Urantia Book Paper 136 Baptism And The Forty Days
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART IV: The Life and Teachings
of Jesus : The Bestowal Of Michael On Urantia The Times Of Michael's Bestowal
Birth And Infancy Of Jesus The Early Childhood Of Jesus The Later Childhood Of
Jesus Jesus At Jerusalem The Two Crucial Years The Adolescent Years Jesus'
Early Manhood The Later Adult Life Of Jesus On The Way To Rome The World's
Religions The Sojourn At Rome The Return From Rome The Transition Years John
The Baptist Baptism And The Forty Days Tarrying Time In Galilee Training The
Kingdom's Messengers The Twelve Apostles The Ordination Of The Twelve Beginning
The Public Work The Passover At Jerusalem Going Through Samaria At Gilboa And
In The Decapolis Four Eventful Days At Capernaum First Preaching Tour Of
Galilee The Interlude Visit To Jerusalem Training Evangelists At Bethsaida The
Second Preaching Tour The Third Preaching Tour Tarrying And Teaching By The
Seaside Events Leading Up To The Capernaum Crisis The Crisis At Capernaum Last
Days At Capernaum Fleeing Through Northern Galilee The Sojourn At Tyre And
Sidon At Caesarea-philippi The Mount Of Transfiguration The Decapolis Tour
Rodan Of Alexandria Further Discussions With Rodan At The Feast Of Tabernacles
Ordination Of The Seventy At Magadan At The Feast Of Dedication The Perean
Mission Begins Last Visit To Northern Perea The Visit To Philadelphia The
Resurrection Of Lazarus Last Teaching At Pella The Kingdom Of Heaven On The Way
To Jerusalem Going Into Jerusalem Monday In Jerusalem ...
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Paper 136 Baptism And The Forty Days
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Introduction
JESUS began his public work at the height of the popular interest in John's
preaching and at a time when the Jewish people of Palestine were eagerly
looking for the appearance of the Messiah. There was a great contrast between
John and Jesus. John was an eager and earnest worker, but Jesus was a calm and
happy laborer; only a few times in his entire life was he ever in a hurry.
Jesus was a comforting consolation to the world and somewhat of an example;
John was hardly a comfort or an example. He preached the kingdom of heaven but
hardly entered into the happiness thereof. Though Jesus spoke of John as the
greatest of the prophets of the old order, he also said that the least of those
who saw the great light of the new way and entered thereby into the kingdom of
heaven was indeed greater than John.
When John preached the coming kingdom, the burden of his message was: Repent!
flee from the wrath to come. When Jesus began to preach, there remained the
exhortation to repentance, but such a message was always followed by the
gospel, the good tidings of the joy and liberty of the new kingdom.
1. CONCEPTS OF THE EXPECTED MESSIAH
The Jews entertained many ideas about the expected deliverer, and each of these
different schools of Messianic teaching was able to point to statements in the
Hebrew scriptures as proof of their contentions. In a general way, the Jews
regarded their national history as beginning with Abraham and culminating in
the Messiah and the new age of the kingdom of God. In earlier times they had
envisaged this deliverer as "the servant of the Lord," then as "the Son of
Man," while latterly some even went so far as to refer to the Messiah as the
"Son of God." But no matter whether he was called the "seed of Abraham" or "the
son of David," all were agreed that he was to be the Messiah, the "anointed
one." Thus did the concept evolve from the "servant of the Lord" to the "son of
David," "Son of Man," and "Son of God."
In the days of John and Jesus the more learned Jews had developed an idea of
the coming Messiah as the perfected and representative Israelite, combining in
himself as the "servant of the Lord" the threefold office of prophet, priest,
and king.
The Jews devoutly believed that, as Moses had delivered their fathers from
Egyptian bondage by miraculous wonders, so would the coming Messiah deliver the
Jewish people from Roman domination by even greater miracles of power and
marvels of racial triumph. The rabbis had gathered together almost five hundred
passages from the Scriptures which, notwithstanding their apparent con-
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tradictions, they averred were prophetic of the coming Messiah. And amidst all
these details of time, technique, and function, they almost completely lost
sight of the personality of the promised Messiah. They were looking for a
restoration of Jewish national glory--Israel's temporal exaltation--rather than
for the salvation of the world. It therefore becomes evident that Jesus of
Nazareth could never satisfy this materialistic Messianic concept of the Jewish
mind. Many of their reputed Messianic predictions, had they but viewed these
prophetic utterances in a different light, would have very naturally prepared
their minds for a recognition of Jesus as the terminator of one age and the
inaugurator of a new and better dispensation of mercy and salvation for all
nations.
The Jews had been brought up to believe in the doctrine of the Shekinah. But
this reputed symbol of the Divine Presence was not to be seen in the temple.
They believed that the coming of the Messiah would effect its restoration. They
held confusing ideas about racial sin and the supposed evil nature of man. Some
taught that Adam's sin had cursed the human race, and that the Messiah would
remove this curse and restore man to divine favor. Others taught that God, in
creating man, had put into his being both good and evil natures; that when he
observed the outworking of this arrangement, he was greatly disappointed, and
that "He repented that he had thus made man." And those who taught this
believed that the Messiah was to come in order to redeem man from this inherent
evil nature.
The majority of the Jews believed that they continued to languish under Roman
rule because of their national sins and because of the halfheartedness of the
gentile proselytes. The Jewish nation had not wholeheartedly repented;
therefore did the Messiah delay his coming. There was much talk about
repentance; wherefore the mighty and immediate appeal of John's preaching,
"Repent and be baptized, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And the kingdom
of heaven could mean only one thing to any devout Jew: The coming of the
Messiah.
