© 2000 Seppo Kanerva
© 2000 Urantia Association International (IUA)
| Relation of Adjusters to Universe Creatures | Journal — September 2000 — Index | Sharing Our Spiritual Life |
Seppo Kanerva, Finland
Jesus’ earthly life was devoted to one great purpose-doing the Father’s will, living the human life religiously and by faith. [UB 196:0.14] Never lose sight of the fact that the supreme spiritual purpose of the Michael bestowal was to enbance the revelation of God. [UB 120:4.4]
Jesus, the incarnated Christ Michael, is a Paradise Son of the Michael order, a Creator Son, and we are instructed that each Creator Son has to win and earn the unchallenged authority to rule his local universe, a congregation of ten million inhabited worlds, thousands of architectural spheres and trillions of mortal and celestial beings. The last phase in a Creator Son’s gaining full sovereignty over his creation is the seventh bestowal, an incarnation, which happens only once during his career and always in the likeness of a human, the lowest creature with survival potentials and capacity.
In the course of the previous six bestowals Michael had done the will of the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit ke and the will of all possible combinations of the members of the Paradise Trinity. On the seventh and last bestowal he was to do and live exclusively the will of the Paradise Father, the Father of all.
Christ Michael’s, the Son of Man’s and the Son of God’s life was a manifestation of God. In and through all this extraordinary experience, God the Father chose to manifest himself as be always does—in the usual way —in the normal, natural, and dependable way of divine acting [UB 120:4.6]. From the philosophic viewpoint it is good to note that Jesus’ life and teachings did not constitute an absolute manifestation of the Father’s will; rather a finite manifestation thereof. The finite aspect of God is called God the Supreme; and God the Supreme is the maximum that a human being is capable of realising of God and of Deity. We are instructed that Jesus had embarked upon a programme of revealing the Supreme (UB 120:0.7).
The Father’s will is that a mortal man becomes perfect even as the Father himself is perfect. With respect to humans, this exhortation concerns finite perfection. Jesus, the Son of Man, was fully true to this expression of the Father’s will; Jesus the man achieved finite perfection during his short mortal life of mere 36 years. And he did so as a human, without recourse to his divine prerogatives; he did achieve this perfection with the assistance of a Thought Adjuster, and in incessant communion with his Paradise Father; and every human being can potentially achieve the same. In so doing he demonstrated to all humans on this planet and on all of the ten million planets of his universe that it is possible to be true to this mandate of the Father; it is possible to become perfect even as the Father is perfect (UB 142:7.15, UB 196:2.2, UB 196:2.4).
Said Jesus: “This entire relationship of a son to the Father, I know in perfection, for all that you must attain of sonship in the eternal future I have now already attained. The Son of Man is prepared to ascend to the right band of the Father, so that in me is the way now open still wider for all of you to see God and, ere you have finished the glorious progression, to become perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” [UB 142:7.13]
The Father of all has ordained that the perfecting of the creations of time and space shall happen slowly but surely, through the long and arduous evolutionary process with abundant assistance and ministry provided by his subordinates, the celestial beings, but without direct divine intervention and interference. Jesus, the Son of Man, was ever faithful to this expression of the divine will. He experienced the same evolutionary ordeals, trials and disappointments as every human being has to experience, struggle with and go triumphantly through. The Son of Man became at a certain date conscious of his divine origin, his true nature, but he refused to resort to demonstrations of his divine powers, to miracles, the assistance of “twelve legions of angels” or other superhuman forces. No, he accomplished everything in the usual, normal, natural and dependable way (UB 129:4.3-7). Jesus was not to interfere in the biologic constitution of mankind, consequently he did not leave human offspring on this planet. Jesus respected the normal evolutionary process of this world, even if he, a dispensational Son as he was, was granted certain privileges pertaining to the advancement of the spiritual and religious status of the peoples of the world (UB 120:3.5).
The mission which Michael’s seventh bestowal as Jesus of Nazareth consisted of is revealed in a concise manner in the instructions imparted by Immanuel prior to Michael’s becoming incarnated as Jesus; some of these instructions were arrived at in consultation with Gabriel (UB 120:1.1-UB 120:3.11). These instructions included the following items and commissions, which must needs be expressions of the will of his Paradise Father: His finite creature’s will was to become one with the will of the infinite Creator (UB 120:2.6). He was to reveal God to man, and man to God (UB 120:2.8). He was to make a contribution to the sovereignty of the Supreme (UB 120:2.6). He was to be in unbroken communion with his Paradise Father (UB 120:1.4). He was not to become an example for his human subjects to imitate or follow in detail, he was rather to become an inspiration (UB 120:2.7). He was to function in the role of a teacher, not that of a king or a temporal ruler, not as a priest, preacher or founder of a new cult or institutionalised religion (UB 120:2.5; UB 120:3.6). He was not to become the subject of idolatrous veneration (UB 120:3.7). He was to set man spiritually free (UB 120:2.6), he was to devote his efforts to man’s spiritual regeneration and intellectual emancipation (UB 120:3.4). He was not to become a political leader or become entangled with the economic structure of the world (UB 120:3.4). He was to liberate the minds of men from age-old fears (UB 120:2.5). He was to live an ideal religious life (UB 120:3.4). He was to minister to the physical well-being and material comfort of his contemporaries; he was to give “some attention to the realization and exemplification of some things practical and immediately helpful” to his fellow men (UB 120:2.5; UB 120:3.2). Jesus was to terminate the Lucifer rebellion in the system of Satania and to do it as the Son of Man, as a human being (UB 120:2.2); it is most noteworthy that Jesus was to terminate the rebellion as a mortal of this rebellion-tainted world, in weakness made powerful by his submission to the will of the Father. He was to end his bestowal with the pronouncement of a dispensational judgment and the termination of the post-Adamic age, and the concomitant resurrection of mortal survivors and a declaration of a new dispensation, that of the Spirit of Truth (UB 120:2.4). Jesus of Nazareth was to pour out the Spirit of Truth, and thus, among other things, make the universal bestowal of Thought Adjusters possible (UB 120:2.6).
Apart from what Immanuel laid out as the plan which Michael of Nebadon had to implement as Jesus, Joshua ben Joseph, we have been instructed that every human needs to gain experience in child rearing, either down here on earth or in the morontia worlds (UB 47:1.6).
Jesus accomplished, implemented and achieved all of the above. It was his mandate, his mission. It was God’s will with regard to his seventh bestowal.
¶ 1. The Way Jesus Discovered the Father’s Will
Jesus was and is a man and a God. He is this combination, which is incomprehensible to a human being and to most of the celestial beings as well. This combination is a secret of Sonarington, and will for ever remain beyond the comprehension of beings other than the order of Michaels.
Yet, he was born and he lived and died on this word as any human, he was a man among men. He experienced the same physical, mental and spiritual growth, the same struggles, doubts, uncertainties and efforts to discover and know the Father’s will as any human being does. He experienced the same triumphs, convictions and certainties as every human can experience; and he did all of that in unbroken communion with his Heavenly Father, just like any human may do. His spiritual development was gradual growth, assisted by the Father fragment (UB 129:4.2).
The infant Jesus, who was bomn on 21 August 7 BC , spent the first years of his life in Bethlehem, Alexandria and finally Nazareth just like any boy of his time and age. On 11 February, 2 BC he made his first wholehearted moral decision, and a Thought Adjuster came to indwell his mind, just as happens with every child at about the same age. The Thought Adjuster was a very experienced one, due to his having served Machiventa Melchizedek almost 2000 years before that memorable date. In likeness with all children of all times, Jesus was not aware of the arrival of the Thought Adjuster.
Early in his life Jesus went through the normal evolutionary development of any child, including a primitive personal religion based on traditional but incorrect notions of the nature of God. He was reared by his parents, Joseph and Mary, as a Jew and was educated in the doctrines and dogmas of the traditional Hebrew religion. Yet, very early in his life he started questioning these dogmas, and he sought answers to his incessant questions from his parents and finally also from the chazan of the Nazareth synagogue, the teacher of his school. The young Jesus evinced profound interest in everything he observed around him, but more particularly in things invisible. He likewise challenged some meaningless Jewish religious habits and practices, like that of touching a parchment attached to the door jamb.
