Isaiah and Ezekiel are the only two of the Hebrew prophets who had true prophetic and cosmic vision. The other Old Testament prophets were intelligent men who analyzed, deduced, and assessed the future to determine probabilities.

In the New Testament writings, John, the apostle, received a cosmic picture and a true vision that he revealed in the Apocalypse or Revelations.  He achieved this level of vision through the depth and intensity of his love.

Machiventa Melchizedek

The Melchizedek Sons are primarily an order of teachers.  They operate many schools throughout the local universe.  They are also known as emergency Sons. Normally a Melchizedek accepts the assignment to solve extraordinary problems or attempt innovative solutions.

In the Twentieth Century BC, Machiventa Melchizedek volunteered to personalize as a temporary man on Earth to achieve two tasks: to keep alive on earth the truth of one God and to prepare Earth for the incarnation of Christ Michael as Jesus of Nazareth. 

The spiritual life on Earth had deteriorated for more than four hundred and fifty thousand years following the rebellion of Lucifer.  The situation grew even worse after the default of Adam and Eve approximately thirty-six thousand years before Jesus’ birth.

Like Jesus, Melchizedek applied himself only to the tasks of his mission. He did nothing to reform the mores or to advance science. During his ninety-four years at Salem, Machiventa laid the foundations for the spiritual rehabilitation of Earth by revealing basic truths, training missionaries to carry his teachings around the world, and appointing his human successor, Abraham.

Abraham was pre-chosen. For some time before Machiventa’s materialization, the Melchizedeks had been observing the ancestors of Abraham.  They expected offspring in a generation of a certain family to possess unusual intelligence, sincerity, and leadership ability.  Abraham possessed these traits. 

Abraham attended Machiventa’s Salem school three different times. He finally became a convert to the Salem teachings, becoming one of Melchizedek's most brilliant pupils.  Melchizedek laid the responsibility of keeping alive the truth of one God (as opposed to the prevailing belief in plural deities) upon Abraham.

Machiventa and the teachers trained by him greatly regenerated the religions of Earth. His missionaries proclaimed faith as the price of favor with God.  Their teachings formed the foundations on which later teachers of truth were to build their religions.

Many conditions influenced Melchizedek to terminate his sojourn in the flesh.  The principal reason was the growing tendency of the people to regard him as a god.  In addition, Melchizedek wanted to leave sufficient time for Abraham to establish the truth of the one and only God in the minds of his followers.

Machiventa terminated his life as a mortal unceremoniously. Machiventa bid good night to his human companions one night and retired to his tent.  When they went to call him in the morning, he was not there.  His fellow Melchizedeks had taken him.

Abraham

Abraham was a shrewd, efficient, and wealthy businessman.  He was also a military leader.  His ambition was to conquer all Canaan. Melchizedek persuaded Abraham to abandon his scheme of material conquest in favor of spiritual conquest.  While Abraham was not overly pious, he devoutly believed in Machiventa Melchizedek.

In his spiritual work, Abraham instituted many improved methods of conducting the business of Machiventa’s school, and contributed extensively to the efficiency of the missionary work.

The highlight of Melchizedek and Abraham’s spiritual partnership was their formal pact. This covenant of Melchizedek with Abraham was an agreement whereby divinity agreed to do everything to lead man forward.  Man needed only to believe God's promises and follow his instructions.

Before the covenant, it mortals believed that only works, sacrifices and offerings could secure salvation.  Melchizedek gave Earth the good news that salvation can be had by faith alone.

 “Yahweh” was the Jewish name for the one God developed from the revelations of Melchizedek and his covenant with Abraham. Their religion eventually portrayed a better recognition of Yahweh as the Universal Father than any otherworld religion.

Moses

Many highly intelligent men such as Moses, when overshadowed by experienced Thought Adjusters, are inspired to accept leadership roles to assist divinity in guiding world developments. Each selected individual appears on the human stage when the race reaches a point where a right reaction from humanity is possible.  These outstanding figures determine the basic trends of human civilization. 

