Heidelberg Q5: ...to hate God and my neighbor

Photo courtesy of Chop1n

It amuses me (I admit it's kind of a perverse, macabre amusement) how utterly incapable men are of doing good.  We can't follow the rules that God set forth in any way.  God gave Adam a couple of rules - Live with me in harmony here and don't partake of this particular fruit - and he didn't obey.  God gave Moses ten rules - and we couldn't keep them.  God Gave the Levites hundreds of rules - and they bungled that.  Jesus boiled all that down to just a couple of laws again - Love God and love thy neighbor - and we can by no means do those two.  He even spelled it out simply, concisely, and directly how we are supposed to go about being Christians - evangelize, baptize, and teach (Mat 28:19) - and we're pretty lame at even that.
.
This brings us to Heidelberg Q5:

Q5: Canst thou keep all these things perfectly? A: In no wise; for I am prone by nature to hate God and my neighbour. Scripture Proofs: Rom.3:10, Rom.3:20, Rom.3:23, 1 John 1:8, 1 John 1:10, Rom.8:7, Eph.2:3, Tit.3:3, Gen.6:5, Gen.8:21, Jer.17:9, Rom.7:23

This is reminiscent of Martin Luther, upon studying and pondering on the righteousness of God, exclaiming, "Love God!!!?  I hate Him!"

.

Wow!  Those reformers were bold.  How many people these days would be so bold as to say, "I HATE GOD!"  Sure, there are folks who deny God's existence, but to believe and to understand God's nature and then plainly state that you are completely anti-God - that's bold!

.

But we are.  Heidelberg Q5 expresses it as good as it can be expressed.  "I am prone by nature to hate God and my neighbour."