The Urantia Book
Paper 103: The Reality of Religious Experience; Section
4
Spiritual Communion
| 103:4.1 The characteristic difference between a social occasion
and a religious gathering is that in contrast with the secular the religious
is pervaded by the atmosphere of communion. In this way human association
generates a feeling of Fellowship with the divine, and this is the beginning
of group worship. Partaking of a common meal was the earliest type of social
communion, and so did early religions provide that some portion of the
ceremonial sacrifice should be eaten by the worshipers. Even in Christianity
the Lord's Supper retains this mode of communion. The atmosphere of the
communion provides a refreshing and comforting period of truce in the conflict
of the self-seeking ego with the altruistic urge of the indwelling spirit
Monitor. And this is the prelude to true worship--the practice of the presence
of God which eventuates in the emergence of the brotherhood of man.
103:4.2 When primitive man felt that his communion with God had been interrupted, he resorted to sacrifice of some kind in an effort to make atonement, to restore friendly relationship. The hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the discovery of truth, and truth augments ideals, and this creates new problems for the individual religionists, for our ideals tend to grow by geometrical progression, while our ability to live up to them is enhanced only by arithmetical progression. 103:4.3 The sense of guilt (not the consciousness of sin) comes either from interrupted spiritual communion or from the lowering of one's moral ideals. Deliverance from such a predicament can only come through the realization that one's highest moral ideals are not necessarily synonymous with the will of God. Man cannot hope to live up to his highest ideals, but he can be true to his purpose of finding God and becoming more and more like him. 103:4.4 Jesus swept away all of the ceremonials of sacrifice and atonement. He destroyed the basis of all this fictitious guilt and sense of isolation in the universe by declaring that man is a child of God; the creature-Creator relationship was placed on a child- parent basis. God becomes a loving Father to his mortal sons and daughters. All ceremonials not a legitimate part of such an intimate family relationship are forever abrogated. 103:4.5 God the Father deals with man his child on the basis, not of actual virtue or worthiness, but in recognition of the child's motivation--the creature purpose and intent. The relationship is one of parent-child association and is actuated by divine love. |
A service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship