Catechism of the Redeemed Text: Deuteronomy 6:20-25
Introduction: Answering the Why
We live in an age that is drowning in information but starved of meaning. Our children are catechized every day, relentlessly, but not by us. They are catechized by their phones, by the streaming services, by the secular priests in their government schools. And the central lesson of that catechism is this: you are your own, your desires are your law, and all rules are arbitrary impositions of power. When a child raised in that system asks "Why?", the only available answer is either "Because I said so," which is raw power, or "Because that's what you want," which is raw appetite. Neither answer can build a family, let alone a civilization.
But God anticipates the question. He knows that children, if they are being raised properly, will eventually look at the patterns of a Christian life, the worship, the commandments, the whole distinct way of being, and they will ask the most important question in the world: "What does this mean?" This is not the question of a rebel. This is the question of an heir. He is asking for his inheritance. He is asking for the story that makes sense of his life. And the answer God provides us is not a set of abstract principles or a lecture on moral philosophy. It is a story. It is the story.
The modern world wants to answer the question of "Why obey?" by pointing to a utopian future. "Do this, and we will build a better world." The Bible answers the question of "Why obey?" by pointing to a historical deliverance. "Do this, because of what God has already done." Our obedience is not a frantic effort to earn God's favor; it is the grateful response of a people who have already been given it. This passage in Deuteronomy is the divine lesson plan for covenantal education. It teaches us that true catechesis is not the memorization of rules, but the recitation of redemption. We are to give our children a history, a glorious history, before we give them a to-do list.
If we fail here, we fail everywhere. If we cannot answer our children's "Why?", then we have no reason to be surprised when they abandon the "What." The world has a story, a very loud and compelling one, about liberation from God's law. We must have a better one, the true one, about liberation by God's law, which is only possible because of our prior liberation by God's grace.
The Text
When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which Yahweh our God commanded you?’
then you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and Yahweh brought us from Egypt with a strong hand.
Moreover, Yahweh showed great and calamitous signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household;
But He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers.’
So Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God for our good all our days and for our survival, as it is today.
And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before Yahweh our God, just as He commanded us.
(Deuteronomy 6:20-25 LSB)
The Heir's Inquiry (v. 20)
The whole exchange begins with a question from a covenant child.
"When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which Yahweh our God commanded you?’" (Deuteronomy 6:20)
Notice first that this is an anticipated question. God expects our children to be curious. A Christian home should be a place that hums with meaning, a place so distinct from the world that it provokes questions. If your children never ask what your way of life means, it might mean your way of life looks exactly like everyone else's. The salt has lost its saltiness. But if you are observing the Lord's Day, if you are ordering your home by His Word, if you are practicing hospitality and discipline and worship, a child will eventually notice the architecture of it all and ask about the blueprint.
The son asks about three categories of law: testimonies, statutes, and judgments. Testimonies are the laws that bear witness to God's character and actions, like the Sabbath. Statutes are the established, decreed laws, the non-negotiables. Judgments are the case laws, the application of God's principles to specific situations. The child is not just asking about one or two rules he finds inconvenient. He is asking about the entire framework. "What is the point of this whole system?"
And notice the pronouns. "Which Yahweh our God commanded you?" This is a crucial moment in covenant succession. The child sees the faith as belonging to his parents. The goal of the answer is to turn that "you" into a "we." The father must bring his son into the story, to show him that this is not just his father's faith, but his own inheritance.
Redemption Before Regulation (v. 21-23)
The father's answer begins not with law, but with gospel. He starts with a history lesson.
"then you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and Yahweh brought us from Egypt with a strong hand. Moreover, Yahweh showed great and calamitous signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household; But He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers.’" (Deuteronomy 6:21-23 LSB)
The first word of the catechism is "We." The father immediately includes his son in the story. "We were slaves." Not "our ancestors were," but "we were." In the covenant, we are participants in the story of redemption. This is the same principle as the Lord's Supper, where we proclaim the Lord's death. We were there. We were in bondage. This is the starting point of all true theology. We were spiritually enslaved, helpless, and under the dominion of a cruel tyrant.
The second statement is that Yahweh acted. "Yahweh brought us from Egypt with a strong hand." Salvation is not a human achievement. We did not negotiate our way out. We did not muster an army. We did not liberate ourselves. God did it, unilaterally and powerfully. This is grace. The law is not given to slaves so that they might earn their freedom. The law is given to freedmen to teach them how to live in that freedom. This is the grammar of the gospel, and it is right here in Deuteronomy. Grace always precedes law. Redemption is the foundation for ethics.
