© 2020 Olga López
© 2020 Urantia Association of Spain
April 2020
In document 180, the revelators convey to us the words Jesus spoke to the apostles after they had finished that memorable Last Supper. Time was running out; Jesus knew he would be arrested that very night, and there were many things he had to say to his beloved disciples. This was not going to be just any speech, but one of his most essential, considering everything that would happen hours later and in the days that followed.
Of all that the Master tells his disciples in that final discourse, I would like to highlight the following teachings:
This is how Jesus begins his final discourse: giving the apostles a new commandment, which is a further twist on the original commandment:
… You well know the commandment which directs that you love one another; that you love your neighbor even as yourself. But I am not wholly satisfied with even that sincere devotion on the part of my children. I would have you perform still greater acts of love in the kingdom of the believing brotherhood. And so I give you this new commandment: That you love one another even as I have loved you. And by this will all men know that you are my disciples if you thus love one another. UB 180:1.1
What does it mean to love as Jesus loves? Let us remember that the Master was willing to give his life for his friends, even in the most ignominious manner, such was the magnitude of his love. Not only is Jesus’ love unconditional and unselfish, but the potential sacrifices it may entail are not just such, but are made joyfully. Not for nothing does Jesus say: “Even enduring outward pain, I am about to experience the supreme joy of bestowing my affection upon you and your fellow mortals.” UB 180:1.2
You have to love a lot to be able to say something like that, right?
This paragraph is very enlightening to me. It’s not Jesus speaking here, but the midwayers:
If you would share the Master’s joy, you must share his love. And to share his love means that you have shared his service. Such an experience of love does not deliver you from the difficulties of this world; it does not create a new world, but it most certainly does make the old world new. UB 180:1.5
For me, there are two very important ideas in this paragraph:
And I would also like to highlight the following paragraph, in which the developers add the following:
Keep in mind: It is loyalty, not sacrifice, that Jesus demands. The consciousness of sacrifice implies the absence of that wholehearted affection which would have made such a loving service a supreme joy. The idea of duty signifies that you are servant-minded and hence are missing the mighty thrill of doing your service as a friend and for a friend. The impulse of friendship transcends all convictions of duty, and the service of a friend for a friend can never be called a sacrifice. The Master has taught the apostles that they are the sons of God. He has called them brethren, and now, before he leaves, he calls them his friends. UB 180:1.6
We are not servants of God or of Jesus, our Creator Son: we are their friends. In another of his discourses, Jesus says: “When you preach the gospel of the kingdom, you are simply teaching friendship with God.” UB 159:3.9. Isn’t it true that when a friend asks us for a favor or to do something for him, we don’t see it as a nuisance or a burden but something we do for pleasure? It’s not a duty, it’s not a sacrifice. We are not servants to our friends, are we? On the contrary, we feel enormous satisfaction in being able to help them. That is what Jesus wants us to do for our brothers and sisters.
The Master then makes this statement:
… I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. I am the vine, and you are the branches. And the Father requires of me only that you shall bear much fruit. The vine is pruned only to increase the fruitfulness of its branches. Every branch coming out of me which bears no fruit, the Father will take away. Every branch which bears fruit, the Father will cleanse that it may bear more fruit… UB 180:2.1
The simile of the vine and the branches appears in an earlier document, curiously enough when the revelators tell us about the Messiah whose coming the Jews were longing for, “the time when ‘the earth shall bring forth ten thousand times as much fruit, and a vine shall have a thousand branches, and each branch shall bear a thousand clusters, and each cluster shall bear a thousand grapes, and each grape shall yield a barrel of wine’” UB 136:6.7. This figure is also used in a series of recapitulations made in Paper 182 about Jesus: “I am the true vine; ye are the branches. UB 182:1.22 And a little further on in section 2, he gives another explanation of the significance of this comparison to the Jews: “The Jews had long taught that the Messiah would be ‘a shoot springing up from the vine’ of David’s ancestors, and in commemoration of this ancient teaching, a great emblem of the grape attached to its vine decorated the entrance to Herod’s temple.” UB 180:2.3
But let’s see what else the Master tells us using this comparison:
… Remember: I am the true vine, and you are the living branches. He who lives in me, and I in him, will produce much fruit of the spirit and will experience the supreme joy of bearing this spiritual harvest. If you maintain this living spirit union with me, you will produce abundant fruit. If you will maintain this living spiritual connection with me, you will bear abundant fruit. If you abide in me and my words live in you, you will be able to commune freely with me, and then can my living spirit so infuse you that you may ask whatsoever my spirit wills and do all this with the assurance that the Father will grant us our petition. Herein is the Father glorified: that the vine has many living branches, and that every branch bears much fruit… UB 182:1.22
I think it is important to highlight these basic ideas from the previous fragment:
The image of the vine branches is very powerful and transcends times, places, and peoples, and its message remains fully relevant today, just as it was on the day Jesus gave that speech.
