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Messages
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What is salvation? Why bother with it? Why think about it? Well, this is a Urantia Book forum, and we think about these sorts of things. Here’s a snapshot of my salvation experience for starters on the topic. I’m sure readers have different stories to tell.
I grew up in an anti-religious household. The subject was never discussed. Somehow, I knew it was a subject that was not allowed. One afternoon when I was around 7 years old, I remember sitting on the back steps of the family home. I was sobbing into my arms which were folded across my knees. I don’t remember why I was crying. I asked God (at least I think it was God, looking back on it now), “Why am I here?” This is a vivid memory. From then on, even though I had no help from parental guidance on the subject of God, I set out to find out more on my own. This took the form of going with my school friends to their church from time to time. I never had doubts about God. Over the years, I never joined a church, but after I married and had young children, I did join a religious cult.
Why did I join a religious cult? Well, one reason for me was the cult valued many deferent religious teachers such as Buddha, Ramakrishna, Saint Germain, Jesus, plus they had their own “guru”. They put pictures of them on their long and low altar lighted with many candles. I was intellectually attracted to the religious inclusiveness in the group. I did not then, nor can I now, accept the idea that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I felt pretty sure other religions had something to offer and I liked that.
The cult had a bookstore. I bought and read a copy of every book they sold. I bought my first Urantia Book there. I adopted the way of thinking promoted by these people. I believed what they told us. By my own free will, I did what they told us to do, mentally speaking. In retrospect, I realize I was brainwashing myself. What an experience! I swallowed their bait, their pitch: hook, line and sinker. All of it was intellectually appealing, but in no way was it a spiritually satisfying experience from the beginning to the end. The end came when the group broke up and other parts of my life fell apart.
I became despondent and despairing. I went to my neighbors for comfort and spiritual support. I joined them for Bible study. I cried through most of it. And I was comforted. I was supported by these two dear ladies, and I began to get back on track with my life. I owned many books and found The Urantia Book on my own bookshelf! I found it in my own home and began reading it for myself around this time.
Then quite suddenly one afternoon in my life around this time, I had a profound experience. An unforgettable experience. I was saved. It was brief and certain. It was like I received a lifeline from above. I knew unequivocally that Jesus saved me. It happened without fanfare in my room. It forever changed me. So little did I know then.
Was I saved from something? Or was I saved for something?
Most of what I am going to offer in this discussion are references from the Urantia Book. I like to cite the Urantia Book because it provides the verbiage from which we derive the actual and/or possible meanings of the information presented. It’s a way of studying the material. To give context to a reference, you can tap the link. It is natural to recognize that insight from the material will vary from person to person.
I have picked out a few synonyms for the word salvation. One word I like is the word salvaged, though I did not find this word in an online thesaurus. Here are some others that meant something to me: saved, rescued, recovered, lifeline, born-again, found. After that cult experience, I truly was lost.
What about the non-Christian religions? Do they have such a thing as salvation? I found these references in the book:
5:4.5 All religions teach the worship of Deity and some doctrine of human salvation. The Buddhist religion promises salvation from suffering, unending peace; the Jewish religion promises salvation from difficulties, prosperity predicated on righteousness; the Greek religion promised salvation from disharmony, ugliness, by the realization of beauty; Christianity promises salvation from sin, sanctity; Mohammedanism provides deliverance from the rigorous moral standards of Judaism and Christianity. The religion of Jesus is salvation from self, deliverance from the evils of creature isolation in time and in eternity.
5:4.6 The Hebrews based their religion on goodness; the Greeks on beauty; both religions sought truth. Jesus revealed a God of love, and love is all-embracing of truth, beauty, and goodness.
5:4.7 The Zoroastrians had a religion of morals; the Hindus a religion of metaphysics; the Confucianists a religion of ethics. Jesus lived a religion of service. All these religions are of value in that they are valid approaches to the religion of Jesus. Religion is destined to become the reality of the spiritual unification of all that is good, beautiful, and true in human experience.
Several things stick out for me in the references. One, religions have varying doctrines of salvation. Two, the personal experience of salvation is a one-on-one experience between a person and God, irrespective of doctrinal concepts. And three, any God-worshipping religion is a valid approach to the religion of Jesus.
I told you about my salvation experience to explore the topic. I was not expecting the experience which occurred. It was a complete surprise to me. I’m just a regular person. The only thing I can say about myself at the time was that I was a person who longed for spiritual nourishment, spiritual satisfaction, truth. I didn’t like the word salvation. I couldn’t relate to it. It triggered my dislike for Christianity and its doctrines. I didn’t believe it. I was confused, but I hadn’t given up mentally. I knew there was more to be known. In the meantime, which is to say before I was saved, I would think to myself this phrase, “Thy will be done”. I would think it repeatedly throughout my days and nights. In fact, I still do think it. Looking back over my life, I do not know of a life experience more profound than being saved. I was truly salvaged.
196:3.1 Personal, spiritual religious experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties; it is an effective sorter, evaluator, and adjuster of all human problems. Religion does not remove or destroy human troubles, but it does dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them. True religion unifies the personality for effective adjustment to all mortal requirements. Religious faith — the positive leading of the indwelling divine presence — unfailingly enables the God-knowing man to bridge that gulf existing between the intellectual logic which recognizes the Universal First Cause as It and those positive affirmations of the soul which aver this First Cause is He, the heavenly Father of Jesus’ gospel, the personal God of human salvation.
103:9.5 Although religious experience is a purely spiritual subjective phenomenon, such an experience embraces a positive and living faith attitude toward the highest realms of universe objective reality. The ideal of religious philosophy is such a faith-trust as would lead man unqualifiedly to depend upon the absolute love of the infinite Father of the universe of universes. Such a genuine religious experience far transcends the philosophic objectification of idealistic desire; it actually takes salvation for granted and concerns itself only with learning and doing the will of the Father in Paradise. The earmarks of such a religion are: faith in a supreme Deity, hope of eternal survival, and love, especially of one’s fellows.
195:10.1 (. . .) Religion is only an exalted humanism until it is made divine by the discovery of the reality of the presence of God in personal experience.
Salvation is a personal religious experience. It is a personal spiritual experience. It is a rebirth, a new beginning, an unforgettable and life-changing experience.
148:4.1 It was the habit of Jesus two evenings each week to hold special converse with individuals who desired to talk with him, in a certain secluded and sheltered corner of the Zebedee garden. At one of these evening conversations in private Thomas asked the Master this question: « Why is it necessary for men to be born of the spirit in order to enter the kingdom? Is rebirth necessary to escape the control of the evil one? Master, what is evil? » When Jesus heard these questions, he said to Thomas:
(1660.1) 148:4.2 “Do not make the mistake of confusing evil with the evil one, more correctly the iniquitous one. He whom you call the evil one is the son of self-love, the high administrator who knowingly went into deliberate rebellion against the rule of my Father and his loyal Sons. But I have already vanquished these sinful rebels. Make clear in your mind these different attitudes toward the Father and his universe. Never forget these laws of relation to the Father’s will:
(1660.2) 148:4.3 “Evil is the unconscious or unintended transgression of the divine law, the Father’s will. Evil is likewise the measure of the imperfectness of obedience to the Father’s will.
