Article 1: The Punishment Which God's Justice Requires

God is not only supremely merciful, but also supremely just. His justice requires (as he has revealed himself in the Word) that the sins we have committed against his infinite majesty be punished with both temporal and eternal punishments, of soul as well as body. We cannot escape these punishments unless satisfaction is given to God's justice.

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Background:

In the first head of doctrine, the authors of the Canons set out their treatment of human sinfulness (total depravity) and divine mercy (unconditional election), commonly known as the first two points of Calvinism.

The Canons established that all men and women have fallen in Adam, and are guilty before God from birth because Adam acted as our divinely chosen representative in Eden so that the guilt of Adam's sin was imputed (or reckoned, or accounted) to us (Romans 5:12-19). But we are also guilty for all of our own sinful actions which spring forth from sinful human nature.

This is what we mean when we speak of “total depravity.” This does not mean that we are always as bad as we possibly can be, only that sin has infected our entire person, from head to toe, and that there is no part of human nature that is not tainted, stained, or corrupted because of the fall of our race into sin.

Several lines of biblical argument make this clear. Paul indicates that we are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3) and dead in our sin (Colossians 2:13). In Matthew’s gospel (7:15 ff.) Jesus describes our fallen race as bad trees which can only bear bad fruit. As our Lord tells us, this bad fruit is the visible manifestation of our hidden wickedness and depravity.

On a practical level this means that we are born in sin, and apart from God's grace our wills are in bondage to our sinful nature. We use the good gifts which God has given to us for sinful (self-centered) purposes. Lacking faith, we cannot please God (Hebrews 11:6). We sin because we are sinners. We sin because we like to sin. Since the wages of sin is death, we are all subject to the curse. Left on our own, and to our own devices, we do not want Jesus as our Lord. Instead, we desire to be lord of our own lives. We go our own way, not overly concerned about God showing his mercy to us, since we do not think that we really need it, Besides, we mistakenly think that God is obliged to extend his mercy to us any way.

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