The Urantia Book
PAPER 188
THE TIME OF THE TOMB
188:0.1 THE day and a half that Jesus' mortal
body lay in the tomb of Joseph, the period between his death on
the cross and his resurrection, is a chapter in the earth career
of Michael which is little known to us. We can narrate the burial
of the Son of Man and put in this record the events associated
with his resurrection, but we cannot supply much information of an
authentic nature about what really transpired during this epoch of
about thirty-six hours, from three o'clock Friday afternoon to
three o'clock Sunday morning. This period in the Master's career
began shortly before he was taken down from the cross by the Roman
soldiers. He hung upon the cross about one hour after his death.
He would have been taken down sooner but for the delay in
dispatching the two brigands.
188:0.2 The rulers of the Jews had planned to
have Jesus' body thrown in the open burial pits of Gehenna, south
of the city; it was the custom thus to dispose of the victims of
crucifixion. If this plan had been followed, the body of the
Master would have been exposed to the wild beasts.
188:0.3 In the meantime, Joseph of Arimathea,
accompanied by Nicodemus, had gone to Pilate and asked that the
body of Jesus be turned over to them for proper burial. It was not
uncommon for friends of crucified persons to offer bribes to the
Roman authorities for the privilege of gaining possession of such
bodies. Joseph went before Pilate with a large sum of money, in
case it became necessary to pay for permission to remove Jesus'
body to a private burial tomb. But Pilate would not take money for
this. When he heard the request, he quickly signed the order which
authorized Joseph to proceed to Golgotha and take immediate and
full possession of the Master's body. In the meantime, the
sandstorm having considerably abated, a group of Jews representing
the Sanhedrin had gone out to Golgotha for the purpose of making
sure that Jesus' body accompanied those of the brigands to the
open public burial pits.
1. THE BURIAL OF JESUS
188:1.1 When Joseph and Nicodemus arrived at
Golgotha, they found the soldiers taking Jesus down from the cross
and the representatives of the Sanhedrin standing by to see that
none of Jesus' followers prevented his body from going to the
criminal burial pits. When Joseph presented Pilate's order for the
Master's body to the centurion, the Jews raised a tumult and
clamored for its possession. In their raving they sought violently
to take possession of the body, and when they did this, the
centurion ordered four of his soldiers to his side, and with drawn
swords they stood astride the Master's body as it lay there on the
ground. The centurion ordered the other soldiers to leave the two
thieves while they drove back this angry mob of infuriated Jews.
When order had been restored, the centurion read the permit from
Pilate to the Jews and, stepping aside, said to Joseph: "This body
is yours to do with as you see fit. I and my soldiers will stand
by to see that no man interferes."
188:1.2 A crucified person could not be buried
in a Jewish cemetery; there was a strict law against such a
procedure. Joseph and Nicodemus knew this law, and on the way out
to Golgotha they had decided to bury Jesus in Joseph's new family
tomb, hewn out of solid rock, located a short distance north of
Golgotha and across the road leading to Samaria. No one had ever
lain in this tomb, and they thought it appropriate that the Master
should rest there. Joseph really believed that Jesus would rise
from the dead, but Nicodemus was very doubtful. These former
members of the Sanhedrin had kept their faith in Jesus more or
less of a secret, although their fellow Sanhedrists had long
suspected them, even before they withdrew from the council. From
now on they were the most outspoken disciples of Jesus in all
Jerusalem.
188:1.3 At about half past four o'clock the
burial procession of Jesus of Nazareth started from Golgotha for
Joseph's tomb across the way. The body was wrapped in a linen
sheet as the four men carried it, followed by the faithful women
watchers from Galilee. The mortals who bore the material body of
Jesus to the tomb were: Joseph, Nicodemus, John, and the Roman
centurion.
188:1.4 They carried the body into the tomb, a
chamber about ten feet square, where they hurriedly prepared it
for burial. The Jews did not really bury their dead; they actually
embalmed them. Joseph and Nicodemus had brought with them large
quantities of myrrh and aloes, and they now wrapped the body with
bandages saturated with these solutions. When the embalming was
completed, they tied a napkin about the face, wrapped the body in
a linen sheet, and reverently placed it on a shelf in the tomb.
188:1.5 After placing the body in the tomb, the
centurion signaled for his soldiers to help roll the doorstone up
before the entrance to the tomb. The soldiers then departed for
Gehenna with the bodies of the thieves while the others returned
to Jerusalem, in sorrow, to observe the Passover feast according
to the laws of Moses.
