Episode:Jesus Culminates His Ministry—Final Preaching and Teaching (Part 5)
Jesus said: “The times of the reappearing of the Son of Man are known only in the councils of Paradise. However, you should understand that, when this gospel of the kingdom shall have been proclaimed to all the world for the salvation of all peoples, and when the fullness of the age has come to pass, the Father will send you another dispensational bestowal, or else the Son of Man will return to adjudge the age.”
Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Destruction of Jerusalem, The Second Coming, Signs of the Times
Opening thought: When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites...with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel. With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord: “He is good; his love towards Israel endures for ever.” Ezra 3:10-11
Summary by Brad
On evolutionary thinking
Most of our post-review discussion focused on the fact of evolution. It's one evolutionary system. If you can hold a true God concept that also encompasses experiential Deity, you will have a clearer understanding of the cosmos and fewer of those “profound religious paradoxes.” [116:0.1] On the other hand, a God concept that only encompasses existential Deity will cause non-primitive religionists to reach some unfortunate conclusions. And the absence of a God concept altogether inexorably leads someone backward to more primitive notions. “The watchword of the universe is progress” [4:1.2], but only true progress is under God—righteousness. We explored this idea from several angles.
1. Primitive notions of evolution soon get submerged. The earliest humans use reflective thinking to key into the fact that humans evolved from animals (they have totem animals). This primitive evolutionary thought arises naturally. But it gets submerged for a long time under the growing recognition of the existential nature of God. This leads our thoughts away from evolution, so much so that eventually we have creation myths showing God creating man ex nihilio, from nothing. A wholly existential God concept frame makes evolution seem impossible.
2. The phrase “the chosen people” and a poor interpretation. One interpretation in an existential-only concept frame leaves only one possibility: an eternal God chose these people to be God's People for all time. It seems that an eternal, unchanging God could do nothing but make eternal, unchanging choices. And for the Jews of Jesus' time, they largely held to this interpretation. “I am the Lord; I change not.” Malachi 3:9 There are minor moments of experiential Deity in Hebrew theology—they knew they could fall out of the Lord's favor—but overall they saw themselves as eternally chosen as God's people.
3. Scientists without evolution. With only the “eternally unchanging earth” as their concept frame, geologists too forever to see what every 6-year-old's common sense tells them: the continents fit! They were once joined together; the planet evolves over time.
4. Evolution rediscovered, but Godless. Recently we rediscovered evolution via Charles Darwin and others. But because of that “secular revolt,” [195:8.6] we excluded God from this concept frame. So we have are magical notions about evolution and we have “progress” that can be denominated “progress” simply because we call it progress. Quite fanciful.
5. Godless ideals run the clock backward. The horde and the clan are primitive notions. But in philosophically unmoored times, we can have a supposedly cutting-edge thought like, “Imagine us living with no property, no families, no individuality!” That can pass for progress, but no, it actually sends us backward to “the discarded formulas of our forefathers.” [69:9.18] It's an affront to the divine ideal of family life. Of course, community and the neighbors have their place, but you must take their measure—philosophically prioritize the individual and community and then balance in a holistic concept frame.
6. A better interpretation of “the chosen people.” Let's call them “the selected people” instead. With an expanded cosmology and experiential Deity, we understand that Most High Observers and Melchizedek receivers can prudently select the Jews of historical times to serve as a light to the world for a season, at least until Jesus arriveds. They weren't chosen for all time, they were prudently selected.
Paper 176. Tuesday Evening on Mount Olivet
Notice the end of the previous paper [175:4.15] transitions us to the situation “among men.” Not apostles, not Jews in Jerusalem—all men. Paper 176 is big-picture stuff... signs of the times type stuff. But remember also: we always need to seek the big picture when engaging a revelation that is so precisely constructed. That's how you pursue truth.
We have a tendency to spiritualize (existentialize) our thoughts about material reality, don't we? Especially beautiful and impressive things? As the apostles walk out of the temple, were they thinking about experiential Deity? The “ripening of an age?” Evolutionary concepts? No. They were thinking existentially. To them, the Jerusalem temple is reality itself, God's body. Its destruction could only mean the end of reality. Many Americans felt an echo of this on 9/11, when a certain temple (a secular one) was leveled, leaving us all discombobulated for a time.
But everything in time and space changes. Even eternal Havona changes somehow as it interacts with time and space.
