This is a record of my personal journey to discovering truly what I believe. This Journey started in 1971 as a young man I was baptized in a Small Baptist church and made my profession of faith in my belief in Jesus as the son of God. In doing this, I really started asking questions as to what I actually believed and what I came to find as truth in my life. It started studying the bible and the origins, the authors and how this all fits into ones life and beliefs. This study has never stopped through all the years even until now. In 1973 I was given a book called the Urantia Book. Being a skeptic I spent the next two years reading it and as being a good Southern Baptist, trying to disprove it. Unknown to many of my friends I spent many hours of my internship at the college reading, cross referencing and asking questions to any religious leader I could get to listen to me. Sometimes I created quite a problem in my New Testament and Old Testament classes not just excepting what I was told as being “Gospel truth”. I did have one teacher that gave me good advice about the Urantia Book. He said, “Read it, evaluate it, take the good to be learned from it and discard the rest”. Of course from the Baptist I got the standard line, “if it is not in the Bible it must be of the Devil”. Needless to say many “friends” have condemned me to hell and told me I will burn through eternity. Let me just say I am no longer motivated by fear. Fear goes away with faith and knowledge.
When I first started collecting the following document into a statement of beliefs I did this solely for myself to help crystallize my thoughts on certain subjects. I was actually looking for a church I would feel comfortable going to and not feel like the local heretic in as a member. In looking though many statements of faith and beliefs in the churches I actually borrowed this format from one of the churches and actually started changing it into what I actually believe. I did this to compare my beliefs to theirs. In this document I use the word “we” interchangeably with I. In the process this document grew into something much more than what I started it out to be. It became in essence my profession of faith. There are many passages from the Urantia book in this document and I believe them to be the total truth as I know it. The more I would start to express my opinion the more I would find a passage that would express my thoughts better than what I just said. There are my comments at the beginning of each section.
Upon many months of work collecting and cross referencing the Bible and the Urantia Book you will find many links from the Urantia book and many bible passages referencing this material at the end of each section. This is not a finished work as we never stop learning, life is an experience of progressive steps and knowledge is not static it forever grows. I did however find that I wanted to share this adventure with friends and relatives. Many times I have been asked what I really believe; well what follows is a good overview of what I actually believe. Please understand I am not trying to convince you I am right or wrong or changing the way you believe, each persons journey to find truth is different. What is truth to me may not be your truth, I do understand this. God reveals himself to different people in different ways. In stating this, I am also not expecting a response from anyone I send this to either, this is just me sharing my beliefs with you. Please don’t send me a letter to tell me I will rot in hell, (which has happened many times in my life before), I am very aware of the Biblical teaching on hell. (I don’t believe in hell anyway.) Please just take it as is, me sharing my joy of discovering the will of God the Father in my own life.
UB (Urantia Book) 132.3.4 "Revealed truth, personally discovered truth, is the supreme delight of the human soul; it is the joint creation of the material mind and the indwelling spirit. The eternal salvation of this truth-discerning and beauty-loving soul is assured by that hunger and thirst for goodness which leads this mortal to develop a singleness of purpose to do the Father's will, to find God and to become like him. There is never conflict between true knowledge and truth. There may be conflict between knowledge and human beliefs, beliefs colored with prejudice, distorted by fear, and dominated by the dread of facing new facts of material discovery or spiritual progress." Teachings of Jesus, (1459.4) 132:3.4
(Page) Paper.Section.Paragraph
All biblical reference can be easily found at Bible passages lookup: http://www.biblegateway.com/
(UB) Urantia Book lookup: http://www.truthbook.com/index.cfm?linkID=1661
The English text of The Urantia Book is in the public domain and may be freely reproduced.
Link for the Urantia Book Fellowship: http://Urantiabook.org/index_fef.htm
Link for the Urantia Foundation: http://www.Urantia.org/en
Link for Truthbook.com: http://www.truthbook.com/
Origins of the Gospels
The English text of The Urantia Book is in the public domain and may be freely reproduced
We believe in The Universal Father who is
the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings,
The Eternal Son, and The Infinite Spirit, and that they are the infinite beings
of the Paradise Trinity . God the Father
is the Savior of all men and women who put their faith in Him alone for eternal
life and all that is required is faith in the Father for that eternal life.
We believe in the Creator Son, Michael of Nebadon or Christ Michael, Jesus Christ, also known as Jesus of
REVELATORY AUTHORITY: We believe that revelation from God is not static. God is no respecter of persons or generations. Revelation from God does not stop in the past or present it is continuous through out each generation.
UB 132.7.6 or (1467.2) 132:7.6 “The religions of men grow up over long periods of time, while the revelations of God flash upon earth in the lives of the men who reveal God to their fellows”.
Revelation continues even in our age and a wise man will learn to decipher its meanings and values. We believe there have been five epochal revelations of God to man and they are:
1. The Dalamation teachings around 500,000 years ago. UB 92.4.5 or (1007.5) 92:4.5 The Dalamatian teachings. The true concept of the First Source and Center was first promulgated on Urantia by the one hundred corporeal members of Prince Caligastia ’s staff. This expanding revelation of Deity went on for more than three hundred thousand years until it was suddenly terminated by the planetary secession and the disruption of the teaching regime. Except for the work of Van, the influence of the Dalamatian revelation was practically lost to the whole world. Even the Nodites had forgotten this truth by the time of Adam’s arrival. Of all who received the teachings of the one hundred, the red men held them longest, but the idea of the Great Spirit was but a hazy concept in Amerindian religion when contact with Christianity greatly clarified and strengthened it.
2. The
Edenic teachings BC 35,913. UB 92.4.6 or (1007.6) 92:4.6 The Edenic teachings. Adam and Eve again portrayed
the concept of the Father of all to the evolutionary peoples. The disruption
of the first
3. Machiventa
Melchizedek of
4. Jesus of
5. The Urantia Papers AD 1934, 1935 UB 92.4.9 or (1008.2) 92:4.9 The Urantia Papers. The papers, of which this is one, constitute the most recent presentation of truth to the mortals of Urantia. These papers differ from all previous revelations, for they are not the work of a single universe personality but a composite presentation by many beings. But no revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father can ever be complete. All other celestial ministrations are no more than partial, transient, and practically adapted to local conditions in time and space. While such admissions as this may possibly detract from the immediate force and authority of all revelations, the time has arrived on Urantia when it is advisable to make such frank statements, even at the risk of weakening the future influence and authority of this, the most recent of the revelations of truth to the mortal races of Urantia.
...And when the kingdom shall have come to its
full fruition, be assured that the Father in heaven will not fail to visit you
with an enlarged revelation of truth and
an enhanced demonstration of righteousness, even as he has already bestowed
upon this world him who became the prince of darkness, and then Adam, who was
followed by Melchizedek, and in these days, the Son of Man. And so will my Father
continue to manifest his mercy and show forth his love, even to this dark and
evil world."
Jesus, The Urantia Book, (176:2.3) or (1914.4) 176:2.3
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Statement of a Divine
Counselor
BIBLICAL AUTHORITY: I believe the Christ best summed up the scriptures in the following statements:
UB 159.4.1 or (1767.3) 159:4.1 THE TALK WITH NATHANIEL And then went Jesus over to Abila, where Nathaniel and his associates
labored. Nathaniel was much bothered by some of Jesus' pronouncements which
seemed to detract from the authority of the recognized Hebrew scriptures. Accordingly, on this night, after the usual period of questions and answers,
Nathaniel took Jesus away from the others
and asked: "Master, could you trust me to know the truth about the Scriptures?
I observe that you teach us only a portion of the sacred writings—the best as
I view it—and I infer that you reject the teachings of the rabbis to the effect
that the words of the law are the very words of God, having been with God in
heaven even before the times of Abraham and Moses. What is the truth about the
Scriptures?" When Jesus heard the question of
his bewildered apostle, he answered:
UB 159.4.2 or (1767.4) 159:4.2 "Nathaniel, you
have rightly judged; I do not regard the Scriptures as do
the rabbis. I will talk with you about this matter on condition that you do
not relate these things to your brethren, who are not all prepared to receive
this teaching. The words of the law of Moses and the teachings of the Scriptures
were not in existence before Abraham. Only in recent times have the Scriptures
been gathered together as we now have them. While they contain the best of the
higher thoughts and longings of the Jewish people,
they also contain much that is far from being representative of the character
and teachings of the Father in heaven; wherefore must I choose from among the
better teachings those truths which are to be gleaned for the gospel of the kingdom.
UB 159.4.3 or (1767.5) 159:4.3 "These writings are
the work of men, some of them holy men, others not so holy. The teachings of
these books represent the views and extent of enlightenment of the times in
which they had their origin. As a revelation of truth,
the last are more dependable than the first. The Scriptures are
faulty and altogether human in origin, but mistake not, they do constitute the
best collection of religious wisdom and spiritual truth to be found in all the
world at this time.
UB 159.4.4 or (1767.6) 159:4.4 Many of these books were not written by the persons whose names they bear, but that in no way detracts from the value of the truths which they contain. If the story of Jonah should not be a fact, even if Jonah had never lived, still would the profound truth of this narrative, the love of God for Nineveh and the so-called heathen, be none the less precious in the eyes of all those who love their fellow men. The Scriptures are sacred because they present the thoughts and acts of men who were searching for God, and who in these writings left on record their highest concepts of righteousness, truth, and holiness. The Scriptures contain much that is true, very much, but in the light of your present teaching, you know that these writings also contain much that is misrepresentative of the Father in heaven, the loving God I have come to reveal to all the worlds.
UB 159.4.5 or (1768.1) 159:4.5 "Nathaniel, never
permit yourself for one moment to believe the Scripture records
which tell you that the God of love directed your forefathers to go forth in
battle to slay all their enemies—men, women, and children. Such records are
the words of men, not very holy men, and they are not the word of God. The Scriptures
always have, and always will, reflect the intellectual, moral, and spiritual
status of those who create them. Have you not noted that the concepts of Yahweh grow in beauty and glory as the prophets make their records from Samuel to Isaiah?
And you should remember that the Scriptures are intended for religious instruction
and spiritual guidance. They are not the works of either historians or philosophers.
UB 159.4.6 or (1768.2) 159:4.6 "The thing most deplorable
is not merely this erroneous idea of the absolute perfection of the Scripture record and the infallibility of its teachings, but rather the confusing misinterpretation
of these sacred writings by the tradition-enslaved scribes and Pharisees at Jerusalem. And
now will they employ both the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures
and their misinterpretations thereof in their determined effort to withstand
these newer teachings of the gospel of the kingdom. Nathaniel, never
forget, the Father does not limit the revelation of truth to
any one generation or to any one people. Many earnest seekers after the truth
have been, and will continue to be, confused and disheartened by these doctrines
of the perfection of the Scriptures.
UB 159.4.7 or (1768.3) 159:4.7 "The authority of truth
is the very spirit that indwells its living manifestations, and not the dead
words of the less illuminated and supposedly inspired men of another generation.
And even if these holy men of old lived inspired and spirit-filled lives, that
does not mean that their words were similarly spiritually inspired. Today
we make no record of the teachings of this gospel of the kingdom
lest, when I have gone, you speedily become divided up into sundry groups of
truth contenders as a result of the diversity of your interpretation of my teachings.
For this generation it is best that we live these truths while we shun
the making of records.
UB 159.4.8 or (1768.4) 159:4.8 "Mark you well
my words, Nathaniel, nothing which human nature has touched can be regarded as infallible. Through
the mind of man divine truth may indeed shine forth, but always of relative
purity and partial divinity. The creature may crave infallibility, but only
the Creators possess it.
UB 159.4.9 or (1768.5) 159:4.9 "But the greatest error
of the teaching about the Scripture is the
doctrine of their being sealed books of mystery and wisdom which only the wise
minds of the nation dare to interpret. The revelations of divine
truth are not sealed except by human ignorance, bigotry, and narrow-minded intolerance.
The light of the Scriptures is only dimmed by prejudice and darkened by superstition.
A false fear of sacredness has prevented religion from being safeguarded
by common sense. The fear of the authority of the sacred writings of the past
effectively prevents the honest souls of today from accepting the new light
of the gospel, the light which these very God-knowing men of another generation so intensely
longed to see.
UB 159.4.10 or (1769.1) 159:4.10 "But the saddest feature
of all is the fact that some of the teachers of the sanctity of this traditionalism
know this very truth. They more or less fully understand these limitations of Scripture, but they are moral cowards, intellectually dishonest.
They know the truth regarding the sacred writings, but they prefer to withhold
such disturbing facts from the people. And thus do they pervert and distort
the Scriptures, making them the guide to slavish details of the daily life and
an authority in things nonspiritual instead of appealing to the sacred writings
as the repository of the moral wisdom, religious inspiration, and the spiritual
teaching of the God-knowing men of other generations."
UB 159.4.11 or (1769.2) 159:4.11 Nathaniel was enlightened, and shocked, by the Master's pronouncement. He long pondered this talk in the depths of his soul, but he told no man concerning this conference until after Jesus' ascension; and even then he feared to impart the full story of the Master's instruction.
UB 97.9.20 or (1074.2) 97:9.20 The attempt to suppress freedom of speech led Elijah, Amos, and Hosea to begin their secret writing, and this was the real beginning of the Jewish and Christian Bibles.
The above also applies to the New Testament much of which was not recorded until long after the master’s death. The real problem is that the gospel of Jesus, the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man was replaced with a gospel about Jesus and much of the theology that Jesus taught the Apostles was replaces with Paul’s theology. There is still however much of the teachings of Jesus that remains which is both inspirational and instructive.
BEING CHRIST LIKE Jesus Christ, Michael of Nebadon, is the defining feature of God's will for all humankind, God’s will incarnate. In Christ is found the highest and most practical meaning and clearest example for holy living or godliness. It is through Christ life that we learn by example to do the Fathers will. Christ is our creator father, God’s creator son, creator of our local universe, elder brother in our son-ship with the Universal Father and example of perfection of a life of service. Christ is both example and strength as we pursue the brotherhood of man, integrity, excellence, faith, hope, love and the will of God.
Michael of Nebadon Reveals The Father To
Mortals
UB 2:0.1 or (33.1) 2:0.1 Inasmuch as man's highest possible concept of God
is embraced within the human idea and ideal of a primal and infinite personality, it is permissible, and may prove helpful, to study certain characteristics of
the divine nature which constitute the character of Deity. The nature of God
can best be understood by the revelation of the Father
which Michael of Nebadon unfolded in his manifold teachings and in his superb mortal life in the flesh.
The divine nature can also be better understood by man if he regards himself
as a child of God and looks up to the Paradise Creator as a true spiritual Father.
MAKING- DISCIPLES: Making disciples and teaching the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is a clear mandate from Christ.
UB 140.8.26 or (1582.7) 140:8.26 Jesus knew men were different, and he so taught his apostles. He constantly exhorted them to refrain from trying to mold the disciples and believers according to some set pattern. He sought to allow each soul to develop in its own way, a perfecting and separate individual before God. In answer to one of Peter's many questions, the Master said: "I want to set men free so that they can start out afresh as little children upon the new and better life." Jesus always insisted that true goodness must be unconscious, in bestowing charity not allowing the left hand to know what the right hand does.
UB 141.7.3 or (1593.4) 141:7.3 Jesus endeavored to make clear that he desired his disciples, having tasted of the good spirit realities of the kingdom, so to live in the world that men, by seeing their lives, would become kingdom conscious and hence be led to inquire of believers concerning the ways of the kingdom. All such sincere seekers for the truth are always glad to hear the glad tidings of the faith gift which insures admission to the kingdom with its eternal and divine spirit realities.
This leads us to believe each person we meet in our daily lives will benefit from the revelation of The Father and if given the right opportunity we should share this gift of knowledge which we ourselves have received from someone else and give this person the opportunity of spiritual training in spiritual growth and holy living. Done effectively, this will produce more souls willing to share these truths with the entire world.
LOCAL CHURCHS: Local churches are the most fundamental and strategic points of evangelism and discipleship which could benefit from the Teachings of The Urantia Book. The challenge of the brotherhood of man and of the brotherhood of believers in the Urantia Book is to keep finding the best ways to serve and strengthen congregations while enlightening them to the concepts of the Urantia Book. The brotherhood of God exists to serve local congregations and all individuals, not associated with a church, who are seeking for the will of the Father in their individual lives. The apostles understood the importance in planting the seeds of the new Gospel in the local congregations.
SERVANT LEADERSHIP: Leadership is not primarily bestowed, but earned and manifested by a loving and willing heart of obedience that serves God and mankind gladly. When leaders move away from the will of God or the leading or their Father fragment then they lose respect and spiritual authority and effectiveness. Serving should always be the chief desire of a spiritual leader and revealing the affection God has for all his children.
UNITY IN DIVERSITY: Loving each other eliminates devaluation and deprivation of life to one another. There is intrinsic value in every person. Unity becomes all the more important and beautiful in the light of the wide ranges of difference in personality, culture, race, talents, and perspectives.