188:1.6 There was considerable hurry and haste
about the burial of Jesus because this was preparation day and the
Sabbath was drawing on apace. The men hurried back to the city,
but the women lingered near the tomb until it was very dark.
188:1.7 While all this was going on, the women
were hiding near at hand so that they saw it all and observed
where the Master had been laid. They thus secreted themselves
because it was not permissible for women to associate with men at
such a time. These women did not think Jesus had been properly
prepared for burial, and they agreed among themselves to go back
to the home of Joseph, rest over the Sabbath, make ready spices
and ointments, and return on Sunday morning properly to prepare
the Master's body for the death rest. The women who thus tarried
by the tomb on this Friday evening were: Mary Magdalene, Mary the
wife of Clopas, Martha another sister of Jesus' mother, and
Rebecca of Sepphoris.
188:1.8 Aside from David Zebedee and Joseph of
Arimathea, very few of Jesus' disciples really believed or
understood that he was due to arise from the tomb on the third
day.
2. SAFEGUARDING THE TOMB
188:2.1 If Jesus' followers were unmindful of
his promise to rise from the grave on the third day, his enemies
were not. The chief priests, Pharisees, and Sadducees recalled
that they had received reports of his saying he would rise from
the dead.
188:2.2 This Friday night, after the Passover
supper, about midnight a group of the Jewish leaders gathered at
the home of Caiaphas, where they discussed their fears concerning
the Master's assertions that he would rise from the dead on the
third day. This meeting ended with the appointment of a committee
of Sanhedrists who were to visit Pilate early the next day,
bearing the official request of the Sanhedrin that a Roman guard
be stationed before Jesus' tomb to prevent his friends from
tampering with it. Said the spokesman of this committee to Pilate:
"Sir, we remember that this deceiver, Jesus of Nazareth, said,
while he was yet alive, `After three days I will rise again.' We
have, therefore, come before you to request that you issue such
orders as will make the sepulchre secure against his followers, at
least until after the third day. We greatly fear lest his
disciples come and steal him away by night and then proclaim to
the people that he has risen from the dead. If we should permit
this to happen, this mistake would be far worse than to have
allowed him to live."
188:2.3 When Pilate heard this request of the
Sanhedrists, he said: "I will give you a guard of ten soldiers. Go
your way and make the tomb secure." They went back to the temple,
secured ten of their own guards, and then marched out to Joseph's
tomb with these ten Jewish guards and ten Roman soldiers, even on
this Sabbath morning, to set them as watchmen before the tomb.
These men rolled yet another stone before the tomb and set the
seal of Pilate on and around these stones, lest they be disturbed
without their knowledge. And these twenty men remained on watch up
to the hour of the resurrection, the Jews carrying them their food
and drink.
3. DURING THE SABBATH DAY
188:3.1 Throughout this Sabbath day the
disciples and the apostles remained in hiding, while all Jerusalem
discussed the death of Jesus on the cross. There were almost one
and one-half million Jews present in Jerusalem at this time,
hailing from all parts of the Roman Empire and from Mesopotamia.
This was the beginning of the Passover week, and all these
pilgrims would be in the city to learn of the resurrection of
Jesus and to carry the report back to their homes.
188:3.2 Late Saturday night, John Mark summoned
the eleven apostles secretly to come to the home of his father,
where, just before midnight, they all assembled in the same upper
chamber where they had partaken of the Last Supper with their
Master two nights previously.
188:3.3 Mary the mother of Jesus, with Ruth and
Jude, returned to Bethany to join their family this Saturday
evening just before sunset. David Zebedee remained at the home of
Nicodemus, where he had arranged for his messengers to assemble
early Sunday morning. The women of Galilee, who prepared spices
for the further embalming of Jesus' body, tarried at the home of
Joseph of Arimathea.
188:3.4 We are not able fully to explain just
what happened to Jesus of Nazareth during this period of a day and
a half when he was supposed to be resting in Joseph's new tomb.
Apparently he died the same natural death on the cross as would
any other mortal in the same circumstances. We heard him say,
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." We do not fully
understand the meaning of such a statement inasmuch as his Thought
Adjuster had long since been personalized and so maintained an
existence apart from Jesus' mortal being. The Master's
Personalized Adjuster could in no sense be affected by his
physical death on the cross. That which Jesus put in the Father's
hands for the time being must have been the spirit counterpart of
the Adjuster's early work in spiritizing the mortal mind so as to
provide for the transfer of the transcript of the human experience
to the mansion worlds. There must have been some spiritual reality
in the experience of Jesus which was analogous to the spirit
nature, or soul, of the faith-growing mortals of the spheres. But
this is merely our opinion -- we do not really know what Jesus
commended to his Father.
