The Late Great Urantia Revelation

[Caino]

We can go back to Abrahams original faith in Melchizedeks teachings:


"This covenant of Melchizedek with Abraham represents the great Urantian agreement between divinity and humanity whereby God agrees to do everything; man only agrees to believe God's promises and follow his instructions. Heretofore it had been believed that salvation could be secured only by works—sacrifices and offerings; now, Melchizedek again brought to Urantia the good news that salvation, favor with God, is to be had by faith. But this gospel of simple faith in God was too advanced; the Semitic tribesmen subsequently preferred to go back to the older sacrifices and atonement for sin by the shedding of blood."

The ceremonies of the Salem worship were very simple. Every person who signed or marked the clay-tablet rolls of the Melchizedek church committed to memory, and subscribed to, the following belief:


1. I believe in El Elyon, the Most High God, the only Universal Father and Creator of all things.
2. I accept the Melchizedek covenant with the Most High, which bestows the favor of God on my faith, not on sacrifices and burnt offerings.
3. I promise to obey the seven commandments of Melchizedek and to tell the good news of this covenant with the Most High to all men.

93:4.5 And that was the whole of the creed of the Salem colony. But even such a short and simple declaration of faith was altogether too much and too advanced for the men of those days. They simply could not grasp the idea of getting divine favor for nothing—by faith. They were too deeply confirmed in the belief that man was born under forfeit to the gods. Too long and too earnestly had they sacrificed and made gifts to the priests to be able to comprehend the good news that salvation, divine favor, was a free gift to all who would believe in the Melchizedek covenant. But Abraham did believe halfheartedly, and even that was "counted for righteousness."

93:4.6 The seven commandments promulgated by Melchizedek were patterned along the lines of the ancient Dalamatian supreme law and very much resembled the seven commands taught in the first and second Edens. These commands of the Salem religion were:


1. You shall not serve any God but the Most High Creator of heaven and earth.
2. You shall not doubt that faith is the only requirement for eternal salvation.
3. You shall not bear false witness.
4. You shall not kill.
5. You shall not steal.
6. You shall not commit adultery.
7. You shall not show disrespect for your parents and elders.

 

[Caino]

were those before Jesus saved by their faith?

Yes, salvation has always been a matter of faith.

 

[chrysostom]

Yes, salvation has always been a matter of faith.

so why did Jesus come?

 

[Caino]

so why did Jesus come?

The main reason is that it is the will of the Father that Creator Sons incarnate as one of their own co-created beings for the purpose of achieving the experience and understanding of what we go through, death being the final experience for man. In the UB he did it 7 times as various orders of his creation, different kinds of celestials within his domain. The 7th and final was as a babe of the realm.

While he was at it he also came:

1) To make the way of salvation more clear for our world and 10,000,000 others that were allowed to follow his life on our world while he was here. He reveled the Father in greater detail for ALL of his creation.

2) To terminate the Lucifer rebellion.


* The first spiritual teacher came to our evolutionary world 500,000 years ago. He was "The Prince of our world". After roughly 300,000 years he and 50 of his volunteer staff were swept up in the Lucifer rebellion. He never repented. He is the crafty beast.

* 38,000 years ago Adam and Eve arrived. After a short time the fallen prince managed to trick them into default but they did repent.

* 2000 B.C Macaventia Melchizedek incarnate on an emergency basis. He was here for 90 years. He knew of the impending arrival of the Son of God. The whole reason for the agreement with Abram was for the preparation of a monotheistic nation to host the Son of God incarnate.

* 7 B.C. is actually the years Michael incarnate as Jesus.

* 1911-34, printed by permission in 1955 the Urantia revelation came. Its for the future.

 

[chrysostom]

The main reason is that it is the will of the Father that Creator Sons incarnate as one of their own co-created beings for the purpose of achieving the experience and understanding of what we go through, death being the final experience for man. In the UB he did it 7 times as various orders of his creation, different kinds of celestials within his domain. The 7th and final was as a babe of the realm.

While he was at it he also came:

1) To make the way of salvation more clear for our world and 10,000,000 others that were allowed to follow his life on our world while he was here. He reveled the Father in greater detail for ALL of his creation.

2) To terminate the Lucifer rebellion.

why did He suffer and die on the cross?

 

[Caino]

why did He suffer and die on the cross?

He spent his whole life on the cross of human experience.

He told you and he told those who killed him why he laid down his life and why he took it up again:

On account of this, the Jews demanded, “What sign can You show us to prove Your authority to do these things.” 19Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.”

