PART I: Gospel Resources
“Jesus lived on earth and taught a gospel which redeemed man from the superstition that he was a child of the devil and elevated him to the dignity of a faith son of God. Jesus’ message, as he preached it and lived it in his day, was an effective solvent for man’s spiritual difficulties in that day of its statement. And now that he has personally left the world, he sends in his place his Spirit of Truth, who is designed to live in man and, for each new generation, to restate the Jesus message so that every new group of mortals to appear upon the face of the earth shall have a new and up-to-date version of the gospel, just such personal enlightenment and group guidance as will prove to be an effective solvent for man’s ever-new and varied spiritual difficulties.” (2060.6 [149:2.1])
1. How can we avoid the dangers of making an intellectual system of the many sides of the gospel arranged in what follows?
2. How can we discover the unity of these gospel facets?
3. Note that in many of these selections many themes are linked. See, for example, the sermon on the kingdom (1536-37 [137:8]) and his words to the brothers on the road to Emmaus (2035.1 [190:5]).
The individual’s faith-sonship with God
“I say to you in all sincerity: Unless you seek entrance into the kingdom with the faith and trusting dependence of a little child, you shall in no wise gain admission.” (1536.5 [137:8])
“God is your Father, and religion—my gospel—is nothing more nor less than the believing recognition of the truth that you are his son.” (1590.5 [141:4])
“The Master sought to impress upon all teachers of the gospel of the kingdom that their only business was to reveal God to the individual man as his Father–to lead this individual man to become son-conscious; then to present this same man to God as his faith son.” (1593.5 [141:6])
“God is your Father, and religion–my gospel–is nothing more nor less than the believing recognition of the truth that you are his son.” (1590.5 [141:4])
“. . . this good news: That faith-quickened mortals are the sons of God.” (1957.2 [181:2])
“Sonship with God, by faith, is still the saving truth of the gospel of the kingdom. . . . You are to go forth preaching the love of God and the service of man. That which the world needs most to know is: Men are the sons of God, and through faith they can actually realize, and daily experience, this ennobling truth.” (2052.4 [193:2])
The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man
“Simply go forth proclaiming: This is the kingdom of heaven–God is your Father and you are his sons, and this good news, if you wholeheartedly believe it, is your eternal salvation.” (1593.0 [141:6])
“. . . the greatest truths mortal man can ever hear–the living gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” (2086.7 [195:10])
“The Master made it clear that the kingdom of heaven must begin with, and be centered in, the dual concept of the truth of the fatherhood of God and the correlated fact of the brotherhood of man” (1859.11 [170:2])
“The gospel of the kingdom is: the fact of the fatherhood of God, coupled with the resultant truth of the sonship-brotherhood of men” (2059.4 [194:0]).
“The Father in heaven sends his spirit to indwell the minds of men . . . .” (1536 [137:8])
“This kingdom of which you preach is God within you.” (1569.2 [140:1])
Sovereignty, sonship, and faith in a human desire
“John asked Jesus, ‘Master, what is the kingdom of heaven?’ And Jesus answered: ‘The kingdom of heaven consists in these three essentials: first, recognition of the fact of the sovereignty of God; second, belief in the truth of sonship with God; and third, faith in the effectiveness of the supreme human desire to do the will of God–to be like God. And this is the good news of the gospel: that by faith every mortal may have all these essentials of salvation.'” (1585.7-86.0: 140:10])
Jesus later in his public career taught “the higher and more spiritual phases of the new gospel of the kingdom–divine sonship, spiritual liberty, and eternal salvation.” (1705.5 [152:5])