There was one feature of the bestowal of Michael which was utterly foreign to
the Jewish conception of the Messiah, and that was the union of the two
natures, the human and the divine. The Jews had variously conceived of the
Messiah as perfected human, superhuman, and even as divine, but they never
entertained the concept of the union of the human and the divine. And this was
the great stumbling block of Jesus' early disciples. They grasped the human
concept of the Messiah as the son of David, as presented by the earlier
prophets; as the Son of Man, the superhuman idea of Daniel and some of the
later prophets; and even as the Son of God, as depicted by the author of the
Book of Enoch and by certain of his contemporaries; but never had they for a
single moment entertained the true concept of the union in one earth
personality of the two natures, the human and the divine. The incarnation of
the Creator in the form of the creature had not been revealed beforehand. It
was revealed only in Jesus; the world knew nothing of such things until the
Creator Son was made flesh and dwelt among the mortals of the realm.
2. THE BAPTISM OF JESUS
Jesus was baptized at the very height of John's preaching when Palestine was
aflame with the expectancy of his message--"the kingdom of God is at
hand"--when all Jewry was engaged in serious and solemn self-examination. The
Jew-
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ish sense of racial solidarity was very profound. The Jews not only believed
that the sins of the father might afflict his children, but they firmly
believed that the sin of one individual might curse the nation. Accordingly,
not all who submitted to John's baptism regarded themselves as being guilty of
the specific sins which John denounced. Many devout souls were baptized by John
for the good of Israel. They feared lest some sin of ignorance on their part
might delay the coming of the Messiah. They felt themselves to belong to a
guilty and sin-cursed nation, and they presented themselves for baptism that
they might by so doing manifest fruits of race penitence. It is therefore
evident that Jesus in no sense received John's baptism as a rite of repentance
or for the remission of sins. In accepting baptism at the hands of John, Jesus
was only following the example of many pious Israelites.
When Jesus of Nazareth went down into the Jordan to be baptized, he was a
mortal of the realm who had attained the pinnacle of human evolutionary
ascension in all matters related to the conquest of mind and to
self-identification with the spirit. He stood in the Jordan that day a
perfected mortal of the evolutionary worlds of time and space. Perfect
synchrony and full communication had become established between the mortal mind
of Jesus and the indwelling spirit Adjuster, the divine gift of his Father in
Paradise. And just such an Adjuster indwells all normal beings living on
Urantia since the ascension of Michael to the headship of his universe, except
that Jesus' Adjuster had been previously prepared for this special mission by
similarly indwelling another superhuman incarnated in the likeness of mortal
flesh, Machiventa Melchizedek.
Ordinarily, when a mortal of the realm attains such high levels of personality
perfection, there occur those preliminary phenomena of spiritual elevation
which terminate in eventual fusion of the matured soul of the mortal with its
associated divine Adjuster. And such a change was apparently due to take place
in the personality experience of Jesus of Nazareth on that very day when he
went down into the Jordan with his two brothers to be baptized by John. This
ceremony was the final act of his purely human life on Urantia, and many
superhuman observers expected to witness the fusion of the Adjuster with its
indwelt mind, but they were all destined to suffer disappointment. Something
new and even greater occurred. As John laid his hands upon Jesus to baptize
him, the indwelling Adjuster took final leave of the perfected human soul of
Joshua ben Joseph. And in a few moments this divine entity returned from
Divinington as a Personalized Adjuster and chief of his kind throughout the
entire local universe of Nebadon. Thus did Jesus observe his own former divine
spirit descending on its return to him in personalized form. And he heard this
same spirit of Paradise origin now speak, saying, "This is my beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased." And John, with Jesus' two brothers, also heard these
words. John's disciples, standing by the water's edge, did not hear these
words, neither did they see the apparition of the Personalized Adjuster. Only
the eyes of Jesus beheld the Personalized Adjuster.
When the returned and now exalted Personalized Adjuster had thus spoken, all
was silence. And while the four of them tarried in the water, Jesus, looking up
to the near-by Adjuster, prayed: "My Father who reigns in heaven, hallowed be
your name. Your kingdom come! Your will be done on earth, even as it is in
heaven." When he had prayed, the "heavens were opened," and the Son of Man
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saw the vision, presented by the now Personalized Adjuster, of himself as a Son
of God as he was before he came to earth in the likeness of mortal flesh, and
as he would be when the incarnated life should be finished. This heavenly
vision was seen only by Jesus.
It was the voice of the Personalized Adjuster that John and Jesus heard,
speaking in behalf of the Universal Father, for the Adjuster is of, and as, the
Paradise Father. Throughout the remainder of Jesus' earth life this
Personalized Adjuster was associated with him in all his labors; Jesus was in
constant communion with this exalted Adjuster.
When Jesus was baptized, he repented of no misdeeds; he made no confession of
sin. His was the baptism of consecration to the performance of the will of the
heavenly Father. At his baptism he heard the unmistakable call of his Father,
the final summons to be about his Father's business, and he went away into
private seclusion for forty days to think over these manifold problems. In thus
retiring for a season from active personality contact with his earthly
associates, Jesus, as he was and on Urantia, was following the very procedure
that obtains on the morontia worlds whenever an ascending mortal fuses with the
inner presence of the Universal Father.
This day of baptism ended the purely human life of Jesus. The divine Son has
found his Father, the Universal Father has found his incarnated Son, and they
speak the one to the other.