Although Jesus did not die this death on the cross to atone for the racial guilt of mortal man nor to provide some sort of effective approach to an otherwise offended and unforgiving God; even though the Son of Man did not offer himself as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of God and to open the way for sinful man to obtain salvation; notwithstanding that these ideas of atonement and propitiation are erroneous, nonetheless, there are significances attached to this death of Jesus on the cross which should not be overlooked. It is a fact that Urantia has become known among other neighboring inhabited planets as the “World of the Cross.”

188:4.2 Jesus desired to live a full mortal life in the flesh on Urantia. Death is, ordinarily, a part of life. Death is the last act in the mortal drama. In your well-meant efforts to escape the superstitious errors of the false interpretation of the meaning of the death on the cross, you should be careful not to make the great mistake of failing to perceive the true significance and the genuine import of the Master's death.

188:4.3 Mortal man was never the property of the archdeceivers. Jesus did not die to ransom man from the clutch of the apostate rulers and fallen princes of the spheres. The Father in heaven never conceived of such crass injustice as damning a mortal soul because of the evil-doing of his ancestors. Neither was the Master's death on the cross a sacrifice which consisted in an effort to pay God a debt which the race of mankind had come to owe him. *

188:4.4 Before Jesus lived on earth, you might possibly have been justified in believing in such a God, but not since the Master lived and died among your fellow mortals. Moses taught the dignity and justice of a Creator God; but Jesus portrayed the love and mercy of a heavenly Father.

188:4.5 The animal nature—the tendency toward evil-doing—may be hereditary, but sin is not transmitted from parent to child. Sin is the act of conscious and deliberate rebellion against the Father's will and the Sons' laws by an individual will creature. *

188:4.6 Jesus lived and died for a whole universe, not just for the races of this one world. While the mortals of the realms had salvation even before Jesus lived and died on Urantia, it is nevertheless a fact that his bestowal on this world greatly illuminated the way of salvation; his death did much to make forever plain the certainty of mortal survival after death in the flesh.

188:4.7 Though it is hardly proper to speak of Jesus as a sacrificer, a ransomer, or a redeemer, it is wholly correct to refer to him as a savior. He forever made the way of salvation (survival) more clear and certain; he did better and more surely show the way of salvation for all the mortals of all the worlds of the universe of Nebadon.

188:4.8 When once you grasp the idea of God as a true and loving Father, the only concept which Jesus ever taught, you must forthwith, in all consistency, utterly abandon all those primitive notions about God as an offended monarch, a stern and all-powerful ruler whose chief delight is to detect his subjects in wrongdoing and to see that they are adequately punished, unless some being almost equal to himself should volunteer to suffer for them, to die as a substitute and in their stead. The whole idea of ransom and atonement is incompatible with the concept of God as it was taught and exemplified by Jesus of Nazareth. The infinite love of God is not secondary to anything in the divine nature.

188:4.9 All this concept of atonement and sacrificial salvation is rooted and grounded in selfishness. Jesus taught that service to one's fellows is the highest concept of the brotherhood of spirit believers. Salvation should be taken for granted by those who believe in the fatherhood of God. The believer's chief concern should not be the selfish desire for personal salvation but rather the unselfish urge to love and, therefore, serve one's fellows even as Jesus loved and served mortal men.

188:4.10 Neither do genuine believers trouble themselves so much about the future punishment of sin. The real believer is only concerned about present separation from God. True, wise fathers may chasten their sons, but they do all this in love and for corrective purposes. They do not punish in anger, neither do they chastise in retribution.

188:4.11 Even if God were the stern and legal monarch of a universe in which justice ruled supreme, he certainly would not be satisfied with the childish scheme of substituting an innocent sufferer for a guilty offender.

188:4.12 The great thing about the death of Jesus, as it is related to the enrichment of human experience and the enlargement of the way of salvation, is not the fact of his death but rather the superb manner and the matchless spirit in which he met death.

188:4.13 This entire idea of the ransom of the atonement places salvation upon a plane of unreality; such a concept is purely philosophic. Human salvation is real; it is based on two realities which may be grasped by the creature's faith and thereby become incorporated into individual human experience: the fact of the fatherhood of God and its correlated truth, the brotherhood of man. It is true, after all, that you are to be “forgiven your debts, even as you forgive your debtors.”

 

[Evil.Eye.<(I)>]

What? That's not what most churches teach.

 

[Town Heretic]

How about doing some real research traditional robot!!

Because nothing says, "I'm serious about research" quite like posting a youtube video. lain: Obviously a Yale man.

