The Urantia Book
PAPER 189
THE RESURRECTION
189:0.1 SOON after the burial of Jesus on Friday
afternoon, the chief of the archangels of Nebadon, then present on
Urantia, summoned his council of the resurrection of sleeping will
creatures and entered upon the consideration of a possible
technique for the restoration of Jesus. These assembled sons of
the local universe, the creatures of Michael, did this on their
own responsibility; Gabriel had not assembled them. By midnight
they had arrived at the conclusion that the creature could do
nothing to facilitate the resurrection of the Creator. They were
disposed to accept the advice of Gabriel, who instructed them
that, since Michael had "laid down his life of his own free will,
he also had power to take it up again in accordance with his own
determination." Shortly after the adjournment of this council of
the archangels, the Life Carriers, and their various associates in
the work of creature rehabilitation and morontia creation, the
Personalized Adjuster of Jesus, being in personal command of the
assembled celestial hosts then on Urantia, spoke these words to
the anxious waiting watchers:
189:0.2 "Not one of you can do aught to assist
your Creator-father in the return to life. As a mortal of the
realm he has experienced mortal death; as the Sovereign of a
universe he still lives. That which you observe is the mortal
transit of Jesus of Nazareth from life in the flesh to life in the
morontia. The spirit transit of this Jesus was completed at the
time I separated myself from his personality and became your
temporary director. Your Creator-father has elected to pass
through the whole of the experience of his mortal creatures, from
birth on the material worlds, on through natural death and the
resurrection of the morontia, into the status of true spirit
existence. A certain phase of this experience you are about to
observe, but you may not participate in it. Those things which you
ordinarily do for the creature, you may not do for the Creator. A
Creator Son has within himself the power to bestow himself in the
likeness of any of his created sons; he has within himself the
power to lay down his observable life and to take it up again; and
he has this power because of the direct command of the Paradise
Father, and I know whereof I speak."
189:0.3 When they heard the Personalized
Adjuster so speak, they all assumed the attitude of anxious
expectancy, from Gabriel down to the most humble cherubim. They
saw the mortal body of Jesus in the tomb; they detected evidences
of the universe activity of their beloved Sovereign; and not
understanding such phenomena, they waited patiently for
developments.
1. THE MORONTIA TRANSIT
189:1.1 At two forty-five Sunday morning, the
Paradise incarnation commission, consisting of seven unidentified
Paradise personalities, arrived on the scene and immediately
deployed themselves about the tomb. At ten minutes before three,
intense vibrations of commingled material and morontia activities
began to issue from Joseph's new tomb, and at two minutes past
three o'clock, this Sunday morning, April 9, A.D. 30, the
resurrected morontia form and personality of Jesus of Nazareth
came forth from the tomb.
189:1.2 After the resurrected Jesus emerged from
his burial tomb, the body of flesh in which he had lived and
wrought on earth for almost thirty-six years was still lying there
in the sepulchre niche, undisturbed and wrapped in the linen
sheet, just as it had been laid to rest by Joseph and his
associates on Friday afternoon. Neither was the stone before the
entrance of the tomb in any way disturbed; the seal of Pilate was
still unbroken; the soldiers were still on guard. The temple
guards had been on continuous duty; the Roman guard had been
changed at midnight. None of these watchers suspected that the
object of their vigil had risen to a new and higher form of
existence, and that the body which they were guarding was now a
discarded outer covering which had no further connection with the
delivered and resurrected morontia personality of Jesus.
189:1.3 Mankind is slow to perceive that, in all
that is personal, matter is the skeleton of morontia, and that
both are the reflected shadow of enduring spirit reality. How long
before you will regard time as the moving image of eternity and
space as the fleeting shadow of Paradise realities?
189:1.4 As far as we can judge, no creature of
this universe nor any personality from another universe had
anything to do with this morontia resurrection of Jesus of
Nazareth. On Friday he laid down his life as a mortal of the
realm; on Sunday morning he took it up again as a morontia being
of the system of Satania in Norlatiadek. There is much about the
resurrection of Jesus which we do not understand. But we know that
it occurred as we have stated and at about the time indicated. We
can also record that all known phenomena associated with this
mortal transit, or morontia resurrection, occurred right there in
Joseph's new tomb, where the mortal material remains of Jesus lay
wrapped in burial cloths.
189:1.5 We know that no creature of the local
universe participated in this morontia awakening. We perceived the
seven personalities of Paradise surround the tomb, but we did not
see them do anything in connection with the Master's awakening.
Just as soon as Jesus appeared beside Gabriel, just above the
tomb, the seven personalities from Paradise signalized their
intention of immediate departure for Uversa.
189:1.6 Let us forever clarify the concept of
the resurrection of Jesus by making the following statements:
189:1.7 1. His material or physical body was not
a part of the resurrected personality. When Jesus came forth from
the tomb, his body of flesh remained undisturbed in the sepulchre.
He emerged from the burial tomb without moving the stones before
the entrance and without disturbing the seals of Pilate.
189:1.8 2. He did not emerge from the tomb as a
spirit nor as Michael of Nebadon; he did not appear in the form of
the Creator Sovereign, such as he had had before his incarnation
in the likeness of mortal flesh on Urantia.
189:1.9 3. He did come forth from this tomb of
Joseph in the very likeness of the morontia personalities of those
who, as resurrected morontia ascendant beings, emerge from the
resurrection halls of the first mansion world of this local system
of Satania. And the presence of the Michael memorial in the center
of the vast court of the resurrection halls of mansonia number one
leads us to conjecture that the Master's resurrection on Urantia
was in some way fostered on this, the first of the system mansion
worlds.
189:1.10 The first act of Jesus on arising from
the tomb was to greet Gabriel and instruct him to continue in
executive charge of universe affairs under Immanuel, and then he
directed the chief of the Melchizedeks to convey his brotherly
greetings to Immanuel. He thereupon asked the Most High of Edentia
for the certification of the Ancients of Days as to his mortal
transit; and turning to the assembled morontia groups of the seven
mansion worlds, here gathered together to greet and welcome their
Creator as a creature of their order, Jesus spoke the first words
of the postmortal career. Said the morontia Jesus: "Having
finished my life in the flesh, I would tarry here for a short time
in transition form that I may more fully know the life of my
ascendant creatures and further reveal the will of my Father in
Paradise."
189:1.11 After Jesus had spoken, he signaled to
the Personalized Adjuster, and all universe intelligences who had
been assembled on Urantia to witness the resurrection were
immediately dispatched to their respective universe assignments.
189:1.12 Jesus now began the contacts of the
morontia level, being introduced, as a creature, to the
requirements of the life he had chosen to live for a short time on
Urantia. This initiation into the morontia world required more
than an hour of earth time and was twice interrupted by his desire
to communicate with his former associates in the flesh as they
came out from Jerusalem wonderingly to peer into the empty tomb to
discover what they considered evidence of his resurrection.
189:1.13 Now is the mortal transit of Jesus --
the morontia resurrection of the Son of Man -- completed. The
transitory experience of the Master as a personality midway
between the material and the spiritual has begun. And he has done
all this through power inherent within himself; no personality has
rendered him any assistance. He now lives as Jesus of morontia,
and as he begins this morontia life, the material body of his
flesh lies there undisturbed in the tomb. The soldiers are still
on guard, and the seal of the governor about the rocks has not yet
been broken.
2. THE MATERIAL BODY OF JESUS
189:2.1 At ten minutes past three o'clock, as
the resurrected Jesus fraternized with the assembled morontia
personalities from the seven mansion worlds of Satania, the chief
of archangels -- the angels of the resurrection -- approached
Gabriel and asked for the mortal body of Jesus. Said the chief of
the archangels: "We may not participate in the morontia
resurrection of the bestowal experience of Michael our sovereign,
but we would have his mortal remains put in our custody for
immediate dissolution. We do not propose to employ our technique
of dematerialization; we merely wish to invoke the process of
accelerated time. It is enough that we have seen the Sovereign
live and die on Urantia; the hosts of heaven would be spared the
memory of enduring the sight of the slow decay of the human form
of the Creator and Upholder of a universe. In the name of the
celestial intelligences of all Nebadon, I ask for a mandate giving
me the custody of the mortal body of Jesus of Nazareth and
empowering us to proceed with its immediate dissolution."