Continuing with the idea of the vine and the branches, there is a very interesting observation by the revelators that the Master’s conclusions about prayer were distorted in later Christianity, as they implied that prayer could work a supreme magic in which God would grant us everything we ask for, which obviously does not happen, especially when the requests are born of selfishness and our own foolishness or ignorance of how things work.
What we are being told here is that prayer “is not a process for getting what one wants, but rather a program for embarking on God’s path, an experience in learning to recognize and execute the Father’s will” UB 180:2.4. True prayer aligns our will with God’s will, and then we are truly granted what we ask for. And they add: “This union of wills is effected by and through Jesus, just as the life of the vine flows through and through the living branches” UB 180:2.4.
Failure to pray in this way causes us to wither away like branches, to cease the flow of the sap that binds us to the vine, and thus to cease to bear the fruits of the spirit. As branches, we can do nothing but bear fruit while we are alive: it is our reason for being in the universe. And those fruits of the spirit are, as this document says, “that we may love one another as Jesus has loved us” (1946.3) 180:2.5.
Another idea the Master conveyed to his apostles in this farewell discourse was that they would experience the enmity of the world and should not let that discourage them. He told them that they would hate them because, just as he was not of this world, neither were they.
Here Jesus speaks of a world different from the one they lived in, a world in which people lived according to the central idea of the Kingdom of Heaven: the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men. An idea that was unthinkable in those times and, why not say it, revolutionary. The Master here warns them that they will suffer persecution and tribulation for the sake of the gospel of the Kingdom, but he also tells them to remember that he suffered before them and that they hated him before them.
Above all, I find it interesting to note that Jesus distinguishes between two types of attacks: those that come from ignorance and those that come from iniquity. Here the Master tells us that the latter were shown the truth and rejected it, and therefore “have no excuse for their attitude.” Those who have been shown the gospel and rejected it are in a much greater state of spiritual bankruptcy than those who err because they are ignorant of the message.
Once he paints this grim picture (although it should be said that it was more realistic), Jesus adds that he will not leave them alone and speaks of the “spiritual helper” who will go with them, showing them the way and comforting them.
He also explains to them that he will return to “those worlds of light, those stations in the Father’s heaven” to which they will one day ascend (just as we will) UB 180:3.4. Here he speaks, of course, of the morontia worlds, “the places that were prepared for the mortal sons of God before this world was.” But he also speaks of other administrative units of creation: he also says: “You will eventually be with me in person when you have ascended to me in my universe, just as I am about to ascend to my Father in his larger universe” UB 180:3.5. At that time, he could explain little more about how the universe was organized. Fortunately, now we have The Urantia Book and we know in much greater detail what Jesus was referring to with these words.
As so often, the disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was telling them about the heavenly realms. Then the Master spoke some words that I find truly powerful, regardless of the language used:
“… I am the way, the truth, and the life.[1] No one comes to the Father except through me. All who find the Father first find me. If you know me, you know the way to the Father. And you do know me, for you have lived with me and now you see me.” UB 180:3.7
Since the disciples still did not understand, the Master insists on this idea to explain what he meant:
“…I declare again that he who has seen me has seen the Father[2]. How then can you say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? Have I not taught you that the words which I speak to you are not my words, but the words of the Father? I speak by the Father and not by myself. I am in this world to do the Father’s will, and that is what I have done. My Father abides in me and works through me. Believe me when I say that the Father is in me, and that I am in the Father, or else believe me for the very life which I have lived—for my work.” UB 180:3.9
I think we have understood these teachings better than the apostles, but to what extent could we say the same as the Master?
After a brief pause, Jesus continued his discourse, focusing this time on the help he was going to send to this world after he was no longer with them. That help was none other than the Spirit of Truth, whom the Master defined as “the spirit of the living truth” UB 180:4.1, the spirit who would guide, comfort, and lead them into all truth.
Once again, the apostles fail to understand what this refers to, so Jesus must explain it to them in the simplest possible way, emphasizing that this is the only way for God the Father and himself to live in the soul of each of them. The revelators also explain something more about this promised helper for us, the humans of the 21st century, in greater detail and depth, in which they perceptively describe divine truth and its dynamic nature.