It's like complaining about someone else's "gramar" (yes).

 

[Caino]

In the West, in Christianity, we have to realize that we are born into a ready made religion that came through other human opinions about Jesus. Paul, a sincere and great man, never personally knew Jesus. He didn't spend time learning about the original gospel, rather he drew his own conclusions based in part on Peters post-cross speculations and a mysterious 3 years he spent in Arabia.

* Jesus taught and preached the "good news", the "Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven", sonship with God, salvation by faith and the inherent responsibility that comes with a life dedicated to doing Gods will.


* Paul taught another presumptive "good news" the "Gospel of Christ and him crucified" as a human sacrifice covering the sins of the world.

 

[Caino]

BEGINNINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH



194:4.1 When Jesus was so suddenly seized by his enemies and so quickly crucified between two thieves, his apostles and disciples were completely demoralized. The thought of the Master, arrested, bound, scourged, and crucified, was too much for even the apostles. They forgot his teachings and his warnings. He might, indeed, have been “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,” but he could hardly be the Messiah they had hoped would restore the kingdom of Israel.

194:4.2 Then comes the resurrection, with its deliverance from despair and the return of their faith in the Master's divinity. Again and again they see him and talk with him, and he takes them out on Olivet, where he bids them farewell and tells them he is going back to the Father. He has told them to tarry in Jerusalem until they are endowed with power—until the Spirit of Truth shall come. And on the day of Pentecost this new teacher comes, and they go out at once to preach their gospel with new power. They are the bold and courageous followers of a living Lord, not a dead and defeated leader. The Master lives in the hearts of these evangelists; God is not a doctrine in their minds; he has become a living presence in their souls.

194:4.3 “Day by day they continued steadfastly and with one accord in the temple and breaking bread at home. They took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. They were all filled with the spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. And the multitudes of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, and they had all things in common.”

194:4.4 What has happened to these men whom Jesus had ordained to go forth preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man? They have a new gospel; they are on fire with a new experience; they are filled with a new spiritual energy. Their message has suddenly shifted to the proclamation of the risen Christ: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man God approved by mighty works and wonders; him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you did crucify and slay. The things which God foreshadowed by the mouth of all the prophets, he thus fulfilled. This Jesus did God raise up. God has made him both Lord and Christ. Being by the right hand of God, exalted, and having received from the Father the promise of the spirit, he has poured forth this which you see and hear. Repent, that your sins may be blotted out; that the Father may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you, even Jesus, whom the heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things.”


194:4.5 The gospel of the kingdom, the message of Jesus, had been suddenly changed into the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They now proclaimed the facts of his life, death, and resurrection and preached the hope of his speedy return to this world to finish the work he began. Thus the message of the early believers had to do with preaching about the facts of his first coming and with teaching the hope of his second coming, an event which they deemed to be very near at hand.

194:4.6 Christ was about to become the creed of the rapidly forming church. Jesus lives; he died for men; he gave the spirit; he is coming again. Jesus filled all their thoughts and determined all their new concept of God and everything else. They were too much enthused over the new doctrine that “God is the Father of the Lord Jesus” to be concerned with the old message that “God is the loving Father of all men,” even of every single individual. True, a marvelous manifestation of brotherly love and unexampled good will did spring up in these early communities of believers. But it was a fellowship of believers in Jesus, not a fellowship of brothers in the family kingdom of the Father in heaven. Their good will arose from the love born of the concept of Jesus' bestowal and not from the recognition of the brotherhood of mortal man. Nevertheless, they were filled with joy, and they lived such new and unique lives that all men were attracted to their teachings about Jesus. They made the great mistake of using the living and illustrative commentary on the gospel of the kingdom for that gospel, but even that represented the greatest religion mankind had ever known.

194:4.7 Unmistakably, a new fellowship was arising in the world. “The multitude who believed continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” They called each other brother and sister; they greeted one another with a holy kiss; they ministered to the poor. It was a fellowship of living as well as of worship. They were not communal by decree but by the desire to share their goods with their fellow believers. They confidently expected that Jesus would return to complete the establishment of the Father's kingdom during their generation. This spontaneous sharing of earthly possessions was not a direct feature of Jesus' teaching; it came about because these men and women so sincerely and so confidently believed that he was to return any day to finish his work and to consummate the kingdom. But the final results of this well-meant experiment in thoughtless brotherly love were disastrous and sorrow-breeding. Thousands of earnest believers sold their property and disposed of all their capital goods and other productive assets. With the passing of time, the dwindling resources of Christian “equal-sharing” came to an end—but the world did not. Very soon the believers at Antioch were taking up a collection to keep their fellow believers at Jerusalem from starving.

