Tom Groelsema | The Only Hope for Guilty Sinners

Sunday Evening, February 1, 2026
Given by Tom Groelsema | Executive Senior, Christ Covenant Church

The Only Hope for Guilty Sinners; Heidelberg Catechism—Lord’s Day 4 and 5

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Transcript

Our reading tonight from God's word here in this evening service is Psalm 130. And then we're also going to be reading tonight together from the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Days 4 and 5. Since we had a weather cancellation last week, we're taking two Lord's Days to get back on track. But let me, first of all, read from Psalm 130, and then I'll read from these two Lord's Days. Hear God's word. Psalm 130. 

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word, I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning. More than watchmen for the morning. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”

And then these two Lord's Days from the Heidelberg Catechism, questions 9 through 15. 

Q: But doesn't God do man an injustice by requiring in his law what man is unable to do? 

A: No. For God created man with the ability to keep the law. Man, however, at the instigation of the devil, in willful disobedience, robbed himself and all his descendants of these gifts. 

Q: Will God permit such disobedience or rebellion to go unpunished? 

A: Certainly not, for he is terribly angry with the sin we are born with, as well as our actual sins. God will punish them by a just judgment, both now and in eternity, having declared cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law. 

Q: But isn't God also merciful? 

A: God is certainly merciful, but he is also just. His justice demands that sin committed against his supreme majesty be punished with supreme penalty, eternal punishment of body and soul. According to God's righteous judgment, we deserve punishment, both now and in eternity. 

Q: How, then, can we escape this punishment and return to God's favor? 

A: God requires that his justice be satisfied, and therefore the claims of this justice must be paid in full, either by ourselves or by another. 

Q: Can we make this payment ourselves? 

A: Certainly not, for actually we increase our debt every day. 

Q: Can another creature, any at all, pay this debt for us? 

A: No. To begin with, God will not punish any other creature for what a human is guilty of. Furthermore, no creature, nor mere creature, can bear the weight of God's eternal wrath against sin and deliver others from it. 

Q: What kind of mediator and deliverer should we look for, then? 

A: One who is a true and righteous man, yet more powerful than all creatures; that is, one who is also true God. 

Let's pray together. 

Father, we pray that as we turn to this part of your word and to the truths that the Heidelberg Catechism lays out, that you would speak to us, that you would help us to see our need for a deliverer and then show us who that deliverer is. And we pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

Well, dear people of God, a number of years ago, there was a TV series called ER. It was a TV drama about life in a hospital, maybe something like what we have today in the program Chicago Med. But there was an episode in that series called “Atonement.” And a scene from that episode showed an older patient who was dying of cancer talking with a hospital chaplain about forgiveness. The patient was involved in putting an innocent man to death and felt terrible guilt over his transgression. And so, the patient says to the chaplain, "God tried to stop me from killing an innocent man, and I ignored the sign. How can I even hope for forgiveness?” And the chaplain responds, “Sometimes it's easier to feel guilty than forgiven. Our guilt gives us a reason to go on. Maybe you need a new reason to live.” And the patient says, "I don't want to go on. Can't you see that I'm old? I have cancer. And the only thing that's holding me back is that I'm afraid. I am afraid of what comes next.” The chaplain says, 'Well, what do you think that is?” The patient says, “You tell me. Is atonement even possible? What does God want from me?” The chaplain responds, “It's up to each one of us to interpret what God wants.” “So, people can do anything?” the patient says, “They can rape, murder, steal, all in the name of God, and it's okay?” Chaplain says, "That's not what I'm saying." “Well, what are you saying? Because all I'm hearing is some New Age, ‘God is love,’ one-size-fits-all garbage.” The chaplain says, "I understand." And the patient at this point sits up and says, "You don't understand. I want a real chaplain who believes in a real God and a real hell. I need answers, and all your questions and uncertainty are only making things worse.” “I can tell you’re upset," the chaplain responds. And then the patient finally answers, "I need someone who will look me in the eye and tell me how to find forgiveness, because I am running out of time,” and the scene ends. 