He used to say his traditional prayers the way his parents had taught him to do, but this was not fully satisfactory to him. After he had said his prayers, he usually spent some time in having “just a little talk with my Father in heaven.” This was the beginnings of his being in unbroken communion with his Father. We may benefit significantly if we pay attention to what is reported about his youthful talks and communions with his heavenly Father: he had finally decided to “talk with my Father who is in heaven”; and while be was not perfectly sure about the answer, be rather felt. . . UB 123:6.9.
If we present-day humans are not always sure about the answer, it is nothing to worry about. But we do wisely if we, in a situation like that, refrain from declaring our own thoughts as divine answers and do not act as if we were doing the will of the Father. Over the years, I have observed that many people, also Urantia Book readers, act in an unwise manner in these situations. A great deal, maybe all, of the difficulties that our youthful Urantia Book reader community has been experiencing have their root causes in this human tendency to declare one’s own thoughts, ideas, interpretations, notions and desires to be absolute divine mandates, God’s commandments. This then has resulted in fanaticism and ruthless ways of implementing those purely human notions and ideas, even if they are in flagrant violation or circumvention of mandates and instructions which can, beyond all reasonable doubt, be regarded as having been issued by our superhuman friends.
Time and again his parents would find Jesus “sitting off by himself with his youthful head in his hands, profoundly thinking”. Jesus was a thinker, a deep thinker and planner. He discovered the will of the Father in thinking-in comparing his own thoughts with thoughts that he found truthful, beautiful, good and loving, and assumed that they must be his heavenly Father’s thoughts.
The first supematural event in Jesus’ life occurred in the evening of 8 April AD 7, during his first Passover visit to Jerusalem, when flood tides of spiritual illumination swept through the mortal mind of Jesus … and during the night, for the first time in his earth career, there appeared to him an assigned messenger from Salvington, commissioned by Immanuel, who said: “The hour has come. It is time that you began to be about your Father’s business.” [UB 124:6.15]
Apart from this visit of the Salvington messenger, who was voicing ultimately the will of the Father, Jesus himself was still uncertain about the origins of the thoughts in his mind; but he felt for example that the slaughter and sacrifice of thousands of animals at the Jerusalem temple was not what his heavenly Father required or was pleased with. Yet, Jesus was day by day becoming more and more conscious of what was in accordance with his Father’s will and what was not. Even if Jesus did not as yet enjoy direct communication with his Adjuster he knew the will of the Father, whose thoughts became ever clearer to him.
Jesus, the twelve year boy, a “son of the law” and a member of the commonwealth of Israel, felt that after his first Passover in Jerusalem he had to spend some time at the house of his Father, the Jerusalem temple, and he was curiously forgetful of his earthly parents at this point. For a number of days he participated in the temple discussions baffling the learned rabbis with his penetrating questions and comments. Yet, a few years later, he felt that it was puerile, and did not want to have any part of those discussions ever again. This again instructs us to the effect that we sometimes feel very passionately about certain issues, which a while later seem to have lost much or even all of their importance. This is just an indication of growth; nothing to worry or feel shame about. This temple incident, however, reflected also Jesus’ struggle to find a solution to his dilemma of loyalties and allegiances: whether to be about his heavenly Father’s business or to be a dutiful son to his earthly parents. His pronounced decision was: “While I must do the will of my Father in heaven, I will also be obedient to my father on earth.” [UB 125:6.11] From now on, he was constantly facing the need to decide between the affairs of this world and the contemplation of his relation to his Father’s business [UB 126:0.2]. Only a short while later Jesus had to determine whether to become involved in the patriotic movement or not, whether in this issue to frustrate the will and disappoint the desires of his mother and his relatives or not. He faced a similar situation when he had to determine whether to join the rabbinic academies or not, or whether to become a rabbi of the mighty Alexandria synagogue himself. In his case these two options of political involvement and rabbinical education ran counter to the instructions he had been given by Immanuel-but about which Jesus at this point of his life was ignorant - so his choices were unquestionably his and his alone. Each time he had to determine his stance with regard to the institutions of society and the usages of the traditional Jewish religion, he used the criterion: What does it do for the human soul? Does it bring God to man? Does it bring man to God? (UB 126:2.5). We present-day Urantians are oftentimes facing these same dilemmas; but in our case the correct choice is not necessarily what Jesus chose, yet we may apply the same criterion.
When Jesus was fourteen years of age, his father died accidentally, and Jesus had to assume the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother and his seven siblings. This was the opportunity for him to gain an extensive experience of six years in child rearing, including the care for a newly born infant, because the youngest of his sisters, Ruth, was not even born at the time of her father’s death. His earthly father Joseph’s death thus determined the course of Jesus’ life for many years to come, because he became the actual father to his brothers and sisters.
During these years of working hard to win the bread for his family as a carpenter, a boatbuilder and finally as interpreter and tutor, he had the opportunity of learning to know practically every aspect of the life of humans, so to become our understanding and compassionate brother. All of that was according to the will of his Father in heaven. His designing a new type of boat which was then used in boating on the Sea of Galilee, serves as an example of his implementing the mandate that he had to realise something practical for the comfort of his contemporaries.
The restatement of the fourth epochal revelation gives an account on the earthly career of Jesus and reports, year by-year, about his efforts to control his mind, to achieve a unity between his mind and the divine mind, to understand himself and his true nature, his doubts and his feelings of uncertainty with regard to his mission, whether he was the expected Jewish Messiah or not. The process of gaining full mastery of his mind and full communion with his Thought Adjuster continued for many years, all the way up to the moment of his baptism on 14 January AD 26.
In his fourteenth and fifteenth years he began to be self-conscious of [his] divinity and destiny before be acbieved a large measure of communication with his indwelling Adjuster [UB 126:0.1]. During his sixteenth year Jesus reached full physical growth and the full growth of his human intellect (UB 127:1.3). As concerns his seventeenth year, this year Jesus made great progress in the organization of his mind. Gradually he had brought his divine and human natures together, and be accomplished all this organization of intellect by the force of his own decisions and with only the aitt of his Monitor [UB 127:2.12]. During his twentieth year, he is learning how to adjust his ideals of spiritual living to the practical demands of earthly existence … He is steadily acquiring the art of adjusting his aspirations to the commonplace demands of the human occusion. He has very nearly mastered the technique of utilizing the energy of the spiritual drive to turn the mechanism of material achievement … he is learning how to transform the difficulties of time into the triumphs of eternity [UB 127:6.12]. In his twenty-first year he obtained knowledge, gained experience, and combined these into wisdom, just as do other mortals of the realm [UB 128:1.3]. During his twenty-fourth year, AD 18, Jesus communed much with his Father in heaven and made tremendous progress in the mastery of his human mind [UB 128:5.6].
About his twenty-fifth year we are told that he was engaged in seasons of deep meditation and contemplation of his future activities (UB 128:6.10), and we are led to understand that these seasons of deep meditation occurred whenever and wherever, even when he was working in his repair shop. As concerns his twenty-sixth year, we learn that he was fully conscious of his potential powers, but that he decided not to use those powers as the Son of Man. His determination to do the will of his heavenly Father was replete (UB 128:7.1; UB 128:7.2). During his twenty-seventh year reportedly Jesus made great advances in the ascendant mastery of his human mind and attained new and high levels of conscious contact with his indwelling Thought Adjuster [UB 129:1.14]. During his twenty-ninth and thirtieth years, the years of his Mediterranean and Caspian tours, AD 23 and 24, Jesus well-nigh completed his educational contact-training with the many peoples of the world (UB 129:3.7).
