Meredith J. Sprunger
Many devout Christians of conservative or fundamentalistic background
have read sections of The URANTIA Book and recognized the superb quality of
its spiritual insights, but they have been troubled by the revelatory claim
of the book or positions taken which differ from some of the doctrines of
fundamentalism. These people over the years have written to ask questions,
express perplexity, seek help, or challenge statements.
This paper seeks to speak with constructive understanding to these
questions and spiritual anxieties. In many ways it has been the Christian
fundamentalists who have maintained the vibrant spiritual emphasis of
religion in America. Our intent is not to contend with fundamentalistic
beliefs but rather, to set these spiritual truths in a larger frame of
reference which, hopefully, will enable those who hold to a conservative
theology to recognize that we subscribe to the same spiritual realities
and are brothers in Christ.
Most people who accept the Bible as revelation do not do so because
some one demanded obedience to this belief. They accept the Bible as the
word of God because they recognize its spiritual truths. Your approach to
The URANTIA Book should be made the same way. Before you read The URANTIA
Book you should not regard it as revelation. Only after you have read
it are you in a position to begin to consider whether or not it may have
been inspired by God. Faith and conviction must come from honest and
sincere inner leading and not from some authoritarian claim or demand.
How We Got Our Bible
In thinking about the entire question of revelation it may be helpful
to know how we got our Bible. Theological schools devote entire courses to
this question and dozens of books are available on the subject. But you
can get a short summary of the Bible's origin by going to the Public Library
reference shelf and consulting a copy of Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible.
Look up the term "canon," which means "officially accepted standards or
books," and read about how we got our Bible.
You will find the Old Testament evolved in three main stages over
thousands of years of history. It was edited periodically by many scholars.
The entire canon of the Old Testament was not decided until around 90 A. D.
at the famous Council of Jamnia where Hebrew scholars finally determined
which books should be included in the "official" scriptures of Judaism.
The process and the decisions agreed upon were much more complex and
extensive than this brief description might lead you to believe.
The New Testament began in the early Christian Church as a series of
papers and letters written by numerous people. These papers were circulated
among believers, edited, combined, and added to by many early scholars and
church leaders. The names of apostles were often attached to the better
papers so, that they would have more authority for church members. From
around 144 A. D. to 367 A. D. various scholars and bishops drew up their
own lists of books which they thought should be canonical or officially
recognized books. Finally, Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote an
Easter letter to the churches of his diocese in the year 367 in which he
discusses the books which he considered canonical. This is the first list
which includes all of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as we
now have it. His list, however, was in a different sequence than our
current New Testament. At various church councils in the years that
followed Athanasius list was widely adopted, and in this way we got
our New Testament.
In Athanasius' pastoral letter he wrote with all of the authority of a
bishop, "let no one add to them (his list) or take away aught of them." Such
authoritarian exhortations were considered necessary to protect the purity
of revelatory teachings; and statements like the admonition in
Rev. 22:18-19: "I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of
this book..." were common. In the same way the URANTIA Foundation published
The URANTIA Book under international copyright protection so that the purity
of these teachings can be safeguarded. These precautions are nor meant to
imply that God ceases to enlarge the revelation of himself and spiritual
truth to succeeding generations. The history of the Bible shows that God
does progressively reveal larger truths to a developing world. Early
religious leaders used authoritarian warnings and admonitions frequently
to protect the latest prophetic messages.
Once you understand how the content of the Bible was accumulated,
edited, adopted, and officially approved, you realize that revelation is
validated by centuries of experience. Many people recognize revelation
immediately because the indwelling spirit of God confirms what they hear
or read, but it takes many people over a long period of time to establish
a social tradition of revelation such as the Bible. This tradition, along
with the authority and prestige of the institutional church, results in a
cultural conditioning which largely determines how the average person
thinks and acts.
