The Gospel

[TristanCross]

What is the Gospel according to Catholics?

Thank you.

 

[bpbasilphx]

If you’re looking for a reduction to the absolute minimum, you’re asking the wrong question.

 

[buffalo]

The New Testament
124 "The Word of God, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, is set forth and displays its power in a most wonderful way in the writings of the New Testament"96 which hand on the ultimate truth of God’s Revelation. Their central object is Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Son: his acts, teachings, Passion and glorification, and his Church’s beginnings under the Spirit’s guidance.97
[125](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/125.htm’) The *Gospels *are the heart of all the Scriptures “because they are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Savior”.98
[126](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/126.htm’) We can distinguish three stages in the formation of the Gospels: 1. The life and teaching of Jesus. The Church holds firmly that the four Gospels, "whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken up."99
2. The oral tradition. "For, after the ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed."100
3. The written Gospels. "The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus."101

[127](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/127.htm’) The fourfold Gospel holds a unique place in the Church, as is evident both in the veneration which the liturgy accords it and in the surpassing attraction it has exercised on the saints at all times:
There is no doctrine which could be better, more precious and more splendid than the text of the Gospel. Behold and retain what our Lord and Master, Christ, has taught by his words and accomplished by his deeds.102 But above all it’s the gospels that occupy my mind when I’m at prayer; my poor soul has so many needs, and yet this is the one thing needful. I’m always finding fresh lights there; hidden meanings which had meant nothing to me hitherto.103

 

[japhy]

I’ll answer it from a liturgical perspective, using the Ordinary Form of the Mass as a guide.

The Gospel is the pinnacle of salvation history, the history of the action of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – in the world for the salvation of mankind. It is a sacred mystery (cf. Rom 16:25; Eph 3:9; 6:19; Col 1:26; 1 Tim 3:16) which we are called to enter into: we are to called to participate in the divine life of God. It requires us to acknowledge our sins and repent of them, calling upon God for His mercy and forgiveness.

The mystery concealed from the foundation of the world involves the Incarnation of God the Son, heralded by the angels who sang “Glory to God in the highest” on the night of his birth. All of Scripture – Old and New Testament – speak of Christ and his advent and mission. The Old Testament conceals the New, and the New reveals the Old.

(I’ll continue this later…)

 

[dmar198]

What is the Gospel according to Catholics?

Thank you.