(1660.3) 148:4.4 “Sin is the conscious, knowing, and deliberate transgression of the divine law, the Father’s will. Sin is the measure of unwillingness to be divinely led and spiritually directed.
(1660.4) 148:4.5 “Iniquity is the willful, determined, and persistent transgression of the divine law, the Father’s will. Iniquity is the measure of the continued rejection of the Father’s loving plan of personality survival and the Sons’ merciful ministry of salvation.
(1660.5) 148:4.6 “By nature, before the rebirth of the spirit, mortal man is subject to inherent evil tendencies, but such natural imperfections of behavior are neither sin nor iniquity. Mortal man is just beginning his long ascent to the perfection of the Father in Paradise. To be imperfect or partial in natural endowment is not sinful. Man is indeed subject to evil, but he is in no sense the child of the evil one unless he has knowingly and deliberately chosen the paths of sin and the life of iniquity. Evil is inherent in the natural order of this world, but sin is an attitude of conscious rebellion which was brought to this world by those who fell from spiritual light into gross darkness.
(1660.6) 148:4.7 “You are confused, Thomas, by the doctrines of the Greeks and the errors of the Persians. You do not understand the relationships of evil and sin because you view mankind as beginning on earth with a perfect Adam and rapidly degenerating, through sin, to man’s present deplorable estate. But why do you refuse to comprehend the meaning of the record which discloses how Cain, the son of Adam, went over into the land of Nod and there got himself a wife? And why do you refuse to interpret the meaning of the record which portrays the sons of God finding wives for themselves among the daughters of men?
(1660.7) 148:4.8 “Men are, indeed, by nature evil, but not necessarily sinful. The new birth — the baptism of the spirit — is essential to deliverance from evil and necessary for entrance into the kingdom of heaven, but none of this detracts from the fact that man is the son of God. Neither does this inherent presence of potential evil mean that man is in some mysterious way estranged from the Father in heaven so that, as an alien, foreigner, or stepchild, he must in some manner seek for legal adoption by the Father. All such notions are born, first, of your misunderstanding of the Father and, second, of your ignorance of the origin, nature, and destiny of man.
(1660.8) 148:4.9 “The Greeks and others have taught you that man is descending from godly perfection steadily down toward oblivion or destruction; I have come to show that man, by entrance into the kingdom, is ascending certainly and surely up to God and divine perfection. Any being who in any manner falls short of the divine and spiritual ideals of the eternal Father’s will is potentially evil, but such beings are in no sense sinful, much less iniquitous.
(1661.1) 148:4.10 “Thomas, have you not read about this in the Scriptures, where it is written: ‘You are the children of the Lord your God.’ ‘I will be his Father and he shall be my son.’ ‘I have chosen him to be my son — I will be his Father.’ ‘Bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one who is called by my name, for I have created them for my glory.’ ‘You are the sons of the living God.’ ‘They who have the spirit of God are indeed the sons of God.’ While there is a material part of the human father in the natural child, there is a spiritual part of the heavenly Father in every faith son of the kingdom.”
103:2.1 Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness. A child has been in existence about nine months before it experiences birth. But the « birth » of religion is not sudden; it is rather a gradual emergence. Nevertheless, sooner or later there is a « birth day. » You do not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you have been « born again » — born of the Spirit. Many spiritual births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked psychological perturbations, as many physical births are characterized by a « stormy labor » and other abnormalities of « delivery. » Other spiritual births are a natural and normal growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and individual determinations. Religion is never a passive experience, a negative attitude. What is termed the « birth of religion » is not directly associated with so-called conversion experiences which usually characterize religious episodes occurring later in life as a result of mental conflict, emotional repression, and temperamental upheavals.
Two points from the above reference 103:2.1 come into view for me. One, the “birth” of religion is not sudden in a person. Antecedent life developments, preconditions, processes of growth on a biological level occur beforehand. A person’s first moral choice signals the arrival of a Thought Adjuster for that person. This happens around the age of five or six years old. A first moral choice is not a biological factor in the birth of religion, but the birth of religion is dependent on one’s biological growth, among other things. A pint will never hold a quart, so to speak.
108:1.2 Although we do not definitely know, we firmly believe that all Thought Adjusters are volunteers. But before ever they volunteer, they are in possession of full data respecting the candidate for indwelling. The seraphic drafts of ancestry and projected patterns of life conduct are transmitted via Paradise to the reserve corps of Adjusters on Divinington by the reflectivity technique extending inward from the capitals of the local universes to the headquarters of the superuniverses. This forecast covers not only the hereditary antecedents of the mortal candidate but also the estimate of probable intellectual endowment and spiritual capacity. The Adjusters thus volunteer to indwell minds of whose intimate natures they have been fully apprised.
103:2.6 In the absence of wrong teaching, the mind of the normal child moves positively, in the emergence of religious consciousness, toward moral righteousness and social ministry, rather than negatively, away from sin and guilt. There may or may not be conflict in the development of religious experience, but there are always present the inevitable decisions, effort, and function of the human will.
100:1.6 Religious experience is markedly influenced by physical health, inherited temperament, and social environment. But these temporal conditions do not inhibit inner spiritual progress by a soul dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven. There are present in all normal mortals certain innate drives toward growth and self-realization which function if they are not specifically inhibited. The certain technique of fostering this constitutive endowment of the potential of spiritual growth is to maintain an attitude of wholehearted devotion to supreme values.
107:7.3 We have often speculated that Thought Adjusters must have volition on all prepersonal levels of choice. They volunteer to indwell human beings, they lay plans for man’s eternal career, they adapt, modify, and substitute in accordance with circumstances, and these activities connote genuine volition. They have affection for mortals, they function in universe crises, they are always waiting to act decisively in accordance with human choice, and all these are highly volitional reactions. In all situations not concerned with the domain of the human will, they unquestionably exhibit conduct which betokens the exercise of powers in every sense the equivalent of will, maximated decision.
108:1.3 The volunteering Adjuster is particularly interested in three qualifications of the human candidate:
108:1.4 1. Intellectual capacity. Is the mind normal? What is the intellectual potential, the intelligence capacity? Can the individual develop into a bona fide will creature? Will wisdom have an opportunity to function?
(1186.3) 108:1.5 2. Spiritual perception. The prospects of reverential development, the birth and growth of the religious nature. What is the potential of soul, the probable spiritual capacity of receptivity?
(1186.4) 108:1.6 3. Combined intellectual and spiritual powers. The degree to which these two endowments may possibly be associated, combined, so as to produce strength of human character and contribute to the certain evolution of an immortal soul of survival value.
Life is not an accident. Once the human race develops on a planet, it must go forward.
51:2.3 (. . .) The evolution of a human race, once initiated on a world of space, must proceed quite independently of the physical survival of that planet . . . .
And once a human is born, opportunity of destiny is provided for that individual.
The growth of the religious nature is a gradual development. Within each person, young or old, a religious nature is present. It is an endowment by God, a feature of human life.