… The new teacher is the conviction of truth, the consciousness and assurance of true meanings on real spirit levels. And this new teacher is the spirit of living and growing truth, expanding, unfolding, and adaptative truth. UB 180:5.1
The disciples didn’t understand that Jesus had to leave so this new instructor could arrive. Later in the document, the Master explains the following:
… It is really profitable for you that I go away. If I go not away, the new teacher cannot come into your hearts. I must be divested of this mortal body and be restored to my place on high before I can send this spirit teacher to live in your souls and lead your spirits into the truth. And when my spirit comes to indwell you, he will illuminate the difference between sin and righteousness and will enable you to judge wisely in your hearts concerning them. UB 180:6.2
Let us remember that Jesus was, at that moment, both the Son of God and the Son of Man. He truly had to return to his original form in order to send his instructor, something he couldn’t do if he inhabited a mortal body. He knew the time had come to depart from that world and that the time was ripe to send the Spirit of Truth as his permanent spiritual presence in the world.
But the revelators don’t just speak to us about the Spirit of Truth; they also delve into the very concept of truth. But what is truth? In the RAE dictionary, we have several meanings:
When reading all these meanings, we get the impression that they fall short, that something is missing, and this feeling increases when we read what is said in this document about truth, because it goes beyond a correspondence with the facts of material life or with the propositions we construct in our minds: it is a divine truth.
Divine truth is a spirit-discerned and living reality. Truth exists only on high spiritual levels of the realization of divinity and the consciousness of communion with God… UB 180:5.2
Later, the revelators give us some ideas that already appear in other parts of the book about truth and its dynamic nature, which unfortunately has so often been attempted to be captured in dead doctrines in the history of humanity:
… You can know the truth, and you can live the truth; you can experience the growth of truth in the soul and enjoy the liberty of its enlightenment in the mind, but you cannot imprison truth in formulas, codes, creeds, or intellectual patterns of human conduct. When you undertake the human formulation of divine truth, it speedily dies. … Static truth is dead truth, and only dead truth can be held as a theory. Living truth is dynamic and can enjoy only an experiential existence in the human mind. UB 180:5.2
But what do we need to perceive the truth? The revelators explain it to us below:
Intelligence grows out of a material existence which is illuminated by the presence of the cosmic mind. Wisdom comprises the consciousness of knowledge elevated to new levels of meaning and activated by the presence of the universe endowment of the adjutant of wisdom. Truth is a spiritual reality value experienced only by spirit-endowed beings who function upon supermaterial levels of universe consciousness, and who, after the realization of truth, permit its spirit of activation to live and reign within their souls. UB 180:5.3
We see here that, first of all, our intelligence, illuminated by the cosmic mind, is capable of acquiring wisdom by being aware of knowledge and using it to create new meanings and values, with the help of different spiritual assistants working in perfect coordination.
The true child of universe insight looks for the living Spirit of Truth in every wise saying. The God-knowing individual is constantly elevating wisdom to the living-truth levels of divine attainment; the spiritually unprogressive soul is all the while dragging the living truth down to the dead levels of wisdom and to the domain of mere exalted knowledge. UB 180:5.4
Spiritual progress brings us ever closer to the truth. Without progress, we return to the material level of mere knowledge, which merely gathers information and provides no spiritual value unless accompanied by the wisdom that comes from knowing God. The revelators exemplify the famous golden rule, an ancient rule of conduct that was taught even to the Andonites (UB 70:1.2), and was the norm for social relationships in the Garden of Eden (UB 74:7.5):
The golden rule, when divested of the superhuman insight of the Spirit of Truth, becomes nothing more than a rule of high ethical conduct. The golden rule, when literally interpreted, may become the instrument of great offense to one’s fellows. Without a spiritual discernment of the golden rule of wisdom you might reason that, since you are desirous that all men speak the full and frank truth of their minds to you, you should therefore fully and frankly speak the full thought of your mind to your fellow beings. Such an unspiritual interpretation of the golden rule might result in untold unhappiness and no end of sorrow. UB 180:5.5
When can the golden rule be interpreted literally? Aside from the example just given in the previous paragraph, let’s imagine, for example, what interpretation a masochist or someone whose mental faculties are altered might make.
There are many interpretations of the Golden Rule, ranging from the simply ethical to the fully spiritual, but the one at the highest level could be summed up as loving our neighbor as ourselves, although it would be better expressed with the new commandment that Jesus gave to his apostles: to love our fellow human beings as Jesus loved us all.