Moses was the most important teacher and leader to emerge in the period between the lives of Machiventa Melchizedek and Jesus. Moses rescued the ethnically diverse horde of Hebrews from slavery in Egypt.  He then laid the foundation for the subsequent birth of the Hebrew nation and the continuance of the Jewish race.

Moses combined the practices and the traditions of the Melchizedek teachings with the best from the religions and culture of Egypt and Palestine.  He taught men to recognize the principle of God’s justice and revealed God’s law in the form of the Ten Commandments.

Moses had a difficult task adapting his sublime concept of God to the comprehension of the ignorant and illiterate Hebrews. He awed his people with fear for the justice of God.  To control the turbulent clans he declared, "Your God kills when you disobey him; he heals and gives life when you obey him." In a softer tone, he taught if they obeyed God, "He will love you, bless you, and multiply you.”  A believer in Providence, Moses said, "Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth." "You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.”

The procedure whereby mortals could pass, upon death, directly to the mansion worlds terminated due to the isolation of Earth following the Lucifer rebellion. All souls slept on awaiting a special dispensation. Even Moses could not pass over to the mansion worlds as the rebellious Planetary Prince, Caligastia, contested any transfer of souls from his domain.  Since the day of Pentecost, eligible Earth mortals may again proceed directly to the mansion worlds.

Interim Revelators

The revelators in the interim between Moses and the religious renaissance that occurred in the Sixth Century B.C. confronted many of the same social problems and condition humanity is experiencing today.  Multiple religions, territorial wars, and the worship of materialism raged rampant in Palestine.

In the tenth century before Christ, the Hebrew nation became divided into two kingdoms.  In both of these political divisions many truth teachers endeavored to stem the tide of spiritual decadence.

In the times of Jehoash, Jeroboam, Elijah, Amos, and Hosea, a nobility of gangsters ruled the Semites in the north. State and church were interlocked. The attempt to suppress freedom of speech led Elijah, Amos, and Hosea to begin their secret writings that were the beginning of the Old Testament.

Amos denounced the criminality, drunkenness, oppression, and immorality of the northern tribes. Not since Moses had such truths been proclaimed in Palestine.  Before he was stoned to death, Amos insured the further evolution of the Melchizedek revelation.

Bitter antagonisms of social, economic, moral, and religious attitudes arose out of differences regarding the private ownership of land. The northern worshippers of the Baal deities owned houses, lands, and slaves. They were city dwelling capitalists. Baals had their sacred places, priesthoods, and ritual prostitutes.  Elijah was active in demolishing the altars and idols of Baal.

The socioeconomic controversy became a religious issue for Elijah who fought the issue as a choice between Yahweh and Baal.  It ended in the triumph of Yahweh and a subsequent drive toward monotheism.

Micah denounced rulers who judged for reward, priests who taught for hire, and prophets who divined for money.  He taught of an approaching day of freedom from superstition and priestcraft, saying, "But every man shall sit under his own vine, and no one shall make him afraid, for all people will live, each one according to his understanding of God."

The reformer Jeremiah declared that Yahweh was not on the side of the Hebrews in their military struggles with other nations. He asserted that Yahweh was God of all the earth, of all nations and of all peoples.

The Book of Psalms provides the best historical perspective of the interim period.  In the Psalms, God is depicted in all phases of conception from a tribal deity to the expanded ideal where Yahweh is pictured as a loving ruler and merciful Father.

The Sixth Century B.C.

The sixth century before Christ witnessed one of the greatest religious awakenings ever witnessed on Earth. Many men arose to proclaim truth. Among these revelators were Confucius and Lao-tse (in China), Gautama (the Buddha in India), and Zoroaster (Zarathustra in Persia).

The religious renaissance of the sixth century occurred because Machiventa Melchizedek feared that his mission on Earth as a forerunner of Michael was in danger of failing.  His teachings were being absorbed into the older religions of superstition. Through an unusual co-ordination of spiritual agencies, Machiventa’s Salem gospel was restated and revitalized by religious, moral, and philosophic teachers all over the civilized world.  It was upon the foundations laid by Machiventa’s Salem missionaries that the great revelators of the Sixth-Century B.C. built their teachings.