103:2.3 The evolutionary soil in the mind of man in which the seed of revealed religion germinates is the moral nature that so early gives origin to a social consciousness. The first promptings of a child’s moral nature have not to do with sex, guilt, or personal pride, but rather with impulses of justice, fairness, and urges to kindness — helpful ministry to one’s fellows. And when such early moral awakenings are nurtured, there occurs a gradual development of the religious life which is comparatively free from conflicts, upheavals, and crises.
The religious nature might be staunched or stopped, delayed or rejected by a person. That possibility is a personal matter in the sense that the individual might consciously choose to delay or outright reject the ministry of the religious nature. Where there is human will, there is a way to embrace or reject God. No person can be forced to be religious against his will. Even so, the Thought Adjuster does not return to Divinington unless material, intellectual or spiritual death occurs. (112:4.1)
103:0.1 ALL of man’s truly religious reactions are sponsored by the early ministry of the adjutant of worship and are censored by the adjutant of wisdom. Man’s first supermind endowment is that of personality encircuitment in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; and long before either the bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Adjusters, this influence functions to enlarge man’s viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality. Subsequent to the bestowals of the Paradise Sons the liberated Spirit of Truth makes mighty contributions to the enlargement of the human capacity to perceive religious truths. As evolution advances on an inhabited world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of the higher types of human religious insight. The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father.
5:1.6 If mortal man is wholeheartedly spiritually motivated, unreservedly consecrated to the doing of the Father’s will, then, since he is so certainly and so effectively spiritually endowed by the indwelling and divine Adjuster, there cannot fail to materialize in that individual’s experience the sublime consciousness of knowing God and the supernal assurance of surviving for the purpose of finding God by the progressive experience of becoming more and more like him.
2:2.3 The reactions of a changeless God, in the execution of his eternal purpose, may seem to vary in accordance with the changing attitude and the shifting minds of his created intelligences; that is, they may apparently and superficially vary; but underneath the surface and beneath all outward manifestations, there is still present the changeless purpose, the everlasting plan, of the eternal God.
4:0.1 THE Universal Father has an eternal purpose pertaining to the material, intellectual, and spiritual phenomena of the universe of universes, which he is executing throughout all time. God created the universes of his own free and sovereign will, and he created them in accordance with his all-wise and eternal purpose. It is doubtful whether anyone except the Paradise Deities and their highest associates really knows very much about the eternal purpose of God. Even the exalted citizens of Paradise hold very diverse opinions about the nature of the eternal purpose of the Deities.
The second point pertains to salvation as a personal religious experience of which a person is made conscious. (I speak of my own experience. I do not speak for you). The prelude to salvation is the desire to find and know God. A person must be God-seeking -have a hunger and thirst for truth.
5:5.11 God-consciousness, as it is experienced by an evolving mortal of the realms, must consist of three varying factors, three differential levels of reality realization. There is first the mind consciousness — the comprehension of the idea of God. Then follows the soul consciousness — the realization of the ideal of God. Last, dawns the spirit consciousness — the realization of the spirit reality of God. By the unification of these factors of the divine realization, no matter how incomplete, the mortal personality at all times overspreads all conscious levels with a realization of the personality of God. In those mortals who have attained the Corps of the Finality all this will in time lead to the realization of the supremacy of God and may subsequently eventuate in the realization of the ultimacy of God, some phase of the absonite superconsciousness of the Paradise Father.
1:3.7 In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked minds cannot survive mortal death. The technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter association to spirit union results in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to attain survival and eternity of personality existence.
101:2.14 Your deepest nature — the divine Adjuster — creates within you a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a certain craving for divine perfection. Religion is the faith act of the recognition of this inner urge to divine attainment; and thus is brought about that soul trust and assurance of which you become conscious as the way of salvation, the technique of the survival of personality and all those values which you have come to look upon as being true and good.
102:4.1 Because of the presence in your minds of the Thought Adjuster, it is no more of a mystery for you to know the mind of God than for you to be sure of the consciousness of knowing any other mind, human or superhuman. Religion and social consciousness have this in common: They are predicated on the consciousness of other-mindness. The technique whereby you can accept another’s idea as yours is the same whereby you may « let the mind which was in Christ be also in you. »
132:7.2 « Ganid, the man [a pagan visited by Ganid and Jesus] was not hungry for truth. He was not dissatisfied with himself. He was not ready to ask for help, 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; he must be allowed more time for the trials and difficulties of life to prepare him for the reception of wisdom and higher learning. Or, if we could have him live with us, we might by our lives show him the Father in heaven, and thus would he become so attracted by our lives as sons of God that he would be constrained to inquire about our Father. You cannot reveal God to those who do not seek for him; you cannot lead unwilling souls into the joys of salvation. 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 before another human being can act as the means of leading such a fellow mortal to the Father in heaven. If we know God, our real business on earth is so to live as to permit the Father to reveal himself in our lives, and thus will all God-seeking persons see the Father and ask for our help in finding out more about the God who in this manner finds expression in our lives. »
Thank you Mara. A wonderful sharing on such an important and interesting topic!
103:7.2 (1137.7) True salvation is the technique of the divine evolution of the mortal mind from matter identification through the realms of morontia liaison to the high universe status of spiritual correlation. And as material intuitive instinct precedes the appearance of reasoned knowledge in terrestrial evolution, so does the manifestation of spiritual intuitive insight presage the later appearance of morontia and spirit reason and experience in the supernal program of celestial evolution, the business of transmuting the potentials of man the temporal into the actuality and divinity of man the eternal, a Paradise finaliter.
Me here: I think there are significant differences between religious experience and the faith response to our Deity Connections and spiritization and salvation and being born again (or re-birth) presented in the Papers, although each and all are closely related and interactive and interdependent.
It appears our natural spirit led nature and Deity Connections response as children delivers the birth of soul and real religious experience is or can be gained unconsciously as idealism and morality and hope and the fruits of the Spirit grow by our willingness to share and to care for one another.
But, perhaps, to be born again and achieve/realize/actualize an important level of eternal survival, a very intentional and deliberate and willful and conscious choice and decision must be made. (?)
It says above that true salvation is about the evolutionary process of transferring the seat of our personal identity from material to spiritual. Eventually that requires conscientious intentionality I think…to be born again! A conscious self baptism of the Spirit.
112:5.3 (1232.4) Mortal identity is a transient time-life condition in the universe; it is real only in so far as the personality elects to become a continuing universe phenomenon. This is the essential difference between man and an energy system: The energy system must continue, it has no choice; but man has everything to do with determining his own destiny. The Adjuster is truly the path to Paradise, but man himself must pursue that path by his own deciding, his freewill choosing.
112:5.4 (1232.5) Human beings possess identity only in the material sense. Such qualities of the self are expressed by the material mind as it functions in the energy system of the intellect. When it is said that man has identity, it is recognized that he is in possession of a mind circuit which has been placed in subordination to the acts and choosing of the will of the human personality. But this is a material and purely temporary manifestation, just as the human embryo is a transient parasitic stage of human life. Human beings, from a cosmic perspective, are born, live, and die in a relative instant of time; they are not enduring. But mortal personality, through its own choosing, possesses the power of transferring its seat of identity from the passing material-intellect system to the higher morontia-soul system which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle for personality manifestation.
