© 2005 Peter Holley
© 2005 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| The Next Fifty Years: Dissemination | Volume 6, Number 1, 2005 (Summer) — Index | Wonderment and revelation |
(Editor’s Note: All words in bold print indicate emphasis by the author.)
What is the goal of the fifth epochal revelation? Many long-time readers of The Urantia Book—if various articles in Urantia movement publications such as this one, certain documents archived online, and internet forum commentaries are real indications—apparently believe that it is to be found in the worldwide mission and the general planetary acceptance of the fifth epochal revelation, which comprises the book. Accordingly they feel that the distribution of the book is of primary importance.
However the Urantia Papers do not speak directly to that issue. If promulgation is the means to a goal, both it and that goal are totally ignored by their supernal authors. Unlike Jesus’ apostles who were told to spread the gospel, we have not been given any such instructions. Except for logic, intuition and/or personal revelation, the only place such a notion is to be found is in one of the “mandates” or “instructions”[1] which were received from the supermortal revelatory commission by the human contact commission shortly before the publication of The Urantia Book in 1955. But this apparently did not give directions for book distribution. It did say, however, that The Urantia Book at the time was primarily for the development of new teachers and leaders. Its worldwide acceptance would not come until people were more willing to accept Jesus.
Other readers see the goal as having to do with individual readers somehow “putting the teachings of The Urantia Book into practice.” Usually this goal is mentioned in tones of despair: it is a daunting project and, again, no clear-cut instructions for doing so can be found in the book’s pages. And just how does one internalize and then act upon more than 2,000 pages of teachings? Please don’t take all this to mean that these are not two worthy goals, they are just not in The Urantia Book.
But the The Urantia Book does not leave us without any goal at all. The main midwayer-author/compiler of Part IV speaks of one clearly defined, hoped-for eventuality:
What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions! [UB 196:1.2]
In partial support and expansion of that idea, we are also told on another page that:
The great hope of Urantia lies in the possibility of a new revelation of Jesus with a new and enlarged presentation of his saving message which would spiritually unite in loving service the numerous families of his present-day professed followers. [UB 195:10.16]
Some might say that these statements taken together merely speak of the promulgation among all of the world’s religions of (at least) the book’s Part IV, “The Life and Teachings of Jesus”. Indeed such a belief appears to be behind the motivation for the publication of that segment as a separate, standalone volume entitled, “Jesus: A New Revelation”, by a long-time reader amidst a certain amount of controversy. But if so, where the first quote above speaks of “the living Jesus”, the word “living” would have to be taken metaphorically, because even the highest truth, once it has been committed to paper, starts to die–becomes static or distorted:
Truth cannot be defined with words, only by living. [UB 132:3.2]
What the world of today needs is the truth which your teacher of old declared: ‘Not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit.’ The seed of theoretical truth is dead, the highest moral concepts without effect, unless and until the divine Spirit breathes upon the forms of truth and quickens the formulas of righteousness. [UB 34:6.6]
Religion must not become organically involved in the secular work of social reconstruction and economic reorganization. But it must actively keep pace with all these advances in civilization by making clear-cut and vigorous restatements of its moral mandates and spiritual precepts, its progressive philosophy of human living and transcendent survival. The spirit of religion is eternal, but the form of its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language is revised. [UB 99:1.6]
Even now, only a half-century after the original publication date, some of the words used to comprise The Urantia Book have evolved away from their original meaning. “Meditation” is one important example. When the revelation was indited it had no connotation of the passive-mind style imported from the Eastern religions which are popular today.
All of the examples of Jesus’ style of meditation shows that it was dynamic, transcendent, and thought-filled, consisting of hours, even whole days and nights, spent thinking. The distortion caused by this one word alone is presently working a lot of mischief among readers. Also the sexism of our revelation’s language has been noted by a number of observers. Likewise, the supernal authors teach that their cosmology and scientific statements will need periodic updating, but even that has not yet been attempted. Who really feels capable of writing in such changes? The controversy among readers would be fierce.
Internally, Part IV hardly makes the claim to be a new revelation of Jesus, let alone a living revelation of Jesus. Its Melchizedek supervisor at the very beginning of Paper 120 tells us that the work is a “restatement of the life of Michael when on Urantia and in the likeness of mortal flesh.” [UB 120:0.1] And its midwayer author clearly speaks of his/her “commission to restate the teachings and retell the doings of Jesus of Nazareth” and admits that “in many ways I have served more as a collector and editor than as an original narrator.” [UB 121:8.12,14] Living revelations must be something greater than restatements and collections, even if they are by supermortal beings.
