Episode:Jesus Goes Public—Precursor and Prelude (Part 10)

From Symmetry of Soul


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. 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.

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Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, The Great Decisions, Miracles and Wonders, Political Prestige

Opening thought: From the young and indomitable prophet, Isaiah the second, among the most sublime and true presentations of the spiritual concept of God until the times of Michael on Urantia: "Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Isaiah 55:7 [97:7.7]

Closing thought: Even though the conversation in this episode was heavy at time (particularly in the closing minutes concerning [136:8.8]), never forget to take the Master's fit: Peace be upon you.

Summary by Kermit

Commentary after Review

Remember, Jesus’ great decisions are all subsumed under his transcendent choice to continue his public ministry in the same mode as he conducted his pre-baptism career—to be a manifestation, incarnate of the Father’s will. Inasmuch as these decisions all relate to this one choice, they show a commonality among them with some overlapping application. Further, when he emerges from his seclusion he encounters complexities which demand nuance of discrimination to explain. The decisions represent Jesus’ efforts to frame his life, not to bind it with prescriptions for every conceivable situation he is likely to encounter. There are two influences which operate to condition the outworking Jesus’ intentions, the outworking of the Supreme and the presence and action of his Personalized Thought Adjuster.

With respect to the first three decisions, Jesus renounced the use of his vast celestial entourage, entrusting their direction and command to his newly Personalized Thought Adjuster. Decisions two and three pertained to his bodily needs and threats to his bodily security. He likewise declined to employ his superhuman creator prerogatives in situations of physical need or danger.

136:8 The Fourth Decision

In matters of attracting the attention and winning the adherence of his people, Jesus again forsook the performance of miracles and wonders. Do not miss reviewing the discussion on the significance of the revelators’ use of the terms miracles and wonders and the distinction between them. That miracles and wonders were a cardinal feature of the expected program of the Messiah made it virtually impossible for Jesus to be accepted and recognized as the Deliverer that he was. In those cases where he permitted the manifestation of time-shortening ministrations of mercy he admonished the recipients to tell no man. And he consistently refused all challenges to show his enemies a sign as proof of his divinity.

Establishing the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of the individual is based upon the preeminence of the individual and was Jesus’ sole purpose. The miraculous and wondrous being compelling outer-life phenomena serve to distract the attention away from the cultivation of an inner-life connection with the will of the Father. The well-nigh universal lack of understanding of the Universal Father’s purely existential nature then and now serves to obscure the true means to salvation—the inner-life consecration to the doing of the Father’s will and pursuit of truth and righteousness in conformity with the cosmos.

The revelators remind us that the human Jesus was not above questioning and near doubting during his intense deliberations. And as such, he refused to even “show himself a sign” of his divinity by performing any unnatural thing. He took the presence of his Personalized Thought Adjuster as sufficient proof of divinity in partnership with humanity.

Neither did Jesus resort to the ways of the world—compromise and diplomacy—as means of establishing the kingdom. How does this apply today to our efforts to disseminate the Urantia revelation and its teachings? The seemingly innocuous substitution of the term “spiritual” for the term “religious” in an effort to appeal to the secular minded is a current example of the initial steps of a journey along a slippery slope to error, evil, and sin.

Jesus determined to employ natural, ordinary, difficult and trying methods of enlarging and extending the heavenly kingdom, just such methods as are available to each generation of mankind. And we are admonished to remember the human Jesus was a first century man, notwithstanding his transcendent divinity. Hard as it may be to grasp because of the dispensational differentials in play, our human minds actually suffer fewer limitations than did the human mind of Jesus.

Jesus could have used his divine attributes in countless ways to gain popularity and prestige. But he refused to compromise with evil much less sin in winning the hearts of his people and the world. Loyalty to his Father’s will was put above every other earthly and temporal consideration.

Notes by Brad

  • Jesus has chosen to be an incarnate expression of the Father's will, even here after technically his bestowal is completed.
    • From that overarching (transcendent of temporal and spatial issues) choice flow these more temporally conditioned decisions.
    • Downstepping a choice to countless decisions takes wisdom.
  • Let's recap
    • 1st decision: managing all these celestial beings who are here
    • 2nd decision: will I use my powers to sustain my body?
    • 3rd decision: will I use my powers to protect myself?
    • ^-- Those were all about himself.
    • v-- Next come larger issues
    • 4th decision: will his powers be used for miracles and wonders?
      • Including, yes, his own animal-origin innately questioning mind.



  • "Purely selfish or personal purposes"
    • Don't overplay ideas of compromise and diplomacy to get something done in the outer life.
    • You can falsely spiritualize and corrupt your inner life.


  • Do you want to enhance moral values and accelerate spiritual progress in the world?
    • Particularly as a zealous reader of The Urantia Book?
    • Particularly with some indulgence of "exceptional power" or an exhibition of "arbitrary authority"?
    • Careful with that. Jesus considered such things and concluded it would be wicked (not the Father's way) to do so.