On this Mediterranean journey Jesus made great advances in his human task of mastering the material and mortal mind, and his indwelling Adjuster made great progress in the ascension and spiritual conquest of this same human intellect. By the end of this tour Jesus virtually knew-with all human certainty-that he was a Son of God. [UB 129:3.9]
Yet he was still the Son of Man. He had not yet achieved the complete mastery of his human mind; the Adjuster had not fully mastered and counterparted the mortal identity. He was still a man among men. [UB 129:4.1]
The purely human religious experience—the personal spiritual growth—of the Son of Man well-nigh reached the apex of altainment during this, the twenty-ninth year. [UB 129:4.2]
Througbout these years, while he did not appear to engage in so many seasons of formal communion with his Father in heaven, he perfected increasingly effective methods of personal communication with the indwelling spirit presence of the Paradise Father. [UB 129:4.3]
We may learn much from these statements. The process to reach meaningful communion with one’s Thought Adjuster is long, lasting decades, but Jesus, the Son of Man, demonstrated that it is possible of achievement even during the days in the flesh. Nonetheless, I guess, that most of us need to wait till our sojoum on the mansion worlds until we will be capable of this achievement. Another observation to make and pay heed to is the fact that Jesus did not engage in formal prayers or any rituals to attune to the presence of God, rather his communion was constant, incessant; he truly acted upon the fact that our Father is present always and everywhere; he sees us all the time.
By the end of the twenty-ninth year Jesus of Nazareth had virtually finished the living of the life required of mortals as sojourners in the flesh … he had now become well-nigh the perfection of man awaiting the occasion to become manifest to God. And he did all of this before he was thirty years of age [UB 129:4.8].
Concerning Jesus’ thirtieth year we learn that the year was
. . . one of the more unusual years in the inner experience of the Son of Man; great progress was made in effecting working harmony between his human mind and the indwelling Adjuster. The Adjuster had been actively engaged in reorganizing the thinking and in rehearsing the mind of the great events which were in the not then distant future … These were the in-between times, the transition stage of that being who began life as God appearing as man, and who was now making ready to complete his earth career as man appearing as God. [UB 134:1.7]
In his thirty-first year, AD 25, his Thought Adjuster led Jesus up to the slopes of Mount Hermon that he might finish his work of mastering his human mind and complete the task of effecting his full consecration to what remained of his mission on earth. The Mount Hermon episode of the last three weeks of August and the first three weeks of September marked the termination of Jesus’ purely human career (UB 134:7.6-7; UB 134:8.4). During these six weeks of isolation he finished the task of achieving the cosmic circles of mindunderstanding and personality-control. And upon this period only the final phase of mind and Adjuster attunement remained to be consummated (UB 134:8.4). It was then and there, during the last week of his sojoum on Mount Hermon that Jesus, the Son of Man, wrestled victoriously in spirit with Caligastaia and Satan, who represented Lucifer. This episode is described as the final trial of human loyalty in the face of the misrepresentations of rebel personalities [UB 134:8.6].
Then and there, 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 Lucifer rebellion in Satania and the Caligastia secession on Urantia were virtually settled [UB 134:8.9].
The celestial announcement of Jesus’ having completed his career as a man among men, of his having achieved the perfection of human life, happened on 14 January AD 26, at the moment of John’s baptising him, when a voice was heard announcing: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” (UB 134:8.9, UB 135:8.6). We need to take note of this piece of information concerning the baptism: It is … evident that Jesus in no sense received John’s baptism as a rite of repentance or for the remission of sins. In accepting baptism at the hands of John, Jesus was only following the example of many pious Israelites [1511.0].
When Jesus was baptised, he was a mortal of this world who had attained the fulness of human evolutionary ascension in all matters related to the conquest of mind and to self-identification with the spirit. He was now a perfected mortal. Perfect synchrony and full communication had become established between his mortal mind and the indwelling Adjuster (UB 136:2.2). Jesus would have fused with his Adjuster, but since this mortal of the realm was also the Creator Son, the Adjuster instead took leave of the perfect soul of Joshua ben Joseph just to return a few moments later back from Divinington as a Personalised Adjuster. It was this Personalised Adjuster that made the announcement on Jesus’ being the beloved Son (UB 136:2.3). Jesus was now fully conscious of his status of a Creator Son.
After the baptism Jesus retired to the hills of Perea for forty days, to plan for the next phase of his life on earth, the phase of the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven.
¶ 2. The Way Jesus Lived the Will of God
Many of the aspects of how Jesus lived the will of God have been given a short discussion in the previous section whose primary focus was on the ways he discovered that will, and I shall not repeat them in this section of the presentation.
The following statement gives us a summary of Jesus’ religious life: The secret of his 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]
Jesus was a finite revelation of his Paradise Father. This means that his perfect life was a revelation of the divine way of living a human life, and his teachings were a finite revelation of the absolute ideas and thoughts of his Paradise Father. One of the reasons why his Father and our Father could so fully manifest himself through Jesus was his self-forgetfulness: When we stand confronted by such splendid self-forgetfulness, we begin to understand bow the Universal Father found it possible so fully to manifest himself to him and reveal himself through him to the mortals of the realms. [UB 196:0.9]. This statement is addressed also to us, his fellow mortals. What we do for the good of our fellows is important and it opens the ways for our Father to manifest himself to them, the self is not important.
In the course of his short life on earth Jesus fulfilled every aspect of the instructions given by Immanuel and Gabriel prior to his seventh bestowal. His will became one with the will of the infinite Creator. He revealed God to man, and man to God. He was in unbroken communion with his Paradise Father. He did not become an example for humans; he became an inspiration which made his followers turn the word upside down-let alone that it happened in a way that was beyond his control. He acted the public part of his life as a teacher. He did everything to prevent the idolatrous veneration of his person in his life time. He gave an enormous contribution towards man’s spiritual regeneration and intellectual emancipation. He did not become a political leader; yet he gave some advice and imparted certain visions concerning the political developments of the world. He did not become entangled in the economic structure of the world, even if he again imparted good advice and ethical instructions concerning the management of wealth. He told his apostles: “It is not the will of the Father that I should yield to the temptation to teach you rules of government, trade, or social behaviour” [UB 140:6.6]. He contributed mightily towards the liberation of the minds of men from age-old fears. He lived an ideal religious life. He ministered to the physical well-being and material comfort of his contemporaries. He terminated the Lucifer rebellion and the Caligastia secession as the Son of Man. He did declare a dispensational judgment of the sleeping survivors. And finally he did pour out the Spirit of Truth.
Jesus did not establish a new institutionalised religion. Jesus is not the founder of Christianity. Christianity is a work of his followers and supporters, who turned the saving gospel of Jesus about the Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man into a religion about Jesus. But Jesus did establish a religion, it was part of his mission: Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God and serving the human brotherbood; Paul founded a religion in which the glorifed Jesus became the object of worship and the brotherbood consisted of fellow believers in the divine Christ. In the bestowal of Jesus these two concepts were potential in his divine-human life, and it is indeed a pity that his followers failed to create a unified religion which might have given proper recognition to both the human and the divine natures of the Master as they were inseparably bound up in his earth life and so gloriously set forth in the original gospel of the kingdom. [UB 196:2.6]
Religion is the exclusively spiritual experience of the evolving immortal soul of the God-knowing man. [UB 156:5.10]
This was . . . an effort of Jesus’ part to make clear the fact that religion is a personal experience. [UB 145:2.3]
I do not pretend to be able exhaustively to capture every aspect of Jesus’ life, nature and teachings. I can only select a few of the innumerable features and facets of his life and teachings and try to present a personal interpretation of them in a way that would be applicable in the lives of present-day kingdom-builders and serve the faith-sons of today in their struggles and quest for truth. Because Jesus" life and teachings are to serve as an inspiration for all of us I shall focus on features and facets that are useful, sometimes startling, yet easily ignored and forgotten.
¶ 2.1. The Human Jesus, What Was He Like?
Said Jesus: “Tell my children that I am not only tender of their feelings and patient with their frailties, but that I am also ruthless with sin and intolerant of iniquity. I am indeed meek and humble in the presence of my Father, but I am equally and relentlessly inexorable where there is deliberate evildoing and sinful rebelling against the will of my Father in heaven.” [UB 159:3.9]
Jesus was aggressive. This startling pronouncement is made seven times in the restatement of the fourth epochal revelation. He also told his apostles and followers to be aggressive: “You are also to be valiant in defence of righteousness, mighty in the promulgation of truth, and aggressive in the preaching of this gospel of the kingdom, even to the ends of the earth.” [UB 178:1.14]
The pictures of Jesus have been most unfortunate. These paintings of the Christ have exerted a deleterious influence on youth; the temple merchants would bardly have fled before Jesus if he had been such a man as your artists usually have depicted. His was a dignifeed manhood; he was good, but natural. Jesus did not pose as a mild, sweet, gentle, and kindly mystic. His teaching was thrillingly dynamic. He not only meant well, but he went about actually doing good [UB 141:3.6].
