Chapter 4.--The Call of the Shepherd Chapter 5.--The Author to the Reader GOSPEL THEMES. The Story of God. CHAPTER I. A Divine Plan for Human Progress. The Gospel Defined.--The English word "Gospel" comes from the Anglo-Saxon "Godspell," or God-story--the story of God. It derives its significance from that great central idea of the Christian faith--the coming of God as the Son of God to redeem and save mankind. The joyful intelligence of the advent of the world's Redeemer, proclaimed by the angels to the shepherds on the Judean hills (Luke 2:10), furnishes another name for the gospel--"good tidings," or, as it is otherwise rendered, "glad tidings of great joy." God the Savior.--"God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people, and because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God" (Mosiah 15:1,2). prediction by Abinadi the prophet, centuries before the birth of the Savior, had been preceded by a This similar prophecy from King Benjamin, another Nephite seer (Mosiah 3:5). The fulfilment of these foretellings is recorded in the opening verses of the gospel according to St. John, where reference is made to "the Word" that was in the beginning "with God"--the Word that "was God," and was "made flesh" and dwelt among men. In him, as Paul affirms, "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9). Foundation and Superstructure.--When we speak of the gospel, therefore, we should bear in mind that the term means something more than faith, repentance, baptism, the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and other rituals and requirements in the Church of Christ. We must not isolate "the laws and ordinances of the gospel" from the basic principles upon which they rest--the mighty foundation stones of sacrifice and redemption, without which all this sacred legislation would be aimless and of no effect. Nor can the basic principles which make operative those laws and ordinances be dissociated from the idea of eternal progression, the great and paramount purpose for which the gospel code was framed, the gospel in its fulness instituted.