© 2005 The Brotherhood of Man Library
| What the Urantia Revelation says about the Spirit of Truth | Volume 12 - No. 2 — Index | The Uniqueness of Jesus |
Whereas the fame of Jesus as a healer quickly spread throughout all parts of Palestine, Syria, and surrounding countries (UB 149:1.1), the ability of his apostles to sustain this reputation quickly faded following Jesus’ death and resurrection. The probable reason may be found in:
“When the Creator himself was on earth, incarnated in the likeness of mortal flesh, it was inevitable that some extraordinary things should happen. But you should never approach Jesus through these so-called miraculous occurrences. Learn to approach the miracle through Jesus, but do not make the mistake of approaching Jesus through the miracle. And this admonition is warranted, notwithstanding that Jesus of Nazareth is the only founder of a religion who performed super-material acts on earth.” (UB 149:2.7)
Regarding the reality of Jesus’ miraculous healings, there was no way at that time that 10 lepers could be healed of their incurable ailment (UB 166:2.1; Luke 17:11-19) or the blind could regain their sight (UB 164:3.1) except through some form of miraculous divine intervention. Both the Urantia revelation and the biblical accounts are such that we either must admit that Jesus performed real miracles of healing or else take an impossibly biased disbelieving attitude towards the evidence…
This incident of the ten lepers is also illustrative of the aberrant peculiarities of human nature. Nine of the lepers were Jews. But only one returned to thank Jesus–and that was the Samaritan.
Likewise at the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilot when Pilot offered to release either Jesus or the criminal Barabbus, the crowd chose Barabbus–despite the fact that there must have been many in that Passover crowd who had either witnessed healings by Jesus, knew of them, or been actual recipients. Yet they failed to make themselves heard–apparently from fear for their own skins.
It would seem then that miraculous cures do not make a solid foundation for a new religion. But they could, and apparently did, help to firm up the resolve of close followers, such as Jesus’ apostles.
With Jesus’ resurrection it is a different story. Firstly, could it have been a figment of the imagination? Paul provides the earliest surviving written account–one that was written within 20 years of Jesus’ death:
"he was buried, and rose again on third day…and was seen of Peter, then of the twelve. After that he was seen by more than 500 at once, of whom the greater part remain unto the present, though some have died. After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles. Last of all he was seen by me. (1 Corinthians 15:4-8)
Paul says that, besides the apostles, there were around 500 still living eye witnesses to the resurrection. Then he goes on to challenge the Corinthian audience to verify the resurrection for themselves by asking eye witnesses.
If we make a careful study of the accounts about the behavior of the apostles in the gospels, in Paul’s epistles, and in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles following on from the crucifixion and Pentecost we can hardly doubt that the successful establishment of the early Christian movement was very much dependent on the veracity of these eye witness assertions about the resurrection.
Likewise the change in behavior of the apostles from a cowardly set of deserters who fled and went into hiding after the crucifixion really does require something akin to the resurrection appearances for its explanation. Take away those appearances and we are at a loss to explain how Christianity could ever have became established as a major religion.
The incredible, almost logarithmic rate of spread of the Christian religion from Palestine via Syria and its neighbors, to Greece thence Rome and finally throughout the Roman Empire as far as Spain, Britain, and Ireland, demands explanation. What did this religion have that allowed it to displace virtually all others?
It could scarcely have been the ideas brought to our notice in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 & 6) for, though they attracted lip service, they had little popular appeal as an actual way of living. So what gave Christianity its enormous drawing power that allowed its proselytes to defy persecution, or even being fed to the lions in Roman amphitheatres?
Irrational fear of punishment by an offended deity for committed sin dates back a long way–at least 2,500 years to Zoroaster in Persia and to the ‘mystery’ religions. This fear had been brought back from the east by Roman soldiers and sailors and had become widespread by the time of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Jesus’ death and resurrection provided a ready-made means of allaying such fear if it was looked upon as having been a sacrificial offering to God in payment for the sins of mankind. Once this concept was put forward, the early Christians must have found it was tremendously successful in attracting new adherents–and this despite the built-in anomaly of promoting a God who is perfect love yet is also one who demands the sacrifice of death on the cross of his Son as an offering in payment for our sins!
The fact that this strange anomaly has remained firmly entrenched in all mainline Christian churches–yet unrecognised as even being an anomaly–is indicative of how firmly entrenched in the human psyche is the fear of divine punishment for unforgiven sin.
Summarizing this evidence we conclude that the veracity of Jesus’ resurrection appearances was critical for the establishment of the early “Jesus movement”–but that the belief that Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for our sins was of overriding importance for the establishment and continuing existence of Christianity.
| What the Urantia Revelation says about the Spirit of Truth | Volume 12 - No. 2 — Index | The Uniqueness of Jesus |