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No doubt I have strayed far from Mark’s original inquiry as to how best emulate and follow the Master’s example. Part IV presents us with an amazing portrayal of the very human struggle to transcend our material origins, while navigating all the uncertainties and obstacles mortal life presents to us each and all, in the life of Jesus, Son of Man.
What a demonstration of human potential and the glorious triumph of our Spirit natures over the suffering caused by our inexperience, immaturity, impatience, and self importance of false liberty. To be like and become like such a one as Joshua Ben Joseph!!
How indeed?! Personally I’ve found no better example of that reality perspective and philosophy of living that leads to true happiness and inner peace and personal progress in the Spirit. To share that perspective and philosophy in the pursuit of enlightenment and wisdom is a great privilege.
92:7.12 (1013.7) …..man has been profoundly influenced, not only by his concepts of Deity, but also by the character of the heroes whom he has chosen to honor. It is most unfortunate that those who have come to venerate the divine and risen Christ should have overlooked the man—the valiant and courageous hero—Joshua ben Joseph.
It seems such an important and urgent story to share. I think it important to share the whole story, as gifted to us in the Papers, to eventually inspire our world and propel us forward as we “quiver on the brink” of epochal planetary progress.
Those who strive for the dissemination of this Epochal Revelation may share a love of the Papers but the evangelical urge to share the gospel of Jesus or the UB must be wise and judicious, or it can do more harm than good… or at least limit the potential effects and results of the effort to share the expansion of universe reality perspective.
I have heard many claim what is most important within the Papers or even that the 5th Revelation itself is somehow less important than some previous one (even though we are taught each and every such Divinely directed Epochal Revelation is a successive and progressive and sequential element to the eventual totality of planetary ministries resulting in the evolutionary results of Light and Life).
Interesting…
Will the modern Urantia movement betray and squander the 5th Revelation as the early Christians did the 4th? Isn’t the 5th a reiteration and grand expansion of the 4th? A chance to recover fact and truth?
Bradly I totally respect your wisdom and scholarship respecting the UB but in my humble opinion, I believe we are still within the purview of the 4th epochal revelation. Yes it is embedded within the 5th but I don’t believe the world is ready for the 5th yet as the Publication Mandate suggests. The gospel of Jesus (4th ER) has been dormant for centuries but now is the time for it to be revived and restated to this wayward generation. Once the world has been spiritized, the 5th ER will come into its own; ordinary people will be ready for it and receptive to it.
I know this is a bold assertion and this is not the time or place for providing appropriate evidence from the UB. Please forgive me Mark and Bradly if I’ve stepped out of line.
As you would say Bradly…”or so I understand.”
Loving wishes!
An interesting proposition Julian. So, it is certainly true there is a season to prepare the soil for the seed and another season for sowing the seed and still another for the stem, flower, and harvest to come.
I understand that each Epochal Revelation is to remain an effective “purview” over the entire arc of all successive Epochal Revelations. None are meant to be exclusive or temporary but each adds to and builds upon all the others. We should still have Dalmatia and the Garden as well as a Son’s Bestowal and Spirit of Truth and flood of God Fragments, all working harmoniously.
The purview of the Universal truth we call the Jesusonian Gospel and the gift of the Son’s Spirit of Truth will never end or be replaced. The 5th is a well timed additive and supplement to those permanent ministries.
It is also true that the actual Jesusonian Gospel is easily found within the Bible and many Christians over the centuries have embraced the idealism and truth of that teaching despite the paganization of the gospel about Jesus by Paul.
But what seems to be missing (so far) in your proposition Julian is the profound and radical planetary transformation this past 2000 years by the power of the Spirit of Truth and stream of God Fragments. I would certainly disagree that the Jesusonian Gospel has been idle, let alone “dormant”, by any observation or measurement.
While the Jesusonian Gospel may have been distorted and abandoned by the doctrines, creeds, and theologies of Christendom, the Spirit of Truth has had and is having and will always now have the direct ministry of the Son’s Spirit and voice that all souls may hear.
Every act of kindness and generosity and forgiveness and love by every person on earth is a personal response to the Deity Connections within each person. For 2000 years Urantia has been under the influence of the flood of Adjusters AND the Son’s Spirit to nearly every single person born for 100 generations.
Our world is not waiting for the seeds to sprout from the sowing of the 4th Revelation but we are rather “quivering on the brink” of transcendent planetary transformation due to the harvest of the seeds planted 2000 years ago on Pentacost.
The Most Highs are masters of Plan B and the contingency strategies that are required on every evolutionary sphere. It is odd to believe that Jesus failed somehow on this Shrine of Nebadon. Nobody and no world has had more attention and ministry or more success in planetary evolutionary progress than Urantia – overcoming rebellion and default and all the tragic consequences suffered thereby.
While I do agree, as far as the 5th’s ‘season’ is concerned, that we are early in the preparing of ground and sowing of seed, the UB is given at the intended time and perfect intersection of sociological and scientific and religious evolution for its effects and compliment to the Jesusonian Gospel and Spirit of Truth and flood of TAs.
Urantia is being spiritized soul by soul, now 7 billion souls strong, most of whom hold ideals and hopes and demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit in their families and communities and even to distant strangers. While Christianity defaulted on its potential, the Spirit of Truth and God Fragments have certainly overcome that failure with endless victories generating mass, momentum, velocity, and trajectory that are thrilling to behold.
