The Catechism

Question 40: What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?

Answer: The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, fellowship with Christ, joy in the Holy Spirit, increase of grace, the privilege of prayer, and perseverance therein to the end.

ScriptureRomans 5:1-514:17Proverbs 4:181 Peter 1:51 John 5:131 Corinthians 1:9John 15:7.


Question 41: What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?

Answer: At death the souls of believers are made perfect in holiness, and immediately pass into glory. Their bodies rest in their graves till the resurrection.

ScriptureHebrews 12:23Philippians 1:232 Corinthians 5:8Luke 23:431 Thessalonians 4:14Isaiah 57:2Job 19:26.


Question 42: What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the Resurrection?

Answer: At the resurrection, believers are raised up in glory; they shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the Day of Judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity.

ScripturePhilippians 3:20211 Corinthians 15:4243Matthew 10:32;  1 John 3:21 Thessalonians 4:17.


Question 43: What shall be done to the wicked at death?

Answer: The souls of the wicked shall at death, be cast into the torments of hell, and their bodies lie in their graves till the resurrection and judgment of the great day.

ScriptureLuke 16:22-4Daniel 12:2John 5:29Revelation 20:11- 15.


Question 44: What shall be done to the wicked at the Day of Judgment?

Answer: At the Day of Judgment, the bodies of the wicked, being raised out of their graves shall be sentenced, together with their souls, to unspeakable torments with the devil and his angels forever.

ScriptureDaniel 12:2John 5:28292 Thessalonians 1:9Matthew 25:41Revelation 20:14-15.


Question 45: What is the duty which God requires of man?

Answer: The duty which God requires of man is the obedience that comes from faith.

ScriptureGalatians 5:61 Thessalonians 1:32 Thessalonians 2:11;  Romans 1:516:2615:18.

Comment: See questions 16-18.


Question 46: What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience?

Answer: The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience was the moral law.

ScriptureRom. 2:14155:1314.


Question 47: Where is the obedience of faith given in summary form?

Answer: A summary form of the obedience of faith is given in the Ten Commandments.

ScriptureHebrews 3:18-194:2Exodus 34:28;  Deuteronomy 10:4Romans 9:32.


Question 48: What is the sum of the Ten Commandments?

Answer: The sum of the Ten Commandments is to love the Lord our God, with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

ScriptureMatthew 22:36-40Mark 12:28-33.


Question 49: What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?

Answer: The preface to the Ten Commandments is, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

ScriptureExodus 20:2.