189:2.2 And when Gabriel had conferred with the
senior Most High of Edentia, the archangel spokesman for the
celestial hosts was given permission to make such disposition of
the physical remains of Jesus as he might determine.
189:2.3 After the chief of archangels had been
granted this request, he summoned to his assistance many of his
fellows, together with a numerous host of the representatives of
all orders of celestial personalities, and then, with the aid of
the Urantia midwayers, proceeded to take possession of Jesus'
physical body. This body of death was a purely material creation;
it was physical and literal; it could not be removed from the tomb
as the morontia form of the resurrection had been able to escape
the sealed sepulchre. By the aid of certain morontia auxiliary
personalities, the morontia form can be made at one time as of the
spirit so that it can become indifferent to ordinary matter, while
at another time it can become discernible and contactable to
material beings, such as the mortals of the realm.
189:2.4 As they made ready to remove the body of
Jesus from the tomb preparatory to according it the dignified and
reverent disposal of near-instantaneous dissolution, it was
assigned the secondary Urantia midwayers to roll away the stones
from the entrance of the tomb. The larger of these two stones was
a huge circular affair, much like a millstone, and it moved in a
groove chiseled out of the rock, so that it could be rolled back
and forth to open or close the tomb. When the watching Jewish
guards and the Roman soldiers, in the dim light of the morning,
saw this huge stone begin to roll away from the entrance of the
tomb, apparently of its own accord -- without any visible means to
account for such motion -- they were seized with fear and panic,
and they fled in haste from the scene. The Jews fled to their
homes, afterward going back to report these doings to their
captain at the temple. The Romans fled to the fortress of Antonia
and reported what they had seen to the centurion as soon as he
arrived on duty.
189:2.5 The Jewish leaders began the sordid
business of supposedly getting rid of Jesus by offering bribes to
the traitorous Judas, and now, when confronted with this
embarrassing situation, instead of thinking of punishing the
guards who deserted their post, they resorted to bribing these
guards and the Roman soldiers. They paid each of these twenty men
a sum of money and instructed them to say to all: "While we slept
during the nighttime, his disciples came upon us and took away the
body." And the Jewish leaders made solemn promises to the soldiers
to defend them before Pilate in case it should ever come to the
governor's knowledge that they had accepted a bribe.
189:2.6 The Christian belief in the resurrection
of Jesus has been based on the fact of the "empty tomb." It was
indeed a fact that the tomb was empty, but this is not the
truth of the resurrection. The tomb was truly empty when
the first believers arrived, and this fact, associated with that
of the undoubted resurrection of the Master, led to the
formulation of a belief which was not true: the teaching that the
material and mortal body of Jesus was raised from the grave. Truth
having to do with spiritual realities and eternal values cannot
always be built up by a combination of apparent facts. Although
individual facts may be materially true, it does not follow that
the association of a group of facts must necessarily lead to
truthful spiritual conclusions.
189:2.7 The tomb of Joseph was empty, not
because the body of Jesus had been rehabilitated or resurrected,
but because the celestial hosts had been granted their request to
afford it a special and unique dissolution, a return of the "dust
to dust," without the intervention of the delays of time and
without the operation of the ordinary and visible processes of
mortal decay and material corruption.
189:2.8 The mortal remains of Jesus underwent
the same natural process of elemental disintegration as
characterizes all human bodies on earth except that, in point of
time, this natural mode of dissolution was greatly accelerated,
hastened to that point where it became well-nigh instantaneous.