It is unfortunate whenever any believer, but especially UB believers, see only failure and feel disappointment and discouragement and impatience about the obvious evolutionary planetary progress.
Personally, whenever I am anxious or disappointed or feeling urgency and impatience by the chaos and confusion and false liberty and ‘apparent’ retardation of Urantia, I am reminded about the time unit perspective described in the Papers.
I hope Mark finds this discussion both interesting and relevant to “After Reading Part IV, now what?”
118:1.4 (1295.4) Experience, wisdom, and judgment are the concomitants of the lengthening of the time unit in mortal experience. As the human mind reckons backward into the past, it is evaluating past experience for the purpose of bringing it to bear on a present situation. As mind reaches out into the future, it is attempting to evaluate the future significance of possible action. And having thus reckoned with both experience and wisdom, the human will exercises judgment-decision in the present, and the plan of action thus born of the past and the future becomes existent.
118:1.5 (1295.5) In the maturity of the developing self, the past and future are brought together to illuminate the true meaning of the present. As the self matures, it reaches further and further back into the past for experience, while its wisdom forecasts seek to penetrate deeper and deeper into the unknown future. And as the conceiving self extends this reach ever further into both past and future, so does judgment become less and less dependent on the momentary present. In this way does decision-action begin to escape from the fetters of the moving present, while it begins to take on the aspects of past-future significance.
118:1.6 (1295.6) Patience is exercised by those mortals whose time units are short; true maturity transcends patience by a forbearance born of real understanding.
118:1.7 (1295.7) To become mature is to live more intensely in the present, at the same time escaping from the limitations of the present. The plans of maturity, founded on past experience, are coming into being in the present in such manner as to enhance the values of the future.
118:1.8 (1295.8) The time unit of immaturity concentrates meaning-value into the present moment in such a way as to divorce the present of its true relationship to the not-present—the past-future. The time unit of maturity is proportioned so to reveal the co-ordinate relationship of past-present-future that the self begins to gain insight into the wholeness of events, begins to view the landscape of time from the panoramic perspective of broadened horizons, begins perhaps to suspect the nonbeginning, nonending eternal continuum, the fragments of which are called time.
Let us consider the following text:
2. The Significance of Pentecost
194:2.1 (2060.6) Jesus lived on earth and taught a gospel which redeemed man from the superstition that he was a child of the devil and elevated him to the dignity of a faith son of God. Jesus’ message, as he preached it and lived it in his day, was an effective solvent for man’s spiritual difficulties in that day of its statement. And now that he has personally left the world, he sends in his place his Spirit of Truth, who is designed to live in man and, for each new generation, to restate the Jesus message so that every new group of mortals to appear upon the face of the earth shall have a new and up-to-date version of the gospel, just such personal enlightenment and group guidance as will prove to be an effective solvent for man’s ever-new and varied spiritual difficulties.
194:2.2 (2060.7) The first mission of this spirit is, of course, to foster and personalize truth, for it is the comprehension of truth that constitutes the highest form of human liberty. Next, it is the purpose of this spirit to destroy the believer’s feeling of orphanhood. Jesus having been among men, all believers would experience a sense of loneliness had not the Spirit of Truth come to dwell in men’s hearts.
194:2.3 (2061.1) This bestowal of the Son’s spirit effectively prepared all normal men’s minds for the subsequent universal bestowal of the Father’s spirit (the Adjuster) upon all mankind. In a certain sense, this Spirit of Truth is the spirit of both the Universal Father and the Creator Son.
194:2.4 (2061.2) Do not make the mistake of expecting to become strongly intellectually conscious of the outpoured Spirit of Truth. The spirit never creates a consciousness of himself, only a consciousness of Michael, the Son. From the beginning Jesus taught that the spirit would not speak of himself. The proof, therefore, of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth is not to be found in your consciousness of this spirit but rather in your experience of enhanced fellowship with Michael.
194:2.5 (2061.3) The spirit also came to help men recall and understand the words of the Master as well as to illuminate and reinterpret his life on earth.
194:2.6 (2061.4) Next, the Spirit of Truth came to help the believer to witness to the realities of Jesus’ teachings and his life as he lived it in the flesh, and as he now again lives it anew and afresh in the individual believer of each passing generation of the spirit-filled sons of God.
194:2.7 (2061.5) Thus it appears that the Spirit of Truth comes really to lead all believers into all truth, into the expanding knowledge of the experience of the living and growing spiritual consciousness of the reality of eternal and ascending sonship with God.
194:2.8 (2061.6) Jesus lived a life which is a revelation of man submitted to the Father’s will, not an example for any man literally to attempt to follow. This life in the flesh, together with his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, presently became a new gospel of the ransom which had thus been paid in order to purchase man back from the clutch of the evil one—from the condemnation of an offended God. Nevertheless, even though the gospel did become greatly distorted, it remains a fact that this new message about Jesus carried along with it many of the fundamental truths and teachings of his earlier gospel of the kingdom. And, sooner or later, these concealed truths of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men will emerge to effectually transform the civilization of all mankind.