1. The Destruction of Jerusalem
Did God's hand directly smite the Jews in A.D. 70? No. The special protection of the Most High Observer was lifted, and then the system was left to play out naturally. The cosmos decreed this as justice: “justice shall swiftly descend upon this city.” [176:1.1] In a collective sense, these people had “filled up the cup of their iniquity.” (emphasis added) That is, collectively by A.D. 70, theirs was a way that could not be allowed to endure; it had reached its evolutionary end. In the context of the whole, this behavior would prevent a universe from being settled in light and life, so it cannot stand. In our evolutionary domain, if a people were selected to be the stewards of the truth but they will not be faithful stewards, the truth will be taken from them and given to a people who will be true stewards. That's was just as truthful in A.D. 30 as it is today.
Here's something to chew on: God's justice is synonymous with God's vengeance. We may be uncomfortable with the word vengeance, but that's why it's only safe for us to let God dispense vengeance; it will be righteous judgment. So Jesus' reference to “gentile vengeance” is an indication that, yes, God's justice will be dispensed through the hands of gentiles, about 40 years after the events of this evening.
This section parallels Matthew 24, but it clears up the elephant in the temple: the destruction of Jerusalem is not the end of the world, not the end of the age, not the second coming of Jesus, and it certainly is not an indication the world is “ripe for the magisterial age.” [52:4.2] The signs of the times for the end of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 are not the signs of the times of the ripening of some future age in the unfolding of the evolutionary process. Not only are “wars and rumors of wars” not some extraordinary sign, war is normal! It's natural and it even has “social value!” [70:2] All of this may be muddled in traditional Christian thought, but the 5th ER restores it to us in precise clarity.
Notice the use of the word nation in this section. We are reminded that nations are not natural; they are an outgrowth of choosing civilization. All nature will give us is clans or tribes. And Jesus' gospel must be heard by nations to be properly received. A tribe cannot properly receive the gospel and secure that higher consciousness it offers. Existential and experiential divine ideals exist in one system. Will you choose civilization? Will you choose to be a citizen of a nation, to choose family life and representative government? Or will you, in your disillusionment with the imperfection and slowness of the evolutionary process, subject yourself to the sophistry of some demagogue preaching an unholy evangel?
We discussed the “false teachers” Jesus warned of. What's the scope? On the one hand, it's clear that factually he was speaking to the apostles about events of the coming decades. At the other extreme, the Biblical misrecording of this caused Christians to reject any non-Biblically sourced truth for 2,000 years. But we reasoned that any truthful statement has some universality to it. Recognition of truth is a skill we must humbly work on, so we can take the measure of things. So we can read a passage like this about false teachers and lift a truth out of it instead of a falsehood.
This whole section played out very vividly: stark imagery, full moon, spooky firelight, the lights of the city glimmering. It seems like favorable conditions for the lesson to sink in. And yet it wasn't sinking in. But Jesus' patience never faltered: “Nevertheless, I will try to enlighten you.” [176:1.7] That might as well be the slogan of every revelator.
2. The Master’s Second Coming
Jesus says here, “Be of good courage,” a reminder that for 2,000 years the prospect of the Master returning any day or hour has given Christians the courage to keep going every day. Why, specifically, must Jesus return one day? He is our world's bestowal son. He took the job on. But he was not able to complete that job during his bestowal here because the world wasn't ready for it. So he must return someday to complete this bestowal-son work.
Jesus took “particular pains” to disentangle the end of Jerusalem from the end of an age in the apostle's minds. But it all got muddled, and mixed in with excerpts from Daniel and Isaiah, and whole-cloth fabrications like the parable of the ten virgins. He also tried to explain that these things should not really matter to the individual religionist. We each must be judged at the end of our own lives, so there's no reason to get hung up on waiting for the world to be judged during our own lifetime.
Jesus described the character of future revelations. Will they be soothing feeling-ful notions about the God of love? No. God is love, yes, but you need God. You need salvation. God is not an opiate, and any such notion that has God as an “opiate to the people...is not the religion of Jesus.” [194:3.4]. You can count on this: revelation always is both an “enlarged revelation of truth and an enhanced demonstration of righteousness” [176:2.3]. That includes The Urantia Papers. So how are we doing? Are we receiving both truth and righteousness from the 5th ER? Are we better “righteousness recommenders” this year than last year? [156:5.15]
Notes by Brad
- The Jews had impractical dreams of their small army conquering the gigantic Roman army.
- But that was not to be.
- Can you observe the world today and see if you are harboring similar David versus Goliath thoughts?
- Many haven't learned this lesson yet.