In China, the original teachings of Lao (Taoism) have been essentially lost.  The writings of Confucius constitute the religious base of millions of Earth’s people today. Confucius based his compilation of wise sayings upon the moral mores of the yellow race and the lingering traditions of the Machiventa’s Salem missionaries. Unfortunately, reverence for the past dulled the Chinese spirit of investigation that had produced those intellectual triumphs.

Contemporary with Lao-tse and Confucius in China, the great teacher of truth, Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha) arose in India. Buddha attempted to embody the principle of divine wisdom in himself.  He felt that with clear insight into the world of causes, one could see mortal existence as it was and determine the way out. 

The doctrine of Abraham's covenant with Machiventa was virtually extinct in Persia when, in the sixth century before Christ, Zoroaster appeared and revived the Salem gospel.  Zoroaster, while overly concerned with the dualism of good and evil, exalted the idea of one eternal Deity and of the ultimate victory of light over darkness.

The religions discussed above, as well as Christianity, seek unification of the individual with Deity.  All seek a transcendence of the senses through focusing the mind at its highest point in wisdom.  All realize the futility of using the mind alone to carry the aspirant to fusion with deity.  Still, each enabled the awareness of identity with God with the consequent illumination.

During the sixth century before Christ, while Asia and the near East experienced a revival of spiritual consciousness and recognition of monotheism, the West did not share in this new development.  The Greek philosophers enjoyed a magnificent intellectual advancement. While they ceased using religion as an antidote for fear, they were not able to find the solace of the soul in their deep thinking philosophy and metaphysics. They turned from the contemplation of self-preservation (salvation) to self-realization and self-understanding.

Few of the Salem missionaries had penetrated into Italy.  Those who did were unable to overcome the influence of the Etruscan priesthood with its galaxy of gods and temples that eventually became the Roman state religion. This religion consisted primarily in the observance of vows and taboos.

John the Baptist

In June 8 B.C., Gabriel appeared to Elizabeth one day at noon, in the same manner that he later appeared to Mary. Gabriel said, "While your husband, Zacharias, stands before the altar in Jerusalem, and while the assembled people pray for the coming of a deliverer, I, Gabriel, have come to announce that you will shortly bear a son who shall be the forerunner of this divine teacher, and you shall call your son John. He will grow up dedicated to the Lord your God, and when he has come to full years, he will gladden your heart because he will turn many souls to God, and he will also proclaim the coming of the soul-healer of your people and the spirit-liberator of all mankind. Your kinswoman Mary shall be the mother of this child of promise, and I will also appear to her."

In the few times the cousins John and Jesus met in their youth, they talked extensively.  At their last visit, they decided not to see one another again until the heavenly Father should call them to their work. John and Jesus next met when Jesus presented himself to John for baptism in the River Jordan.

At sixteen John was more than six feet tall and nearly full-grown. Inspired by his readings about the prophet Elijah, John adopted Elijah’s style of dress.  He had long flowing hair and wore a hairy garment with a leather girdle. Since Elijah was the first of the teachers of Israel to be regarded as a prophet, John believed that he was to be the last of that line of messengers.  In March 25 A.D., John began his mission.  He worked his way northward out of the Judean wilderness, thundering his admonitions to the Jewish people in the "spirit and power of Elijah." 

At noon on January 14, 26 A.D., Jesus surprised John when he and his two brothers James and Jude, presented themselves to John for baptism.  Engrossed in baptizing a large number of converts, John did not look up until Jesus stood beside him. When John recognized Jesus, the ceremonies were halted while he greeted his cousin and asked, "But why do you come down into the water to greet me?"  Jesus answered, "To be subject to your baptism." John said, "But I have need to be baptized by you. Why do you come to me?" Jesus responded by whispering, "Bear with me now, for it becomes us to set this example for my brothers standing here with me, and that the people may know that my hour has come."

