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4. It (the gospel) taught the pre-eminence of the spiritual compared with the material; it glorified spiritual realities and exalted superhuman ideals.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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. (TUB 170: 2)
The gospel then was many faceted. In The Urantia Book it was the gospel of Jesus; the gospel of the kingdom; the kingdom of the spirit; the religion of the spirit; the new gospel. From the New Testament it was the gospel of Jesus Christ (Mark); the gospel of the kingdom, (Matthew; Mark); the gospel of God (Paul); the gospel of Christ (Paul); the gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ (Paul).
On the other hand, what it is we must portray in our own lives is the same mission as discussed by Jesus and Immanuel prior to the Michael incarnation in which Immanuel states:
"Exhibit in your one short life in the flesh, as it has never before been seen in all Nebadon, the transcendent possibilities attainable by a God-knowing human during the short career of mortal existence and make a new and illuminating interpretation of….the achievement of God seeking man and finding him and the phenomenon of man seeking God and finding him" (TUB 120:8).
This concept was later reiterated by Jesus to those who are his followers:
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. (TUB 191: 5.3)
References
1. Bundy, Walter E. (1928) The Religion of Jesus (The Bobs-Merril Company, Indianapolis)
2. Edersheim, Alfred (1993) The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Hendrickson Publishers Inc.)
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