Fidelity was a cardinal virtue in his estimate of character, while courage was the very heart of his teachings. “Fear not” was his watchword, and patient endurance his ideal of strength of character. The teachings of Jesus constitute a religion of valour, courage, and heroism [UB 140:8.20].
A common view on Jesus is that he was a man of sorrows and pain, a mystic, a well-meaning but impractical fanatic and a pathetic dreamer, a word reformer whose schemes for world betterment did completely and miserably crash and fail. Or, in another view he was and continues to be nice, one who condones anything and everything. Jesus was none of that. Jesus was not a soft-spoken mystic, he was forceful and aggressive; yet he was not a gloom person of worries and anxieties, but yes, he was harsh from time to time, and yet he was cheerful and loving; he was not a weakling, he was courageous and inspiring, he was not a solitary hermit, no, he was easy of approach, sociable and friendly. Jesus loved men, women and children, he trusted them, even if he realised their frailties, fears, dishonesty, selfishness—and all of the dark sides of man. Even if forceful and aggressive, Jesus was not overpowering, condescending or schoolmasterly. His way of teaching was unique: not once did he attack the errors and flaws in anybody’s ideas or thoughts, but he so illuminated what was correct and right in those thoughts that his discussion partners themselves saw their errors and mistakes. Even if he advocated the policy of nonresistance to evil, it was not because of weakness, rather because it was a positive way of acting in a startling and surprising way, a way to give the aggressor a chance to reconsider.
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]. Jesus’ advice was: Do not make the mistake of fighting evil with its own weapons [UB 140:8.7].
Jesus gave these instructions to his apostles and other followers, but I venture to guess that he would give the same instructions also to us, his modem followers: You are not to be passive mystics or colourless ascetics; you should not become dreamers and driffers, supinely trusting in a fictitious Providence to provide even the necessities of life. . . you are also to be valiant in defence of righteousness, mighty in the promulgation of truth, and aggressive in the preaching of this gossel of the kingdom, even to the ends of the earth [UB 178:1.14].
What Jesus required of his contemporaneous followers, concerns also us, his later-day followers and believers. Jesus made many, many statements which completely contradict the picture of him as an embodiment of human goodness, justice and fairness. That they contradict our notions of goodness, justice and fairness should make us reconsider our notions. Jesus said: Extend sympathy to the brave and courageous while you withhold overmuch pity from those cowardly souls who only halfheartedly stand up before the trials of living. Offer not consolation to those who lie down before their troubles without a struggle [UB 159:3.11].
It is God’s will that we progress, grow, become better; that we make the effort, that we struggle and strive; because if we do not, we retrogress, be slide back to something inferior. To stand still is no alternative, no option at all. Jesus told his apostles that they could not stand still; they must go forward in righteousness or retrogress into evil and sin. . . He besought them not to be content with their childbood in the gospel but to strive for the attainment of the full stature of divine sonship in the communion of the spirit and in the fellowship of believers [UB 156:2.6]. He said also: “You cannot stand still in the affairs of the eternal kingdom. My Father requires all his children to grow in grace and in a knowledge of the truth.” [UB 176:3.5]
The feature of forcefulness and courage in Jesus’ life and teachings is a feature that has not figured prominently in traditional Christian religion.
Jesus was selective. Even if Jesus was opposed to discrimination and declared that the kingdom of heaven is for all, for the souls of Jew and gentile, Greek and Roman, rich and poor, free and bond, young and old, male and female, all men of all ages and of all social conditions among all peoples (UB 137:8.6, UB 141:7.5, UB 143:1.6), he was also selective. “Verily, verily, I say to you, not every one who says, ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but rather be who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” [UB 140:1.4]. Now, to you who have refused salvation, the door is shut. This door is not open to those who would enter the kingdom for selfish glory. Salvation is not for those who are unwilling to pay the price of wholehearted dedication to doing my Father’s will . . . it is useless in mind and body to stand before this door and knock, saying ‘Lord, open to us; we would also be great in the kingdom.’ Then will I declare that you are not of my fold. I will not receive you to be among those who have fought the good fight of faith and won the reward of unselfish service in the kingdom on earth. And when you say, ‘Did we not eat and drink with you, and did you not teach in our streets?’ then shall I again declare that you are spiritual strangers; that we were not fellow servants in the Father’s ministry of mery on earth; that I do not know you.” [UB 166:3.4]
He called for discrimination and wisdom in winning souls for the kingdom and proclaiming the gospel. Jesus said: “Present not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample your gems under foot and turn to rend you” [UB 140:3.18]. But the statement looks harsher than what it is. The dog or the swine are those who make themselves dogs and swine, those who are unreceptive of truth. In his reply to Ganid who was shocked when Jesus seemed not to want to engage a certain person, a pagan, in a soulsaving conversation, Jesus said: “Ganid, the man was not hungry for truth. He was not dissatisfied with himself. He was not ready to ask for belp, and the eyes of his mind were not open to receive light for the soul. That man was not ripe for the harvest of salvation . . You cannot reveal God to those who do not seek for him; you cannot lead unwilling souls into the joys of saluation. Man must become hungry for truth as a result of the experiences of living, or he must desire to know God as the result of contact with the lives of those who are acquainted with the divine Father” [UB 132:7.2].
What are we to learn from this? The situation with regard to the fifth epochal revelation in this respect is no different from what it was with regard to the fourth. It would be equal to “presenting that which is holy to dogs” should we toss The Urantia Book into the hands of every mortal on this planet; they might “turn to rend us.” It is wise to keep the revelation of truth accessible only to those who “hungry for truth.” It is a mistaken assessment that every man would be hungry for truth and receptive of a revelation. The state of the world is a clear indication that they are not; most people must be like the pagan: satisfied with themselves. To be dissatisfied with oneself is the prerequisite for one’s asking for help and having one’s mind open to “receive light for the soul.”
There was one more limiting aspect. Said Jesus: “Need I remind you that they who are whole need not a physician, but rather those who are sick? I have come, not to calk the righteous, but sinners.” [UB 138:3.6] There is no point in trying to win for gospel those who already are in the kingdom of heaven. Also this aspect has some bearing on the dissemination of the restatement of the fourth epochal revelation, for example under the guise of separate publications of Part IV of The Urantia Book; yet not so much so with regard to the dissemination of the fifth epochal revelation, which can be of great benefit even to the faith-sons of God, to those who already are in the kingdom of heaven.
Yet another aspect in this respect is what is revealed to us in these words: So fen mortals are real thinkers. . . The ear of the human mind is almost deaf . . . [UB 110:7.6]. It requires a great deal of thinking; it requires an open ear of the mind if one is to benefit from the fifth epochal revelation. To disseminate these teachings among people who are not real thinkers and whose mind is closed is equal to “casting pearls before swine.” These are Jesus’ words: “You cannot compel men to love the truth.” [UB 153:3.5]
Jesus was also relentless and uncompromising. This is true when a choice had to be made between truth and error, but it must not be understood to mean that he had not exercised discretion and wisdom in earthly and non-spiritual issues. He decided not to resort to wonderworking or miracles in promotion of the kingdom of heaven: Would it be consistent with “the Father’s will” for the divine mind to make this concession to the doubting nature of the human mind? Jesus decided that it would not [UB 136:8.3]. He likewise decided against all compromise with the wisdom of the world and the influence of riches in the establisiment of the kingdom. He again chose to depend exclusively on the Father’s will [UB 136:8.4].
