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I agree with Cole, that number is tiny.
What I think it indicates is how young this local universe was at that time. I’m not sure just how long ago this happened but, I think it signifies that most of the inhabited worlds did not have large populations. All you would need is 20 planets with populations like ours now and the numbers would be much larger.
Currently about 55 million people die each year with our 7 plus billion population.
At the time of Christ our planet’s population was very small.
Another consideration would be the time necessary to get from mansion world one to Jerusem. Perhaps it takes a few hundred years or much more. Our population has only grown significantly in the last 70 years.
These could be some of the reasons for that low number.
Paul
I agree with you Cole. The number of citizens (faithful mortals) on Jerusem when the rebellion occurred about 200,000 years ago seems surprisingly low, regardless of how many were waiting in the wings at the time.
We have only to consider that 607 planets were inhabited at the time, the oldest being Anova, which is described as being “in an advanced stage of progressive civilization.” Even if we assume an average minimum population of 1 billion on each (which is probably very low), then these planets would have generated close to a trillion beings at any one point in time.
To my mind, it seems clear that the number of citizens referred to in the quote was the total number of ascenders resident on Jerusem at the time. If you include Material Sons and others, then the total number of ascenders would be even less.
“Not a single Jerusem citizen was lost. Every ascendant mortal survived the fiery trial and emerged from the crucial test triumphant and altogether victorious.”
I think the elephant in the room here is that many of us are unwilling to accept the idea that few mortals survive life after death. There is little in the book to support any notion that survival is the inevitable default. Lucifer is the only one who claimed that everybody would survive if it wasn’t for those interfering Ancients of Days (see 53:3).
Why would the Sons of God, whole hosts of the Holy Spirit, and trillions of Adjusters spend so much time trying to save souls if survival was easy? Why is it that those mortals who spread the word and save souls on the planets receive such high status (e.g. Moses, Elijah, Ellanora)?
The book says material linked minds cannot survive mortal death (see 1:3.7). And even those humanists who can intellectually deny God and yet be morally good and honest are devoid of survival values (see 102.7.4).
I believe Parts 1-3 make the requirements for survival quite clear, and Jesus reiterates all of these points in Part 4. To sum it up, survival requires:
- Faith – that we are sons of God.
- Spiritual motivation – the desire to know God.
- Consecration to our Father’s will – cooperation with the divine Spirit.
- Identification with the Father’s spirit. “Sooner or later we all become aware that all creature growth is proportional to Father identification.” 106:9.11
- Continuously making supreme decisions essential to eternal survival.
I challenge you to look around and then to honestly ask yourself – how many people with these qualities or commitments do you know?
Throughout the book, references or allusions are made about individuals who refused or failed of survival. Refusal is even possible after being resurrected in morontia form (see 111.3.1). And Jesus warns us several times not to be presumptuous with God’s mercy, that we should forever remain vigilante in our progress.
I don’t believe the morontia worlds are as crowded as we like to think. And it is unlikely that being Urantians gives us any special advantage for survival. In fact, the planet is so backward and confused, the survival rates are probably much lower than those of a normal world. Granted, we received a Creator Son, the Spirit of Truth, Adjusters, and this revelation – but that’s because we need it. All in all, it’s a lot of wonderful help, but none of these spiritual endowments are allowed to interfere with our free will. Only our decisions can make any real difference.
I don’t think anyone here has yet addressed the issues of the relative number of Jerusem Ascender Citizens and the numbers of survivors on the Mansion Worlds and the sleeping survivors awaiting dispensational awakening on the 600+ mortal worlds…what’s the ratios? Very important numbers…not provided…but reasonable speculation could easily reach hundreds of billions in total I think.
I find it a little confusing that there are students of the UB who conclude it is less than a presentation on love, mercy, hope, patience, and eternal kindness ministry…the entirety of time and space is designed for the ascension experience and I’ve read nothing that teaches or infers that this short mortal life is the primary cutoff mechanism for eternal choices….don’t jive at all.
I also find it an interesting critical judgment on the status of our world and the spiritual standing of 7 billion souls…so many apparently so unworthy compared to some of us….though how many of us know anything about those 7 billion souls…except by the twisted, headline seeking media of distortion, escape, and misinformation? So many people I’ve met every day for 60+ years demonstrate hope, love, faith, kindness, and so many fruits of the spirit…by far most compared to some. I wonder if the one who sees and judges is the source of their own low opinions of so many others rather than any true or objective, even reasonable opinion of such disappointment in others.