189:2.9 The true evidences of the resurrection
of Michael are spiritual in nature, albeit this teaching is
corroborated by the testimony of many mortals of the realm who
met, recognized, and communed with the resurrected morontia
Master. He became a part of the personal experience of almost one
thousand human beings before he finally took leave of Urantia.
3. THE DISPENSATIONAL RESURRECTION
189:3.1 A little after half past four o'clock
this Sunday morning, Gabriel summoned the archangels to his side
and made ready to inaugurate the general resurrection of the
termination of the Adamic dispensation on Urantia. When the vast
host of the seraphim and the cherubim concerned in this great
event had been marshaled in proper formation, the morontia Michael
appeared before Gabriel, saying: "As my Father has life in
himself, so has he given it to the Son to have life in himself.
Although I have not yet fully resumed the exercise of universe
jurisdiction, this self-imposed limitation does not in any manner
restrict the bestowal of life upon my sleeping sons; let the roll
call of the planetary resurrection begin."
189:3.2 The circuit of the archangels then
operated for the first time from Urantia. Gabriel and the
archangel hosts moved to the place of the spiritual polarity of
the planet; and when Gabriel gave the signal, there flashed to the
first of the system mansion worlds the voice of Gabriel, saying:
"By the mandate of Michael, let the dead of a Urantia dispensation
rise!" Then all the survivors of the human races of Urantia who
had fallen asleep since the days of Adam, and who had not already
gone on to judgment, appeared in the resurrection halls of
mansonia in readiness for morontia investiture. And in an instant
of time the seraphim and their associates made ready to depart for
the mansion worlds. Ordinarily these seraphic guardians, onetime
assigned to the group custody of these surviving mortals, would
have been present at the moment of their awaking in the
resurrection halls of mansonia, but they were on this world itself
at this time because of the necessity of Gabriel's presence here
in connection with the morontia resurrection of Jesus.
189:3.3 Notwithstanding that countless
individuals having personal seraphic guardians and those achieving
the requisite attainment of spiritual personality progress had
gone on to mansonia during the ages subsequent to the times of
Adam and Eve, and though there had been many special and
millennial resurrections of Urantia sons, this was the third of
the planetary roll calls, or complete dispensational
resurrections. The first occurred at the time of the arrival of
the Planetary Prince, the second during the time of Adam, and
this, the third, signalized the morontia resurrection, the mortal
transit, of Jesus of Nazareth.
189:3.4 When the signal of the planetary
resurrection had been received by the chief of archangels, the
Personalized Adjuster of the Son of Man relinquished his authority
over the celestial hosts assembled on Urantia, turning all these
sons of the local universe back to the jurisdiction of their
respective commanders. And when he had done this, he departed for
Salvington to register with Immanuel the completion of the mortal
transit of Michael. And he was immediately followed by all the
celestial host not required for duty on Urantia. But Gabriel
remained on Urantia with the morontia Jesus.
189:3.5 And this is the recital of the events of
the resurrection of Jesus as viewed by those who saw them as they
really occurred, free from the limitations of partial and
restricted human vision.
4. DISCOVERY OF THE EMPTY TOMB
189:4.1 As we approach the time of the
resurrection of Jesus on this early Sunday morning, it should be
recalled that the ten apostles were sojourning at the home of
Elijah and Mary Mark, where they were asleep in the upper chamber,
resting on the very couches whereon they reclined during the last
supper with their Master. This Sunday morning they were all there
assembled except Thomas. Thomas was with them for a few minutes
late Saturday night when they first got together, but the sight of
the apostles, coupled with the thought of what had happened to
Jesus, was too much for him. He looked his associates over and
immediately left the room, going to the home of Simon in Bethpage,
where he thought to grieve over his troubles in solitude. The
apostles all suffered, not so much from doubt and despair as from
fear, grief, and shame.