(Jesus was almost thirty-one and one-half years old when he was baptized. While
Luke says that Jesus was baptized in the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar, which would be A.D. 29 since Augustus died in A.D. 14, it
should be recalled that Tiberius was coemperor with Augustus for two and
one-half years before the death of Augustus, having had coins struck in his
honor in October, A.D. 11. The fifteenth year of his actual rule was,
therefore, this very year of A.D. 26, that of Jesus' baptism. And this was also
the year that Pontius Pilate began his rule as governor of Judea.)
3. THE FORTY DAYS
Jesus had endured the great temptation of his mortal bestowal before his
baptism when he had been wet with the dews of Mount Hermon for six weeks. There
on Mount Hermon, as an unaided mortal of the realm, he had met and defeated the
Urantia pretender, Caligastia, the prince of this world. That eventful day, on
the universe records, Jesus of Nazareth had become the Planetary Prince of
Urantia. And this Prince of Urantia, so soon to be proclaimed supreme Sovereign
of Nebadon, now went into forty days of retirement to formulate the plans and
determine upon the technique of proclaiming the new kingdom of God in the
hearts of men.
After his baptism he entered upon the forty days of adjusting himself to the
changed relationships of the world and the universe occasioned by the
personalization of his Adjuster. During this isolation in the Perean hills he
determined upon the policy to be pursued and the methods to be employed in the
new and changed phase of earth life which he was about to inaugurate.
Jesus did not go into retirement for the purpose of fasting and for the
affliction of his soul. He was not an ascetic, and he came forever to destroy
all such notions regarding the approach to God. His reasons for seeking this
retirement
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were entirely different from those which had actuated Moses and Elijah, and
even John the Baptist. Jesus was then wholly self-conscious concerning his
relation to the universe of his making and also to the universe of universes,
supervised by the Paradise Father, his Father in heaven. He now fully recalled
the bestowal charge and its instructions administered by his elder brother,
Immanuel, ere he entered upon his Urantia incarnation. He now clearly and fully
comprehended all these far-flung relationships, and he desired to be away for a
season of quiet meditation so that he could think out the plans and decide upon
the procedures for the prosecution of his public labors in behalf of this world
and for all other worlds in his local universe.
While wandering about in the hills, seeking a suitable shelter, Jesus
encountered his universe chief executive, Gabriel, the Bright and Morning Star
of Nebadon. Gabriel now re-established personal communication with the Creator
Son of the universe; they met directly for the first time since Michael took
leave of his associates on Salvington when he went to Edentia preparatory to
entering upon the Urantia bestowal. Gabriel, by direction of Immanuel and on
authority of the Uversa Ancients of Days, now laid before Jesus information
indicating that his bestowal experience on Urantia was practically finished so
far as concerned the earning of the perfected sovereignty of his universe and
the termination of the Lucifer rebellion. The former was achieved on the day of
his baptism when the personalization of his Adjuster demonstrated the
perfection and completion of his bestowal in the likeness of mortal flesh, and
the latter was a fact of history on that day when he came down from Mount
Hermon to join the waiting lad, Tiglath. Jesus was now informed, upon the
highest authority of the local universe and the superuniverse, that his
bestowal work was finished in so far as it affected his personal status in
relation to sovereignty and rebellion. He had already had this assurance direct
from Paradise in the baptismal vision and in the phenomenon of the
personalization of his indwelling Thought Adjuster.
While he tarried on the mountain, talking with Gabriel, the Constellation
Father of Edentia appeared to Jesus and Gabriel in person, saying: "The records
are completed. The sovereignty of Michael No. 611,121 over his universe of
Nebadon rests in completion at the right hand of the Universal Father. I bring
to you the bestowal release of Immanuel, your sponsor-brother for the Urantia
incarnation. You are at liberty now or at any subsequent time, in the manner of
your own choosing, to terminate your incarnation bestowal, ascend to the right
hand of your Father, receive your sovereignty, and assume your well-earned
unconditional rulership of all Nebadon. I also testify to the completion of the
records of the superuniverse, by authorization of the Ancients of Days, having
to do with the termination of all sin-rebellion in your universe and endowing
you with full and unlimited authority to deal with any and all such possible
upheavals in the future. Technically, your work on Urantia and in the flesh of
the mortal creature is finished. Your course from now on is a matter of your
own choosing."
When the Most High Father of Edentia had taken leave, Jesus held long converse
with Gabriel regarding the welfare of the universe and, sending greetings to
Immanuel, proffered his assurance that, in the work which he was about to
undertake on Urantia, he would be ever mindful of the counsel he had received
in connection with the prebestowal charge administered on Salvington.
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Throughout all of these forty days of isolation James and John the sons of
Zebedee were engaged in searching for Jesus. Many times they were not far from
his abiding place, but never did they find him.
4. PLANS FOR PUBLIC WORK
Day by day, up in the hills, Jesus formulated the plans for the remainder of
his Urantia bestowal. He first decided not to teach contemporaneously with
John. He planned to remain in comparative retirement until the work of John
achieved its purpose, or until John was suddenly stopped by imprisonment. Jesus
well knew that John's fearless and tactless preaching would presently arouse
the fears and enmity of the civil rulers. In view of John's precarious
situation, Jesus began definitely to plan his program of public labors in
behalf of his people and the world, in behalf of every inhabited world
throughout his vast universe. Michael's mortal bestowal was on Urantial but for
all worlds of Nebadon.
The first thing Jesus did, after thinking through the general plan of
co-ordinating his program with John's movement, was to review in his mind the
instructions of Immanuel. Carefully he thought over the advice given him
concerning his methods of labor, and that he was to leave no permanent writing
on the planet. Never again did Jesus write on anything except sand. On his next
visit to Nazareth, much to the sorrow of his brother Joseph, Jesus destroyed
all of his writing that was preserved on the boards about the carpenter shop,
and which hung upon the walls of the old home. And Jesus pondered well over
Immanuel's advice pertaining to his economic, social, and political attitude
toward the world as he should find it.
