{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/009/0090206.htm","path":"chr/ecf/009/0090206.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/009/0090206.htm","text":"10. How Jesus Himself is the Gospel.\nThe foregoing inquiry into the nature of the Gospel cannot be regarded as useless; it has enabled us to see what distinction there is between a sensible Gospel and an intellectual and spiritual one. What we have now to do is to transform the sensible Gospel into a spiritual one.\nFor what would the narrative of the sensible Gospel amount to if it were not developed to a spiritual one? It would be of little account or none; any one can read it and assure himself of the facts it tells\u2014no more. But our whole energy is now to be directed to the effort to penetrate to the deep things of the meaning of the Gospel and to search out the truth that is in it when divested of types. Now what the Gospels say is to be regarded in the light of promises of good things; and we must say that the good things the Apostles announce in this Gospel are simply Jesus. One good thing which they are said to announce is the resurrection; but the resurrection is in a manner Jesus, for Jesus says: 4495 \u201cI am the resurrection.\u201d Jesus preaches to the poor those things which are laid up for the saints, calling them to the divine promises. And the holy Scriptures bear witness to the Gospel announcements made by the Apostles and to that made by our Saviour. David says of the Apostles, perhaps also of the evangelists: 4496 \u201cThe Lord shall give the word to those that preach with great power; the King of the powers of the beloved;\u201d teaching at the same time that it is not skilfully composed discourse, nor the mode of delivery, nor well practised eloquence that produces conviction, but the communication of divine power. Hence also Paul says: 4497 \u201cI will know not the word that is puffed up, but the power; for the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.\u201d And in another passage: 4498 \u201cAnd my word and my preaching were not persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power.\u201d To this power Simon and Cleophas bear witness when they say: 4499 \u201cWas not our heart burning within us by the way, as he opened to us the Scriptures?\u201d And the Apostles, since the quantity of the power is great which God supplies to the speakers, had great power, according to the word of David: \u201cThe Lord will give the word to the preachers with great power.\u201d Isaiah too says: 4500 \u201cHow beautiful are the feet of them that proclaim good tidings;\u201d he sees how beautiful and how opportune was the announcement of the Apostles who walked in Him who said, \u201cI am the way,\u201d and praises the feet of those who walk in the intellectual way of Christ Jesus, and through that door go in to God. They announce good tidings, those whose feet are beautiful, namely, Jesus.\n1 Cor. 4:19, 20 (with a peculiar reading).\n302:4498 302:4499 302:4500","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IX: Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John.: Chapter X","type":"page"}