189:4.2 At the home of Nicodemus there were
gathered together, with David Zebedee and Joseph of Arimathea,
some twelve or fifteen of the more prominent of the Jerusalem
disciples of Jesus. At the home of Joseph of Arimathea there were
some fifteen or twenty of the leading women believers. Only these
women abode in Joseph's house, and they had kept close within
during the hours of the Sabbath day and the evening after the
Sabbath, so that they were ignorant of the military guard on watch
at the tomb; neither did they know that a second stone had been
rolled in front of the tomb, and that both of these stones had
been placed under the seal of Pilate.
189:4.3 A little before three o'clock this
Sunday morning, when the first signs of day began to appear in the
east, five of the women started out for the tomb of Jesus. They
had prepared an abundance of special embalming lotions, and they
carried many linen bandages with them. It was their purpose more
thoroughly to give the body of Jesus its death anointing and more
carefully to wrap it up with the new bandages.
189:4.4 The women who went on this mission of
anointing Jesus' body were: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the
Alpheus twins, Salome the mother of the Zebedee brothers, Joanna
the wife of Chuza, and Susanna the daughter of Ezra of Alexandria.
189:4.5 It was about half past three o'clock
when the five women, laden with their ointments, arrived before
the empty tomb. As they passed out of the Damascus gate, they
encountered a number of soldiers fleeing into the city more or
less panic-stricken, and this caused them to pause for a few
minutes; but when nothing more developed, they resumed their
journey.
189:4.6 They were greatly surprised to see the
stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, inasmuch as they
had said among themselves on the way out, "Who will help us roll
away the stone?" They set down their burdens and began to look
upon one another in fear and with great amazement. While they
stood there, atremble with fear, Mary Magdalene ventured around
the smaller stone and dared to enter the open sepulchre. This tomb
of Joseph was in his garden on the hillside on the eastern side of
the road, and it also faced toward the east. By this hour there
was just enough of the dawn of a new day to enable Mary to look
back to the place where the Master's body had lain and to discern
that it was gone. In the recess of stone where they had laid
Jesus, Mary saw only the folded napkin where his head had rested
and the bandages wherewith he had been wrapped lying intact and as
they had rested on the stone before the celestial hosts removed
the body. The covering sheet lay at the foot of the burial niche.
189:4.7 After Mary had tarried in the doorway of
the tomb for a few moments (she did not see distinctly when she
first entered the tomb), she saw that Jesus' body was gone and in
its place only these grave cloths, and she uttered a cry of alarm
and anguish. All the women were exceedingly nervous; they had been
on edge ever since meeting the panicky soldiers at the city gate,
and when Mary uttered this scream of anguish, they were
terror-stricken and fled in great haste. And they did not stop
until they had run all the way to the Damascus gate. By this time
Joanna was conscience-stricken that they had deserted Mary; she
rallied her companions, and they started back for the tomb.
189:4.8 As they drew near the sepulchre, the
frightened Magdalene, who was even more terrorized when she failed
to find her sisters waiting when she came out of the tomb, now
rushed up to them, excitedly exclaiming: "He is not there -- they
have taken him away!" And she led them back to the tomb, and they
all entered and saw that it was empty.
189:4.9 All five of the women then sat down on
the stone near the entrance and talked over the situation. It had
not yet occurred to them that Jesus had been resurrected. They had
been by themselves over the Sabbath, and they conjectured that the
body had been moved to another resting place. But when they
pondered such a solution of their dilemma, they were at a loss to
account for the orderly arrangement of the grave cloths; how could
the body have been removed since the very bandages in which it was
wrapped were left in position and apparently intact on the burial
shelf?