194:2.9 (2061.7) But these mistakes of the intellect in no way interfered with the believer’s great progress in growth in spirit. In less than a month after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, the apostles made more individual spiritual progress than during their almost four years of personal and loving association with the Master. Neither did this substitution of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus for the saving gospel truth of sonship with God in any way interfere with the rapid spread of their teachings; on the contrary, this overshadowing of Jesus’ message by the new teachings about his person and resurrection seemed greatly to facilitate the preaching of the good news.
194:2.10 (2061.8) The term “baptism of the spirit,” which came into such general use about this time, merely signified the conscious reception of this gift of the Spirit of Truth and the personal acknowledgment of this new spiritual power as an augmentation of all spiritual influences previously experienced by God-knowing souls.
194:2.11 (2061.9) Since the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, man is subject to the teaching and guidance of a threefold spirit endowment: the spirit of the Father, the Thought Adjuster; the spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Truth; the spirit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
194:2.12 (2062.1) In a way, mankind is subject to the double influence of the sevenfold appeal of the universe spirit influences. The early evolutionary races of mortals are subject to the progressive contact of the seven adjutant mind-spirits of the local universe Mother Spirit. As man progresses upward in the scale of intelligence and spiritual perception, there eventually come to hover over him and dwell within him the seven higher spirit influences. And these seven spirits of the advancing worlds are:
194:2.13 (2062.2) 1. The bestowed spirit of the Universal Father—the Thought Adjusters.
194:2.14 (2062.3) 2. The spirit presence of the Eternal Son—the spirit gravity of the universe of universes and the certain channel of all spirit communion.
194:2.15 (2062.4) 3. The spirit presence of the Infinite Spirit—the universal spirit-mind of all creation, the spiritual source of the intellectual kinship of all progressive intelligences.
194:2.16 (2062.5) 4. The spirit of the Universal Father and the Creator Son—the Spirit of Truth, generally regarded as the spirit of the Universe Son.
194:2.17 (2062.6) 5. The spirit of the Infinite Spirit and the Universe Mother Spirit—the Holy Spirit, generally regarded as the spirit of the Universe Spirit.
194:2.18 (2062.7) 6. The mind-spirit of the Universe Mother Spirit—the seven adjutant mind-spirits of the local universe.
194:2.19 (2062.8) 7. The spirit of the Father, Sons, and Spirits—the new-name spirit of the ascending mortals of the realms after the fusion of the mortal spirit-born soul with the Paradise Thought Adjuster and after the subsequent attainment of the divinity and glorification of the status of the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
194:2.20 (2062.9) And so did the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth bring to the world and its peoples the last of the spirit endowment designed to aid in the ascending search for God.
The Spirit and our spiritization awaits nothing and no one. The world is transformed only by the spiritization of the souls upon it, generation by generation.
Dear Bradly,
Firstly, I wish to thank you my brother for taking the time and making the effort to share your viewpoint with me. I am sorry it has taken so long to respond but I’ve been very busy and I believe it is always beneficial to think carefully about what has been written and what would be a suitable response.
At the outset, I want to dispel any misunderstanding some might have about my attitude to The Urantia Book. It is in my opinion an extraordinary text which I continue to regard as the 5th epochal revelation.
You wrote: “It is unfortunate whenever any believer, but especially UB believers, see only failure and feel disappointment and discouragement and impatience about the obvious evolutionary planetary progress.”
For me, nothing could be further from the truth. I witness evidence daily that the Father’s plan, in and through the rule of the Most Highs and the combined ministries of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, and the Thought Adjusters, is coming to fruition. I am not impatient, notwithstanding the discord, division, and conflict which is profoundly evident in our world. It would of course be so much worse were it not for the presence of that spiritual Triad that I have already alluded to.
While it is obviously not included in the UB, I think it is useful to consider the words of The Publication Mandate regarding the timing of the 5th ER. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe it was viewed by the Contact Commission as a credible source that was of celestial origin.
Here is the first paragraph: “We regard the Urantia Book as a feature of the progressive evolution of human society. It is not germane to the spectacular episodes of epochal revolution, even though it may apparently be timed to appear in the wake of one such revolution in human society. The Book belongs to the era immediately to follow the conclusion of the present ideological struggle. That will be the day when men will be willing to seek truth and righteousness. When the chaos of the present confusion has passed, it will be more readily possible to formulate the cosmos of a new and improved era of human relationships. And it is for this better order of affairs on earth that the Book has been made ready.”
I cannot say with certainty what the “era immediately to follow the conclusion of the present ideological struggle” is referring to but we are told that this is the time that the book belongs to. It is the time “when men will be willing to seek truth and righteousness”, “when the chaos of the present confusion has passed”. I don’t believe that this describes our present times.
In paragraph six, we find this interesting statement: “The book is being given to those who are ready for it long before the day of its world-wide mission. Thousands of study groups must be brought into existence and the book must be translated into many tongues. Thus will the book be in readiness when the battle for man’s liberty is finally won and the world is once more made safe for the religion of Jesus and the freedom of mankind.”
So it seems to me that we who value the book have been given it because we are ready for it. This is long before the day of its world-wide mission. Being “ready for it” suggests to me that we would enjoy discussing it’s teachings on forums such as this one, and at various meetings and conferences scattered around the world. But does that mean that the world is ready for it? To me it seems that this won’t be until “man’s liberty is finally won and the world is once more made safe for the religion of Jesus and the freedom of mankind.”