112:5.5 (1233.1) And it is this very power of choice, the universe insignia of freewill creaturehood, that constitutes man’s greatest opportunity and his supreme cosmic responsibility. Upon the integrity of the human volition depends the eternal destiny of the future finaliter; upon the sincerity of the mortal free will the divine Adjuster depends for eternal personality; upon the faithfulness of mortal choice the Universal Father depends for the realization of a new ascending son; upon the steadfastness and wisdom of decision-actions the Supreme Being depends for the actuality of experiential evolution.
Thanks again Mara for sharing your experience and perspective! Great insights!
Thank you for joining. Bradly! You put a question mark the end of this comment:
But, perhaps, to be born again and achieve/realize/actualize an important level of eternal survival, a very intentional and deliberate and willful and conscious choice and decision must be made. (?)
I have only my personal experience to draw upon. I have nothing with which to compare it. It was not my conscious decision to be saved. It was not a conscious choice. Something within me must have been brewing. I would say that the “something” pertained to a deep longing, a hunger and a thirst for spiritual nourishment. It happened so quickly in a flash. I didn’t anticipate it. I wasn’t trying to get saved. I did not have prior doubts about God. But I did not know where Jesus fit in. I got Jesus in an instant. I’m not able to discern whether my experience could be denominated as a religious experience or a spiritual one. The lines seem fuzzy to me on this point. Both seem to apply.
Below, reference is made to personal, spiritual religious experience, among other things. But most notable to me in the reference is this part, “Religious faith — the positive leading of the indwelling divine presence — unfailingly enables the God-knowing man to. . . .”
196:3.1 Personal, spiritual religious experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties; it is an effective sorter, evaluator, and adjuster of all human problems. Religion does not remove or destroy human troubles, but it does dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them. True religion unifies the personality for effective adjustment to all mortal requirements. Religious faith — the positive leading of the indwelling divine presence — unfailingly enables the God-knowing man to bridge that gulf existing between the intellectual logic which recognizes the Universal First Cause as It and those positive affirmations of the soul which aver this First Cause is He, the heavenly Father of Jesus’ gospel, the personal God of human salvation.
“(. . .) Jesus taught that faith, simple childlike belief, is the key to the door of the kingdom. . . .” (170:3.2) Melchizedek brought the good news of salvation by simple faith in God to Urantia about 2,000 years earlier. (93:2.1)
93:6.4 This covenant of Melchizedek with Abraham represents the great Urantian agreement between divinity and humanity whereby God agrees to do everything; man only agrees to believe God’s promises and follow his instructions. Heretofore it had been believed that salvation could be secured only by works — sacrifices and offerings; now, Melchizedek again brought to Urantia the good news that salvation, favor with God, is to be had by faith. But this gospel of simple faith in God was too advanced; the Semitic tribesmen subsequently preferred to go back to the older sacrifices and atonement for sin by the shedding of blood.
94:0.1 THE early teachers of the Salem religion penetrated to the remotest tribes of Africa and Eurasia, ever preaching Machiventa’s gospel of man’s faith and trust in the one universal God as the only price of obtaining divine favor. Melchizedek’s covenant with Abraham was the pattern for all the early propaganda that went out from Salem and other centers. Urantia has never had more enthusiastic and aggressive missionaries of any religion than these noble men and women who carried the teachings of Melchizedek over the entire Eastern Hemisphere. These missionaries were recruited from many peoples and races, and they largely spread their teachings through the medium of native converts. They established training centers in different parts of the world where they taught the natives the Salem religion and then commissioned these pupils to function as teachers among their own people.
94:1.5 The Salem missionaries preached the one God of Melchizedek, the Most High of heaven. This portrayal was not altogether disharmonious with the emerging concept of the Father-Brahma as the source of all gods, but the Salem doctrine was nonritualistic and hence ran directly counter to the dogmas, traditions, and teachings of the Brahman priesthood. Never would the Brahman priests accept the Salem teaching of salvation through faith, favor with God apart from ritualistic observances and sacrificial ceremonials.
94:1.6 The rejection of the Melchizedek gospel of trust in God and salvation through faith marked a vital turning point for India. The Salem missionaries had contributed much to the loss of faith in all the ancient Vedic gods, but the leaders, the priests of Vedism, refused to accept the Melchizedek teaching of one God and one simple faith.
94:5.1 As the Salem missionaries passed through Asia, spreading the doctrine of the Most High God and salvation through faith, they absorbed much of the philosophy and religious thought of the various countries traversed. But the teachers commissioned by Melchizedek and his successors did not default in their trust; they did penetrate to all peoples of the Eurasian continent, and it was in the middle of the second millennium before Christ that they arrived in China. At See Fuch, for more than one hundred years, the Salemites maintained their headquarters, there training Chinese teachers who taught throughout all the domains of the yellow race.
94:5.4 2. The Salem religion of a Most High Creator Deity who would bestow his favor upon mankind in response to man’s faith. But it is all too true that, by the time the Melchizedek missionaries had penetrated to the lands of the yellow race, their original message had become considerably changed from the simple doctrines of Salem in the days of Machiventa.
94:7.4 Gautama was a real prophet, and had he heeded the instruction of the hermit Godad, he might have aroused all India by the inspiration of the revival of the Salem gospel of salvation by faith. Godad was descended through a family that had never lost the traditions of the Melchizedek missionaries.
94:7.5 At Benares Gautama founded his school, and it was during its second year that a pupil, Bautan, imparted to his teacher the traditions of the Salem missionaries about the Melchizedek covenant with Abraham; and while Siddhartha did not have a very clear concept of the Universal Father, he took an advanced stand on salvation through faith — simple belief. He so declared himself before his followers and began sending his students out in groups of sixty to proclaim to the people of India « the glad tidings of free salvation; that all men, high and low, can attain bliss by faith in righteousness and justice. »
95:1.8 Melchizedek had warned his followers to teach about the one God, the Father and Maker of all, and to preach only the gospel of divine favor through faith alone. But it has often been the error of the teachers of new truth to attempt too much, to attempt to supplant slow evolution by sudden revolution. The Melchizedek missionaries in Mesopotamia raised a moral standard too high for the people; they attempted too much, and their noble cause went down in defeat. They had been commissioned to preach a definite gospel, to proclaim the truth of the reality of the Universal Father, but they became entangled in the apparently worthy cause of reforming the mores, and thus was their great mission sidetracked and virtually lost in frustration and oblivion.
96:2.4 The Melchizedek teaching concerning El Elyon, the Most High, and the covenant of divine favor through faith, had been largely forgotten by the time of the Egyptian enslavement of the Semite peoples who were shortly to form the Hebrew nation. But throughout this period of captivity these Arabian nomads maintained a lingering traditional belief in Yahweh as their racial deity.