Does the Son deliver the gift of the Son’s Spirit and the flood of TA’s to such a despicable place? Is the UB given due to progress or its lack? Such discussions as to the worthiness of others and our world seems very problematic and reflective of underlying personal confusions, anxieties, and/or superiority…..truly lacking humility it would seem to me.
The requirements for fusion are far greater than those for mortal survival….or so I understand the teachings to clearly and redundantly say…cover to cover. What is hope? What is faith? What is love-response? How many truly embrace sin to the point of iniquity and soul killing choices? How many have enough knowledge and experience to make a conscious final rejection? Is even Judas so condemned?
An interesting discussion and glad for all the voices. I’m going to the Mansion Worlds and Jurusem and Paradise and I was before the UB came to me….and I’m not all that special….just another tadpole with hope and trust and doing the best I know how on such a world.
One little point…..no midwayers, angels, or Materials begin ascension until Light and Life by world and by system…pretty sure all the ascenders in the quote are mortal ascenders. Small point….as is the number 200,000,000 to the issue at hand IMO.
The 200,000,000 number is hardly evidence to the conclusion opinionated here….not until the other ratios requested are provided.
An interesting topic that is related here at the Forum on Undying Hope and Suffering:
Why would the Sons of God, whole hosts of the Holy Spirit, and trillions of Adjusters spend so much time trying to save souls if survival was easy?
Because every single personality is essential to the Supreme. Also, there’s the universal law of love where the less of love a creature has the greater their need for it and the greater the heavenly response. And, I assert that survival is easy since they tell us even a child can do it.
156:5.11 The less of love in any creature’s nature, the greater the love need, and the more does divine love seek to satisfy such need.
117:4.2 Throughout the grand universe the Supreme struggles for expression. His divine evolution is in measure predicated on the wisdom-action of every personality in existence. . . . But if a creature rejects the eternal career, that part of the Supreme which was dependent on this creature’s choice experiences inescapable delay, a deprivation which must be compensated by substitutional or collateral experience; . . .
I believe Parts 1-3 make the requirements for survival quite clear, and Jesus reiterates all of these points in Part 4.
Yeah, and there is only one requirement, faith. But a simple feeble flicker will do, because salvation is a free gift. (93:4.5; 93:6.4; 94:1.5; 94:5.1; 94:7.5; 141:7.6; 150:5.3; 150:5.5; 166:3.3; 167:5.1; 193:1.2; 193:2.2)
93:4.8 2. You shall not doubt that faith is the only requirement for eternal salvation.
155:6.17 Now, mistake not, my Father will ever respond to the faintest flicker of faith. He takes note of the physical and superstitious emotions of the primitive man. And with those honest but fearful souls whose faith is so weak that it amounts to little more than an intellectual conformity to a passive attitude of assent to religions of authority, the Father is ever alert to honor and foster even all such feeble attempts to reach out for him.
I find it a little confusing that there are students of the UB who conclude it is less than a presentation on love, mercy, hope, patience, and eternal kindness ministry…the entirety of time and space is designed for the ascension experience and I’ve read nothing that teaches or infers that this short mortal life is the primary cutoff mechanism for eternal choices….don’t jive at all.Why did God create mortality?
What’s it necessary for if life is eternal?
Why not create humans as eternal beings from the get go without needing to die?
Why not create humans as eternal beings from the get go without needing to die?
You’re kidding me, right?
I think the elephant in the room here is that many of us are unwilling to accept the idea that few mortals survive life after death. There is little in the book to support any notion that survival is the inevitable default. Lucifer is the only one who claimed that everybody would survive if it wasn’t for those interfering Ancients of Days (see 53:3).
Because every single personality is essential to the Supreme. Also, there’s the universal law of love where the less of love a creature has the greater their need for it and the greater the heavenly response. And, I assert that survival is easy since they tell us even a child can do it.