In the following post, I would like to address some of your other comments regarding this subject.
Bradly, further to my previous post, I would also like to address the following comment you made:
“But what seems to be missing (so far) in your proposition Julian is the profound and radical planetary transformation this past 2000 years by the power of the Spirit of Truth and stream of God Fragments. I would certainly disagree that the Jesusonian Gospel has been idle, let alone “dormant”, by any observation or measurement.”
“It is odd to believe that Jesus failed somehow on this Shrine of Nebadon”
In fact the UB does state that the gospel of Jesus, the gospel of the kingdom, while not becoming “idle”, did temporarily fail to achieve what Jesus always intended. And what did he intend?
(1569.4) 140:1.7 “And this which your eyes now behold, this small beginning of twelve commonplace men, shall multiply and grow until eventually the whole earth shall be filled with the praise of my Father. 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”.
But there was a temporary setback.
(1865.6) 170:5.15 The church thus became in the main a social brotherhood which effectively displaced Jesus’ concept and ideal of a spiritual brotherhood.
(1865.6) 170:5.16 Jesus’ ideal concept largely failed….
But why??
(1670.2) 149:2.1 Jesus understood the minds of men. He knew what was in the heart of man, and had his teachings been left as he presented them, the only commentary being the inspired interpretation afforded by his earth life, all nations and all religions of the world would speedily have embraced the gospel of the kingdom. The well-meant efforts of Jesus’ early followers to restate his teachings so as to make them the more acceptable to certain nations, races, and religions, only resulted in making such teachings the less acceptable to all other nations, races, and religions.
This temporary failure was a result of the first century apostles and disciples beginning to proclaim a different gospel, which, while effective in producing rapid numbers of converts, did not even come close to what Jesus foretold would occur if they had faithfully continued to preach the original gospel of Jesus.
However, Jesus’ word would ultimately and eventually be fulfilled.
(1866.4) 170:5.21 Mistake not! there is in the teachings of Jesus an eternal nature which will not permit them forever to remain unfruitful in the hearts of thinking men. The kingdom as Jesus conceived it has to a large extent failed on earth; for the time being, an outward church has taken its place; but you should comprehend that this church is only the larval stage of the thwarted spiritual kingdom, which will carry it through this material age and over into a more spiritual dispensation where the Master’s teachings may enjoy a fuller opportunity for development. Thus does the so-called Christian church become the cocoon in which the kingdom of Jesus’ concept now slumbers. The kingdom of the divine brotherhood is still alive and will eventually and certainly come forth from this long submergence, just as surely as the butterfly eventually emerges as the beautiful unfolding of its less attractive creature of metamorphic development.
Bradly, you also said:
“While the Jesusonian Gospel may have been distorted and abandoned by the doctrines, creeds, and theologies of Christendom, the Spirit of Truth has had and is having and will always now have the direct ministry of the Son’s Spirit and voice that all souls may hear.”
“The Spirit and our spiritization awaits nothing and no one. The world is transformed only by the spiritization of the souls upon it, generation by generation.”
Please forgive me if I have misunderstood you. I agree that the prediction contained in my previous quote would not be possible without the presence of the Spirit of Truth. However, the Spirit of Truth on its own will not produce the changes that Jesus foretold. It provides a foundation for change but we have to harness its power.
(820.3) 72:12.5 The pouring out of the Spirit of Truth provides the spiritual foundation for the realization of great achievements in the interests of the human race of the bestowal world.
This is how the butterfly emerges:
(2043.1) 191:5.3 When you have faith, when power from on high, the Spirit of Truth, has come upon you, you will not hide your light here behind closed doors; you will make known the love and the mercy of God to all mankind. Through fear you now flee from the facts of a disagreeable experience, but when you shall have been baptized with the Spirit of Truth, you will bravely and joyously go forth to meet the new experiences of proclaiming the good news of eternal life in the kingdom of God.
(2044.3) 191:6.2 And when men see you so love them, and when they behold how fervently you serve them, they will perceive that you have become faith-fellows of the kingdom of heaven, and they will follow after the Spirit of Truth which they see in your lives, to the finding of eternal salvation.
(2057.4) 193:5.2 “I am about to ascend to my Father, and soon, very soon, will we send into this world of my sojourn the Spirit of Truth; and when he has come, you shall begin the new proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom…”
(1866.2) 170:5.19 There must come a revival of the actual teachings of Jesus, such a restatement as will undo the work of his early followers who went about to create a sociophilosophical system of belief regarding the fact of Michael’s sojourn on earth.
When I stated that I believe we are still within the purview of the 4th epochal revelation, I meant that the work of the 4th ER has not been completed. It was derailed for many centuries but now it has been revived. The spiritization of humanity, the coming of the spiritual renaissance, awaits the proclamation of Jesus’ gospel.
(2082.9) 195:9.4 Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings. If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual mission while it continues to busy itself with social and material problems, the spiritual renaissance must await the coming of these new teachers of Jesus’ religion who will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men. And then will these spirit-born souls quickly supply the leadership and inspiration requisite for the social, moral, economic, and political reorganization of the world.
