Gospel of Jesus

“ And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." What blessed words! and then they doubtless explained to him that the faith here spoken of, meant such a belief in Jesus, as would lead to repentance for all sin so displeasing to Him, and make men strive to do all in their power to please Him: for to believe the Gospel, means to do all that the Gospel teaches. Such, no doubt, was the Apostles' teaching, as "they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house." ”

“ O, God, we once rejected Thee and disbelieved Thy word and set at naught Thy counsels, but now we bow down in shame and we do acknowledge that there is a God, and that Jesus is the Christ." This time will come, most assuredly. We have the faith of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. It is not a frenzied, frantic idea, like the systems of religion invented by men. We have ceremonies, but there is life in those ceremonies; and our religion has organization, body and soul. ”

“ This acceptance of Jesus as an infallible teacher, as one whose every word is to be believed simply because He said it, and whose every direction is to be observed simply because He directs it, whose spirit is to be possessed and cultivated to the transforming of the life, till we grow into the divine image and become partakers of the divine nature, is all involved in the "good confession": Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. ”

“ The prophecies concerning Jesus, which have been so signally confirmed to us on the holy mount, have always been as a light shining in a dark place, from the time of their delivery to the time in which the bright day of Gospel light and salvation dawned forth, and the Son of righteousness has arisen in our souls, with healing in his rays. ”

“ Jesus said to his disciples in former times, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." ”

“ Why, the same Gospel that Jesus taught, the same Gospel that Abraham, Moses, Enoch and Adam had—that everlasting, eternal, unchangeable principle that brings men into relationship with their God, unveils the heavens and the purposes of God to the human family, and leads them in the paths of life. ”

“ The Hebrews had the same Gospel, or good news of pardon and salvation through Christ, that we have. Speaking of them in the wilderness, the Apostle Paul says, "For unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them." Hebrews 4:2.
Every sacrifice they made for sin, every lamb slain, was to show their faith in "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." John 1:29. The blood of the offering was a type of the blood of Christ.
Jesus Christ is the great central figure of the Gospel. It was Christ who was with Israel in all their journey from Egypt to the promised land. ”

“ Wherever the Gospel comes, it brings salvation - it offers deliverance from all sin to every soul that hears or reads it. As freely as the sun dispenses his genial influences to every inhabitant of the earth, so freely does Jesus Christ dispense the merits and blessings of his passion and death to every soul of man. ”

“ On this ground I refused to take the first words of his Gospel as a dogmatical assertion of the divinity of Jesus. I said we must begin, as he began, at the beginning. We must wait till he spoke to us of Jesus of Nazareth, and declared His nature to us. Then we should learn much more of His divinity than if we were in haste to get proofs of it. For are we not learners, who want to be told what divinity is and what humanity is? Have we not need to sit at the Apostle's feet, that he may instruct us in those things which it is most needful for us to know? ”

“ It was impossible not to pause earnestly upon the opening sentence, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' What does that text say to us? 'It declares,' some will answer eagerly and decisively, 'the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Be it so; but the name Jesus Christ is not introduced till the seventeenth verse of the chapter. If we are sitting at the feet of an Apostle or Evangelist, we cannot change his method for a method of our own. The writers of the other Gospels start from the birth of Jesus, or from the preaching of John the Baptist. ”

“ The way of salvation by Jesus Christ is eminently the counsel of God, the most excellent contrivance of the infinitely wise Jehovah; it was he that invented this way of saving sinners by Jesus Christ, whose power and coming are set forth in the gospel, and the apostle's preaching was a making of these things known. 1. The preaching of the gospel is a making known the power of Christ, that he is able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by him. He is the mighty God, and therefore can save from both the guilt and the filth of sin. ”

“ The preaching of Jesus Christ, which was kept secret since the world began, now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith, Rom. xvi. 25, 26. The doctrine of grace and salvation by the gospel is for all ranks and conditions of men (slaves and servants, as well as masters) , therefore engaging and encouraging all to receive and believe it, and walk suitably to it, adorning it in all things. ”

“ What is meant by the everlasting Gospel? I know that some people think there was no Gospel until Jesus came; but it is a great mistake. Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses had the Gospel; and when Jesus came he came to offer himself a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and to bring back the Gospel which the people had lost. "Well," says one, "do you mean to affirm that the men you have just named had the Gospel?" I do, and hence it is called the everlasting Gospel. "How do you know?" Why, the Scriptures say the Gospel held the keys of the mysteries of the revelation of God. ”

“ I, but Jesus Christ; in whom
being bound, I the more fear,
as being yet only on the way
to suffering.
2 But your prayer to God shall
make me perfect, that I may attain
to that portion, which by God's
mercy is allotted to me Fleeing
to the Gospel as to the flesh of
Christ; and to the Apostles as
to the presbytery of the church.
3 Let us also love the prophets,
forasmuch as they have led us
to the Gospel, and to hope in
Christ, and to expect him.
4 In whom also believing they
were saved in the unity of Jesus
Christ; being holy men, worthy
to be loved, and had in wonder ”

“ He is now King of kings and Lord of lords, and the time will come when every knee will bow and every tongue confess, to the glory of God the Father, that Jesus is the Christ. That very character that was looked upon, not as the Savior, but as an outcast, who was crucified between two thieves and treated with scorn and derision, will be greeted by all men as the only Being through whom they can obtain salvation. ”

“ There is not a spiritually minded man in the world who reads the Bible but will acknowledge that the Elders of Israel, the Latter-day Saints, proclaim the Gospel, precisely, as Jesus and his apostles proclaimed it. ”

