Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 93
MACHIVENTA MELCHIZEDEK
1. The Melchizedeks are widely known as emergency Sons, for they engage in an amazing range of activities on the worlds of a local universe. When any extraordinary problem arises, or when something unusual is to be attempted, it is quite often a Melchizedek who accepts the assignment.
2. The Melchizedeks order of universe sonship has been exceedingly active on Urantia. A corps of twelve served in conjunction with the Life Carriers. A later corps of twelve became receivers for your world shortly after the Caligastia secession and continued in authority until the time of Adam and. Eve. These twelve Melchizedeks returned to Urantia upon the default of Adam and Eve, and they continued thereafter as planetary receivers on down to the day when Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of Man, became the titular Planetary Prince of Urantia.
3. Revealed truth was threatened with extinction during the millenniums which followed the miscarriage of the Adamic mission on Urantia...About 3000 B.C. the concept of God had grown very hazy in the minds of men.
4. And it was in consequence of having been thrown so completely on their own resources that Machiventa Melchizedek, one of the twelve planetary receivers, volunteered to do that which had been done only six times in all the history of Nebadon: to personalize on earth as a temporary man of the realm, to bestow himself as an emergency Son of world ministry.
5. It was 1,973 years before the birth of Jesus that Machiventa was bestowed upon the human races of Urantia. His coming was unspectacular; his materialization was not witnessed by human eyes. He was first observed by mortal man on that eventful day when he entered the tent of .Amdon, a Chaldean herder of Sumerian extraction. And the proclamation of his mission was embodied in the simple statement which he made to this shepherd, "I am Melchizedek, priest of El Elyon, the Most High, the one and only God."
6. Within a few years Melchizedek had gathered around himself a group of pupils, disciples, and believers who formed the nucleus of the later community of Salem...subsequently being called Jerusalem.
7. In personal appearance, Melchizedek resembled the then blended Nodite and Sumerian peoples, being almost six feet in height and possessing a commanding presence. He spoke Chaldean and a half dozen other languages.
8. Though Machiventa lived after the manner of the men of the realm, he never married, nor could he have left offspring on earth. His physical body, while resembling that of the human male, was in reality on the order of those especially constructed bodies used by the one hundred materialized members of Prince Caligastia's staff except that it did not carry the life plasm of any human race.
9. This incarnated Melchizedek received a Though Adjuster, who indwelt his superhuman personality as the monitor of time and the mentor of the flesh, thus gaining that experience and practical introduction to Urantian problems and to the technique of indwelling an incarnated Son which enabled this spirit of the Father to function so valiantly in the human mind of the later Son of God, Michael, when he appeared on earth in the likeness of mortal flesh.
10. During the incarnation in the flesh, Machiventa was in full contact with his eleven fellows of the corps of planetary custodians, but he could not communicate with other orders of celestial personalities.
11. To a majority of the Salem students Edentia was heaven and the Most High was God ...To the extent that Melchizedek taught the Trinity concept symbolized in his insignia, he usually associated it with the three Vorondadek rulers of the constellation of Norlatiadek.
12. Melchizedek taught that at some future time another Son of God would come in the flesh as he had come, but that he would be born of a woman; and that is why numerous later teachers held that Jesus was a priest, or minister, "forever after the order of Melchizedek."
13. The ceremonies of the Salem worship were very simple. Every person who signed or marked the clay‑tablet rolls of the Melchizedek church committed to memory, and subscribed to, the following belief:
1. I believe in El Elyon, the Most High God, the only Universal Father and Creator of all things.
2. I accept the Melchizedek covenant with the Most High, which bestows the favor of God on my faith, not on sacrifices and burnt offerings.
3. I promise to obey the seven commandments of Melchizedek and to tell the good news of this covenant with the Most High to all men.