“The theme of Jesus’ instructions during the sojourn at Sidon was spiritual progression. He told them they could not stand still; they must go forward in righteousness or retrogress into evil and sin. He admonished them to ‘forget those things which are in the past while you push forward to embrace the greater realities of the kingdom.’ He besought them not to be content with their childhood in the gospel but to strive for the attainment of the full stature of divine sonship in the communion of the spirit and in the fellowship of believers.” (1736.3 [156:2])
“In preaching the gospel of the kingdom, you are simply teaching friendship with God. And this fellowship will appeal alike to men and women in that both will find that which most truly satisfies their characteristic longings and ideals.” (1766.5 [159:3])
“. . . the essential dual concept of religion: the existence of the Universal Father of all universe creatures and the fact of the ascending experience in the universe of these very creatures as they seek to attain the eternal Father, who has commanded them to be perfect, even as he is perfect.” (1030.1 [94:3])
“The Tibetans have something of all the leading world religions except the simple teachings of the Jesusonian gospel: sonship with God, brotherhood with man, and ever-ascending citizenship in the eternal universe.” (1038.7 [94:10])
“Jesus later in his public career taught “the higher and more spiritual phases of the new gospel of the kingdom–divine sonship, spiritual liberty, and eternal salvation.” (1705.5 [152:5]; 2054.3 [193:2])
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (1594.0 [141:7])
Jesus later in his public career taught “the higher and more spiritual phases of the new gospel of the kingdom–divine sonship, spiritual liberty, and eternal salvation.” (1705.5 [152:5])
“I have freely proclaimed the gospel of salvation to this people; I have told them of sonship with joy, liberty, and life more abundant in the spirit.” (1902.4 [174:5])
“Remember that you are commissioned to preach this gospel of the kingdom–the supreme desire to do the Father’s will coupled with the supreme joy of the faith realization of sonship with God . . . .” (1931.2 [178:1])
Forgiveness and divi ne righteousness
“Though Jesus taught that faith, simple childlike belief, is the key to the door of the kingdom, he also taught that, having entered the door, there are the progressive steps of righteousness which every believing child must ascend in order to grow up to the full stature of the robust sons of God.
“It is in the consideration of the technique of receiving God’s forgiveness that the attainment of the righteousness of the kingdom is revealed. Faith is the price you pay for entrance into the family of God; but forgiveness is the act of God which accepts your faith as the price of admission.” (1861.9-10 [170:3])
“The spirit of my Father and the Spirit of Truth shall establish you in the coming kingdom of spiritual understanding and divine righteousness. . . . [M]y disciples shall enter the kingdom of heaven by their moral decisions and by their spirit victories; and when they once enter therein, they shall find joy, righteousness, and eternal life.” (1536.4 [137:8])
“When men and women ask what shall we do to be saved, you shall answer, Believe this gospel of the kingdom; accept divine forgiveness. By faith recognize the indwelling spirit of God, whose acceptance makes you a son of God. Have you not read in the Scriptures where it says, `In the Lord have I righteousness and strength.’ Also where the Father says, `My righteousness is near; my salvation has gone forth, and my arms shall enfold my people.’ `My soul shall be joyful in the love of my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and has covered me with the robe of his righteousness.’ Have you not also read of the Father that his name `shall be called the Lord our righteousness.’ `Take away the filthy rags of self-righteousness and clothe my son with the robe of divine righteousness and eternal salvation.’ It is forever true, `the just shall live by faith.’ Entrance into the Father’s kingdom is wholly free, but progress–growth in grace–is essential to continuance therein. . . .
