Urantia Book 70. The life of Jesus of Nazareth, Joshua ben Joseph, Yeshua, Christ Michael, Sovereign God of Nebadon. Human beings find it difficult to comprehend the significance of evil, error, sin and iniquity. Humans are slow to perceive that contrastive perfection and imperfection produce potential evil; that conflicting truth and falsehood create confusing error; that the divine endowment of freewill choice eventuates in the divergent realms of sin and righteousness; that the persistent pursuit of divinity leads to the kingdom of God as contrasted with its continuous rejection, which leads to the domains of iniquity. The Gods neither create evil nor permit sin and rebellion. The very conflicting presence of truth and untruth, fact and falsehood, constitutes the potentiality of error. The deliberate choice of evil constitutes sin; the willful rejection of truth is error; the persistent pursuit of sin and error is iniquity.***************** Of all the perplexing problems growing out of the Lucifer rebellion, none is less understood than the failure of immature evolutionary mortals to distinguish between true and false liberty. True liberty is the quest of the ages and the reward of evolutionary progress. False liberty is the subtle deception of the error of time and the evil of space. Enduring liberty is predicated on the reality of justice–intelligence, maturity, fraternity and equity. Liberty is a self-destroying technique of cosmic existence when its motivation is unintelligent, unconditioned and uncontrolled. True liberty is progressively related to reality and is ever regardful of social equity, cosmic fairness, universe fraternity and divine obligations.*********************** Unbridled self-will and unregulated self-expression equal unmitigated selfishness, the acme of ungodliness. Liberty without the associated and ever-increasing conquest of self is a figment of egoistic mortal imagination. Self-motivated liberty is a conceptual illusion, a cruel deception. True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends toward the exploitation of others. Even wisdom is divine and safe only when it is cosmic in scope and spiritual in motivation.****************************** There is no greater error than dominating others for the purpose of depriving them of their natural liberties. The Golden Rule of fairness cries out against such unrighteousness. No Being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other Being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates and subjects.************** God, along with the Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit created Havona, consisting of 1 billion planets circling around Paradise. They shared in creation, which is what mortals will do after they reach Paradise. “Every creature of every evolving universe who aspires to do the Father’s will is destined to become the partner of the time-space Creators in this magnificent adventure of experiential perfection attainment. The Father has endowed intelligent mortals with creative free will and he dwells within them and is in partnership with them. Lucifer’s folly was the attempt to do the nondoable, to short-circuit time in an experiential universe. His crime was the attempted disenfranchisement of every personality in Satania. Thus does the Lucifer manifesto, masquerading in the habiliments of liberty, stand forth in the clear light of reason as a monumental threat to consummate the threat to personal liberty and to do it on a scale that has been approached only twice in the history of Nebadon.****************** ****************************************** Nathaniel and Thomas had one last issue for Rodan, and that was the divine nature of Jesus. Nathaniel said: “Jesus has admitted to us that he is God and the Son of God. He has done so many remarkable things that can only be explained if he is a God.*********************************** Thomas said: “He is an ideal friend. He is the most unselfish person I’ve ever known. He is a friend even of sinners and he loves his enemies. He has been patient with our confusion–sometimes we just don’t understand him.****************** Nathaniel said: “We think Jesus is divine because he never does wrong, he makes no mistakes. His wisdom is extraordinary and his piety superb. He lives day by day in perfect accord with the Father’s will. We believe that he is consistently sinless. Our piety springs from repentance, but his piety springs from righteousness. No sane man would profess to forgive sins, but Jesus forgives sins. He is both meek and fearless.***************************** Thomas said: “The uniqueness of his character and the perfection of his emotional control convince us that he is a combination of humanity and divinity. He responds to human need; suffering never fails to appeal to him. His compassion is aroused alike by physical suffering, mental anguish or spiritual sorrow. He is quick to recognize and acknowledge the presence of faith or any other grace in his brother or sister.************************ Nathaniel said: “Jesus seems to know the thoughts in people’s minds and the longings of their hearts. And he is always sympathetic with our troubled spirits. He strongly loves goodness and equally hates sin. He possesses a superhuman consciousness of the presence of Deity. He prays like a man but performs like a God. He seems to know things before they happen.********************************* Thomas said: “We are constantly impressed by his superhuman knowledge. The Master knows what is going on at remote locations. He also knows the thoughts of his associates. He communicates with celestial personalities. He lives on a spiritual plane much higher than the rest of us.*** Nathaniel said: “Recently the Master does not hesitate to assert his superhumanity. He never denied that he came from the Father. He does not hesitate to refute the religious teachings of today and boldly declare the new gospel. He seems to be so sufficient within himself.**************** Thomas said: “He constantly talks about God as an ever-present association in all that he does. He even declares that he and the Father are one. He said,’Before Abraham was, I AM.’ That suggests that he created the universe. ***************** The name for Jesus’ state of being God/Man is hypostatic union.