We believe in The Universal Father who is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings, The Eternal Son, and The Infinite Spirit, and that they are the infinite beings of the Paradise Trinity . We believe in the one living and true God the Father, both holy and loving, eternal, unlimited in power, wisdom and goodness, the Creator and Preserver of all things. Within this unity there are three persons of one essential nature, power and eternity — the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit.
UB 0.3.18 or (6.5) 0:3.25 Much of the confusion of all orders of beings, high and low, in their efforts to discover the Father-Infinite, is inherent in their limitations of comprehension. The absolute primacy of the Universal Father is not apparent on subinfinite levels; therefore is it probable that only the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit truly know the Father as an infinity; to all other personalities such a concept represents the exercise of faith.
Gen. 1:1; 17:1; Ex. 3:13-15; 33:20; Deut. 6:4; Ps. 90:2; Isa. 40:28-29; Matt. 3:16-17; 28:19; John 1:1-2; 4:24; 17:3; Acts 17:24-25; 1 Cor. 8:4, 6; Eph. 2:18; Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:16-17; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 1:8; 1 John 5:20.
We believe the Universal Father is the Source of all that exists, whether of matter or spirit with the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit, He made man, male and female. By intention He relates to people as Father, thereby forever declaring His goodwill toward them. In love, He both seeks and receives all his children for all universes.
UB 148:6.10 or (1664.2) 148:6.10 Said Jesus: “Job was altogether right when he challenged the doctrine that God afflicts children in order to punish their parents. Job was ever ready to admit that God is righteous, but he longed for some soul-satisfying revelation of the personal character of the Eternal. And that is our mission on earth. No more shall suffering mortals be denied the comfort of knowing the love of God and understanding the mercy of the Father in heaven. While the speech of God spoken from the whirlwind was a majestic concept for the day of its utterance, you have already learned that the Father does not thus reveal himself, but rather that he speaks within the human heart as a still, small voice, saying, `This is the way; walk therein.' Do you not comprehend that God dwells within you, that he has become what you are that he may make you what he is!"
UB 1.0.3 or (21.3) 1:0.3 The enlightened worlds all recognize and worship the Universal
Father, the eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The will creatures
of universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining
God the Father. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the
eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father.
God-knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire,
and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy.
From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme
mandate, “be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” In love and mercy the messengers
of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation down through the ages and out through
the universes, even to such lowly animal-origin creatures as the human races
of Urantia.
UB 1.0.6 or (22.3) 1:0.6 This is the true meaning of that divine command, “be you
perfect, even as I am perfect,” which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons
him inward in that long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher
and higher levels of spiritual values and true universe meanings. This sublime
search for the God of universes is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants
of all the worlds of time and space.
UB 92.1.5 or (1004.3) 92:1.5 One Asiatic people taught that "God is a great fear"; that is the outgrowth of purely evolutionary religion. Jesus, the revelation of the highest type of religious living, proclaimed that "God is love."
Isa. 64:8; Ps. 68:5; Matt. 7:11; John 3:17; Rom. 8:15.
We believe the Eternal Son the first begotten Son of God is the second person of deity of the Paradise Trinity and that the Eternal Son is the word of God an infinite being. We believe in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God born on Urantia he is known throughout or Universe as Michael of Nebadon our creator son. He was born of Mary, truly God and truly man. He was crucified and died on the cross and was buried. On the third day Christ rose from the dead, and ascended into Paradise , and now is in Salvington the personal headquarters of Michael of Nebadon, and there intercedes for us.
UB 6.0.1 or (73.1) 6:0.1 THE ETERNAL SON is the perfect and final expression of the “first” personal and absolute concept of the Universal Father. Accordingly, whenever and however the Father personally and absolutely expresses himself, he does so through his Eternal Son, who ever has been, now is, and ever will be, the living and divine Word. And this Eternal Son is residential at the center of all things, in association with, and immediately enshrouding the personal presence of, the Eternal and Universal Father.
UB 6.1.1 or (73.5) 6:1.1 IDENTITY OF THE ETERNAL SON The Eternal Son is the original and only-begotten Son of God. He is God the Son, the Second Person of Deity and the associate creator of all things. As the Father is the First Great Source and Center, so the Eternal Son is the Second Great Source and Center.
UB 6:1.5 or (74.4) 6:1.5 The Eternal Son is known
by different names in various universes. In the central universe he is known
as the Co-ordinate Source, the Cocreator, and the Associate Absolute. On Uversa,
the headquarters of the superuniverse, we designate the Son as the
Who is Michael of Nebadon?
UB 33:1.1 or (366.2) 33:1.1 Our Creator Son is the
personification of the 611,121st original concept of infinite identity of simultaneous
origin in the Universal Father and the
Eternal Son. The Michael of Nebadon is the "only-begotten
Son" personalizing this 611,121st universal concept of divinity and infinity.
His headquarters is in the threefold mansion of light on Salvington.
And this dwelling is so ordered because Michael has experienced the living of
all three phases of intelligent creature existence: spiritual, morontial, and
material. Because of the name associated with his seventh and final bestowal on Urantia,
he is sometimes spoken of as Christ Michael.
UB 33.1.2 or (366.3) 33:1.2 Our Creator Son is not the Eternal Son, the existential Paradise associate of the Universal Father and the Infinite Spirit. Michael of Nebadon is not a member of the Paradise Trinity. Nevertheless our Master Son possesses in his realm all of the divine attributes and powers that the Eternal Son himself would manifest were he actually to be present on Salvington and functioning in Nebadon. Michael possesses even additional power and authority, for he not only personifies the Eternal Son but also fully represents and actually embodies the personality presence of the Universal Father to and in this local universe. These relationships constitute a Creator Son the most powerful, versatile, and influential of all divine beings who are capable of direct administration of evolutionary universes and of personality contact with immature creature beings.
UB 33.1.3 or (366.4) 33:1.3 Our Creator Son exerts the same spiritual drawing power, spirit gravity, from the headquarters of the local universe that the Eternal Son of Paradise would exert if he were personally present on Salvington, and more; this Universe Son is also the personification of the Universal Father to the universe of Nebadon. Creator Sons are personality centers for the spiritual forces of the Paradise Father-Son. Creator Sons are the final power-personality focalizations of the mighty time-space attributes of God the Sevenfold.
UB 33.1.4 or (367.1) 33:1.4 The Creator Son is the vicegerent personalization of the Universal Father, the divinity co-ordinate of the Eternal Son, and the creative associate of the Infinite Spirit. To our universe and all its inhabited worlds the Sovereign Son is, to all practical intents and purposes, God. He personifies all of the Paradise Deities which evolving mortals can discerningly comprehend. This Son and his Spirit associate are your creator parents. To you, Michael, the Creator Son, is the supreme personality; to you, the Eternal Son is supersupreme—an infinite Deity personality.
UB 33.1.5 or (367.2) 33:1.5 In the person of the Creator Son we have a ruler and divine parent who is just as mighty, efficient, and beneficent as would be the Universal Father and the Eternal Son if both were present on Salvington and engaged in the administration of the affairs of the universe of Nebadon.
UB 33.2.2 or (367.4) 33:2.2 Michael elected to organize this local universe, and herein he now reigns supreme. His personal power is limited by the pre-existent gravity circuits centering at Paradise and by the reservation on the part of the Ancients of Days of the superuniverse government of all final executive judgments regarding the extinction of personality. Personality is the sole bestowal of the Father, but the Creator Sons, with the approval of the Eternal Son, do initiate new creature designs, and with the working co-operation of their Spirit associates they may attempt new transformations of energy-matter.
UB 40.6.5 or (448.4) 40:6.5 "A Creator Son of God became one of you; he is your elder brother in fact; and if in spirit you become truly related brothers of Christ, the victorious Michael, then in spirit must you also be sons of that Father which you have in common—even the Universal Father of all."
The amazing story of the first six bestowal missions can be found by following
this link - The Bestowals of
Michael of Nebadon
The very beginnings of the seventh and final bestowal of Michael of Nebadon
as Jesus, the Christ child, can be fully appreciated by following this link
-The Bestowals of Michael
of Nebadon on Urantia
The Life and Teachings of Jesus within the Urantia Book
UB 120.0.0 This group of papers was sponsored by a commission of twelve Urantia Midwayers acting under the supervision of a Melchizedek Revelatory Director. The basis of this narrative was supplied by a secondary Midwayer who was onetime assigned to the superhuman watchcare of the Apostle Andrew.
Ps. 16:8-10; Matt. 1:21, 23; 11:27; 16:28; 27:62-66; 28:5-9, 16-17; Mark 15; 16:6-7; Luke 1:27, 31, 35; 24:4-8, 23; John 1:1, 14, 18; 3:16-17; 20:26-29; 21; Acts 1:2-3; 2:24-31; 4:12; 10:40; Rom. 5:10, 18; 8:34; 14:9; 1 Tim. 1:15; 1 John 4:14.
We believe in the Infinite Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and is of the same essential nature, majesty, and glory, as the Father and the Son, truly and eternally God. The Holy Spirit is the Administrator of grace to all, and is particularly the effective Agent in conviction for sin, in regeneration, in sanctification, and in glorification. He is ever present, assuring, preserving, guiding, and enabling the believer.
UB 0.2.11 or (4.8) 0:2.14 God the Spirit—Conjoint Actor, Universal Integrator, and Mind Bestower. The Infinite Spirit, the Third Person of Deity.
UB 8.0.4 or (90.4) 8:0.4 In thus reciting the order of the origin of the Deities, I do so merely to enable you to think of their relationship. In reality they are all three existent from eternity; they are existential. They are without beginning or ending of days; they are co-ordinate, supreme, ultimate, absolute, and infinite. They are and always have been and ever shall be. And they are three distinctly individualized but eternally associated persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.
UB 8.3.6 or (93.8) 8:3.6 The Infinite Spirit is a complete, exclusive, and universal revelation of the Universal Father and his Eternal Son. All knowledge of the Father-Son partnership must be had through the Infinite Spirit, the conjoint representative of the divine thought-word union.
UB 8.5.3 or (95.6) 8:5.3 In your sacred writings the term Spirit of God seems to be used interchangeably to designate both the Infinite Spirit on Paradise and the Creative Spirit of your local universe. The Holy Spirit is the spiritual circuit of this Creative Daughter of the Paradise Infinite Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a circuit indigenous to each local universe and is confined to the spiritual realm of that creation; but the Infinite Spirit is omnipresent.
UB 15.9.13 or (177.12) 15:9.13 The circuit of the Divine Ministers, the local universe Mother
Spirits, The Holy Spirit of your
world.
UB 16.4.13 or (190.7) 16:4.13 The bestowal of the ministry spirit of a local universe Creative
Spirit, known on Urantia as the Holy Spirit.
UB 34.4.1 or (377.5) 34:4.1 THE LOCAL UNIVERSE CIRCUITS There are three distinct spirit circuits in the local universe of Nebadon: 1.The bestowal spirit of the Creator Son, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth. 2. The spirit circuit of the Divine Minister, the Holy Spirit. 3. The intelligence-ministry circuit, including the more or less unified activities but diverse functioning of the seven adjutant mind-spirits.
Job 33:4; Matt. 28:19; John 4:24; 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:13-15; Acts 5:3-4; Rom. 8:9; 2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 4:6.
We believe Our Creator Son is the personification of the 611,121st original concept of infinite identity of simultaneous origin in the Universal Father and the Eternal Son. The Michael of Nebadon is the "only-begotten Son" personalizing this 611,121st universal concept of divinity and infinity. His headquarters is in the threefold mansion of light on Salvington. And this dwelling is so ordered because Michael has experienced the living of all three phases of intelligent creature existence: spiritual, morontial, and material.
Because of the name associated with his seventh and final bestowal on Urantia, he is sometimes spoken of as Christ Michael.
Our Creator Son is not the Eternal Son, the existential
Our Creator Son exerts the same spiritual drawing power, spirit gravity, from
the headquarters of the local universe that the Eternal Son of Paradise would
exert if he were personally present on Salvington, and more; this Universe Son
is also the personification of the Universal Father to the
universe of Nebadon. Creator Sons are personality centers for
the spiritual forces of the Paradise Father-Son. Creator Sons are the final
power-personality focalizations of the mighty time-space attributes of God the
Sevenfold.
We believe Lucifer rebelled against the sovereignty of Michael, his creator, over 200,000 years ago along with his associate Satan and that Caligastia our then acting planetary prince. This act caused our own planet Urantia or earth as, we know it, to be cast into rebellion and cut us off from the universal broadcast circuits.
UB 53.1.5 or (602.2) 53:1.5 Abaddon was the chief of the staff of Caligastia. He followed his master into rebellion and has ever since acted as chief executive of the Urantia rebels. Beelzebub was the leader of the disloyal midway creatures who allied themselves with the forces of the traitorous Caligastia.
UB 53.0.0 or (601.1) 53:0.1 LUCIFER WAS A BRILLIANT primary Lanonandek Son of Nebadon. He had experienced service in many systems, had been a high counselor of his group, and was distinguished for wisdom, sagacity, and efficiency. Lucifer was number 37 of his order, and when commissioned by the Melchizedeks, he was designated as one of the one hundred most able and brilliant personalities in more than seven hundred thousand of his kind. From such a magnificent beginning, through evil and error, he embraced sin and now is numbered as one of three System Sovereigns in Nebadon who have succumbed to the urge of self and surrendered to the sophistry of spurious personal liberty—rejection of universe allegiance and disregard of fraternal obligations, blindness to cosmic relationships.
UB 53.3.1 or (603.2) 53:3.1 Whatever the early origins of trouble in the hearts of Lucifer and Satan the final outbreak took form as the Lucifer Declaration of Liberty. The cause of the rebels was stated under three heads: (See all three through Link.)
UB 53:3.3 or (603.4) 53:3.3 The universe government of the Creator Son—Michael. Lucifer contended that the local systems should be autonomous. He protested against the right of Michael, the Creator Son, to assume sovereignty of Nebadon in the name of a hypothetical Paradise Father and require all personalities to acknowledge allegiance to this unseen Father. He asserted that the whole plan of worship was a clever scheme to aggrandize the Paradise Sons. He was willing to acknowledge Michael as his Creator-father but not as his God and rightful ruler.
UB 53.4.1 or (604.3) 53:4.1 OUTBREAK OF THE REBELLION The Lucifer manifesto was issued at the annual conclave of Satania on the sea of glass, in the presence of the assembled hosts of Jerusem, on the last day of the year, about two hundred thousand years ago, Urantia time. Satan proclaimed that worship could be accorded the universal forces — physical, intellectual, and spiritual — but that allegiance could be acknowledged only to the actual and present ruler, Lucifer, the “friend of men and angels” and the “God of liberty.”
UB 53.7.2 or (607.3) 53:7.2 Throughout this period Caligastia was advocating the cause of Lucifer on Urantia. The Melchizedeks ably opposed the apostate Planetary Prince, but the sophistries of unbridled liberty and the delusions of self-assertion had every opportunity for deceiving the primitive peoples of a young and undeveloped world.
UB 53:9.3 or (611.2) 53:9.3 Michael, upon assuming
the supreme sovereignty of Nebadon, petitioned the Ancients of Days for authority to intern all personalities concerned in the Lucifer rebellion pending the rulings of the superuniverse tribunals in the case of Gabriel vs. Lucifer, placed on the records of the Uversa supreme court almost
two hundred thousand years ago, as you reckon time. Concerning the system capital
group, the Ancients of Days granted the Michael petition with but a single exception: Satan was allowed to
make periodic visits to the apostate princes on the fallen worlds until another
Son of God should be accepted by such apostate worlds, or until such time as
the courts of Uversa should begin the adjudication of the case of Gabriel vs. Lucifer.
UB 54:4.5 or (616.4) 54:4.5 There are many reasons
known to us why the Supreme Rulers did not immediately destroy or intern the
leaders of the Lucifer rebellion. There are no doubt still other and possibly better
reasons unknown to us. The mercy features of this delay in the execution of
justice were extended personally by Michael of Nebadon.
Except for the affection of this Creator-father for his erring Sons, the supreme justice of the superuniverse
would have acted. If such an episode as the Lucifer rebellion had
occurred in Nebadon while Michael was incarnated on Urantia,
the instigators of such evil might have been instantly and absolutely annihilated.
UB 134.8.6 or (1493.5) 134:8.6 Near the end of the mountain sojourn Jesus asked his Father if he might
be permitted to hold conference with his Satania enemies as the Son of Man,
as Joshua ben Joseph. This request was granted. During the last week on
UB 134.8.7 or (1493.6) 134:8.7 To the many proposals and counterproposals of the emissaries of Lucifer, Jesus only made reply: "May the will of my Paradise Father prevail, and you, my rebellious son, may the Ancients of Days judge you divinely. I am your Creator-father; I can hardly judge you justly, and my mercy you have already spurned. I commit you to the adjudication of the Judges of a greater universe."
