Checking for sound theology

_Jordan_ said:

My memory of specific verses isn't very good so making sure/biblically proving, all of which I am wanting to write is true is somewhat hard.

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You have presented a sound summary. People will nit-pick everything, but this is what the Bible reveals.

_Jordan_ said:

Man sinned against God

The nature of sin is infinitely evil, evidenced by the majesty of whom it’s against.

God is morally perfect in justice; the judgement of sin can’t be eternally postponed, which would be to disregard sin hence invalidate Gods justice.

The result of God’s justice and man’s sin is divine wrath.

Divine Wrath is the application of justice through retribution according to each’s deeds

Only God’s infinite worthiness could account for the atonement of the infinite weight our of sin.

God clothed himself in flesh so that he could physically bear Gods wrath

Therefore, Jesus’ death appeased the wrath of god for those who by faith repent and trust the propitiation provided by Jesus.

This was a free act of Grace, not deserved nor achievable, but brought about by Gods unfathomable love.

Through this, reconciliation to God is achieved and true enjoyment of God can be experienced

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Ephesians 2:1-11 New American Standard Bible (NASB).

At that point where it reads, in 2:5, "by grace you have been saved," insert Romans 10:8-13.

_Jordan_ said:

Thanks for the reply, and I appreciate your honesty, don't worry about offending me as I understand your aren't being malicious but wanting to stand for truth. I respect that but I do think I disagree with you on the topic of Gods wrath. Romans 3, 23-26, Paul states the reason I would disagree and he probably says it much better than I could. I will show the ESV translation, but others translate the exact same meaning.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Romans 3, 23-25

"Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be ..."

the KJV renders it

"Whom [Jesus] God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness..."

The NIV renders this.

"God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood..."


The phrases "propitiation", "Sacrifice of atonement", all declare that Christ's death "appeased the wrath of God for all our sins"

It then goes on to say, "this was to show Gods righteousness because of divine forbearance he passed over former sins". Yes he does forgive people without first satisfying his wrath (I.E OT saints), BUT for the sake of his own righteousness he will punish all sin, via his wrath (either in Hell, or in Jesus' death, which was completely aligned with the fathers will john6:38). There is a mystery, a divine reality to how this bears itself out on the cross, but never-the-less seems true from this scripture. I hope you understand what I mean, I just don't understand, how do you deal Rm3,23-25? and I am sure many other places (my memory as I said isn't very good). Sorry but on this I have to disagree, if you want to leave it there that's ok. I want to thank you for your help and also helping me out with everything else, I do really appreciate it and the discussion. Thank you and God bless

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I appreciate your willingness to discuss and that you are not offended.

I will just say this - we understand a sense of atonement, propitiation, substitution. But why does this automatically mean "wrath"? When animals were sacrificed in the OT as a foreshadowing of Christ's atoning sacrifice - was anybody angry at those animals? Was their suffering what provided the atonement? I don't know this for sure, but my guess would be that the animals were killed in a semi-humane way, and certainly not deliberately tortured.

Yes, it happens that Christ WAS tortured and humiliated, but that was partly due to the evil of men, not because God the Father wouldn't be satisfied without it. (There are other reasons too, but none of them involve wrath or vengeance.)

I read all those verses the same way, but without an angry God behind them. It takes quite a shift in perspective when that's all you've ever known (it did for me anyway!) but they make just as much sense without adding that bit in.

Someone else here is saying "John 3:16" and that it is there. But is it? For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. No wrath is included, and it works fine without it.

I was going to say more on Romans, but let me get on the computer - typing is too slow on this thing.

You mentioned Romans 3:21? (I would continue through v. 26) Looking at that passage ...

Actually I'm not going to do that. I won't be able to explain it well. I think it is enough to say as I did in the last reply that we understand substitution but it does not have to carry the motive of wrath tied in with it. There is also the point that "justification" is not simply a label that God pastes over our wretched sinfulness, but that if we pursue a life in Christ, we will indeed be changed. This is NOT to say that it is our effort that saves us. That is impossible. We are saved by grace. But God really does mean to change us, and that is part of this passage as well.

