Vincent Van Gogh, Sower at Sunset
Before he turned to painting, Vincent Van Gogh was an intense, passionate, and frustrated evangelist. This blogpost is for those of us who have been there and are beginning to exit that frustration.
Watch the 13:41 video or listen to the podcast episode?
What does the following statement imply for our personal growth and our ministries? “The first mission of [the Spirit of Truth] is, of course, to foster and personalize truth, for it is the comprehension of truth that constitutes the highest form of human liberty.” (194:2.2/2060.7) This teaching is so rich that any gospel nerd would plunge in. Join me at your own risk.
We’ll look first at truth, then comprehension, then liberty—themes that we will see to be interwoven.
Truth
Truth is . . . for example . . . the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. We are most familiar with this phrase. We can say it almost without thinking, assuming that we and others understand, know, get it. Often I do this very thing.
All Urantia is waiting . . . for “the living spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.” (94:12.7/1041.5) Hmmm. Living spiritual reality. Sounds good. Again, it’s easy to pass quickly over the phrase, hardly noticing, assuming that we get it. We are there.
The problem with the flat, unexpressive, taking-for-granted voicing of this truth is that it puts the entire gospel core on the level of fact.
Next I shall probe the distinction between fact and truth. If you find it confusing, back off: “Truth often becomes confusing and even misleading when it is dismembered, segregated, isolated, and too much analyzed. Living truth teaches the truth seeker aright only when it is embraced in wholeness and as a living spiritual reality . . . (195:5.2/2075.5). Fasten your seat belt. Here we go.
188:4.13 (2017.8) Human salvation is real; it is based on two realities which may be grasped by the creature’s faith and thereby become incorporated into individual human experience: the fact of the fatherhood of God and its correlated truth, the brotherhood of man.
170:2.1 (1859.11) 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.
Comment. Either gospel component can be recognized on the level of fact, and each can be realized on the level of truth. But one of them must be on the level of truth. Nothing wrong with fact consciousness; fact is an essential element in universe reality. But the gospel is not wholly on that level. When I voice both halves of it in a flat way, I am neglecting the living spiritual reality of truth. Once we consider the truth dimension, it immediately becomes clear what an awesome living spiritual reality is here. Fact consciousness alone will not yield the transformative results that Jesus portrays in the rest of the quote.
170:2.1 (1859.11) The acceptance of such a teaching, Jesus declared, would liberate man from the age-long bondage of animal fear and at the same time enrich human living with the following endowments of the new life of spiritual liberty:
- The possession of new courage and augmented spiritual power. The gospel of the kingdom was to set man free and inspire him to dare to hope for eternal life.
- The gospel carried a message of new confidence and true consolation for all men, even for the poor.
- It was in itself a new standard of moral values, a new ethical yardstick wherewith to measure human conduct. It portrayed the ideal of a resultant new order of human society.
- It taught the pre-eminence of the spiritual compared with the material; it glorified spiritual realities and exalted superhuman ideals.
- This new gospel held up spiritual attainment as the true goal of living. Human life received a new endowment of moral value and divine dignity.
- Jesus taught that eternal realities were the result (reward) of righteous earthly striving. Man’s mortal sojourn on earth acquired new meanings consequent upon the recognition of a noble destiny.
- The new gospel affirmed that human salvation is the revelation of a far-reaching divine purpose to be fulfilled and realized in the future destiny of the endless service of the salvaged sons of God. (170:2.2-8 (1859.12-1860.3)
This list of seven items are revealed in the ideal evangelist, all of which are implicit in the core truth of the universal family. The implication for our personal lives is to work with these truths in mind, soul, and daily living until they become part of our very being.
The implication for our ministry is this. The living spiritual reality of the brotherhood of man—in particular our relationship with the person(s) with whom we are speaking must be activated if we are to proclaim in spirit and in truth.
180:5.2 (1949.4) Divine truth is a spirit-discerned and living reality. Truth exists only on high spiritual levels of the realization of divinity and the consciousness of communion with God. You can know the truth, and you can live the truth; you can experience the growth of truth in the soul and enjoy the liberty of its enlightenment in the mind, but you cannot imprison truth in formulas, codes, creeds, or intellectual patterns of human conduct. When you undertake the human formulation of divine truth, it speedily dies. The post-mortem salvage of imprisoned truth, even at best, can eventuate only in the realization of a peculiar form of intellectualized glorified wisdom. Static truth is dead truth, and only dead truth can be held as a theory. Living truth is dynamic and can enjoy only an experiential existence in the human mind.