UB 134.8.8 or (1494.1) 134:8.8 To all the Lucifer-suggested
compromises and makeshifts, to all such specious proposals about the incarnation
bestowal, Jesus only made reply, "The will of my Father
in Paradise be done." And when the trying
ordeal was finished, the detached guardian seraphim returned to Jesus'
side and ministered to him.
UB 134.8.9 or (1494.2) 134:8.9 On an afternoon in
late summer, amid the trees and in the silence of nature, Michael of Nebadon won the unquestioned
sovereignty of his universe. On that day he completed the task set for Creator
Sons to live to the full the incarnated life in the likeness of mortal flesh
on the evolutionary worlds of time and space. The universe announcement of this momentous achievement
was not made until the day of his baptism, months afterward, but it all really
took place that day on the mountain. And when Jesus came down from his sojourn
on Mount Hermon, the Lucifer rebellion in Satania and the Caligastia secession on Urantia were virtually settled. Jesus had paid the last price required of him to attain the sovereignty of his universe,
which in itself regulates the status of all rebels and determines that all such
future upheavals (if they ever occur) may be dealt with summarily and effectively.
Accordingly, it may be seen that the so-called "great temptation"
of Jesus took place sometime before his baptism and not just after that event.
UB 2.3.6 or (37.4) 2:3.6 The rule of the Creator Sons in the local universes is one of creation and spiritualization. These Sons devote themselves to the effective execution of the Paradise plan of progressive mortal ascension, to the rehabilitation of rebels and wrong thinkers, but when all such loving efforts are finally and forever rejected, the final decree of dissolution is executed by forces acting under the jurisdiction of the Ancients of Days.
UB 2.3.4 or (37.2) 2:3.4 When this sentence is finally confirmed, the sin-identified being instantly becomes as though he had not been. There is no resurrection from such a fate; it is everlasting and eternal. The living energy factors of identity are resolved by the transformations of time and the metamorphoses of space into the cosmic potentials whence they once emerged. As for the personality of the iniquitous one, it is deprived of a continuing life vehicle by the creature's failure to make those choices and final decisions which would have assured eternal life. When the continued embrace of sin by the associated mind culminates in complete self-identification with iniquity, then upon the cessation of life, upon cosmic dissolution, such an isolated personality is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the evolving experience of the Supreme Being. Never again does it appear as a personality; its identity becomes as though it had never been. In the case of an Adjuster-indwelt personality, the experiential spirit values survive in the reality of the continuing Adjuster.
repercussions of the Lucifer rebellion.
Ezek 28:14-19; Jude1; Isa. 14:12; 1Chron 21:1; Job 1:6-7; Ps.109:6; Zech. 3:1-2; Mark 1:13; 3:22,30;8:33; Luke 4:3-11;11:15;10:18; John 12:31;14:30;16:11;12:31;14:30;16:11; Matt.9:43;10:25;12:24;28:18;4:3-11;4:10;16:23; Rev. 9:11;20:1-2;12:7-8;12:3-4;12:7;12:8;20:1-3;
We believe that the two great commandments which require us to love the Lord our God with all the heart, and our neighbors as ourselves, summarize the divine law as it is revealed in the Scriptures and the Urantia Book. As part of the kingdom of heaven, they are the perfect measure and norm of human duty, both for the ordering and directing of families and nations, and all other social bodies, and for individual acts, by which we are required to God as our only Supreme Ruler, and all persons as created by Him, equal in all natural rights. Therefore all persons should so order all their individual, social and political acts as to give to God entire and absolute obedience, and to assure to all the enjoyment of every natural right, as well as to promote the fulfillment of each in the possession and exercise of such rights. We believe Gods purpose for the brotherhood of man is the illustrated in the following:
UB 12.7.8 or (138.3) 12:7.8 The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man present the paradox of the part and the whole on the level of personality. God loves each individual as an individual child in the heavenly family. Yet God thus loves every individual; he is no respecter of persons, and the universality of his love brings into being a relationship of the whole, the universal brotherhood.
UB 12.7.11 or (138.6) 12:7.11 Brotherhood constitutes a fact of relationship between every personality in universal existence. No person can escape the benefits or the penalties that may come as a result of relationship to other persons. The part profits or suffers in measure with the whole. The good effort of each man benefits all men; the error or evil of each man augments the tribulation of all men. As moves the part, so moves the whole. As the progress of the whole, so is the progress of the part. The relative velocities of part and whole determine whether the part is retarded by the inertia of the whole or is carried forward by the momentum of the cosmic brotherhood.
UB 16.8.7 or (194.7) 16:8.7 The relative free will which characterizes the self-consciousness of human personality is involved in: 1. Moral decision, highest wisdom. 2. Spiritual choice, truth discernment. 3. Unselfish love, brotherhood service. 4. Purposeful co-operation, group loyalty. 5. Cosmic insight, the grasp of universe meanings. 6. Personality dedication, wholehearted devotion to doing the Father’s will. 7. Worship, the sincere pursuit of divine values and the wholehearted love of the divine Value-Giver.
UB 16.9.10 or (196.10) 16:9.14 You become conscious of man as your creature brother because you are already conscious of God as your Creator Father. Fatherhood is the relationship out of which we reason ourselves into the recognition of brotherhood. And Fatherhood becomes, or may become, a universe reality to all moral creatures because the Father has himself bestowed personality upon all such beings and has encircuited them within the grasp of the universal personality circuit. We worship God, first, because he is, then, because he is in us, and last, because we are in him.
UB 101.6.8 or (1112.4) 101:6.8 The teachings of Jesus constituted the first Urantian religion which so fully embraced a harmonious co-ordination of knowledge, wisdom, faith, truth, and love as completely and simultaneously to provide temporal tranquillity, intellectual certainty, moral enlightenment, philosophic stability, ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness, and the positive assurance of personal survival. The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided for: 1. Salvation from material fetters in the personal realization of sonship with God, who is spirit. 2. Salvation from intellectual bondage: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free. 3. Salvation from spiritual blindness, the human realization of the fraternity of mortal beings and the morontian awareness of the brotherhood of all universe creatures; the service-discovery of spiritual reality and the ministry-revelation of the goodness of spirit values. 4. Salvation from incompleteness of self through the attainment of the spirit levels of the universe and through the eventual realization of the harmony of Havona and the perfection of Paradise . 5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness through the attainment of the cosmic levels of the Supreme mind and by co-ordination with the attainments of all other self-conscious beings. 6. Salvation from time, the achievement of an eternal life of unending progression in God-recognition and God-service. 7. Salvation from the finite, the perfected oneness with Deity in and through the Supreme by which the creature attempts the transcendental discovery of the Ultimate on the postfinaliter levels of the absonite.
UB 131.2.11 or (1445.5) 131:2.11 “Love your neighbor as yourself; bear a grudge against no man. Whatsoever you hate do to no man. Love your brother, for the Lord has said: ‘I will love my children freely.’ The path of the just is as a shining light which shines more and more until the perfect day. They who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they who turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever. Let the wicked forsake his evil way and the unrighteous man his rebellious thoughts. Says the Lord: ‘Let them return to me, and I will have mercy on them; I will abundantly pardon.’
UB 140.4.7 or (1572.7) 140:4.7 "By their fruits you shall know them." Personality is basically changeless; that which changes— grows—is the moral character. The major error of modern religions is negativism. The tree which bears no fruit is "hewn down and cast into the fire." Moral worth cannot be derived from mere repression—obeying the injunction "Thou shalt not." Fear and shame are unworthy motivations for religious living. Religion is valid only when it reveals the fatherhood of God and enhances the brotherhood of men.
UB 147.4.7 or (1651.1) 147:4.7 "4. The level of brotherly love. Still higher is discovered the level of unselfish devotion to the welfare of one's fellows. On this higher plane of wholehearted social service growing out of the consciousness of the fatherhood of God and the consequent recognition of the brotherhood of man, there is discovered a new and far more beautiful interpretation of this basic rule of life.
UB 159.5.9 or (1770.1) 159:5.9 Jesus did not hesitate to appropriate the better half of a Scripture while he repudiated the lesser portion. His great exhortation, "Love your neighbor as yourself," he took from the Scripture which reads: "You shall not take vengeance against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus appropriated the positive portion of this Scripture while rejecting the negative part. He even opposed negative or purely passive nonresistance. Said he: "When an enemy smites you on one cheek, do not stand there dumb and passive but in positive attitude turn the other; that is, do the best thing possible actively to lead your brother in error away from the evil paths into the better ways of righteous living." Jesus required his followers to react positively and aggressively to every life situation. The turning of the other cheek, or whatever act that may typify, demands initiative, necessitates vigorous, active, and courageous expression of the believer's personality.
UB 149.2.4 or (1670.5) 149:2.4 The second great blunder of the Master's early followers, and one which all subsequent generations have persisted in perpetuating, was to organize the Christian teaching so completely about the person of Jesus. This overemphasis of the personality of Jesus in the theology of Christianity has worked to obscure his teachings, and all of this has made it increasingly difficult for Jews, Mohammedans, Hindus, and other Eastern religionists to accept the teachings of Jesus. We would not belittle the place of the person of Jesus in a religion which might bear his name, but we would not permit such consideration to eclipse his inspired life or to supplant his saving message: the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
Lev. 19:18, 34; Deut. 1:16-17; Job 31:13-14; Micah 6:8; Matt. 5:44-48; 7:12; Mark 12:28-31; Luke 6:27-29, 35; John 13:34-35; Acts 10:34-35; Rom. 12:9; 13:1, 7-8, 10; Gal. 5:14; 6:10; Titus 3:1; James 2:8; 1 John 2:5; 4:12-13; 2 John 6.
We believe that every person is created according to the image in the mind of God, that human sexuality reflects that image in terms of intimate love, communication, fellowship, subordination of the self to the larger whole, and fulfillment. God's Word makes use of the marriage relationship as the supreme metaphor for His relationship with His people and for revealing the truth that that relationship is of one God with His people. The marriage relationship is the only relationship which is divinely designed for the birth and rearing of children and is a covenant union made in the sight of God, taking priority over every other human relationship. However, in the life to come in the mansion worlds we are neither married nor given in marriage. So even for individuals who never marry it is apparent that this decision is also acceptable in that, this is the state in which we proceed through the mansion worlds.
UB 140.8.14 or (1581.1) 140:8.14 The family occupied the very center of Jesus’ philosophy of life—here and hereafter. He based his teachings about God on the family, while he sought to correct the Jewish tendency to overhonor ancestors. He exalted family life as the highest human duty but made it plain that family relationships must not interfere with religious obligations. He called attention to the fact that the family is a temporal institution; that it does not survive death. Jesus did not hesitate to give up his family when the family ran counter to the Father's will. He taught the new and larger brotherhood of man— the sons of God. In Jesus' time divorce practices were lax in Palestine and throughout the Roman Empire. He repeatedly refused to lay down laws regarding marriage and divorce, but many of Jesus' early followers had strong opinions on divorce and did not hesitate to attribute them to him. All of the New Testament writers held to these more stringent and advanced ideas about divorce except John Mark.
UB 33.3.6 or (369.1) 33:3.6 After this pledge of subordination by the Creative Mother Spirit, Michael of Nebadon nobly acknowledged his eternal dependence on his Spirit companion, constituting the Spirit coruler of his universe domains and requiring all their creatures to pledge themselves in loyalty to the Spirit as they had to the Son; and there issued and went forth the final "Proclamation of Equality." Though he was the sovereign of this local universe, the Son published to the worlds the fact of the Spirit's equality with him in all endowments of personality and attributes of divine character. And this becomes the transcendent pattern for the family organization and government of even the lowly creatures of the worlds of space. This is, in deed and in truth, the high ideal of the family and the human institution of voluntary marriage.
UB 174.3.2 or (1900.2) 174:3.2 Jesus knew, and so did the people, that these Sadducees were not sincere in asking this question because it was not likely that such a case would really occur; and besides, this practice of the brothers of a dead man seeking to beget children for him was practically a dead letter at this time among the Jews. Nevertheless, Jesus condescended to reply to their mischievous question. He said: "You all do err in asking such questions because you know neither the Scriptures nor the living power of God. You know that the sons of this world can marry and are given in marriage, but you do not seem to understand that they who are accounted worthy to attain the worlds to come, through the resurrection of the righteous, neither marry nor are given in marriage. Those who experience the resurrection from the dead are more like the angels of heaven, and they never die. These resurrected ones are eternally the sons of God; they are the children of light resurrected into the progress of eternal life. And even your Father Moses understood this, for, in connection with his experiences at the burning bush, he heard the Father say, `I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' And so, along with Moses, do I declare that my Father is not the God of the dead but of the living. In him you all do live, reproduce, and possess your mortal existence."
UB 83.1.2 or (922.7) 83:1.4 The family, which grows out of marriage, is itself a stabilizer of the marriage institution together with the property mores. Other potent factors in marriage stability are pride, vanity, chivalry, duty, and religious convictions. But while marriages may be approved or disapproved on high, they are hardly made in heaven. The human family is a distinctly human institution, an evolutionary development. Marriage is an institution of society, not a department of the church. True, religion should mightily influence it but should not undertake exclusively to control and regulate it.
UB 83.8.4 or (929.7) 83:8.4 It is also unfortunate that certain groups of mortals have conceived of marriage as being consummated by divine action. Such beliefs lead directly to the concept of the indissolubility of the marital state regardless of the circumstances or wishes of the contracting parties. But the very fact of marriage dissolution itself indicates that Deity is not a conjoining party to such unions. If God has once joined any two things or persons together, they will remain thus joined until such a time as the divine will decrees their separation. But, regarding marriage, which is a human institution, who shall presume to sit in judgment, to say which marriages are unions that might be approved by the universe supervisors in contrast with those which are purely human in nature and origin?
Gen. 1:27-28; 2:18, 20, 23-24; Isa. 54:4-8; 62:5; Jer. 3:14; Ezek. 16:3; Mal. 2:14; Matt. 19:4-6; Mark 10:9; John 2:1-2, 11; 1 Cor. 9:5; Eph. 5:23-32; 1 Tim. 5:14; Heb. 13:4; Rev. 19:7-8.
We believe that humanity's creation in the image of God included ability to choose between right and wrong. Thus individuals were made morally responsible for their choices.
UB 40.6.7 or (448.6) 40:6.7 4. Of his divine free-willness, the Universal Father has given you your creature personalities. You have been endowed with a measure of that divine spontaneity of freewill action which God shares with all who may become his sons.
UB 3.3.4 or (49.3) 3:3.4 We are not wholly certain as to whether or not God chooses to foreknow events of sin. But even if God should foreknow the freewill acts of his children, such foreknowledge does not in the least abrogate their freedom. One thing is certain: God is never subjected to surprise.
UB 5.6.12 or (71.7) 5:6.12 Concerning those personalities who are not Adjuster indwelt: The attribute of choice-liberty is also bestowed by the Universal Father, and such persons are likewise embraced in the great circuit of divine love, the personality circuit of the Universal Father. God provides for the sovereign choice of all true personalities. No personal creature can be coerced into the eternal adventure; the portal of eternity opens only in response to the freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free will.
UB 5.6.13 or (72.1) 5:6.13 And this represents my efforts to present the relation of the living God to the children of time. And when all is said and done, I can do nothing more helpful than to reiterate that God is your universe Father, and that you are all his planetary children.
UB 74.8.13 or (838.5) 74:8.13 The Christian teachers perpetuated the belief in the
fiat creation of the human race, and all this led directly to the formation
of the hypothesis of a onetime golden age of utopian bliss and the theory of
the fall of man or superman which accounted for the nonutopian condition of
society. These outlooks on life and man’s place in the universe were at best
discouraging since they were predicated upon a belief in retrogression rather
than progression, as well as implying a vengeful Deity, who had vented wrath
upon the human race in retribution for the errors of certain onetime planetary
administrators.
UB 75.8.1 or (845.8) 75:8.1 THE SO-CALLED fall of man. Adam and Eve did fall from their
high estate of material sonship down to the lowly status of mortal man. But
that was not the fall of man. The human race has been uplifted despite the immediate
consequences of the Adamic default. Although the divine plan of giving the violet
race to the Urantia peoples miscarried, the mortal races have profited enormously from the limited
contribution which Adam and his descendants made to the Urantia races.
UB 75.8.2 or (846.1) 75:8.2 There has been no "fall
of man." The history of the human race is one of progressive evolution, and the Adamic bestowal left the world peoples greatly improved over their previous
biologic condition. The more superior stocks of Urantia now contain inheritance
factors derived from as many as four separate sources: Andonite, Sangik, Nodite,
and Adamic.
UB 86.3.3 or (952.5) 86:3.3 All human disease and natural death was at first believed to be due to spirit influence. Even at the present time some civilized races regard disease as having been produced by "the enemy" and depend upon religious ceremonies to effect healing. Later and more complex systems of theology still ascribe death to the action of the spirit world, all of which has led to such doctrines as original sin and the fall of man.