14. The seven commandments... of the Salem religion were:
1. You shall not serve any God but the Most High Creator of heaven and earth.
2. You shall not doubt that faith is the only requirement for eternal salvation.
3. You shall not bear false witness.
4. You shall not kill.
5. You shall not steal.
6. You shall not commit adultery.
7. You shall not show disrespect to your parents and elders.
15. Like Jesus, Melchizedek attended strictly to the fulfillment of the mission of his bestowal. He did not attempt to reform the mores, to change the habits of the world, nor to promulgate even advanced sanitary practices or scientific truths. He came to achieve two tasks: to keep alive on earth the truth of the one God and to prepare the way for the subsequent mortal bestowal of a Paradise Son of the Universal Father.
16. Although it may be an error to speak of "chosen people," it is not a mistake to refer to Abraham as a chosen individual. Melchizedek did lay upon Abraham the responsibility of keeping alive the truth of one God as distinguished from the prevailing belief in plural deities.
17. The Melchizedek mission in Palestine and the subsequent appearance of Michael among the Hebrew people were in no small measure determined by geography, by the fact that Palestine was centrally located with reference to the then existent trade, travel, and civilization of the world.
18. Not long after they had established themselves near Salem, Abraham and Lot journeyed to the valley of the Nile to obtain food supplies as there was then a drought in Palestine. During his brief sojourn in Egypt Abraham found a distant relative on the Egyptian throne, and he served as the commander of two very successful military expeditions for this king.
19. It required great determination for Abraham to forego the honors of the Egyptian court and return to the more spiritual work sponsored by Machiventa. But Melchizedek was revered even in Egypt, and when the full story was laid before Pharaoh, he strongly urged Abraham to return to the execution of his vows to the cause of Salem.
20. Abraham had kingly ambitions, and on the way back from Egypt he laid before Lot his plan to subdue all Canaan and bring its people under the rule of Salem. Lot was more bent on
business; so, after a later disagreement, he went to Sodom to engage in trade and animal husbandry. Lot liked neither a military nor a herder's life.
21. Upon returning with his family to Salem, Abraham began to mature his military projects. He was soon recognized as the civil ruler of the Salem territory and had confederated under his leadership seven near‑by tribes ...Melchizedek maintained peaceful relations with all the surrounding tribes; he was not militaristic and was never attacked by any of the armies as they moved back and forth.
22. Abraham envisaged the conquest of all Canaan. His determination was only weakened by the fact that Melchizedek would not sanction the undertaking ...Melchizedek...persuaded Abraham to abandon his scheme of material conquest and temporal rule in favor of the spiritual concept of the kingdom of heaven.
23. And Melchizedek made a formal covenant with Abraham at Salem. Said he to Abraham:
"Look now up to the heavens and number the stars if you are able; so numerous shall
your seed be."…This covenant of Melchizedek with Abraham represents the great
Urantia agreement between divinity and humanity whereby God agrees to do everything;
man only agrees to believe God's promise and follow his instructions.
24. It was not long after the establishment of this covenant that Isaac, the son of Abraham, was born in accordance with the promise of Melchizedek. After the birth of Isaac, Abraham took a very solemn attitude toward his covenant with Melchizedek, going over to Salem to have it stated in writing. It was at this public and formal acceptance of the covenant that he changed his name from Abram to Abraham.
25. Upon the consummation of the solemn covenant, the reconciliation between Abraham and Melchizedek was complete. Abraham again assumed the civil and military leadership of the Salem colony, which at its height carried over one hundred thousand regular tithe prayers on the rolls of the Melchizedek brotherhood ...Abraham was a shrewd and efficient business man, a wealthy man for his day; he was not overly pious, but he was thoroughly sincere, and he did believe in Machiventa Melchizedek.
26. Salem missionaries penetrated all Europe, even to the British Isles. One group went by way of the Faroes to the Andonites of Iceland, while another traversed China and reached the Japanese of the eastern islands. The lives and. experiences of the men and. women who ventured forth from Salem, Mesopotamia, and Lake Van to enlighten the tribes of the Eastern Hemisphere present a heroic chapter in the annals of the human race.
27. Long before the coming of Jesus the teachings of the early Salem missionaries had become generally submerged in the older and more universal superstitions and beliefs ...You who today enjoy the advantages of the art of printing little understand how difficult it was to perpetuate truth during these earlier times...A new revelation is always contaminated by the older evolutionary beliefs.