I read a blog post earlier today that addresses this fairly well, if you are interested. It explains many of the points I've hinted at, and others besides. The title is The Death of Christ, and it addressed the question of "Why the Cross?" It is a bit of a long read, but excellent. Even the comments have some pearls.

Speaking of comments, there is a woman posting there who remained outside of Christianity for many years precisely because she had it explained to her that God was punishing Christ for our sins, and she related that to a punishment she had just endured for something her brother did, and it is not difficult to understand why this seems unfair. Not only that, but it was explained to her that she was deserving of punishment in the first place for something Eve did (which you might also be willing to admit sounds unfair). This image of God is not one that attracts many people to the Gospel.

By the way, we (meaning Orthodox Christians) do not understand humankind as inheriting guilt from Adam and Eve either. I'm not sure, but we Orthodox may be alone in this. It was not the way the early Church understood ancestral sin though. Rather, Adam and Eve sinned, and as a result, sin and death entered the world. The creation is "broken" and us along with it. We live in a sin-infected world, and as a result, we all sin. At THAT point we become guilty of our own sins. But nevertheless, the entire world is under a curse of death handed to Adam, so that we suffer physical death as a result of that curse.

Speaking of the curse of death, I really like one thing that blog post explains. It points out, God told Adam that "in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die". It does NOT say "in the day you eat of it, I will surely kill you". God IS life, He is the source of it. When we cut ourselves off from God, we cut ourselves off from the source of life, and nothing is left but death. It wasn't a matter of vengeful punishment so much as a natural consequence. In fact, in the next breath, God promises redemption, even at great personal cost to Himself. He is not doing this out of His wrath.

And from St. Anthony:
We men ... if we remain good through resembling God, are united to Him, but if we become evil through not resembling God, we are separated from Him. By living in holiness we cleave to God; but by becoming wicked we make Him our enemy. It is not that He grows angry with us in an arbitrary way, but it is our own sins that prevent God from shining within us and expose us to demons who torture us. And if through prayer and acts of compassion we gain release from our sins, this does not mean that we have won God over and made Him to change, but that through our actions and our turning to the Divinity, we have cured our wickedness and so once more have enjoyment of God’s goodness. Thus to say that God turns away from the wicked is like saying that the sun hides itself from the blind.

God bless you, my brother. And I applaud your desire to reach out and share the Gospel.

~Anastasia~ said:

By the way, we (meaning Orthodox Christians) do not understand humankind as inheriting guilt from Adam and Eve either. I'm not sure, but we Orthodox may be alone in this. It was not the way the early Church understood ancestral sin though. Rather, Adam and Eve sinned, and as a result, sin and death entered the world. The creation is "broken" and us along with it. We live in a sin-infected world, and as a result, we all sin. At THAT point we become guilty of our own sins. But nevertheless, the entire world is under a curse of death handed to Adam, so that we suffer physical death as a result of that curse.

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I'm not sure that Catholic understanding is all that different. We do NOT believe that man is "utterly depraved" as the Protestants would have it.

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".293 By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.

405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

406 The Church's teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine's reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God's grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam's fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)296 and at the Council of Trent (1546).297

~Anastasia~ said:

I read a blog post earlier today that addresses this fairly well, if you are interested. It explains many of the points I've hinted at, and others besides. The title is The Death of Christ, and it addressed the question of "Why the Cross?" It is a bit of a long read, but excellent. Even the comments have some pearls.

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The article is truly excellent.

There were pearls in the comments, but also the opening of question. For example, there was a discussion of "ransom", a concept that I though was Western, through Anselm.

