“From the perspective of man, the gospel is a better way of life. It is life bursting forth in a wilderness of darkness. It is faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is signs, gifts and miracles. It is persecution and suffering and trials. It is learning to live as becometh a saint. It is overcoming the world until, eventually, in glorious immortality, the true saints dwell with Him who is their Friend and into whose image they have been molded.
“From the perspective of him who is our Redeemer, the gospel is the atoning sacrifice which puts into full operation and makes binding and efficacious all that the Father has prepared for them that love Him. It is our Lord’s birth in Bethlehem, his childhood in Nazareth, his ministry in Judea and Perea. It is the miracles he wrought, the works he did, the laws he made known. It is the Garden of Gethsemane and the hill of Calvary. It is great drops of blood dripping from every pore, as he took upon himself the sins of the world. It is a Roman spear piercing a sinless side. It is an open tomb outside a city wall. It is all power given him in heaven and on earth. It is immortality as a free gift for all and eternal life for the faithful.
“The gospel is all this and ten thousand times ten thousand things more. But all that it is, all that it has ever been, all that it shall ever be, all that appertains to it, centers in Him of whom the prophets testify….”
(Bruce R. McConkie, The Promised Messiah, p 52-3)
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
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