All that is admittedly arguable, but the story does not end there. In Section 10 of Paper 195, significantly entitled “The Future,” we read as its first words:
. . . The world needs to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men. . . . [UB 195:10.1]
It hardly needs to be pointed out that this statement contains all of the necessary elements of the midwayer-stated goal (above): “effectively reveal,” “Jesus,” “living again.” Also, the “great hope of Urantia” and what “the world needs to see” are nearly identical in import if not in meaning. Only the usage of the word “experience” is problematical, but its meaning is obvious. And doesn’t it make sense that the “sublime service” would be to fulfill what “the world needs”? The reason that a human-based, experiential, living revelation of Jesus is needed to compliment The Urantia Book is because it “is always difficult to induce evolutionary minds suddenly to accept advanced truth. Man is an evolutionary creature and in the main must get his religion by evolutionary techniques.” [UB 92:6.19]
What an awakening the world would experience if it could only see Jesus as he really lived on earth and know, firsthand, his life-giving teachings! [UB 195:9.8]
That which the world needs most to know is: Men are the sons of God, and through faith they can actually realize, and daily experience, this ennobling truth. [UB 193:0.4]
The great masses of mankind are like kindergartners, who learn by repeated “Show and Tell” performances by their peers: “If they can do it (first statement above) then I can do it (second statement above).” It appears that evolutionary people such as you and me, who have been born of the spirit, and aided by The Urantia Book with its growth-inducing teachings, shall in our very beingness, and in the self-forgetfulness of our service to others, come to manifest Jesus to a world which has a hard time accepting higher truth by precept but learns much better by example or demonstration. By itself The Urantia Book might attain the kind of popularity that Jesus did when he entered Jerusalem in 30 A.D… But the lesson of that event is quite clear:
There really was no deep significance to be attached to this superficial and spontaneous outburst of popular enthusiasm. This welcome, although it was joyous and sincere, did not betoken any real or deep-seated conviction in the hearts of this festive multitude. These same crowds were equally as willing quickly to reject Jesus later on this week when the Sanhedrin once took a firm and decided stand against him, and when they became disillusioned—when they realized that Jesus was not going to establish the kingdom in accordance with their long-cherished expectations. [UB 172:3.15]
We see then that there is a good reason celestials seldom if ever both directly and overtly, at least according to The Urantia Book, teach mortals from outside of evolution. But if evolutionary elements, humans, are to do the job, then the obvious inference is that to be “effective” we will have to attain a high degree of relative personality perfection and circle-attainment first.
Is a human “Show and Tell Jesus” revelation possible? According to The Urantia Book it is. We are taught that, “The spirit [of Truth] . . . came to help men recall and understand the words of the Master as well as to illuminate and reinterpret his life on earth.” [UB 194:2.5] And it further says that the “Spirit of Truth came to help the believer to witness to the realities of Jesus’ teachings and his life as he lived it in the flesh, and as he now again lives it anew and afresh in the individual believer of each passing generation of the spirit-filled sons of God.” [UB 194:2.6]
Jesus, then, is somehow able to live his life, interpreted to fit modern times, again within each individual believer. And certain spirit-born mortals are able to “effectively” manifest this inner Jesus outwardly to the eyes of others. This is nothing new! Christians have been saying this for centuries. They call it “walking the walk.” Many Urantia Book readers, as well, have come to know this truth about the Spirit of Truth as an experiential fact of life. What’s more, Christians speak of a coming worldwide mission of the Spirit of Truth in the “latter days,” the time which many of them believe is now beginning. And as if the number of quotes above from The Urantia Book were not enough evidence to show the truth of my reasoning, that we humans can manifest a living revelation of Jesus, two more teachings tell us:
When Jesus was on earth, he lived his life as one personality—Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling spirit of the ‘new teacher,’ [i.e., the Spirit of Truth,] the Master has, since Pentecost, been able to live his life anew in the experience of every truth-taught believer. [UB 194:3.1]
When man yields the ‘fruits of the spirit’ in his life, he is simply showing forth the traits which the Master manifested in his earthly life. [UB 194:3.1]
But up to now “This world has never seriously or sincerely or honestly tried out these dynamic ideas and divine ideals of Jesus’ doctrine of the kingdom of heaven.” [UB 170:4.4]
Likewise, the world may not be able to put the doctrines of The Urantia Book into practice; but it appears that we shall—must—put Jesus into practice. The only “real-time” difference between those of us who have been born of the spirit is that some are able to “effectively” manifest the inner Jesus outwardly to the eyes of the world, and others do it with less effect, as a now and then thing. The degree is a matter of growth, a matter of developing one’s own unique personality which is patterned after the master personality of Michael, and which was perfectly expressed on Urantia as Jesus of Nazareth.