After John baptized Jesus and his two brothers, he dismissed the crowd. As the people were departing, the four men still standing in the water heard a strange sound.  Presently, an apparition appeared over the head of Jesus.  They heard a voice saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." A great change came over the countenance of Jesus.  He said nothing.  Getting out of the water, he walked toward the hills to the east. No one saw Jesus again for forty days.

Three weeks after Jesus’ baptism, a group representing the priests and Pharisees in Jerusalem visited John. They asked John if he was Elijah or the prophet that Moses promised.  John said, "I am not."  The men then asked, "Are you the Messiah?"  John answered, "I am not." Then the spokesman said, "If you are not Elijah, nor the prophet, nor the Messiah, then why do you baptize the people and create all this stir?" John replied, "It should be for those who have heard me and received my baptism to say who I am, but I declare to you that, while I baptize with water, there has been among us one who will return to baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

John’s work on Earth was finished, but he had to wait for the unfolding of natural events.  Soon, he was arrested, imprisoned, and eventually executed by order of Herod Antipas on the evening of January 10, A.D. 28. When informed of John’s death, Jesus called his disciples together and said, "John is dead. Herod has beheaded him. Tonight go into joint council and arrange your affairs accordingly. There shall be delay no longer. The hour has come to proclaim the kingdom openly and with power."

Jesus Christ

Jesus did not go into a spiritual retreat after his baptism by John to fast and do penance. He was now fully aware that he was Michael the creator son of this universe.  He had come to Earth to invalidate the old ideas that fasting and penance were appropriate approaches to God.

Rather, Jesus needed time alone to devise a plan. He was confronted by a difficult problem. He was on Earth to introduce the concept of the Universal Father to man. God the Father is love.

Love is a fundamental form of energy.  Love achieves a harmony that is visible in the coherency, integration, and administration of the Grand Universe of Universes. The energy of love may also be seen in the disposition of God towards humanity that Christ was to reveal to man. Love is the foundation of the Kingdom of God.

While Christ embodied the principle of love, this quality of God the Father had to be revealed in time and space to the animal mind of man in a manner that mortals could grasp.

The environment was hostile. The world was in the grasp of Lucifer’s henchmen who were determined to battle Christ for control of Earth and other planets controlled by the rebels.

Jesus decided the essence of his teaching had to be a patient and gentle demonstration of how mortals could simultaneously comprehend and serve the Father through love and volitional service bestowed upon their fellow mortals.  Simply stated, loving and serving God the Father is done by loving and serving men.

The forty-day period of meditation and planning following his baptism by John marked a tremendous change in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. He was the Christ.  Afterwards, he went about serving the race and speaking the words that are remolding civilization.

The Apostle Peter

Simon, facetiously nicknamed “Peter” (the rock) by Jesus, vacillated between emotional extremes. For example, at the Last Supper, Peter refused to let Jesus demean himself by washing Peter’s feet.  Jesus said, "Peter, I declare that, if I do not wash your feet, you will have no part with me in that which I am about to perform." Upon hearing Jesus’ reply, Peter asked Jesus to bathe his entire body.

Peter also combined extremes of courage and cowardice. His greatest character trait was loyalty but in the early hours of Good Friday, he permitted a servant girl to tease him into denying any acquaintance with Jesus. Peter could endure persecution, but he wilted under ridicule.

Mistakenly, Peter persisted in trying to convince the Jews that Jesus was their Jewish Messiah. Right up to the day of his death, Simon Peter continued to suffer confusion in his mind between the concepts of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, Christ as the world's redeemer, and the Son of Man as a revelation of the Universal Father. 

The dual nature of Christ was a problem not only for Peter, but all of Jesus' disciples. They grasped the human concept of the Messiah as the symbolic son of David (as presented by the earlier prophets); as the Son of Man (the superhuman discussed by Daniel); and even as the Son of God (as depicted in the Book of Enoch). The apostles never considered the idea of a union of a human and the divine in one personality. The world knew nothing of such possibilities until the Creator Son incarnated as a human baby and grew to manhood.

