Reformed Evangelical Synod of America

John Williamson Nevin’s History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism

Nevin’s introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism aims to help his German Reformed church reclaim the Heidelberg Catechism in the fullness of it’s beauty. Catechisms when unexamined are often considered deadly dull things with no living value. Nevin, by unfolding the catechism’s genius and its development aims to show otherwise.

He begins by asking (and answering) “what was the Reformation?”. Once that is understood, the Heidelberg Catechism begins to be seen in it’s true light. The catechism is none other than the rightful heir of the “Catholic” tradition – it’s interpreter and advocate of the ancient, Biblical faith.

Nevin states:

The Reformation may be regarded, in one view, as an entirely new life in the history of Christianity. More deeply considered however, it will be found to stand in the closest living connection with this same history, as it had been regularly developed in the bosom of the Catholic Church for centuries before. It formed no absolute rupture with the old life of the body bearing this title; on the contrary, it was only its true and legitimate continuation, through the vast convulsive crisis which threatened at the time its total dissolution. In no other light can it be vindicated as the work of God.

Thus viewed, its origin is not to be referred to any particular man or men. Not with Luther or Zuingli, nor with the great age itself even to which they belonged, can it be said, strictly speaking, to have taken its start. The Middle Ages formed its womb. Through long centuries, the life of the Church had struggled previously towards this grand magnificent issue. The sixteenth century was but “the fulness of time,” for the revelation of a process, which was before hidden indeed from the world, but had long wrought mightily nevertheless as a mystery of God, in the direction of the very result which was now reached. It was the life of the Church then- as a whole, which, by the help of God’s Spirit, gave birth to the Reformation, as a new form of existence with which it had been pregnant for ages before. Luther and the other Reformers, with all their activity in furthering the work, were themselves in one sense the product of its power; being comprehended in fact in the general movement over which they seemed to preside, as a resistless world force, which they were insufficient either to fathom or control. They did not make the Reformation. The Reformation made them.

From the matrix of the Reformation, according to Nevin, the Heidelberg Catechism emerged as a symbol of this crystallization of understanding, a prophetic word to that age. It was the evangelical proclamation that had awaited the dawning of the Reformation’s clarity. He did not believe it to be inspired or authoritative in the sense of Holy Scripture, and he expected that a future time would produce its own witness to the unchanging deposit of truth of Holy Scripture which like the Heidelberg was also selfconsciously consistent with and the servant of Holy Writ. Nevertheless, in it’s pages Nevin saw the “Mere Christianity” of the Catholic tradition passed on with faithfulness to his German Reformed church and bearing witness against the evils of the time that surrounded its birth.

Both the Heidelberg’s scriptural content and it’s obvious conformity of structure to the Western tradition of catechesis (its “shape” and matter consisting of Creed, Commandments, Lord’s Prayer, and explanation of the Sacraments) make a statement. That statement being that the Heidelberg and its adherents claim nothing less than that they are faithful heirs of the apostles in both the substance of their faith and the practice of it. As a “catholic” confession, the Heidelberg was received as a faithful symbol by the Reformed, the Neo-Zwinglians (Bullingerites) and the Melancthonian Lutherans of the Palatinate who under this banner found a place of at least tenuous unity unprecedented for its day.

As faithful witness then to Holy Writ and the Apostolic Tradition, Nevin saw the catechism’s abiding relevance in calling the church to be, well, churchly. While addressing the errors of the Reformation, the catechism likewise spoke to Nevin and his own day. For him (and us!) it confronted the shocking individualism and increasingly churchless “Christianity” (so-called) emerging under the influence of the Finney and his “New Methods”. The catechism likewise provided a paradigm for discipleship within the bosom of the church based on the baptismal covenant that has to this day been largely lost in the American Church, but which is so desperately needed again.

Enjoy Nevin’s work and may the Lord bless it to your consideration and for the continued Reformation of Christ’s Church!

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