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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