194:4.8 In these days they celebrated the Lord's Supper after the manner of its establishment; that is, they assembled for a social meal of good fellowship and partook of the sacrament at the end of the meal.

194:4.9 At first they baptized in the name of Jesus; it was almost twenty years before they began to baptize in “the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Baptism was all that was required for admission into the fellowship of believers. They had no organization as yet; it was simply the Jesus brotherhood.

194:4.10 This Jesus sect was growing rapidly, and once more the Sadducees took notice of them. The Pharisees were little bothered about the situation, seeing that none of the teachings in any way interfered with the observance of the Jewish laws. But the Sadducees began to put the leaders of the Jesus sect in jail until they were prevailed upon to accept the counsel of one of the leading rabbis, Gamaliel, who advised them: “Refrain from these men and let them alone, for if this counsel or this work is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them, lest haply you be found even to be fighting against God.” They decided to follow Gamaliel's counsel, and there ensued a time of peace and quiet in Jerusalem, during which the new gospel about Jesus spread rapidly.

194:4.11 And so all went well in Jerusalem until the time of the coming of the Greeks in large numbers from Alexandria. Two of the pupils of Rodan arrived in Jerusalem and made many converts from among the Hellenists. Among their early converts were Stephen and Barnabas. These able Greeks did not so much have the Jewish viewpoint, and they did not so well conform to the Jewish mode of worship and other ceremonial practices. And it was the doings of these Greek believers that terminated the peaceful relations between the Jesus brotherhood and the Pharisees and Sadducees, Stephen and his Greek associate began to preach more as Jesus taught, and this brought them into immediate conflict with the Jewish rulers. In one of Stephen's public sermons, when he reached the objectionable part of the discourse, they dispensed with all formalities of trial and proceeded to stone him to death on the spot.

194:4.12 Stephen, the leader of the Greek colony of Jesus' believers in Jerusalem, thus became the first martyr to the new faith and the specific cause for the formal organization of the early Christian church. This new crisis was met by the recognition that believers could not longer go on as a sect within the Jewish faith. They all agreed that they must separate themselves from unbelievers; and within one month from the death of Stephen the church at Jerusalem had been organized under the leadership of Peter and James the brother of Jesus had been installed as its titular head.

194:4.13 And then broke out the new and relentless persecutions by the Jews, so that the active teachers of the new religion about Jesus, which subsequently at Antioch was called Christianity, went forth to the ends of the empire proclaiming Jesus. In carrying this message, before the time of Paul the leadership was in Greek hands; and these first missionaries, as also the later ones, followed the path of Alexander's march of former days, going by way of Gaza and Tyre to Antioch and then over Asia Minor to Macedonia, then on to Rome and to the uttermost parts of the empire. UB 1955

 

[freelight]

Because nothing says, "I'm serious about research" quite like posting a youtube video. lain: Obviously a Yale man.

It's like complaining about someone else's "gramar" (yes).

Oh come on TH - expand your borders a bit

On the more skeptical issues of those researching whether Jesus was a real historical person, I find Dr. Robert M. Price's stuff to be 'fun' as well,....especially check out his 'The Bible Geek' podcast. This is of course for those more open to skeptical even, agnostic/atheistic views of Christianity and religion in general. As I shared earlier, the UB definitely accepts and adds upon the gospel accounts of Jesus so stands upon the fundamental truths given in the Bible...correcting and/or adding more. I take the religious/spiritual values, meanings and concepts into consideration, but also research all viewpoints and counter arguments or 'evidence' on all sides.

 

[Town Heretic]

Oh come on TH - expand your borders a bit

That's what someone said to the Huns and just look what happened. lain:

On the more skeptical issues of those researching whether Jesus was a real historical person, I find Dr. Robert M. Price's stuff to be 'fun' as well,....especially check out his 'The Bible Geek' podcast. This is of course for those more open to skeptical even, agnostic/atheistic views of Christianity and religion in general.

Doesn't sound like it would interest me then. The reasonable and logical arguments for Christ are too compelling, if you really needed assurance on the point. Paul writing and having established a vital church within the life in being of people who would be capable of stepping forward to say, "Jesus? Miracles? Rode in on a what?" but didn't is the strongest, easiest argument. When the Priests were in the easiest, strongest position to stop an invented religion in its tracks with readily obtainable testimony, they couldn't muster it and accomplish that...though for a Christian who has experienced God in relation the question is moot in any event, for a very different, vital and active reason.

