This Good News is the good news of repentance, of simple faith in Jesus Christ, of lives that find peace with God through the work of Jesus Christ in the cross.
This Good News is the good news of repentance, of simple faith in Jesus Christ, of lives that find peace with God through the work of Jesus Christ in the cross.
Our Nostalgia for a World that never quite existed is a Nostalgia, a hoping for the Living and True World of the Living and True God, where God’s creativity becomes unrestrained by human sin and corruption, where we can live in fullness with Jesus, all the saints, the living, the imaginary, and the true.
For Chesterton, this life of joy begins in the simple wonder of being alive, but it ends in loving God and loving neighbor.
There is always a temptation to move beyond the simplicity of the Good News. In ancient Israel, the northern kingdom of Israel left the revelation of God for the illusions of surrounding nations. The Christians in Irenaeus’ day were tempted to leave the Gospel behind for a supposedly deeper spiritual truth. Even today, we are surrounded by ideas and lifestyles that call to us to leave behind the archaic Gospel truth in favor of supposedly deeper spiritual ideas.
The friends of God become people who enter into communion, into friendship with one another. And these friendships have stretched across the ages.