The Urantia Book
PAPER 136
BAPTISM AND THE FORTY DAYS
136:0.1 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.
136:0.2 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
136:1.1 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."
136:1.2 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.
136:1.3 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 contradictions, 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.
136:1.4 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.
136:1.5 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.
136:1.6 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
136:2.1 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 Jewish
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.
136:2.2 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.
136:2.3 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.
136:2.4 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 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.
136:2.5 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.
136:2.6 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.
136:2.7 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.
136:2.8 (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
136:3.1 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.
136:3.2 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.
136:3.3 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 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.
136:3.4 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.
136:3.5 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."
136:3.6 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.
136:3.7 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
136:4.1 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
Urantia but for all worlds of Nebadon.
136:4.2 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.
136:4.3 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.
136:4.4 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."
136:4.5 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.
136:4.6 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 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.
136:4.7 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.
136:4.8 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.
136:4.9 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:
136:4.10 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.
136:4.11 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.
136:4.12 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.
5. THE FIRST GREAT DECISION
136:5.1 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.
136:5.2 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.
136:5.3 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.
136:5.4 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 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."
136:5.5 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.
136:5.6 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
136:6.1 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."
136:6.2 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.
136:6.3 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.
136:6.4 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.
136:6.5 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.
136:6.6 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.
136:6.7 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.
136:6.8 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.
136:6.9 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.
136:6.10 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.
136:6.11 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
136:7.1 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.
136:7.2 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.
136:7.3 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 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.
136:7.4 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
136:8.1 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.
136:8.2 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.
136:8.3 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.
136:8.4 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? 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.
136:8.5 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 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.
136:8.6 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.
136:8.7 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.
136:8.8 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
136:9.1 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.
136:9.2 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.
136:9.3 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."
136:9.4 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.
136:9.5 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.
136:9.6 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.
136:9.7 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.'"
136:9.8 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,
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.
136:9.9 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.
136:9.10 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.
136:9.11 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.
136:9.12 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.
136:9.13 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
136:10.1 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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