Recognizing New Revelation
The URANTIA Book, being very new, must be evaluated by the indwelling
spirit of God working in the mind and heart of each individual. You should
accept nothing in The URANTIA Book or any other book unless it passes this
inner test of truth. I am confident that a thousand years hence, we will
have a solid social tradition witnessing to the revelatory quality of The
URANTIA Book.
Revelation is always the product of the action of God in the life of
man. God has an infinite number of ways to do this. In Jesus of Nazareth
he used both physical and spiritual means to bring revelation to us in the
form of a person. In the writings of Paul he used spiritual inspiration in
the mind of Paul to bring us revelation in the form of brief letters to
churches. In John's book of Revelation he used a vision to the mind of
John to bring us revelation. In The URANTIA Book he used high spirit
personalities to bring revelation in the form of a book. God could use
an infinite number of channels and manifestations to bring revelation to
his mortal children. It is God's wisdom which determines the time, place,
method, and form of revelation. We might speculate on why God uses certain
channels and forms, but this would only be an educated guess. The spirit of
God is always active in the world, and in this sense revelation is
continuous -- usually through inner guidance to individuals who share
these prophetic insights with their society. Periodically epochal
revelations such as the coming of Jesus occur. These epochal revelations
naturally have a much greater effect on our world than the continuous
forms of evolutionary revelation. A study of epochal revelations show that
each succeeding one enlarges and enhances the earlier spiritual
understanding.
Revelation must: always be given in the language, the forms of
knowledge, and the philosophical concepts which are meaningful to the
people given this revelation at the time in which it is given. As human
knowledge expands, revelation uses these more advanced concepts to convey
its spiritual message. This is a never ending process.
The New Fulfills and Enhances the Old
Just as the New Testament fulfills and upsteps the Old Testament,
The URANTIA Book confirms and enlarges the truths of the Bible. Most
people have a much greater appreciation of the Bible after reading The
URANTIA Book. The Bible and The URANTIA Book are companion volumes. Not to
recognize this close supportive relationship is to repeat an ancient error.
Early in the Christian Church a wealthy ship-owner by the name of Marcion
headed a movement to eliminate the Old Testament from Christian literature.
The church wisely rejected his views. Any reader of The URANTIA Book who
took this same attitude toward the Bible, in my judgment, would be making
a similar mistake. There are many people, in fact, who have not been
interested in the Bible until after they have read The URANTIA Book.
Because of the natural suspicion conservative religionists have toward
any claim of new revelation, a rather common reaction which some
fundamentalists have toward The URANTIA Book is that it could be a work of
Satan. It is also interesting to recall that this was the same possibility
raised in connection with the message of Jesus. Jesus' response to this
accusation, I think, is as good as can be made. He said he should be judged
by the fruits of his life --
"How can Satan cast out Satan?" The URANTIA Book should be judged in the
same way. You will find it supports the mission and message of Jesus and
refutes the intentions and message of Satan! Epochal revelation will
probably always meet the same reception given the message of Jesus.
The leaders of traditional religious institutions are likely to oppose it;
but, in time, the common people will receive it gladly.
The Human and the Divine
A careful study of the life and teachings of Jesus reveals there is
no contradiction between the spiritual teachings regarding Jesus found in
The URANTIA Book and the Bible. Certain physical and cosmological facts or
assumptions are corrected, and Jesus' entire life and teachings are enlarged
by The URANTIA Book; but the essential spiritual truths are unchanged.
For instance, Christian theologians generally affirm that Jesus was both
a human and a divine personality, but the majority of scholars in mainline
churches have long recognized that the story of the immaculate conception
and the virgin birth were added by the early church to make his divine
nature more believable for the church members of those times. An interesting
observation is that today this story is frequently a stumbling block to
belief in the authenticity of the Biblical record of the divinity of Jesus.
If the virgin birth is a historical fact, the reverse argument is a much
sounder philosophical position: that is, since God could have used any
method he desired to incarnate his son, the fact of the divinity of Jesus
makes the virgin birth a possible option of the divine plan.