This redemption was demonstrated with "great and calamitous signs and wonders." God did not just sneak His people out the back door. He kicked the front door in and plundered the house of the strong man. The plagues were a systematic demolition of the Egyptian pantheon. God demonstrated His absolute sovereignty over every false god, over nature, and over the life and death of men. This is a polemic. Our God is not one god among many; He is the only God, and He judges all His rivals. We must teach our children that our God is a mighty and triumphant God.
And the purpose of this deliverance was twofold. It was a deliverance from and a deliverance to. "He brought us out from there in order to bring us in." God's salvation is never just a negative reality. He doesn't just save us from hell. He saves us for His kingdom, for a purpose. He brought them out of bondage to bring them into the promised inheritance. This was all according to His sworn oath to their fathers. God is a covenant-keeping God. He makes promises and He fulfills them. Our entire security rests not on the strength of our grip on Him, but on the strength of His oath to us.
The Goodness of the Law (v. 24)
Only after establishing the story of redemption does the father explain the purpose of the law.
"So Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God for our good all our days and for our survival, as it is today." (Genesis 6:24 LSB)
The "So" is crucial. It is a logical connector. Because God has redeemed us, so He has commanded us. The commandments are the logical consequence of His grace. They are not the prerequisite for it.
The purpose of the statutes is first, "to fear Yahweh our God." This is not the cowering fear of a slave before a tyrant, but the reverential awe of a son before a glorious and loving Father. It is the beginning of wisdom. It is the proper orientation of the creature to the Creator. We obey because we are overwhelmed by who He is and what He has done for us.
And this fear, this obedience, is "for our good all our days." This is a direct assault on the serpent's lie in the garden. The serpent whispered that God's commands were restrictive, that they were meant to keep us from our good. But God says the exact opposite. His law is the pathway to human flourishing. It is for our benefit, our health, our prosperity, our joy. When we obey God's commands regarding sexuality, finance, worship, and community, things go well for us. When we disobey, things fall apart. The universe is built with a grain, and God's law teaches us how to go with that grain. It is also for our "survival." Disobedience to God's law is societal suicide. A nation that abandons God's statutes will not long endure.
The Question of Righteousness (v. 25)
The final verse is the most easily misunderstood, and it is where we must bring the full light of the New Testament to bear.
"And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before Yahweh our God, just as He commanded us." (Deuteronomy 6:25 LSB)
On the surface, this sounds like righteousness by works. It sounds like, "If you do all these things, then you will be declared righteous." And in one sense, under the covenant of works with Adam, this was the arrangement. But Adam fell. And now, "by the works of the law no flesh will be justified" (Romans 3:20). So what does this mean for us, a redeemed but still sinful people?
We must understand that there are two kinds of righteousness discussed in Scripture. There is the righteousness that justifies, and the righteousness that is the evidence of justification. The righteousness that justifies, that gives us our legal standing before a holy God, is a perfect righteousness. It is not our own. It is, as Paul says, a righteousness from God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:9). It is Christ's perfect obedience imputed to us. That is the only ground of our salvation.
But true, justifying faith is never alone. It is a living faith that necessarily produces the fruit of obedience. James tells us that faith without works is dead. So, the obedience described here in Deuteronomy is the righteousness of a sanctified life. It is the fruit, not the root. When God has already brought us out of Egypt by His mighty hand, when He has given us a new heart, that new heart desires to obey Him. And that obedience, imperfect as it is, is counted as righteousness in a familial, evidentiary sense. It is the proof that we are His children. God, as our Father, is pleased with the stumbling efforts of His children to walk in His ways. This is not the righteousness that earns salvation, but the righteousness that characterizes the saved.
A father tells his son, "It makes me proud when you tell the truth." That doesn't mean the son earns his status as a son by telling the truth. He's already a son. But telling the truth is what a good son does. In the same way, our careful obedience to God's commands is righteousness for us, it is our family resemblance, the evidence that we belong to the God who first rescued us when we were slaves.
Conclusion: Tell the Story
The task of every Christian parent is laid out for us here. It is not primarily to enforce rules, but to enthrall our children with a story. It is the story of our enslavement to sin and the glorious, strong-handed invasion of God in the person of Jesus Christ. He is our Passover Lamb, our Exodus, our Red Sea crossing.
He brought us out of the dominion of darkness, not so we could wander in a moral wilderness, but to bring us in to His kingdom. And He has given us His law, not as a burden, but as a gift, for our good, that we might know how to live as free men and women. Our obedience is the joyful song of the redeemed. It is the righteousness of those who have already been made righteous in Christ.
So when your children ask, "What does all this mean?" Do not begin with "You have to." Begin with "We were." Tell them the story. Tell them of the chains. Tell them of the plagues that shattered the idols of our age. Tell them of the mighty hand of the Lord Jesus who crushed the head of the serpent and led captivity captive. Tell them that story, again and again, until the "you" of their question becomes the "we" of our confession. For that is how you hand down an inheritance that cannot be lost.