Jesus refused to compromise with evil, not to speak of consorting with sin (UB 136:8.8). “Tell my children that I am not only tender of their feelings and patient with their frailties, but that I am also rutbless with sin and intolerant of iniquity. I am indeed meek and humble in the presence of my Father, but I am equally and relentlessly inexorable where there is deliberate evildoing and sinful rebelling against the will of my Father in heaven.” [UB 159:3.9]
That he was a nonconformist was a natural consequence of the fact that his life and teachings constituted the fourth epochal revelation. But here again, he was non-conformist only in religious and spiritual matters; otherwise he was a law-abiding citizen of a Roman subject nation, whose standard reply to questions related to earthly governments was, “render unto Caesars, what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.” The same concerns his having been a member of the Hebrew nation and its religion. He was true to Immanuel’s instructions: “As you may see fit, you are to identify yourself with existing religious and spiritual movements as they may be found on Urantia.” Jesus himself said: “But do not make the mistake of thinking that I have come to set aside the law and the prophets; I have not come to destroy but to fulfill, to enlarge and illuminate. I come not to transgress the law but rather to write these new commandments on the tablets of your hearts.” [UB 140:6.2]
Counter to the common religious practices of the Jews, Jesus did not endorse fasting or the affliction of the soul; his mission was to forever destroy all, such notions regarding the approach to God (UB 136:3.3). Counter to the religious practises of the Jews, Jesus was supportive of physical fitness and athletic skill (UB 124:3.7) and admired and was supportive of art and music; he spoke approvingly of science. He was opposed to meaningless religious rituals and practices because they in most cases had their origins in a completely erroneous God concept. These practises included for example the custom of touching a bit of parchment nailed upon the doorpost each time on going into or coming out of the house; ritual hand washing at meals; animal sacrifices; keeping the Sabbath (“I declare that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbatb” [UB 147:6.4]); formal prayers; ostentatious self-pity etc. Jesus did not endorse discrimination in any form, nor did he approve of any notions about a “chosen people”. He made a valiant effort to let his followers understand that they are religiously free, that they may formulate their own prayers, that they must only concern themselves about their personal relationship with God.
Jesus did not endorse the common and accepted practice of revenge, he taught rather forgiveness and mercy: “Measure for measure shall not be your rule. The rulers of men may have such laws, but not so in the kingdom; mercy always shall determine your judgments and love your conduct.” [UB 140:6.9] Jesus, instead, advocated love of one’s enemies: “I say to you: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who despitefully use you.” [UB 140:3.15]
In a situation where might and power, first seats in the synagogue and seats of honour at meat, competition for being greatest in the kingdom, were the major concern for many, just as they continue to be today, Jesus used to make his startling pronouncements about greatness: “Whasoever would become great in my Father’s kingdom shall become a minister to all; and whosoever would be first among you, let him become the server of his brethren.” [UB 140:1.6]
What was most startlingly non-conformist in his actions was his emancipation of women. He did not approve of the Jewish practices of discrimination and segregation of women. He conversed freely with women. He even formed a women’s corps of evangelists, which must have been a scandal in his time and age.
It may seem and sound strange that Jesus was a religious and spiritual leader who did not advocate exclusive spirituality. Jesus did not want simply to produce a religious man, a mortal wholly occupied with religious feelings and actuated only by spiritual impulses. Could you have had but one look at him, you would have known that Jesus was a real man of great experience in the things of this world. The teachings of Jesus in this respect have been grossly perverted and much misrepresented all down through the centuries of the Cbristian era; you have also held perverted ideas about the Master’s meekness and humilit. What he aimed at in his life appears to have been a superb self-respect. [UB 140:8.20].
This is something that is widely ignored, also among students of the fifth epochal revelation. The very opposite tends to be the ideal: a mortal occupied exclusively by religious sentiments and actuated only by spiritual impulses. Yet, we have a material world to live in and to care for, and it is God’s will that we have this world to live on and its peoples to minister to. Jesus taught that it is selfish to be concerned about one’s own salvation: Salvation should be taken for granted by those who believe in the fatherhood of God. The believer’s chief concern should not be the seffish desire for personal saluation but rather the unselfish urge to love and, therefore, serve one’s fellows [UB 188:4.9].
There is nothing incompatible between sonship in the spiritual kingdom and citizenship in the secular or civil government. It is the believer’s duty to render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and to God the things which are God’s. There cannot be any disagreement between these two requirements, the one being material and the other spiritual. [UB 178:1.3].
Jesus of Nazareth was utterly trusting with regard to both his heavenly Father and his fellow men; yet in his trusting his fellow men he was not naif; he knew the hearts of men profoundly; he did not suffer from any illusions conceming the frailties of men. His faith was so absolute and undoubting that it responded to the charm of the contact of fellow beings and to the wonders of the universe. His sense of dependence on the divine was so complete and so confident that it yielded the joy and the assurance of absolute personal security [UB 196:0.12]. We, his fellow mortals, have every opportunity to be equally trusting and confident; show the trust and confidence of a child.
Jesus had confidence in men, his fellow mortals, he trusted them with the task of building the heavenly kingdom on earth. He let his fellow men assert themselves, show that they were worthy of his trust. And this included even the apostle Judas Iscariot. Jesus told Andrew to go on placing the utmost confidence in this apostle [UB 157:7.1].
Evolution is God-ordained; it is the slow but sure process of perfecting the material universes and all of the creatures who inhabit the planets thereof. Our Master was an evolutionist, not a rebel or revolutionist. He was not a militant revolutionist; he was a progressive evolutionist. He engaged in the destruction of that which was only when he simultaneously offered his fellows the superior thing which ought to be. [UB 149:2.11]. He rejected all ideas of compromising with the revolutionary techniques of Caligastia. And he knews the futility of the Caligastia method of tring to get ahead of the natural, slow, and sure way of accomplishing the divine purpose. Again the Son of Man bowed obediently to the Father’s way, the Father’s will [UB 136:8.5].
In a similar manner, it is God’s will that the finite existence where we find ourselves is synonymous with experiential existence, and that we grow towards perfection through experience, through the long and difficult way. Yet we are not helpless in this process; God has provided us with ample assistance. Jesus has, because of his personal experience, a profound knowledge of what it is like actually to live the life of human beings on the material worlds of time and space. (UB 129:4.3)
“… nothing in human affairs can take the place of actual experience.” [1956.0]
God is truth, beauty and goodness, united in love. Jesus was a finite embodiment of truth, beauty and goodness. He was divine love incarnate. All other aspects and features of his being can be viewed as derivatives of his love. But it is necessary to expand one’s conceptualisation of what love is and what love is not. Love has many facets, some of them astounding and starling, features which many of us would not readily and willingly associate with love. Love is never cynical. Love does not condone evil; love does not pamper (UB 140:5.12). He declared that the heavenly Father is not a lax, Loose, or foolishly indulgent parent who is ever ready to condone sin and forgive recklessness . . Said Jesus: “My Father does not indulgently condone those acts and practices of his children which are self-destructive and suicidal to all moral growth and spiritual progress. Such sinful practices are an abomination in the sigbt of God.” [UB 147:5.9]
Jesus met and loved all manner of men, rich and poor, high and low, black and white, educated and uneducated, cultured and uncultured, animalistic and spiritual, religious and irreligious, moral and immoral [UB 129:3.8]. His great new commandment, which he presented to his eleven apostles at the last supper-and to us-was: “That you love one another even as I have loved you.” [UB 180:0.3]
Jesus instructed his apostles in these words: 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.” [UB 146:3.6]
¶ 2.2. What Did Jesus Teach?
Along with his perfect life, the teachings of Jesus constitute the fourth epochal revelation. Epochal revelations are not frequent on any planet. The overall development of any inhabited planet follows the laws of evolution; the law of evolution consists of effort and struggle; of the free-will acts of all involved to do the will of the Father. Evolution is not based on divine intervention, or compulsory doing of the Father’s will. Epochal revelations are given only at those moments of the slow evolutionary process when the potentials of evolution seem to be depleting. Revelations constitute a superhuman intervention in the normal course of evolution, and that is why they are always carefully planned so to minimise the interventionary aspect of such a superhuman action. Ultimately, revelations are always to become part of the evolutionary process. Because of the need to preserve the delicate balance between evolution and revelation, Jesus had to observe careful discretion in his teachings. He did not want to overteach, he had to calibrate his teachings in accordance with the receptivity of his audience, and in some occasions his teaching was purely personal and was given only under the condition that the person who benefited from his instructions would tell “no man” about what he had learned.