Bradly I’m sorry if this is somewhat longwinded. There is much more that I would like to say but I should leave it for now. Of course I may be mistaken but I sincerely believe that this is the urgent work that The Urantia Book instructs us to do. Of all people on this planet, I believe that we, as students of the book, have been given the clearest picture of what the world needs right now.
Julian – I look forward to more on this fascinating topic!
From my perspective “the present ideological struggle” may persist for generations still. It appears the evolutionary transition from greed based capitalism to the service economy and the Golden Rule of just and equitable governance is some distance yet for Urantia.
As for the effect of the Spirit of Truth over the past 100 generations, the calculus must include the Adjusters and the increased spiritual amperage and “downward pressure from above” that results from these new Deity Connections enhancements now poured out to activate and energize the spiritization of humanity.
194:2.11 (2061.9) Since the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, man is subject to the teaching and guidance of a threefold spirit endowment: the spirit of the Father, the Thought Adjuster; the spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Truth; the spirit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
Me here: This new and combined effect of God Fragments and youthful soul cocreation is a profound upliftment of personal and planetary ministries and the mortal response to our Deity Connections and circuitry.
52:6.7 (598.2) 5. Spiritual insight. The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God. The quickest way to realize the brotherhood of man on Urantia is to effect the spiritual transformation of present-day humanity. The only technique for accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is that of applying spiritual pressure from above, thus augmenting moral insight while enhancing the soul capacity of every mortal to understand and love every other mortal. Mutual understanding and fraternal love are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in the world-wide realization of the brotherhood of man.
Me here: Bless all those who have worked this past century in this seed bed and garden of the 5th Epochal Revelation to our world, plowing, planting, tending, and watering this gift of light and truth and knowledge and universe reality perspective.
So much has been done by so many faith children for so long…. still there is so much more to be done!
But destiny is certain for all who live with hope and faith and the Divine Assurance that all such children are so blessed with.
To me, the greatest teaching in the UB is that our beliefs and disbelief, our knowledge and our ignorance, and the accuracy and inaccuracies of our beliefs and knowledge do not limit or define or determine our faith experience and relationship with Deity!!
Faith is simply any positive response or experience or expression of our Deity Connections. Even cave dwellers, superstitious primitives, ignorant barbarians, and children experience and express such faith and demonstrate those fruits of the Spirit which always attend faith.
I am personally so inspired by the obvious morality based idealism and goodness and kindness and generosity exhibited by 7 billion souls today, despite the conflicts and confusions and suffering in our world. The Spirit is shining forth all around in so many ways and places, even dark and desperate places can love be found at work.
5:2.4 (64.7) It is because of this God fragment that indwells you that you can hope, as you progress in harmonizing with the Adjuster’s spiritual leadings, more fully to discern the presence and transforming power of those other spiritual influences that surround you and impinge upon you but do not function as an integral part of you. The fact that you are not intellectually conscious of close and intimate contact with the indwelling Adjuster does not in the least disprove such an exalted experience. The proof of fraternity with the divine Adjuster consists wholly in the nature and extent of the fruits of the spirit which are yielded in the life experience of the individual believer. “By their fruits you shall know them.”
5:2.5 (65.1) It is exceedingly difficult for the meagerly spiritualized, material mind of mortal man to experience marked consciousness of the spirit activities of such divine entities as the Paradise Adjusters. As the soul of joint mind and Adjuster creation becomes increasingly existent, there also evolves a new phase of soul consciousness which is capable of experiencing the presence, and of recognizing the spirit leadings and other supermaterial activities, of the Mystery Monitors.
5:2.6 (65.2) The entire experience of Adjuster communion is one involving moral status, mental motivation, and spiritual experience. The self-realization of such an achievement is mainly, though not exclusively, limited to the realms of soul consciousness, but the proofs are forthcoming and abundant in the manifestation of the fruits of the spirit in the lives of all such inner-spirit contactors.
Julian posts: “When I stated that I believe we are still within the purview of the 4th epochal revelation, I meant that the work of the 4th ER has not been completed. It was derailed for many centuries but now it has been revived. The spiritization of humanity, the coming of the spiritual renaissance, awaits the proclamation of Jesus’ gospel.”
Indeed! My opinion is that we remain “within the purview” of every Epochal Revelation throughout every Mortal Epoch and every stage of Light and Life. The work of each and every Epochal Revelation is not complete until the final stages of Light and Life.
We also remain under the ongoing and perpetually increasing influences of the Supreme and prior social evolutionary progress by all the many ministry adjustments and course correcting Plan Bs implemented by the Most Highs to counterbalance the setbacks of rebellion and default in our history.
I think the spiritual renaissance has been quite active the past 100 generations with obvious results and increasing momentum and mass with an inspiring and identifiable trajectory toward planetary evolutionary destiny.
Consider the impact of the soul consciousness since the flood of God Fragments began pouring onto our world in every generation. What a crossroads! Before the Spirit of Truth and after the Spirit of Truth marks a massive upliftment of humanity on every sphere every time, no matter all prior progress and/or deprivations.
Regardless of the current status of the Jesusonian Gospel in our planetary awareness or embrace, the effects of the Son’s Spirit and the Adjusters for the past 2000 years has been profound.
