Episode:Jesus Faces Death—The Crucifixion (Part 4)

From Symmetry of Soul


As the death procession passed along the narrow streets of Jerusalem, many of the tenderhearted Jewish women who had heard Jesus’ words of good cheer and compassion, and who knew of his life of loving ministry, could not refrain from weeping when they saw him being led forth to such an ignoble death. As he passed by, many of these women bewailed and lamented; some even dared to follow along by his side.

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Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Golgotha, Two Brigands, Simon of Cyrene

Summary by Kermit

Commentary after Review

An extensive post-summary discussion was sparked by the final sentence of the previous paper. “You mortals are the sons of God, and only one thing is required to make such a truth factual in your personal experience, and that is your spirit-born faith.” We have remarked many times previously that true meaning of the words “faith”, “love”, “truth”, along with many others, as they are used in the revelation cannot be found today in any of the extant conventional reference sources.

We explored the distinction between spirit-born faith and mind-born belief. Spirit-born faith does lead to belief, but mind-born belief does not lead to actual spirit-born faith. The story of evolutionary religion (religion of the mind) originates with matter-born fear (the perils of living in an evolutionary environment), progressing to mind-born fear (the ghost dream etc.), and eventually to the religions of ecclesiastical authority. Man early recognized the domains of matter and non-matter. Yet the human beings have been slow to recognize the two domains of the non-material: mind energy and spirit energy.

Consult the archive of this broadcast for the particulars of several threads in this discussion on how the revelators and their explanation of triune cosmic reality facilitate sincere and humble efforts to discern differences between mind and spirit and the religious implications for us. Both the religion of the mind and religion of the spirit have the same vocabulary. The 5th ER is most helpful for us in sorting out these differences that we might avoid the pitfalls of putting our new wine into the old wineskins of our preconceived opinions, settled ideas, and long-standing prejudices. In addition, we are admonished to resist the temptation and our tendency to remain satisfied with our current levels of spiritual and religious attainment, but to push forward aggressively to be truth seekers.

Paper 187—The Crucifixion

Back to the story. As Jesus and the two brigands start out for the crucifixion scene we note the Roman centurion in charge of the procession is the same individual who had led the contingent to Gethsemane to arrest the Master the night before. He will become a significant actor as events unfold as he reveals his human character.

Even though we know that Jesus’ death is not to be interpreted in a sin, sacrifice, and atonement context, numerous details allow one to so falsely conclude.

Anticipating further disclosures concerning two thieves executed alongside Jesus, we begin to see that as a roving band of brigands, they might be seen as social-justice warriors with their leader Barabbas, rather than mere criminals. This suggests implications for the Jews’ emphasis on social justice in the place of a higher calling of true religion, that they would choose to execute the genuine religionist in place of an advocate for social justice. Do we not observe today an unfortunate emphasis by religious institutions on social justice as opposed to an adherence to a genuine religion of personal spiritual experience? True, social justice is a genuine fruit of true religion, but not to the exclusion or subordination of the inner life of a bonafide religionist.

The midwayer account reminds us of Jesus’ free will sovereignty in submitting to death on the cross. We visited [165:2.10] wherein Jesus foretold of his death as his prerogative and not a death in the sin, sacrifice, and atonement framework.

187:1. On the way to Golgotha

This section is prime example of revelation’s purpose to authoritatively eliminate error and coordinate essential knowledge. These passages will be particularly troublesome to Christians who believe the New Testament record of Jesus’ life and teachings to be inerrant. This underscores the need for caution and wisdom in sharing the 5th ER with Christian friends, lest we cause them to stumble. Noteworthy details include:

  • the fact that Jesus carried only the crossbeam and not both the upright member and the crossbeam of the cross.
  • the procession departed the city to the north, challenging the orthodox geographical depiction of the current location of so-called holy sites.

Sad to record that Pilate with his sense of civility and principle minimal as it was, pathetically demonstrated it with his resistance to the Jewish leaders in their demands to change his crucifixion legend nailed on the cross above: Jesus of Nazareth—the King of the Jews. Would that he had exhibited his resistance to the Jewish leaders in the greater matters of his judgment on Jesus!

The narrative reiterates the suicidal consequences to the Jewish nation in their forecasting the mass crucifixions of the flower of the Jewish nation forty years hence, and in Jesus’ response to the kindhearted weeping and wailing women. We reiterated how the demise of the Jewish nation was not in punishment meted out by God for putting Jesus to death, but a natural consequence of their rejection of the gift of light of God. Our present-day emergency is not a spiritual emergency, but a result of the willful blindness to the laws of the whole.

The appearance of Simon of Cyrene in bearing Jesus’ crossbeam as his strength fails is a delightful tidbit the likes of which are found throughout the rich account of Jesus’ life and teachings found in the 5th ER with its illumination of many backstory details.

The midwayers reinforce Jesus’ achievement in this awful spectacle as a man, the Son of Man, and not God wrapped in flesh as a fetish person.

Notes by Brad

  • Belief and faith are not synonyms
    • Mind-born belief is more common among people than spirit-born faith.
    • The former is natural, the latter is a choice.
    • Faith always implies beliefs (that flow from that faith). But beliefs do not imply faith.
    • Is there anything in your mind that is spirit born?
    • There's plenty in your mind that is matter-born (these photons from your screen are generating forms in your mind; listening to our voices reproduced in this episode through a speaker generates forms in your mind).
    • We should want a religion born of spirit, not born of mind.