Deut. 30:19; Josh. 24:15; Isa. 64:6; Jer. 17:9; Mark 7:21-23; Luke 16:15; John 7:17; Eph. 2:1-3; 1 Tim. 2:5; Titus 3:5; Heb. 11:6; Rev. 22:17.
Our beliefs concerning the atonement are exemplified in the following:
UB (63:6.4) or (716.3) 63:6.4 Very early the Andonic peoples formed the habit of refraining from eating the flesh of the animal of tribal veneration. Presently, in order more suitably to impress the minds of their youths, they evolved a ceremony of reverence which was carried out about the body of one of these venerated animals; and still later on, this primitive performance developed into the more elaborate sacrificial ceremonies of their descendants. And this is the origin of sacrifices as a part of worship. This idea was elaborated by Moses in the Hebrew ritual and was preserved, in principle, by the Apostle Paul as the doctrine of atonement for sin by "the shedding of blood."
UB 89.0.1 or (974.1) 89:0.1 SIN, SACRIFICE, AND ATONEMENT PRIMITIVE MAN REGARDED himself as being in debt to the spirits, as standing in need of redemption. As the savages looked at it, in justice the spirits might have visited much more bad luck upon them. As time passed, this concept developed into the doctrine of sin and salvation. The soul was looked upon as coming into the world under forfeit—original sin. The soul must be ransomed; a scapegoat must be provided. The head-hunter, in addition to practicing the cult of skull worship, was able to provide a substitute for his own life, a scapeman.
UB 89.7.1 or (981.6) 89:7.1 7. MODIFICATIONS OF HUMAN SACRIFICE Moses attempted to end human sacrifices by inaugurating the ransom as a substitute. He established a systematic schedule which enabled his people to escape the worst results of their rash and foolish vows. Lands, properties, and children could be redeemed according to the established fees, which were payable to the priests. Those groups which ceased to sacrifice their first-born soon possessed great advantages over less advanced neighbors who continued these atrocious acts. Many such backward tribes were not only greatly weakened by this loss of sons, but even the succession of leadership was often broken.
UB 89.9.1 or (983.7) 89:9.1 9. SACRIFICES AND SACRAMENTS The human sacrifice, throughout the course of the evolution of Urantian rituals, has advanced from the bloody business of
man-eating to higher and more symbolic levels. The early rituals of sacrifice
bred the later ceremonies of sacrament. In more recent times the priest alone
would partake of a bit of the cannibalistic sacrifice or a drop of human blood,
and then all would partake of the animal substitute. These early ideas of ransom,
redemption, and covenants have evolved into the later-day sacramental services.
And all this ceremonial evolution has exerted a mighty socializing influence.
UB 92.3.2 or (1005.4) 92:3.2 Religion has always been largely
a matter of rites, rituals, observances, ceremonies, and dogmas. It has usually
become tainted with that persistently mischief-making error, the chosen-people
delusion. The cardinal religious ideas of incantation, inspiration, revelation, propitiation,
repentance, atonement, intercession,
sacrifice, prayer, confession, worship, survival after death, sacrament, ritual,
ransom, salvation, redemption, covenant, uncleanness, purification, prophecy, original sin—they
all go back to the early times of primordial ghost fear.
UB 188.4.3 or (2016.8) 188:4.3 Mortal man was never the property of the archdeceivers. Jesus did not die to ransom man from the clutch of the apostate rulers and fallen princes of the spheres. The Father in heaven never conceived of such crass injustice as damning a mortal soul because of the evil-doing of his ancestors. Neither was the Master's death on the cross a sacrifice which consisted in an effort to pay God a debt which the race of mankind had come to owe him.
UB 188.4.8 or (2017.3) 188:4.8 When once you grasp the idea
of God as a true and loving Father, the only concept which Jesus ever taught, you must forthwith, in all consistency, utterly
abandon all those primitive notions about God as an offended monarch, a stern
and all-powerful ruler whose chief delight is to detect his subjects in wrongdoing
and to see that they are adequately punished, unless some being almost equal
to himself should volunteer to suffer for them, to die as a substitute and in
their stead. The whole idea of ransom and atonement is incompatible
with the concept of God as it was taught and exemplified by Jesus of
UB 2.6.5 or (41.3) 2:6.5 Righteousness implies that God is the source of the moral law of the universe. Truth exhibits God as a revealer, as a teacher. But love gives and craves affection, seeks understanding fellowship such as exists between parent and child. Righteousness may be the divine thought, but love is a father's attitude. The erroneous supposition that the righteousness of God was irreconcilable with the selfless love of the heavenly Father, presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity and led directly to the elaboration of the atonement doctrine, which is a philosophic assault upon both the unity and the free-willness of God.
UB 89.4.5 or (978.2) 89:4.5 The earliest idea of the sacrifice
was that of a neutrality assessment levied by ancestral spirits; only later
did the idea of atonement develop. As man got away from the notion of the evolutionary origin of
the race, as the traditions of the days of the Planetary Prince and the sojourn
of Adam filtered down through time, the concept of sin and of original sin became
widespread, so that sacrifice for accidental and personal sin evolved into the
doctrine of sacrifice for the atonement of racial sin. The atonement of the
sacrifice was a blanket insurance device which covered even the resentment and
jealousy of an unknown god.
UB 98.7.1 or (1083.6) 98:7.1 7. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION A Creator Son did not incarnate in the likeness of mortal
flesh and bestow himself upon the humanity of Urantia to reconcile an angry God but rather to win all mankind
to the recognition of the Father's love and to the realization of their sonship
with God. After all, even the great advocate of the atonement doctrine realized
something of this truth, for he declared that "God was in Christ reconciling
the world to himself."
UB 121.6.5 or (1339.1) 121:6.5 Many, but not all, of Philo's
inconsistencies resulting from an effort to combine Greek mystical philosophy and Roman Stoic doctrines with the legalistic theology
of the Hebrews, Paul recognized and wisely eliminated from his pre-Christian
basic theology. Philo led the way for Paul more fully to restore the concept
of the Paradise Trinity, which had long been dormant in Jewish theology.
In only one matter did Paul fail to keep pace with Philo or to transcend the
teachings of this wealthy and educated Jew of Alexandria, and that was the doctrine
of the atonement; Philo taught deliverance from the doctrine of forgiveness only by the shedding of blood. He also possibly glimpsed the reality and presence
of the Thought Adjusters more clearly than did Paul. But Paul's theory of original
sin, the doctrines of hereditary guilt and innate evil and redemption therefrom,
was partially Mithraic in origin, having little in common with Hebrew theology, Philo's philosophy,
or Jesus' teachings. Some phases of Paul's teachings regarding original sin and the atonement
were original with himself.
UB 149.2.3 or (1670.4) 149:2.3 1. The effort to connect
the gospel teaching directly
onto the Jewish
theology, as illustrated by the Christian doctrines of the atonement—the teaching
that Jesus was the sacrificed Son who would satisfy the Father's stern justice
and appease the divine wrath. These teachings originated in a praiseworthy effort
to make the gospel of the kingdom more acceptable to disbelieving Jews. Though these efforts failed as far as winning the Jews was concerned, they did
not fail to confuse and alienate many honest souls in all subsequent generations.
UB 188:4.1 or (2016.6) 188:4.1 Although Jesus did not die this death on the cross to atone for the racial guilt of mortal man nor to provide some sort of effective approach to an otherwise offended and unforgiving God; even though the Son of Man did not offer himself as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of God and to open the way for sinful man to obtain salvation; notwithstanding that these ideas of atonement and propitiation are erroneous, nonetheless, there are significances attached to this death of Jesus on the cross which should not be overlooked. It is a fact that Urantia has become known among other neighboring inhabited planets as the "World of the Cross."
UB 188.4.13 or (2017.8) 188:4.13 This entire idea of the ransom of the atonement places salvation upon a plane of unreality; such a concept is purely philosophic. Human salvation is real; it is based on two realities which may be grasped by the creature's faith and thereby become incorporated into individual human experience: the fact of the fatherhood of God and its correlated truth, the brotherhood of man. It is true, after all, that you are to be "forgiven your debts, even as you forgive your debtors."
UB 194.2.8 or (2061.6) 194:2.8 Jesus lived a life which is a revelation of man submitted to the Father's will, not an example for any man literally to attempt to follow. This life in the flesh, together with his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, presently became a new gospel of the ransom which had thus been paid in order to purchase man back from the clutch of the evil one—from the condemnation of an offended God. Nevertheless, even though the gospel did become greatly distorted, it remains a fact that this new message about Jesus carried along with it many of the fundamental truths and teachings of his earlier gospel of the kingdom. And, sooner or later, these concealed truths of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men will emerge to effectually transform the civilization of all mankind.
UB 39.5.6 or (437.5) 39:5.6 In the more advanced epochs of planetary evolution these seraphim are instrumental in supplanting the atonement idea by the concept of divine attunement as a philosophy of mortal survival.
Luke 24:46-47; John 3:16; Acts 3:18; 4:12; Rom. 3:20, 8:34; 1 Cor. 6:11; Gal. 2:16; 3:2-3; 1 John 4:10.
Repentance is prompted by the convicting ministry of the Comforter and the Holy Spirit. It involves a willful change of mind that renounces sin and longs for righteousness, a godly sorrow for and a confession of past sins, proper restitution for wrongdoings, and a resolution to reform the life. Repentance is the precondition for saving faith, and without it saving faith is impossible. Faith, in turn, is the only condition of salvation. It begins in the agreement of the mind and the consent of the will to the truth of the gospel, but issues in a complete reliance by the whole person in the saving ability of God the Father.
UB 86.4.7 or (953.6) 86:4.7 Early man entertained no ideas of hell or future punishment. The savage looked upon the future life as just like this one, minus all ill luck. Later on, a separate destiny for good ghosts and bad ghosts—heaven and hell—was conceived. But since many primitive races believed that man entered the next life just as he left this one, they did not relish the idea of becoming old and decrepit. The aged much preferred to be killed before becoming too infirm.
UB 89.2.4 or (976.1) 89:2.4 The habitual violation of a taboo became a vice; primitive law made vice a crime; religion made it a sin. Among the early tribes the violation of a taboo was a combined crime and sin. Community calamity was always regarded as punishment for tribal sin. To those who believed that prosperity and righteousness went together, the apparent prosperity of the wicked occasioned so much worry that it was necessary to invent hells for the punishment of taboo violators; the numbers of these places of future punishment have varied from one to five.
UB 95.6.6 or (1050.2) 95:6.6 The Jewish traditions of heaven and hell and the doctrine of devils as recorded in the Hebrew scriptures, while founded on the lingering traditions of Lucifer and Caligastia, were principally derived from the Zoroastrians during the times when the Jews were under the political and cultural dominance of the Persians. Zoroaster, like the Egyptians, taught the "day of judgment," but he connected this event with the end of the world.
UB 131.4.7 or (1449.2) 131:4.7 "God is our Father, the earth our mother, and the universe our birthplace. Without God the soul is a prisoner; to know God releases the soul. By meditation on God, by union with him, there comes deliverance from the illusions of evil and ultimate salvation from all material fetters. When man shall roll up space as a piece of leather, then will come the end of evil because man has found God. O God, save us from the threefold ruin of hell—lust, wrath, and avarice! O soul, gird yourself for the spirit struggle of immortality! When the end of mortal life comes, hesitate not to forsake this body for a more fit and beautiful form and to awake in the realms of the Supreme and Immortal, where there is no fear, sorrow, hunger, thirst, or death. To know God is to cut the cords of death. The God-knowing soul rises in the universe like the cream appears on top of the milk. We worship God, the all-worker, the Great Soul, who is ever seated in the heart of his creatures. And they who know that God is enthroned in the human heart are destined to become like him—immortal. Evil must be left behind in this world, but virtue follows the soul to heaven.
In short there is no literal hell, only total cessation of existence and permanent separation from God.
UB 45.1.10 or (510.8) 45:1.10 The seven satellites surrounding the Father's world are variously utilized in the different systems. In Satania they are now used as the detention spheres for the interned groups of the Lucifer rebellion. The constellation capital, Edentia, has no analogous prison worlds; the few seraphim and cherubim who went over to the rebels in the Satania rebellion have been long since confined on these isolation worlds of Jerusem.
UB 45.1.11 or (510.9) 45:1.11 As a sojourner on the seventh mansion world, you have access to the seventh transition world, the sphere of the Universal Father, and are also permitted to visit the Satania prison worlds surrounding this planet, whereon are now confined Lucifer and the majority of those personalities who followed him in rebellion against Michael. And this sad spectacle has been observable during these recent ages and will continue to serve as a solemn warning to all Nebadon until the Ancients of Days shall adjudicate the sin of Lucifer and his fallen associates who rejected the salvation proffered by Michael, their universe Father.
UB 77.7.1 or (863.2) 77:7.1 THE rebel midwayers The majority of the primary midwayers went into sin at the time of the Lucifer rebellion. When the devastation of the planetary rebellion was reckoned up, among other losses it was discovered that of the original 50,000, 40,119 had joined the Caligastia secession.
UB 53:1.4 or (602.1) 53:1.4 Very little was heard of Lucifer on Urantia owing to the fact that he assigned his first lieutenant, Satan, to advocate his cause on your planet. Satan was a member of the same primary group of Lanonandeks but had never functioned as a System Sovereign; he entered fully into the Lucifer insurrection. The "devil" is none other than Caligastia the deposed Planetary Prince of Urantia and a Son of the secondary order of Lanonandeks. At the time Michael was on Urantia in the flesh, Lucifer, Satan, and Caligastia were leagued together to effect the miscarriage of his bestowal mission. But they signally failed.
UB 77.7.3 or (863.4) 77:7.3 Both groups of rebel midwayers are now held in custody awaiting the final adjudication
of the affairs of the system rebellion. But they did many strange things on earth prior
to the inauguration of the present planetary dispensation.
UB 77.7.5 or (863.6) 77:7.5 On no world can evil spirits possess any mortal mind
subsequent to the life of a Paradise bestowal Son. But before the days of Christ Michael on Urantia — before the universal coming of the Thought Adjusters and the pouring out of the Master’s spirit upon all flesh — these rebel midwayers were actually able to influence the minds of certain inferior mortals and somewhat
to control their actions. This was accomplished in much the same way as the
loyal midway creatures function when they serve as efficient contact guardians
of the human minds of the Urantia reserve corps of destiny at those times when the Adjuster is, in effect, detached
from the personality during a
season of contact with superhuman intelligences.
UB 77.7.8 or (864.1) 77:7.8 The entire group of rebel midwayers is at present held prisoner by order of the Most Highs of Edentia. No more do
they roam this world on mischief bent. Regardless of the presence of the Thought Adjusters,
the pouring out of the Spirit of Truth upon all flesh
forever made it impossible for disloyal spirits of any sort or description ever
again to invade even the most feeble of human minds. Since the day of Pentecost
there never again can be such a thing as demoniacal possession.
UB 53:8.5 or (610.1) 53:8.5 Caligastia was recognized by the Son of Man as the technical Prince of Urantia up to near the time of his death. Said Jesus: "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast down." And then still nearer the completion of his lifework he announced, "The prince of this world is judged." And it is this same dethroned and discredited Prince who was once termed "God of Urantia."
UB 53:8.9 or (610.5) 53:8.9 In general, when weak and dissolute mortals are supposed to be under the influence of devils and demons, they are merely being dominated by their own inherent and debased tendencies, being led away by their own natural propensities. The devil has been given a great deal of credit for evil which does not belong to him. Caligastia has been comparatively impotent since the cross of Christ.
UB 22:2.3 or (245.3) 22:2.3 Every ascendant mortal of insurrectionary experience who functions loyally in the face of rebellion is eventually destined to become a Mighty Messenger of the superuniverse service. Likewise is any ascendant creature who effectively prevents such upheavals of error, evil, or sin; for action designed to prevent rebellion or to effect higher types of loyalty in a universe crisis is regarded as of even greater value than loyalty in the face of actual rebellion.
Mark 1:15; Luke 5:32; 13:3; 24:47; John 3:16; 17:20; 20:31; Acts 5:31; 10:43; 11:18; 16:31; 20:21; 26:20; Rom. 1:16; 2:4; 10:8-10, 17; Gal. 3:26; Eph. 2:8; 4:4-6; Phil. 3:9; 2 Thess. 2:13; 2 Tim. 2:25; Heb. 11:6; 12:2; 1 Peter 1:9; 2 Peter 3:9.
We believe that when one repents of personal sin and believe in salvation as offered by God and in the Lord Jesus Christ, that at the same moment that person is reborn into the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. He is justified, adopted into the family of God, and assured of personal salvation through the witness of the Holy Spirit this provides Certainty of Salvation.
We believe that justification is the judicial act of God whereby a person is accounted righteous, granted full pardon of all sin, delivered from guilt, completely released from sins committed, by the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by faith alone, not on the basis of works.