Although the average mortal of Urantia cannot hope to attain the high perfection of character which Jesus of and unified personality along the perfected lines of the Jesus personality. . . . [UB 100:7.1]
Some of us, the unaverage it appears, shall be able to attain both Jesus’ “high perfection of character” as well as a Jesus-like personality. What is apparently being called the new revelation of the living Jesus will be the appearance around the planet, at least to all the religions on earth, a significant number of people who have developed “a strong and unified personality along the perfected lines of the Jesus personality”—people who in their own lives and teachings bring Jesus to life in the eyes of others. And Jesus spoke of this very event while he was yet on earth, when he said: “…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” [UB 176:2.3]
The context of that quote assures us that the “enlarged revelation of truth” is a direct reference to the fifth epochal revelation (each of the previous four epochal revelations is listed). And what could be a more evolutionarily effective “enhanced demonstration of righteousness” than Jesus living again in the lives of his followers, in the lives of new religious teachers and leaders? If the written revelation was humanized, or made more evolutionary by its supernal authors’ drawing many of their expressions of concepts from published (and unpublished?) sources, by utilizing in some way the mind of a mortal “contact personality” even for the inditing and physical materialization of the text[2] and by running it Paper by Paper through the Q & A regimen in the Forum[3], it makes sense that the demonstration of the revelation will be humanized, too, that is, developed among the planetary population by an evolutionary technique, a people-to-people thing: Show and Tell!
The new revelation of the living Jesus, then, is the epitome, the sine qua non of the religion of Jesus as opposed to a religion about Jesus. It is not sufficient just to read, hear, or preach about Jesus; Jesus must be lived, demonstrated: “Pentecost, then and now, signifies that the Jesus of history has become the divine Son of living experience.” [UB 194:3.19] The new revelation of the living Jesus just takes this one step further. How obvious is it that religious leaders should practice what they preach? Why do we accept less? The Urantia Book tells us that religion “does need new leaders.” That’s the understatement of the millennium!
I have spoken of growth and circle development to achieve the “enhanced demonstration of righteousness” goal, but these are not sufficient in and of themselves. The effective experiential manifestation of Jesus will require a certain human framework entailing specific limitations or obligations. Michael, in his seven bestowals took upon himself similar limitations. For instance:
… on the first bestowal he was subject to the combined will of the Father, Son, and Spirit; on the second bestowal to the will of the Father and the Son; on the third bestowal to the will of the Father and the Spirit; on the fourth bestowal to the will of the Son and the Spirit; on the fifth bestowal to the will of the Infinite Spirit; on the sixth bestowal to the will of the Eternal Son; and during the seventh and final bestowal, on Urantia, to the will of the Universal Father. [UB 120:0.4]
In order to manifest only the Father during his seventh bestowal he had to limit himself to doing only the will of the Father; that is, he had to operate within that specific framework. One paragraph in the section in our revelation entitled “Christianity’s Problem” tells us two of the three limitations which will comprise our own framework if we hope to “effectively” manifest Jesus to the eyes of the world:
Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will [1]dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings. If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual mission while it continues to busy itself with social and material problems, the spiritual renaissance must await the coming of these new teachers of Jesus’ religion who will be [2] exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men. (My numbers) [UB 195:9.4]
And of course the remaining one is, [3] born-of-the-spirit, as we have seen earlier, and is implied above in “spiritual men and women.”
Whether or not the coming spiritual renaissance is ushered in by Christians or, if Christianity continues to fumble the ball, by “new teachers” (transcendent Urantia Book readers?) the framework within which they must fit themselves is the same. Following immediately upon the first quote I made from The Urantia Book at the beginning of this article are the following words, which illustrate this:
. . . Surely the Christian fellowship of believers will not hesitate to make such adjustments of faith and of practices of living as will enable it to “follow after” the Master in the demonstration of his real life of religious devotion to the doing of his Father’s will and of consecration to the unselfish service of man. . . . [UB 196:1.2]
And the meaning of that is amplified in the next paragraph by the following:
To ‘follow Jesus’ means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master’s life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it. [UB 196:1.3]
The choice to Christians today is very much like the spiritual choice to the first century Jews when Jesus appeared among them in the flesh: whether to follow Jesus or to follow their traditional doctrines and an “infallible Bible,” as historically interpreted. There is even a parallel between the Jews’ looking for a militaristic Messiah, and the Christians’ expectation of the Second Coming. Both misread essential prophecies. Christians will have to make the same “adjustments of faith and of practices of living” as will the new teachers if they are to be part of Jesus’ prophesied “enhanced demonstration of righteousness.” No longer will graduation from a theological college or seminary, or mere hiring by a church committee, be enough to confer leadership on an individual, for that does not even guarantee the minimal (howbeit great and transcendent) quality of spirit-birth. On the other hand, organic groups form around worthy leaders, just as the apostles formed around Jesus:
. . . And this [Jesus] brotherhood is destined to become a living organism in contrast to an institutionalized social organization. It may well utilize such social organizations, but it must not be supplanted by them. [UB 195:10.11]
Much of what is learned in seminaries and colleges, as well as various superstitions such as astrology and inerrant Bibles, and perhaps even many true teachings of The Urantia Book itself will have to be laid aside if one “will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings.” Many teaching sources, even those which may otherwise present eternal truths, will not be compatible with “Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men,” just as, for instance, being subject to the combined will of the Father, Son, and Spirit—divinely true and excellent in itself—would have been incompatible with Michael’s manifestation of the Father on Urantia. The former met the needs of other times and other worlds. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, but it was outside of the framework essential for the task here. On Urantia Jesus was limited to the will of the Father alone. We who wish to be part of this “enhanced demonstration of righteousness” by manifesting Jesus as he did the Father will be limited to depending “solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings,” mainly as expressed within us by the Spirit of Truth, but from whatever “oracles” they happen to originate.