_Jordan_ said:

I am wanting to make a short video (~1-2 minute) with a concise, dense, accurate message of the gospel.I am aware it's possible to mistakenly write things which aren't true, which is why I'm asking this. My memory of specific verses isn't very good so making sure/biblically proving, all of which I am wanting to write is true is somewhat hard. Mishandling Gods word greatly worries me and I don't want to mistakenly eisegesis verses when I come to research/quote verses to back up this. The following script is what I've wrote so far and is the essence of the gospel how I've understood it from reading the bible and listening to sermons over the years. I would like as much people, preferably reformed/orthodox, to look at what I've wrote, tell me if I need correction, or need to add anything in? I want it to flow as logically and biblically as possible in a concise short fashion.

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Id make these adjustments.

God created a perfect universe and placed humanity in control.

Man sinned against God

Sin is the rejection of God and his ways.

God is morally perfect in justice; the judgement of sin can’t be eternally postponed, which would be to disregard sin hence invalidate Gods justice.

The result of God’s justice and man’s sin is divine wrath.

Divine Wrath is the application of justice through retribution according to each persons deeds

Only God’s infinite worthiness could account for the atonement of the infinite weight our of sin.

God, as Jesus, become human so that he could physically bear Gods wrath

Therefore, Jesus’ death appeased the wrath of god for those who by faith in Jesus repent and accept the propitiation provided by Jesus.

This was a free act of Grace, not deserved nor achievable, but brought about by Gods unfathomable love.

Through this, reconciliation with God can be achieved by those who have faith in Jesus and take him as Lord and Saviour and true communion with God can be experienced.

mark46 said:

I'm not sure that Catholic understanding is all that different. We do NOT believe that man is "utterly depraved" as the Protestants would have it.

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".293 By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.

405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

406 The Church's teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine's reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God's grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam's fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)296 and at the Council of Trent (1546).297

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Hmmmmm.

Well, I have to admit, it's closer than I realized. I have had conversations with Catholics that had me thinking we were much further apart. However, I am not qualified to try to tease out the nuances here between the Catholic catechism and Orthodoxy.

I wonder if Catholics and Orthodox would consider differently an infant who died, not having committed any personal sin.

It's probably only fair to say that not all Protestants teach in total depravity, btw. But that might not be what you meant.

Thanks for the info.

mark46 said:

The article is truly excellent.

There were pearls in the comments, but also the opening of question. For example, there was a discussion of "ransom", a concept that I though was Western, through Anselm.

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I've heard differing opinions of "ransom" within Orthodoxy, so .... I wouldn't be able to comment on it from the point of view of the EO Church. The main problem with ransom is - who is the ransom being paid to? I think the article discusses that difficulty. I thought he left it that we were "ransomed from death" but I wasn't sure that he was speaking in a literal sense?

I am thinking .... is it possible that the ransom idea comes somewhat from the kinsman-redeemer pov? There is so much to know, I had not yet made it back around to those particular questions.

_Jordan_ said:

I am wanting to make a short video (~1-2 minute) with a concise, dense, accurate message of the gospel.I am aware it's possible to mistakenly write things which aren't true, which is why I'm asking this. My memory of specific verses isn't very good so making sure/biblically proving, all of which I am wanting to write is true is somewhat hard. Mishandling Gods word greatly worries me and I don't want to mistakenly eisegesis verses when I come to research/quote verses to back up this. The following script is what I've wrote so far and is the essence of the gospel how I've understood it from reading the bible and listening to sermons over the years. I would like as much people, preferably reformed/orthodox, to look at what I've wrote, tell me if I need correction, or need to add anything in? I want it to flow as logically and biblically as possible in a concise short fashion.



Man sinned against God

The nature of sin is infinitely evil, evidenced by the majesty of whom it’s against.

God is morally perfect in justice; the judgement of sin can’t be eternally postponed, which would be to disregard sin hence invalidate Gods justice.

The result of God’s justice and man’s sin is divine wrath.

Divine Wrath is the application of justice through retribution according to each’s deeds

Only God’s infinite worthiness could account for the atonement of the infinite weight our of sin.