We believe that the new birth is that work of the Holy Spirit whereby, when one truly repents and believes, one's moral nature is given a distinctively spiritual life with the capacity for love and obedience. This new life is received by faith in God and his representative Jesus Christ, Michael of Nebadon the unquestioned sovereign of this universe. This enables the pardoned sinner to serve God with the will and affections of the heart and by trying to live by the will of God as perceived through the personal father fragment or thought adjuster. We believe that as a believer by which God justified becomes a partaker of all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of a child of God.
Hab. 2:4; Acts 13:38-39; 15:11; 16:31; Rom. 1:17; 3:28; 4:2-5; 5:1-2; Gal. 3:6-14; Eph. 2:8-9; Phil 3:9; Heb. 10:38. John 1:12-13; 3:3,3: 5-8; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 3:26; Eph. 2:5, 10, 19; 4:24; Col. 3:10; Titus 3:5; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:3-4; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 3:1; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5, 7; Eph. 1:5; Rom. 8:16-17; Gal. 4:6; 1 John 2:3; 3:14, 18-19.
Although good works cannot save us from our sins, only faith in God the Father can do this, they are the fruits of faith. Therefore they are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and by them they can be a witness to shine before men.
UB 138.8.8 or (1545.9) 138:8.8 Jesus made plain to his apostles the difference between the repentance of so-called good works as taught by the Jews and the change of mind by faith—the new birth—which he required as the price of admission to the kingdom. He taught his apostles that faith was the only requisite to entering the Father's kingdom. John had taught them "repentance—to flee from the wrath to come." Jesus taught, "Faith is the open door for entering into the present, perfect, and eternal love of God." Jesus did not speak like a prophet, one who comes to declare the word of God. He seemed to speak of himself as one having authority. Jesus sought to divert their minds from miracle seeking to the finding of a real and personal experience in the satisfaction and assurance of the indwelling of God's spirit of love and saving grace.
UB 140.3.13 or (1570.14) 140:3.13 "You are the light of the world. A city set upon a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and be led to glorify your Father who is in heaven.
UB 140.4.7 or (1572.7) 140:4.7 "By their fruits you shall know them." Personality is basically changeless; that which changes— grows—is the moral character. The major error of modern religions is negativism. The tree which bears no fruit is "hewn down and cast into the fire." Moral worth cannot be derived from mere repression—obeying the injunction "Thou shalt not." Fear and shame are unworthy motivations for religious living. Religion is valid only when it reveals the fatherhood of God and enhances the brotherhood of men.
Matt. 5:16; 7:16-20; John 15:8; Rom 3:20; 4:2, 4, 6; Gal. 2:16; 5:6; Eph. 2:10; Phil. 1:11; Col. 1:10; 1 Thess. 1:3; Titus 2:14; 3:5; James 2:18, 22; 1 Peter 2:9, 12.
We believe that after we have experienced rebirth, it is possible to fall into sin, for in this life there is no such height or strength of holiness from which it is impossible to fall. But by the grace of God one who has fallen into sin may by true repentance and faith find forgiveness and restoration.
Jesus, The Urantia Book, (148:4.3) or (1660.2) 148:4.3 "Evil is the unconscious or unintended transgression of the divine law, the Father's will. Evil is likewise the measure of the imperfectness of obedience to the Father's will.
UB (148:4.4) or (1660.3) 148:4.4 Sin is the conscious, knowing, and deliberate transgression of the divine law, the Father's will. Sin is the measure of unwillingness to be divinely led and spiritually directed.
UB (148:4.5) or (1660.4) 148:4.5 Iniquity is the willful,
determined, and persistent transgression of the divine law, the Father's will.
Iniquity is the measure of the continued rejection of the Father's loving plan
of personality survival
and the Sons' merciful ministry of salvation.
UB (148:4.6) or (1660.5) 148:4.6 "By nature, before
the rebirth of the spirit, mortal man is subject to inherent evil tendencies,
but such natural imperfections of behavior are neither sin nor iniquity. Mortal
man is just beginning his long ascent to the perfection of the Father in Paradise . To be imperfect or partial in natural endowment
is not sinful. Man is indeed subject to evil, but he is in no sense the child
of the evil one unless he has knowingly and deliberately chosen the paths of
sin and the life of iniquity. Evil is inherent in the natural order of this
world, but sin is an attitude of conscious rebellion which was brought to this
world by those who fell from spiritual light into gross darkness.
UB (148:5.3) or (1661.5) 148:5.3 "But, my son, you should
know that the Father does not purposely afflict his children. Man brings down
upon himself unnecessary affliction as a result of his persistent refusal to
walk in the better ways of the divine will. Affliction is potential in evil,
but much of it has been produced by sin and iniquity. Many unusual events have
transpired on this world, and it is not strange that all thinking men should
be perplexed by the scenes of suffering and affliction which they witness. But
of one thing you may be sure: The Father does not send affliction as an arbitrary
punishment for wrongdoing. The imperfections and handicaps of evil are inherent;
the penalties of sin are inevitable; the
destroying consequences of iniquity are inexorable. Man should not blame God
for those afflictions which are the natural result of the life which he chooses
to live; neither should man complain of those experiences which are a part of
life as it is lived on this world. It is the Father's will that mortal man should
work persistently and consistently toward the betterment of his estate on earth. Intelligent application would enable man to overcome much of his earthly misery.
Mal.
3:7; Matt.
18:21-22; John
15:4-6; Heb.
10:35-39; 1
John 1:9; 2:1, 24-25.
We believe that sanctification is that work of the Holy Spirit. Through sanctification the child of God is separated from sin and is enabled to love God with all the heart and to walk within God’s will blameless. Sanctification is initiated at the moment of justification and rebirth. From that moment there is a gradual or progressive sanctification as the believer walks with God and daily grows in grace and in a more perfect obedience to God and his indwelling thought adjuster
UB 34.5.5 or (379.5) 34:5.5 Though the Spirit of Truth is poured out upon all flesh, this spirit of the Son is almost wholly limited in function and power by man’s personal reception of that which constitutes the sum and substance of the mission of the bestowal Son. The Holy Spirit is partly independent of human attitude and partially conditioned by the decisions and co-operation of the will of man. Nevertheless, the ministry of the Holy Spirit becomes increasingly effective in the sanctification and spiritualization of the inner life of those mortals who the more fully obey the divine leadings.
UB 89.4.1 or (977.3) 89:4.1 ORIGINS OF SACRIFICE Sacrifice as a part of religious devotions, like many other worshipful rituals, did not have a simple and single origin. The tendency to bow down before power and to prostrate oneself in worshipful adoration in the presence of mystery is foreshadowed in the fawning of the dog before its master. It is but one step from the impulse of worship to the act of sacrifice. Primitive man gauged the value of his sacrifice by the pain which he suffered. When the idea of sacrifice first attached itself to religious ceremonial, no offering was contemplated which was not productive of pain. The first sacrifices were such acts as plucking hair, cutting the flesh, mutilations, knocking out teeth, and cutting off fingers. As civilization advanced, these crude concepts of sacrifice were elevated to the level of the rituals of self-abnegation, asceticism, fasting, deprivation, and the later Christian doctrine of sanctification through sorrow, suffering, and the mortification of the flesh.
UB 143.2.6 or (1610.1) 143:2.6 "Salvation is by the
regeneration of the spirit and not by the self-righteous deeds of the flesh.
You are justified by faith and fellowshipped by grace, not by fear and the self-denial
of the flesh, albeit the Father's children who have been born of the spirit are
ever and always masters of the self and all that pertains to the desires
of the flesh. When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God. And
all who follow in the way of this heavenly peace are destined to be sanctified
to the eternal service of the ever-advancing sons of the eternal God. Henceforth,
it is not a duty but rather your exalted privilege to cleanse yourselves from
all evils of mind and body while you seek for perfection in the love of God.
UB 143.2.7 or (1610.2) 143:2.7 "Your sonship is grounded in faith, and you are to
remain unmoved by fear. Your joy is born of trust in the divine word, and you
shall not therefore be led to doubt the reality of the Father's love and mercy.
It is the very goodness of God that leads men into true and genuine repentance. Your secret of the mastery
of self is bound up with your faith in the indwelling spirit, which ever works
by love. Even this saving faith you have not of yourselves; it also is the gift
of God. And if you are the children of this living faith, you are no longer
the bondslaves of self but rather the triumphant masters of yourselves, the
liberated sons of God.
UB 143.2.8 or (1610.3) 143:2.8 "If, then, my
children, you are born
of the spirit, you are forever delivered from the self-conscious bondage
of a life of self-denial and watchcare over the desires of the flesh, and you
are translated into the joyous kingdom of the spirit, whence you spontaneously
show forth the fruits
of the spirit in your daily lives; and the fruits of the spirit are the
essence of the highest type of enjoyable and ennobling self-control, even the
heights of terrestrial mortal attainment—true self-mastery."
UB 101:2.12 or (1107.4) 101:2.14 Your deepest nature—the divine Adjuster—creates within you a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a certain craving for divine perfection. Religion is the faith act of the recognition of this inner urge to divine attainment; and thus is brought about that soul trust and assurance of which you become conscious as the way of salvation, the technique of the survival of personality and all those values which you have come to look upon as being true and good.
Gen. 17:1; Deut. 30:6; Ps. 130:8; Ezek. 36:25-29; Matt. 5:8, 48; Luke 1:74-75; 3:16-17; 24:49; John 17:1-26; Acts 1:4-5, 8; 2:1-4; 15:8-9; 26:18; 1 Cor. 1:2; 6:11; 2 Cor. 7:1; Eph. 4:13, 24; 5:25-27; 1 Thess. 3:10, 12-13; 4:3, 7-8; 5:23-24; 2 Thess. 2:13; Titus 2:11-14; James 3:17-18; 4:8; 2 Peter 1:4; Jude 24.
We believe in the Gifts of the Spirit the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth., the Holy Spirit and the seven adjutant mind-spirits. The gifts of the Spirit, although not always identifiable with natural abilities, function through them for the edification of the whole brotherhood of man. It is not through human volition or the ecstasy produced in the ones receiving them that determines the relative value of the gifts of the Spirit it is to be their usefulness in the Church and the brotherhood of man.
UB 8:5.3 or (95.6) 8:5.3 In your sacred writings
the term Spirit of God seems to be used interchangeably to designate
both the Infinite Spirit on Paradise and the Creative Spirit of your local universe. The Holy Spirit is the spiritual
circuit of this Creative Daughter of the Paradise Infinite Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a circuit indigenous to each local universe
and is confined to the spiritual realm of that creation; but the Infinite Spirit
is omnipresent.
UB 34:4.1 or (377.5) 34:4.1 There are three distinct spirit circuits
in the local universe of Nebadon:
1. The bestowal spirit of the Creator
Son, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth.
2. The spirit circuit of the Divine
Minister, the Holy
Spirit.
3. The intelligence-ministry circuit,
including the more or less unified activities but diverse functioning of the seven adjutant
mind-spirits.
Said Jesus...
UB 137:8.9 or (1536.6) 137:8.9 "Be not deceived
by those who come saying here is the kingdom or there is the kingdom, for my
Father's kingdom concerns not things visible and material. And this kingdom
is even now among you, for where the spirit of God teaches and leads the soul of man, there in reality is the kingdom of heaven. And
this
UB 137:8.10 or (1536.7) 137:8.10 "John did indeed
baptize you in token of repentance and for the remission of your sins, but when
you enter the heavenly kingdom, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
UB 137:8.11 or (1536.7) 137:8.11"In my Father's kingdom there shall be neither Jew nor gentile, only those who seek perfection through service, for I declare that he who would be great in my Father's kingdom must first become server of all. If you are willing to serve your fellows, you shall sit down with me in my kingdom, even as, by serving in the similitude of the creature, I shall presently sit down with my Father in his kingdom.
UB 34:7.1 or (382.1) 34:7.1 The flesh, the inherent nature derived from the animal-origin races, does not naturally bear the fruits of the divine Spirit. When the mortal nature has been upstepped by the addition of the nature of the Material Sons of God, as the Urantia races were in a measure advanced by the bestowal of Adam, then is the way better prepared for the Spirit of Truth to co-operate with the indwelling Adjuster to bring forth the beautiful harvest of the character fruits of the spirit. If you do not reject this spirit, even though eternity may be required to fulfill the commission, "he will guide you into all truth."
Jesus Promises To Send His Spirit
UB (137:8.7) or (1536.7) 137:8.7"The
Father in heaven sends his spirit to indwell the minds of men, and when I shall
have finished my work on earth, likewise shall the Spirit of Truth be poured out upon all flesh. And the spirit of my Father
and the Spirit
of Truth shall establish you in the coming kingdom
of spiritual understanding and divine righteousness."
UB (143:2.4) or (1609.5) 143:2.4 "By the old way
you seek to suppress, obey, and conform to the rules of living; by the new way
you are first transformed by the Spirit of Truth and thereby strengthened in your inner soul by the constant
spiritual renewing of your mind, and so are you endowed with the power of the
certain and joyous performance of the gracious, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Forget not—it is
your personal faith in the exceedingly great and precious promises of God that
ensures your becoming partakers of the divine nature."
UB (146:3.6) or (1642.2) 146:3.6 "While you cannot observe
the divine spirit at work in your minds, there is a practical method of discovering
the degree to which you have yielded the control of your soul powers to the teaching and guidance of this indwelling spirit of the heavenly
Father, and that is the degree of your love for your fellow men. This spirit
of the Father partakes of the love of the Father, and as it dominates man, it
unfailingly leads in the directions of divine worship and loving regard for
one's fellows. At first you believe that you are sons of God because my teaching
has made you more conscious of the inner leadings of our Father's indwelling
presence; but presently the Spirit of Truth shall
be poured out upon all flesh, and it will live among men and teach all men,
even as I now live among you and speak to you the words of truth. And this Spirit
of Truth, speaking for the spiritual endowments of your souls, will help you
to know that you are the sons of God. It will unfailingly bear witness with
the Father's indwelling presence, your spirit, then dwelling in all men as it
now dwells in some, telling you that you are in reality the sons of God.
UB (146:3.7) or (1642.2) 146:3.7"Every
earth child who follows the leading of this spirit shall eventually know the will of God, and he
who surrenders to the will of my Father shall abide forever. The way from the earth life to the
eternal estate has not been made plain to you, but there is a way, there always
has been, and I have come to make that way new and living. He who enters the
kingdom has eternal
life already—he shall never perish. But much of this you will the better
understand when I shall have returned to the Father and you are able to view
your present experiences in retrospect."
UB (155:6.11) or (1732.4) 155:6.11 Never forget there is only one
adventure which is more satisfying and thrilling than the attempt to discover
the will of the living God, and that is the supreme experience of honestly trying
to do that divine will. And fail not to remember that the will
of God can be done in any earthly occupation. Some callings are not holy
and others secular. All things are sacred in the lives of those who are spirit
led; that is, subordinated to truth, ennobled by love, dominated by mercy, and
restrained by fairness—
justice. The spirit which my Father and I shall send into the world is not only
the Spirit of Truth but also the spirit of idealistic beauty. ".
UB (162:6.1) or (1795.5) 162:6.1 "If any man
thirst, let him come to me and drink. From the Father above I bring to this
world the water of life. He who believes me shall be filled with the spirit
which this water represents, for even the Scriptures have
said, `Out of him shall flow rivers of living waters.' When the Son of Man has
finished his work on earth, there shall be poured out upon all flesh the living Spirit of Truth. Those who receive this spirit shall never know spiritual
thirst."
UB (176:2.3) or (1914.4) 176:2.3 "Very
soon must I leave you and take up the work the Father has intrusted to my hands,
but be of good courage, for I will sometime return. In the meantime, my Spirit
of the Truth of a universe shall comfort and guide you."
UB (178:1.6) or (1930.3) 178:1.6 You may not worship
your temporal rulers, and you should not employ temporal power in the furtherance
of the spiritual kingdom; but you should manifest the righteous ministry of
loving service to believers and unbelievers alike."In the gospel of the kingdom
there resides the mighty Spirit of Truth, and presently I will pour out this same spirit upon all
flesh. The fruits of the spirit, your sincere and loving service, are the mighty
social lever to uplift the races of darkness, and this Spirit of Truth will become your power-multiplying fulcrum".
UB (180:3.3) or (1947.2) 180:3.3 "But I will not
leave you alone in the world. Very soon, after I have gone, I will send you
a spirit helper. You shall have with you one who will take my place among you,
one who will continue to teach you the way of truth, who will even comfort you.
"
UB (180:4.1) or (1948.2) 180:4.1 Jesus continued to teach, saying: "When I have gone to the Father, and after he has fully accepted
the work I have done for you on earth, and after I have received the final sovereignty
of my own domain, I shall say to my Father: Having left my children alone on
earth, it is in accordance with my promise to send them another teacher. And
when the Father shall approve, I will pour out the Spirit of Truth upon all flesh. Already is my Father's spirit in your hearts,
and when this day shall come, you will also have me with you even as you now
have the Father. This new gift is the spirit of living truth. The unbelievers
will not at first listen to the teachings of this spirit, but the sons of light
will all receive him gladly and with a whole heart. And you shall know this
spirit when he comes even as you have known me, and you will receive this gift
in your hearts, and he will abide with you. You thus perceive that I am not
going to leave you without help and guidance. I will not leave you desolate.
