What did Jesus (and the Comforter) ask people to believe? 1

[Guest guest]

" The Kingdom of God that we were promised is at hand. This is not a

phrase out of a sermon or a lecture, but it is the actualization of

the experience of the highest Truth which is Absolute, now

manifesting itself in ordinary people at this present moment. "

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

 

Gospel of the Kingdom

 

" " When you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God

is near " (Luke 21.31).

 

Our world desperately needs some good news.

 

Today's headlines are filled with bad news-wars raging around the

globe; famines devastating entire countries; environmental

catastrophes and natural disasters such as earthquakes, droughts and

floods killing multiple thousands of people; grinding poverty holding

entire nations in its brutal grip; violent crime increasing in spite

of man's best efforts to deal with it-the litany of tragedies and bad

news is relentless.

 

Accidents and diseases kill thousands every day. Tragically,

accidents, suicides and murder are leading causes of death among

teenagers and young adults in economically and technologically

advanced nations. Drug and alcohol abuse and sexual promiscuity are

rampant, bringing epidemics of broken marriages, broken homes and

broken lives.

 

Baffling new diseases spring up around the world, defying the best

attempts of scientists to contain or cure them. Other diseases, long

thought to have been conquered by medical science, resurface with

deadly vengeance, having grown resistant to the medications that

easily cured them only a few decades ago.

 

Even religion, to which many look for solutions, is often a part of

the problem. At any given time, wars and armed conflicts flare and

burn, fanned by the fires of religious fervor. Wars are fought not

only between major religions, but between sects of the same religion,

supposedly out of devotion and service to the same God.

 

Human existence threatened

 

In this century, more than 150 million people have been killed in war

alone. Well over 100 million more have died from diseases and natural

disasters. Terrifying nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have

the capability to annihilate armies-even entire nations-in seconds.

Government leaders grow increasingly worried about such frightening

weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists who

stop at nothing to achieve their ends.

 

Why do we see so much sadness, sorrow and suffering around us? Where

is it all headed? Why is the world in such a precarious condition?

With all this bad news, is there really any hope for the future of

humanity?

 

Almost 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, came to

earth prophesying a wonderful future for humanity after an intense

period of earthshaking calamities. His message, called " the gospel, "

means " good news " -the very good news the world so desperately needs.

 

But what exactly is this good news-this gospel-Jesus Christ preached?

Is it only a wonderful story about Jesus Christ's birth, life,

activities, death and resurrection? Certainly these are an integral

part of the good news of God's plan for humanity (Mark 1:1). But

there is so much more to His message.

 

Message of salvation

 

We will see that the good news Jesus Christ brought is not just a

message about His life and death leading to our salvation; His

message also concerns the meaning of salvation and how He intends to

save the human race from its present problems. The gospel reveals the

glorious destiny of mankind!

 

Sadly, humankind has reduced the gospel to the story about the person

of Jesus Christ while neglecting and overlooking the deeper and

vastly more encompassing message He brought. He most certainly

brought good news-the most wonderful news this tired, troubled world

can hear!

 

An entire section of the New Testament is devoted to the historical

record of the message Jesus Christ taught while on earth. This

portion of the Bible, appropriately called " the Gospels, " comprises

the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and

John. The writers of these accounts all tell us that Jesus' primary

message was the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

 

Mark tells us: " Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the

kingdom of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom

of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel' " (Mark 1:14,

15, emphasis ours throughout). " The gospel of the Kingdom of God " is

the message Jesus Christ instructs His followers to believe. . . .

 

Scripture occasionally calls the gospel by names other than " the

gospel of the kingdom of God. " For instance, the Bible speaks of " the

gospel of Christ " and " the gospel of God " (Romans 1:1, 16).

 

The term " gospel of God " simply shows it originated with God. God

delivered the message to earth through His servants. Peter tells us

the gospel was sent from God through Jesus Christ. Notice Acts 10:36,

37: " The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching

peace through Jesus ChristñHe is Lord of allñthat word you know,

which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee

after the baptism which John preached ... "

 

The gospel of God is God's good news about the Kingdom of God. The

gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news Jesus brought as God's

messenger. All are the same gospel; all are part of the wonderful

news of what God has in store for humanity. In a similar manner, Paul

sometimes used the term " my gospel " (Romans 2:16; 16:25; 2 Timothy

2:8). This does not mean the message originated with Paul, nor was it

a gospel about Paul. It was a message he received directly from Jesus

Christ. " ... The gospel which was preached by me ... came through the

revelation of Jesus Christ, " he said (Galatians 1:11, 12). Paul's use

of the term " my gospel " is proper because he was the one who

proclaimed it.

 

The good news is also called " the gospel of the grace of God " (Acts

20:24). From the beginning we are called by grace, justified by grace

and saved by grace (Galatians 1:6, 15; Romans 3:24; Ephesians 2:8).