189:4.10 As these women sat there in the early
hours of the dawn of this new day, they looked to one side and
observed a silent and motionless stranger. For a moment they were
again frightened, but Mary Magdalene, rushing toward him and
addressing him as if she thought he might be the caretaker of the
garden, said, "Where have you taken the Master? Where have they
laid him? Tell us that we may go and get him." When the stranger
did not answer Mary, she began to weep. Then spoke Jesus to them,
saying, "Whom do you seek?" Mary said: "We seek for Jesus who was
laid to rest in Joseph's tomb, but he is gone. Do you know where
they have taken him?" Then said Jesus: "Did not this Jesus tell
you, even in Galilee, that he would die, but that he would rise
again?" These words startled the women, but the Master was so
changed that they did not yet recognize him with his back turned
to the dim light. And as they pondered his words, he addressed the
Magdalene with a familiar voice, saying, "Mary." And when she
heard that word of well-known sympathy and affectionate greeting,
she knew it was the voice of the Master, and she rushed to kneel
at his feet while she exclaimed, "My Lord, and my Master!" And all
of the other women recognized that it was the Master who stood
before them in glorified form, and they quickly knelt before him.
189:4.11 These human eyes were enabled to see
the morontia form of Jesus because of the special ministry of the
transformers and the midwayers in association with certain of the
morontia personalities then accompanying Jesus.
189:4.12 As Mary sought to embrace his feet,
Jesus said: "Touch me not, Mary, for I am not as you knew me in
the flesh. In this form will I tarry with you for a season before
I ascend to the Father. But go, all of you, now and tell my
apostles -- and Peter -- that I have risen, and that you have
talked with me."
189:4.13 After these women had recovered from
the shock of their amazement, they hastened back to the city and
to the home of Elijah Mark, where they related to the ten apostles
all that had happened to them; but the apostles were not inclined
to believe them. They thought at first that the women had seen a
vision, but when Mary Magdalene repeated the words which Jesus had
spoken to them, and when Peter heard his name, he rushed out of
the upper chamber, followed closely by John, in great haste to
reach the tomb and see these things for himself.
189:4.14 The women repeated the story of talking
with Jesus to the other apostles, but they would not believe; and
they would not go to find out for themselves as had Peter and
John.
5. PETER AND JOHN AT THE TOMB
189:5.1 As the two apostles raced for Golgotha
and the tomb of Joseph, Peter's thoughts alternated between fear
and hope; he feared to meet the Master, but his hope was aroused
by the story that Jesus had sent special word to him. He was half
persuaded that Jesus was really alive; he recalled the promise to
rise on the third day. Strange to relate, this promise had not
occurred to him since the crucifixion until this moment as he
hurried north through Jerusalem. As John hastened out of the city,
a strange ecstasy of joy and hope welled up in his soul. He was
half convinced that the women really had seen the risen Master.
189:5.2 John, being younger than Peter, outran
him and arrived first at the tomb. John tarried at the door,
viewing the tomb, and it was just as Mary had described it. Very
soon Simon Peter rushed up and, entering, saw the same empty tomb
with the grave cloths so peculiarly arranged. And when Peter had
come out, John also went in and saw it all for himself, and then
they sat down on the stone to ponder the meaning of what they had
seen and heard. And while they sat there, they turned over in
their minds all that had been told them about Jesus, but they
could not clearly perceive what had happened.
189:5.3 Peter at first suggested that the grave
had been rifled, that enemies had stolen the body, perhaps bribed
the guards. But John reasoned that the grave would hardly have
been left so orderly if the body had been stolen, and he also
raised the question as to how the bandages happened to be left
behind, and so apparently intact. And again they both went back
into the tomb more closely to examine the grave cloths. As they
came out of the tomb the second time, they found Mary Magdalene
returned and weeping before the entrance. Mary had gone to the
apostles believing that Jesus had risen from the grave, but when
they all refused to believe her report, she became downcast and
despairing. She longed to go back near the tomb, where she thought
she had heard the familiar voice of Jesus.
189:5.4 As Mary lingered after Peter and John
had gone, the Master again appeared to her, saying: "Be not
doubting; have the courage to believe what you have seen and
heard. Go back to my apostles and again tell them that I have
risen, that I will appear to them, and that presently I will go
before them into Galilee as I promised."
189:5.5 Mary hurried back to the Mark home and
told the apostles she had again talked with Jesus, but they would
not believe her. But when Peter and John returned, they ceased to
ridicule and became filled with fear and apprehension.
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