“ Priest to whom the Holy of Holies
has been committed; and who
alone has been intrusted with the
secrets of God.
23 He is the door of the Father;
by which Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob, and all the prophets,
enter in; as well as the Apostles,
and the church.
24 And all these things tend to
the unity which is of God. Howbeit
the Gospel has somewhat in it far
above all other dispensations;
namely, the appearance of our
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,
his passion and resurrection.
25 For the beloved prophets
referred to him; but the Gospel
is the perfection of incorruption. ”

“ In fine, the miracles said to have been wrought by Jesus, are, according to the Old Testament, the gospel scheme, and the words of Jesus himself, no absolute proof of his being the Messiah, or of the truth of Christianity ”

“ We have already seen how Jesus is called the Word in works of the New Testament earlier than the fourth Gospel, (3) and how the doctrine is constantly referred to in the Pauline Epistles and the Epistle to the Hebrews, and it is to these, and not to the fourth Gospel, that the account in the Epistle to Diognetus may be more properly traced. Heb. L 2. "The Son of God by whom also he made the worlds. 10. The heavens are works of thy hands" [———] . ”

“ In the Gospel story we find five great points of special importance; the birth, the life on earth, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension. In these we have what an old writer has called "the process of Jesus Christ;" the process by which He became what He is to-day—our glorified King, and our life. In all this life process we must be made like unto Him. ”

“ The internal facts of the Gospel are used in a different way by others to show that the Fourth Gospel differs so radically in scene, in the style of its discourses, and indeed in its entire portrait of Jesus, that it cannot be accepted as historical, or as the work of one of the disciples. ”

“ OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST, AND CONTEMPT OF ALL THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD.
E that followeth Me, walketh not in darkness, saith the Lord. These are the words of Christ, which teach us to imitate His life and manners, if we would be truly enlightened, and delivered from all blindness of heart.
Let therefore our chief endeavour be to meditate upon the life of Jesus Christ.
2. The teaching of Christ exceeds all the doctrines of holy men; and he that hath the Spirit will find therein the hidden manna.
But it happens that many, who often hear the Gospel of Christ, are yet but little affected, because they have not the Spirit of Christ. ”

“ Yet they are warm with living realism. The great facts of our Faith stand out before us in the moving drama of the Synoptic Gospels,14 just as truly as176 they are interpreted for us in the spiritual Gospel, the Fourth. Jesus Christ is portrayed as the Son of Man: and whatever else that most significant title denotes, it speaks to us of His human activity, His practical and energetic sympathy with the sins and sorrows of men. And this activity found its exercise in two directions: teaching and healing. The association of the two things is noteworthy, as indicating a great principle. ”

“ Of this the apostles in subsequent years testified, and we have on record their testimony. So that the existence of God the Father, and the relationship of Jesus to him, is most clearly show in these scriptures." (Mormon Doctrine of Deity, p. 12, 13.)
2. Jesus Declared to be God: "But Jesus himself claimed to be the Son of God and in this connection there is clearly claimed for him divinity, that is to say, Godship. Let me read to you a direct passage upon that subject; it is to be found in the gospel according to St. ”

“ It is emphatically “the Gospel,” because it sets forth the person and work of the Christ. The evangelist is conscious of this aim. It appears not only at great moments of the history such as the Baptism (i. 11) , the confession of Peter (viii. 29) , the Transfiguration (ix. 7) ; nor again merely in the prominence given to the miracles of Jesus and in particular to the casting out of devils, but also in many of the sayings recorded in it, as in the great series contained in the narratives in ch. ”

“ Moses gave us a law, but we received the true faith through Jesus Christ. xvii.
No one has seen God or will ever see God, only his son, who is in the Father, has shown us the path of life. ”

“ And Jesus said unto him, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not kill,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Defraud not,' 'Honour thy father and mother.'"
And he answered and said unto him, "Master, all these have I observed from my youth."
Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, "One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." ”

“ No marvelous stories, handed down from one generation to another, have in the least added to or taken from the Jesus of the evangelists. What Jesus signified when the gospels were written he has been through the centuries that have followed him. ”

“ To call on the name of Christ is to embrace in our faith and to beseech the exercise on our behalf of all which Jesus is as the Messiah, anointed by God with the fulness of the Spirit. As such He is the climax, and therefore the close of all revelation, who is the long-expected fruition of the desire of weary hearts, the fulfilment, and therefore the abolition, of sacrifice and temple and priesthood and prophecy and all that witnessed for Him ere He came. ”

“ When the mind wanders afar from the dogmatic of the scholiast, the life of Jesus presents itself with a dramatic force of loveliness and grandeur which, of its kind, cannot be surpassed; and the poetic pathos of the New Testament, though not so resonant as that to be found in the pages of such works as Job and the Prophets, possesses a pastoral charm of its own at once soothing and stimulating. ”

“ A great void in the early life of the Saviour is filled up by these
Gospels. In none of the Canonical Evangelists is any mention made of the
childhood of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, more
rapidly than satisfactorily, pass over the period intervening between His
birth and ministry. ”

“ So we ate and drank as we were bidden, even like children that have no understanding; nor did we then discern the meaning of his words. Howbeit, even at that time we understood somewhat of his purpose; for we perceived that Jesus was pouring his love, yea, and his life, into our hearts; and our souls stretched out as it were toward the truth, namely, that Jesus, in this testament of his, was bequeathing himself to us his disciples, to be our possession for ever. ”