Love the Lord Thy God

This eighth volume of Herman Hoeksema's exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism, Love the Lord Thy God, begins the discussion of the third part of this Reformed doctrinal standard. He begins by defining the third major division of the Catechism- our gratitude to God for our salvation.

In so doing he answers question 86, "Since then we are delivered from our misery merely of grace, through Christ, without any merit of ours, why must we still do good works?" He answers in terms of the truth of conversion as the mortification of the old man of sin and the quickening of the new man in Christ.

In explaining the quickening of the new man in Christ, he asserts that it means to live according to God's will in all good works. In harmony with question and answer 91, he gives the classic definition of good works: they proceed from a true faith and are performed according to the law of God and to his glory.

Having mentioned God's law as the standard of good works, Hoeksema in the remainder of this volume introduces the law as the rule of the Christian's gratitude. He goes on to explain the Catechism's treatment of the first four commandments, our relationship to God, which can be summarized as "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment" (Mark 12:30).