Jesus did not fast during this forty days' isolation. The longest period he
went without food was his first two days in the hills when he was so engrossed
with his thinking that he forgot all about eating. But on the third day he went
in search of food. Neither was he tempted during this time by any evil spirits
or rebel personalities of station on this world or from any other world.
These forty days were the occasion of the final conference between the human
and the divine minds, or rather the first real functioning of these two minds
as now made one. The results of this momentous season of meditation
demonstrated conclusively that the divine mind has triumphantly and spiritually
dominated the human intellect. The mind of man has become the mind of God from
this time on, and though the selfhood of the mind of man is ever present,
always does this spiritualized human mind say, "Not my will but yours be done."
The transactions of this eventful time were not the fantastic visions of a
starved and weakened mind, neither were they the confused and puerile
symbolisms which afterward gained record as the "temptations of Jesus in the
wilderness." Rather was this a season for thinking over the whole eventful and
varied career of the Urantia bestowal and for the careful laying of those plans
for further ministry which would best serve this world while also contributing
something to the betterment of all other rebellion-isolated spheres. Jesus
thought over the whole span of human life on Urantia, from the days of Andon
and Fonta, down through Adam's default, and on to the ministry of the
Melchizedek of Salem.
Gabriel had reminded Jesus that there were two ways in which he might manifest
himself to the world in case he should choose to tarry on Urantia for
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a time. And it was made clear to Jesus that his choice in this matter would
have nothing to do with either his universe sovereignty or the termination of
the Lucifer rebellion. These two ways of world ministry were:
1. His own way--the way that might seem most pleasant and profitable from the
standpoint of the immediate needs of this world and the present edification of
his own universe.
2. The Father's way--the exemplification of a farseeing ideal of creature life
visualized by the high personalities of the Paradise administration of the
universe of universes.
It was thus made clear to Jesus that there were two ways in which he could
order the remainder of his earth life. Each of these ways had something to be
said in its favor as it might be regarded in the light of the immediate
situation. The Son of Man clearly saw that his choice between these two modes
of conduct would have nothing to do with his reception of universe sovereignty;
that was a matter already settled and sealed on the records of the universe of
universes and only awaited his demand in person. But it was indicated to Jesus
that it would afford his Paradise brother, Immanuel, great satisfaction if he,
Jesus, should see fit to finish up his earth career of incarnation as he had so
nobly begun it, always subject to the Father's will. On the third day of this
isolation Jesus promised himself he would go back to the world to finish his
earth career, and that in a situation involving any two ways he would always
choose the Father's will. And he lived out the remainder of his earth life
always true to that resolve. Even to the bitter end he invariably subordinated
his sovereign will to that of his heavenly Father.
The forty days in the mountain wilderness were not a period of great temptation
but rather the period of the Master's great decisions. During these days of
lone communion with himself and his Father's immediate presence--the
Personalized Adjuster (he no longer had a personal seraphic guardian)--he
arrived, one by one, at the great decisions which were to control his policies
and conduct for the remainder of his earth career. Subsequently the tradition
of a great temptation became attached to this period of isolation through
confusion with the fragmentary narratives of the Mount Hermon struggles, and
further because it was the custom to have all great prophets and human leaders
begin their public careers by undergoing these supposed seasons of fasting and
prayer. It had always been Jesus' practice, when facing any new or serious
decisions, to withdraw for communion with his own spirit that he might seek to
know the will of God.
In all this planning for the remainder of his earth life, Jesus was always torn
in his human heart by two opposing courses of conduct:
1. He entertained a strong desire to win his people--and the whole world--to
believe in him and to accept his new spiritual kingdom. And he well knew their
ideas concerning the coming Messiah.
2. To live and work as he knew his Father would approve, to conduct his work in
behalf of other worlds in need, and to continue, in the establishment of the
kingdom, to reveal the Father and show forth his divine character of love.
Throughout these eventful days Jesus lived in an ancient rock cavern, a shelter
in the side of the hills near a village sometime called Beit Adis. He drank
from the small spring which came from the side of the hill near this rock
shelter.
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5. THE FIRST GREAT DECISION
On the third day after beginning this conference with himself and his
Personalized Adjuster, Jesus was presented with the vision of the assembled
celestial hosts of Nebadon sent by their commanders to wait upon the will of
their beloved Sovereign. This mighty host embraced twelve legions of seraphim
and proportionate numbers of every order of universe intelligence. And the
first great decision of Jesus' isolation had to do with whether or not he would
make use of these mighty personalities in connection with the ensuing program
of his public work on Urantia.
Jesus decided that he would not utilize a single personality of this vast
assemblage unless it should become evident that this was his Father's will.
Notwithstanding this general decision, this vast host remained with him
throughout the balance of his earth life, always in readiness to obey the least
expression of their Sovereign's will. Although Jesus did not constantly behold
these attendant personalities with his human eyes, his associated Personalized
Adjuster did constantly behold, and could communicate with, all of them.
Before coming down from the forty days' retreat in the hills, Jesus assigned
the immediate command of this attendant host of universe personalities to his
recently Personalized Adjuster, and for more than four years of Urantia time
did these selected personalities from every division of universe intelligences
obediently and respectfully function under the wise guidance of this exalted
and experienced Personalized Mystery Monitor. In assuming command of this
mighty assembly, the Adjuster, being a onetime part and essence of the Paradise
Father, assured Jesus that in no case would these superhuman agencies be
permitted to serve, or manifest themselves in connection with, or in behalf of,
his earth career unless it should develop that the Father willed such
intervention. Thus by one great decision Jesus voluntarily deprived himself of
all superhuman co-operation in all matters having to do with the remainder of
his mortal career unless the Father might independently choose to participate
in some certain act or episode of the Son's earth labors.