As I shared earlier, the UB definitely accepts and adds upon the gospel accounts of Jesus so stands upon the fundamental truths given in the Bible...correcting and/or adding more. I take the religious/spiritual values, meanings and concepts into consideration, but also research all viewpoints and counter arguments or 'evidence' on all sides.

Seems more like a very complicated game of Chinese whispers...I'm familiar with a fairly wide range of religious thought, but most of it is orthodoxy of major living religions and the mythology of dead or mostly dead ones.

 

[Town Heretic]

In the West, in Christianity, we have to realize that we are born into a ready made religion that came through other human opinions about Jesus. Paul, a sincere and great man, never personally knew Jesus. He didn't spend time learning about the original gospel, rather he drew his own conclusions based in part on Peters post-cross speculations and a mysterious 3 years he spent in Arabia.

* Jesus taught and preached the "good news", the "Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven", sonship with God, salvation by faith and the inherent responsibility that comes with a life dedicated to doing Gods will.


* Paul taught another presumptive "good news" the "Gospel of Christ and him crucified" as a human sacrifice covering the sins of the world.

Well, Paul would likely say that not only did he commune with those who were most intimate with Jesus, but that he actually met the risen Christ while on his way to Damascus and that for the rest of his life he was guided by the one who set his feet on a particular path.

So if we accept that Paul's conversion was the result of divine revelation and intent, it's harder to reduce what follows as a well intentioned estimation and pursuit.

 

[Caino]

Well, Paul would likely say that not only did he commune with those who were most intimate with Jesus, but that he actually met the risen Christ while on his way to Damascus and that for the rest of his life he was guided by the one who set his feet on a particular path.

So if we accept that Paul's conversion was the result of divine revelation and intent, it's harder to reduce what follows as a well intentioned estimation and pursuit.

Yes I agree, we can add Paul to the list of thousands who "met Jesus" and got special instructions. I myself had a conversion experience but never met Jesus nor do I have an exaggerated tale to tell, just a spiritual rebirth. It's odd that Jesus chose 12, lost one but then a completely different guy arrives on the scene and dominates the entire new religion going forward. Most of the New Testament is Jesus according to Paul.


BTW, who did Jesus encounter alone out in the wilderness?????

 

[Caino]

Yes I agree, we can add Paul to the list of thousands who "met Jesus" and got special instructions. I myself had a conversion experience but never met Jesus nor do I have an exaggerated tale to tell, just a spiritual rebirth. It's odd that Jesus chose 12, lost one but then a completely different guy arrives on the scene and dominates the entire new religion going forward. Most of the New Testament is Jesus according to Paul.

dup

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

Hey, Caino, how's the UFO business doing? Any new recruits lately?

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

Have you received any of those pesky "Telepathic messages" from the Mothership of late? I hope they're not hounding you, too much.

 

[Caino]

Christ and him crucified for the cause of sin is a human speculation. Before the rejection Jesus was trying to reach those chosen to receive the Son of God and his original good news gospel. This fact only bothers people because they know in their heart that it is true and this truth has sweeping consequences.

 

[patrick jane]

Christ and him crucified for the cause of sin is a human speculation. Before the rejection Jesus was trying to reach those chosen to receive the Son of God and his original good news gospel. This fact only bothers people because they know in their heart that it is true and this truth has sweeping consequences.

Like what?

 

[Town Heretic]

Yes I agree, we can add Paul to the list of thousands who "met Jesus" and got special instructions.

While I don't agree with the inference, I'd say it does boil the whole thing down. Either Paul was given a commission by the risen Christ and it behooves us to pay attention, or he was someone making a claim no different from any number of claims.

I myself had a conversion experience but never met Jesus nor do I have an exaggerated tale to tell, just a spiritual rebirth.

Same on the inference, but I also had a conversion experience. Surprised me after nearly thirty years of curiously unproblematic atheism. I entered the night one creature and by the grace of God and the presence of the risen Christ became another. I won't bother with details that might only offend your sensibility. Suffice to say it was sufficient to convince me and alter the course of my life.

It's odd that Jesus chose 12, lost one but then a completely different guy arrives on the scene and dominates the entire new religion going forward. Most of the New Testament is Jesus according to Paul.

I don't think it's particularly odd when you consider that Paul was set on the Gentile. It's just a numbers game at that point.

BTW, who did Jesus encounter alone out in the wilderness?????

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Matthew 4:1