Now, of course, we understand that this is a TV series. This is not a real encounter, but it communicates, doesn't it, some fundamental realities. I don't think the producers were believers – Christians – based upon how the rest of the TV series goes, but it tells us something. There is a real God and a real hell. We need a real atonement. We need real forgiveness to help us escape from real sin and real judgment. And friends, these are the things that Lord's Day 4 and 5 of the Heidelberg Catechism speak about, and this is what is at the heart of Psalm 130. The Heidelberg Catechism gives us a theological side. Lord's Day 4 and 5 transition us from the first part of the Heidelberg Catechism to the second part of the Heidelberg Catechism: Lord's Day 4 in that first section about sin; Lord's Day 5, the section about salvation. Lord's Day 4 speaks about God's justice. Lord's Day 5 speaks about the need and hope for atonement. And if the catechism is the theological side of these real issues of hell and judgment and atonement and the need for forgiveness, Psalm 130 is the personal, experiential side. We enter into the experience of the psalmist and hopefully our own experience. And both the catechism and Psalm 130 tell us this truth: that there is only one hope for guilty sinners. Three points to the message tonight: a cry, a crisis, and our comfort. All of these coming from Psalm 130. 

First of all, a cry. It's really obvious. The psalm begins with a plea. And the psalmist puts it this way in the very first verse: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” Out of the depths. In the Bible, the depths can be a place. Sometimes we find ourselves in a place called the depths, but more often in the Scriptures, the depths are an experience. It's the experience of being overwhelmed, terrified, frightened. It's a threat of being swallowed up by an enemy, a trial, a trouble. These are the depths, and here in Psalm 130, the experience is even more specific. The depths here are the depths of sin and guilt. What sin is the psalmist talking about? Well, we don't know. He doesn't give specifics to us, but it is left open so that all of us can enter in, all of us can experience and say I know what the psalmist is talking about. The depths here is a picture of standing guilty before God. Hear verses 1 and 2 again: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy.” The psalm writer cries out to God. He's pleading with God for forgiveness. He's asking God to be merciful, and he realizes that only God is able to do something about his guilt and sin. He has a desperate need, and what he's experiencing here is not just the feelings of guilt, but it is actual guilt. He's not just feeling guilty. The psalmist understands that he is guilty, and there's a huge difference in that. 

And so, he comes to God with an authentic confession. His sin is against God. But he understands and realizes that the only way out of his sin is to go to God. His sin is against God, but he has to go to God if there's going to be a way out of his sin. It shouldn't be hard for any of us who read this psalm to relate to what the psalm writer is saying. “Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord.” We experience our own sense of guilt. We understand that we are guilty. This psalm is our psalm, and the psalmist’s cry must be our cry. And, people of God, just in case we doubt it, this is what the Heidelberg Catechism has been driving at – has been driving home in the last couple of Lord's Days. To remind you of Lord's Day 3, it spoke about a radical sin. We have an inherited corruption and guilt because of our union with Adam. And our sin nature is so deep, as the catechism says, that we are unable to do any good. We are inclined toward all evil, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God. The way the Heidelberg Catechism is describing it is this: we don't have a cold; we have spiritual cancer. And it is terminal, and it is deadly. We stand before God, both guilty and condemned for our sin. And that's what Lord's Day 4, that we read this evening, speaks about. It's about the justice of God toward our sin. In fact, if you kind of follow the questions of Lord's Day 4, they're really questions that highlight an argument with God's justice. In other words, the catechism is impersonating sinful man – how we think about God's justice, how we try to find loopholes with the justice of God. 

And so, question 9 asks the question, if we are unable to do good, if we are indeed inclined toward all evil, isn't it unjust for God to demand something that we are not able to do? And the answer: no, for we were created with the ability to keep the law. That's how God made us, but we robbed ourselves of this gift. Question 10 goes on, well, couldn't God, then, just overlook our sin? Couldn't God just turn the other way? And the answer is no, because he is a just God. Justice is, I think all of us understand, is something that we have a problem with. All of us do, until someone, for example, runs into our car and doesn't want to pay. And then then we're ready to say, "I want justice." Or our teacher gives us a B and somebody else an A for doing the same work. And we say, "Hey, that's not fair. That's not just.” Well, the Bible declares God as a just and holy God. And he has said in his word, "Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things that are written in the law." And for God just to overlook sin, and even to deny or to go against what he has said, would make him unjust. And if he's unjust, he is not God. Well, Lord’s Day 4 brings up one more question trying to get out of the justice of God. Well, what about the mercy of God? Couldn't his mercy just override his justice? Couldn't it overpower it, so that we receive his mercy, and justice goes away? And the catechism points out that the mercy of God and the justice of God – they're not contradictory things. They're not opposed to each other. In fact, when we minimize God's justice, we do not exalt his mercy, we undermine his mercy. Mercy shines brightest when justice is real. And so, God is merciful, but he is also just, and his justice demands a supreme penalty. It requires hell, because sin is against his supreme majesty. And you see, you take all of this, and what else can you do but what the psalmist does? Cry out to God. 

So, first of all, there's a cry. Second, there's a crisis. And the cry turns into a crisis, I think in verse 3. After he voices his pleas for mercy, the psalm writer says, "If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” The psalm writer is brought to the end of his rope. Here in verse 3, the psalm writer's words are almost like the prophet Isaiah's words when God in his holiness comes and reveals himself to Isaiah in chapter 6, and all Isaiah is able to say is, "I am undone.” Guilty, hopeless, apart from a rescue, needing an escape. Lord, if you should mark our iniquities, there is no standing. Friends, you can see the crisis, really, just through the words that he uses there in verse 3. He uses the word “mark.” And it's interesting. It's an interesting word. It has the same root as the word “watchmen” in verse 6. A watchman sees. A watchman observes. A watchman is looking around and sort of, as it were, taking notes of what he sees around him. And so it is to mark iniquities. It's to record them. It's to observe them. It's to remember them. It's to keep a ledger of them. And the psalmist says, "Lord, if you were to keep a ledger of our sins, no one can stand before you. The record would wipe us out.” Calvin, in his commentary on this psalm, just puts it like this. He says, "All the children of Adam, from the first to the last, are lost and condemned should God require them to render up an account of their life." Friends, if we're to stand before God at the end of time and say, "God, look! Look what I've done. In your scales of justice, there” – maybe we'd say to God, “Well there's obviously a lot more good than bad,” but Calvin is saying if we should render up an account of our life, all of us are lost. We're condemned. The ledger of our life is condemning. There is an irreconcilable debt to be paid, and it cannot be ignored, and it will not be forgotten. It cannot be erased. It must be paid, one way or another. 

In Lord's Day 5, Kevin says in his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism that Lord's Day 5 – you see the Heidelberg Catechism's logic marching us in a straight line to Christ. The logic of the catechism is marching us in a straight line to Christ. What's interesting, though, about Lord's Day 5 is that it doesn't get to Jesus immediately. There is a straight line, but the catechism presents for us a number of dead ends that are meant to lead us to the only answer for our sin, and that is to Christ, but a number of dead ends first. Dead end number one comes in question 13. Alright, there is a debt to be paid. Well, maybe we can pay it. Maybe we are the answer. And friends, this is the path that mankind has tried since the beginning of time, to find some answer in ourselves to pay the debt. Call it self-atonement, call it works, call it self-help, but one effort after another to get ourselves right with God. Is that what Adam and Eve did, you remember? They've sinned. They've committed this transgression against God, and God comes to visit them, and they covered themselves with fig leaves. On the one hand, they're hiding from God and hiding their sin, but on the other hand, they're trying to cover it up – trying to, as it were, pay for it in some way. You might remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard, and the boss comes at the end of the day, and he's handing out wages to those that started early in the day and then those that came at the end of the day, and they all get paid the same. And those workers who started early in the day, they grumble, “Shouldn't we get paid more than others?” Shouldn't we get some kind of credit before the boss for the good works that we have done? We think about the rich young ruler, and he comes to Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus says, "Well, what about the commands?" And he says, "All these things I have done.” I've done what needs to be done to inherit eternal life. Or, you might think about the Apostle Paul. Paul says, "I will not boast, but if anyone has reason to boast, it is me. Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin.” 

You see one example after another, just in the Scriptures, of how so often we want to bring to God something to pay the debt, to contribute to our forgiveness. The reformer Martin Luther said, “Religion: it is the default of the human heart.” Where do our hearts default to? They default to religion, to doing something for God that would count toward atonement. Tim Keller puts it just a little different way than Luther, where he says so often we think this way, that I obey, and therefore I am accepted. I obey, and therefore I'm accepted, when actually the gospel turns it around. It says, "I'm accepted, and therefore I obey." We want to help pay the debt of our sin, and that's why the catechism asks that question. Can we make this payment ourselves? And of course, the answer is no. We cannot. We can't pay it. We are sinners. Sinners cannot save sinners. We cannot get rid of the debt. In fact, the more we try, just living our lives, we actually increase our debt every day. The longer we live, our debt is growing, because we sin daily against God. It's like the federal deficit, runaway debt. Maybe you've seen the debt clock, and the numbers are just spinning. Debt growing, growing, growing, growing. The catechism says that is what our life is like apart from God. Debt is growing and growing. It's runaway. 