188:3.5 We know that the physical form of the
Master rested there in Joseph's tomb until about three o'clock
Sunday morning, but we are wholly uncertain regarding the status
of the personality of Jesus during that period of thirty-six
hours. We have sometimes dared to explain these things to
ourselves somewhat as follows:
188:3.6 1. The Creator consciousness of Michael
must have been at large and wholly free from its associated mortal
mind of the physical incarnation.
188:3.7 2. The former Thought Adjuster of Jesus
we know to have been present on earth during this period and in
personal command of the assembled celestial hosts.
188:3.8 3. The acquired spirit identity of the
man of Nazareth which was built up during his lifetime in the
flesh, first, by the direct efforts of his Thought Adjuster, and
later, by his own perfect adjustment between the physical
necessities and the spiritual requirements of the ideal mortal
existence, as it was effected by his never-ceasing choice of the
Father's will, must have been consigned to the custody of the
Paradise Father. Whether or not this spirit reality returned to
become a part of the resurrected personality, we do not know, but
we believe it did. But there are those in the universe who hold
that this soul-identity of Jesus now reposes in the "bosom of the
Father," to be subsequently released for leadership of the Nebadon
Corps of the Finality in their undisclosed destiny in connection
with the uncreated universes of the unorganized realms of outer
space.
188:3.9 4. We think the human or mortal
consciousness of Jesus slept during these thirty-six hours. We
have reason to believe that the human Jesus knew nothing of what
transpired in the universe during this period. To the mortal
consciousness there appeared no lapse of time; the resurrection of
life followed the sleep of death as of the same instant.
188:3.10 And this is about all we can place on
record regarding the status of Jesus during this period of the
tomb. There are a number of correlated facts to which we can
allude, although we are hardly competent to undertake their
interpretation.
188:3.11 In the vast court of the resurrection
halls of the first mansion world of Satania, there may now be
observed a magnificent material-morontia structure known as the
"Michael Memorial," now bearing the seal of Gabriel. This memorial
was created shortly after Michael departed from this world, and it
bears this inscription: "In commemoration of the mortal transit of
Jesus of Nazareth on Urantia."
188:3.12 There are records extant which show
that during this period the supreme council of Salvington,
numbering one hundred, held an executive meeting on Urantia under
the presidency of Gabriel. There are also records showing that the
Ancients of Days of Uversa communicated with Michael regarding the
status of the universe of Nebadon during this time.
188:3.13 We know that at least one message
passed between Michael and Immanuel on Salvington while the
Master's body lay in the tomb.
188:3.14 There is good reason for believing that
some personality sat in the seat of Caligastia in the system
council of the Planetary Princes on Jerusem which convened while
the body of Jesus rested in the tomb.
188:3.15 The records of Edentia indicate that
the Constellation Father of Norlatiadek was on Urantia, and that
he received instructions from Michael during this time of the
tomb.
188:3.16 And there is much other evidence which
suggests that not all of the personality of Jesus was asleep and
unconscious during this time of apparent physical death.
4. MEANING OF THE DEATH ON THE CROSS
188:4.1 Although Jesus did not die this death on
the cross to atone for the racial guilt of mortal man nor to
provide some sort of effective approach to an otherwise offended
and unforgiving God; even though the Son of Man did not offer
himself as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of God and to open the
way for sinful man to obtain salvation; notwithstanding that these
ideas of atonement and propitiation are erroneous, nonetheless,
there are significances attached to this death of Jesus on the
cross which should not be overlooked. It is a fact that Urantia
has become known among other neighboring inhabited planets as the
"World of the Cross."
188:4.2 Jesus desired to live a full mortal life
in the flesh on Urantia. Death is, ordinarily, a part of life.
Death is the last act in the mortal drama. In your well-meant
efforts to escape the superstitious errors of the false
interpretation of the meaning of the death on the cross, you
should be careful not to make the great mistake of failing to
perceive the true significance and the genuine import of the
Master's death.
188:4.3 Mortal man was never the property of the
archdeceivers. Jesus did not die to ransom man from the clutch of
the apostate rulers and fallen princes of the spheres. The Father
in heaven never conceived of such crass injustice as damning a
mortal soul because of the evildoing of his ancestors. Neither was
the Master's death on the cross a sacrifice which consisted in an
effort to pay God a debt which the race of mankind had come to owe
him.