28. It was shortly after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that Machiventa decided to end his emergency bestowal on Urantia. Melchizedek’s decision ...was influenced by numerous conditions, chief of which was the growing tendency ...to regard him as a demigod ...Accordingly Machiventa retired one night to his tent at Salem, having said good night to his human companions, and when they went to call him in the morning, he was not there, for his fellows had taken him.
29. It was a great trial, for Abraham when Melchizedek so suddenly disappeared. Although he had fully warned his followers that he must sometime go as he had come, they were not reconciled to the loss of their wonderful leader. The great organization built up at Salem nearly disappeared, though the traditions of these days were what Moses built upon when he led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt.
30. But Abraham was not long to be deterred in his mission as the successor of Melchizedek. Soon he made converts among the Philistines and of Abimelech’s people, made a treaty with them, and, in turn, became contaminated with many of their superstitions, particularly with their practice of sacrificing first‑born sons.
31. It was hard for the next generation to comprehend the story of Melchizedek; within five hundred years many regarded the whole narrative as a myth... What the Old Testament records describe as conversation between Abraham and God were in reality conferences between Abraham and Melchizedek...The Hebrew narratives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are far more reliable than those about Abraham, although they also contain many diversions from the facts ...Abraham was not so old as the records indicate, and his wife was much younger. These ages were deliberately altered in order to provide for the subsequent alleged miraculous birth of Isaac.
32. Machiventa Melchizedek continued to take a great interest in the affairs of the descendants of those men who had believed in his teachings when he was in the flesh... Machiventa continued as a planetary receive up to the times of the triumph of Michael on Urantia. Subsequently, he was attached to the Urantia service on Jerusem as one of the four and twenty directors, only just recently having been elevated to the position of personal ambassador on Jerusem of the Creator Son, bearing the title of Vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia.
33. Recent rulings handed down from the Most Highs of Edentia, and later confirmed by the Ancients of Days of Uversa, strongly suggest that this bestowal Melchizedek is destined to take the place of the fallen Planetary Prince, Caligastia.
34. We well understand how, by his triumph on Urantia, Michael became the successor of both Caligastia and Adam ...And now we behold the conferring upon this Melchizedek of the title Vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia. Will he also be constituted Vicegerent Material Son of Urantia? Or is there a possibility that an unexpected and unprecedented event is to take place, the sometime return to the planet of Adam and Eve or certain of their progeny as representatives of Michael with the titles vicegerents of the second Adam of Urantia?
35. And all these speculations associated with the certainty of future appearances of both Magisterial and Trinity Teacher Sons, in conjunction with the explicit promise of the Creator Son to return sometime, makes Urantia a planet of future uncertainty and render it one of the most interesting and intriguing spheres in all the universe of Nebadon.
36. It has long been the opinion of our order that Machiventa's presence on the Jerusem corps of Urantia directors, the four and twenty counselors, is sufficient evidence to warrant the belief that he is destined to follow the mortals of Urantia on through the universe scheme of progression and ascension even to the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
37. Less than a thousand years ago this same Machiventa Melchizedek, the one‑time sage of Salem, was invisibly present on Urantia for a period of one hundred years, acting as resident governor general of the planet; and if the present system of directing planetary affairs should continue, he will be due to return in the same capacity in a little over one thousand years.
Discussion Questions
1. Why did the Most Highs of Edentia and Father Melchizedek dismiss the plea of the Melchizedeks for help in refreshing the concept of God on our world?
2. Is it surprising that Moses received some of the advanced teachings of Machiventa through his family?
3. Why was the simple creed of the Salem religion beyond the capacity of these people to fully accept?
4. Does Machiventa’s sacrament of bread and wine have any relationship to Jesus’ sacrament of bread and wine?
5. Was the Melchizedek’s research into the leadership of Abraham’s family and Machiventa’s mission in the area of Salem a factor in Michael’s bestowal in this geographic region?
6. Was Machiventa’s formal covenant with Abraham related to the later birth of Isaac?
7. What do you think will be the future of Machiventa Melchizedek?
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship