Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's
Day, 39, question 104. What does God require in the
fifth commandment? That I show all honor, love,
and faithfulness to my father and mother, and to all in authority
over me, submit myself with due obedience to all their good instruction
and correction, and also bear patiently with their infirmities,
since it is God's will to govern us by their hands. The fifth
commandment, of course, is really very foundational for all of
society. Children are born into families,
they are brought up in families, and it is in families that they
learn some of the most basic lessons they're going to need
for the rest of their lives. And the teaching of the fifth
commandment is, in part, that this is how God has decreed it. This is how God ordained that
it should be. And so it is in families that
children should learn what good authority is, what it means to
have somebody who loves for you and cares for you and looks out
for you. And of course, they should also
learn then that the commands, the directions of the authorities
are to be followed in part because they are for our own good. Now, of course, that was articulated
in the Heidelberg Catechism in 1563, but German refugee children
living in London were learning a very similar lesson in 1551
from the large Emden Catechism, which asks about the violation
of the Fifth Commandment. And the answer is, when from
a spirit of pride toward God we despise father and mother,
when we are disobedient or ungrateful to them, and has been said above,
do not humbly respect, support, and reverence them in all things."
It's a little bit more elaborate in that particular document,
but you can see that you're really aiming at the same thing. Obedience is always to be not
just an external compliance. Obedience is always to be from
the heart. So where does true obedience
to father and mother arise from? Well, it doesn't primarily arise
from, I'm going to get it if I put a toe out of line. It primarily
arises from not despising, from honoring, from respecting them. And when we don't have that attitude
towards father and mother, we understand that that ultimately
arises from a spirit of pride towards God that does not submit
to His ordination, to His institution of the family.