Lastly, just as Jesus was completely “devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men,” so too will be the coming new leaders, who, having none of the universe executive-acquirement needs of Michael, must make the spiritual regeneration of mankind their “exclusive” dedication (there can be none greater, and lesser ones would only distract them.) Only then, by accepting such limits and exclusive dedication shall we be able to let the world “see Jesus living again on earth” in and of ourselves, and thereby bring about the new revelation of the living Jesus that Urantia so sorely needs.
We can speculate as to the time when the new revelation of the living Jesus may begin in earnest. The old revelation of the living Jesus, that is, Jesus’ mission in the flesh among us nearly 2,000 years ago, may be said to have truly begun when he left his family in 21 A.D. to start his life as an unencumbered, mission-motivated citizen of Urantia. This was two millennia after Melchizedek stepped forth into materiality as an unencumbered man of the realm with a mission. The precision and exactness of this bimillennial timing would imply the possibility of some sort of cycle operating throughout the Judeo/Christian, and now Jesusonian or Fifth Epochal religious eras. I have indeed discovered such a cycle, which I go into in more detail on my website at http://www.urantiagate.com/judeo-christian.html
As to the cyclic nature of our reality, The Urantia Book tells us:
…as man ascends, as he progresses inward, the enlarging view of this event procession is such that it is discerned more and more in its wholeness. That which formerly appeared as a succession of events then will be viewed as a whole and perfectly related cycle; in this way will circular simultaneity increasingly displace the onetime consciousness of the linear sequence of events. [UB 130:7.5]
…eternity [may be conceived of] as a cycle and the eternal purpose as an endless circle, a cycle of eternity in some way synchronized with the transient material cycles of time. As regards the sectors of time connected with, and forming a part of, the cycle of eternity, we are forced to recognize that such temporary epochs are born, live, and die just as the temporary beings of time are born, live, and die. [UB 32:5.4]
The sectors of time are like the flashes of personality in temporal form; they appear for a season, and then they are lost to human sight, only to reappear as new actors and continuing factors in the higher life of the endless swing around the eternal circle. . . . [UB 32:5.5]
In other words, history repeats itself: that which has been will be again, only—as the third quote above shows—as a newer and more progressive version. So it is quite possible that the timing between the start of the third epochal revelation and what might be considered to be the start of the fourth epochal revelation, will likewise be the timing between the beginning of the fourth epochal revelation and the beginning of the fifth epochal revelation, that is, 2,000 years each. And that date would put the target year for the new revelation of the living Jesus less than two decades away.
The cyclic nature of time suggests that during the first century A.D. “season” just as Jesus’ public ministry was preceded by John the Baptist preaching “the kingdom of God is at hand”, a similar phenomenon may well occur in our own “season” in conjunction with the advent of the new revelation of the living Jesus. The Urantia Book in one of its very few actual prophecies states the following:
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. . . . [UB 170:5.19]
This “revival of the actual teachings of Jesus” may be Part IV of The Urantia Book or it may refer more to the words spoken and written by the “new teachers” (transcendent Urantia Book readers?) through whom the Spirit of Truth will “witness to the realities of Jesus’ teachings and his life as he lived it in the flesh.” Or both! While the word is certainly an inferior concept to what the reality is likely to be, the coming John the Baptist may quite possibly “prepare the way for” innumerable, uniquely individual, totally human spiritual clones of “the Son of Man” operating in every part of the world. Another John the Baptist preparing the way for the other Jesuses, that makes sense. What else logically would John the Baptist’s role be if such a thing is to happen?
