Evangelium

The content of the Christian evangelium reads: God finds man so important that he himself has suffered for man. The Cross, which was for Nietzsche the most detestable expression of the negative character of the Christian religion, is in truth the center of the evangelium, the glad tidings. “It is good that you exist” – no, “It is necessary that you exist.” The Cross is the approbation of our existence, not in words, but in an act so completely radical that it caused God to become flesh, and pierced this flesh to the quick; that, to God, it was worth the death of his incarnate Son. One who is so loved that the other identifies his life with this love and no longer desires to live if he is deprived of it; one who is loved even unto death – such a one knows that he is truly loved. But if God so loves us, then we are loved in truth. Then love is truth, and truth is love. Then life is worth living.

This is the evangelium.  This is why, even as the message of the Cross, it is glad tidings for one who believes; the only glad tidings that destroy the ambiguity of all other joys and make them worthy to be joy. Christianity is by its very nature, joy – the ability to be joyful. The chaire: “Rejoice!” with which it begins expresses its whole nature.