Episode:Last Ministry of the Master—Jesus' Final Tour (Part 8)

From Symmetry of Soul


On counting the cost of discipleship, Jesus said: "From now on you will not be able to follow after us, listening to the teaching and beholding the works; you will be required to face bitter persecutions and to bear witness for this gospel in the face of crushing disappointment. If you are unwilling to renounce all that you are and to dedicate all that you have, then are you unworthy to be my disciple."

Listen to the broadcast

Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Cup of Bitterness, Cup of Humiliation, Cup of Death

Summary by Kermit

Commentary after Review

Additional points were re-emphasized during a continuing the discussion about the process of absolute individuality Father love reciprocating in the inner life to the cosmic totality attitude of Mother love as a predicate for loving service to the brotherhood of man. The Father initiates and direction-izes—gets the ball rolling. The reciprocating process leading to Mother’s cosmic totality attitude is internal and enables engagement with the cosmos. The love in each case is unchanged, and should be thought of as genuine sixth level of meaning love. Attempts to directly apply the absolute individuality love of the Father in the outer life are problematic at best.

We also further explored the phenomenon referred to as being “born again.” The religious nature in distinction from the spiritual nature is characterized by an unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted devotion to some reality deemed by the religionist to be of supreme value to himself and for all mankind. This is irrespective of the truth or falseness of said reality. This unquestioning loyalty aspect is that which is newly experienced in the rebirth. The 5th ER calls all, even those self-identified as born again to be born yet again into unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted devotion to truly supreme values, as opposed to the religious dogma of the old wineskins. Self-mastery demands cultivation of inner life faculties and confronting our passively or willfully acquired standards for recognizing truth, beauty, and goodness and replacing the scientific dictation, social usages, and religious dogma with a genuine recognition of causation, duty, and worship.

171:0.4

Here is the narrative Salome, mother of the Zebedee sons of thunder James and John, approaching Jesus in quest of positions of honor for her boys in the anticipated establishment of the temporal kingdom of God. This episode is recorded in the gospels of Matt 20:20 and Mark 10:35. As with other parallels of the 5th ER with the Christian scriptures notable differences between the two accounts are detected and clarified. Familiarity with the gospel accounts of the Master’s life and teachings is essential for a deeper understanding of the new revelation. The richness of detail and elucidation of context provided by the 5th ER allows for a top-down more truthful engagement of these events than do the fractured and partial records of the gospels.

When the other apostles learned of this unseemly request by the Zebedee trio they were understandably indignant. Jesus then gathered the twelve and reminded them of the kingdom requirement for greatness, that they become the servers of all. Again, the gospel records are set straight in the revelation with key terminology as “slave” and “ransom for many” being replaced by “minister/servant” and “laying down my life in service of my brethren” respectively.

The role of the Father’s will throughout the Christian millennia has been seen as demanding Jesus’ sacrifice as atonement for racial sin. The 5th ER idea of Father’s will as initiator and directionizer rather than architect of the outworking of events completely changes the picture of the purpose of the bestowal mission.

To underscore the fullness of the revelation’s narrative, the section ends with a poignant reflection of Salome at the crucifixion on the foolishness of her request. This reflection of course is entirely absent from gospel records.

171:1 The Departure from Pella

Throughout these happenings we are reminded of the fact that everyone of Jesus’ followers from the apostles to the disciples and believers were anticipating Jesus to go to Jerusalem and lay claim to David’s throne. Each circumstance and development of Jesus’ actions were interpreted as confirming their expectations. Such is the power of confirmation bias derived from a purely subjective perspective.

Critically important in the quest for self-mastery is the recognition that each of us is fully capable of rationalizing anything in accordance with our wishes. We should all remember Lucifer’s false assertion of the innate divinity and infallibility of mind, and how that worked out.

The section concludes the section with closing the book on David Zebedee, Lazarus, and Abner with respect to their work in Philadelphia and their role in the outworking of the kingdom, notwithstanding their participation in the events of the last week of Jesus’ life which are further documented by the midwayers.

171:2 On Counting the Cost

Jesus delivered this plain-speaking sermon to about a thousand followers, following which about half continued following him for about two weeks around southern Perea while the other half deserted him to go to Jerusalem for the Passover.

Notable differences in the gospel records and the 5th ER involve a requirement that followers of Jesus at this point must be willing to forsake family members, even to give up their lives. Gospel records use the term “hate” rather than “forsake.”