The words “sooner or later” obviously make my speculation less than a certainty. Other factors may be involved in the timing of the event.
For what it is worth, I see the future John the Baptist as being the first person both to “effectively” manifest Jesus in his or her life and to gain worldwide media prominence. He or she will be to the religion of Jesus what a rock star is to music, communicating its essence with his or her life and words in an aura of fame. And “John’s” media reach will spread the idea behind the new revelation of the living Jesus fantastically. Think of Elvis, think of the Beatles. Don’t forget that Jesus employed a similar method to spread his gospel when he preached to the concentrated masses of pilgrims gathered from all over the Jewish world at Passover celebrations in Jerusalem. Then he maximized word of mouth. Now there is satellite television. Now there is the internet. The movement will take off when John’s fame has reached its peak, if the cycle holds:
Jesus began his public work at the height of the popular interest in John’s preaching . . . [UB 136:0.1]
Jesus was baptized at the very height of John’s preaching when Palestine was aflame with the expectancy of his message— ‘the kingdom of God is at hand’ … [UB 136:2.1]
The time between our present and the beginning of the new revelation of the living Jesus (assuming that my chronological speculations are correct) will give those of us who wish to become part of it time to struggle with the living reality of daring to depend “solely” on Jesus and his teachings. Exactly what does this mean, anyway? How does one do that? We are talking serious prayer here, and “Jesus-style” active-mind meditation, the turning of this problem over in the mind in the presence of God. It takes time as well to become spirit-born, if one has not attained that already by desiring to replace one’s own will with God’s will, and/or by asking Jesus to come into one’s heart and life [4]. It likewise will take time to allow an intellectually consenting, exclusive devotion to the “spiritual regeneration of men” to sink into the depths of one’s heart and soul.
Jesus, too, prepared in many ways and grew to the pinnacle of human perfection before submitting to the baptizing hands of John. He continued to prepare and plan until John’s mission had reached its natural end with the taking of his life by Herod. And so too, no doubt, must we grow and prepare if we seriously expect ever to be able to “effectively” manifest our inner Jesus to the eyes of all of those who come into contact with us. It will come about but only by way of much personality progression and circle achievement.
And exactly what is it that we may hope to accomplish with the new revelation of the living Jesus? The following quotes tell the story:
But paganized and socialized Christianity stands in need of new contact with the uncompromised teachings of Jesus; it languishes for lack of a new vision of the Master’s life on earth. A new and fuller revelation of the religion of Jesus is destined to conquer an empire of materialistic secularism and to overthrow a world sway of mechanistic naturalism. Urantia is now quivering on the very brink of one of its most enthralling epochs of social readjustment, moral quickening, and spiritual enlightenment. [UB 195:9.2]
. . . If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual mission while it continues to busy itself with social and material problems, the spiritual renaissance must await the coming of these new teachers of Jesus’ religion who will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men. And then will these spirit-born souls quickly supply the leadership and inspiration requisite for the social, moral, economic, and political reorganization of the world. [UB 195:9.4]
. . . Indeed, the social readjustments, the economic transformations, the moral rejuvenations, and the religious revisions of Christian civilization would be drastic and revolutionary if the living religion of Jesus should suddenly supplant the theologic religion about Jesus. [UB 196:1.2]
Yes, we will obviously be saving the world! (ho hum), but the most important question is, will the new revelation of the living Jesus be fun? The Urantia Book has the answer for that, too:
The call to the adventure of building a new and transformed human society by means of the spiritual rebirth of Jesus’ brotherhood of the kingdom should thrill all who believe in him as men have not been stirred since the days when they walked about on earth as his companions in the flesh. [UB 195:10.6]
The picture painted here of the new revelation of the living Jesus makes extremely good sense. Christianity will find itself at a crossroads (if it is not there already). Its theological and Bible-following religion will be challenged by a lay-movement of the Spirit of Truth within the church, which it shall either accept or reject. What else would the Spirit of Truth do but manifest Jesus outwardly in the lives of highly spiritually dedicated, born-again followers of Jesus? That is the Spirit’s social function (its personal, inward manifestation goes without saying here.) It has always done this on an individual basis, only now “walking the walk” and “talking the walk” will be well coordinated and widespread!