In summing up his final statement, Jesus said: “You cannot buy salvation; you cannot earn righteousness. Salvation is the gift of God, and righteousness is the natural fruit of the spirit-born life of sonship in the kingdom. You are not to be saved because you live a righteous life; rather is it that you live a righteous life because you have already been saved, have recognized sonship as the gift of God and service in the kingdom as the supreme delight of life on earth. When men believe this gospel, which is a revelation of the goodness of God, they will be led to voluntary repentance of all known sin. Realization of sonship is incompatible with the desire to sin. Kingdom believers hunger for righteousness and thirst for divine perfection.” (1682.4-1683.2 [150:5])
Love and service; worship and service
“If you would but believe that my Father loves you with an infinite love, then you are in the kingdom of God.” (1537.4 [137:8])
“Thus did the doctrine of the fatherhood of God make imperative the practice of the brotherhood of man. The worship of God and the service of man became the sum and substance of his religion.” (1769.9 [159:5])
“You are to go forth preaching the love of God and the service of man.” (2052.4 [193:0.4])
“Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-revealing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall consist in the life which you will live among men–the actual and living experience of loving men and serving them, even as I have loved and served you.” (2043.1 [191:5])
“You are all to proclaim this gospel of love and truth by the lives which you live in the flesh. You shall love one another with a new and startling affection, even as I have loved you. You will serve mankind with a new and amazing devotion, even as I have served you. And when men see you so love them, and when they behold how fervently you serve them, they will perceive that you have become faith-fellows of the kingdom of heaven, and they will follow after the Spirit of Truth which they see in your lives, to the finding of eternal salvation.” (2044.3 [191:6])
“My bestowal should help all men to know that they are the children of God, but such knowledge will not suffice if they fail personally to faith-grasp the saving truth that they are the living spirit sons of the eternal Father. The gospel of the kingdom is concerned with the love of the Father and the service of his children on earth.” (2053.0 [193:0])
“Is not this the fast I should choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the knots of heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share my bread with the hungry and to bring those who are homeless and poor to my house? And when I see those who are naked, I will clothe them.” (Jesus quoting the prophet Isaiah, 1656.4 [147:8.3])
PART II. EXERCISE: Answer the following questions using, for example, the resources previously listed
How does the gospel minister to the spiritual difficulties implicit in the problems of secular society?
During the psychologically unsettled times of the twentieth century, amid the economic upheavals, the moral crosscurrents, and the sociologic rip tides of the cyclonic transitions of a scientific era, thousands upon thousands of men and women have become humanly dislocated; they are anxious, restless, fearful, uncertain, and unsettled . . . . In the face of unprecedented scientific achievement and mechanical development there is spiritual stagnation and philosophic chaos. (1090.2)
“Today society is top-heavy with the overgrowth of supposed human needs. Occidental civilization of the twentieth century groans wearily under the tremendous overload of luxury and the inordinate multiplication of human desires and longings” (765.2). “The devious strivings of a vainglorious generation threaten to swamp . . . civilization. Pleasure-want has long since superseded hunger-want; the legitimate social aims of self-maintenance are rapidly translating themselves into base and threatening forms of self-gratification. Self-maintenance builds society; unbridled self-gratification unfailingly destroys civilization” (766.1). “The great threat against family life is the menacing rising tide of self-gratification, the modern pleasure mania” (942.2).
“Christianity suffers under a great handicap because it has become identified in the minds of all the world as a part of the social system, the industrial life, and the moral standards of Western civilization; and thus has Christianity unwittingly seemed to sponsor a society which staggers under the guilt of tolerating science without idealism, politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without restraint, knowledge without character, power without conscience, and industry without morality” (2086.6).
In “Urantia’s Postbestowal Son Age” we read, “Brotherhood is impossible on a world whose inhabitants are so primitive that they fail to recognize the folly of unmitigated selfishness. . . . Ignorance breeds suspicion . . . . [We must recognize] the immorality of human intolerance and the sinfulness of fratricidal strife. . . . Selfish political sagacity is ultimately suicidal–destructive of all those enduring qualities which insure planetary group survival.” (597.3-598.1)
“The perils of budding industry on Urantia are:
1. The strong drift toward materialism, spiritual blindness.
2. The worship of wealth-power, value distortion.
3. The vices of luxury, cultural immaturity.
4. The increasing dangers of indolence, service insensitivity.
5. The growth of undesirable racial softness, biologic deterioration.
6. The threat of standardized industrial slavery, personality stagnation. Labor is ennobling but drudgery is benumbing.” (786.2-6)
How does the gospel minister to the spiritual difficulties involved in planetary religion?
“The dangers of formalized religion are: fixation of beliefs and crystallization of sentiments; accumulation of vested interests with increase of secularization; tendency to standardize and fossilize truth; diversion of religion from the service of God to the service of the church; inclination of leaders to become administrators instead of ministers; tendency to form sects and competitive divisions; establishment of oppressive ecclesiastical authority; creation of the aristocratic “chosen-people” attitude; fostering of false and exaggerated ideas of sacredness; the routinizing of religion and the petrification of worship; tendency to venerate the past while ignoring present demands; failure to make up-to-date interpretations of religion; entanglement with functions of secular institutions; it creates the evil discrimination of religious castes; it becomes an intolerant judge of orthodoxy; it fails to hold the interest of adventurous youth and gradually loses the saving message of the gospel of eternal salvation” (1092.3).