Again, the call of the revelation is to inwardly examine our motivations and re-consecrate ourselves to doing God’s will and conforming with the cosmos. Note how the appeal to renounce all you are and dedicate all you have to your discipleship finds echo the final sentence of one of this country’s founding documents. “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Notes by Brad

  • Being a serious student
    • "If you have already conquered yourself in your own heart..." is a key phrase from this episode.
      • It sums up the need to get all pollution out of the inner life
      • And be born again again.
    • Don't read Part IV and tut-tut at the apostles so quickly. Look in the mirror.
      • Don't take the Pharisaic stance when reading this.
      • Humbly submit yourself to scrutiny. What false assumptions are you unquestioningly loyal to, but also blindly unaware of?
      • Spirit ministry can help you uncover these. It might be the only ministry than can.
      • But it takes humility.
    • Some degree of unquestioning loyalty is required for religion.
      • But it's easy to be unquestioningly loyal to something that is false.
      • But careful! If you throw out evolutionary religion and discount all other forms of religion, all that's left to be unquestioningly loyal to is some secular object.
      • Please don't make it Marxism. If you must be unquestioningly loyal to some secular object, with a religious zeal, maybe make it a sports team or something.
      • Better yet: don't do this. Keep religious loyalty for God and God alone.


  • Love is, at first and at its highest level of meaning, personal realization of divine fellowship.
  • It's initiated as absolute individuality. No other beings, no time, no space, no cosmos, no whole.
  • So you don't stay there! It gets reciprocated and radiates outward in a sphere of truth.
  • Have you had a personal realization of divine fellowship? Born again, truly, as the 5th ER explains it to be?


  • Someone says they are "born again"--they are announcing they have unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted devotion... to those supreme values held up by that religion.
    • They are putting themselves into a genuine potentiality. So there IS a valid religious life there.
    • And yet, these evolutionary religions are founded in the outer life. Religions of matter and possibly mind, but not religions of spirit.
    • Their supreme values are so-called.
    • The 5th ER dares us to aim higher.


  • Seek first the kingdom of heaven--the inner life
    • The inner life is completely divorced from the senses. The material world. The mind's engagement of that material world.
    • The real inner life stands above, aloof, from all this.
    • Set a guard upon your inner life.
      • Don't be content until all pollution of your inner life with outer life stuff is eliminated
      • The outer life is very alluring.
      • Consider helping someone in need. They're open, they accept, you help, and they benefit. Sounds joyous, doesn't it? Yes! But these are only feelings.
      • The inner life is entirely aloof from all these genuine feelings of joy you might experience.
      • The Christian church extols this as the highest good--they call it "being Christian."
      • Paper 170 would call this evil. Yikes.
    • Evil is a spirit word--it's not what you're thinking: evil being in the outer life.
    • Seek this domain. Find it. And once you've really found it, you'll be born again, turn around, and be of true service.
    • Today, unlike Jesus time, it's much easier for the inner life to be polluted
      • Things get spiritized these days. Drug up into the inner life where they should not be.


  • Can you start anew? Not engage what you've always engaged?
    • Almost no one knows they have this inner life, much less availing themselves of it.
    • "I was born again when I was 15 in the church."
      • Yes, in the evolutionary sense that is valid. A bottom-up fashion. An emotional experience no doubt.
      • But in the 5th ER sense, it's about being born again again. A top-down fashion.
    • Can your ego and pride get out of the way and strive to be born again again?
      • Bringing in a reflection of the cosmos as the reference instead of some established authority offered you from the outer life.


  • After all this time, James and John Zebedee not only didn't understand the kingdom, they actually let their mom ask Jesus to given them favored seats in this new kingdom.


  • Jesus will be publicly humiliated. Have you ever?
    • We all have to take that. But for a Creator Son to take it when he could have commanded legions of angels to avoid it? Remarkable self control, in deference to the Father's will.



  • The apostles hear "lay down my life", they applied the old wineskin of sin, sacrifice, and atonement.
    • They heard "lay down my life to be a paschal lamb for the remission of sins" or such.
  • Jesus consecrated himself to the initiating state of the Father's will.
    • Not all the subsequent outworking details the supremacy was working out.
    • That explains why the "cup of death" could be, in truth, the Father's will.
    • This is a 5th ER interpretation of Jesus life. Not a ghost cult interpretation
    • Are you interested in this interpretation? You need to understand supremacy, Mother deity, the whole revelation, to really get it.


  • "My kingdom is not of this world" is heard is "my kingdom is definitely of this world."
    • How is this possible??
    • All of us have a tendency to flip things 180 degrees. And have no clue we are doing it
      • Because we are not objectively assimilating the words.
      • Because we have a willful grip on something we wish were true rather than what is.
      • Like the kid who is sure his high-school crush like him, despite everything she says to the exact contrary.
    • Don't mock these folks who were following Jesus. Instead, look in the mirror and ask "How am I dense in the exact same way?"
    • There is no off switch to the energy of the 6th adjutant.
      • Add in the 3rd adjutant mind-spirit and you get "unquestioning loyalty."


  • The specific words say "If you are unwilling to renounce all that you are and to dedicate all that you have, then are you unworthy to be my disciple," but the philosophic point is timeless
    • You must be truly born again again.
    • If your own family has pitched their tent in a tabernacle of darkness, you must forsake them lest they drag you down and prevent you from being born again.
    • Note: The U.S. Declaration of Independence ends with essentially this same "forsake all" notion. They knew about their inner lives.
      • Do you?