God clothed himself in flesh so that he could physically bear Gods wrath

Therefore, Jesus’ death appeased the wrath of god for those who by faith repent and trust the propitiation provided by Jesus.

This was a free act of Grace, not deserved nor achievable, but brought about by Gods unfathomable love.

Through this, reconciliation to God is achieved and true enjoyment of God can be experienced

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Here is my take on the gospel of Jesus Christ: http://www.christianforums.com/threads/what-was-jesus-gospel-m-moved.7936369/

Personally I think you should consider it if nothing else.

Hieronymus said:

I meant the difference between appeasing God and reconciliation.

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Appeasement = what is owed one in order to make satisfaction to restore a broken relationship.

Reconciliation = Bringing two parties back together in agreement

Appeasement would suggest that God needs to be satisfied first in order to extend the hand of friendship. Reconciliation would simply assert that God extends the hand of friendship.

While there are different ways of viewing the Atonement, in some ways it comes to two views:

1) The death of Jesus is necessary in order for God to come close to man.

2) The death and resurrection of Jesus is God coming close to man.

It can be the difference between saying "Jesus died in order that God can forgive us" and saying "In Jesus' death God does forgive us"

For some the Atonement tends to be seen as the means by which man can come to God; while for others the Atonement is the means by which God has come to man. I would say the latter is Gospel, while the former isn't Gospel.

-CryptoLutheran

Hieronymus said:

No, it is both Christ dying on the cross.

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Appeasement begins with the question of what we owe God. Christ functions as the intermediate between God and man, as the representative of man making satisfaction to God on our behalf.

The direction is still fundamentally upward, from man to God.

And that's arguably quite problematic as the Gospel is always the downward movement of God to us.

-CryptoLutheran

_Jordan_ said:

I am wanting to make a short video (~1-2 minute) with a concise, dense, accurate message of the gospel.I am aware it's possible to mistakenly write things which aren't true, which is why I'm asking this. My memory of specific verses isn't very good so making sure/biblically proving, all of which I am wanting to write is true is somewhat hard. Mishandling Gods word greatly worries me and I don't want to mistakenly eisegesis verses when I come to research/quote verses to back up this. The following script is what I've wrote so far and is the essence of the gospel how I've understood it from reading the bible and listening to sermons over the years. I would like as much people, preferably reformed/orthodox, to look at what I've wrote, tell me if I need correction, or need to add anything in? I want it to flow as logically and biblically as possible in a concise short fashion.



Man sinned against God

The nature of sin is infinitely evil, evidenced by the majesty of whom it’s against.

God is morally perfect in justice; the judgement of sin can’t be eternally postponed, which would be to disregard sin hence invalidate Gods justice.

The result of God’s justice and man’s sin is divine wrath.

Divine Wrath is the application of justice through retribution according to each’s deeds

Only God’s infinite worthiness could account for the atonement of the infinite weight our of sin.

God clothed himself in flesh so that he could physically bear Gods wrath

Therefore, Jesus’ death appeased the wrath of god for those who by faith repent and trust the propitiation provided by Jesus.

This was a free act of Grace, not deserved nor achievable, but brought about by Gods unfathomable love.

Through this, reconciliation to God is achieved and true enjoyment of God can be experienced

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You may want to go here and look at how the modern Church has strayed from the teachings of the first century Church, to start with.

The New Covenant

Chapters 1-3 are also posted before it on the same thread. Chapter 5 will be posted sometime today, near the end of the thread.

.

There is not a lot about our need to truly repent - to turn 180 degrees from our own, known sins. Ezekiel 18:1ff shows that we are, each of us, responsible for our own sins, in the eyes of God, alone.