This paragraph from document 140 sums it up very well:
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 140:5.1
And how is Jesus’ love manifested? Here’s the answer:
… The spirit of the Master’s injunction consists in the nonresistance of all selfish reaction to the universe, coupled with the aggressive and progressive attainment of righteous levels of true spirit values: divine beauty, infinite goodness, and eternal truth—to know God and to become increasingly like him. UB 180:5.9
This includes Jesus’ practice of not resisting evil, which he carried out throughout his life, even from a young age, when he was not fully aware of his divinity.
Jesus had great difficulty in getting them to understand his personal practice of nonresistance. He absolutely refused to defend himself, and it appeared to the apostles that he would be pleased if they would pursue the same policy. He taught them not to resist evil, not to combat injustice or injury, but he did not teach passive tolerance of wrongdoing. … UB 140:8.4
But he didn’t stop there; he always turned unjust situations around to achieve a greater good.
… 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 159:5.9
Since truth is dynamic and living, love and altruism must also constantly readjust and change to progress “in the light of the present evil environment and the eternal goal of the perfection of divine destiny.” UB 180:5.10
The fact that truth is living and dynamic, that it cannot be captured in dogmas and precepts, means that the Golden Rule and the teaching of nonresistance cannot be understood as dogmas and precepts either, but rather “can only be understood by living them.” Experience, once again, is key to understanding. Theory is not enough: it must be put into practice to fully understand it.
This is the great difference between what the revelators call the “old religion” (the evolutionary, man-made religion) and the new religion (the revealed religion, based on personal experience with God). In this document, the revelators make a very illuminating comparison between the two UB 180:5.12:
| Old religion (evolutionary) | New religion (revealed) |
|---|---|
| Teaches self-denial | Teaches self-forgetfulness in order to achieve fulfillment through social service combined with an understanding of the universe |
| It is motivated by the awareness of fear | It is dominated by the conviction of truth |
| Is loyal to a creed, a tradition, and an official ceremonial system of worship | Those born of the Spirit enjoy spontaneous, generous, and sincere kindness, and feel genuine compassion for their fellow human beings regardless of creeds, traditions, and cults. |
Having made this parenthesis to explain what truth is and the importance of sending the Spirit of Truth into our world, Jesus insists on psychologically preparing his apostles for what will happen not only in the days but in the years to come. He warns them that they will not only be expelled from the synagogues, but that they will try to end their lives. Jesus knows that they will suffer greatly for his sake and that of the gospel, and he says some words that certainly give much food for thought about the times we live in, and in general about all the times that have passed since he uttered that statement:
… Although this gospel of the kingdom never fails to bring great peace to the soul of the individual believer, it will not bring peace on earth until man is willing to believe my teaching wholeheartedly and to establish the practice of doing the Father’s will as the chief purpose in living the mortal life. UB 180:6.1
It seems we are still in a time when peace has not yet been established in the world, when Jesus’ teachings do not guide the actions of a critical mass of people. But we should not be discouraged by this, for the seed is there and is growing in all of Jesus’ followers.
It’s curious how the Master says numerous times that he must return to the Father, but the apostles don’t understand the true meaning of his words. Knowing that he was the Son of God, they couldn’t conceive that any human being could kill him. The apostles were so attached to their idea of Jesus as a divine being that no matter how explicit he was with them about his departure, they simply couldn’t accept it. That’s a very human attitude, after all. Who can blame them, after having shared so many amazing experiences with Jesus?
There is a comparison that Jesus gives them to clarify their confusion on this matter, which I find especially illustrative:
… A woman is indeed sorrowful in the hour of her travail, but when she is once delivered of her child, she immediately forgets her anguish in the joy of the knowledge that a man has been born into the world. And so are you about to sorrow over my departure, but I will soon see you again, and then will your sorrow be turned into rejoicing, and there shall come to you a new revelation of the salvation of God which no man can ever take away from you. And all the worlds will be blessed in this same revelation of life in effecting the overthrow of death… UB 180:6.7
How many times has this happened to us, that great anguish has given way to immense joy? Surely we have experienced it many times in our lives. History is full of difficult periods that have ended with much more good than the evil and pain that preceded them. We saw it in Lucifer’s rebellion, we saw it in the triumph of Jesus’ resurrection. And there is another triumph waiting for us on the horizon: the triumph of the gospel of Jesus in the hearts of all human beings. That is undoubtedly a lasting joy that nothing and no one can take away from us.