Thought Adjusters--The Experience of Jesus
John 1:9 . . . the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world [KJV]Fusion of Mortal with Thought Adjuster.
When a mortal fuses with the Thought Adjuster [Indwelling Spirit] after achieving the requisite level of spiritual and intellectual development, there is simple ceremony. During the ceremony the following words are spoken: This is a beloved son in whom I am well pleased. This simple ceremony marks the entrance of an ascending mortal upon the eternal career of Paradise service. The new being is given his new name and is then granted the forty days of spiritual retirement during which he chooses his routes of Paradise attainment. [UB 47:8.4,5]The Experience of Jesus.
The Baptism of Jesus and the following forty days are described in detail in The Urantia Book, Paper 136.
As Jesus is the ruler of our local universe, the procedure in his case was somewhat different from that of mortals. One of the requirements of Jesus' seventh and final bestowal was that he live the life of a mortal from birth to death. It is unfortunate that about thirty hostile, ignorant, vindictive members of the Jewish Sanhedrin were able to bring about his crucifixion. But mortals ordinarily cannot have an unfortunate mode of death set aside. God decreed that neither could Jesus avoid the experience of a cruel death. He must "play the hand that life dealt him."Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist at noon on January 14, A.D. 26. John baptized Jesus and his brothers James and Jude. Jesus was baptized at the very height of Johns preaching when Palestine was aflame with the expectancy of his messagethe kingdom of God is at handwhen all Jewry was engaged in serious and solemn self-examination. The Jewish sense of racial solidarity was very profound. The Jews not only believed that the sins of the father might afflict his children, but they firmly believed that the sin of one individual might curse the nation. Accordingly, not all who submitted to Johns baptism regarded themselves as being guilty of the specific sins which John denounced. Many devout souls were baptized by John for the good of Israel. They feared lest some sin of ignorance on their part might delay the coming of the Messiah. They felt themselves to belong to a guilty and sin-cursed nation, and they presented themselves for baptism that they might by so doing manifest fruits of race penitence. It is therefore evident that Jesus in no sense received Johns baptism as a rite of repentance or for the remission of sins. In accepting baptism at the hands of John, Jesus was only following the example of many pious Israelites. [UB 136:2:1]
When Jesus was baptized, he repented of no misdeeds; he made no confession of sin. His was the baptism of consecration to the performance of the will of the heavenly Father. At his baptism he heard the unmistakable call of his Father, the final summons to be about his Fathers business, and he went away into private seclusion for forty days to think over these manifold problems. In thus retiring for a season from active personality contact with his earthly associates, Jesus, as he was and on Urantia [earth], was following the very procedure that obtains on the morontia [mansion] worlds whenever an ascending mortal fuses with the inner presence of the Universal Father. [UB 136:2:6]
When Jesus of Nazareth went down into the Jordan to be baptized, he was a mortal of the realm who had attained the pinnacle of human evolutionary ascension in all matters related to the conquest of mind and to self-identification with the spirit. He stood in the Jordan that day a perfected mortal of the evolutionary worlds of time and space. Perfect synchrony and full communication had become established between the mortal mind of Jesus and the indwelling spirit Adjuster, the divine gift of his Father in Paradise. And just such an Adjuster indwells all normal beings living on Urantia since the ascension of Michael [Jesus] to the headship of his universe, except that Jesus Adjuster had been previously prepared for this special mission by similarly indwelling another superhuman incarnated in the likeness of mortal flesh, Machiventa Melchizedek [the Sage of Salem]. [Genesis 14:18] [UB 93] [UB 136:2:2]
Jesus' Thought Adjuster.