Following Pentecost, Peter traveled widely to proclaim the Kingdom of God.  He was thrilled when his captors told him that he must die on the cross as Jesus did. Simon Peter was crucified in Rome.

Simon Peter's wife, a member of the women's teaching corps, accompanied Peter on all of his missionary tours.  On the day Peter was crucified in Rome, she was fed to the wild beasts in the Roman arena.

The Apostle Paul

The process of revelation can be accelerated.  Normally, an aspirant must plod forward blindly.  He seeks and receives knowledge and wisdom at unexpected moments.  But instant life-altering revelation can also come unexpectedly, as it did to Saul of Tarsus as recounted in the biblical narrative (The Acts of the Apostles).

Before his conversion to Christianity, Saul of Taurus was fanatical about rounding-up and eradicating Christians.

Act 9:1-2 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

Act 22:4 And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.

Enroute to Damascus, Saul received an accelerated revelation.

Act 22:6-7 And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.

And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

Act 26:15-18 And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom you persecute. But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Act 9:20-22 And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests? But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews, which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ.

Act 26:21-22 For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me. Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those that, the prophets and Moses did say, should come.

In the future aspirants will learn how to work consciously for expedited revelation.  Accelerated revelation uses a type of energy that can be induced at a moment of great tension. This energy is a blinding radioactive light such as Saul saw on the road to Damascus when Saul of Tarsus saw the glory of the Lord and was changed into Paul the Apostle.

Mohammed

In the sixth century after Christ, Mohammed founded a religion that was superior to many of the faiths of his time. Mohammed’s religion was both a protest against the social demands of the foreign faiths in Islam and an attempt to make the religious life of his people more coherent. 

Mohammed’s Islam became the religious and cultural link between the people of North Africa, the Levant, and southeastern Asia. (Islam means submission to the will of God.)  Mohammed took his concept of monotheism (the one God, Allah) from Jewish theology and Christianity.  The Trinity (the corporate structure of God) concept that Mohammed taught was too advanced for his followers, however.

Later followers of Mohammed thought the trinity concept would distract embryonic man, as a son of the Father, from his worship.

The study of the relationships of the different religions and epochs and the manner in which they successively prepared for and complemented each other is important to all mortals. The East and the Near East had their own teachers.  Each civilization on Earth had its own divine revelators. All contributed to Christ’s Word.

Christ recognizes and loves mortals who retain their allegiance to the founders of their faiths (the Buddha, Mohammed, and others). He does not care what a person’s faith is if the person’s objective is love of God and of humanity.

The Urantia Book

This book is the most recent epochal revelation of truth to the mortals of Earth. Numerous celestial revelators authored the 196 papers that comprise the work.

The narratives of The Urantia Book were composed and put into the English language in 1935 A.D. The Urantia Book was published in 1955.

The book contains four parts.  Part I is an overview of Paradise and the surrounding space levels of the Grand Universe.  It discusses the function, purpose, citizens, hierarchy, and student goals at each level. The Ancients of Days sponsored Part I.  A corps of super universe personalities wrote it. 

Part II provides details on the local universe to which Earth belongs.  Part II was sponsored by a corps of local universe personalities acting under the authorization of Gabriel, the chief executive of the local universe.

Part III covers the geological and biological history and evolution of Planet Earth.  These papers were sponsored by a corps of local universe personalities also acting under the authority of Gabriel.

Part IV presents the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. A midwayer (a being created a level slightly above mortals) assigned at one time to the oversight and care of the Apostle Andrew, provided the basis of these narratives.

Mantutia Melchizedek directed the processing of the original papers. Mantutia, who also authored several of the papers, is of the same order of Melchizedek Sons as Machiventa, the acting Planetary Prince of Earth. (The Melchizedek Sons often function directly in the ministry of mortal uplift.) The revelation is necessarily incomplete since the book’s truths are transient, and adapted to the intellectual abilities of the mortals of Earth.

The Urantia Book does not advocate any new or organized religion. Its viewpoint builds upon the religious heritages of Earth’s past and present.  The book advocates a personal, living religion based on faith and service to one's fellows.