96:7.7 Only at Ur did a voice arise to cry out the mercy of God, saying: « He shall pray to God and shall find favor with him and shall see his face with joy, for God will give to man divine righteousness. » Thus from Ur there is preached salvation, divine favor, by faith: « He is gracious to the repentant and says,’Deliver him from going down in the pit, for I have found a ransom.’ If any say,’I have sinned and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not,’ God will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and he shall see the light. » Not since the times of Melchizedek had the Levantine world heard such a ringing and cheering message of human salvation as this extraordinary teaching of Elihu, the prophet of Ur and priest of the Salem believers, that is, the remnant of the onetime Melchizedek colony in Mesopotamia.
Jesus said,
150:5.3 « Salvation is the gift of the Father and is revealed by his Sons. Acceptance by faith on your part makes you a partaker of the divine nature, a son or a daughter of God. By faith you are justified; by faith are you saved; and by this same faith are you eternally advanced in the way of progressive and divine perfection. By faith was Abraham justified and made aware of salvation by the teachings of Melchizedek. All down through the ages has this same faith saved the sons of men, but now has a Son come forth from the Father to make salvation more real and acceptable. »
140:10.9 John asked Jesus, « Master, what is the kingdom of heaven? » And Jesus answered: « The kingdom of heaven consists in these three essentials: first, recognition of the fact of the sovereignty of God; second, belief in the truth of sonship with God; and third, faith in the effectiveness of the supreme human desire to do the will of God — to be like God. And this is the good news of the gospel: that by faith every mortal may have all these essentials of salvation. »
155:6.3 I have called upon you to be born again, to be born of the spirit. I have called you out of the darkness of authority and the lethargy of tradition into the transcendent light of the realization of the possibility of making for yourselves the greatest discovery possible for the human soul to make — the supernal experience of finding God for yourself, in yourself, and of yourself, and of doing all this as a fact in your own personal experience. And so may you pass from death to life, from the authority of tradition to the experience of knowing God; thus will you pass from darkness to light, from a racial faith inherited to a personal faith achieved by actual experience; and thereby will you progress from a theology of mind handed down by your ancestors to a true religion of spirit which shall be built up in your souls as an eternal endowment.Religious faith is a gift from God. The Thought Adjuster is leading the faith experience. (“Religious faith — the positive leading of the indwelling divine presence — unfailingly enables . . . .” 196:3.1 ) Faith is another one of those God given opportunities within a person and it is ever present, night and day. It is from the leading of the pre-personal divine spirit within each person who possesses human will. The divine spirit is continuously knocking on the door of one’s soul.
132:3.6 Faith acts to release the superhuman activities of the divine spark, the immortal germ, that lives within the mind of man, and which is the potential of eternal survival. Plants and animals survive in time by the technique of passing on from one generation to another identical particles of themselves. The human soul (personality) of man survives mortal death by identity association with this indwelling spark of divinity, which is immortal, and which functions to perpetuate the human personality upon a continuing and higher level of progressive universe existence. The concealed seed of the human soul is an immortal spirit. The second generation of the soul is the first of a succession of personality manifestations of spiritual and progressing existences, terminating only when this divine entity attains the source of its existence, the personal source of all existence, God, the Universal Father.Both faith and salvation are gifts given by God. But not a single person born in the past, in the present or in the future is ever compelled, coerced, forced, manipulated, pressured or obligated to follow God’s leading – his indwelling divine presence. No one is required to choose to go for God.
170:2.21 Jesus taught that, by faith, the believer enters the kingdom now. In the various discourses he taught that two things are essential to faith-entrance into the kingdom:
(1861.3) 170:2.21 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.
(1861.4) 170:2.22 2. Truth hunger. The thirst for righteousness, a change of mind, the acquirement of the motive to be like God and to find God.
Salvation is the now experience referred to above, and faith, “. . .to come into the kingdom free from prejudice and preconception; to be open-minded and teachable like an unspoiled child. . .” is the password, so to speak. The word “kingdom” is so archaic. It does not appeal to me, which is to say it does not appeal to me intellectually. I don’t have a substitute. But Jesus preferred to illustrate the kingdom he talked so much about as a family relationship, as described in his discourse.
142:7.3 Very plainly Jesus explained that the kingdom of heaven was an evolutionary experience, beginning here on earth and progressing up through successive life stations to Paradise. In the course of the evening he definitely stated that at some future stage of kingdom development he would revisit this world in spiritual power and divine glory.
(1603.5)142:7.4 He next explained that the “kingdom idea” was not the best way to illustrate man’s relation to God; that he employed such figures of speech because the Jewish people were expecting the kingdom, and because John had preached in terms of the coming kingdom. Jesus said: “The people of another age will better understand the gospel of the kingdom when it is presented in terms expressive of the family relationship — when man understands religion as the teaching of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, sonship with God.” Then the Master discoursed at some length on the earthly family as an illustration of the heavenly family, restating the two fundamental laws of living: the first commandment of love for the father, the head of the family, and the second commandment of mutual love among the children, to love your brother as yourself. And then he explained that such a quality of brotherly affection would invariably manifest itself in unselfish and loving social service.
(1603.6)142:7.5 Following that, came the memorable discussion of the fundamental characteristics of family life and their application to the relationship existing between God and man. Jesus stated that a true family is founded on the following seven facts:
(1604.1) 142:7.6 1. The fact of existence. The relationships of nature and the phenomena of mortal likenesses are bound up in the family: Children inherit certain parental traits. The children take origin in the parents; personality existence depends on the act of the parent. The relationship of father and child is inherent in all nature and pervades all living existences.
(1604.2) 142:7.7 2. Security and pleasure. True fathers take great pleasure in providing for the needs of their children. Many fathers are not content with supplying the mere wants of their children but enjoy making provision for their pleasures also.
(1604.3) 142:7.8 3. Education and training. Wise fathers carefully plan for the education and adequate training of their sons and daughters. When young they are prepared for the greater responsibilities of later life.
(1604.4) 142:7.9 4. Discipline and restraint. Farseeing fathers also make provision for the necessary discipline, guidance, correction, and sometimes restraint of their young and immature offspring.
(1604.5) 142:7.10 5. Companionship and loyalty. The affectionate father holds intimate and loving intercourse with his children. Always is his ear open to their petitions; he is ever ready to share their hardships and assist them over their difficulties. The father is supremely interested in the progressive welfare of his progeny.
(1604.6) 142:7.11 6. Love and mercy. A compassionate father is freely forgiving; fathers do not hold vengeful memories against their children. Fathers are not like judges, enemies, or creditors. Real families are built upon tolerance, patience, and forgiveness.
(1604.7) 142:7.12 7. Provision for the future. Temporal fathers like to leave an inheritance for their sons. The family continues from one generation to another. Death only ends one generation to mark the beginning of another. Death terminates an individual life but not necessarily the family.
(1604.8) 142:7.13 For hours the Master discussed the application of these features of family life to the relations of man, the earth child, to God, the Paradise Father. And this was his conclusion: “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 hand 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.”
170:3.3 Faith is the price you pay for entrance into the family of God. . . .