Today I can be with you only in person. In the times to come I will be with
you and all other men who desire my presence, wherever you may be, and with
each of you at the same time. Do you not discern that it is better for me to
go away; that I leave you in the flesh so that I may the better and the more
fully be with you in the spirit?
UB (180:4.2) or (1948.2) 180:4.2 "In
just a few hours the world will see me no more; but you will continue to know
me in your hearts even until I send you this new teacher, the Spirit of Truth. As I have lived with you in person, then shall I live
in you; I shall be one with your personal experience in the spirit kingdom.
And when this has come to pass, you shall surely know that I am in the Father,
and that, while your life is hid with the Father in me, I am also in you. I
have loved the Father and have kept his word; you have loved me, and you will
keep my word. As my Father has given me of his spirit, so will I give you of
my spirit. And this Spirit
of Truth which I will bestow upon you shall
guide and comfort you and shall eventually lead you into all truth.
UB (180:4.3) or (1948.2) 180:4.3 "I
am telling you these things while I am still with you that you may be the better
prepared to endure those trials which are even now right upon us. And when this
new day comes, you will be indwelt by the Son as well as by the Father. And
these gifts of heaven will ever work the one with the other even as the Father and I have wrought
on earth and before your very eyes as one person, the Son of Man. And this spirit
friend will bring to your remembrance everything I have taught you."
UB (180:4.4) or (1948.2) 180:4.4As the Master paused for a moment, Judas Alpheus made bold
to ask one of the few questions which either he or his brother ever addressed
to Jesus in public.
Said Judas: "Master, you have always lived among us as a friend; how shall
we know you when you no longer manifest yourself to us save by this spirit?”
“If the world sees you not, how shall we be certain about you? How will you
show yourself to us?"
UB (180:4.5) or (1948.2) 180:4.5 Jesus looked down upon
them all, smiled, and said: "My little children,
I am going away, going back to my Father. In a little while you will not see
me as you do here, as flesh and blood. In a very short time I am going to send
you my spirit, just like me except for this material body. This new teacher
is the Spirit
of Truth who will live with each one of you,
in your hearts, and so will all the children of light be made one and be drawn
toward one another. And in this very manner will my Father and I be able to
live in the souls of each one of you and also in the hearts of all other men who love us and make
that love real in their experiences by loving one another, even as I am now
loving you."
Luke 11:13; 24:49; Acts 1:4; 2:38-39; 8:19-20; 10:45; 11:17; Rom. 12:4-8; 1 Cor. 12:1-14:40; Eph. 4:7-8, 11-16; Heb. 2:4; 13:20-21; 1 Peter 4:8-11.
We believe in the ministering spirits, angels, Saraphic guardians of destiny and guardian angels that help us along on our path to the Father. These being are invaluable in our daily lives and our lives in the mansion worlds.
UB 28.0.1 or (306.1) 28:0.1 AS THE SUPERNAPHIM are the angelic hosts of the central universe and the seraphim of the local universes, so are the seconaphim the ministering spirits of the superuniverses. In degree of divinity and in potential of supremacy, however, these children of the Reflective Spirits are much more like supernaphim than seraphim. They serve not alone in the supercreations, and both numerous and intriguing are the transactions sponsored by their unrevealed associates.
UB 28.0.2 or (306.2) 28:0.2 As presented in these
narratives, the ministering spirits of the superuniverses embrace the following
three orders:
UB 28.1.3 or (306.9) 28:1.3 Throughout the early times of universe building, these one thousand tertiaphim are the only personal staff of a Creator Son. They acquire a mighty experience as Son assistants during these stirring ages of universe assembling and other astronomical manipulations. They serve by the side of the Creator Son until the day of the personalization of the Bright and Morning Star, the first-born of a local universe. Thereupon the formal resignations of the tertiaphim are tendered and accepted. And with the appearance of the initial orders of native angelic life, they retire from active service in the local universe and become the liaison ministers between the Creator Son of former attachment and the Ancients of Days of the superuniverse concerned.
UB 28.4.1 or (307.5) 28:4.1 The primary seconaphim, of assignment to the Ancients of Days, are living mirrors in the service of these triune rulers. Think what it means in the economy of a superuniverse to be able to turn, as it were, to a living mirror and therein to see and therewith to hear the certain responses of another being a thousand or a hundred thousand light-years distant and to do all this instantly and unerringly. Records are essential to the conduct of the universes, broadcasts are serviceable, the work of the Solitary and other messengers is very helpful, but the Ancients of Days from their position midway between the inhabited worlds and Paradise—between man and God—can instantly look both ways, hear both ways, and know both ways.
UB 28.4.4 or (308.3) 28:4.4 1.The Voice of the Conjoint Actor. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.4.5 or (308.4) 28:4.5 2.The Voice of the Seven Master Spirits. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.4.6 or (308.5) 28:4.6 3.The Voice of the Creator Sons. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.4.11 or (309.5) 28:4.11 4.The Voice of the Angelic Hosts. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.4.12 or (309.6) 28:4.12 5.Broadcast Receivers. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.4.13 or (310.1) 28:4.13 6. Transport Personalities. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.4.14 or (310.2) 28:4.14 7.The Reserve Corps. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.5.2 or (310.4) 28:5.2 The seven reflective types of secondary
seconaphim are assigned to the services of the co-ordinate Trinity-origin associates
of the Ancients
of Days as follows:
UB 28.5.3 or (310.5) 28:5.3 To the Perfectors of Wisdom—the
Voices of Wisdom, the Souls of Philosophy, and the Unions of Souls.
UB 28.5.4 or (310.6) 28:5.4 To the Divine Counselors—the Hearts
of Counsel, the Joys of Existence, and the Satisfactions of Service.
UB 28.5.5 or (310.7) 28:5.5 To the Universal Censors—the Discerners
of Spirits.
UB 28.5.7 or (310.9) 28:5.7 1. The Voice of Wisdom. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.5.11 or (311.3) 28:5.11 2.The Soul of Philosophy. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.5.13 or (311.5) 28:5.13 3.The
UB 28.5.15 or (312.2) 28:5.15 4.The Heart of Counsel. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.5.16 or (312.3) 28:5.16 5.The Joy of Existence. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.5.17 or (312.4) 28:5.17 6.The Satisfaction of Service. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.5.19 or (313.1) 28:5.19 7.The Discerner of Spirits. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.5.21 or (313.3) 28:5.21 I assure you that all these transactions of the spirit world are real, that they take place in accordance with established usages and in harmony with the immutable laws of the universal domains. The beings of every newly created order, immediately upon receiving the breath of life, are instantly reflected on high; a living portrayal of the creature nature and potential is flashed to the superuniverse headquarters. Thus, by means of the discerners, are the Censors made fully cognizant of exactly "what manner of spirit" has been born on the worlds of space.
UB 28.5.22 or (313.4) 28:5.22 So it is with mortal man: The Mother Spirit of Salvington knows you fully, for the Holy Spirit on your world "searches all things," and whatsoever the divine Spirit knows of you is immediately available whenever the secoraphic discerners reflect with the Spirit concerning the Spirit's knowledge of you. It should, however, be mentioned that the knowledge and plans of the Father fragments are not reflectible. The discerners can and do reflect the presence of the Adjusters (and the Censors pronounce them divine), but they cannot decipher the content of the mindedness of the Mystery Monitors.
UB 28.6.1 or (313.5) 28:6.1 In the same manner as their fellows, these angels are created serially and in seven reflective types, but these types are not assigned individually to the separate services of the superuniverse administrators. All tertiary seconaphim are collectively assigned to the Trinitized Sons of Attainment, and these ascendant sons use them interchangeably; that is, the Mighty Messengers can and do utilize any of the tertiary types, and so do their co-ordinates, Those High in Authority and Those without Name and Number. These seven types of tertiary seconaphim are:
UB 28.6.2 or (313.5) 28:6.2 1.The Significance of Origins. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.6.6 or (314.4) 28:6.5 5. The Memory of Mercy. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.6.9 or (315.2) 28:6.9 3.The Import of Time. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.6.13 or (315.6) 28:6.13 4.The Solemnity of Trust. (Click Link for description.)
UB 28.6.16. or (316.3) 28:6.16 5The Sanctity of Service. (Click Link for description.) "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and said your Master Son, "He who would be greatest among you let him be server of all."
UB 28.6.20 or (317.1) 28:6.20 6 and 7. The Secret of Greatness and the Soul of Goodness. (Click Link for description.)
UB 113.0.1 or (1241.1) 113:0.1 HAVING PRESENTED THE narratives of the Ministering Spirits of Time and the Messenger Hosts of Space, we come to the consideration of the guardian angels, seraphim devoted to the ministry to individual mortals, for whose elevation and perfection all of the vast survival scheme of spiritual progression has been provided. In past ages on Urantia, these destiny guardians were about the only group of angels that had recognition. The planetary seraphim are indeed ministering spirits sent forth to do service for those who shall survive. These attending seraphim have functioned as the spiritual helpers of mortal man in all the great events of the past and the present. In many a revelation "the word was spoken by angels"; many of the mandates of heaven have been "received by the ministry of angels."
UB 113.1.1 or (1241.3) 113:1.1 The teaching about guardian angels is not a myth; certain groups of human beings do actually have personal angels. It was in recognition of this that Jesus, in speaking of the children of the heavenly kingdom, said: "Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones, for I say to you, their angels do always behold the presence of the spirit of my Father."
UB 113.1.5 or (1241.7) 113:1.5 3.The supernormal minded—those of great decision and undoubted potential of spiritual achievement; men and women who enjoy more or less contact with their indwelling Adjusters; members of the various reserve corps of destiny. No matter in what circle a human happens to be, if such an individual becomes enrolled in any of the several reserve corps of destiny, right then and there, personal seraphim are assigned, and from that time until the earthly career is finished, that mortal will enjoy the continuous ministry and unceasing watchcare of a guardian angel. Also, when any human being makes the supreme decision, when there is a real betrothal with the Adjuster, a personal guardian is immediately assigned to that soul.
1 Cor. 2:10; James 1:5; Dan.7:9-10; Acts 20:35; Matt. 19:30; 23:11; 20:16, 26-27; Prov.16:32; Heb 2:2; Acts 7:53; Matt. 18:6-10; Mark 9:42-47; Luke 17:2; Matt. 24:31; Mark 13:27; Acts 24:15; Heb 2:7; Dan. 4:17, 25, 32; 5:21; Rev. 4:4,10; 7:11; 14:3; 1:20; 8:2,6; John 16:27
We believe that the Christian Church should be the entire body of believers in Jesus Christ, and in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man as in Jesus’ concept of the divine kingdom in the heart of the individual believer. The Church includes both those believers who are not members of a local church, or who are members of a church whether Catholic, Protestant, or any denomination which believes in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man and recognize Christ as creator Son, Sovereign of our local Universe. Regardless of their personal theology, including those who have gone to be with the Lord and those who remain on the earth, having renounced the world, the flesh and the Lucifer rebellion, and having dedicated themselves to the work of Christ. The Church on earth should preach the Gospel, enlighten and teach believers and non believers properly administer the sacraments according to Christ's instructions, and live in obedience to all that Christ commands. A local church is a body of believers formally organized on gospel principles, meeting regularly for the purposes of evangelism, nurture, fellowship, worship and service to the brotherhood of man.
UB 99.6.3 or (1092.3) 99:6.3 But as religion becomes institutionalized, its power for good is curtailed, while the possibilities for evil are greatly multiplied. The dangers of formalized religion are: fixation of beliefs and crystallization of sentiments; accumulation of vested interests with increase of secularization; tendency to standardize and fossilize truth; diversion of religion from the service of God to the service of the church; inclination of leaders to become administrators instead of ministers; tendency to form sects and competitive divisions; establishment of oppressive ecclesiastical authority; creation of the aristocratic "chosen-people" attitude; fostering of false and exaggerated ideas of sacredness; the routinizing of religion and the petrification of worship; tendency to venerate the past while ignoring present demands; failure to make up-to-date interpretations of religion; entanglement with functions of secular institutions; it creates the evil discrimination of religious castes; it becomes an intolerant judge of orthodoxy; it fails to hold the interest of adventurous youth and gradually loses the saving message of the gospel of eternal salvation.
UB 99.6.4 or (1092.3) 99:6.4 Formal religion restrains men in their personal spiritual activities instead of releasing them for heightened service as kingdom builders.
UB 114.6.7 or (1255.6) 114:6.7 3. The religious guardians. These are the "angels of the churches," the earnest contenders for that which is and has been. They endeavor to maintain the ideals of that which has survived for the sake of the safe transit of moral values from one epoch to another. They are the checkmates of the angels of progress, all the while seeking to translate from one generation to another the imperishable values of the old and passing forms into the new and therefore less stabilized patterns of thought and conduct. These angels do contend for spiritual forms, but they are not the source of ultrasectarianism and meaningless controversial divisions of professed religionists. The corps now functioning on Urantia is the fifth thus to serve.
UB 139.2.11 or (1551.7) 139:2.11 After leaving Jerusalem and before Paul became the leading spirit among the gentile Christian churches, Peter traveled extensively, visiting all the churches from Babylon to Corinth. He even visited and ministered to many of the churches which had been raised up by Paul. Although Peter and Paul differed much in temperament and education, even in theology, they worked together harmoniously for the upbuilding of the churches during their later years.
UB 166.5.5 or (1832.1) 166:5.5 Thus was Abner compelled to
live a life of isolation. He was head of a church which was without standing
at Jerusalem. He had dared to defy James the Lord's brother,
who was subsequently supported by Peter. Such conduct effectively
separated him from all his former associates. Then he dared to withstand Paul.
Although he was wholly sympathetic with Paul in his mission to the gentiles,
and though he supported him in his contentions with the church at
UB 166.5.6 or (1832.1) 166:56 During the later years of Abner and for some time thereafter, the believers at Philadelphia held more strictly to the religion of Jesus, as he lived and taught, than any other group on earth.
UB 170.5.3 or (1864.3) 170:5.3 But the great step which marked
the transplantation of the teachings of Jesus from a Jewish to a gentile soil was taken when the Messiah of the
kingdom became the Redeemer of the church, a religious and social organization
growing out of the activities of Paul and his successors and based on the teachings
of Jesus as they were supplemented by the ideas of Philo and the Persian doctrines of good and evil..
UB 170.5.6 or (1864.6) 170:5.6 2. The gentile Christians began very early to accept
the doctrines of Paul, which led increasingly to the general belief that Jesus was the Redeemer of the children of the church, the new and institutional
successor of the earlier concept of the purely spiritual brotherhood of the
kingdom.
UB 170.5.7 or (1864.7) 170:5.7 The church, as a social outgrowth of the kingdom, would
have been wholly natural and even desirable. The evil of the church was not
its existence, but rather that it almost completely supplanted the Jesus concept of the kingdom. Paul’s institutionalized church became a virtual substitute
for the kingdom of heaven which Jesus had proclaimed.
UB 170.5.10 or (1864.10) 170:5.10 The church was an inevitable and useful social result of Jesus’ life and teachings;
the tragedy consisted in the fact that this social reaction to the teachings
of the kingdom so fully displaced the spiritual concept of the real kingdom
as Jesus taught and
lived it.
UB 170.5.14 or (1865.4) 170:5.14 When Jesus’ immediate followers
recognized their partial failure to realize his ideal of the establishment of
the kingdom in the hearts of men by the spirit’s domination and guidance of
the individual believer, they set about to save his teaching from being wholly
lost by substituting for the Master’s ideal of the kingdom the gradual creation
of a visible social organization, the Christian church. And when they had accomplished
this program of substitution, in order to maintain consistency and to provide
for the recognition of the Master’s teaching regarding the fact of the kingdom,
they proceeded to set the kingdom off into the future. The church, just as soon
as it was well established, began to teach that the kingdom was in reality to
appear at the culmination of the Christian age, at the second coming of Christ.
UB 170.5.15 or (1865.5) 170:5.15 In this manner the kingdom became the concept of an
age, the idea of a future visitation, and the ideal of the final redemption
of the saints of the Most High. The early Christians (and all too many of the
later ones) generally lost sight of the Father-and-son idea embodied in Jesus’
teaching of the kingdom, while they substituted therefore the well-organized
social fellowship of the church. The church thus became in the main a social brotherhood which effectively displaced Jesus’ concept and ideal
of a spiritual brotherhood.
UB 170.5.17 or (1865.7) 170:5.17 The concept of Jesus is still alive in the advanced religions of the world. Paul's Christian church is the socialized and humanized shadow of what Jesus intended the kingdom of heaven to be—and what it most certainly will yet become. Paul and his successors partly transferred the issues of eternal life from the individual to the church. Christ thus became the head of the church rather than the elder brother of each individual believer in the Father's family of the kingdom. Paul and his contemporaries applied all of Jesus' spiritual implications regarding himself and the individual believer to the church as a group of believers; and in doing this, they struck a deathblow to Jesus' concept of the divine kingdom in the heart of the individual believer.