The reason most mainline church theologians do not accept the virgin
birth story is that only two of the four gospels record it and no where
else in the New Testament is it referred to. The earliest gospel, Mark,
and the latest gospel, John, do not mention it. One would expect all of
the gospel writers to highlight such an important event. Secondly, there
are many instances of supernatural conception and virgin birth recorded
in the annals of religious history. It was the characteristic method by
which ancient people designated the divine origin of their prophets and
leaders. Paradoxically, the Biblical account traces the lineage of Jesus
back to David through the ancestry of Joseph, not Mary. Finally, modern
Christian scholars reject the virgin birth story because it is observed
that God usually uses the natural laws of his creation to work his purposes
in the world.
The spiritual truth regarding the nature of Jesus is that he was both
human and divine. This The URANTIA Book strongly affirms. The book does not
even mention the immaculate conception and virgin birth doctrines. It is
assumed that the Father could incarnate his son as a mortal on our world
through the natural process of conception and birth. The ancient legend is
quietly ignored while the spiritual truths regarding the nature of Jesus are
substantiated and enhanced.
An Enlarged Spiritual Universe
The writers of the various books of the Bible had a comparatively
simplistic universe cosmology. They visualized a flat earth in the center
of creation encompassed by the vault or "firmament" of heaven. This limited
astronomical knowledge naturally conditioned their interpretation of
spiritual realities and personalities. Basic spiritual truth, therefore,
had to be revealed to the Biblical authors in pre scientific frames of
reference.
The revelators of The URANTIA Book present a view of the universe which,
while in essential agreement with our present astronomical knowledge, goes
far beyond our contemporary science. They also clarify our knowledge of the
Paradise Trinity, the prebestowal personality and universe status of Jesus,
and the functional relationships of spiritual beings in general. Although
the Bible does not speak of the Trinity per se, Christian thinkers have
developed the doctrine of the Trinity and naturally assumed, without
specific Biblical confirmation, that the preincarnate Christ was the
second person of the Trinity. The fact that the prologue of John speaks
of him as the actual creator of our universe was more or less regarded
as a poetic "Logos" doctrine since theologians regarded God the Father
as the creator. The authors of The URANTIA Book, however, tell us this
Biblical description (also stated in Col. 1:16 and Heb. 1:2) of the
pre-existent Christ is literally true. He is both the creator and
savior of our universe.
Each Creator Son of a local universe is a unique creation of the
Universal Father and the Eternal Son and is known as "the only begotten son"
in his universe and all who go to the Father in this universe go through the
ministry and means established by this Creator-Savior Son. Even though Jesus
is not the second person of the Paradise Trinity, his presence and power are
exactly the same as that of the Eternal Son, the second person of the
Trinity, if he were acting in the place of Christ in our universe.
After Jesus' bestowal on our confused planet, the Father, as recorded in
Matthew, placed "all authority in heaven and earth" in his hands; and he
has promised one day to return to this world of his incarnation experience.
Here, again, we see The URANTIA Book, while correcting assumptions made due
to our very limited universe knowledge, confirms and reinforces the basic
spiritual truths of the Bible.
Savior of Mankind
All Christians look to Jesus as the mediator between man and God and
regard him as the savior of mankind. It: is in the explanation of this
salvation that they differ. Theologians of mainline Christian churches
see salvation as the gift of God through faith in Jesus emphasizing God's
love for humanity and full acceptance of them as his mortal sons and
daughters. The theologians of Christian fundamentalism regard salvation
as the gift of God through faith in
Jesus because he gave himself as a blood sacrifice demanded by God the
Father as the price for forgiving the sins of mankind. This is known as
the blood atonement doctrine in which Jesus is seen as the redeemer of
humanity from the condemnation of a just and holy God.
The only Christian belief which the authors of The URANTIA Book
vigorously criticize is the blood atonement theory. They do so because
this doctrine distorts the great love which the Universal Father has for
his mortal sons and daughters. It is incompatible with Jesus' teachings
about the nature of God the Father. God's love is not subordinate to his
righteousness or holiness. Love is the Universal Father's primary attitude
toward all persons. Jesus is, indeed, the savior of mankind but not a
redeemer.