180:5.3 (1949.5) Truth is a spiritual reality value experienced only by spirit-endowed beings who function upon supermaterial levels of universe consciousness, and who, after the realization of truth, permit its spirit of activation to live and reign within their souls.
We can’t even pronounce the gospel meaningfully until the Spirit breathes and quickens what truths we’re working with.
34:6.6 (380.7) The dead theory of even the highest religious doctrines is powerless to transform human character or to control mortal behavior. What the world of today needs is the truth which your teacher of old declared: “Not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit.” The seed of theoretical truth is dead, the highest moral concepts without effect, unless and until the divine Spirit breathes upon the forms of truth and quickens the formulas of righteousness.
Comprehension
We comprehend truth in its many-sided implications, for example, for our own lives. As we realize these and begin to act on them, we break through and find liberation for the new and better way. Truth is coherent; the truths of spiritual experience can be coordinated with the truths of science that pertain to the major facts of importance in our lives. Truth is a name for Jesus; his Spirit of Truth, he said, is “just like me except for my body.” The life of truth is the way that it moves from one truth to another, from one level to another, to illuminate our path forward, always in touch with our evolutionary capacity of receptivity. God is the life of truth. Truth is expressively revealed by the Son of mercy. Jesus taught that “the soul is the self-reflective, truth-discerning, and spirit-perceiving part of man.
Liberty
There are so many gross and subtle ways for us to become captive to material pleasure or fall into intellectual bondage, or spiritual blindness. But the faith of Jesus and the ministry of the Spirit . . . and TRUTH . . . liberate us.
There is freedom from and freedom to. Jesus came to liberate the spiritual captives and called his followers to continue that work. Their spiritual lives were captive to . . . x, y, and z. From one person to another, one generation to another, there are different spiritual difficulties that need to be dissolved. Watch how beautifully the following paragraphs succinctly state what countless people need freedom from and what will liberate us and the kind of life into which we thereby enter.
The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided for:
1. Salvation from material fetters in the personal realization of sonship with God, who is spirit.
2. Salvation from intellectual bondage: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free. 101:6.11 (1112.7)
3. Salvation from spiritual blindness, the human realization of the fraternity of mortal beings and the morontian awareness of the brotherhood of all universe creatures; the service-discovery of spiritual reality and the ministry-revelation of the goodness of spirit values. . . .101:6.9-11 (1112.5-7)
The liberation that attracts truth-seekers is steeped in the many-sided gospel of Jesus, a message that is comprehended by the combined action of mind and soul, in response to the ministries of the Father’ presence, Jesus’ Spirit of Truth, Mother’s adjutants, and more.
I will add one more of my favorite gospel quotes, which brings together the themes we have touched on.
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.” (140:10.9/1585.7)
I give thanks for you indwelt personalities and for your ministries. May you be fruitful in souls attracted to truth.
Fact versus truth? Interesting question. It strikes me that we perceive facts and we see that others are perceiving their facts and we both are striving to find truth by evaluating the validity of those facts.
Dear Geoff,
I am profoundly indebted to you for your thoughtful and sustaining comments on these post which otherwise often give the appearance of speaking to no one.
The matter of fact and truth is more complicated that is indicated here. Beginning on page 27 in Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness you will see a more probing discussion. The Urantia Book says that science is the source of facts. Also, when I distinguish fact, meaning, and truth, I often write as though facts were the realm of material things, whereas God is on another level. But the sovereignty of God is the first fact in the universe of universes. And remember 16:9:1/195 . . . “The cosmic-mind-endowed, Adjuster-indwelt, personal creature possesses innate recognition-realization of energy reality, mind reality, and spirit reality. The will creature is thus equipped to discern the fact, the law, and the love of God.” Because of the limitations of our language, one word must bear many meanings. Again, thank you for the interaction-stimulus on this very important pair of concepts.
Living in Truth, Beauty and Goodness is loaded with great thoughts that help us traverse the material, mindal and spiritual circles to a morontia understanding of this and other necessities of life.