In accepting this command of the universe hosts in attendance upon Christ
Michael, the Personalized Adjuster took great pains to point out to Jesus that,
while such an assembly of universe creatures could be limited in their space
activities by the delegated authority of their Creator, such limitations were
not operative in connection with their function in time. And this limitation
was dependent on the fact that Adjusters are nontime beings when once they are
personalized. Accordingly was Jesus admonished that, while the Adjuster's
control of the living intelligences placed under his command would be complete
and perfect as to all matters involving space, there could be no such perfect
limitations imposed regarding time. Said the Adjuster: "I will, as you have
directed, enjoin the employment of this attendant host of universe
intelligences in any manner in connection with your earth career except in
those cases where the Paradise Father directs me to release such agencies in
order that his divine will of your choosing may be accomplished, and in those
instances where you may engage in any choice or act of your divine-human will
which shall only involve departures from the natural earth order as to time. In
all such events I am powerless, and your creatures here assembled in perfection
and unity of power are
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likewise helpless. If your united natures once entertain such desires, these
mandates of your choice will be forthwith executed. Your wish in all such
matters will constitute the abridgment of time, and the thing projected is
existent. Under my command this constitutes the fullest possible limitation
which can be imposed upon your potential sovereignty. In my self-consciousness
time is nonexistent, and therefore I cannot limit your creatures in anything
related thereto."
Thus did Jesus become apprised of the working out of his decision to go on
living as a man among men. He had by a single decision excluded all of his
attendant universe hosts of varied intelligences from participating in his
ensuing public ministry except in such matters as concerned time only. It
therefore becomes evident that any possible supernatural or supposedly
superhuman accompaniments of Jesus' ministry pertained wholly to the
elimination of time unless the Father in heaven specifically ruled otherwise.
No miracle, ministry of mercy, or any other possible event occurring in
connection with Jesus' remaining earth labors could possibly be of the nature
or character of an act transcending the natural laws established and regularly
working in the affairs of man as he lives on Urantia except in this expressly
stated matter of time. No limits, of course, could be placed upon the
manifestations of "the Father's will." The elimination of time in connection
with the expressed desire of this potential Sovereign of a universe could only
be avoided by the direct and explicit act of the will of this God-man to the
effect that time, as related to the act or event in question, should not be
shortened or eliminated. In order to prevent the appearance of apparent time
miracles, it was necessary for Jesus to remain constantly time conscious. Any
lapse of time consciousness on his part, in connection with the entertainment
of definite desire, was equivalent to the enactment of the thing conceived in
the mind of this Creator Son, and without the intervention of time.
Through the supervising control of his associated and Personalized Adjuster it
was possible for Michael perfectly to limit his personal earth activities with
reference to space, but it was not possible for the Son of Man thus to limit
his new earth status as potential Sovereign of Nebadon as regards time. And
this was the actual status of Jesus of Nazareth as he went forth to begin his
public ministry on Urantia.
6. THE SECOND DECISION
Having settled his policy concerning all personalities of all classes of his
created intelligences, so far as this could be determined in view of the
inherent potential of his new status of divinity, Jesus now turned his thoughts
toward himself. What would he, now the fully self-conscious creator of all
things and beings existent in this universe, do with these creator prerogatives
in the recurring life situations which would immediately confront him when he
returned to Galilee to resume his work among men? In fact, already, and right
where he was in these lonely hills, had this problem forcibly presented itself
in the matter of obtaining food. By the third day of his solitary meditations
the human body grew hungry. Should he go in quest of food as any ordinary man
would, or should he merely exercise his normal creative powers and produce
suitable bodily nourishment ready at hand? And this great decision of the
Master has been portrayed to you as a temptation--as a challenge by supposed
enemies that he "command that these stones become loaves of bread."
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Jesus thus settled upon another and consistent policy for the remainder of his
earth labors. As far as his personal necessities were concerned, and in general
even in his relations with other personalities, he now deliberately chose to
pursue the path of normal earthly existence; he definitely decided against a
policy which would transcend, violate, or outrage his own established natural
laws. But he could not promise himself, as he had already been warned by his
Personalized Adjuster, that these natural laws might not, in certain
conceivable circumstances, be greatly accelerated. In principle, Jesus decided
that his lifework should be organized and prosecuted in accordance with natural
law and in harmony with the existing social organization. The Master thereby
chose a program of living which was the equivalent of deciding against miracles
and wonders. Again he decided in favor of "the Father's will"; again he
surrendered everything into the hands of his Paradise Father.
Jesus' human nature dictated that the first duty was self-preservation; that is
the normal attitude of the natural man on the worlds of time and space, and it
is, therefore, a legitimate reaction of a Urantia mortal. But Jesus was not
concerned merely with this world and its creatures; he was living a life
designed to instruct and inspire the manifold creatures of a far-flung
universe.
Before his baptismal illumination he had lived in perfect submission to the
will and guidance of his heavenly Father. He emphatically decided to continue
on in just such implicit mortal dependence on the Father's will. He purposed to
follow the unnatural course--he decided not to seek self-preservation. He chose
to go on pursuing the policy of refusing to defend himself. He formulated his
conclusions in the words of Scripture familiar to his human mind: "Man shall
not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
In reaching this conclusion in regard to the appetite of the physical nature as
expressed in hunger for food, the Son of Man made his final declaration
concerning all other urges of the flesh and the natural impulses of human
nature.