If love is viewed as having been the primal feature of the wholeness of what Jesus was, the quality wherefrom all other features stemmed, then the same can be said about his teachings concerning the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom concept is the core element of Jesus’ teachings; practically all other instructions are derivatives thereof.
The kingdom of heaven is, in short, the invisible community of the faith-sons of God, of those who believe in the Fatherhood of God and in the consequent brotherhood of man; the community of those humans whose supreme desire is to do the will of God, which manifests itself in unselfish love and in the fruits of the spirit, and one of these fruits is improved ethical and moral conduct.
The kingdom of heaven is to be kept separate from the sonship of God; all humans are sons of God, but not all of them are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is also to be kept separate from the many and multifarious groups of believers, churches, sects and religious communities. Wisely is it a stated on the first page of the charter of the IUA that the IUA is “not to be confused with the spiritual fellowship of the kingdom of heaven.”
It is the citizens of the kingdom of heaven that will transform the world; they are the conduits of the divine love and watchcare. My interpretation is also that it is largely because of the citizens of the heavenly kingdom that the Most Highs can rule in the material, earthly kingdoms of men.
Jesus taught that, by faith, the believer enters the kingdom now. In the various discourses be tangbt that two things are essential to faith-entrance into the kingdom: 1.) Faith, sincerity. To come as a little child, to receive the bestowal of sonship as a gift; to submit to the doing of the Father’s will without questioning and in the full confidence and genuine trustfulness of the Father’s wisdom; to come into the kingdom free from prejudice and preconception; to be open-minded and teachable like an unspoiled child. 2.) Truth hunger. The thirst for righteousness, a change of mind, the acquirement of the motive to be like God and to find God [UB 170:2.20-22].
He taught that faith was the only requisite for one’s entering into the Father’s kingdom: “Faith is the opem door for entering into the present, perfect, and eternal love of God.” [UB 138:8.8]
The entrance to the kingdom is open to all: “And this kingdom shall include the worshipping souls of Jew and gentile, rich and poor, free and bond, for my Father is no respecter of persons; his love and his meryy are over all.” [UB 137:8.6]
But this citizenship can be lost. If a citizen fails to progress and stops yielding the fruits of the spirit, his citizenship is lost: “Entrance into the Father’s Kingdom is wholly free, but progress-growth in grace-is essential to continuance therein.” [UB 150:5.2]. “Life in the Father’s eternal creation is not an endless rest of idleness and seffich ease but rather a ceaseless progression in grace, truth, and glor.” [UB 181:1.2] “You cannot stand still in the affairs of the eternal kingdom. My Father requires all his children to grow in grace and in a knowledge of the truth.” [UB 176:3.5]
A citizen of the kingdom of heaven is bound to yield the fruits of the spirit; it is automatic; no one can be a citizen of the kingdom if he does not yield the fruits of the spirit, if his citizenship does not show in his actions, behaviour, conduct, in his loving service to his fellows; if it does not manifest itself as high ethical and moral standards, in loyalty, inner peace, unfailing goodness and forgiving tolerance. And it is the fruits of the spirit that attract his fellow mortals; not so much his proclamations, his words. Jesus taught: “And it will not be so much by the words you speak as by the lives you live that men will know you have been with me and have learned of the realities of the kingdom.” [UB 140:1.7] “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]
One of the fruits of the spirit is loving service (UB 193:2.2). Loving service, again, may manifest itself in a multiplicity of ways. Jesus did not come down here to solve the political, social or any other type of material problems of the world. It is part of the nature of evolution that man solves these problems himself. It is the Father’s will that mortal man sbould work persistently and consistently toward the betterment of his estate on earth. Intelligent application would enable man to overome much of his earthly misery [UB 148:5.3]. And the citizens of the heavenly kingdom will play a key role in this evolutionary process. That they become so involved is one of their acts of loving service. Citizenship in the heavenly kingdom should make such faith-sons also ideal citizens of the earthly kingdoms of men (UB 178:1.4).
This new religion of Jesus was not without its practical implications, but whatever of practical political, social, or economic value there is to be found in his teaching is the natural outworking of this inner experience of the soul as it manifests the fruits of the spirit in the spontaneous daily ministry of genuine personal religious experience [UB 140:10.6].
Jesus never intended to formulate economic theories; he well knew that each age must evolve its own remedies for existing troubles . . . he would not take sides in present-day political, social, or economic disputes. He would remain grandly aloof while teaching you bow to perfect your inner spiritual life so as to render you manifold more competent to attack the solution of your purely human problems. [UB 140:8.17]
The Master offered no solutions for the nonreligious problems of his own age nor for any subsequent age. [UB 140:8.31]
Sonship in the kingdom, from the standpoint of advancing civilization, should assist you in becoming the ideal citizens of the kingdoms of this world since brotherhood and service are the cornerstones of the gaspel of the kingdom. The love call of the spiritual kingdom should prove to be the effective destroyer of the bate urge of the unbelieving and war-minded citizens of the earthly kingdoms. But these material-minded sons in darkness will never know of your spiritual light of truth unless you draw very near them with that unselfish social service which is the natural outgrowth of the bearing of the fruits of the spirit in the life experience of each individual believer. [UB 178:1.4]
As mortal and material men, you are indeed citizens of the eartbly kingdoms, and you sbould be good citizens, all the better for having become reborn spirit sons of the heavenly kingdom . [UB 178:1.5]
An essential aspect in human affairs is the importance of leadership. Jesus’ teachings concerning this issue are perhaps shaking and surprising to some. This may be because so many people have lost their confidence in human leaders due to the fact that so many leaders in the course of the history have proven to be unworthy of their trust, base, self-seeking, deceptive and even destructive. These are our Master’s words: “In my universe and in my Father’s universe of universes, our bretbren-sons are dealt with as individuals in all their spiritual relations, but in all group relationships we unfailingly provide for definite leadership. Our kingdom is a realm of order, and where two or more will creature act in co-operation, there is always provided the authority of leadership.” UB 181:2.16
As concerns the relationship of salvation and citizenship in the heavenly kingdom, Jesus taught that they are one and the same thing. He said: “You cannot buy salwation; you cannot earn righteousnes. Salvation is the gift of God, and righteousness is the natural fruit of the spirit-born life of sonship in the kingdom. You are not to be saved because you live a righteous life; rather is it that you live a righteous life because you have already been saved, have recognized sonship as the gift of God and service in the kingdom as the supreme delight of life on earth. ” [UB 150:5.5]
The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of freedom and liberty. “I have come into the world to proclaim spiritual liberty to the end that mortals may be empowered to live individual lives of originality and freedom before God.” [UB 141:5.1]
No one can be forced into the kingdom of heaven, nor must the might of the earthly kingdoms he employed in promotion of the heavenly kingdom and to force men thereto—this principle has been very largely ignored and violated in the course of the history of mankind. “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” [UB 103:5.11]. The forces of the spiritual world will not coerce man; they allow him to go the way of his own choosing. [UB 163:2.8] You must not seek to promulgate truth nor to establish righteousness by the power of civil governments or by the enaction of secular laws. You may abways labour to persuade men’s minds, but you must never dare to compel them [UB 178:1.12].
Nonetheless, law and order need to be enforced: In the kingdom of heaven true believers will not resort to the employment of physical force . . . this . . . does not nullify the right of social groups of believers to maintain order in their ranks and administer discipline upon unruly and unwortby members [UB 178:1.2]. My personal interpretation is that should there be any need to discipline “unruly and unworthy” citizens of the heavenly kingdom, it is an indication to effect that they actually have ceased to be citizens of this kingdom. The kingdom of heaven surely is the kingdom of freedom and liberty, but it is not a kingdom of licence.
Because the kingdom of heaven is a realm of freedom, there are no rules of conduct and behaviour to observe and honour.
A midwayer statement says: Jesus stripped morality of all rules and ceremonies and elevated it to majestic levels of spiritual thinking and truly righteous living [UB 140:10.5]. He was not even a moral reformer. He well knew, and so taught his apostles, that the sensual urges of mankind are not suppressed by either religious rebuke or legal probibitions [UB 140:8.21].