We “quiver” on the brink of further transformation and spiritization on this Shrine of Nebadon!
Hello Bradly,
Thank you for your thought-provoking responses to my two posts.
I’m not sure that I understand what you meant in the following quote:
I think the spiritual renaissance has been quite active the past 100 generations with obvious results and increasing momentum and mass with an inspiring and identifiable trajectory toward planetary evolutionary destiny.
The past 100 generations would take us back to the first century of our common era, that’s if we counted each generation as 20 years.
The expression “spiritual renaissance” only occurs only twice in the UB, in the following paragraphs:
(2082.9) 195:9.4 Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings. If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual mission while it continues to busy itself with social and material problems, the spiritual renaissance must await the coming of these new teachers of Jesus’ religion who will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men. And then will these spirit-born souls quickly supply the leadership and inspiration requisite for the social, moral, economic, and political reorganization of the world.
(2086.3) 195:10.17 Even secular education could help in this great spiritual renaissance if it would pay more attention to the work of teaching youth how to engage in life planning and character progression. The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality. There is great need for the teaching of moral discipline in the place of so much self-gratification. Upon such a foundation religion may contribute its spiritual incentive to the enlargement and enrichment of mortal life, even to the security and enhancement of life eternal.
In my opinion, neither of these two pronoucements seems to be referring to a time back in the first century. In the first one, it speaks of Christianity persisting in neglecting its spiritual mission, which would necessitate the coming of new teachers of Jesus’religion. Unless I’m mistaken, this is addressed to people living at the time of the release of the UB; in other words around the middle of the 20th century.
So it would seem to me that the spiritual renaissance would occur at a time that was future to the mid-twentieth century. It would come about as a result of these new leaders or teachers of Jesus’ religion being “exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men”. Moreover, it states that these leaders “will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings”. It is in my opinion a more logical interpretation of these words. But I could be mistaken.
Religious renaissance is also described in Papers 92 and 94, including more recently. I am wondering about the differences between “spiritual renaissance” and “religious renaissance”. Aren’t both describing planetary evolutionary progress?
And how does personal spiritization affect both? The Son’s Spirit of Truth and the flood of Adjusters to co-create souls in all the children of a world must have a tremendous impact on planetary evolutionary and epochal progress.
92:5.8 (1009.2) There have been hundreds upon hundreds of religious leaders in the million-year human history of Urantia from Onagar to Guru Nanak. During this time there have been many ebbs and flows of the tide of religious truth and spiritual faith, and each renaissance of Urantian religion has, in the past, been identified with the life and teachings of some religious leader. In considering the teachers of recent times, it may prove helpful to group them into the seven major religious epochs of post-Adamic Urantia:
92:5.9 (1009.3) 1. The Sethite period. The Sethite priests, as regenerated under the leadership of Amosad, became the great post-Adamic teachers. They functioned throughout the lands of the Andites, and their influence persisted longest among the Greeks, Sumerians, and Hindus. Among the latter they have continued to the present time as the Brahmans of the Hindu faith. The Sethites and their followers never entirely lost the Trinity concept revealed by Adam.
92:5.10 (1009.4) 2. Era of the Melchizedek missionaries. Urantia religion was in no small measure regenerated by the efforts of those teachers who were commissioned by Machiventa Melchizedek when he lived and taught at Salem almost two thousand years before Christ. These missionaries proclaimed faith as the price of favor with God, and their teachings, though unproductive of any immediately appearing religions, nevertheless formed the foundations on which later teachers of truth were to build the religions of Urantia.
92:5.11 (1009.5) 3. The post-Melchizedek era. Though Amenemope and Ikhnaton both taught in this period, the outstanding religious genius of the post-Melchizedek era was the leader of a group of Levantine Bedouins and the founder of the Hebrew religion—Moses. Moses taught monotheism. Said he: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.” “The Lord he is God. There is none beside him.” He persistently sought to uproot the remnants of the ghost cult among his people, even prescribing the death penalty for its practitioners. The monotheism of Moses was adulterated by his successors, but in later times they did return to many of his teachings. The greatness of Moses lies in his wisdom and sagacity. Other men have had greater concepts of God, but no one man was ever so successful in inducing large numbers of people to adopt such advanced beliefs.
92:5.12 (1009.6) 4. The sixth century before Christ. Many men arose to proclaim truth in this, one of the greatest centuries of religious awakening ever witnessed on Urantia. Among these should be recorded Gautama, Confucius, Lao-tse, Zoroaster, and the Jainist teachers. The teachings of Gautama have become widespread in Asia, and he is revered as the Buddha by millions. Confucius was to Chinese morality what Plato was to Greek philosophy, and while there were religious repercussions to the teachings of both, strictly speaking, neither was a religious teacher; Lao-tse envisioned more of God in Tao than did Confucius in humanity or Plato in idealism. Zoroaster, while much affected by the prevalent concept of dual spiritism, the good and the bad, at the same time definitely exalted the idea of one eternal Deity and of the ultimate victory of light over darkness.
