© 1986 Trevor Swadling
© 1986 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
| _The Urantia Book_: The Question Of Origin | Vol 7 No 8 Nov 1986 — Index | Say Hello to a Fellow Urantian |
On UB 47:10.2 The URANTIA Book refers to John as “John the Revelator”. When we read the paper on the twelve apostles, on UB 139:4.14 the Midwayers tell us about John: “When in temporary exile on Patmos, John wrote the Book of Revelation, which you now have in greatly abridged and distorted form. This Book of Revelation contains the surviving fragments of a great revelation, large portions of which were lost, other portions of which were removed, subsequent to John’s writing. It is preserved in only fragmentary and adulterated form.”
On this topic I would like to attempt to shed some light. In certain papers of The URANTIA Book they quote from the Book of Revelation and this we may be able to piece together and understand something of the revelations that John had. When we read the Book of Revelation it becomes clear that in the visions John was having, he himself did not fully understand what he was beholding.
Before trying to find what pertains to the Book of Revelation in The URANTIA Book, I would like to give a Christian’s view of the Book of Revelation taken from ‘The Good News Bible’: “The revelation of John was written at a time when Christians were being persecuted because of their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. The writer’s main concern is to give his readers hope and encouragement, and to urge them to remain faithful during times of persecution. Por the most part the book consists of several series of revelations and visions, presented in symbolic language that would have been understood by Christians of that day, but would have remained a mystery to all others. As with the themes of a symphony, the themes of this book are repeated again and again in different ways through the various series of visions. Although there are differences of opinion.regarding the details of the book, the central theme is clear; through Christ our Lord, God will finally and totally defeat all his enemies including Satan, and will reward his faithful people with the blessings of a new heaven and a new earth when this victory is complete”.
The URANTIA Book tells us that John Zebedee was “very closely associated with Peter in the early activities of the Christian movement, becoming one of the chief supporters of the Jerusalem Church”. After becoming Bishop of the Asian Churches, when he was ninety-nine he wrote the so called “Gospel According to John”. He died in A.D. 103 when he was 101 . Now let’s continue with The URANPIA Book and try to see what it was that John beheld.
In the paper on the “Local Universe Mother Spirit” (UB 34:4.11) we read about the seven adjutant mind-spirits: “These are the ‘seven spirits of God’, ‘like lamps burning before the throne’, which the prophet saw in the symbols of vision. But he did not see the seats of the four and twenty sentinels about these sever adjutant mind-spirits. This record represents the confusion of two presentations, one pertaining to the universe headquarters and the other to the system capital. The seats of the four and twenty elders on Jerusem, the headquarters of your local system of inhabited worlds”.
“But it was of Salvington that John wrote:‘And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices’ — the universe broadcasts to the local systems. He also envisaged the directional control creatures of the local universe, the living compasses of the headquarter world. This directional control in Nebadon is maintained by the four control creatures of Salvington, who operate over the universe currents and are ably assisted by the first functioning mind-spirit, the adjutant of intuition, the spirit of ‘quick understanding’. But the description of these four creatures called beasts — has been sadly marred; they are of unparalleled beauty and exquisite form.” UB 34:4.12
Then we turn to the paper on “The Seven Mansion Worlds”, on page UB 47:10.2 we read: “John the Revelator saw a vision of the arrival of a class of advancing mortals from the seventh mansion world to their first heaven, the glories of Jerusem. He recorded: ‘And I saw as it wero a sea of glass mingled with fire; and those who had gained the victory over the beast that was originally in them and over the image that persisted through the mansion worlds and finally over the last mark and trace, standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, and singing the song of deliverance from mortal fear and death’. (Perfected space communication is to be had on all these worlds; and your anywhere reception of such communications is made possible by carrying the ‘harp of God’, a morontia contrivance compensating for the inability to directly adjust the immature morontia sensory mechanism to the reception of space communications.)”
In the paper on “The Morontia Life” (UB 48:6.23) we read something about how John had some of these visions: “You should consider the statement about ‘heaven’ and the ‘heaven of heavens’. The heaven conceived by most of your prophets was the first of the mansion worlds of the local system. Then the apostle spoke of being ‘caught up to the third heaven’, he referred to that experience in which his Adjuster was detached during sleep and in this unusual state made a projection to the third of the seven mansion worlds. Some of your wise men saw the vision of the greater heaven, ‘the heaven of heavens’, of which the sevenfold mansion world experience was but the first; the second being Jerusem; the third, Edentia and its satellites; the fourth Salvington and the surrounding educational spheres; the fifth Uversa; the sixth, Havona; and the seventh, Paradise.”