143:2.7 « Your sonship is grounded in faith, and you are to remain unmoved by fear. Your joy is born of trust in the divine word, and you shall not therefore be led to doubt the reality of the Father’s love and mercy. It is the very goodness of God that leads men into true and genuine repentance. Your secret of the mastery of self is bound up with your faith in the indwelling spirit, which ever works by love. Even this saving faith you have not of yourselves; it also is the gift of God. And if you are the children of this living faith, you are no longer the bondslaves of self but rather the triumphant masters of yourselves, the liberated sons of God. »
The gospel is salvation by faith. Faith is the means by way of Adjuster leading to salvation. Faith is a perquisite to salvation. First one, then the other. Salvation is an attainment, if I discern the process rightly. I’d be glad to hear what you think. Maybe they are mashed together and inseparable. Of one thing I am certain: Faith is a private matter between a person and God. Jesus admonished people to keep faith to themselves. « Have you faith? Then have it to yourself. » (99:5.7) Faith is not a creedal formulation. It stands for the individual’s relation to God. It is a lifeline relationship.
141:7.6 Jesus laid great emphasis upon what he called the two truths of first import in the teachings of the kingdom, and they are: the attainment of salvation by faith, and faith alone, associated with the revolutionary teaching of the attainment of human liberty through the sincere recognition of truth, « You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. » Jesus was the truth made manifest in the flesh, and he promised to send his Spirit of Truth into the hearts of all his children after his return to the Father in heaven.
150:5.2 « When men and women ask what shall we do to be saved, you shall answer, Believe this gospel of the kingdom; accept divine forgiveness. By faith recognize the indwelling spirit of God, whose acceptance makes you a son of God. Have you not read in the Scriptures where it says, ‘In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Also where the Father says, ‘My righteousness is near; my salvation has gone forth, and my arms shall enfold my people. ‘My soul shall be joyful in the love of my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and has covered me with the robe of his righteousness.’ Have you not also read of the Father that his name ‘shall be called the Lord our righteousness.’ Take away the filthy rags of self-righteousness and clothe my son with the robe of divine righteousness and eternal salvation.’ It is forever true, ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Entrance into the Father’s kingdom is wholly free, but progress — growth in grace — is essential to continuance therein.”
101:9.9 Faith becomes the connection between moral consciousness and the spiritual concept of enduring reality. Religion becomes the avenue of man’s escape from the material limitations of the temporal and natural world to the supernal realities of the eternal and spiritual world by and through the technique of salvation, the progressive morontia transformation.
133:6.6 « The saving or losing of a soul has to do with whether or not the moral consciousness attains survival status through eternal alliance with its associated immortal spirit endowment. Salvation is the spiritualization of the self-realization of the moral consciousness, which thereby becomes possessed of survival value. All forms of soul conflict consist in the lack of harmony between the moral, or spiritual, self-consciousness and the purely intellectual self-consciousness.
143:2.6 « Salvation is by the regeneration of the spirit and not by the self-righteous 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. When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God. And all who follow in the way of this heavenly peace are destined to be sanctified to the eternal service of the ever-advancing sons of the eternal God. Henceforth, it is not a duty but rather your exalted privilege to cleanse yourselves from all evils of mind and body while you seek for perfection in the love of God.
The next reference supports Bradly’s contention where he reminds us about human volition. “. . . And it is this very power of choice, the universe insignia of freewill creaturehood, that constitutes man’s greatest opportunity and his supreme cosmic responsibility.” (112:5.5) Salvation is a matter of personal choosing.
166:3.3 « You also have another saying among you, and one that contains much truth: That the way which leads to eternal life is straight and narrow, that the door which leads thereto is likewise narrow so that, of those who seek salvation, few can find entrance through this door. You also have a teaching that the way which leads to destruction is broad, that the entrance thereto is wide, and that there are many who choose to go this way. And this proverb is not without its meaning. But I declare that salvation is first a matter of your personal choosing. Even if the door to the way of life is narrow, it is wide enough to admit all who sincerely seek to enter, for I am that door. And the Son will never refuse entrance to any child of the universe who, by faith, seeks to find the Father through the Son.”
167:5.1 On the way to Judea Jesus was followed by a company of almost fifty of his friends and enemies. At their noon lunchtime, on Wednesday, he talked to his apostles and this group of followers on the « Terms of Salvation, » and at the end of this lesson told the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (a tax collector). Said Jesus: « You see, then, that the Father gives salvation to the children of men, and this salvation is a free gift to all who have the faith to receive sonship in the divine family. There is nothing man can do to earn this salvation. Works of self-righteousness cannot buy the favor of God, and much praying in public will not atone for lack of living faith in the heart. Men you may deceive by your outward service, but God looks into your souls. What I am telling you is well illustrated by two men who went into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself: ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unlearned, unjust, adulterers, or even like this publican. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven but smote his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you that the publican went home with God’s approval rather than the Pharisee, for every one who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted. »
Jesus said,
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. But you who have been called out of darkness into the light are expected to believe with a whole heart; your faith shall dominate the combined attitudes of body, mind, and spirit. »
The faintest flicker of faith . . . even a weak intellectual conformity or a passive attitude to religious authority – any feeble attempt to reach out to God is cultivated by God, fostered by God.
155:6.4 “Your religion shall change from the mere intellectual belief in traditional authority to the actual experience of that living faith which is able to grasp the reality of God and all that relates to the divine spirit of the Father. The religion of the mind ties you hopelessly to the past; the religion of the spirit consists in progressive revelation and ever beckons you on toward higher and holier achievements in spiritual ideals and eternal realities.”
196:0.1 JESUS enjoyed a sublime and wholehearted faith in God. He experienced the ordinary ups and downs of mortal existence, but he never religiously doubted the certainty of God’s watchcare and guidance. His faith was the outgrowth of the insight born of the activity of the divine presence, his indwelling Adjuster. His faith was neither traditional nor merely intellectual; it was wholly personal and purely spiritual.
It is really none of my business to try to figure out how much or little faith another person has. One’s faith is a truly private. Even salvation is private. But any person can change his or her mind about God. Mind is the medium through which the reach for God occurs. I think a person must be conscious of a need for him, even if the need is only faintly felt.
100:7.10 The Master was always generous. [. . .] He taught that you must believe to receive salvation. « For every one who seeks shall receive. »
101:1.4 Religion lives and prospers, then, not by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind. The highest religious experience is not dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind, and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is simply the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience.
Mortal mind is the gateway to the spiritual nature, not the seat of it.
111:1.5 Mortal mind is a temporary intellect system loaned to human beings for use during a material lifetime, and as they use this mind, they are either accepting or rejecting the potential of eternal existence. Mind is about all you have of universe reality that is subject to your will, and the soul — the morontia self — will faithfully portray the harvest of the temporal decisions which the mortal self is making. Human consciousness rests gently upon the electrochemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia energy system above. Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever completely conscious in his mortal life; therefore must he work in mind, of which he is conscious. And it is not so much what mind comprehends as what mind desires to comprehend that insures survival; it is not so much what mind is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit identification. It is not so much that man is conscious of God as that man yearns for God that results in universe ascension. What you are today is not so important as what you are becoming day by day and in eternity.
149:6.9 « Out of your wrong concepts of the Father in heaven grow your false ideas of humility and springs much of your hypocrisy. Man may be a worm of the dust by nature and origin, but when he becomes indwelt by my Father’s spirit, that man becomes divine in his destiny. The bestowal spirit of my Father will surely return to the divine source and universe level of origin, and the human soul of mortal man which shall have become the reborn child of this indwelling spirit shall certainly ascend with the divine spirit to the very presence of the eternal Father.”