188:4.4 Before Jesus lived on earth, you might
possibly have been justified in believing in such a God, but not
since the Master lived and died among your fellow mortals. Moses
taught the dignity and justice of a Creator God; but Jesus
portrayed the love and mercy of a heavenly Father.
188:4.5 The animal nature -- the tendency toward
evil-doing -- may be hereditary, but sin is not transmitted from
parent to child. Sin is the act of conscious and deliberate
rebellion against the Father's will and the Sons' laws by an
individual will creature.
188:4.6 Jesus lived and died for a whole
universe, not just for the races of this one world. While the
mortals of the realms had salvation even before Jesus lived and
died on Urantia, it is nevertheless a fact that his bestowal on
this world greatly illuminated the way of salvation; his death did
much to make forever plain the certainty of mortal survival after
death in the flesh.
188:4.7 Though it is hardly proper to speak of
Jesus as a sacrificer, a ransomer, or a redeemer, it is wholly
correct to refer to him as a savior. He forever made the
way of salvation (survival) more clear and certain; he did better
and more surely show the way of salvation for all the mortals of
all the worlds of the universe of Nebadon.
188:4.8 When once you grasp the idea of God as a
true and loving Father, the only concept which Jesus ever taught,
you must forthwith, in all consistency, utterly abandon all those
primitive notions about God as an offended monarch, a stern and
all-powerful ruler whose chief delight is to detect his subjects
in wrongdoing and to see that they are adequately punished, unless
some being almost equal to himself should volunteer to suffer for
them, to die as a substitute and in their stead. The whole idea of
ransom and atonement is incompatible with the concept of God as it
was taught and exemplified by Jesus of Nazareth. The infinite love
of God is not secondary to anything in the divine nature.
188:4.9 All this concept of atonement and
sacrificial salvation is rooted and grounded in selfishness. Jesus
taught that service to one's fellows is the highest concept
of the brotherhood of spirit believers. Salvation should be taken
for granted by those who believe in the fatherhood of God. The
believer's chief concern should not be the selfish desire for
personal salvation but rather the unselfish urge to love and,
therefore, serve one's fellows even as Jesus loved and served
mortal men.
188:4.10 Neither do genuine believers trouble
themselves so much about the future punishment of sin. The real
believer is only concerned about present separation from God.
True, wise fathers may chasten their sons, but they do all this in
love and for corrective purposes. They do not punish in anger,
neither do they chastise in retribution.
188:4.11 Even if God were the stern and legal
monarch of a universe in which justice ruled supreme, he certainly
would not be satisfied with the childish scheme of substituting an
innocent sufferer for a guilty offender.
188:4.12 The great thing about the death of
Jesus, as it is related to the enrichment of human experience and
the enlargement of the way of salvation, is not the fact of
his death but rather the superb manner and the matchless spirit in
which he met death.
188:4.13 This entire idea of the ransom of the
atonement places salvation upon a plane of unreality; such a
concept is purely philosophic. Human salvation is real; it
is based on two realities which may be grasped by the creature's
faith and thereby become incorporated into individual human
experience: the fact of the fatherhood of God and its correlated
truth, the brotherhood of man. It is true, after all, that you are
to be "forgiven your debts, even as you forgive your debtors."
5. LESSONS FROM THE CROSS
188:5.1 The cross of Jesus portrays the full
measure of the supreme devotion of the true shepherd for even the
unworthy members of his flock. It forever places all relations
between God and man upon the family basis. God is the Father; man
is his son. Love, the love of a father for his son, becomes the
central truth in the universe relations of Creator and creature --
not the justice of a king which seeks satisfaction in the
sufferings and punishment of the evil-doing subject.
188:5.2 The cross forever shows that the
attitude of Jesus toward sinners was neither condemnation nor
condonation, but rather eternal and loving salvation. Jesus is
truly a savior in the sense that his life and death do win men
over to goodness and righteous survival. Jesus loves men so much
that his love awakens the response of love in the human heart.
Love is truly contagious and eternally creative. Jesus' death on
the cross exemplifies a love which is sufficiently strong and
divine to forgive sin and swallow up all evil-doing. Jesus
disclosed to this world a higher quality of righteousness than
justice -- mere technical right and wrong. Divine love does not
merely forgive wrongs; it absorbs and actually destroys them. The
forgiveness of love utterly transcends the forgiveness of mercy.