UB 170.5.18 or (1866.1) 170:5.18 And so, for centuries, the Christian church has labored under great embarrassment because it dared to lay claim to those mysterious powers and privileges of the kingdom, powers and privileges which can be exercised and experienced only between Jesus and his spiritual believer brothers. And thus it becomes apparent that membership in the church does not necessarily mean fellowship in the kingdom; one is spiritual, the other mainly social.
Interesting link to statement about the seraphim of the churches
.Matt. 16:18; 18:17; Acts 2:41-47; 9:31; 11:22; 12:5; 14:23; 15:22; 1 Cor. 1:2; 12:28; 16:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:2; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 3:9-10, 21; 5:22-33; Col. 1:18, 24; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 12:23; James 5:14.
We believe that water baptism and the Lord's Supper are the sacraments of the church. They are tokens of our profession of Christian faith and signs of God's gracious ministry toward us. By them, He works within us to quicken, strengthen and confirm our faith. We believe that water baptism is a sacrament of the church, demonstrated by our Lord and administered to believers. It is a symbol of the new covenant of grace and signifies acceptance of forgiveness of our sins and our rebirth into the fellowship into the kingdom of god. By means of this sacrament, believers declare their faith in God as our Father and Jesus Christ as our Sovereign Lord and Savior.
UB 135.8.3 or (1504.1) 135:8.3 Just before the noon rest, Jesus laid down his tools, removed his work apron, and merely announced to the three workmen in the room with him, "My hour has come." He went out to his brothers James and Jude, repeating, "My hour has come—let us go to John." And they started immediately for Pella, eating their lunch as they journeyed. This was on Sunday, January 13. They tarried for the night in the Jordan valley and arrived on the scene of John's baptizing about noon of the next day.
UB 135.8.5 or (1504.3) 135:8.5 Being engrossed with the details of rapidly baptizing such a large number of converts, John did not look up to see Jesus until the Son of Man stood in his immediate presence. When John recognized Jesus, the ceremonies were halted for a moment while he greeted his cousin in the flesh and asked, "But why do you come down into the water to greet me?" And Jesus answered, "To be subject to your baptism." John replied: "But I have need to be baptized by you. Why do you come to me?" And Jesus whispered to John: "Bear with me now, for it becomes us to set this example for my brothers standing here with me, and that the people may know that my hour has come."
UB 135.8.6 or (1504.4) 135:8.6 There was a tone of finality and authority
in Jesus’ voice. John was
atremble with emotion as he made ready to baptize Jesus of
UB 140.5.1 or (1573.3) 140:5.1 FATHERLY AND BROTHERLY LOVE From the Sermon on the Mount to the discourse of the Last Supper, Jesus taught his followers to manifest fatherly love rather than brotherly love. Brotherly love would love your neighbor as you love yourself, and that would be adequate fulfillment of the "golden rule." But fatherly affection would require that you should love your fellow mortals as Jesus loves you.
UB 179.2.2 or (1938.1) 179:2.2 After the wine and the water
had been mixed, they brought the cup to Jesus, who, when he had received it from the hand of Thaddeus,
held it while he offered thanks. And when he had finished offering thanks, he
said: "Take this cup and divide it among
yourselves and, when you partake of it, realize that I shall not again drink
with you the fruit of the vine since this is our last supper. When we sit down
again in this manner, it will be in the kingdom to come."
UB 179.3.10 or (1940.2) 179:3.10 When Jesus had finished speaking, the Alpheus twins brought
on the bread and wine, with the bitter herbs and the paste of dried fruits,
for the next course of the Last Supper.
UB 179.5.1 or (1941.6) 179:5.1 As they brought Jesus the third cup of wine, the "cup of blessing," he
arose from the couch and, taking the cup in his hands, blessed it, saying: "Take this cup, all of you, and drink of it. This shall
be the cup of my remembrance. This is the cup of the blessing of a new dispensation
of grace and truth. This shall be to you the emblem of the bestowal and ministry
of the divine Spirit of Truth. And I will not
again drink this cup with you until I drink in new form with you in the Father's
eternal kingdom."
UB 179.5.2 or (1942.1) 179:5.2 The apostles all sensed that
something out of the ordinary was transpiring as they drank of this cup of blessing
in profound reverence and perfect silence. The old Passover commemorated
the emergence of their fathers from a state of racial slavery into individual freedom; now the
Master was instituting a new remembrance supper as a symbol of the new dispensation
wherein the enslaved individual emerges from the bondage of ceremonialism and
selfishness into the spiritual joy of the brotherhood and fellowship of the
liberated faith sons of the living God.
UB 179.5.3 or (1942.2) 179:5.3 When they had finished drinking this new cup of remembrance, the Master took up the bread and, after giving thanks, broke it in pieces and, directing them to pass it around, said: "Take this bread of remembrance and eat it. I have told you that I am the bread of life. And this bread of life is the united life of the Father and the Son in one gift. The word of the Father, as revealed in the Son, is indeed the bread of life." When they had partaken of the bread of remembrance, the symbol of the living word of truth incarnated in the likeness of mortal flesh, they all sat down.
UB 179.5.4 or (1942.3) 179:5.4 In instituting this remembrance supper, the Master, as was always his habit, resorted to parables and symbols. He employed symbols because he wanted to teach certain great spiritual truths in such a manner as to make it difficult for his successors to attach precise interpretations and definite meanings to his words. In this way he sought to prevent successive generations from crystallizing his teaching and binding down his spiritual meanings by the dead chains of tradition and dogma. In the establishment of the only ceremony or sacrament associated with his whole life mission, Jesus took great pains to suggest his meanings rather than to commit himself to precise definitions. He did not wish to destroy the individual's concept of divine communion by establishing a precise form; neither did he desire to limit the believer's spiritual imagination by formally cramping it. He rather sought to set man's reborn soul free upon the joyous wings of a new and living spiritual liberty.
UB 179.5.5 or (1942.4) 179:5.5 Notwithstanding the Master's effort thus to establish this new sacrament of the remembrance, those who followed after him in the intervening centuries saw to it that his express desire was effectively thwarted in that his simple spiritual symbolism of that last night in the flesh has been reduced to precise interpretations and subjected to the almost mathematical precision of a set formula. Of all Jesus' teachings none have become more tradition-standardized.
UB 179.5.6 or (1942.5) 179:5.6 This supper of remembrance, when it is partaken of by those who are Son-believing and God-knowing, does not need to have associated with its symbolism any of man's puerile misinterpretations regarding the meaning of the divine presence, for upon all such occasions the Master is really present. The remembrance supper is the believer's symbolic rendezvous with Michael. When you become thus spirit-conscious, the Son is actually present, and his spirit fraternizes with the indwelling fragment of his Father.
Matt. 3:13-17; 28:19; Mark 1:9-11; John 3:5, 22, 26; 4:1-2; Acts 2:38-39, 41; 8:12-17, 36-38; 9:18; 16:15, 33; 18:8; 19:5; 22:16; Rom 2:28-29; 4:11; 6:3-4; 1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27-29; Col. 2:11-12; Titus 3:5. Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; John 6:48-58; 1 Cor. 5:7-8; 10:3-4, 16-17; 11:23-29.
We believe with certainty that Jesus will sometime personally return. This inspires holy living and zeal for the evangelization of the world. He may return many times throughout the ages to come as he is the Planetary Prince of this world along with being the sovereign of the local universe. We don’t believe this requires an apocalyptic cataclysm to take place or that the world will come to an end because of this visitation. We do believe eventually this planet with reach the age of Light and Life.
UB 52.7.1 or (598.4) 52:7.1 POST-TEACHER SON MAN The Sons of the next order to arrive on the average evolutionary world are the Trinity Teacher Sons, the divine Sons of the Paradise Trinity. Again we find Urantia out of step with its sister spheres in that your Jesus has promised to return. That promise he will certainly fulfill, but no one knows whether his second coming will precede or follow the appearances of Magisterial or Teacher Sons on Urantia.
UB 170.4.6 or (1863.14) 170:4.16 His apostles and disciples most certainly linked these two teachings together. When the kingdom
failed to materialize as they had expected, recalling the Master's teaching
concerning a future kingdom and remembering his promise to come again, they
jumped to the conclusion that these promises referred to an identical event;
and therefore they lived in hope of his immediate second coming to establish
the kingdom in its fullness and with power and glory. And so have successive
believing generations lived on earth entertaining
the same inspiring but disappointing hope.
UB 170.5.14 or (1865.4) 170:5.14 When Jesus’ immediate followers
recognized their partial failure to realize his ideal of the establishment of
the kingdom in the hearts of men by the spirit’s domination and guidance of
the individual believer, they set about to save his teaching from being wholly
lost by substituting for the Master’s ideal of the kingdom the gradual creation
of a visible social organization, the Christian church. And when they had accomplished
this program of substitution, in order to maintain consistency and to provide
for the recognition of the Master’s teaching regarding the fact of the kingdom,
they proceeded to set the kingdom off into the future. The church, just as soon
as it was well established, began to teach that the kingdom was in reality to
appear at the culmination of the Christian age, at the second coming of Christ.
UB 170.5.17 or (1865.7) 170:5.17 The concept of Jesus is still alive in the advanced religions of the world. Paul's Christian church is the socialized and humanized shadow of what Jesus intended the kingdom of heaven to be—and what it most certainly will yet become. Paul and his successors partly transferred the issues of eternal life from the individual to the church. Christ thus became the head of the church rather than the elder brother of each individual believer in the Father's family of the kingdom. Paul and his contemporaries applied all of Jesus' spiritual implications regarding himself and the individual believer to the church as a group of believers; and in doing this, they struck a deathblow to Jesus' concept of the divine kingdom in the heart of the individual believer.
UB 170.5.19 or (1866.2) 170:5.19 Sooner or later another and greater John the Baptist is due to arise proclaiming "the kingdom of God is at hand"—meaning a return to the high spiritual concept of Jesus, who proclaimed that the kingdom is the will of his heavenly Father dominant and transcendent in the heart of the believer—and doing all this without in any way referring either to the visible church on earth or to the anticipated second coming of Christ. There must come a revival of the actual teachings of Jesus, such a restatement as will undo the work of his early followers who went about to create a sociophilosophical system of belief regarding the fact of Michael's sojourn on earth. In a short time the teaching of this story about Jesus nearly supplanted the preaching of Jesus' gospel of the kingdom. In this way a historical religion displaced that teaching in which Jesus had blended man's highest moral ideas and spiritual ideals with man's most sublime hope for the future— eternal life. And that was the gospel of the kingdom.
UB 176.2.1 or (1914.2) 176:2.1 THE MASTER’S second coming On several occasions Jesus had made statements
which led his hearers to infer that, while he intended presently to leave this
world, he would most certainly return to consummate the work of the heavenly
kingdom. As the conviction grew on his followers that he was going to leave
them, and after he had departed from this world, it was only natural for all
believers to lay fast hold upon these promises to return. The doctrine of the
second coming of Christ thus became early incorporated into the teachings of
the Christians, and almost every subsequent generation of disciples has devoutly
believed this truth and has confidently looked forward to his sometime coming.
UB 176.2.2 or (1914.3) 176:2.2 If they were to part with
their Master and Teacher, how much more did these first disciples and the apostles grasp at this promise to return, and they lost no time in associating the predicted
destruction of destruction
of Jerusalem with this promised second coming. And they continued thus to
interpret his words notwithstanding that, throughout this evening of instruction
on Mount Olivet, the Master took particular pains to prevent
just such a mistake.
UB 176.2.3 or (1914.4) 176:2.3 In further answer to Peter's question, Jesus said: "Why do you still look for the Son of Man to sit upon the throne of David and expect that the material dreams of the Jews will be fulfilled? Have I not told you all these years that my kingdom is not of this world? The things which you now look down upon are coming to an end, but this will be a new beginning out of which the gospel of the kingdom will go to all the world and this salvation will spread to all peoples. And when the kingdom shall have come to its full fruition, be assured that the Father in heaven will not fail to visit you with an enlarged revelation of truth and an enhanced demonstration of righteousness, even as he has already bestowed upon this world him who became the prince of darkness, and then Adam, who was followed by Melchizedek, and in these days, the Son of Man. And so will my Father continue to manifest his mercy and show forth his love, even to this dark and evil world. So also will I, after my Father has invested me with all power and authority, continue to follow your fortunes and to guide in the affairs of the kingdom by the presence of my spirit, who shall shortly be poured out upon all flesh. Even though I shall thus be present with you in spirit, I also promise that I will sometime return to this world, where I have lived this life in the flesh and achieved the experience of simultaneously revealing God to man and leading man to God. Very soon must I leave you and take up the work the Father has intrusted to my hands, but be of good courage, for I will sometime return. In the meantime, my Spirit of the Truth of a universe shall comfort and guide you.
UB 176.2.4 or (1915.1) 176:2.4 "You behold me
now in weakness and in the flesh, but when I return, it shall be with power
and in the spirit. The eye of flesh beholds the Son of Man in the flesh, but
only the eye of the spirit will behold the Son of Man glorified by the Father
and appearing on earth in his own name.
UB 176.2.5 or (1915.2) 176:2.5 "But the times
of the reappearing of the Son of Man are known only in the councils of Paradise ; not even the angels of heaven know when
this will occur. However, you should understand that, when this gospel of the kingdom
shall have been proclaimed to all the world for the salvation of all peoples,
and when the fullness of the age has come to pass, the Father will send you
another dispensational bestowal, or else the Son of Man will return to adjudge
the age.
UB 176.2.6 or (1915.3) 176:2.6 "And now concerning the travail
of Jerusalem, about which I have spoken to you, even this generation will
not pass away until my words are fulfilled; but concerning the times of the
coming again of the Son of Man, no one in heaven or on earth
may presume to speak. But you should be wise regarding the ripening of an age;
you should be alert to discern the signs of the times. You know when the fig
tree shows its tender branches and puts forth its leaves that summer is near.
Likewise, when the world has passed through the long winter of material-mindedness
and you discern the coming of the spiritual springtime of a new dispensation,
should you know that the summertime of a new visitation draws near.
UB 176.2.7 or (1915.4) 176:2.7 "But what is the significance of this teaching having
to do with the coming of the Sons of God? Do you not perceive that, when each
of you is called to lay down his life struggle and pass through the portal of death, you stand
in the immediate presence of judgment, and that you are face to face with the
facts of a new dispensation of service in the eternal plan of the infinite Father?
What the whole world must face as a literal fact at the end of an age, you,
as individuals, must each most certainly face as a personal experience when
you reach the end of your natural life and thereby pass on to be confronted
with the conditions and demands inherent in the next revelation of the eternal
progression of the Father's kingdom."
UB 176.2.8 or (1915.5) 176:2.8 Of all the discourses which
the Master gave his apostles, none ever became
so confused in their minds as this one, given this Tuesday evening on the Mount
of Olives, regarding the twofold subject of the destruction
of Jerusalem and his own second coming. There was, therefore, little agreement
between the subsequent written accounts based on the memories of what the Master
said on this extraordinary occasion. Consequently, when the records were left
blank concerning much that was said that Tuesday evening, there grew up many
traditions; and very early in the second century a Jewish apocalyptic about the Messiah written by one Selta, who was attached to the
court of the Emperor Caligula, was bodily copied into the Matthew Gospel and subsequently
added (in part) to the Mark and Luke records. It was in these writings of Selta
that the parable of the ten virgins appeared. No part of the gospel record ever
suffered such confusing misconstruction as this evening's teaching. But the
Apostle John never became thus confused.
UB 176.3.2 or (1916.2) 176:3.2 "And even you, Thomas, fail to comprehend what I have been saying. Have I not all this time taught
you that your connection with the kingdom is spiritual and individual, wholly
a matter of personal experience in the spirit by the faith-realization that
you are a son of God? What more shall I say? The downfall of nations, the crash
of empires, the destruction of the unbelieving Jews, the end of an
age, even the end of the world, what have these things to do with one who believes
this gospel, and
who has hid his life in the surety of the eternal kingdom? You who are God-knowing
and gospel-believing have already received the assurances of eternal life. Since your
lives have been lived in the spirit and for the Father, nothing can be of serious
concern to you. Kingdom builders, the accredited citizens of the heavenly worlds,
are not to be disturbed by temporal upheavals or perturbed by terrestrial cataclysms.
What does it matter to you who believe this gospel of the kingdom if nations
overturn, the age ends, or all things visible crash, since you know that your
life is the gift of the Son, and that it is eternally secure in the Father?
Having lived the temporal life by faith and having yielded the fruits
of the spirit as the righteousness of loving service for your fellows, you
can confidently look forward to the next step in the eternal career with the
same survival faith that has carried you through your first and earthly adventure
in sonship with God.