  • Feelings about the outer life are not the inner life.
    • 1: There are matter-born feelings. These are so common they defy any need to list them.
    • 2: There are mind-born feelings. Oops! Attribution error: Most people erroneously believe these feelings are born from God--spirit-born feelings.
      • This is a ghost-cult assumption.
      • But it is false reasoning.
      • Team sports ("team spirit") are an illusory consequence of all this. Evolutionary religion of a million years is cut from this same cloth.
    • 3: There are spirit-born feelings. Yes, it's true. But aim higher, be content, not satisfied. Don't assume you've necessarily ever experienced these.
      • Careful! Some of our mind-born feelings get falsely denominated as spirit words.
      • Truth is just a strong feeling when born in our mind. Faith as just a strong feeling born in our mind.
    • Real truth (spirit-born) implies correct understanding, but correct understanding (mind-born) does not necessarily imply truth.
    • Can you spend your days in the outer life confessing you don't know what God, spirit, faith, etc mean?
      • That is, can you be humble? Let go and aim higher? Leaving space to someday know what these high concepts are truly?
      • This is an excellent beginning to better understand the 5th ER.
      • And even if you eventually obtain true understanding of these words, there's always a new and higher level of understanding to remain humble about.
      • You can be content, not satisfied with the level you find yourself on.
      • Truth seekers are not afraid to challenge everything they hold dear at the moment.


  • Remember, synthesis, not analysis is the path to truth.
    • Study the 5th ER as a whole, not a set of paragraphs.
    • Listen to this episode for an example of gleaning meaning from one small paragraph, the first one in Paper 187 in this case.


  • A whole paragraph just about Jesus dying in the place of Barabbas.
    • The contrast is between social justice and religion.
      • The two thieves are brigands--part of a roving band of bandits fighting the social injustice of their day.
      • Meanwhile, Jesus and his apostles were a roving band of religionists. Dealing with religion.
    • The natural state of the Jew was a warrior for social justice, instead of religion.
      • Speaks to our times today, where fading religion is being replaced by social justice.
    • Social justice is not bad! Just orient it properly, let is be contextualized from the top-down.


  • "Lay down my own life." [165:2.10] is where Jesus more fully foretells this experience.
    • Read this to avoid the sin, sacrifice, and atonement old wineskin.


  • How are you filling your time lately?
    • The Jewish leaders "fiddled while Jesus burns", back to old wineskin business as usual.
    • The "curious idlers"
      • How many of us resemble curious idlers while being told to stay at home this month during COVID-19?
      • This author wonders if streaming "reality" television is a form of us being a curious idler? Bread and circuses, they say?


  • Lots of details of Jesus' physical cross that clarify 2000 years of improper understanding.
    • But the authors of Bible—let's not be hard on them—were writing a religious text, not a factual or scientific text.
    • Also, the authors of the Bible weren't there as witnesses.
    • Even if they had been, can you accurately recount a vivid traffic accident when you witness it yourself?
    • This author notes how we can't even quote our movies properly. "Play it again, Sam" was never spoken.
    • Another longstanding prejudice smashed: they walked out of the north gate, not the west gate.
      • The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is, therefore, 90 degrees off.
      • This will chafe many a well-studied Christian.
      • Don't assume your job is to proselytize The Urantia Book. Would this paragraph quash the faint flicker of faith of a child of God, ghost-cult-born though it might be? Why would you do that to them? Why cram this book down their throats? Do you love them?


  • Another of Pilate's greatest hits: "Jesus--the king of the Jews."
    • A profound observation.
    • Christians by one turn lambaste Pilate, but then turn around and quote his greatest hits.
    • Urantia Book comedy: A comedy sketch of Pilate signing autographs on the mansion world and being cajoled into saying (wearily) "What I have written, I have written."


  • Seed sowing has evolutionary consequences. Poignant ones.
    • "The flower of the Jewish race" perished because of the evolutionary process.
    • Not the finger of God striking them down like a pupper-master, though. But a far deeper aspect of the whole evolution of the Supreme.


  • Why is Jesus so stark with the weeping women?
    • It's not like they'll hear his message while in a frothed up "bewailing" state.
    • This is more like Jesus saying this for future generations. "The wages of sin is death," as we say.
    • Sure, he also didn't want them to get in trouble with the authorities. But this was more about him explaining the facts of the evolutionary domain.
    • What's coming for them is not a bad harvest. Not a wrong harvest. Just a terrible (terror-filled) one.
      • The parts are subject to the whole.
    • His language is powerful. But so was what the Roman brought some few years later: salted their fields, slaughtered these women's children, razed the temple.
      • The Romans laid siege to Jerusalem. Ruthless. Brutal. (see Josephus' chilling historical account).
    • Jesus is still a human here. He reflects on what's to come for his nation; the place he was born and lived. In the garden the night before these sorts of issues had weighted him down a lot.


  • Also: these women were "kindhearted," which has a literal 4th level of meaning implication (kin-like).
    • They were having a nominally spiritual response, not just a feeling-ful response.


  • Spiritual tension--a concept worth listening to the archive for more on.


  • Be impressed by Jesus' physical stamina here.
    • No sleep, no food, no water, lacerated, blood loss, beaten, anguished. And still almost carried a crossbeam to Golgotha.
    • Not using fetish magic to endure this ordeal. He is a real human being here, the Son of Man.
    • He was an impressive man. Body, mind, and spirit.


  • Be impressed by the character revealed by the others in this scene, not just Jesus' character.
    • The Roman centurion. An intriguing player in all this.
      • He was there at the arrest, and is still around.
      • Keep an eye on him.
    • Simon of Cyrene.
    • The kindhearted women.
    • Etc.
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