Mercy sets the guilt of evil-doing to one side; but love destroys
forever the sin and all weakness resulting therefrom. Jesus
brought a new method of living to Urantia. He taught us not to
resist evil but to find through him a goodness which effectually
destroys evil. The forgiveness of Jesus is not condonation; it is
salvation from condemnation. Salvation does not slight wrongs;
it makes them right. True love does not compromise nor condone
hate; it destroys it. The love of Jesus is never satisfied with
mere forgiveness. The Master's love implies rehabilitation,
eternal survival. It is altogether proper to speak of salvation as
redemption if you mean this eternal rehabilitation.
188:5.3 Jesus, by the power of his personal love
for men, could break the hold of sin and evil. He thereby set men
free to choose better ways of living. Jesus portrayed a
deliverance from the past which in itself promised a triumph for
the future. Forgiveness thus provided salvation. The beauty of
divine love, once fully admitted to the human heart, forever
destroys the charm of sin and the power of evil.
188:5.4 The sufferings of Jesus were not
confined to the crucifixion. In reality, Jesus of Nazareth spent
upward of twenty-five years on the cross of a real and intense
mortal existence. The real value of the cross consists in the fact
that it was the supreme and final expression of his love, the
completed revelation of his mercy.
188:5.5 On millions of inhabited worlds, tens of
trillions of evolving creatures who may have been tempted to give
up the moral struggle and abandon the good fight of faith, have
taken one more look at Jesus on the cross and then have forged on
ahead, inspired by the sight of God's laying down his incarnate
life in devotion to the unselfish service of man.
188:5.6 The triumph of the death on the cross is
all summed up in the spirit of Jesus' attitude toward those who
assailed him. He made the cross an eternal symbol of the triumph
of love over hate and the victory of truth over evil when he
prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
That devotion of love was contagious throughout a vast universe;
the disciples caught it from their Master. The very first teacher
of his gospel who was called upon to lay down his life in this
service, said, as they stoned him to death, "Lay not this sin to
their charge."
188:5.7 The cross makes a supreme appeal to the
best in man because it discloses one who was willing to lay down
his life in the service of his fellow men. Greater love no man can
have than this: that he would be willing to lay down his life for
his friends -- and Jesus had such a love that he was willing to
lay down his life for his enemies, a love greater than any which
had hitherto been known on earth.
188:5.8 On other worlds, as well as on Urantia,
this sublime spectacle of the death of the human Jesus on the
cross of Golgotha has stirred the emotions of mortals, while it
has aroused the highest devotion of the angels.
188:5.9 The cross is that high symbol of sacred
service, the devotion of one's life to the welfare and salvation
of one's fellows. The cross is not the symbol of the sacrifice of
the innocent Son of God in the place of guilty sinners and in
order to appease the wrath of an offended God, but it does stand
forever, on earth and throughout a vast universe, as a sacred
symbol of the good bestowing themselves upon the evil and thereby
saving them by this very devotion of love. The cross does stand as
the token of the highest form of unselfish service, the supreme
devotion of the full bestowal of a righteous life in the service
of wholehearted ministry, even in death, the death of the cross.
And the very sight of this great symbol of the bestowal life of
Jesus truly inspires all of us to want to go and do likewise.
188:5.10 When thinking men and women look upon
Jesus as he offers up his life on the cross, they will hardly
again permit themselves to complain at even the severest hardships
of life, much less at petty harassments and their many purely
fictitious grievances. His life was so glorious and his death so
triumphant that we are all enticed to a willingness to share both.
There is true drawing power in the whole bestowal of Michael, from
the days of his youth to this overwhelming spectacle of his death
on the cross.
188:5.11 Make sure, then, that when you view the
cross as a revelation of God, you do not look with the eyes of the
primitive man nor with the viewpoint of the later barbarian, both
of whom regarded God as a relentless Sovereign of stern justice
and rigid law-enforcement. Rather, make sure that you see in the
cross the final manifestation of the love and devotion of Jesus to
his life mission of bestowal upon the mortal races of his vast
universe. See in the death of the Son of Man the climax of the
unfolding of the Father's divine love for his sons of the mortal
spheres. The cross thus portrays the devotion of willing affection
and the bestowal of voluntary salvation upon those who are willing
to receive such gifts and devotion. There was nothing in the cross
which the Father required -- only that which Jesus so willingly
gave, and which he refused to avoid.
188:5.12 If man cannot otherwise appreciate
Jesus and understand the meaning of his bestowal on earth, he can
at least comprehend the fellowship of his mortal sufferings. No
man can ever fear that the Creator does not know the nature or
extent of his temporal afflictions.
188:5.13 We know that the death on the cross was
not to effect man's reconciliation to God but to stimulate man's
realization of the Father's eternal love and his Son's
unending mercy, and to broadcast these universal truths to a whole
universe.
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