Ch. 73, Gift of the Spirit of Truth
“Son of Man: Urantia,” 2nd edition
Gift of the Spirit of Truth
It was about one o’clock in the afternoon at Mary Mark’s house. The one hundred and twenty believers were praying when they all suddenly became aware of a strange presence in the room. At the same time they became conscious of a new deeper sense of joy, security, and confidence. These feelings of inner spiritual strength were immediately followed by the strong urge to go out and publicly announce the gospel of the kingdom and the good news that Jesus had arisen from the dead.
Peter stood up and declared that this must be the coming of the Spirit of Truth that Jesus had promised, and said that they should go to the temple and begin announcing the good news. These people had been told that the gospel they were to preach was the fatherhood of God and the sonship of humanity. But just at this moment of personal triumph and spiritual ecstasy the most momentous news that they could think of was the fact of the arisen Master. They went out strengthened with power from on high preaching glad tidings to the people, even salvation through Jesus. But they unintentionally substituted some of the facts related to the gospel, for the gospel itself. Peter innocently started this mistake, and others followed after him on down to Paul who then created a new religion out of the different version of the good news.
The gospel of the kingdom is the fact of the fatherhood of God and the resulting truth of the sonship-brotherhood of humanity. Christianity as it developed from that day is the fact of God being the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, plus sharing that experience with other believers and the arisen and glorified Christ.
It is not strange that these spirit-infused men seized on this opportunity to express their victory over the forces that had tried to destroy their Master. At a time like this it was easier to remember their friendship with Jesus, to be assured that he still lived, and that the spirit had indeed come on them even as he had promised. These believers felt themselves suddenly translated into another world: a new existence of joy, power, and glory. Jesus had told them the kingdom would come with power and some of them thought they were beginning to see what he meant. When all of this is taken into consideration, it is not difficult to understand how these men came to preach a new gospel about Jesus in place of their former message of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humanity.
The Pentecost Sermon
This day when the Spirit of Truth arrived just happened to be the Pentecost, and thousands of visitors from all parts of the world were in Jerusalem. Many came only for this feast, but the majority had been in the city since the Passover. The apostles had been hiding for forty days and now emerged from their weeks of fear and seclusion to boldly appear in the temple where they began to preach the new message of an arisen messiah, each of them in the same way conscious of having received some new spiritual gift of power and insight.
At two o’clock, Peter stood up in the spot where Jesus had last taught in this temple and with his passionate appeal he won more than two thousand souls for the kingdom. Jesus had left, but they suddenly discovered that his story had tremendous power with the people. No wonder they continued to announce the things that justified their former devotion to Jesus and at the same time compelled people to believe in him. Peter and the other five apostles—John, Peter, Philip, Andrew, and Matthew—spoke to the people for more than an hour and a half delivering their message in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.
The Jewish leaders were astounded at the apostles boldness, but they feared to molest them because of the large number of people who believed their story. By four-thirty, more than two thousand new believers followed the apostles down to the pool at Siloam where John, Peter, James, and Andrew baptized them in Jesus’ name. The Pentecost was the great baptism festival, the time when the proselytes of the gate—those gentiles who wanted to serve Yahweh—were brought into Judaism so it was even easier for large numbers of both Jews and gentiles to agree to be baptized on this day. By doing so they were in no way disconnecting themselves from the Jewish faith; even for some time after this Jesus’ believers were a sect in Judaism. All of them, including the apostles, were still loyal to the essential requirements of the Jewish ceremonial system.
The Significance of the Pentecost
Jesus lived and taught a gospel that released people from the superstition of being children of the devil and elevated them to the dignity of being faith sons of God: he alleviated their spiritual problems at the time. After leaving us he sent into the world his Spirit of Truth who lives in each person and restates Jesus’ message for each new generation. Every new group of people to appear on the face of the Earth will have an up-to-date version of the gospel, and this group guidance and personal enlightenment will prove effective in easing humanity’s varied and ever-new spiritual difficulties.
The first mission of this spirit is to foster and personalize truth, because it is understanding truth that begins the highest form of human liberty. Next, this spirit’s purpose is to destroy the believer’s feelings of being an orphan. After Jesus had been among people everyone would have experienced a sense of loneliness had not the Spirit of Truth come to dwell in their hearts. This gift of the Son’s spirit prepared all normal people’s minds for the later universal gift of the Father’s spirit, the Adjuster, on all humanity. In a certain sense this Spirit of Truth is the spirit of both the Creator Son and the Universal Father.