The " gospel of grace " is another appropriate term that focuses on a

different aspect of the same gospel Jesus preached: God's enormous

love for us, expressed by His grace toward mankind.This message is

also called " the gospel of your salvation " (Ephesians 1:13). Since

our entrance into the Kingdom of God is synonymous with our

salvation, there is no conflict in these terms for the gospel. Each

complements and strengthens the other.

 

" The gospel of peace " is also used to describe the good news (Romans

10:15; Ephesians 6:15). The Kingdom of God will bring peace to the

earthñan important result of our believing in and acting on the

gospel of the Kingdom. Prophesying of God's Kingdom, Isaiah said, " Of

the increase of His government and peace there will be no end "

(Isaiah 9:7).

 

All these terms describe the same gospel. They simply emphasize

different aspects of the same wonderful message. Jesus Christ came

preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:14, 15), taught

His disciples to preach the same message (Matthew 10:7) and continued

to preach it when He appeared to the disciples after His crucifixion

(Acts 1:3). After Jesus rose from the dead, the apostles preached the

same gospel, but with the added understanding of the meaning of

Christ's sacrifice and resurrection. Although the terms that describe

it may vary, the message is always the same.

 

The glorious truth is that this whole magnificent message is one

seamless gospel, and " it is the power of God to salvation for

everyone who believes ... " (Romans 1:16). "

 

Gospel of the Kingdom

http://www.gnmagazine.org/booklets/bk5/

 

 

, " violettubb " <violettubb

wrote:

>

> What did Jesus ask people to " believe " ?

>

> ...Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and

saying, " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and

believe the gospel. " (Mark 1:14-15)

>

> (p.378) Jesus' exhortation to " believe the gospel " does not refer to study of

or belief in scriptural writings per se.[1] In the original Greek in which the

New Testament was written, the word used for gospel is 'euangelion', " good news "

or " good message. " As used by Jesus it expressed the " good message, " the

revelations of truth, he was bringing to man from God.

>

> When Jesus said to " believe the gospel, " he meant more than a casual mental

acceptance of his message. Belief in general is that conditional receptive

attitude of mind that must precede an experience in order to cognize it. One

must have sufficient belief in a concept in order to put it to the test, without

which one cannot possibly verify its validity. (p.379) If a man is thirsty and

is advised to quench his thirst with the water from a nearby good well, he must

believe in that advice sufficiently to make the effort to go to the well and

drink from it.

>

> Similarly, Jesus emphasizes that truth-seeking souls must not only repent of

the foolishness of following unsatisfying material ways of living, and believe

in the truths experienced by him through God; they must also act accordingly

that they might realize those truths for themselves.

>

> To be an orthodox unquestioning believer in any spiritual doctrine, without

the scrutiny of experimentation to prove it to oneself, is to be ossified with

dogmatism. Jesus did not ask the people merely to believe in his message, but to

keep faith in his divine revelations with the assurance that by believing in,

and hence concentrating upon, the gospel, they would surely and ultimately

experience within themselves the truths in those revelations. Belief is wasted

on false doctrines; but truth poured out to man through the authority of

God-realized saints is worthy of belief and sure to produce divine realization.

>

> Even on the authority of the fame of scriptural text, one cannot judge what it

teaches, for various are the meanings and consequent distortions drawn from holy

writ, some of which defy the laws of both reason and wisdom. Also, who can deny

what errors might have come down through the centuries in the form of

mistranslations or mistakes made by scribes? The Bible and the Vedas may well be

inspired texts that came from heaven, but the ultimate test of truth is one's

own realization, direct experience received through the medium of the soul's

omniscient intuition.

>

> The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within

> You) Volume 1, Discourse 22, pg. 378-379

> Paramahansa Yogananda

> Printed in the United States of America 1434-J881

> ISBN-13:978-0-87612-557-1

> ISBN-10:0-87612-557-7

>

> Notes:

>

> [1] " While two of the New Testament gospels use the word 'gospel' (it is

missing in Luke and John), they use it to indicate not the written works

themselves, but rather the message preached either by Jesus (in Matthew) or

about him (in Mark). Not until the middle of the second century are documents

about the words and deeds of Jesus called gospels. " - Robert J. Miller, ed.,

'The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version' (HarperSanFrancisco, 1994).

>

> " The English word 'gospel' is a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon word 'godspel'

or 'good news'. 'Godspel' was an accurate equivalent of the original Greek word

'euangelion', literally a 'good message' or 'good tidings'. And the oldest

surviving Greek manuscript copies of the four canonical gospels bear only the

headings According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John (the four books together

comprise the whole of the single 'gospel'; and the word 'canonical' derives from

the Greek 'kanon' or 'measuring rod' and indicates, in this case, those few

gospels that were approved as holy scriptures by the orthodox church of the late

second century). " - Reynolds Price, 'Three Gospels' (New York: Simon and

Shuster, 1997). ('Publisher's Note')

>

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