The blood atonement theory has its origin in the conceptual language of
Paul. Coming out of the Jewish tradition and writing with Jewish people in
mind, Paul used the symbolic idea of Jesus as the "final sacrifice" in their
sacrificial system as a missionary approach which made sense to those with a
Jewish background. New Testament scholars today recognize that Paul did not
hold a God concept which would be compatible with a literal blood atonement
doctrine. He used this sacrificial language because it was the only frame of
reference which would be acceptable to the Jews of his day. It was a
missionary attempt to relate to the thought patterns of the Jews.
Most ministers in mainline Christian churches have long since abandoned
this retributive concept of God. The Bible commentary most widely used in
America today is The Interpreter's Bible published by Abindgon Press.
In volume VIII, p. 510-11, the writer in commenting on John 3:16 says:
Some of the past explanations of the gospel are not over helpful to us now.
Most of us are not at home in the Jewish sacrificial system, and metaphors
drawn from it can be confusing rather than illuminating. And some of the
interpretations, popular in the Middle Ages, are to us incredible, and even
monstrous....So do many, with the Gospels in their hands, appear to see in
them a
lesser God giving himself to save us from the implacable fury and resentment
of the great God, slow and hard to be appeased, and demanding his pound of
flesh from someone. That is hideous heresy; and the blasphemy of blasphemies.
It was in the eternal plan of God the Father that Jesus Christ lived out in
fact: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (II Cor. 5:19),
not standing sullenly aside, and needing himself to be reconciled.
We should recognize that most of those who still accept a literal blood
atonement theory in our day probably do so out of misunderstanding and with
no intent to deny the loving nature of God.. To believe that God the Father
cannot or will not love man until his innocent son is brutally executed is
a cruel distortion of the loving nature of the Heavenly Father Jesus
revealed to man. But The URANTIA Book does affirm the positive spiritual
values associated with the crucifixion and man's salvation which are
important to fundamentalists as well as to other Christians.
It was the Father's will that Jesus allow the Jewish leaders to dispose
of him as they desired. God does not arbitrarily interfere with the
premeditated intentions of man. Jesus' death on the cross demonstrates
the profound love he and the Father have for man even when they were
torturing and executing him. He refused to use divine power to save himself
or punish these misguided evil doers. This great love is the most powerful
saving act the Father and the Son could bestow on self-willed man in this
situation to eventually deliver him from his ignorance, evil, and sin and
cause man to recognize God's transcendent love and accept sonship.
Salvation is something which God in Christ makes possible for man.
Finite man cannot save himself, but through faith he may accept this
gift of eternal life. Christ is the way by which all mortals in our
universe go to the Father.
On Approaching New Truth
New truth is always challenging and often threatening to
traditionalists. This is both natural and good. The tried and true
values of historical experience cannot and should not be easily replaced
by the new and untested. These historic truths, however, are periodically
upstepped by revelation in the form of prophetic vision. Such growth is
usually a traumatic experience for individuals, the church, and society.
Every prophet in the history of the Old and New Testaments has met with
unbelief and opposition. The priests of society have regularly stoned its
prophets. Then their sons of another century build monuments to honor the
prophets persecuted by their fathers. It is good to be cautious and
critical; it is helpful to doubt and carefully evaluate. We need, however,
to be open and objective enough to allow the spirit to lead us to larger
truth. Jesus told his apostles that he would send the Spirit of Truth
through which he would lead them to greater truths in the future. We must
be sensitive to this Spirit of Truth. We need to learn to recognize truth
in its many forms and varying appearances.
The URANTIA Book is such a new appearance of truth. You will find that
The URANTIA Book will stand the test of critical examination. It is rooted
solidly in the traditional spiritual truths of the Christian faith which
have endured for centuries. Reading and studying The URANTIA Book will give
you a deeper and larger vision of this saving faith and help you become a
part of a spiritual renaissance which is dawning on our world.
5/28/82
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