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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