From this I think we could say that John had a vision of our system capital and also had a vision of parts of Salvington.
On page UB 38:2.5 The URANTIA Book tells us that he also had an encounter with the great seraphim Loyalatia, for it is written: ‘And I John saw these things and heard them. And when I had heard and seen I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then he said to me ’See thou do it not for I am thy fellow servant’. (Rev. 22:8-9)
In Revelations 20:12 John talks of the ‘Book of Life’ and The URANTIA Book also speaks of the ‘Book of Life’; the resurrection of the survivors and the so called resurrection of the non-survivors. After reading chapter 20 it seems that John saw these resurrections. He also had a vision of the ‘four and twenty counselors’. On UB 45:4.1 read: “At the centre of the seven angelic residential circles on Jerusem is located the headquarters of the Urantia advisory council, the four and twenty counselors. John the Revelator called them the four and twenty elders; ‘And round about the throne were four and twenty seats, and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment.’ The throne in the centre of this group is the judgment seat of the presiding archangel, the throne of the resurrection roll call of mercy and justice for all Satania.” John must have had a vision of the Lucifer Rebellion, for on page UB 53:7.7 we read: “Of the planetary angelic helpers, those assigned to the Material Sons, about one third were deceived, and almost ten percent of the transition ministers were ensnared. In symbol John saw this when he wrote of the great red dragon, saying: “And his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them down in darkness.”
The URANIIA Book quotes John again (UB 53:5.6) from Revelations 12:4-10: “There was war in heaven; Michael’s commander and his angels fought against the dragon (Lucifer, Satan, and the apostate princes); and the dragon and his rebellious angels fought but prevailed not. This ‘war in heaven’ was not a physical battle as such a conflict might be conceived on Urantia.”
We also read on UB 53:1.6: “The dragon eventually became the symbolic representation of all these evil personages. Upon the triumph of Michael, ‘Gabriel came dom from Salvington and bound the dragon (all the rebel leaders) for an age.’ Of the Jerusem seraphic rebels it is written: ‘And the angels who kept not their first estate but left their om habitation, he has reserved in sure chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day’.”
It seems like John also had a vision of the repercussions of the Lucifer Rebellion on Urantia — the Adamic default: ‘And she being with child, travelling in birth, and pain to be delivered.’ (Revelations 12:2)
John seemed to have had a series of visions into the future events of Urantia for in the paper on “Planetary Mortal Epochs”, a Mighty Messenger writes on page UB 52:7.11: “It was of the conclusion of the terminal mission of the Teacher Sons (at least that would be the chronology on a normal world) that John wrote: ‘I saw a new heaven and a new earth and the new Jerusalem coming dom from God out of heaven, prepared as a princess adorned for the prince.’”
That’s most of the quotes I can find in the URANTIA Book that have been taken from The Book of Revelations, so whet I would like to do now is to summarize John’s visions from what we have. The Book of Revelations is wide open to interpretation, depending on the age, you could read it in a thousand different ways. My following summary stems from the facts, though parts of it are purely speculation, an attempt to fill in the missing parts.
I would surmise that John beheld some of the events that took place after Christ Michael became sovereign of Nebadon, had a vision into the past about the Lucifer Rebellion, and also seemed to have visions of some of the epochal events of our planet. It’s as if John beheld and partially understood some of the past and future history of our planet. He talks of the ‘angels of the trumpets’ which The URANIIA Book refers to on page UB 114:6.8 as the “directors of the political performances of Urantia national life.”
Also on page UB 114:6.7 The URANTIA Book borrows the term ‘angels of the churches’ from Revelations. It looks as if John had a vision of the beginning and the end of certain momentous events. This must have strengthened and comforted John greatly. I’m sure his Adjuster had the wellbeing of John in mind — after all he lived to be 101 .
You may find something interesting in Revelations. Chapter 12 possibly about Eve, chapter 4 about the four and twenty elders, chapter 15:2 about the ‘sea of Glass’.
Trevor Swadling, Sydney
| _The Urantia Book_: The Question Of Origin | Vol 7 No 8 Nov 1986 — Index | Say Hello to a Fellow Urantian |