Do not make the mistake of expecting to become strongly conscious of the Spirit of Truth in an intellectual way. The spirit never creates a consciousness of himself, only a consciousness of Michael, the Son. From the beginning Jesus taught that the spirit would not speak of himself. The proof of your partnership with the Spirit of Truth does not come from being consciousness of this spirit, but rather from your experience of increased solidarity with Michael.
The spirit also came to help people recall and understand Jesus’ words, as well as to illuminate and reinterpret his life on Earth. Next, the Spirit of Truth came to help the believer witness the realities of Jesus’ teachings and his life as he lived it in the flesh, and as he now lives it again anew in each believer of each passing generation of the spirit-filled sons of God. It appears that the Spirit of Truth came to lead all believers into all truth: into the spiritual consciousness of eternal and ascending sonship with God.
Jesus revealed a man submitted to the Father’s will. It was not an example for any person to try and literally follow. His life in the flesh together with his death on the cross and later resurrection soon changed into the idea that a ransom had been paid to save humanity from the clutches of the evil one: from the blame of an offended God. Still, even though the gospel did become hugely distorted it remains a fact that this new message about Jesus carried along with it many of the fundamental truths of his earlier gospel of the kingdom. Sooner or later these concealed truths of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humanity will emerge to transform civilization.
But these intellectual mistakes in no way interfered with the individual’s progress in spiritual growth. In less than a month after the gift of the Spirit of Truth the apostles each made more spiritual progress than during their almost four years of loving association with Jesus. Neither did substituting the fact of Jesus’ resurrection for the truth of sonship with God in any way interfere with the rapid spread of their teachings. On the contrary, this overshadowing of Jesus’ message by the new teachings about him and his resurrection seemed to immensely help the preaching of the good news.
The term baptism of the spirit merely meant the conscious reception of the Spirit of Truth. It meant acknowledging that this new power extended all spiritual influences that had been before experienced by God-knowing souls. Since the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth humanity has been subject to the guidance of a threefold spiritual gift: the spirit of the Father, which is the Thought Adjuster; the spirit of the Son, which is the Spirit of Truth; and the spirit of the Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit.
Humanity is subject to the double influence of the sevenfold appeal of the universe spirit. Early evolutionary mortals are subject to progressive contact with the seven mind-spirits helping the Mother Spirit of the local universe. As people progress in intelligence and spiritual perception there eventually comes to hover over and dwell in them the seven higher spirit influences. These seven spirits of the advancing worlds are first, the bestowed spirits of the Universal Father—the Thought Adjusters; second, the spirit presence of the Eternal Son—the spirit gravity of the universe of universes and the sure channel of all spirit communion; third, the spirit presence of the Infinite Spirit—the universal spirit-mind of all creation: the spiritual source of the intellectual kinship of all progressive intelligences; fourth the spirit of the Universal Father and the Creator Son—the Spirit of Truth, generally regarded as the spirit of the Universe Son; fifth, the spirit of the Infinite Spirit and the Universe Mother Spirit—the Holy Spirit, generally regarded as the spirit of the Universe Spirit; sixth, the mind-spirit of the Universe Mother Spirit—the seven mind-spirits assisting in the local universe, and seventh, the spirit of the Father, Sons, and Spirits—the new spirit of the ascending creatures after their mortal spirit-born soul has fused with the Paradise Thought Adjuster and after they have attained the divinity and glorified status of the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
The Spirit of Truth brought humanity the last of the spirit helpers designed to aid in the ascending search for God.
What Occurred at the Pentecost
Many queer and strange teachings became linked to the early stories of the Pentecost. In later times the events of this day when the Spirit of Truth—the new teacher—came to dwell in humanity have become confused with foolish outbreaks of rampant emotionalism. The chief mission of this outpoured spirit of the Father and the Son is to teach people about the truth of the Father’s love and the Son’s mercy. These are the truths of divinity that people can understand better than all the other divine traits of character. The Spirit of Truth is concerned primarily with the revelation of the Son’s moral character and the Father’s spirit nature. The Creator Son in the flesh revealed God to humanity; the Spirit of Truth in the heart reveals the Creator Son to humanity. When people yield the fruits of the spirit in their lives they are simply showing the traits that the Master showed in his own earthly life. When Jesus was on Earth he lived his life as one personality—Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling spirit of the new teacher, the Master has since the Pentecost been able to live his life again in the experience of every truth-taught believer.