The coming “greater” John the Baptist[5] will popularize this movement. He or she will be unmistakable, hard to miss, though of course many will neither recognize nor believe. The “aggressive prophet,” Elijah, in his day was well known throughout the two Jewish states of Israel and Judea; this is obvious in the Bible account. The Urantia Book calls him “one of the greatest prophets,” but also identifies John the Baptist as another and greater “Elijah.” Commenting on John’s greatness, Jesus said that nevertheless, “…he who is but small in the kingdom of heaven is greater because he has been born of the spirit and knows that he has become a son of God.” [UB 144:8.4] So that accounts for the coming John’s higher degree of greatness. John was a phenomenon throughout all of Palestine and likely, since Jews from all parts of the world gathered yearly in Jerusalem, wherever these Jews carried the message also. The coming John the Baptist, like the two Biblically-certified, previous religious heroes who filled this same social/religious niche before him (or her), will likely, just as they did, have the ear of both the populace and the rulers[6]. But this later John the Baptist’s mission will be to the whole planet and to all religions.
This choice will be a difficult one for Christianity (“Mea culpa! Mea culpa maxima!”). Essentially it will have to admit that it has been wrong for 2,000 years and consign its ancient Church Fathers, its authoritarian hierarchies, its seminaries and their graduates, its theological summations, its doctrines, its creeds, its traditions, its rituals, its uninspired sermons, its social work, and even its Bible, which has been raised to the status of the absolute “Word of God,” to at least the second shelf of its bookcase, and replace those presently top shelf items with daring to “depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings” and exclusive devotion to “the spiritual regeneration of men.” It will have to accept the fact that Jesus’ second coming will be only into the hearts and minds of his spirit-born followers, and that his personal return in all power and glory may not take place for many ages.
If Christianity rejects the movement as some kind of heresy or insanity, or as being too threatening, then other new teachers and leaders (likely religiously unaligned, transcendent Urantia Book readers) will be developed outside of the church (note where Jesus switched from the Jews to the gentiles) and will carry it forward to conclusion. And that conclusion will be earth-changing. It will be nothing less than the salvation of mankind from its present materialistic state of suspended spiritual animation, it will be the worldwide, real-time appearance of the Jesus brotherhood or Kingdom of Heaven. The kingdom of heaven IS at hand! Coming soon to a church near you.
The movement will spread to every religion on earth, not necessarily even in the name of Jesus, for historical Christian misadaptation has made that name unacceptable to many honest minds, but in the living reality of Jesus as manifested by those who reveal the Son of Man in and of themselves. It (they) will not be rejected, and soon Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Moslems, et al, will be “effectively” manifesting Jesus via the fruits of their spirit to their fellow religionists, and they will become the new teachers and leaders of the greater and lesser religions:
The common people heard Jesus gladly, and they will again respond to the presentation of his sincere human life of consecrated religious motivation if such truths shall again be proclaimed to the world. The people heard him gladly because he was one of them, an unpretentious layman; the world’s greatest religious teacher was indeed a layman. [UB 196:1.4]
. . . Remember that the order of progressive evolution is subjected to sudden and unexpected periodical changes in both the material and the spiritual worlds. The bestowal of Jesus as an incarnated Son was just such a strange and unexpected event in the spiritual life of the world. . . . [UB 170:4.14]
The Urantia Book, “this revelation” of the midwayer author of Part IV, will play a role in all this in at least two distinct ways: first, by having announced the strong, future possibility of the advent of a new revelation of the living Jesus (when it comes to human free will, especially, everything is uncertain. This is something which we, ourselves, must choose to do); and second, by providing abundant spiritual nourishment for growth in those who study it and believe in it. The Urantia Book provides the map, the destination, and the fuel for our journey. We provide the vehicle, the Spirit of Truth is in the driver’s seat, and we go along for the ride. This is how we are to “put the teachings of The Urantia Book into practice.”
I say “go along for the ride” because there is very little that we can do to bring all this about. We can only, by our sincere desire to participate, provide the needed conditions for the growth and development of our character and personality to the Jesus-level, and we can only do our best to produce a “…well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of [our] self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness—contact with the divine presence” [UB 196:3.34], which is probably necessary for the growth to take place. God does the rest:
. . . My Father requires of the children of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, therefore, you are not fruitful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your unfruitful branches. Increasingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you progress heavenward in the kingdom of God. You may enter the kingdom as a child, but the Father requires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spiritual adulthood. . . . [UB 193:2.2]
At least this is how it all seems to me. But the reality will undoubtedly be greater, as well as probably less, than my vision. I think, however, it easily can be seen that, while concentration on the distribution of The Urantia Book and its translations or trying to put The Urantia Book into practice is not wrong in itself, such a project must not be allowed to replace the living spiritual goal which will bring about a renaissance in our planet’s cultures and religions. Just like the apostles before us, our free will allows us to make substitutions and thereby get it wrong this time, too!
