of my sin and misery. Second, how I am redeemed from all my sins and miseries. Third, how I am to be thankful to God for such redemption.

This simple question acts as a table of contents for how the remainder of the catechism is helping us to know our live and die happily in the comfort of Christ. Indeed, the rest of the catechism is divided into three sections: of man’s misery, of man’s redemption, and of thankfulness.

Gordon’s catechism follows that pattern by saying:

What must I know about human sexuality and my new identity in Christ?

Three things: first, how great my unholy desires and sexual sins are; second, how I am set free from bondage to my unholy desires and sexual sins; third, how I am to lead a thankful life of sexual purity in union with Christ.

Unfortunately, this question and answer does not quite achieve the same function as the original of the Heidelberg. This is for two reasons. First, it does not explicitly carry over the theme of living in God’s comfort from the first question. Second, it doesn’t give an accurate overview of the remainder of the catechism. Again, the original Heidelberg was divided into three sections, one for each of the three things listed in Question 2. However, in this catechism, there are four sections: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. The newly added section is Creation and rightly so, since much of the distortions of sexuality begin with rejecting God’s design for mankind in creation. Thus, I will not expound upon this question anymore here, since that is what the rest of the catechism does but will instead conclude with my own suggested revision of this question.

How many things must I know to happily live in the comfort of my new identity in Jesus Christ?

Four things: First, the goodness of God’s design for mankind, including human sexuality; second, how great my unholy desires and sexual sins are; third, how I am set free from bondage to my unholy desires and sexual sins; fourth, how I am to lead a thankful life of holiness and sexual purity in conformity to and union with Christ.