Many things that happen in the course of a human life are hard to understand: difficult to reconcile with the idea that this is a universe where truth prevails and righteousness triumphs. So often it appears that lies, slander, dishonesty, and unrighteousness—sin—wins. Does faith after all triumph over sin, evil, and iniquity? It does. The life and death of Jesus are the eternal proof that the truth of goodness and the faith of the spirit-led creature will always be justified. They taunted Jesus on the cross saying “Let us see if God will come and deliver him.” It looked dark on the day of the crucifixion but it was gloriously bright on the morning of the resurrection; it was still brighter and more joyous on the day of the Pentecost. The religions of doubt and despair try to release people from the burdens of life: they crave extinction in endless rest and slumber. These are the religions of primitive fear and dread. Jesus’ religion is a new gospel of faith to be announced to struggling humanity. This new religion is founded on love, hope, and faith.
To Jesus mortal life had dealt its hardest, cruelest, and bitterest blows. This man met these carriers of despair with faith, courage, and the unshakeable determination to do his Father’s will. Jesus met life in all its terrible reality and mastered it, even in death. He did not use religion as a release from life. Jesus’ religion does not look to escape this life to enjoy the waiting bliss of another existence—it provides the joy and peace of a spiritual existence to ennoble and enhance the life that people now live in the flesh.
If religion is an opiate to the people, it is not Jesus’ religion. On the cross he refused to drink the deadening drug, and his spirit poured out on all flesh is a mighty world influence that urges people upward and leads them onward. The desire to move forward spiritually is the most powerful driving force present in this world: the truth-learning believer is the one aggressive and progressive soul on Earth.
On the Pentecost Jesus’ religion broke all racial chains and national restrictions: it is forever true that “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” The Spirit of Truth became the personal gift from Jesus to every person. This spirit was given to qualified believers so they could better preach the gospel of the kingdom, but they mistook the experience of receiving the outpoured spirit for a part of the new gospel they were unconsciously creating.
Do not overlook the fact that the Spirit of Truth was given to all sincere believers: this spiritual gift did not come only to the apostles. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the upper chamber all received the new teacher, as did all the honest of heart throughout the whole world. This new teacher was given to humanity, and every soul received him in accordance with their love for truth and their capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities. At last true religion was delivered from the custody of priests and all sacred classes, and found its real place in the individual souls of people. Jesus’ religion fosters the highest type of human civilization because it creates the highest type of spiritual personality and announces that the person is sacred.
The coming of the Spirit of Truth on the Pentecost made possible a religion that is neither radical nor conservative; it is neither the old nor the new; it is not to be dominated by the old or the young. The fact of Jesus’ earthly life provides a fixed point for the anchor of time, while the gift of the Spirit of Truth provides for the everlasting growth of the religion that he lived and the gospel that he announced. The spirit guides into all truth: he is the teacher of an expanding religion of divine unfolding and endless progress. This new teacher will forever unfold to the truth-seeking believer the divinity of the Son of Man.
The signs associated with the gift of the new teacher and the apostles’ reception by different cultures gathered together at Jerusalem indicate the universality of Jesus’ religion. The gospel of the kingdom was not to be identified with any race, culture, or language. This day of the Pentecost witnessed the tremendous effort of the spirit to liberate Jesus’ religion from its inherited Jewish chains. Even after this demonstration of pouring out the spirit on all flesh, the apostles at first tried to impose Judaism’s requirements on their converts. Even Paul had trouble with his Jerusalem group because he refused to subject the gentiles to these Jewish practices. No revealed religion can spread to all of the world when it makes the serious mistake of becoming filled with some national culture or associated with established racial, social, or economic practices.
The bestowal of the Spirit of Truth was independent of all forms, ceremonies, sacred places, and special behavior by those people who received it. When the spirit came on the people assembled in the upper chamber they were simply sitting there after having just prayed. The spirit was given in the country as well as in the city. It was not necessary for the apostles to go apart to a lonely place for years of solitary meditation to receive the spirit. For all time the Pentecost disassociates the idea of spiritual experience from the notion of especially favorable environments.
The Pentecost with its spiritual power was designed to forever untie Jesus’ religion from all dependence on physicalpower; the teachers of this new religion are now equipped with spiritual weapons. They are to go out to conquer the world with overflowing love, matchless good will, and unfailing forgiveness. They are equipped to overcome evil with good, to vanquish hate with love, and to destroy fear with living and courageous faith in truth. Jesus had already taught his followers that his religion was never passive: his disciples were to be active and positive in their ministry of mercy and in their examples of love. No longer did these believers look on Yahweh as the Lord of Hosts: they now regarded the eternal Deity as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. They made that progress even if they did in some measure fail to grasp the complete truth that God is also the spiritual Father of every person.