_Jordan_ said:

I am wanting to make a short video (~1-2 minute) with a concise, dense, accurate message of the gospel.I am aware it's possible to mistakenly write things which aren't true, which is why I'm asking this. My memory of specific verses isn't very good so making sure/biblically proving, all of which I am wanting to write is true is somewhat hard. Mishandling Gods word greatly worries me and I don't want to mistakenly eisegesis verses when I come to research/quote verses to back up this. The following script is what I've wrote so far and is the essence of the gospel how I've understood it from reading the bible and listening to sermons over the years. I would like as much people, preferably reformed/orthodox, to look at what I've wrote, tell me if I need correction, or need to add anything in? I want it to flow as logically and biblically as possible in a concise short fashion.



Man sinned against God

The nature of sin is infinitely evil, evidenced by the majesty of whom it’s against.

God is morally perfect in justice; the judgement of sin can’t be eternally postponed, which would be to disregard sin hence invalidate Gods justice.

The result of God’s justice and man’s sin is divine wrath.

Divine Wrath is the application of justice through retribution according to each’s deeds

Only God’s infinite worthiness could account for the atonement of the infinite weight our of sin.

God clothed himself in flesh so that he could physically bear Gods wrath

Therefore, Jesus’ death appeased the wrath of god for those who by faith repent and trust the propitiation provided by Jesus.

This was a free act of Grace, not deserved nor achievable, but brought about by Gods unfathomable love.

Through this, reconciliation to God is achieved and true enjoyment of God can be experienced

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I want to say I really, really respect you for the extreme care you are showing when it comes to wanting to accurately present the Gospel message. We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and if we preach another Gospel, we are anathema; when our Lord said that it is better that a millstone were placed around our neck and we were cast into the sea lest we offend any of the little ones, he meant not just chuldren specifically, but all "babes in Christ."

I agree with almost all of what you say, except for this:

"Therefore, Jesus’ death appeased the wrath of god for those who by faith repent and trust the propitiation provided by Jesus."

This is a medieval idea that originated with the Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, that Jesus had to die to appease the angry father; it is nowhere to be found in the Patristic corpus.

The list of canonical books of the New Testament was first drawn up by a man named St. Athanasius, who also was instrumental in defending the doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ against the false teacher Arius, who claimed Jesus Christ was a creature and not God.

St. Athanasius also wrote a book explaining the reason for the Incarnation and how we are saved through it, called On the Incarnation. I strongly reccommend you read it before proceeding, as it explains the scriptural basis for our salvation in Christ Jesus as it was understood by the early Church, in the fourth century.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation

Also, this video by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware one of the bishops of my church, the Greek Orthodox Church, explains how we understand salvation in Christ, and also how we understand the wrath of God:


In summary, the Bible describes God as a "consuming fire"; it also describes him as "unchanging" and as "Love."

If God is Love, and does not change, our actions could not enrage him, because that would represent a change in His disposition, and likesise the crucifixion of our Lord could not appease the Father for the same reason. Instead, God is pure love, a consuming fire of love, but we, because of our sin, are not pure love; there is hate in us.

When we die, and are resurrected in the world to come, we will be in the direct presence of God, as Revelations makes clear. The consuming fire of God's love will not burn those who have repented through faith in Jesus Christ and given themselves over to divine love, but for those who reject him and choose instead to hate him and to embrace revenge, anger, jealousy and the other passions, being in the presence of God will be an unbearable torture; the consuming fire will burn them.

This is the view found in the writings of most ancient theologians, from the second through the ninth centuries. The idea that you refer to, of Jesus Christ dying in order to satisfy the wrath of the Father, was an innovation that began with Anselm of Canterbury based on a distortion of the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo; this satisfaction soteriology of penal substitutionary atonement then became dominant in the West, and resulted I think in some people forgetting that God is love; we see it to an even more unpleasant extreme in some forms of five points Calvinism, where God has foreordained some people for damnation just to prove to the Elect his perfect justice.