His superhuman power he might possibly use for others, but for himself, never.
And he pursued this policy consistently to the very end, when it was jeeringly
said of him: "He saved others; himself he cannot save"--because he would not.
The Jews were expecting a Messiah who would do even greater wonders than Moses,
who was reputed to have brought forth water from the rock in a desert place and
to have fed their forefathers with manna in the wilderness. Jesus knew the sort
of Messiah his compatriots expected, and he had all the powers and prerogatives
to measure up to their most sanguine expectations, but he decided against such
a magnificent program of power and glory. Jesus looked upon such a course of
expected miracle working as a harking back to the olden days of ignorant magic
and the degraded practices of the savage medicine men. Possibly, for the
salvation of his creatures, he might accelerate natural law, but to transcend
his own laws, either for the benefit of himself or the overawing of his fellow
men, that he would not do. And the Master's decision was final.
Jesus sorrowed for his people; he fully understood how they had been led up to
the expectation of the coming Messiah, the time when "the earth will yield its
fruits ten thousandfold, and on one vine there will be a thousand branches, and
each branch will produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster will produce a
thousand grapes, and each grape will produce a gallon of wine." The Jews
believed the Messiah would usher in an era of miraculous plenty. The Hebrews
had long been nurtured on traditions of miracles and legends of wonders.
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He was not a Messiah coming to multiply bread and wine. He came not to minister
to temporal needs only; he came to reveal his Father in heaven to his children
on earth, while he sought to lead his earth children to join him in a sincere
effort so to live as to do the will of the Father in heaven.
In this decision Jesus of Nazareth portrayed to an onlooking universe the folly
and sin of prostituting divine talents and God-given abilities for personal
aggrandizement or for purely selfish gain and glorification. That was the sin
of Lucifer and Caligastia.
This great decision of Jesus portrays dramatically the truth that selfish
satisfaction and sensuous gratification, alone and of themselves, are not able
to confer happiness upon evolving human beings. There are higher values in
mortal existence--intellectual mastery and spiritual achievement--which far
transcend the necessary gratification of man's purely physical appetites and
urges. Man's natural endowment of talent and ability should be chiefly devoted
to the development and ennoblement of his higher powers of mind and spirit.
Jesus thus revealed to the creatures of his universe the technique of the new
and better way, the higher moral values of living and the deeper spiritual
satisfactions of evolutionary human existence on the worlds of space.
7. THE THIRD DECISION
Having made his decisions regarding such matters as food and physical
ministration to the needs of his material body, the care of the health of
himself and his associates, there remained yet other problems to solve. What
would be his attitude when confronted by personal danger? He decided to
exercise normal watchcare over his human safety and to take reasonable
precaution to prevent the untimely termination of his career in the flesh but
to refrain from all superhuman intervention when the crisis of his life in the
flesh should come. As he was formulating this decision, Jesus was seated under
the shade of a tree on an overhanging ledge of rock with a precipice right
there before him. He fully realized that he could cast himself off the ledge
and out into space, and that nothing could happen to harm him provided he would
rescind his first great decision not to invoke the interposition of his
celestial intelligences in the prosecution of his lifework on Urantia, and
provided he would abrogate his second decision concerning his attitude toward
self-preservation.
Jesus knew his fellow countrymen were expecting a Messiah who would be above
natural law. Well had he been taught that Scripture: "There shall no evil
befall you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling. For he shall give
his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you
up in their hands lest you dash your foot against a stone." Would this sort of
presumption, this defiance of his Father's laws of gravity, be justified in
order to protect himself from possible harm or, perchance, to win the
confidence of his mistaught and distracted people? But such a course, however
gratifying to the sign-seeking Jews, would be, not a revelation of his Father,
but a questionable trifling with the established laws of the universe of
universes.
Understanding all of this and knowing that the Master refused to work in
defiance of his established laws of nature in so far as his personal conduct
was concerned, you know of a certainty that he never walked on the water nor
did anything else which was an outrage to his material order of administering
the
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world; always, of course, bearing in mind that there had, as yet, been found no
way whereby he could be wholly delivered from the lack of control over the
element of time in connection with those matters put under the jurisdiction of
the Personalized Adjuster.
Throughout his entire earth life Jesus was consistently loyal to this decision.
No matter whether the Pharisees taunted him for a sign, or the watchers at
Calvary dared him to come down from the cross, he steadfastly adhered to the
decision of this hour on the hillside.
8. THE FOURTH DECISION
The next great problem with which this God-man wrestled and which he presently
decided in accordance with the will of the Father in heaven, concerned the
question as to whether or not any of his superhuman powers should be employed
for the purpose of attracting the attention and winning the adherence of his
fellow men. Should he in any manner lend his universe powers to the
gratification of the Jewish hankering for the spectacular and the marvelous? He
decided that he should not. He settled upon a policy of procedure which
eliminated all such practices as the method of bringing his mission to the
notice of men. And he consistently lived up to this great decision. Even when
he permitted the manifestation of numerous time-shortening ministrations of
mercy, he almost invariably admonished the recipients of his healing ministry
to tell no man about the benefits they had received. And always did he refuse
the taunting challenge of his enemies to "show us a sign" in proof and
demonstration of his divinity.
Jesus very wisely foresaw that the working of miracles and the execution of
wonders would call forth only outward allegiance by overawing the material
mind; such performances would not reveal God nor save men. He refused to become
a mere wonder-worker. He resolved to become occupied with but a single
task--the establishment of the kingdom of heaven.
