![]() ![]() The good news was that everyone’s tomb could one day be empty, that everyone’s soul could again be pure, that every child of God could again return to the Father who gave them life. The word gospel as we use it in English comes down to us through early scriptural language which meant literally “good news” or sometimes “glad tidings.” The “good news” was that death and hell could be escaped, that mistakes and sins could be overcome, that there was hope, that there was help, that the insoluble was solved, that the enemy had been conquered. Inherent in all of this is a rather simple definition of the gospel, at least when considered in its essence. … For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified.” 4 The “Good News” Little wonder, then, that the Apostle Paul, the greatest missionary the world has ever known (or at least one of them), said: “The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. Other of the blessings, at least the full realization of them, are very conditional, requiring the keeping of commandments, the performance of ordinances, and living the life of a disciple of Christ.Įither way, the essential message of the gospel, the starting point for all other truths, is this from the Master’s own lips: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” 3 Thus the Atonement of Christ, which makes that return to the Father possible, is rightfully seen as the central fact, the crucial foundation, and the chief doctrine of the great and eternal plan of salvation-“our Heavenly Father’s plan,” which we are called to teach. Some of those blessings are unconditional, such as the gift of the Resurrection. Our basic message is that with a complete offering of His body, His blood, and the anguish of His spirit, Christ atoned for the initial transgression of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and also for the personal sins of everyone else who would ever live in this world from Adam to the end of time. 1 In like manner and for the same reasons, every truth that a missionary or member teaches is only an appendage to the central message of all time-that Jesus is the Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, the Holy Messiah, the Promised One, the Savior and Redeemer of the world that He alone burst the bands of death and triumphed over the captivity of hell that no one of us could ever have those same blessings without His intervention in our behalf and that there never shall be any “other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.” 2 ![]() The Prophet Joseph Smith once declared that all things “which pertain to our religion are only appendages” to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. ![]()
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