The Pentecost gave people the power to forgive personal injuries, to stay sweet in the middle of the gravest injustice, to remain unmoved in the face of appalling danger, and to challenge the evils of hate and anger by the fearless acts of love and patience. Urantia has passed through the ravages of intense and destructive wars in its history. All participants in these terrible struggles met with defeat. There was but one victor: there was only one who came out of these embittered struggles with an enhanced reputation and that was Jesus of Nazareth and his gospel of overcoming evil with good. The secret of a better civilization is bound up in the Master’s teachings of the brotherhood of humanity: the good will of love and mutual trust.
Up to the Pentecost religion had revealed only humanity looking for God; since the Pentecost humanity is still searching for God but there shines out over the world the spectacle of God also looking for humanity and sending his spirit to dwell in people when he has found them. Before Jesus’ teaching that ended in the Pentecost, women had little or no spiritual standing in the creeds of the older religions. After the Pentecost in the brotherhood of the kingdom woman stood before God equal with man. Many women disciples were among the one hundred and twenty who received this special visitation of the spirit and they shared these blessings equally with the men believers. No longer can men dare to monopolize religious service. The Pharisee may go on thanking God that he was not born a leper, a woman, or a gentile but among Jesus’ followers women have been set free forever from all religious bias: the Pentecost abolished all spiritual discrimination based on sex, race, caste, and culture. No wonder these believers in the new religion would cry out “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
Both Jesus’ mother and brother were present among the one hundred and twenty believers, and as members of this common group of disciples they also received the spirit. They received no more of the good gift than the others did: nothing special was given to the members of Jesus’ family. The Pentecost marked the end of special priesthoods and all beliefs in sacred families.
Before the Pentecost the apostles had given up much for Jesus. They had sacrificed their homes, friends, families, positions, and worldly goods. At the Pentecost they gave themselves to God, and the Father and the Son responded by giving themselves to humanity—sending their spirits to live in all people. This experience of losing one’s self and finding the spirit was not emotional: it was an act of unreserved blessing and intelligent self-surrender.
The Pentecost was the call to spiritual unity among gospel believers. When the spirit descended on the disciples at Jerusalem the same thing occurred in Alexandria, Philadelphia, and all of the other places where true believers dwelt. It was literally true that there was but one soul and heart among the crowd of believers. Jesus’ religion is the most powerful unifying force the world has ever known.
The Pentecost was designed to lessen the self-assertiveness of groups, nations, cultures, and individuals. It is this spirit of self-assertiveness that reaches a level of tension and then periodically breaks loose in destructive wars. Only the spiritual approach can unify humanity, and the Spirit of Truth is a world influence that is universal.
The coming of the Spirit of Truth purifies the human heart and leads to a life purpose dedicated to God’s will and the welfare of humanity: the material spirit of selfishness is swallowed up by this new spiritual gift of selflessness. The Pentecost, then and now, signifies that the Jesus of history has become the divine Son of living experience. The joy of this outpoured spirit when it is consciously experienced in human life improves health, stimulates the mind, and provides unfailing energy for the soul. Prayer did not bring the spirit on the day of the Pentecost, but it did have much to do with determining the person’s capacity to receive it. Prayer does not move the divine heart to charity, but often times it does improve the channels for divine gifts to flow into the souls and hearts of those people who maintain unbroken contact with God through sincere prayer and worship.
Beginnings of the Christian Church
When Jesus was suddenly seized by his enemies and so quickly crucified between two thieves, his followers were completely demoralized. The thought of the Master beaten, bound, arrested, and crucified was too much for even the apostles: they forgot his teachings and his warnings. He may have been a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, but he could hardly be the Messiah they had hoped would restore the kingdom of Israel.
Then came the resurrection delivering them from despair and restoring their faith in the Master’s divinity. Again and again they saw him and talked with him, and then he took them out on Olivet where he bid them farewell and told them he is going back to the Father. He told them to stay in Jerusalem until they were gifted with power—until the Spirit of Truth arrived. On the Pentecost this new teacher came and they went out at once to preach their gospel with new power. They were bold and courageous followers of a living Lord, not a dead and defeated leader. The Master lived in the hearts of these evangelists. God was not a doctrine in their minds: he had become a living presence in their souls.
Day by day they continued with conviction and one accord in the temple and breaking bread together at home. They praised God, loved all people, and ate their food with joy. They were filled with the spirit and boldly spoke God’s word. The masses of believers were of one soul and heart and they had all things in common.
