What was Christ’s doctrine or teaching?
Christ’s central message was the Gospel, the Good News, of the Kingdom of God: “The time is fulfilled! The Kingdom of God is at hand! Repent and believe in the Good News” (Mrk 1:14–15; see Q345). This is the doctrine of salvation, deliverance and freedom from sin and the powers of death, and of eternal blessedness.
This teaching of Christ is “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jud 3), preserved and taught in the Holy Orthodox Faith. This doctrine is the knowledge of the Truth, and the Truth is our communion with God in Christ, of which St Irenaeus wrote:
By ‘knowledge of the truth’ we mean: the teaching of the Apostles; the order of the Church as established from the earliest times throughout the world; the distinctive stamp of the Body of Christ, preserved through the episcopal succession… the reading of the Scriptures without falsification, and consistent and careful exposition of them… and the special gift of love, which is more precious than knowledge, more glorious than prophecy, surpassing all other spiritual gifts. (St Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV.33.8)
Salvation comes when we receive this teaching with all our heart and live in harmony with it. Just as the lying words of the devil, received by our first parents, became in them the seed of sin and death, so, on the contrary, the true Word of Christ, heartily received by Christians, becomes in them the seed of a holy and immortal life, as the Lord teaches in the parable of the Sower: “The seed is the word of God… the seed on good soil are those who, hearing the word with a noble and good heart, hold it fast and bear fruit with patient endurance” (Luk 8:11–15).
Those who receive this proclamation with faith are, in the words of the Apostle Peter, “born again, not of corruptible but of incorruptible seed, through the word of God which lives and remains forever” (1Pe 1:23). As St Clement of Rome writes:
And we also, who have been called in Christ Jesus through his will, are not justified through ourselves, through our own wisdom or understanding or piety, or the works we have done in holiness of heart, but through faith, for it is through faith that Almighty God has justified all men from the beginning of time; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (St Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 32)
