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Why Did Jesus come to Urantia?
Ken Glasziou
With Jesus birthday coming up in August, perhaps it is the time to give thought to why one who is, to all intents and purposes, God to his own universe, nevertheless should have had come to this lowly planet as a helpless babe and live among us, unrecognized. Abstracting from p. 1324, we find these statements:
Michael had a double purpose in coming to our planet as Jesus of Nazareth. First, he was completing the required bestowal experiences demanded of all Creator Sons before they can assume complete sovereignty of their created universe. Second, he was aspiring to the privilege of representing the maximum authority of the Paradise Trinity that can be exercised in the direct and personal administration of a local universe.
In undertaking his mission in this way, successful completion meant that he became a Master Creator Son. Of interest to us Urantians is how these tasks were to be achieved. To find out we go to the bestowal charge of Immanuel, the ambassador of the Paradise Trinity, which includes the following:
Throughout your Urantia career you need be concerned with but one thing, the unbroken communion between you and your Paradise Father; and it will be by the perfection of such a relationship that the world of your bestowal will behold a new and more understandable revelation of your Father and my Father, the Universal Father of all. (1326)
It appears that Immanuel and Michael had consulted together quite extensively concerning the what, how, and why of the bestowal. Immanuel went on to say:
Your great mission to be realized and experienced in the mortal incarnation is embraced in your decision to live a life wholeheartedly motivated to do the will of your Paradise Father, thus to reveal God, your Father, in the flesh and especially to the creatures of the flesh.
Immanuel then asked Jesus to:
Exhibit in your one short life in the flesh, as it has never been seen in all Nebadon, the transcendent possibilities attainable by a God-knowing human during the short career of human existence.
and to show to the entire universe, the achievement of God seeking man and finding him and the phenomenon of man seeking God and finding him. (1328, 1329)
"The transcendent possibilities attainable by a God-knowing human." In terms of the quality of its attitudinal spiritual content, Jesus' life on Urantia presented us with an example of what is attainable by you and by me. The key to attainment seems to be contained in the earlier statement, "to be concerned with but one thing, the unbroken communion between you and your Paradise Father" which, for us, should mean unbroken communion with our indwelling Father Spirit.
Much of what we know concerning what Jesus did has always been considered as being beyond the bounds of possibility for mere humans--achievable by Jesus only because of his dual status as both fully human and fully divine. Throughout the ages, followers of Jesus have invariably concluded that, "in real life" many of the attitudes taken by Jesus were unrealistic and impractical--and not what is required from us. Let's get it firmly in our minds that The Urantia Book tells us otherwise, it really does state, with no reservations, that the example of Jesus, the man, is attainable by God-knowing and God-seeking individuals. It also provides us with a telling commentary:
"Modern, civilized men dread the thought of falling under the dominance of strong religious convictions. Thinking man has always feared to be held by a religion. When a strong and moving religion threatens to dominate him, he invariably tries to rationalize, traditionalize, and institutionalize it, thereby hoping to gain control of it. By such procedure, even a revealed religion becomes man-made and man-dominated. Modern men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their fears of what it will do to them--and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood of man."
Then follows this sentence--which certainly provides food for thought and maybe some self-examination:
"Selfish men and women simply will not pay such a price for even the greatest spiritual treasure ever offered mortal man." (2083)
That spiritual treasure is, of course, the life that Jesus led for us on Urantia. Very briefly, we have covered what might be expected from a Creator Son in his bestowal life. Next we take a look at some of the ways by which the task was achieved. First, some attitudes that
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