I believe these are distortions of the Gospel that have alienated many people from Christianity, allowing atheists to describe God as the "ultimate child abuser" when He is not, and that we should move away from them, repent of them if you will, and tuen back to the ancient model of salvatiom found in the writings of St. Ignatius the Martyr (who was fed to lions in AD 90), St. Irenaeus, the Cappadocians (Sts. Gregory the Theologian, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyassa) and especially St. Athanasius, since it was actually St. Athanasius whose canon of New Testament scripture wound up becoming universally accepted. Its because of him we have Revelations, the three epistles of John, 2 Peter. Jude, James and Hebrews, and the Pastoral Epistles, and at the same time, we lack in our new testaments such spurious apocrypha as 1 Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.

Catherineanne said:

A bit better, but still all about man and nothing about the rest of creation at all.

If we are to summarise the gospel surely it has to say more about God than about us, and place us within the whole of creation?

Alternatively, this:

http://biblehub.com/john/3-16.htm

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No, because we alone out of all creation are rational beings created in the image of God. Flowers, cats, dolphins and so on are beautiful, but they are not bearers of the divine image. The rest of creation was created for our benefit (even the angels were created to serve and protect us; the angels are not allowed to behold God, whereas we see Him in the Eucharist), and we were given dominion over it (and the responsibility to exercise good stewardship over it). Also, the animals in the Garden of Eden did not sin, we did.

Commander Xenophon said:

No, because we alone out of all creation are rational beings created in the image of God. Flowers, cats, dolphins and so on are beautiful, but they are not bearers of the divine image. The rest of creation was created for our benefit (even the angels were created to serve and protect us; the angels are not allowed to behold God, whereas we see Him in the Eucharist), and we were given dominion over it (and the responsibility to exercise good stewardship over it). Also, the animals in the Garden of Eden did not sin, we did.

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All very pretty, but none of that is the Gospel.

ViaCrucis said:

Appeasement begins with the question of what we owe God. Christ functions as the intermediate between God and man, as the representative of man making satisfaction to God on our behalf.

The direction is still fundamentally upward, from man to God.

And that's arguably quite problematic as the Gospel is always the downward movement of God to us.

-CryptoLutheran

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Exactly.

Catherineanne said:

All very pretty, but none of that is the Gospel.

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It is, actually. The economy of Salvation, the reason why we need the Gospel, is because of the Fall of man described in Genesis. If the Gospel is the "Good News", Genesis is "the Bad News." Had we not sinned, we would not require salvation in Christ. And the four Gospels themselves are linked textually with the Torah; in particular, John 1:1-17 is a direct reference to Genesis 1 and explains how in the beginning, Jesus Christ was with God, and was God; He created all things (John 1:3) and for our sakes became incarnate (John 1:14); taking onto Himself our fallen human nature and revealing God to us, so as to save us (John 3:16), restoring and glorifying us through His passion and resurrection.

Everything in the Gospel is directly linked to Genesis 1. On the Sixth day, when God said, "Let us create man in our own image," we have Pontius Pilate looking upon the scourged person of our Lord before His crucifixion and saying, "Behold, the man," and then, on the cross, our Lord says "It is finished." Just as He finished creating the world on Sixth Day, He finished his work of the salvation and recreation of the world on the Sixth Day, and just as He had rested after His initial creation on the Seventh Day, after His salvific passion, he restrd in the tomb on the Great and Holy Sabbath.

Rising again on the First Day, our Lord began shepherding His renewed creation as Priest, Prophet and King, and the work of the Church began in preparing the people for the new creation. This is why in Orthodoxy we celebrate Pascha in the early hours before sunrise, to symbolize the dawn of the New Creation, of the New Heavens and the New Earth. The Gospel is that with the sound of the last trumpet, we shall all be raised incorruptoble; we shall face judgement before our Lord, who is infinitely just and merciful, and through faith in Him, we shall be saved, and enjoy with him life everlasting.

Catherineanne said:

All very pretty, but none of that is the Gospel.

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What I read in that paragraph by Commander Xenophon seems like very conventional theology. I'm sure it would help all readers if you would add specifics to "none of that is the Gospel."