Throughout all this momentous dialog of Jesus' communing with himself, there
was present the human element of questioning and near-doubting, for Jesus was
man as well as God. It was evident he would never be received by the Jews as
the Messiah if he did not work wonders. Besides, if he would consent to do just
one unnatural thing, the human mind would know of a certainty that it was in
subservience to a truly divine mind. Would it be consistent with "the Father's
will" for the divine mind to make this concession to the doubting nature of the
human mind? Jesus decided that it would not and cited the presence of the
Personalized Adjuster as sufficient proof of divinity in partnership with
humanity.
Jesus had traveled much; he recalled Rome, Alexandria, and Damascus. He knew
the methods of the world--how people gained their ends in politics and commerce
by compromise and diplomacy. Would he utilize this knowledge in the furtherance
of his mission on earth? No! He likewise decided against all compromise with
the wisdom of the world and the influence of riches in the establishment of the
kingdom. He again chose to depend exclusively on the Father's will.
Jesus was fully aware of the short cuts open to one of his powers. He knew many
ways in which the attention of the nation, and the whole world, could be
top of page - 1521
immediately focused upon himself. Soon the Passover would be celebrated at
Jerusalem; the city would be thronged with visitors. He could ascend the
pinnacle of the temple and before the bewildered multitude walk out on the air;
that would be the kind of a Messiah they were looking for. But he would
subsequently disappoint them since he had not come to re-establish David's
throne. And he knew the futility of the Caligastia method of trying to get
ahead of the natural, slow, and sure way of accomplishing the divine purpose.
Again the Son of Man bowed obediently to the Father's way, the Father's will.
Jesus chose to establish the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of mankind by
natural, ordinary, difficult, and trying methods, just such procedures as his
earth children must subsequently follow in their work of enlarging and
extending that heavenly kingdom. For well did the Son of Man know that it would
be "through much tribulation that many of the children of all ages would enter
into the kingdom." Jesus was now passing through the great test of civilized
man, to have power and steadfastly refuse to use it for purely selfish or
personal purposes.
In your consideration of the life and experience of the Son of Man, it should
be ever borne in mind that the Son of God was incarnate in the mind of a
first-century human being, not in the mind of a twentieth-century or
other-century mortal. By this we mean to convey the idea that the human
endowments of Jesus were of natural acquirement. He was the product of the
hereditary and environmental factors of his time, plus the influence of his
training and education. His humanity was genuine, natural, wholly derived from
the antecedents of, and fostered by, the actual intellectual status and social
and economic conditions of that day and generation. While in the experience of
this God-man there was always the possibility that the divine mind would
transcend the human intellect, nonetheless, when, and as, his human mind
functioned, it did perform as would a true mortal mind under the conditions of
the human environment of that day.
Jesus portrayed to all the worlds of his vast universe the folly of creating
artificial situations for the purpose of exhibiting arbitrary authority or of
indulging exceptional power for the purpose of enhancing moral values or
accelerating spiritual progress. Jesus decided that he would not lend his
mission on earth to a repetition of the disappointment of the reign of the
Maccabees. He refused to prostitute his divine attributes for the purpose of
acquiring unearned popularity or for gaining political prestige. He would not
countenance the transmutation of divine and creative energy into national power
or international prestige. Jesus of Nazareth refused to compromise with evil,
much less to consort with sin. The Master triumphantly put loyalty to his
Father's will above every other earthly and temporal consideration.
9. THE FIFTH DECISION
Having settled such questions of policy as pertained to his individual
relations to natural law and spiritual power, he turned his attention to the
choice of methods to be employed in the proclamation and establishment of the
kingdom of God. John had already begun this work; how might he continue the
message? How should he take over John's mission? How should he organize his
followers for effective effort and intelligent co-operation? Jesus was now
reaching the final decision which would forbid that he further regard himself
as the Jewish Messiah, at least as the Messiah was popularly conceived in that
day.
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The Jews envisaged a deliverer who would come in miraculous power to cast down
Israel's enemies and establish the Jews as world rulers, free from want and
oppression. Jesus knew that this hope would never be realized. He knew that the
kingdom of heaven had to do with the overthrow of evil in the hearts of men,
and that it was purely a matter of spiritual concern. He thought out the
advisability of inaugurating the spiritual kingdom with a brilliant and
dazzling display of power--and such a course would have been permissible and
wholly within the jurisdiction of Michael--but he fully decided against such a
plan. He would not compromise with the revolutionary techniques of Caligastia.
He had won the world in potential by submission to the Father's will, and he
proposed to finish his work as he had begun it, and as the Son of Man.
You can hardly imagine what would have happened on Urantia had this God-man,
now in potential possession of all power in heaven and on earth, once decided
to unfurl the banner of sovereignty, to marshal his wonder-working battalions
in militant array! But he would not compromise. He would not serve evil that
the worship of God might presumably be derived therefrom. He would abide by the
Father's will. He would proclaim to an onlooking universe, "You shall worship
the Lord your God and him only shall you serve."
As the days passed, with ever-increasing clearness Jesus perceived what kind of
a truth-revealer he was to become. He discerned that God's way was not going to
be the easy way. He began to realize that the cup of the remainder of his human
experience might possibly be bitter, but he decided to drink it.
Even his human mind is saying good-bye to the throne of David. Step by step
this human mind follows in the path of the divine. The human mind still asks
questions but unfailingly accepts the divine answers as final rulings in this
combined life of living as a man in the world while all the time submitting
unqualifiedly to the doing of the Father's eternal and divine will.
