In order to better assimilate the teaching of the Gospel, it is necessary to remember the Old Testament concepts of God. In the Old Testament, God is presented as formidable, vengeful, punishing for sin not only the sinner himself, but also his innocent children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The Old Testament people almost did not think about retribution in the future afterlife for the earthly life they lived; they did not have a proper idea of the future eternal life and were sure that the retribution for good deeds and sins is made here, on earth, while a person is alive. Therefore, all the attitudes of the Old Testament people to the terrible and vengeful (according to their concepts) God were based mainly on the fear of Him, and were expressed in the words: "Fear God."

D.

In a word, Christ revealed to us the God of Love and Goodness; God, who goes to meet the lost sinner in order to bring him to repentance and correction; God, who forgives all those who sincerely repent, and joyfully receives into His house the prodigal son who has returned in repentance; God, who leads into the Kingdom of Heaven the thief who repented only on the cross, before his last dying breath! Christ preaches to us the God of Love and Forgiveness, and expresses our attitude towards Him in a few words: "Love God!"

What a tremendous difference there is in the Old Testament and New Testament concepts of God! There is fear, there is love! There it was necessary to abstain from sins for fear of cruel punishment from the vengeful and formidable Judge; here - because of the desire to fulfill the will of the Good, Loving Father, Whom you yourself love with all your heart, with all your soul!

But all these are secrets that no person, no matter how brilliant he was, could reveal on his own. Therefore, in order to believe these words, one must become acquainted with the person who spoke them; it is necessary to know: Who was Jesus? Can He be considered only a Man? And if He is not only a Man, then Who is He?

In order to approach the solution of this question directly, it is necessary first of all to find out: Is Christ really risen? It has already been proved above that He was truly resurrected. And if He was resurrected, if by His own power He resurrected the dead and healed the dying in absentia, if the storms and waves of the sea obeyed His word, then it must be admitted that He possessed supernatural power, was outside the laws of nature, dominated them, and did not obey them, and therefore could not be only Man.

If, moreover, His whole life proves that He was sinless; if His sworn enemies, the scribes and Pharisees, were compelled to remain silent when He publicly asked them, "Which of you shall convict Me of unrighteousness?" - then He could not tell a lie. Admitting, therefore, that Jesus Christ could not consciously tell a lie, we must admit that He could not have erred, since error is the consequence of a frivolous attitude to the investigation of the truth, and light-mindedness is not characteristic of Him.

And if He could not knowingly tell a lie, and could not be mistaken, then how and from whom could He learn all that He spoke?

The mysteries that Christ revealed to the world could not be known to Him as a Man. Declaring them to be the will of His Father, that is, of God, Who sent Him into the world, He said: "He who sent Me is true, and whatsoever I have heard from Him, that I also say to the world" (John 8:26); and in his farewell conversation with the Apostles He said: "Believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me... believe Me according to the very works which I have done" (John 14:11).

So Jesus said that everything He taught was told to Him by God Himself, and that as He is in God, so God is in Him.

Jesus Christ, as the Witness of the truth, can either be fully believed or not believed at all; There can be no middle ground. But since the unconditionally truthful in everything, sinless and omnipotent, resurrected and ascended Jesus cannot be considered an unreliable witness, cannot be considered only a Man, there is only one way out: to believe Him unconditionally in everything, even if some things are inaccessible to the limited human mind.

CHAPTER 1. Angel's prediction of the birth of John the Baptist. Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Meeting with Elizabeth. The Birth of John

The Gospel story begins with the story of the Evangelist Luke about the events that preceded and accompanied the birth of John the Baptist and our Lord Jesus Christ, but, unfortunately, the Evangelist does not explain in what year these events took place, but confines himself to brief indications that it was in the days of Herod, king of the Jews (Luke 1:5), when there came from Caesar Augustus the command to take a census of all the earth (Luke 2:5). 1).

Determination of the year of birth of Jesus Christ.