I shall end this article with some quotes found scattered around The Urantia Book which perhaps might contain hints as to some of the eventual outworkings of the new revelation of the living Jesus:
But doubt not, this same kingdom of heaven which the Master taught exists within the heart of the believer, will yet be proclaimed to this Christian church, even as to all other religions, races, and nations on earth—even to every individual. [UB 170:5.8]
. . . The living Jesus is the only hope of a possible unification of Christianity. The true church—the Jesus brotherhood—is invisible, spiritual, and is characterized by unity, not necessarily by uniformity. Uniformity is the earmark of the physical world of mechanistic nature. Spiritual unity is the fruit of faith union with the living Jesus. The visible church should refuse longer to handicap the progress of the invisible and spiritual brotherhood of the kingdom of God. . . . [UB 195:10.11]
Jesus chose to establish the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of mankind by natural, ordinary, difficult, and trying methods, just such procedures as his earth children must subsequently follow in their work of enlarging and extending that heavenly kingdom. . . . [UB 136:8.6]
Regardless of the drawbacks and handicaps, every new revelation of truth has given rise to a new cult, and even the restatement of the religion of Jesus must develop a new and appropriate symbolism. . . . [UB 87:7.6]
Notwithstanding that the cult has always retarded social progress, it is regrettable that so many modern believers in moral standards and spiritual ideals have no adequate symbolism—no cult of mutual support—nothing to belong to. . . . [UB 87:7.3]
The old cults were too egocentric; the new must be the outgrowth of applied love. The new cult must, like the old, foster sentiment, satisfy emotion, and promote loyalty; but it must do more: It must facilitate spiritual progress, enhance cosmic meanings, augment moral values, encourage social development, and stimulate a high type of personal religious living. The new cult must provide supreme goals of living which are both temporal and eternal—social and spiritual. [UB 87:7.7]
No cult can endure and contribute to the progress of social civilization and individual spiritual attainment unless it is based on the biologic, sociologic, and religious significance of the home. A surviving cult must symbolize that which is permanent in the presence of unceasing change; it must glorify that which unifies the stream of ever-changing social metamorphosis. It must recognize true meanings, exalt beautiful relations, and glorify the good values of real nobility. [UB 87:7.7]
…[Jesus] did not utilize the guidance of celestial personali-ties, aside from that of his guardian seraphim, in the living of his human life up to the day of his baptism by John. And we who thus testify know whereof we speak” [UB 128:1.9]
. . . The secret of [Jesus’] unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the presence of God; and he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship—unbroken communion with God—and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious practices. [UB 196:0.10]
All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus. [UB 94:12.7]
Peter Holley has been sporadically reading The Urantia Book for over three decades, and shaking people up on Urantia movement web forums with his Thomas-like analytical mind, the output of his spiritualized creative imagination, and his nit-picking Urantia Book references for about half a decade. He is a born-of-the-spirit follower of Jesus and maintains two Urantia-centered websites: http://www.URANTIAGATE.com and http://www.SearchJesus.com. He is presently, depending on what God’s will is for him, either dying of cancer or “kicking cancer’s butt” with alternative healing methods using diet, exercise, sun, air, water, rest, subconscious healing, mental/spiritual attitude, carrot juice, the affirmation which scrolls across his computer’s screen-saver. Time will tell whether he will be with you manifesting Jesus or cheering you on via the Mansion Worlds’ reflectivity media in between group excursions, language classes, and janitorial(?) duties for the building custodians of the Masion Worlds.)
Addendum: Peter Holley began his journey to the mansion worlds on December 14, 2004.
| The Next Fifty Years: Dissemination | Volume 6, Number 1, 2005 (Summer) — Index | Wonderment and revelation |
The mandate read in part: “We regard The Urantia Book as a feature of the progressive evolution of human society. It is not germane to the spectacular episode of epochal revolution, even though it may apparently be timed to appear in the wake of one such revolution in human society. The Book belongs to the era immediately to follow the conclusion of the present ideological struggle. That will be the day when men will be willing to seek truth and righteousness. When the chaos of the present confusion has passed, it will be more readily possible to formulate the cosmos of a new and improved era of human relationships. And it is for this better order of affairs on earth that the book has been made ready.”
“But the publication of the book has not been postponed to that (possibly) somewhat remote date. An early publication of the book has been provided so that it may be in hand for the training of leaders and teachers. Its presence is also required to engage the attention of persons of means who may be thus led to provide funds for translation into other languages.”
