First Part: Man's Guilt
LORD’S DAY 4
9. Is God, then, not unjust by requiring in His law what man cannot perform?No, for God so created man that he could perform it;1 but man, through the instigation of the devil,2 by willful disobedience3 robbed himself and all his descendants of this power.
1 Gen 1:31; 2 Gen 3:13; Jn 8:44; 1 Tim 2:13-14; 3 Gen 3:6; 4 Rom 5:12, 18-19
10. Will God allow such disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished?
By no means; but He is terribly displeased with our original sin as well as our actual sins, and will punish them in just judgment both now and eternally,1 as he has declared: Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them (Deut. 27:26).
1 Ex 34:7; Ps 5:4-6, 7:10; Nah 1:2; Rom 1:18, 5:12; Eph 5:6; Heb 9:27
11. Is then God not merciful?
God is indeed merciful,1 but He is also just;2 therefore His justice requires that sin, committed against the most high majesty of God, also be punished with extreme, that is, with everlasting punishment both of body and soul.3
1 Ex 20:6, 34:6-7; Ps 103:8-9; 2 Ex 20:5, 34:7; Deut 7:9-11; Ps 5:4-6; Heb 10:30-31; 3 Mt 25:45-46