Well, the catechism tries one other dead end. If we can't pay our debt ourselves, then maybe another creature can pay the debt for us. This is question 14. Maybe God would punish dogs for our sin. I don't think he would punish dogs. He might punish cats. But will he punish cats for our sin? Would God punish angels for our sin? Is there anything else that can take our place? Anyone else? Any other creature? And the catechism answers and says, "No, mankind has sinned. And so, it is mankind that must pay for sin.” God will not punish any other creature for our sin. The justice of God won't allow it. Beyond that, no other creature could bear the weight of God's wrath on our sins. You see what the catechism is doing for us? The catechism says the justice of God must be paid. Could it be paid this way? No. Could it be paid this way? No. Could it be paid that way? No. No. No. No. It's slamming one door shut after another. Because as Kevin said, what it wants to do is to make a straight line for us to Christ, that only Jesus can pay what we – neither we nor any other creature could pay. I remember reading a story that illustrates the desperation that every single one of us feels to have our sins be atoned for and to find forgiveness with God. The story was about an angry, young 18-year-old Hindu who lived in the south of India, and he cornered two dogs, clubbed them mercilessly, stoned them to death, hung their carcasses from a tree. And shortly after that, the boy began to lose the feeling in his legs and hands. And then one of his ears went deaf, and he began to suffer unspeakable pain, and he was sure the reason for his suffering – certain that he was under a curse from the gods for the brutal crime that he had committed against these two dogs. And finally, after 15 years of pain, he made his way to an astrologer for advice. And this was her wisdom: that he must marry a dog in a full Hindu ceremony. And so, his family found a stray dog, dressed her up, had a wedding. The young man committed himself to care for the animal until its death, all in hopes of making atonement for his sin. We might say, as we hear that story, how silly. It's crazy. But friends, not any sillier than thinking that we, in some other way, can atone for the sins that we have committed or satisfy the justice of God. Instead, we ought to cry out with Paul. Romans 7:24, "Wretched man that I am, who can deliver me from this body of death?” I need someone to deliver me. Who can do it? Or, again, as the psalm writer put it, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” This is our crisis, that we need someone to pay. We need a way of escape. 

And friends, all of this leads us, then, finally, to our comfort and to the answer. The answer is God. Psalm 130, again, verses 3 and 4: “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” We know the answer. “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” What a precious word that word “but” is – it's a gospel but. So often it's an excuse word, isn't it? When we use it, I did this, but– or I'm sorry, but–, but it is a grace word when God uses it. It is a glorious word. If you, Lord, marked our iniquities, I am undone. I am destroyed. I am condemned. Who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness. And the psalmist was certain of it. The way he expresses it, verse 5, “I wait for you, Lord, and in your word, I put my hope.” My hope is in you, God. My hope is in your word. My hope is in the promises of your grace. And he describes his hope here as waiting, as a watchman waits for the morning. More than watchmen wait for the morning, my soul waits for the Lord. Watchmen – they are not passive waiters. They don't wait passively. They're waiting with hope. I remember being a watchman during my seminary days, working at a retirement home, and I was working the night shift. So, starting at 11:00 at night, working to 7:00 in the morning in the midst of the darkness in the night. And I can tell you, when I was working on that job, I was always looking. I would look at the horizon. As we got closer and closer to morning, I'd keep looking out the windows, looking at the horizon, waiting for the first glimmer of light to come, anticipating it. I couldn't wait for it to come. And I knew it would come. No question about it. It'll be so good when morning came, because when morning came, the night would be over, and the darkness would flee. Wanted to be in the light, waiting in hope, anticipating, expecting it to come, and this is how the psalmist looked to the Lord. He says, "I put my hope in God.” I am like the watchmen in the night, even more than the watchmen in the night, looking for the morning of God's grace, looking for the dark night of sin to vanish, looking for sins to be paid for and forgiven and to be gone. He found all of this, as he says, in the Lord. 