92:5.13 (1010.1) 5. The first century after Christ. As a religious teacher, Jesus of Nazareth started out with the cult which had been established by John the Baptist and progressed as far as he could away from fasts and forms. Aside from Jesus, Paul of Tarsus and Philo of Alexandria were the greatest teachers of this era. Their concepts of religion have played a dominant part in the evolution of that faith which bears the name of Christ.
92:5.14 (1010.2) 6. The sixth century after Christ. Mohammed founded a religion which was superior to many of the creeds of his time. His was a protest against the social demands of the faiths of foreigners and against the incoherence of the religious life of his own people.
92:5.15 (1010.3) 7. The fifteenth century after Christ. This period witnessed two religious movements: the disruption of the unity of Christianity in the Occident and the synthesis of a new religion in the Orient. In Europe institutionalized Christianity had attained that degree of inelasticity which rendered further growth incompatible with unity. In the Orient the combined teachings of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism were synthesized by Nanak and his followers into Sikhism, one of the most advanced religions of Asia.
There is also the Deity focused renaissance of Japanese Buddhism in the last few centuries, reminding us in the West that while Christianity may have failed to, so far, deliver its potential by its distraction and paganistic detours, other traditions may still progress into light and truth.
After fleeing the fundamentalist church of my youth (upon discovering the abandoned and ignored Jesusonian Gospel within the Bible), it was Taoism and Zen Buddhism that brought me back into truth seeking and the light of spiritual realities. Then came the UB. What a gift!
94:12.4 (1041.2) The great strength of Buddhism is that its adherents are free to choose truth from all religions; such freedom of choice has seldom characterized a Urantian faith. In this respect the Shin sect of Japan has become one of the most progressive religious groups in the world; it has revived the ancient missionary spirit of Gautama’s followers and has begun to send teachers to other peoples. This willingness to appropriate truth from any and all sources is indeed a commendable tendency to appear among religious believers during the first half of the twentieth century after Christ.
94:12.5 (1041.3) Buddhism itself is undergoing a twentieth-century renaissance. Through contact with Christianity the social aspects of Buddhism have been greatly enhanced. The desire to learn has been rekindled in the hearts of the monk priests of the brotherhood, and the spread of education throughout this faith will be certainly provocative of new advances in religious evolution.
94:12.6 (1041.4) At the time of this writing, much of Asia rests its hope in Buddhism. Will this noble faith, that has so valiantly carried on through the dark ages of the past, once again receive the truth of expanded cosmic realities even as the disciples of the great teacher in India once listened to his proclamation of new truth? Will this ancient faith respond once more to the invigorating stimulus of the presentation of new concepts of God and the Absolute for which it has so long searched?
94:12.7 (1041.5) All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.
In evolutionary and experiential progress, there is always opportunity for slow, incremental growth and also sudden,transformative growth. It is impossible for any evolutionary world to be unresponsive to the critical ministry of the Son’s Spirit of Truth and the flood of Adjusters AND emergence of souls in the children of that world.
Urantia has not failed to respond to morality, idealism, the Golden Rule, or the Jesusonian Gospel, or the Ministry of Adjusters and Spirit of Truth these past 100 generations.
Obviously so!
So…I have always found the Papers to be so consistent and redundant throughout the entire text, regardless of authors or topics. Whenever there are ‘apparent’ contradictions or conflicts to my mind, additional study to expand context and my own perspective, improved perception and understanding usually leads to satisfactory resolution.
Julian – you commented above that it’s your opinion that the Jesusonian Gospel has been “dormant” these past 2000 years.
But the text below certainly conflicts with any notion that Christianity’s failure in upholding and preaching the Jesusonian Gospel has led to its failure to find voice by the combined ministries of the Spirit of Truth and Adjusters and flowering of souls on Urantia.
The Spirit of Truth speaks directly to the souls/morontia mind of mortals. Every soul. All souls. Every generation. Restated and updated to every generation since Pentacost. Got a soul? You are receiving the testimony and ministry of the Son’s Spirit, the Jesusonian Gospel, since the release of the Son’s Spirit 100 generations ago.
The text is clear and redundant on this fact.
Personal spiritization results in planetary spiritualization and evolutionary progress. Or so I understand…
From the end of The Forward:
0:12.13 (17.2) We are fully cognizant of the difficulties of our assignment; we recognize the impossibility of fully translating the language of the concepts of divinity and eternity into the symbols of the language of the finite concepts of the mortal mind. But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.
194:2.1 (2060.6) Jesus lived on earth and taught a gospel which redeemed man from the superstition that he was a child of the devil and elevated him to the dignity of a faith son of God. Jesus’ message, as he preached it and lived it in his day, was an effective solvent for man’s spiritual difficulties in that day of its statement. And now that he has personally left the world, he sends in his place his Spirit of Truth, who is designed to live in man and, for each new generation, to restate the Jesus message so that every new group of mortals to appear upon the face of the earth shall have a new and up-to-date version of the gospel, just such personal enlightenment and group guidance as will prove to be an effective solvent for man’s ever-new and varied spiritual difficulties.
194:2.2 (2060.7) The first mission of this spirit is, of course, to foster and personalize truth, for it is the comprehension of truth that constitutes the highest form of human liberty. Next, it is the purpose of this spirit to destroy the believer’s feeling of orphanhood. Jesus having been among men, all believers would experience a sense of loneliness had not the Spirit of Truth come to dwell in men’s hearts.
