The Gospel of Christ

Our next question is a crucial one: Did Christ Himself actually teach the doctrine of justification by faith — the doctrine Paul so clearly proclaims? Or did Paul, however sincerely, reshape Christ’s message through his own way of thinking and the world he lived in?

Put differently, did Paul truly understand and faithfully represent the mind and purpose of the One whose messenger he claimed to be? And to what extent might Paul’s own background and habits of thought have influenced the way he expressed Christ’s teaching?

The Christian Documents

Few figures in history have shaped human thought and life as deeply as Jesus of Nazareth. His influence on the spiritual life — and indirectly on the material well being of the world — is so vast that it naturally draws our closest attention. As we have already seen, what humanity most needs is a teacher who can lift the veil hiding the mysterious Source of the universe, of life, and of our moral sense — a teacher who can point the way to forgiveness and moral freedom. No one else even claims to do this. And no spiritual teacher can be meaningfully compared with the one who sparked the great spiritual movement that has shaped and elevated what is best in human life. For this reason, we search eagerly for every trustworthy source of information about the Founder of Christianity.

Because Christ lived many centuries ago, the only sources available to us are written documents. It is to these documents that we now turn.