Jesus himself said: “Verily, verily, I say to you, when the Father’s will is your law, you are bardly in the kingdom. But when the Father’s will becomes truby your will, then are you in very truth in the kingdom. . . When God’s will is your law, you are noble slave subjects; but when you believe in this new gospel of divine sonship, my Father’s will becomes your will, and you are elevated to the high position of the free children of God, liberated sons of the kingdom.” [UB 141:2.2]
Jesus offered no rules for social advancement; his was a religious mission, and religion is an exclusively individual experience [UB 196:2.11]. But men yearn for rules of conduct, crystallised doctrines, dogmas and creeds. Jesus found it very difficult to make his apostles understand that he would not teach them any rules, any doctrines, any creeds, any set prayers. It was not only difficult for him, it was well-nigh impossible to make his followers understand and accept the fact that they are free. The door of the prison cell was open, but they refused to step out. And the subsequent history of the Jesus movement, which later on became a sect and ultimately the Christian church, evinces that his efforts in this respect were almost completely frustrated. This began already with the writing of the four Biblical gospels. In the gospels unscrupulously Jesus is made pronounce clean-cut rules; something that he in actuality never did. Christianity then very quickly formulated a great number of rules of conduct and acceptable behaviour. It fought and struggled around and about a multiplicity of creeds and doctrinal definitions, and this continues still today. With regard to Christianity, what Jesus predicted has come true: The religions of authority crystallize into lifeless creeds; the religion of the spirit grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service a and merciful ministration [UB 155:6.9].
Jesus said: “I have not come to legislate but to enlighten. I have come not to reform the kingdoms of this world but rather to establish the kingdom of heaven.” [UB 140:6.6] The midwayers report: Another great handicap in this work of teaching the twelve was their tendency to take bigbly idealistic and spiritual principles of religious truth and remake them into concrete rules of personal conduct. Jesus would present to them the beautiful spirit of the soul’s attitude, but they insisted on translating such teacbings into rules of personal behaviour [UB 140:10.2].
Truth cannot be captured in creeds, dogmas or doctrines which every believer then has to profess and has to strive for a creedal unity; and those who do not believe in this uniform manner must be looked upon. with contempt or even killed. This is not what Jesus taught. No, he taught that truth is living. Truth is living; the Sprit of Truth is ever leading the children of light into new realms of spiritual reality and divine service. You are not given truth to crystallise into settled, safe, and honoured forms … What a sorry sight for successive generations of the professed followers of Jesus to say, regarding their stewardship of divine truth: “Here, Master, is the truth you committed to us a hundred or a thousand years ago. We have lost nothing; we have faithfully preserved all you gave us; we have allowed no changes to be made in that which you taught us; bere is the truth you gave us.” [UB 176:3.7] Jesus taught that there can never be any creedal uniformity: The religions of authority require of men uniformity in belief, but this is impossible of realization in the present state of the world. The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience-uniformity of desting-making full allowance for diversity of belief [UB 155:6.9].
Jesus gave us a new definition of the concept of sin. Since times immemorial, sin had been understood as a transgression of God-ordained rules and taboos. Because a great deal of Jesus’ teachings became lost to the world, believers still believe that sin is a transgression of some divine rules which are to govern human conduct—no matter how meaningless and irrational the rules might be.
And at long last the Christian church embraced Paul’s doctrine of original sin-Paul’s notion that all men are begotten in sin and born in sin that a newborn baby is a sinner. This inherited sin could be washed away only with the blood of Jesus, and that the fatherly heart of the Almighty God in all its austere coldness and bardness was so untoucbed by the misfortunes and sorrows of his creatures that his tender merries were not forthcoming until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon the cross of Calvary [UB 4:5.6]. Paul viewed this supreme sacrifice as the redemption of the original sin and made his followers believe that the Father now was appeased and atoned. This, the most horrible and the most primitive of the Christian dogmas, has effectively prevented good Christians from realising the true character of their Heavenly Father and has benighted the lives of thousands of millions of Christians for nearly 2000 yearsand continues to do so still today. Jesus never taught anything that would even remotely have resembled the Pauline-Christian doctrines. The fifth epochal revelation instructs us: The barbarous idea of appeasing an angry God, of propitiating an offended Lord, of winning the favour of Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by the shedding of blood, represents a religion wholly puerile and primitive, a philosophy unwortby of an enlightened age of science and truth. Such beliefs are utterly repulsive to the celestial beings and the divine rulers who serve and reign in the universes. It is an affront to God to believe, bold, or teach that innocent blood must be shed in order to win his favour or to divert the fictitious divine wrath [UB 4:5.4].
Jesus instructed that man is imperfect, and it is not sinful to be imperfect: human nature may tend toward evil, but it is not inherently sinful [UB 156:5.8].
Jesus’ view on sin was: “Sin is the conscious, knowing, and deliberate transgression of the divine law, the Father’s will.” [UB 148:4.4] Jesus called the deliverance from evil and sin the new birth or the baptism of the spirit. And a new birth is the necessary precondition for entrance into the kingdom of heaven. And this is very logical: citizenship in the kingdom of heaven means that one’s supreme desire is to do God’s will, so if someone’s desire is not to do the Father’s will, he cannot be in the kingdom.
Sin . . proves the temporal liberty—even license—of the finite will. Sin depicts immaturity darzled by the freedom of the relatively sovereign will of personality while failing to perceive the supreme obligations and duties of cosmic citizenship [UB 118:7.4].
One of the most startling among Jesus’ teachings was what he instructed concerning forgivingness. It was startling so much so that we remember apostle Peter’s bewilderment and his question, did Jesus really mean that he should forgive as many as seven times “a brother who has sinned against me”. And Jesus replied that he should forgive not only seven times but rather “seventy times and seven”. Jesus also suggested a procedure for solving grievances among believers (UB 159:1.3-UB 159:1.4). In Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness there are many significant and important aspects: Father in heaven forgives us even before we even think of asking for his forgiveness; Father’s forgiveness becomes a reality for us however only when we forgive our fellows. But this is not to be seen as a condition for his forgiving us, rather that we experience this forgiving only when we forgive our fellow men in return.
The Father in heaven has forgiven you even before you have thougbt to ask him, but sucb forgiveness is not available in your personal religious experience until such a time as you forgive your fellow men. God’s forgiveness in fact is not conditioned upon your forgiving your fellows, but in experience it is exactly so conditioned. [UB 146:2.4]
Superstition has many flaws. First, superstitions are not truthful. Secondly, superstition runs counter to the God-ordained principle of evolution in its efforts to make divine and superhuman powers miraculously intervene in the natural unfolding of the evolutionary process. It runs counter to the divine will in its endeavours to gain knowledge of the future. It is God’s will that the future is unknown to us as concerns its details; revelations let us know only the broad and general outlines of what lies ahead. Superstition is a futile human effort to escape the efforts, struggle, tests and trials in building a future and in seeking for and finding out God’s will through the difficult, but ordained process.
Jesus made a high number of pronouncements against superstitious beliefs:
Astrology is a mass of superstitious error which has no place in the gospel of the kingdom. The examination of the internal organs of an animal recently killed can reveal nothing about weather, future evens, or the outcome of human affairs. The spirits of the dead do not come back to communicate with their families or their onetime friends among the living. Charms and relics are impotent to beal disease, ward off disaster, or influence evil spirits . . . Casting of lots . . . is not a method designed to disclose the divine will. . . Divination, sorrery, and witchcraft are superstitions of ignorant minds, as also are the delusions of magi. The belief in magic numbers, omens of good luck, and harbingers of bad luck, is pure and unfounded supersition. The interpretation of dreams is largely a superstitious and groundless system of ignorant and fantastic speculations. . . The spirits of good or evil cannot dwell within material symbols of clay, wood, or metal . . . Amulets and all sorts of incantations are futile either to win the protection of good spirits or to ward off supposed evil spirits. Jesus exposed and denounced their belief in spells, ordeals, bewitching, cursing, signs, mandrakes, knotted cords, and all other forms of ignorant and enslaving superstition [UB 150:3.3—UB 150:3.12].