UB 176.3.3 or (1916.3) 176:3.3 "Each generation
of believers should carry on their work, in view of the possible return of the
Son of Man, exactly as each individual believer carries forward his lifework
in view of inevitable and ever-impending natural death. When you have by
faith once established yourself as a son of God, nothing else matters as regards
the surety of survival. But make no mistake! This survival faith is a living
faith, and it increasingly manifests the fruits of that divine spirit which
first inspired it in the human heart. That you have once accepted sonship in
the heavenly kingdom will not save you in the face of the knowing and persistent
rejection of those truths which have to do with the progressive spiritual fruit-bearing
of the sons of God in the flesh. You who have been with me in the Father's business
on earth can even now desert the kingdom if you find that you
love not the way of the Father's service for mankind.
UB 176.4.2 or (1918.5) 176:4.2 Jesus did, on numerous occasions and to many individuals, declare
his intention of returning to this world. As his followers awakened to the fact
that their Master was not going to function as a temporal deliverer, and as
they listened to his predictions of the overthrow
of Jerusalem and the downfall of the Jewish nation,
they most naturally began to associate his promised return with these catastrophic
events. But when the Roman armies leveled the walls of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and dispersed the Judean Jews, and
still the Master did not reveal himself in power and glory, his followers began
the formulation of that belief which eventually associated the second coming
of Christ with the end of the age, even with the end of the world..
Zech. 14:1-11; Matt. 24:1-51; 25; 26:64; Mark 13:1-37; Luke 17:22-37; 21:5-36; John 14:1-3; Acts 1:6-11; 1 Cor. 1:7-8; 1 Thess. 1:10; 2:19; 3:13; 4:13-18; 5:1-11, 23; Titus 2:11-14; James 5:7-8; 1 John 3:2-3; Rev. 1:7; 19:11-16; 22:6-7, 12, 20.
We believe in the resurrection from the dead of all people—of the just unto the resurrection of life, and of the unjust unto judgment and if nothing is found spiritually salvageable then non existence. At death the raised body will be a new spiritual body in morontia form, but the person will be whole and identifiable. We believe in the time-space ascension of evolutionary creatures. We believe Jesus resurrected himself from the tomb of his own volition. He then made nineteen appearances in his morontia form to several hundred individuals. He now abides on Savington as a Master creator son, sovereign of the universe of Nebadon.
UB 47.3.2 or (532.8) 47:3.2 The very center of all activities on the first mansion world is the resurrection hall, the enormous temple of personality assembly. This gigantic structure consists of the central rendezvous of the seraphic destiny guardians, the Thought Adjusters, and the archangels of the resurrection. The Life Carriers also function with these celestial beings in the resurrection of the dead.
UB 47.3.3 or (533.1) 47:3.3 The mortal-mind transcripts and the active creature-memory patterns as transformed from the material levels to the spiritual are the individual possession of the detached Thought Adjusters; these spiritized factors of mind, memory, and creature personality are forever a part of such Adjusters. The creature mind-matrix and the passive potentials of identity are present in the morontia soul intrusted to the keeping of the seraphic destiny guardians. And it is the reuniting of the morontia-soul trust of the seraphim and the spirit-mind trust of the Adjuster that reassembles creature personality and constitutes resurrection of a sleeping survivor.
UB 47.3.4 or (533.2) 47:3.4 If a transitory personality of mortal origin should never be thus reassembled, the spirit elements of the nonsurviving mortal creature would forever continue as an integral part of the individual experiential endowment of the onetime indwelling Adjuster.
UB 47.3.6 or (533.4) 47:3.6 From the resurrection halls you proceed to the Melchizedek sector,
where you are assigned permanent residence. Then you enter upon ten days of
personal liberty. You are free to explore the immediate vicinity of your new
home and to familiarize yourself with the program which lies immediately ahead.
You also have time to gratify your desire to consult the registry and call upon
your loved ones and other earth friends who may have preceded you to these worlds. At
the end of your ten-day period of leisure you begin the second step in the Paradise journey, for the mansion
worlds are actual training spheres, not merely detention planets.
UB 47.3.7 or (533.5) 47:3.7 On mansion world number one (or
another in case of advanced status) you will resume your intellectual training
and spiritual development at the exact level whereon they were interrupted by death. Between the
time of planetary death or translation and resurrection on the mansion world,
mortal man gains absolutely nothing aside from experiencing the fact of survival.
You begin over there right where you leave off down here.
UB 189.1.10 or (2022.1) 189:1.10 The first act of Jesus on arising from the tomb was to greet Gabriel and instruct him to continue in executive charge of universe affairs under Immanuel, and then he directed the chief of the Melchizedeks to convey his brotherly greetings to Immanuel. He thereupon asked the Most High of Edentia for the certification of the Ancients of Days as to his mortal transit; and turning to the assembled morontia groups of the seven mansion worlds, here gathered together to greet and welcome their Creator as a creature of their order, Jesus spoke the first words of the postmortal career. Said the morontia Jesus: "Having finished my life in the flesh, I would tarry here for a short time in transition form that I may more fully know the life of my ascendant creatures and further reveal the will of my Father in Paradise ."
UB 189.3.1 or (2024.3) 189:3.1 THE DISPENSATIONAL RESURRECTION A
little after half past four o'clock this Sunday morning, Gabriel summoned the archangels to his side and made ready to inaugurate the general
resurrection of the termination of the Adamic dispensation on Urantia.
When the vast host of the seraphim and the cherubim concerned in this great
event had been marshaled in proper formation, the morontia Michael appeared
before Gabriel, saying: "As my Father
has life in himself, so has he given it to the Son to have life in himself.
Although I have not yet fully resumed the exercise of universe jurisdiction,
this self-imposed limitation does not in any manner restrict the bestowal of
life upon my sleeping sons; let the roll call of the planetary resurrection
begin."
UB 189.3.2 or (2024.4) 189:3.2 The circuit of the archangels
then operated for the first time from Urantia. Gabriel and the
archangel hosts moved to the place of the spiritual polarity of the planet;
and when Gabriel gave the signal, there flashed to the first of the system mansion
worlds the voice of Gabriel, saying: "By the mandate of Michael, let the
dead of a Urantia dispensation rise!" Then all the survivors of the human races of Urantia who had fallen asleep since the days of Adam, and who had not already gone on
to judgment, appeared in the resurrection halls of mansonia in readiness for
morontia investiture. And in an instant of time the seraphim and their associates
made ready to depart for the mansion worlds. Ordinarily these seraphic guardians,
onetime assigned to the group custody of these surviving mortals, would have
been present at the moment of their awaking in the resurrection halls of mansonia,
but they were on this world itself at this time because of the necessity of
Gabriel's presence here in connection with the morontia resurrection of Jesus.
UB 189.3.3 or (2024.5) 189:3.3 Notwithstanding that countless
individuals having personal seraphic guardians and those achieving the requisite
attainment of spiritual personality progress
had gone on to mansonia during the ages subsequent to the times of Adam and Eve, and though
there had been many special and millennial resurrections of Urantia sons, this was the third of the planetary roll calls, or complete dispensational
resurrections. The first occurred at the time of the arrival of the Planetary
Prince, the second during the time of Adam, and this, the third, signalized
the morontia resurrection, the mortal transit, of Jesus of
Job 19:25-27; Dan. 12:2; Matt. 22:30-32; 28:1-20; Mark 16:18; Luke 14:14; 24:1-53; John 5:28-29; 11:21-27; 20:1-21:25; Acts 1:3; Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 6:14; 15:1-58; 2 Cor. 4:14; 5:1-11; 1 Thess. 4:13-17; Rev. 20:4-6, 11-13.
We believe that all humans are adjudicated by the Ancients of Days at the end of human life and continuation of existence is determined at this time. If the judged individual is determined not to be spiritually salvageable then cessation of existence is usually decreed and a sentence of extinction is issued and that individual becomes as though they had never been.
UB 2.3.3 or (37.1) 2:3.3 Cessation of existence is usually decreed at the dispensational
or epochal adjudication of the realm or realms. On a world such as Urantia it comes at the end of a planetary dispensation. Cessation of existence can
be decreed at such times by co-ordinate action of all tribunals of jurisdiction,
extending from the planetary council up through the courts of the Creator Son
to the judgment tribunals of the Ancients of Days.
The mandate of dissolution originates in the higher courts of the superuniverse
following an unbroken confirmation of the indictment originating on the sphere
of the wrongdoer’s residence; and then, when sentence of extinction has been
confirmed on high, the execution is by the direct act of those judges residential
on, and operating from, the headquarters of the superuniverse.
UB 2.4.1 or (38.1) 2:4.1 THE DIVINE MERCY Mercy is simply justice tempered by that wisdom which grows
out of perfection of knowledge and the full recognition of the natural weaknesses
and environmental handicaps of finite creatures. "Our God is full of compassion,
gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy." Therefore "whosoever
calls upon the Lord shall be saved," "for he will abundantly pardon."
"The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting"; yes, "his
mercy endures forever." "I am the Lord who executes loving-kindness, judgment,
and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight." "I do not
afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men," for I am "the Father
of mercies and the God of all comfort."
UB 2.4.5 or (38.5) 2:4.5 Divine mercy represents a fairness technique of adjustment between the universe levels of perfection and imperfection. Mercy is the justice of Supremacy adapted to the situations of the evolving finite, the righteousness of eternity modified to meet the highest interests and universe welfare of the children of time. Mercy is not a contravention of justice but rather an understanding interpretation of the demands of supreme justice as it is fairly applied to the subordinate spiritual beings and to the material creatures of the evolving universes. Mercy is the justice of the Paradise Trinity wisely and lovingly visited upon the manifold intelligences of the creations of time and space as it is formulated by divine wisdom and determined by the all-knowing mind and the sovereign free will of the Universal Father and all his associated Creators.
UB 10.6.7 or (115.1) 10:6.17 The Ancients of Days and their Trinity-origin associates mete out the just judgment of supreme fairness to the seven superuniverses. In the central universe such functions exist in theory only; there fairness is self-evident in perfection, and Havona perfection precludes all possibility of disharmony.
UB 20.3.4 or (226.4) 20:3.4 Avonal Sons may act as planetary judges prior to both the magisterial and bestowal experiences. On either of these missions, however, the incarnated Son will judge the passing planetary age; likewise does a Creator Son when incarnated on a mission of bestowal in the likeness of mortal flesh. When a Paradise Son visits an evolutionary world and becomes like one of its people, his presence terminates a dispensation and constitutes a judgment of the realm.
UB 28.6.6 or (314.5) 28:6.6 The Memory of Mercy is a living trial balance, a current
statement of your account with the supernatural forces of the realms. These
are the living records of mercy ministration which are read into the testimony
of the courts of Uversa when each individual’s right to unending life comes
up for adjudication, when “thrones are cast up and the Ancients of Days are seated. The broadcasts of Uversa issue and come forth from before them;
thousands upon thousands minister to them, and ten thousand times ten thousand
stand before them. The judgment is set, and the books are opened.” And the books
which are opened on such a momentous occasion are the living records of the
tertiary seconaphim of the superuniverses. The formal records are on file to
corroborate the testimony of the Memories of Mercy if they are required.
UB 28.6.10 or
(315.3) 28:6.10 In the assignment of trusts the counsel of the Imports
of Time is invaluable. Time is a vital factor in everything this side of Havona
and Paradise . In the final judgment before the Ancients of Days,
time is an element of evidence. The Imports of Time must always afford testimony
to show that every defendant has had ample time for making decisions, achieving
choice.
UB 30.4.4 or (341.1) 30:4.11 2. Sleeping Survivors. All mortals of survival status, in the custody of personal guardians of destiny,
pass through the portals of natural death and, on the third period, personalize on the mansion worlds. Those accredited
beings who have, for any reason, been unable to attain that level of intelligence
mastery and endowment of spirituality which would entitle them to personal guardians,
cannot thus immediately and directly go to the mansion worlds. Such surviving souls must rest
in unconscious sleep until the judgment day of a new epoch, a new dispensation,
the coming of a Son of God to call the rolls of the age and adjudicate the realm,
and this is the general practice throughout all Nebadon. It was said of Christ
Michael that, when he ascended on high at the conclusion of his work on earth, "He led a great multitude of captives." And these captives were the
sleeping survivors from the days of Adam to the day of the Master's resurrection
on Urantia.
UB 33.2.2 or (367.4) 33:2.2 Michael elected to organize this local universe,
and herein he now reigns supreme. His personal power is limited by the pre-existent
gravity circuits centering at Paradise and by the reservation
on the part of the Ancients of Days of the superuniverse government of all final executive judgments
regarding the extinction of personality. Personality
is the sole bestowal of the Father, but the Creator Sons, with the approval
of the Eternal Son, do initiate new creature designs, and with the working co-operation
of their Spirit associates they may attempt new transformations of energy-matter.
UB 33.4.6 or (370.3) 33:4.6 Gabriel is the chief officer
of execution for superuniverse mandates relating to nonpersonal affairs in the
local universe. Most matters pertaining to mass judgment and dispensational
resurrections, adjudicated by the Ancients of Days, are also delegated to Gabriel and his staff for execution.
Gabriel is thus the combined chief executive of both the super- and the local
universe rulers. He has at his command an able corps of administrative assistants,
created for their special work, who are unrevealed to evolutionary mortals.
In addition to these assistants, Gabriel may employ any and all of the orders
of celestial beings functioning in Nebadon, and he is also the commander in
chief of "the armies of heaven"—the celestial hosts.
UB 37.3.6 or (409.3) 37:3.6 Two senior archangels are always assigned as the personal aids of a Paradise Avonal on all planetary missions, whether involving judicial actions, magisterial missions, or bestowal incarnations. When this Paradise Son has finished the judgment of a realm and the dead are called to record (the so-called resurrection), it is literally true that the seraphic guardians of the slumbering personalities respond to "the voice of the archangel." The roll call of a dispensation termination is promulgated by an attendant archangel. This is the archangel of the resurrection, sometimes referred to as the "archangel of Michael."
UB 45.4.1 or (513.4) 45:4.1 4. At the center of the seven angelic residential circles on Jerusem is located the headquarters of the Urantia advisory council, the four and twenty counselors. John the Revelator called them the four and twenty elders: "And round about the throne were four and twenty seats, and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment." The throne in the center of this group is the judgment seat of the presiding archangel, the throne of the resurrection roll call of mercy and justice for all Satania. This judgment seat has always been on Jerusem, but the twenty-four surrounding seats were placed in position no more than nineteen hundred years ago, soon after Christ Michael was elevated to the full sovereignty of Nebadon. These four and twenty counselors are his personal agents on Jerusem, and they have authority to represent the Master Son in all matters concerning the roll calls of Satania and in many other phases of the scheme of mortal ascension on the isolated worlds of the system. They are the designated agents for executing the special requests of Gabriel and the unusual mandates of Michael.
UB 45.4.2 or (513.5) 45:4.2 These twenty-four counselors have been recruited from the eight Urantia races, and the last of this group were assembled at the time of the resurrection roll call of Michael, nineteen hundred years ago. This Urantia advisory council is made up of the following members: Click here to see members
Eccl. 12:14; Matt. 10:15; 25:31-46; Luke 11:31-32; Acts 10:42; 17:31; Rom. 2:16; 14:10-12; 2 Cor. 5:10; 2 Tim. 4:1; Heb. 9:27; Rev. 20:11-13.
The mansion worlds are our next step in the continuing adventure in the discovery of God death is not the end but the beginning the beginning of a glorious adventure. The Scriptures and the Urantia Book clearly teach that there is a conscious personal existence after death in the mansion worlds. Our final destiny is determined by God's grace and each person's response to the Spirit leading of God. Salvation is a freewill choice of faith you are not coerced into salvation, you must choose it for yourself. For those who choose it, will it will be an ever expanding adventure that the human mind can not even imagine. We are not alone in the universe:
UB 15.2.10 (167.1) 15:2.10 Excluding the Paradise-Havona spheres, the plan of universe organization provides for the following units: (Click Link)
UB 40.5.16 or (447.4) 40:5.19 As to the chances of mortal survival, let it be made forever clear: All souls of every possible phase of mortal existence will survive provided they manifest willingness to co-operate with their indwelling Adjusters and exhibit a desire to find God and to attain divine perfection, even though these desires be but the first faint flickers of the primitive comprehension of that "true light which lights every man who comes into the world."
UB 196.2.32 or (2097.3) 196:3.35 And God-consciousness is equivalent to the integration of the self with the universe, and on its highest levels of spiritual reality. Only the spirit content of any value is imperishable. Even that which is true, beautiful, and good may not perish in human experience. If man does not choose to survive, then does the surviving Adjuster conserve those realities born of love and nurtured in service. And all these things are a part of the Universal Father. The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Father is in his Son's sons—mortal men. When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God.
Dan. 12:2; Matt. 25:34-46; Luke 13:3; John 8:21-23; 14:2-3; 2 Cor. 5:6, 8, 10; Heb. 2:1-3; 9:27-28; 10:26-31; Rev. 21:1-22:5, 14-15.
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