196:3.23 The idealization and attempted service of truth, beauty, and goodness is not a substitute for genuine religious experience — spiritual reality. Psychology and idealism are not the equivalent of religious reality. The projections of the human intellect may indeed originate false gods — gods in man’s image — but the true God-consciousness does not have such an origin. The God-consciousness is resident in the indwelling spirit. Many of the religious systems of man come from the formulations of the human intellect, but the God-consciousness is not necessarily a part of these grotesque systems of religious slavery.
152:6.4 Jesus taught the appeal to the emotions as the technique of arresting and focusing the intellectual attention. He designated the mind thus aroused and quickened as the gateway to the soul, where there resides that spiritual nature of man which must recognize truth and respond to the spiritual appeal of the gospel in order to afford the permanent results of true character transformations.
155:6.13 When you once begin to find God in your soul, presently you will begin to discover him in other men’s souls and eventually in all the creatures and creations of a mighty universe. But what chance does the Father have to appear as a God of supreme loyalties and divine ideals in the souls of men who give little or no time to the thoughtful contemplation of such eternal realities? While the mind is not the seat of the spiritual nature, it is indeed the gateway thereto.
5:5.13 Eternal survival of personality is wholly dependent on the choosing of the mortal mind, whose decisions determine the survival potential of the immortal soul. When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and when, with the fostering Adjuster, they all desire God, then is survival assured. Limitations of intellect, curtailment of education, deprivation of culture, impoverishment of social status, even inferiority of the human standards of morality resulting from the unfortunate lack of educational, cultural, and social advantages, cannot invalidate the presence of the divine spirit in such unfortunate and humanly handicapped but believing individuals. The indwelling of the Mystery Monitor constitutes the inception and insures the possibility of the potential of growth and survival of the immortal soul.
110:1.2 I wish it were possible for me to help evolving mortals to achieve a better understanding and attain a fuller appreciation of the unselfish and superb work of the Adjusters living within them, who are so devoutly faithful to the task of fostering man’s spiritual welfare. These Monitors are efficient ministers to the higher phases of men’s minds; they are wise and experienced manipulators of the spiritual potential of the human intellect. These heavenly helpers are dedicated to the stupendous task of guiding you safely inward and upward to the celestial haven of happiness. These tireless toilers are consecrated to the future personification of the triumph of divine truth in your life everlasting. They are the watchful workers who pilot the God-conscious human mind away from the shoals of evil while expertly guiding the evolving soul of man toward the divine harbors of perfection on far-distant and eternal shores. The Adjusters are loving leaders, your safe and sure guides through the dark and uncertain mazes of your short earthly career; they are the patient teachers who so constantly urge their subjects forward in the paths of progressive perfection. They are the careful custodians of the sublime values of creature character. I wish you could love them more, co-operate with them more fully, and cherish them more affectionately.Lo and behold, humans are not capable of distinguishing the product of their own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of the soul and the Adjuster, as noted below. The Adjuster is trying to spiritualize one’s mind. . . .
110:4.2 The Thought Adjuster is engaged in a constant effort so to spiritualize your mind as to evolve your morontia soul; but you yourself are mostly unconscious of this inner ministry. You are quite incapable of distinguishing the product of your own material intellect from that of the conjoint activities of your soul and the Adjuster.
(1207.3) 110:4.3 Certain abrupt presentations of thoughts, conclusions, and other pictures of mind are sometimes the direct or indirect work of the Adjuster; but far more often they are the sudden emergence into consciousness of ideas which have been grouping themselves together in the submerged mental levels, natural and everyday occurrences of normal and ordinary psychic function inherent in the circuits of the evolving animal mind. (In contrast with these subconscious emanations, the revelations of the Adjuster appear through the realms of the superconscious.)
(1207.4) 110:4.4 Trust all matters of mind beyond the dead level of consciousness to the custody of the Adjusters. In due time, if not in this world then on the mansion worlds, they will give good account of their stewardship, and eventually will they bring forth those meanings and values intrusted to their care and keeping. They will resurrect every worthy treasure of the mortal mind if you survive.
(1207.5) 110:4.5 There exists a vast gulf between the human and the divine, between man and God. The Urantia races are so largely electrically and chemically controlled, so highly animallike in their common behavior, so emotional in their ordinary reactions, that it becomes exceedingly difficult for the Monitors to guide and direct them. You are so devoid of courageous decisions and consecrated co-operation that your indwelling Adjusters find it next to impossible to communicate directly with the human mind. Even when they do find it possible to flash a gleam of new truth to the evolving mortal soul, this spiritual revelation often so blinds the creature as to precipitate a convulsion of fanaticism or to initiate some other intellectual upheaval which results disastrously. Many a new religion and strange “ism” has arisen from the aborted, imperfect, misunderstood, and garbled communications of the Thought Adjusters.
8:5.4 There are many spiritual influences, and they are all as one. (. . .) In your minds and upon your souls they function as one spirit, notwithstanding their diverse origins.
The performance of religious faith helps the believer grasp the will of God. It affirms religious experience whenever and wherever one becomes conscious of it. It’s something real. (101:3.18) To me, faith is my lifeline. That’s how I see it. What I read in the UB is that I will be depending on faith for a long, long, long time.
176:3.3 “(. . .) When you have by faith once established yourself as a son of God, nothing else matters as regards the surety of survival. But make no mistake! this survival faith is a living faith, and it increasingly manifests the fruits of that divine spirit which first inspired it in the human heart. That you have once accepted sonship in the heavenly kingdom will not save you in the face of the knowing and persistent rejection of those truths which have to do with the progressive spiritual fruit-bearing of the sons of God in the flesh. You who have been with me in the Father’s business on earth can even now desert the kingdom if you find that you love not the way of the Father’s service for mankind.”
40:6.1 The mortal races stand as the representatives of the lowest order of intelligent and personal creation. You mortals are divinely beloved, and every one of you may choose to accept the certain destiny of a glorious experience, but you are not yet by nature of the divine order; you are wholly mortal. You will be reckoned as ascending sons the instant fusion takes place, but the status of the mortals of time and space is that of faith sons prior to the event of the final amalgamation of the surviving mortal soul with some type of eternal and immortal spirit.
19:5.12 And from all this, you mortals, just now taking your first step on the eternal journey, can well see that you must advance a long way before you will progress by « sight » and « material » assurance. You will long use faith and be dependent on revelation if you hope to progress quickly and safely.
This passage from Isaiah says, « The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the meek, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to set the spiritual prisoners free. » Jesus chose this text at age seven when he entered school. (123:5.11)
Who are the meek? Who are the brokenhearted? Who are the captives? Who are spiritual prisoners? (97:5.3) Some answers are provided in Jesus’ ordination sermon to the twelve apostles.
140:3.2 “I send you forth to proclaim liberty to the spiritual captives, joy to those in the bondage of fear, and to heal the sick in accordance with the will of my Father in heaven. When you find my children in distress, speak encouragingly to them, saying:
(1570.4) 140:3.3 “Happy are the poor in spirit, the humble, for theirs are the treasures of the kingdom of heaven.