This is a very interesting discussion of the ancient and enduring question which has always confronted religionists: Will few or many be saved? As the various opinions expressed here demonstrate, things can be found in the Book which appear to support either side of this question. So, why don’t the authors give us a single definitive answer to this question which would reassure us and resolve this confusion? Why did Jesus refuse to directly answer this question, instead concluding his response to it by saying:
And so, whether few or many are to be saved altogether depends on whether few or many will heed the invitation: “I am the door, I am the new and living way, and whosoever wills may enter to embark upon the endless truth-search for eternal life.” (166:3.7)
Salvation is always a strictly personal matter; it has nothing to do with whether or not others will reawaken. The question of personal survival can only be adjudicated by the Ancients of Days. Lucifer is the great caution against that spiritual pride which presumes to elevate one’s own moral judgments about who should and should not survive above the divine wisdom and judgment of God. The Ancients of Days do decide that some will not survive, but this sovereign function of Deity is always divinely just and merciful, even if it may not always appear so to human moral judgment.
It is always a test of faith when the superior spiritual judgment of God appears to differ from our own moral judgment. Faith is never a finished thing; it is a living reality which grows in response to the constant challenges it encounters.
Why not create humans as eternal beings from the get go without needing to die?
You’re kidding me, right?
Mortals are the most blessed of ALL creatures…not just in potential but inherently by Divine favor and blessing!!! We are essential to the circle of reality and potential!! And it seems unlikely that cruelty, injustice, unfairness, and impatience have any part in the survivor numbers of mortal born ascenders. God knows and provides for material attachments, fears, confusions, faults, and failures on the worlds of mortal birth. Lots of quotes to consider here related thereto….back when I have more time….great question Enno….the answers to which are many indeed! What a glorious legacy we inherit and destiny we share….it’s great to be a tadpole in God’s loving and friendly universe….if one can but see and hear that is. Our world is filled with love-response and many have far more than the mere flicker required….if one can but discern the light within others and love them.
32:3.10 (361.5) The fact of animal evolutionary origin does not attach stigma to any personality in the sight of the universe as that is the exclusive method of producing one of the two basic types of finite intelligent will creatures. When the heights of perfection and eternity are attained, all the more honor to those who began at the bottom and joyfully climbed the ladder of life, round by round, and who, when they do reach the heights of glory, will have gained a personal experience which embodies an actual knowledge of every phase of life from the bottom to the top.
32:3.11 (361.6) In all this is shown the wisdom of the Creators. It would be just as easy for the Universal Father to make all mortals perfect beings, to impart perfection by his divine word. But that would deprive them of the wonderful experience of the adventure and training associated with the long and gradual inward climb, an experience to be had only by those who are so fortunate as to begin at the very bottom of living existence.
And what do you think Jesus meant when he said, “I am the door, I am the new and living way”? What would a person accepting that invitation look like?
I find it a little confusing that there are students of the UB who conclude it is less than a presentation on love, mercy, hope, patience, and eternal kindness ministry…the entirety of time and space is designed for the ascension experience and I’ve read nothing that teaches or infers that this short mortal life is the primary cutoff mechanism for eternal choices….don’t jive at all.Why did God create mortality? What’s it necessary for if life is eternal? Why not create humans as eternal beings from the get go without needing to die?
What, no Agondonters?
how boring.
5:1.11 (64.2) Mortal man may draw near God and may repeatedly forsake the divine will so long as the power of choice remains. Man’s final doom is not sealed until he has lost the power to choose the Father’s will. There is never a closure of the Father’s heart to the need and the petition of his children. Only do his offspring close their hearts forever to the Father’s drawing power when they finally and forever lose the desire to do his divine will — to know him and to be like him. Likewise is man’s eternal destiny assured when Adjuster fusion proclaims to the universe that such an ascender has made the final and irrevocable choice to live the Father’s will.
52:5.1 (595.6) When a certain standard of intellectual and spiritual development is attained on an inhabited world, a Paradise bestowal Son always arrives. On normal worlds he does not appear in the flesh until the races have ascended to the highest levels of intellectual development and ethical attainment. But on Urantia the bestowal Son, even your own Creator Son, appeared at the close of the Adamic dispensation, but that is not the usual order of events on the worlds of space.
52:5.2 (595.7) When the worlds have become ripe for spiritualization, the bestowal Son arrives. These Sons always belong to the Magisterial or Avonal order except in that case, once in each local universe, when the Creator Son prepares for his terminal bestowal on some evolutionary world, as occurred when Michael of Nebadon appeared on Urantia to bestow himself upon your mortal races. Only one world in near ten million can enjoy such a gift; all other worlds are spiritually advanced by the bestowal of a Paradise Son of the Avonal order.