Rome was mistress of the Western world. The Son of Man, now in isolation and
achieving these momentous decisions, with the hosts of heaven at his command,
represented the last chance of the Jews to attain world dominion; but this
earthborn Jew, who possessed such tremendous wisdom and power, declined to use
his universe endowments either for the aggrandizement of himself or for the
enthronement of his people. He saw, as it were, "the kingdoms of this world,"
and he possessed the power to take them. The Most Highs of Edentia had resigned
all these powers into his hands, but he did not want them. The kingdoms of
earth were paltry things to interest the Creator and Ruler of a universe. He
had only one objective, the further revelation of God to man, the establishment
of the kingdom, the rule of the heavenly Father in the hearts of mankind.
The idea of battle, contention, and slaughter was repugnant to Jesus; he would
have none of it. He would appear on earth as the Prince of Peace to reveal a
God of love. Before his baptism he had again refused the offer of the Zealots
to lead them in rebellion against the Roman oppressors. And now he made his
final decision regarding those Scriptures which his mother had taught him, such
as: "The Lord has said to me, `You are my Son; this day have I begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance and the
uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a
rod of iron; you shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.'"
Jesus of Nazareth reached the conclusion that such utterances did not refer to
him. At last, and finally, the human mind of the Son of Man made a clean sweep
of all these Messianic difficulties and contradictions--Hebrew scriptures,
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parental training, chazan teaching, Jewish expectations, and human ambitious
longings; once and for all he decided upon his course. He would return to
Galilee and quietly begin the proclamation of the kingdom and trust his Father
(the Personalized Adjuster) to work out the details of procedure day by day.
By these decisions Jesus set a worthy example for every person on every world
throughout a vast universe when he refused to apply material tests to prove
spiritual problems, when he refused presumptuously to defy natural laws. And he
set an inspiring example of universe loyalty and moral nobility when he refused
to grasp temporal power as the prelude to spiritual glory.
If the Son of Man had any doubts about his mission and its nature when he went
up in the hills after his baptism, he had none when he came back to his fellows
following the forty days of isolation and decisions.
Jesus has formulated a program for the establishment of the Father's kingdom.
He will not cater to the physical gratification of the people. He will not deal
out bread to the multitudes as he has so recently seen it being done in Rome.
He will not attract attention to himself by wonder-working, even though the
Jews are expecting just that sort of a deliverer. Neither will he seek to win
acceptance of a spiritual message by a show of political authority or temporal
power.
In rejecting these methods of enhancing the coming kingdom in the eyes of the
expectant Jews, Jesus made sure that these same Jews would certainly and
finally reject all of his claims to authority and divinity. Knowing all this,
Jesus long sought to prevent his early followers alluding to him as the
Messiah.
Throughout his public ministry he was confronted with the necessity of dealing
with three constantly recurring situations: the clamor to be fed, the
insistence on miracles, and the final request that he allow his followers to
make him king. But Jesus never departed from the decisions which he made during
these days of his isolation in the Perean hills.
10. THE SIXTH DECISION
On the last day of this memorable isolation, before starting down the mountain
to join John and his disciples, the Son of Man made his final decision. And
this decision he communicated to the Personalized Adjuster in these words, "And
in all other matters, as in these now of decision-record, I pledge you I will
be subject to the will of my Father." And when he had thus spoken, he journeyed
down the mountain. And his face shone with the glory of spiritual victory and
moral achievement.
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART IV: The Life and Teachings
of Jesus : The Bestowal Of Michael On Urantia The Times Of Michael's Bestowal
Birth And Infancy Of Jesus The Early Childhood Of Jesus The Later Childhood Of
Jesus Jesus At Jerusalem The Two Crucial Years The Adolescent Years Jesus'
Early Manhood The Later Adult Life Of Jesus On The Way To Rome The World's
Religions The Sojourn At Rome The Return From Rome The Transition Years John
The Baptist Baptism And The Forty Days Tarrying Time In Galilee Training The
Kingdom's Messengers The Twelve Apostles The Ordination Of The Twelve Beginning
The Public Work The Passover At Jerusalem Going Through Samaria At Gilboa And
In The Decapolis Four Eventful Days At Capernaum First Preaching Tour Of
Galilee The Interlude Visit To Jerusalem Training Evangelists At Bethsaida The
Second Preaching Tour The Third Preaching Tour Tarrying And Teaching By The
Seaside Events Leading Up To The Capernaum Crisis The Crisis At Capernaum Last
Days At Capernaum Fleeing Through Northern Galilee The Sojourn At Tyre And
Sidon At Caesarea-philippi The Mount Of Transfiguration The Decapolis Tour
Rodan Of Alexandria Further Discussions With Rodan At The Feast Of Tabernacles
Ordination Of The Seventy At Magadan At The Feast Of Dedication The Perean
Mission Begins Last Visit To Northern Perea The Visit To Philadelphia The
Resurrection Of Lazarus Last Teaching At Pella The Kingdom Of Heaven On The Way
To Jerusalem Going Into Jerusalem Monday In Jerusalem Tuesday Morning In The
Temple The Last Temple Discourse Tuesday Evening On Mount Olivet Wednesday, The
Rest Day Last Day At The Camp The Last Supper The Farewell Discourse Final
Admonitions And Warnings In Gethsemane The Betrayal And Arrest Of Jesus Before
The Sanhedrin Court The Trial Before Pilate Just Before The Crucifixion The
Crucifixion The Time Of The Tomb The Resurrection Morontia Appearances Of Jesus
Appearances To The Apostles And Other Leaders Appearances In Galilee Final
Appearances And Ascension Bestowal Of The Spirit Of Truth After Pentecost The
Faith Of Jesus
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