Episode:Jesus the Tutor—Return from Rome (Part 1)
Mankind can appropriately be divided into many classes in accordance with differing qualifications, as they may be viewed physically, mentally, socially, vocationally, or morally, but as these different classes of mortals appear before the judgment bar of God, they stand on an equal footing; God is truly no respecter of persons.
Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Nonresistance, Mercy, Justice
Note: Today is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's Reformation.
Summary by Kermit
Commentary on the Review
We discussed more about the difference between the ideal of God, “His infinite and eternal nature.” and our ideas of God, which are subsumed under this overarching ideal. Our eternal challenge is to bring this ideal into temporal concepts (ideas) without severing the thread of truth that leads back to the ideal. In this quest, the 5th ER introduces the challenge to not view time as an absolute. We are told that the absolute of time is eternity. Reflect on the First Source and Center as an uncaused cause. By abandoning the idea of time having an absolute nature, and following the idea of the causality of the First Source and Center to the infinite and eternal quality of the ideal of God you can get to eternity and a logical appreciation of the uncaused cause.
Can you let go of a temporal imposition on your reflection of causality? Such thinking leads to a philosophic recognition of the existential fact of God. The 5th ER expands on the Father’s self-limitation to being purely existential, a novel aspect of God mankind has never before embraced. Always has mankind imbued the Father with some experiential nature. This is true of the other manifestations of deity, but not the Father. Accepting this idea, we are confronted with the recognition that our mortal nature is practically nothing but experiential. Our ability to have any insight into the exclusively existential nature of the Father is possible because we have a fragment of infinity actually indwelling our mind.
Venturing to think transcendently regarding time, puts us in alignment to attempt to think the truths of eternity which is worship.
Paper 133. The Return from Rome
We remarked on Jesus’ departure from Rome without so much as a good-bye to his friends, the religious leaders. Upon reflection it is clear that the manner of his departure diminished the likelihood of his being a stumbling block to the evolutionary spiritual progress of these men and women. They continued to meet informally and shared their memories of the good times spent with this scribe of Damascus. The term “good times” used here by the midwayers should be interpreted as genuine goodness, a quality of the inner life reaching up to the domain of spirit in contrast with merely fun times on the level of the feelings.
The authors foreshadow the decline and fall of Rome with their observation that the progeny of great numbers of inferior slaves were beginning to appear. We lingered briefly on the reference to the term inferior, noting its reference in this context to individuals incapable of initiating or maintaining civilization.
Jesus’ answer to Ganid’s question about India’s caste system speaks to the timely problem of keeping the things of the material realm separated in our minds from the things of the domain of spirit. Jesus declares unequivocally that before God and the spiritual world all mortals stand on equal footing, notwithstanding their vast differences when viewed physically, mentally, socially, vocationally, or morally. From the spiritual perspective God recognizes only two groups of mortals, those who desire to do his will and those who do not. From an evolutionary and experiential point of view the universe sees two great classes, those who know God and those who do not. Note the midwayers’ qualifying remark that those who cannot know God are reckoned as animals. We spent some time responding to a caller attempting to clarify the precise nature of a creature in the likeness of a human who is actually sub-human. In the social, political, and economic activities of our lives we must recognize the differential of our fellows with respect to their abilities and endowments. But in the spiritual realm, no such distinctions are to be made, as God is no respecter of persons. The inability to keep these distinctions firmly in mind is most problematic for the progress of civilization.
132:1. Mercy and Justice
An incident along their walk to Tarentum became a showcase for Jesus to instruct Ganid about the difference between mercy and justice. Mercy ministry is always the work of the individual, but justice is the function of the social, governmental, or universe administrative groups. Mercy is applied love while justice is applied law. On high, judgment is vested in those who fully know the antecedents of all wrongdoing as well as its motivation.
This topic of mercy and justice had occupied their conversation for several days when Ganid asked Jesus pointedly what he (Jesus) would do if he were threatened with destruction by another creature. Jesus explained his likely response in such a situation. And it hinged on his determination as to whether or not his attacker were a son of God, possessing moral judgment and spiritual reason. Jesus indicated that he would not assault a fellow man of sonship status even in self-defense. He went on to deliver a stirring affirmation of his absolute confidence in the Father’s overcare convinced that no real harm could befall him. We need to be careful in interpreting the meaning and implication of Jesus’ attitude for ourselves inasmuch as he was on a bestowal mission and his life consisted of distinct phases of private and public ministry.
Notes by Brad
- Conceptualizing the relationship of infinity and eternity to time and space? It's an eternal and ever-growing journey we will go through.
- Don't think of time as an absolute (this is an unquestioned predicate shot through all our modern thinking).
- Should you hold this as a belief (assumption), "the uncaused cause" simply cannot make sense to you.
- But remember: the Thought Adjuster in our minds can catalyze the sublime challenge of thinking transcendent of time.
- Why is such thought valuable, not just an abstraction? Because discovering a way to think about the truths of eternity is worship.That's worship. Which is transcendent of prayer!
- Why did Jesus leave so suddenly? Religion has nothing to do with the outer life. Fixation on Jesus the man could only bring them down in their thinking, not elevate it.
- The "good times" they had with Jesus: not the fun times, not the feeling-ful times. Remember the high meaning of the word "good."
- As for the fall of Rome, the die was already cast, as they saw as they walked the Appian way. See [195:3..9] for the causes of the fall of this empire.
- You can't get to eternity through a summation of matter substance, so to speak. You have to approach it from spirit substance--from the inner life.
- Knowing God or not knowing God is a 6th level of meaning issue.
- Justice is a group phenomenon, all the way to the top of the Universe. It is from the Paradise Trinity, not from any one of the three aspects of the Trinity taken on their own.
- For an example of how problematic this is in popular consciousness, look at the appeal (even this author admits he enjoys thme) of vigilante justice movies.
- We're reminded that Jesus' life is not a universalizable example to us, particularly during his public ministry but there even are shades of it here in this chapter of his life.
- Here is that "soaring Jesus affirmation" about insisting that the universe is friendly, despite all appearances to the contrary.
- This suggests that a 3rd-circle human could discern a human from a subhuman. But remember how rare (sad to record...) 3rd-circle humans are today, so take it easy.
- Remember how friend is a very high word, indeed, not the flippant social-media thing. Or even absurd things like "printer-friendly web page"