The meek are those who are poor in spirit, humble.
(1573.9) 140:5.7 (. . .) The poor in spirit seek for goals of spiritual wealth — for God. And such seekers after truth do not have to wait for rewards in a distant future; they are rewarded now. They find the kingdom of heaven within their own hearts, and they experience such happiness now.
Salvation is the now experience of God, a profound assurance of the reality of God.
(1570.5) 140:3.4 “Happy are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled to overflowing with faith, with love and with a passion for service . My cup runneth over.
(1570.6) 140:3.5 “Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
(1574.4) 140:5.11 (. . .) Genuine meekness has no relation to fear. It is rather an attitude of man co-operating with God — “Your will be done.” It embraces patience and forbearance and is motivated by an unshakable faith in a lawful and friendly universe. It masters all temptations to rebel against the divine leading. Jesus was the ideal meek man of Urantia, and he inherited a vast universe.
(1570.7) 140:3.6 “Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
(1574.5) 140:5.12 (. . .) Spiritual purity is not a negative quality, except that it does lack suspicion and revenge. In discussing purity, Jesus did not intend to deal exclusively with human sex attitudes. He referred more to that faith which man should have in his fellow man; that faith which a parent has in his child, and which enables him to love his fellows even as a father would love them. A father’s love need not pamper, and it does not condone evil, but it is always anticynical. Fatherly love has singleness of purpose, and it always looks for the best in man; that is the attitude of a true parent.
(1570.8) 140:3.7 “And even so speak to my children these further words of spiritual comfort and promise:
(1570.9) 140:3.8 “Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Happy are they who weep, for they shall receive the spirit of rejoicing.
(1575.1) 140:5.16 *. . .) So-called common sense or the best of logic would never suggest that happiness could be derived from mourning. But Jesus did not refer to outward or ostentatious mourning. He alluded to an emotional attitude of tenderheartedness. It is a great error to teach boys and young men that it is unmanly to show tenderness or otherwise to give evidence of emotional feeling or physical suffering. Sympathy is a worthy attribute of the male as well as the female. It is not necessary to be calloused in order to be manly. This is the wrong way to create courageous men. The world’s great men have not been afraid to mourn. Moses, the mourner, was a greater man than either Samson or Goliath. Moses was a superb leader, but he was also a man of meekness. Being sensitive and responsive to human need creates genuine and lasting happiness, while such kindly attitudes safeguard the soul from the destructive influences of anger, hate, and suspicion.
(1570.10) 140:3.9 “Happy are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
(1575.2) 140:5.17 (. . .) Mercy here denotes the height and depth and breadth of the truest friendship — loving-kindness. Mercy sometimes may be passive, but here it is active and dynamic — supreme fatherliness. A loving parent experiences little difficulty in forgiving his child, even many times. And in an unspoiled child the urge to relieve suffering is natural. Children are normally kind and sympathetic when old enough to appreciate actual conditions.
(1570.11) 140:3.10 “Happy are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.
(1575.3) 140:5.18 (. . .) Jesus’ hearers were longing for military deliverance, not for peacemakers. But Jesus’ peace is not of the pacific and negative kind. In the face of trials and persecutions he said, “My peace I leave with you.” “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” This is the peace that prevents ruinous conflicts. Personal peace integrates personality. Social peace prevents fear, greed, and anger. Political peace prevents race antagonisms, national suspicions, and war. Peacemaking is the cure of distrust and suspicion.
(1570.12) 140:3.11 “Happy are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.
Jesus said, “. . . let me say that I have come to proclaim joy to the socially downtrodden and spiritual liberty to the moral captives. Need I remind you that they who are whole need not a physician, but rather those who are sick? I have come, not to call the righteous, but sinners. » (138:3.6)
He said, “I am the open door to eternal salvation.” (182:1.14 )
What does it mean to be a captive of one’s morals? I thought of several examples – the story of Nalda at the well; the story of the prodigal son; Mary Magdalene; the story of the angry husband who publicly attacked his wife; the wealthy man Jesus counseled; the brigand by him on the cross, and there are many others. I bring these examples forward, because they demonstrate lifestyles which the people wanted out of. Each person became captive of their particular standard of morality and. each one had their own circumstances and explanations for it, until their hearts were opened to salvation by faith. Sooner or later, they saw the light.
What does it mean to be a spiritual captive? Does that mean outwardly abiding by the laws and precepts of one’s religious affiliation, but inwardly disagreeing with them? Going along with it to get along with one’s community? Does it imply conformity to the beliefs and practices of a religion of authority in toto without doubts? Below is an example this kind of captivity, as excerpted from the story of what happened in the room when Matthew and Simon Zelotes were welcomed as apostles.
138:3.6 As the dinner progressed, the joy of the diners mounted to heights of good cheer, and everybody was having such a splendid time that the onlooking Pharisees began, in their hearts, to criticize Jesus for his participation in such a lighthearted and carefree affair. Later in the evening, when they were making speeches, one of the more malignant of the Pharisees went so far as to criticize Jesus’ conduct to Peter, saying: « How dare you to teach that this man is righteous when he eats with publicans and sinners and thus lends his presence to such scenes of careless pleasure making. » Peter whispered this criticism to Jesus before he spoke the parting blessing upon those assembled. When Jesus began to speak, he said: « In coming here tonight to welcome Matthew and Simon to our fellowship, I am glad to witness your lightheartedness and social good cheer, but you should rejoice still more because many of you will find entrance into the coming kingdom of the spirit, wherein you shall more abundantly enjoy the good things of the kingdom of heaven. And to you who stand about criticizing me in your hearts because I have come here to make merry with these friends, let me say that I have come to proclaim joy to the socially downtrodden and spiritual liberty to the moral captives. (. . .)”
132:2.4 The spiritually blind individual who logically follows scientific dictation, social usage, and religious dogma stands in grave danger of sacrificing his moral freedom and losing his spiritual liberty. Such a soul is destined to become an intellectual parrot, a social automaton, and a slave to religious authority.
132:3.10 Universe progress is characterized by increasing personality freedom because it is associated with the progressive attainment of higher and higher levels of self-understanding and consequent voluntary self-restraint. The attainment of perfection of spiritual self-restraint equals completeness of universe freedom and personal liberty. Faith fosters and maintains man’s soul in the midst of the confusion of his early orientation in such a vast universe, whereas prayer becomes the great unifier of the various inspirations of the creative imagination and the faith urges of a soul trying to identify itself with the spirit ideals of the indwelling and associated divine presence.
Here is a lovely reference about getting a whole new life through salvation.
143:2.3 « Verily, verily, I say to you, he who rules his own self is greater than he who captures a city. Self-mastery is the measure of man’s moral nature and the indicator of his spiritual development. In the old order you fasted and prayed; as the new creature of the rebirth of the spirit, you are taught to believe and rejoice. In the Father’s kingdom you are to become new creatures; old things are to pass away; behold I show you how all things are to become new. And by your love for one another you are to convince the world that you have passed from bondage to liberty, from death into life everlasting.”
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