194:2.3 (2061.1) This bestowal of the Son’s spirit effectively prepared all normal men’s minds for the subsequent universal bestowal of the Father’s spirit (the Adjuster) upon all mankind. In a certain sense, this Spirit of Truth is the spirit of both the Universal Father and the Creator Son.
194:2.4 (2061.2) Do not make the mistake of expecting to become strongly intellectually conscious of the outpoured Spirit of Truth. The spirit never creates a consciousness of himself, only a consciousness of Michael, the Son. From the beginning Jesus taught that the spirit would not speak of himself. The proof, therefore, of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth is not to be found in your consciousness of this spirit but rather in your experience of enhanced fellowship with Michael.
194:2.5 (2061.3) The spirit also came to help men recall and understand the words of the Master as well as to illuminate and reinterpret his life on earth.
194:2.6 (2061.4) Next, the Spirit of Truth came to help the believer to witness to the realities of Jesus’ teachings and his life as he lived it in the flesh, and as he now again lives it anew and afresh in the individual believer of each passing generation of the spirit-filled sons of God.
194:2.7 (2061.5) Thus it appears that the Spirit of Truth comes really to lead all believers into all truth, into the expanding knowledge of the experience of the living and growing spiritual consciousness of the reality of eternal and ascending sonship with God.
Dear Bradly,
Thanks for sharing your understanding with me. I have no argument with the UB texts you have quoted. Paper 194, section 2 clearly sets out the ministry of the Spirit of Truth since he was poured out on humanity back on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit of Truth was “designed to live in man” but the fruits of Michael’s spirit are not automatic; they depend on whether or not each individual accepts that spirit into their hearts. Michael will never override the will of the individual.
(379:5) 34:5.5 Though the Spirit of Truth is poured out upon all flesh, this spirit of the Son is almost wholly limited in function and power by man’s personal reception of that which constitutes the sum and substance of the mission of the bestowal Son.
(1829.4) 166:3.7 Slowly the apostles and many of the disciples were learning the meaning of Jesus’ early declaration: “Unless you are born again, born of the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Nevertheless, to all who are honest of heart and sincere in faith, it remains eternally true: “Behold, I stand at the doors of men’s hearts and knock, and if any man will open to me, I will come in and sup with him and will feed him with the bread of life.
(1954:1) 181:1.4 I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, but all men will not choose to receive this new teacher as the guide and counselor of the soul. But as many as do receive him shall be enlightened, cleansed, and comforted. And this Spirit of Truth will become in them a well of living water springing up into eternal life.
Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly true that the state of our planet would be a lot more grievous were it not for the presence of the Holy Triad, the Thought Adjusters, the Spirit of Truth, and the Holy Spirit.
However, humanity should not be complacent merely because these spirit forces are actively involved in our lives. While the Spirit of Truth “lead(s) all believers into all truth”, it should be remembered that notwithstanding the presence of the Spirit of Truth, the early apostles and disciples preached a different message to the one that the Master instructed them to preach. While successful in creating a religion about Jesus, they did not see the fruition of Jesus’ visionary concept – the Kingdom of God in the hearts of all inhabitants of the world.
(1569.4) 140:1.7 “And this which your eyes now behold, this small beginning of twelve commonplace men, shall multiply and grow until eventually the whole earth shall be filled with the praise of my Father.
Bradly, you stated: “Julian – you commented above that it’s your opinion that the Jesusonian Gospel has been “dormant” these past 2000 years.” By the term “Jesusonian Gospel”, I presume you are talking about the gospel of Jesus or the gospel of the kingdom. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word “dormant” but it is not just my opinion that Jesus’ gospel became inactive. Paper 170, section 5, speaks about how “Jesus’ concept and ideal of a spiritual brotherhood…. largely failed…” and “The kingdom as Jesus conceived it has to a large extent failed on earth; for the time being, an outward church has taken its place”; and then it speaks of the Christian church being “only the larval stage of the thwarted spiritual kingdom, which will carry it through this material age and over into a more spiritual dispensation where the Master’s teachings may enjoy a fuller opportunity for development. Thus does the so-called Christian church become the cocoon in which the kingdom of Jesus’ concept now slumbers.”
I believe that the Spirit of Truth will be successful in his mission because he will empower godly men and women to proclaim the original gospel of Jesus (the 4th ER) to a world that is hungry for divine truth.
(1041.5) 94:12.7 All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.
Because Jesus’ gospel message is contained within the teachings of the world’s great religions, their adherents will be receptive to this proclamation.
(1865.7) 170:5.17 The concept of Jesus is still alive in the advanced religions of the world. Paul’s Christian church is the socialized and humanized shadow of what Jesus intended the kingdom of heaven to be — and what it most certainly will yet become.
In the second last Paper of the UB we encounter this extraordinary prophetic statement:
(2082.9) 195:9.4 Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings. If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual mission while it continues to busy itself with social and material problems, the spiritual renaissance must await the coming of these new teachers of Jesus’ religion who will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men. And then will these spirit-born souls quickly supply the leadership and inspiration requisite for the social, moral, economic, and political reorganization of the world.
Bradly, what an incomparable, unrepeatable privilege and responsibility lies before us. How blessed are we!!
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