QUESTION 2: How many things are necessary for you to know, that in this comfort you may live and die blessedly? Three things: First, the greatness of my sin and misery. Second, how I am redeemed from all my sins and misery. Third, how I am to be thankful to God for such redemption.

“The third thing that one must know ‘that in this comfort you may live and die blessedly‘ is ‘how I am to be thankful to God for such redemption.’

For the Reformed churches, the Christian life is a grateful, fruitful life lived in union with Christ, out of gratitude for the grace of God to sinners in Christ. We live the Christian life in hard times and good times in an objective state of blessedness.

Thankfulness is a major theme for the apostle Paul. As part of his law-preaching prosecution of human sinfulness in Romans 1:21, Paul uses the expressions ‘glorify God’ (ἐδόξασαν) and ‘give thanks’ (ηὐχαρίστησαν) as synonyms. To give thanks is to glorify God. In this case he uses them as part of the first use of the law. It is a fundamental human obligation, as image-bearers, to acknowledge God as our Creator and to glorify him as such.

As fallen people, in whom the image has been defaced, we refuse to acknowledge God. In Romans 6:16, Paul says that we are necessarily slaves either to God or to sin. If we sin, we are slaves to sin and death. Verse 17: ‘But thanks [χάρις] be to God, you who were slaves of sin have become have obedient from the heart.’ The noun for “thanks” here is the same noun used for “grace.”

In other words, there is an integral relation between thanks and grace. Only those who have received the grace, that is, undeserved favor, of God are those who are thankful. When Paul says, ‘thanks be to God,’ he is reflecting a basic Christian impulse. We might describe his doctrine of the Christian life as a doctrine of thanks:

‘Thanks [χάρις] be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25). Even though we continue to struggle with sin, “there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom 8:1). ‘Thanks [χάρις] be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor 15:57). ‘Thanks [χάρις] be to God who, in Christ, always leads us in triumphal procession’ (2 Cor 2:14). ‘Thanks [χάρις] be to God for his inexpressible gift!’ (2 Cor 9:15).

For Paul, thankfulness is not a light matter. It is a powerful motive for the Christian life. It is a recognition of what God in Christ has done for us, what the Spirit is doing within us, and who we are now in Christ. ‘How can we who died to sin still live in it?’ We cannot. With Christ helping us, we will not.”

–R. Scott Clark, The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical, Theological & Pastoral Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2025), 33–34.