52:5.4 (596.2) The bestowal Son lives and dies for the spiritual uplift of the mortal races of a world. He establishes the “new and living way”; his life is an incarnation of Paradise truth in mortal flesh, that very truth — even the Spirit of Truth — in the knowledge of which men shall be free.
52:5.5 (596.3) On Urantia the establishment of this “new and living way” was a matter of fact as well as of truth. The isolation of Urantia in the Lucifer rebellion had suspended the procedure whereby mortals can pass, upon death, directly to the shores of the mansion worlds. Before the days of Christ Michael on Urantia all souls slept on until the dispensational or special millennial resurrections. Even Moses was not permitted to go over to the other side until the occasion of a special resurrection, the fallen Planetary Prince, Caligastia, contesting such a deliverance. But ever since the day of Pentecost, Urantia mortals again may proceed directly to the morontia spheres.
52:5.6 (596.4) Upon the resurrection of a bestowal Son, on the third day after yielding up his incarnated life, he ascends to the right hand of the Universal Father, receives the assurance of the acceptance of the bestowal mission, and returns to the Creator Son at the headquarters of the local universe. Thereupon the bestowal Avonal and the Creator Michael send their joint spirit, the Spirit of Truth, into the bestowal world. This is the occasion when the “spirit of the triumphant Son is poured out upon all flesh.” The Universe Mother Spirit also participates in this bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, and concomitant therewith there issues the bestowal edict of the Thought Adjusters. Thereafter all normal-minded will creatures of that world will receive Adjusters as soon as they attain the age of moral responsibility, of spiritual choice.
What would a person accepting that invitation look like?
You or me. My neighbor who is a Seventh Day Adventist. Another who is Catholic. Another who is Muslim. Or someone who is unaffiliated with an organized religion. There are lots of those people I think. Anyone who has a flicker of faith. Anyone can discover Jesus at any time.
And what do you think Jesus meant when he said, “I am the door, I am the new and living way”?
The only way to our destiny is via God the Sevenfold (0:8.0 ) and beyond, as our Master Michael blazes the trail.
21:6.4 […] And we believe that in eternity the Michaels are literally destined to be “the way, the truth, and the life,” ever blazing the path for all universe personalities as it leads from supreme divinity through ultimate absonity to eternal deity finality.
Maybe that’s why he said, “Follow me.”
Yeah, I think anyone open to truth qualifies as accepting the invitation. Truth is relative, so truth will appear a little different to each person looking for it. I think a lot of people are looking for truth but they may call it something else, and many, many people don’t know that truth is a person. But I don’t think God considers that a black mark on your permanent record.
I believe Parts 1-3 make the requirements for survival quite clear, and Jesus reiterates all of these points in Part 4. To sum it up, survival requires:
Faith – that we are sons of God.
Spiritual motivation – the desire to know God.
Consecration to our Father’s will – cooperation with the divine Spirit.
Identification with the Father’s spirit. “Sooner or later we all become aware that all creature growth is proportional to Father identification.” 106:9.11
Continuously making supreme decisions essential to eternal survival.
I challenge you to look around and then to honestly ask yourself – how many people with these qualities or commitments do you know?
Actually mark – these are the requirements for fusion – not survival of mortal death….big difference!!
2:6.8 (41.6) God loves the sinner and hates the sin: such a statement is true philosophically, but God is a transcendent personality, and persons can only love and hate other persons. Sin is not a person. God loves the sinner because he is a personality reality (potentially eternal), while towards sin God strikes no personal attitude, for sin is not a spiritual reality; it is not personal; therefore does only the justice of God take cognizance of its existence. The love of God saves the sinner; the law of God destroys the sin. This attitude of the divine nature would apparently change if the sinner finally identified himself wholly with sin just as the same mortal mind may also fully identify itself with the indwelling spirit Adjuster. Such a sin-identified mortal would then become wholly unspiritual in nature (and therefore personally unreal) and would experience eventual extinction of being. Unreality, even incompleteness of creature nature, cannot exist forever in a progressingly real and increasingly spiritual universe.
Know someone who has finally and knowingly wholly identified himself with sin and iniquity? I’ve met a handful in all my time and travels – perhaps…..perhaps not.
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