What has happened to these people that Jesus ordained to preach the fatherhood of God, the gospel of the kingdom, and the brotherhood of humanity? They have a new gospel, they are on fire with a new experience, and they are filled with a new spiritual energy. Their message has suddenly shifted to the announcement of the arisen Lord Jesus Christ—"Jesus of Nazareth, a man God proved by mighty works and wonders; him, being delivered up with the foreknowledge of God, you did crucify. The things that God foretold through the prophets he fulfilled. This Jesus God did rise up: God has made him both Lord and Christ. Being at the right hand of God, praised and having received from the Father the promise of the spirit, he has poured forth what you see and hear. Repent that your sins may be blotted out, and that the Father can send the Christ who has been appointed for you until the times of the restoration of all things.” They now announced the facts of his life, death, and resurrection and preached their hope in his speedy return to finish the work he had begun. The early believers preached the fact of his first coming and the hope of his second coming, an event that they expected to be near at hand.
Christ was about to become the dogma of the rapidly forming church: Jesus lived; he died for humanity; he gave the spirit, and he is coming again. Jesus filled all their thoughts and shaped their new ideas of God and everything else. They were too excited over the new doctrine that God is the Father of the Lord Jesus to be concerned with the old message that God is the loving Father of every single individual. It is true that a beautiful flowering of good will and brotherly love did spring up in these early communities of believers. But it was, and still is, a group of believers in Jesus, which is not a fellowship of brothers in the family kingdom of the Father in heaven. Their good will came about from the idea of Jesus’ life, and not from their understanding of the brotherhood of humanity. Still, they were filled with joy and they lived such new and different lives that people were attracted to their teachings about Jesus. They made the critical mistake of using the living commentary on the gospel of the kingdom for that gospel, but even so that represented the greatest religion humanity had ever known.
Without doubt, a new religion was in the world. The crowd of believers followed the apostles’ prayers, teachings, and breaking of bread—or sharing all things in common. They helped the poor, called each other brother and sister, and greeted one another with a holy kiss: it was a way of living as well as worship. They did not share everything because they were told to, but because they wanted to. They were confident that Jesus would return to complete the establishment of the Father’s kingdom during their generation. This spontaneous sharing of all that they had was not a direct feature of Jesus’ teaching. It came about because these men and women sincerely and confidently believed that he was going to return any day to establish the kingdom. But the final results of this well-meant experiment in thoughtless brotherly love were disastrous and brought much sadness. Thousands of believers sold their property and disposed of all their possessions and productive assets. As time passed their resources came to an end, but the worlddid not; soon the believers at Antioch were taking up a collection to keep their fellow believers in Jerusalem from starving.
They celebrated the Lord’s Supper like it had been established, gathering for a social meal and then joining in the sacrament at the end. At first they baptized in Jesus’ name: it was almost twenty years before they began to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism was all that was required for admission into the fellowship of believers. They had no organization as yet: it was just the Jesus brotherhood.
The Jesus sect was growing rapidly and once more the Sadducees took notice. The Pharisees were not bothered about the situation because none of the teachings in any way interfered with the Jewish laws. But the Sadducees began to put the leaders of the new Jesus sect in jail, at least up until they accepted the advice of one of the leading rabbis, Gamaliel, who advised them to “Leave these people alone, for if this is the work of men it will be overthrown; but if it is of God you will not be able to overthrow them and you may by chance find yourself fighting against God.” After the Sadducees followed Gamaliel’s advice, there was a time of peace and quiet in Jerusalem that allowed the revised gospel about Jesus to spread rapidly.
All went well in Jerusalem until the Greeks from Alexandria arrived in large numbers. Two of Rodan’s students made many converts from among the people who spoke Greek, including Stephen and Barnabas. These able Greeks did not share the Jewish viewpoint, and they did not conform to their form of worship or other ceremonial practices: their conduct ended the peace between the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Jesus brotherhood. Stephen and his Greek associate began to preach more like Jesus taught, and this brought them into immediate conflict with the Jewish rulers. In one of Stephen’s public sermons the Jews finally did away with all formalities and stoned him to death on the spot.
Stephen, the leader of the Greek believers in Jerusalem, became the first martyr to the new faith and the reason for the formal organization of the early Christian church. This new crisis made the believers recognize that they could not continue as a sect in Judaism. They all agreed that they must separate themselves from unbelievers, and within one month after Stephen’s death the church at Jerusalem had been organized under Peter’s leadership with James, Jesus’ brother, installed as its figurehead.
The new and relentless persecutions by the Jews broke out forcing the teachers of the new religion about Jesus, which later in Antioch became known as Christianity, to escape to the ends of the empire announcing Jesus the entire way. During this period before Paul came on to the scene the leadership was in Greek hands, and they and the other missionaries that came later followed Alexander’s march from before, going by way of Gaza and Tyre to Antioch, over Asia Minor to Macedonia, then on to Rome and the farthest parts of the empire.