Exodus 34 has a wonderful description of the Lord. The Lord is passing by Moses after Moses had made two new tablets. Remember, he had smashed the first tablets with the commands on them. And when God passes by, Moses is saying, you know, what is this going to mean when God passes by? Is he going to come in judgment? Will God come in mercy? And the Lord graciously reveals himself and his nature. It's one of the most fantastic descriptions that we have of God. The Lord says this to Moses: "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.” If God passes by, is it judgment? Is it mercy? Is God a God of justice? Is God a God of grace? And when God reveals himself to Moses, it's not mercy or justice. But God says, "I am a God of mercy and justice.” Friends, the reality is this, that his mercy comes only because God is just. 

Where is it that we find these two things most clearly coming together? Where is the place where God's justice and God's mercy kiss? And the answer is at the cross of Christ. Remind you that Psalm 130 is a psalm of ascent. It's in that cluster, in that grouping, of psalms that God's people sang as they were making their way to the temple in Jerusalem, the three annual feasts. And so, they sang, like, Psalm 121 – their confidence in our keeping God. They sang 122, the joy of worship; 127, the blessing of children, the need for the Lord to build our house. And then they come to 130, confession, because that's part of the journey, too, isn't it? That's part of the journey to meet God. That's part of living life is confessing our sins to God. Well, what was it that allowed the pilgrim to so freely confess and to cry out to God for mercy? Well, he was going to the temple, the place where God was worshiped, the place where blood was shed, the place where atonement was made. He was coming to a God of justice and also a God of mercy. Justice seen in the shedding of blood. Goats and bulls and animals – and mercy sprinkled on the sinner with that blood. Of course, that pilgrimage is a shadow. And those sacrifices were just a shadow of the Passover Lamb who would come, who had come to take away the sins of the world through the shedding of his own blood. Friends, Jesus is the singer of this psalm, because all that the psalm describes, Jesus could sing it. He sang out of the depths. Out of the depths, he cried – not the depths of his own sin and guilt. There was none of that. But out of the depths of our sin, because he who knew no sin became sin in order that we might become the righteousness of God. It was there at the cross, as the weight of our sins rested upon him, that he cried. He pled with God, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" as the curse of our sin bore down upon Christ. You see, Jesus is the answer for guilty sinners. Jesus is the answer when we ask that question, “O Lord, should you mark iniquities, who could stand?” But with you, there's forgiveness. Why? Because of Christ. And friends, he is actually the only answer. He is the only one who can deliver. 

We'll say much more about this in Lord's Day 6 next week. But only Jesus, because he is man, can be our substitute. Only Jesus, because he is a perfectly righteous man, can fulfill God's law and deliver us. And only Jesus, because he is the God-man, is able to go through hell for our sin and bear the curse to set us free. And tonight, with the story of John Newton – of course, we won’t tell the whole story, but you remember John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, he was a vile and vulgar man. In his own self-description, he says, "I was profane.” He was a slave trader and rescued by the grace of God and turned preacher. Well, the first sermon that Newton preached after his ordination was based on Psalm 130:1, “out of the depths.” And Newton could say this was a favorite psalm of his, because it described his life out of the depths where he had been to what he called plenteous redemption. Christ had rescued him. Christ had set him free. Christ was his hope. And you know something, he never forgot it. His whole life long, he never forgot it. From that first sermon that he preached on Psalm 130 down to the final words that we believe were ever recorded in his life, the last words that were ever captured just before he died, when he said this. He said, “Although my memory is fading, I remember two things.” He said, “I am a great sinner, but Christ is a great savior.” Jesus, the only hope for guilty sinners like you and me. Let's pray together. 

We do praise you, Father, for your Son. The catechism takes us through these questions of trying to find answers. Can we pay the debt? Can somebody else, some other creature, pay the debt for us? Is there a way to get out of your justice, God? Aren't you merciful? Couldn't you just overlook sin? One by one, question after question, the catechism is pointing us to the only answer: Jesus. And oh, what wonderful words the psalmist gives us. Lord, with you there is forgiveness. Therefore, you are feared. We praise you for your grace. We praise you for your mercy. We praise you that Jesus bore the justice that we deserved, so that we can be free. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.