It was a highly experienced Adjuster who guided Jesus step by step when he lived his human life in the flesh as Joshua ben Joseph. Faithful to his trust was this extraordinary Adjuster, and wisely did this valiant Adjuster direct the human nature, ever guiding the mortal mind of the Paradise Son [Jesus] in the choosing of the path of the Father's perfect will. This Adjuster had previously served with Machiventa Melchizedek in the days of Abraham and had engaged in tremendous exploits both previous to this indwelling and between these bestowal experiences. [Genesis 14:18,19] [UB 93:5] [UB 109:6:4] [UB 135:8:6] [UB 136:2:3]Jesus did not fuse with his Thought Adjuster. As John laid his hands upon Jesus to baptize him, the indwelling Adjuster took final leave of the perfected human soul of Jesus. And in a few moments this divine entity returned from Divinington as a Personalized Adjuster and the chief of his kind throughout the entire local universe of Nebadon. It was then that the now Personalized Adjuster spoke the words "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." When a mortal fuses with his Adjuster he will hear the same words. [UB 47:8:4] [UB 136:2:3]
Jesus, following the leading of his Thought Adjuster, went forth to found the most dynamic influence ever to activate the human race. Jesus shattered tradition, destroyed dogma, and called mankind to the achievement of its highest ideals in time and eternity--to be perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect. [UB 99:5:3]
Ordinarily, when a mortal of the realm attains such high levels of personality perfection, there occur those preliminary phenomena of spiritual elevation which terminate in eventual fusion of the matured soul of the mortal with its associated divine Adjuster. [Both Elijah and Enoch fused with their Thought Adjuster while still in the flesh. (UB 45:4:13,15)]
And such a change was apparently due to take place in the personality experience of Jesus of Nazareth on that very day when he went down into the Jordan with his two brothers to be baptized by John. This ceremony was the final act of his purely human life on Urantia, and many superhuman observers expected to witness the fusion of the Adjuster with its indwelt mind, but they were all destined to suffer disappointment. Something new and even greater occurred. As John laid his hands upon Jesus to baptize him, the indwelling Adjuster took final leave of the perfected human soul of Joshua ben Joseph. And in a few moments this divine entity returned from Divinington as a Personalized Adjuster and chief of his kind throughout the entire local universe of Nebadon. Thus did Jesus observe his own former divine spirit descending on its return to him in personalized form. And he heard this same spirit of Paradise origin now speak, saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And John, with Jesus two brothers, also heard these words. Johns disciples, standing by the waters edge, did not hear these words, neither did they see the apparition of the Personalized Adjuster. Only the eyes of Jesus beheld the Personalized Adjuster. [UB 136:2:3]When the returned and now exalted Personalized Adjuster had thus spoken, all was silence. And while the four of them tarried in the water, Jesus, looking up to the near-by Adjuster, prayed: My Father who reigns in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come! Your will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven. When he had prayed, the heavens were opened, and the Son of Man saw the vision, presented by the now Personalized Adjuster, of himself as a Son of God as he was before he came to earth in the likeness of mortal flesh, and as he would be when the incarnated life should be finished. This heavenly vision was seen only by Jesus. [UB 136:2:4] [Matthew 3:16,17]
It was the voice of the Personalized Adjuster that John and Jesus heard, speaking in behalf of the Universal Father, for the Adjuster is of, and as, the Paradise Father. Throughout the remainder of Jesus earth life this Personalized Adjuster was associated with him in all his labors; Jesus was in constant communion with this exalted Adjuster. [UB 136:2:5]
This day of baptism ended the purely human life of Jesus. The divine Son has found his Father, the Universal Father has found his incarnated Son, and they speak the one to the other. [UB 136:2:7]
Jesus' Forty Days.
Jesus had endured the great temptation of his mortal bestowal before his baptism when he had been wet with the dews of Mount Hermon for six weeks. There on Mount Hermon, as an unaided mortal of the realm, he had met and defeated the Urantia pretender, Caligastia [the "devil"], the prince of this world. That eventful day, on the universe records, Jesus of Nazareth had become the Planetary Prince of Urantia. And this Prince of Urantia, so soon to be proclaimed supreme Sovereign of Nebadon, now went into forty days of retirement to formulate the plans and determine upon the technique of proclaiming the new kingdom of God in the hearts of men. [UB 136:3:1] [UB 134:7:6,7] [UB 134:8]After his baptism he entered upon the forty days of adjusting himself to the changed relationships of the world and the universe occasioned by the personalization of his Adjuster. During this isolation in the Perean hills he determined upon the policy to be pursued and the methods to be employed in the new and changed phase of earth life which he was about to inaugurate. [UB 136:3:2]
Plans for Public Work.
Day by day, up in the hills, Jesus formulated the plans for the remainder of his Urantia [earth] bestowal. It was during these forty days that he formulated the six great decisions that would guide him in his public ministry for the remainder of his life on earth. [UB 136:4-10]Source: The Urantia Book.
Note: Most statements in this paper were quoted verbatim from The Urantia Book.