…“Over rapid growth would be suicidal. The book is being given to those who are ready for it long before the day of its world-wide mission. Thousands of study groups must be brought into existence and the book must be translated into many tongues. Thus will the book be in readiness when the battle for man’s liberty is finally won and the world is once more made safe for the religion of Jesus and the freedom of mankind.” (“The More Open Phase of Our Work,” Correspondence between Emma Christensen and Meredith Sprunger, http://www.urantiabook.org/archive/history/doc250.htm) ↩︎
A number of documented statements by Dr. William Sadler show that the contact personality, while asleep, was used in the early days by the supernals in some sort of direct channeling phenomenon whereby information was passed vocally via the “sleeping subject” to Sadler and others. Later, when the Papers began to physically materialize that channeling procedure was apparently discontinued. Yet The Urantia Book indicates that the contact personality’s mind was nevertheless still essential to the transmission of the hard-copy Papers:
On many worlds the better adapted secondary midway creatures are able to attain varying degrees of contact with the Thought Adjusters of certain favorably constituted mortals through the skillful penetration of the minds of the latters’ indwelling. (And it was by just such a fortuitous combination of cosmic adjustments that these revelations were materialized in the English language on Urantia.) [UB 114:7.9]
The Adjuster of the human being through whom this communication is being made enjoys such a wide scope of activity chiefly because of this human’s almost complete indifference to any outward manifestations of the Adjuster’s inner presence; it is indeed fortunate that he remains consciously quite unconcerned about the entire procedure. He holds one of the highly experienced Adjusters of his day and generation, and yet his passive reaction to, and inactive concern toward, the phenomena associated with the presence in his mind of this versatile Adjuster is pronounced by the guardian of destiny to be a rare and fortuitous reaction. [UB 110:5.7]
A metaphor of the contact personality’s mind being used in a similar way to how we compose with a word processor seems apt and fits with the normal supernal procedure of utilizing the special capacities of living beings where we might use machines (i.e., transportation, timekeeping, number-crunching, energy manipulations, etc.). The textual contents of the subject’s mind would then have been “printed out” (“materialized”) as hard-copy manuscripts by an energy transmitter or other Master Physical Controller. I, myself, have had dreams which were composed of only pages of text, which has perhaps given me some insight into this. I could only speculate as to how such a procedure might humanize supernal material or bring it closer to evolution. Such ideas, however, should occur to almost anyone who thinks deeply into this matter. ↩︎
“The first group of Papers numbered 57. We then received a communication suggesting that since we could now ask many and much more intelligent questions, the supervising agencies and personalities responsible for transmitting the 57 Papers would engage to enlarge the revelation and to expand the Papers in accordance with our new questions.
“This was the plan: We would read a Paper on a Sunday afternoon and the following Sunday the new questions would be presented. Again, these would be sorted, classified, etc. This program covered several years and ultimately resulted in the presentation of the 196 Papers as now found in The Urantia Book.” (A History of The Urantia Movement, The First Urantia Papers, http://www.urantiabook.org/archive/history/histumov.htm) ↩︎
Sincerely and prayerfully asking Jesus into one’s heart and life, or to become Master of one’s life, is a Christian method of passing through the doorway of spiritual-rebirth. It worked for me, but I was denominationally unaligned and shortly thereafter discovered The Urantia Book. The problem with the way it works in fundamentalist denominations is that after a child of God has become born-of-the-spirit, rather than “let the Spirit of Truth do his own work” [UB 178:1.16], the church leaders and congregational peer-pressure force the newly reborn “baby Christian” into a cage with bars of traditional doctrines and supposedly Bible-derived rules of behavior. This cage is then bolted with the erroneous belief that the Bible, itself, is the infallible “Word of God”, and locked with the fear of Hell. The Spirit has little opportunity to become the bedrock of that person’s life. Yet some Christians “have their eyes set only on Jesus.”
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 159:4.9]
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. [UB 159:4.7]
And Nicodemus said: ‘But how can I begin to lay hold upon this spirit which is to remake me in preparation for entering into the kingdom?’ Jesus answered: ‘Already does the spirit of the Father in heaven indwell you. If you would be led by this spirit from above [Note: hence the efficacy of the Christian supplication acknowledging the desire to be so led which I made], very soon would you begin to see with the eyes of the spirit, and then by the wholehearted choice of spirit guidance would you be born of the spirit since your only purpose in living would be to do the will of your Father who is in heaven. And so finding yourself born of the spirit and happily in the kingdom of God, you would begin to bear in your daily life the abundant fruits of the spirit. [UB 142:6.7] ↩︎
Interestingly The Urantia Book terms this modern-day, born-again, more-than-a-prophet as “another,” rather than a “second John the Baptist.” That is because, I believe, that the second John the Baptist appeared on Urantia one millennium after the first one did (c. A.D. 1132). You can find out the details which I have discovered on my URANTIAGATE website (url below) by using its search engine (search-word: “Abelard”). Needless to say, the Middle Ages’ “John the Baptist” was wildly popular and well-known throughout Europe. His mission was to the Roman Catholics. ↩︎
Both were in fact brought to extremity by the wives of the rulers— John to his death: a word to the wise for the coming John the Baptist. ↩︎