This is the Gospel. (.PDF) Here is one important excerpt:
…
JESUS OF NAZARETH
About 2000 years ago, a child was born in Bethlehem, Judea, and was called Jesus, from the Hebrew name Joshua. His life is recorded in the second section of the Bible, called the New Testament, which is easy to read and shorter even than most novels. 8According to the New Testament, when Jesus was around 30 years of age, He commenced a ministry which his cousin, John, had begun. John had said that the arrival of the One whom God would send into the world - to save us from our sins - was imminent.
John said that that One would save all people, bringing us back to a right relationship with God, but only if we would repent of our sins and go to Him for forgiveness. This repentance ministry which John started still continues today.
When Jesus began preaching with John, John recognized Him to be the One Whom God would send for our forgiveness. He told his followers, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” 9, and encouraged his followers to leave him and follow Jesus. Jesus also called disciples Himself, asking them to leave all that they had for the ministry to which he would call them.
Jesus encouraged every sinful person who came to him to repent of their sins and return to God. Only when all people forsake sin and turn back to God, He said, can they be saved. He performed many signs and miracles to prove that He had the authority to say what He was telling them: that He had been anointed by God as the Christ (which means “the anointed one”) to accomplish the work of salvation.
When His miracles began to demonstrate a superhumanly power, however, His followers began to see that He had to be much more than a man. Finally, Jesus revealed to them who He truly was: God’s own Son.
He was not a mere human who had been commissioned by God, but He was of the same nature as God Himself, divine by lineage. This was surprising to His followers. They were Jews, and it was - and still is - contrary to Jewish teaching to insist that there are two divine beings. The Jewish Scriptures say, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone"10 and Jesus taught that this was the most important of God’s commandments11. How could He now say that He was divine as well?
The answer comes from the nature of God. Remember how we said that God is loving by nature? Well, love is inherently creative in its own nature. If God’s nature includes love, the love that we see even between each other is only an expression of God’s love, of God Himself - and that love which comes from God expresses itself most fully in the family. A family is the natural product of love, beginning when a man takes a woman as his wife out of love for her, and culminating in that loving act between them which gives life to another. God’s own nature is like a family, then, and so the family reflects God the best: just
as a family is one entity, but made of more than one person, so God is one Being, but existing as the filial relationship between a father and a son.
Those followers of Jesus who recognized His true relationship to God became His greatest friends. But those Jews who did not follow Jesus charged Him with blasphemy, because in saying that God was His Father, they thought He was dishonoring God. And so came the most horrible event in human history: the Jewish people sentenced the Son of God Jesus Christ to death, on the charge of blasphemy. They delivered Him over to the Roman guards, who inflicted on Him the most severe punishment of their time - death by crucifixion, preceded by flogging and other tortures.
Go into any Christian church and you can ask the pastor about crucifixion. They will certainly be able to tell you about what Jesus went through, and may even have a picture or statue of Jesus Christ Crucified.
It is one of the harshest forms of capital punishment ever devised, and it involved hanging on a wooden cross - the victim often being held fast to it by nails - until dead. It was impossible to survive.
It is one of the most horrific and yet unflinchingly insisted teachings of Christianity that God Himself died for us. We must teach it because God Himself - in His Son Jesus the Christ - predicted that it would be, taught that it was, and reminded us afterward that it had been. What makes this even harder is that He did this for us, sinners who only rebelled against Him the whole time. "But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us."12 So said Paul of Tarsis, one of the greatest Christian
writers whose letters are included in the New Testament.
But the death of our Savior is not the end of the story. The climax occurs when we find that Christ rose again from the dead. After three days, death lost its grip on the God-made-man, and to life again rose Christ the Lord. He appeared to His friends, whom He had named His Twelve Apostles, and promised them that, just as He had been raised to glorious life, so would all who call on His Name be resurrected as sons of God through adoption. That is the most important promise that Christianity makes: new life
with our Lord for all who call on His Name.
Jesus told His Apostles that He was to go back to His Father in Heaven, but He left them with the assurance that He would also remain with them. To that end He promised to send the Holy Spirit of His Father, whom we understand to be the Third Person of the Godhead, the divine, personal fellowship flowing from the communion between the Father and the Son, revealed by Jesus to have a personal nature unified with He and His Father.
With this Holy Spirit, Jesus promised His Apostles that they would continue His ministry on earth, calling all people to repentance and faith in the Son of the Living God. He gave them His divine authority to forgive sins, exert power over Satan and his demons, and lead all people to the life which Jesus offers. …

 

[TLM08]

What is the Gospel according to Catholics?

Thank you.

The Word of God says that this is the Gospel;

“…By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” 1Corinthians 15:2-4

Catholics are required to do much more than believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. Sacraments, good works, penance along with dying in a state of grace are added to simple belief in the Gospel in order to be saved. It seems to me that Catholic teaching ignores Paul’s stern warning in the Book of Galatians about adding anything to the Gospel, and that there is NO other Gospel that can save you. Worse yet, those adding to the Gospel are condemned:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”
Galatians 1:16-9

Paul leaves absolutely no room for any “development of doctrine”. I really do not understand why so much is added to the Gospel despite Paul’s warning.

 

[japhy]

The Word of God says that this is the Gospel:

"…By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…" 1Corinthians 15:2-4

Catholics are required to do much more than believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. Sacraments, good works, penance along with dying in a state of grace are added to simple belief in the Gospel in order to be saved.

