Second Vatican Council
An excerpt from Dei Verbum, 3-4.
ADVENT, Week 3: Thursday
God, who through the Word creates all things and keeps them in being, provides men with unfailing testimony to himself in creation. With the intention of opening up the way of salvation from above, he also revealed himself to our first parents from the very beginning.
After their fall, he lifted them up to hope for salvation by the promise of redemption, and watched over mankind with unceasing care, in order that he might give eternal life to all who in persevering in good works seek out salvation.
In his own good time God called Abraham, to make of him a mighty nation. After the patriarchs, he taught this nation through Moses and the prophets to acknowledge himself alone as the living and true God, a provident father and just judge, and to look forward to the promised Savior. So, through the ages, he prepared a way for the Gospel. After speaking at various times and in different ways through the prophets, God has finally spoken to us in these days through the Son.
He sent his Son, the eternal Word who enlightens all men, to dwell among men and make known to them the innermost things of God. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, sent as a man to men, speaks the words of God, and brings to perfection the saving work that the Father gave him to do.
To see him is to see the Father also. By his whole presence and self-revelation, by words and actions, by signs and miracles, especially by his death and glorious resurrection from the dead, and finally by sending the Spirit of truth, he completes revelation and brings it to perfection, sealing by divine testimony its message that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to eternal life.
The Christian dispensation, because it is the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away, and no new public revelation is any longer to be looked for before the manifestation in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
After their fall, he lifted them up to hope for salvation by the promise of redemption, and watched over mankind with unceasing care, in order that he might give eternal life to all who in persevering in good works seek out salvation.
In his own good time God called Abraham, to make of him a mighty nation. After the patriarchs, he taught this nation through Moses and the prophets to acknowledge himself alone as the living and true God, a provident father and just judge, and to look forward to the promised Savior. So, through the ages, he prepared a way for the Gospel. After speaking at various times and in different ways through the prophets, God has finally spoken to us in these days through the Son.
He sent his Son, the eternal Word who enlightens all men, to dwell among men and make known to them the innermost things of God. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, sent as a man to men, speaks the words of God, and brings to perfection the saving work that the Father gave him to do.
To see him is to see the Father also. By his whole presence and self-revelation, by words and actions, by signs and miracles, especially by his death and glorious resurrection from the dead, and finally by sending the Spirit of truth, he completes revelation and brings it to perfection, sealing by divine testimony its message that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to eternal life.
The Christian dispensation, because it is the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away, and no new public revelation is any longer to be looked for before the manifestation in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