Jesus’ gospel is under attack by those who denounce calling God “Father” as unfair to women.
Most religions are now in the phase of shamanism—when it is common to look to an intermediary (or to want to play the role of intermediary) between the people and the spirit world (986.2-3). Modern forms of worship are ritualizations of ancient sacrificial techniques of positive propitiation (978.4; 1005.4). We need new understandings of sin and forgiveness (984#10). “The dangers attendant upon the distortion and perversion of prayer consist in ignorance, superstition, crystallization, devitalization, materialism, and fanaticism” (995.5). In an age where religion is thought out rather than danced out or lived out, many priests have become theologians (1091.8; 993).
The professed followers of Jesus are divided into sects, marred by “sectarian rivalry, group bitterness, . . . [and] assertions of moral superiority, and spiritual infallibility” (2085 195:10). The living Jesus is rarely found in the lives of believers; “there are so few genuine second-milers—so few professed followers of Jesus who really live and love as he taught his disciplines to live and love and serve.” (2084.5)
“The great mistake of the Hebrew religion was its failure to associate the goodness of God with the factual truths of science and the appealing beauty of art. As civilization progressed, and since religion continued to pursue the same unwise course of overemphasizing the goodness of God to the relative exclusion of truth and neglect of beauty, there developed an increasing tendency for certain types of men to turn away from the abstract and dissociated concept of isolated goodness.” (43.2)
An odd spiritual difficulty is social ease. Jesus warned his followers of times when the gospel would be nominally socially acceptable. Accustomed to living our religion in a way that never calls for courage, we fall into spiritual laziness.
How does the gospel minister to the spiritual difficulties of daily life?
We have to deal with “an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments . . . situations of social inequality . . . insecurities and recurrent uncertainties . . . that troublesome predicament where [the mind] ever knows less than it can believe . . . a world where error is present and falsehood always possible . . . an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things . . . possibilities of betrayal and desertion . . . the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor . . . a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities” (51).
As part of the divine plan we face “anxieties and sorrows, . . . trials and disappointments (258.11). “The universe of your origin is being forged out between the anvil of justice and the hammer of suffering (100.2). We develop progressive attitudes only by learning to face uncertainty, disappointment, apparent defeat, difficulties, immensity, and the inexplicable (291.3).
This life is a “short and intense test” (158.4), fighting “the battle of existence” (68.4) with its “dark and uncertain mazes” (1203.4) and the commonplace prose of daily routine (557.6), “the monotonous grind of material existence” (1621.4).
In order for us to bring forth the twelve spiritlike performances we must confront “inherent and adverse animalistic tendencies . . . bitter disappointment and crushing defeat . . . natural adversity and physical calamity . . . baffling diseases and even acute physical suffering . . . maltreatment and the rankest injustice . . . the cruelties of seemingly blind fate and the apparent utter indifference of natural forces to human welfare . . . intellectual sophistries . . . the deceptive teachings of false science and the persuasive delusions of unsound philosophy . . . the crushing overload of the complex and partial civilizations of modern times . . . human selfishness, social antagonisms, industrial greeds, and political maladjustments . . . the perplexing presence of evil and sin . . . “ (1108.4-11).
Everyone in every age faces it: “The great problem of life is the adjustment of the ancestral tendencies of living to the demands of the spiritual urges initiated by the divine presence of the Mystery Monitor. . . On Urantia every man must perforce serve two masters. He must become adept in the art of a continuous human temporal compromise while he yields spiritual allegiance to but one master; and this is why so many falter and fail, grow weary and succumb to the stress of the evolutionary struggle”(1199.5). What happens to them? They “grow weary in progression, entertain spiritual doubts, stumble into confusion, and thus isolate themselves from the progressive spiritual aims of their time and universe” (361.1).
Our planet is “confused and distorted” (597.3; 1189.2), “sin-stricken, evil-dominated, self-seeking” (629.10).