All of the above manifestations of rank superstition and magic plague to a large extent the world even today. Apart from the rank expressions of superstition and belief in magic, there exist also more sophisticated variants of the same. Jesus was explicit when he said “progress—growth in grace—is essential to continuance” [UB 150:5.2] in the kingdom of heaven. The revelators discuss the phenomenon of secularism and they make the observation that the majority of professed Christians of Western civilization are unvittingly actual secularists [UB 195:8.3]. One who lives in the West is usually “christened” a few days or weeks after his birth; when he is a teenager his membership in the Christian community or Church is “confirmed”; one day he is married in the church, the wedlock is blessed by the church; his children again are baptised and become members of the same church; and finally, at the end of the day, he is buried in the churchyard and his corpse is blessed by the church. All of this is nothing but formalities, without too much personal religion or conviction. But people believe that if a child is not baptised his salvation will be in jeopardy, he will not have any hope of eternal life; if the wedlock is not blessed by a priest, it will fail; if a person is not buried in a church ceremony and interred in the blessed churchyard his destiny will be damnation, and so on. People pay church taxes because it is viewed as an insurance that guarantees one’s salvation and eternal life. People belong to churches and profess to believe in outdated and age-old dogmas for the same reason.
All of that is let to happen without too much personal faith or religion. All of it is sophisticated and masquerading superstition and belief in magic. If there is no conscious decision and desire to enter the kingdom for the sake of doing the Father’s will, but only for the sake of saving oneself, this is what Jesus says to that person: “Verily, verily, I say to you, not every one who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but rather be who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” [UB 140:1.4]
Many professed Christians truly and undeniably have made a personal religious decision and are members of their churches because of their convictions. But if there is no progress, no growth in grace; if there is no yielding of the fruits of the spirit; if the adherence becomes a mere formality, a mere observance of what is viewed as socially acceptable; if the adherence becomes self-righteous and judgmental, they are no longer citizens of the heavenly kingdom; they have become drop-outs. And their continued membership in the community of Christians has turned into superstition and belief in magic.
If the “good works” that one performs are performed because of selfish motives; if one “sacrifices” oneself and practises self-denial for the sake of “scoring points” in the divine ledgers, or because of the fear for divine punishment, those works are acts of superstition, rather than authentic faith. Said Jesus: “Salvation is by the regeneration of the spirit and not by the selfrighteous 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.” [UB 143:2.6]
Prayer may also be a type of sophisticated belief in magic, it may turn superstitious if it is used for pleadings to God for him to intervene in the normal evolutionary unfolding of things, if it is used to win deliverance from the inescapable consequences of one’s ill-advised actions and decisions, if it used for gaining something extra, or even something needful, for oneself, etc. Jesus said at Jotapata, in the course of the first preaching tour, in January, AD 28: That prayer which is inconsistent with the known and established laws of God is an abomination to the Paradise Deities [UB 146:2.3].
The false notion of reincarnation, the belief that human souls time and again return to this world and incarnate as new humans, has agelong roots and enjoys a prominent role in the so-called eastern philosophies. We are told that the Master found it difficult to make men believe that their souls had not bad previous existences [UB 164:3.4]. We may only note that overwhelmingly many of his present-day followers and other truth seekers continue to believe in reincarnation. And it is as difficult to dissuade these believers from this error now as it was back in Jesus’ days.
Channelling is another type of delusion and superstition, which has won supporters and practitioners, surprisingly, even among readers of The Unantia Book. Those who practise and believe in channelling do so for a variety of reasons. For some it is a means to feel important, be God’s chosen, in their selfdeception they have fooled themselves to believe that what they pronounce is a message from somewhere that lies higher than their own fantasies, imaginations or even thinking. Others practise channelling because they in their delusions and illusions genuinely believe that they are communicating with the spirit word, that the ideas and notions that surge in their minds and in their dreams are transmissions from some superhuman sources. Jesus taught that the only means of communion with the spiritual world is embraced in the spirit endomment of mankind, the indwelling spirit of the Father, together with the outpoured spirit of the Son and the omnipresent influence of the Infinite Spirit [UB 150:3.7].
What Jesus taught about prayer was extensive and at the same time new and novel. The aspect which perhaps continues to be the hardest to accept and live with is the notion that God is immutable, our petitions are powerless in occasioning changes in God and in his ways of acting. Another aspect that was prominent in Jesus’ teachings on prayer is that God hears every prayer, he is cognisant of each and every movement of our minds and souls. Yet the importance of a prayer is not the fact that the Father’s is cognisant about it, but rather its power to change the prayer’s own attitude. This was Jesus’ message: Prayer does not change the divine attitude toward man, but it does change man’s attitude toward the changeless Father. The motive of the prayer gives it right of way to the divine ear, not the social, economic, or outward religious status of the one who prays [UB 146:2.8]. These are Jesus’ words: “I . . . encourage you to persist in praying but I do not intimate that your petitions will change the just and righteous Father above. Your persistence, however, is not to win favour with God but to change your earth attitude and to enlarge your soul’s capacity for spirit receptivity.” [UB 146:2.8] In their commentaries on Jesus’ teachings the midwayers wonder: How long will it take the world of believers to understand that prayer is not a process of getting your way but rather a program of taking God’s way, an experience of learning how to recognize and execute the Father’s will? [UB 180:2.4]
Jesus said also:
. . . that the prayer for divine guidance over the pathway of earthly life was next in importance to the petition for a knowledge of the Father’s will. In reality this means a prayer for divine wisdom. Jesus never taught that human knowledge and special skill could be gained by prayer . . . When Jesus taught his associates to pray in the spirit and in truth, he explained that he referred to praying sincerely and in accordance with one’s enlightenment, to praying wholeheartedly and intelligenty, earnestly and steadfastly. [UB 146:2.14]
Our Master gave us also advice concerning the way of performing a prayer: Let your real petitions always be in secret. Do not let men bear your personal prayers . . . the prayer of the soul is a personal matter [UB 146:2.12]. And when you pray, go apart by yourselves and use not vain repetitions and meaningless phrases [UB 140:6.11].
Since Jesus’ life and his teachings constituted the fourth epochal revelation, it was only natural that he imparted knowledge that would enhance, uplift and expand human conceptualisation of God. It is interesting to note that each individual tends to experience the same gradual evolution of his God concepts as mankind as a whole has gone through in the course of its history. Jesus’ core message to the larger audiences of followers and common people was that God is our Father, and we are his sons and daughters, and that his sons and daughters consequently are brothers and sisters. But he revealed more to his apostles, and even more to certain individuals. He was selective even in these discussions. The Urantia Book, the fifth epochal revelation and a restatement of the fourth, goes far beyond what Jesus taught privately to the apostles and a small number of individuals. These are some of his pronouncements:
“The ‘fear of the Lord’’ has had different meanings in the successive ages, coming up from fear, through anguish and dread, to awe and reverence. And now from reverence I would lead you up, through recognition, realization, and appreciation, to love. When man recognizes only the works of God, he is led to fear the Supreme; but when man begins to understand and experience the personality and character of the living God,se be is led increasingly to love such a good and perfect, universal and eternal Father . . . “The goodness of God leads to repentance; the beneficence of God leads to service; the meryy of God leads to salvation; while the love of God leads to intelligent and freehearted worship.” ‘Your forebears feared God because he was mighty and mysterious. You shall adore him because he is magnificent in love, plenteous in mery, and glorious in truth. The power of God engenders fear in the heart of man, but the nobility and righteousness of his personality beget reverence, love, and willing worship . . . I have come into the world to put love in the place of fear, joy in the place of sorrow, confidence in the place of dread, loving service and appreciative worship in the place of slavish bondage and meaningless ceremonies. But it is still true of those who sit in darkness that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’ But when the light has more fully come, the sons of God are led to praise the Infinite for what he is rather than to fear him for what he does.” [UB 149:6.3-5]
Jesus spent much time with the apostles instructing them in the new concept of God; again and again did he impress upon them that God is a Father, not a great and supreme bookkeeper who is chiefly engaged in making damaging entries against his erring children on earth, recordings of sin and evil to be used against them when he subsequently sits in judgment upon them as the just Judge of all creation. [UB 141:4.1]
I shall conclude my talk in these very familiar words because they come with a statement which was the core of Jesus’ teachings:
When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God. [UB 196:3.35]
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