St. Paul makes it very clear that you are saved by the gospel if you hold firmly to the word preached to you. Is the only word that he preached “Christ died, was buried, and was raised”? No, he preached much more. He preached about living worthily of the gift of salvation that we have received. (Eph 4:1; Phil 1:27; Col 1:10; 1 Th 2:12) On at least two occasions, he listed sins which exclude people from Heaven. (1 Cor 6:9-10; Gal 5:19-21)

We also know that only those who do the will of our heavenly Father will enter the kingdom of Heaven. (Matt 7:21) And Paul tells us that we were created in Christ to do good works: that is the will of God for us. (Eph 2:10) And Paul preached that Jews and Gentiles that repentance should be accompanied by deeds worthy of it. (Acts 26:20)

Catholics believe in the whole Gospel.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Paul leaves absolutely no room for any “development of doctrine”. I really do not understand why so much is added to the Gospel despite Paul’s warning.

---

The real question is why pop-evangelicals such as yourself abandoned most of the simplicity of the Gospel and added their own stuff to it.

 

[wisdomseeker]

The Word of God says that this is the Gospel;

"…By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…" 1Corinthians 15:2-4

Catholics are required to do much more than believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. Sacraments, good works, penance along with dying in a state of grace are added to simple belief in the Gospel in order to be saved. It seems to me that Catholic teaching ignores Paul’s stern warning in the Book of Galatians about adding anything to the Gospel, and that there is NO other Gospel that can save you. Worse yet, those adding to the Gospel are condemned:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”
Galatians 1:16-9

Paul leaves absolutely no room for any “development of doctrine”. I really do not understand why so much is added to the Gospel despite Paul’s warning.

so, based on this Scripture, the bishops and priests gay marriage are ok with God? because based on what you believe everything is ok, as long as you believe this piece of Scriptures. is it correct?

 

[TristanCross]

Paul leaves absolutely no room for any “development of doctrine”. I really do not understand why so much is added to the Gospel despite Paul’s warning.

---

The real question is why pop-evangelicals such as yourself abandoned most of the simplicity of the Gospel and added their own stuff to it.

Is being rude a chore of yours?

 

[TLM08]

so, based on this Scripture, the bishops and priests gay marriage are ok with God? because based on what you believe everything is ok, as long as you believe this piece of Scriptures. is it correct?

I’m not quite sure what you are trying to ask here. God never approves of immorality. But it is my belief that everything we need to know about salvation can be found in the New Testament.

Salvation is a gift that we* cannot *work for. We obey Christ out of love, not to earn our place in Heaven. Paul is saying it MUST be a gift. We cannot earn it through obedience.

Paul gives a very stern warning in Galatians 1 that the gospel has been given and that it is not to be added to. In Galatians 2:21, Paul says we should not frustrate the grace of God with lawkeeping otherwise Christ died in vain.

“…by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Galatians 2:16

 

[wisdomseeker]

I’m not quite sure what you are trying to ask here. God never approves of immorality. But it is my belief that everything we need to know about salvation can be found in the New Testament.

Salvation is a gift that we* cannot *work for. We obey Christ out of love, not to earn our place in Heaven. Paul is saying it MUST be a gift. We cannot earn it through obedience.

Paul gives a very stern warning in Galatians 1 that the gospel has been given and that it is not to be added to. In Galatians 2:21, Paul says we should not frustrate the grace of God with lawkeeping otherwise Christ died in vain.

“…by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Galatians 2:16

Salvation is a gift from God, no one here says is not.
you have to understand that St Paul is talking to the Jews here and not the gentiles since gentiles did not have the law.

the Law was given to Jews by God. St Paul is not condemning the Law but telling Jews that Jesus is our salvation and not the Law.

throughout the Bible God gives us work to do. we must do the works Jesus gave us. feed the hungry, cloth the naked, give drink to the thirst, and so forth.

the last Judgement Jesus will judge us by the works we do. read for yourself. tell me what happens to those who did the works and tell me what happens to those who just believed and did not do the works.

i think you are confused about the word gift. when you pay for your childrens college, it is a gift that you give your children. tell me, what do you expect your child to do when you pay for his college?

let me remind you that you have no authority to judge the CC or to say that the CC teaches wrongly the Word of God, to her was given the Word and the promise. the CC was found by Christ, tought by Christ Himself and the Apostles. but your church is found by men who read the Bible and do not understand it.

another thing, if you are against adding to the Bible, why do you follow a theology from men who took Books of the Bible and added words to it?