The Bestowal of Michael on Urantia

120:0.1As­signed by Ga­briel to super­vise the re­state­ment of the life of Mi­chael when on Uran­tia and in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, I, the Mel­chiz­e­dek di­rec­tor of the rev­e­la­tory com­mis­sion in­trusted with this task, am au­tho­rized to pre­sent this nar­ra­tive of cer­tain events which im­me­di­ately pre­ceded the Cre­ator Son’s ar­rival on Uran­tia to em­bark upon the ter­mi­nal phase of his uni­verse be­stowal ex­pe­ri­ence. To live such iden­ti­cal lives as he im­poses upon the in­tel­li­gent be­ings of his own cre­ation, thus to be­stow him­self in the like­ness of his var­i­ous or­ders of cre­ated be­ings, is a part of the price which ev­ery Cre­ator Son must pay for the full and su­preme sov­er­eignty of his self-made uni­verse of things and be­ings.

120:0.2Be­fore the events I am about to de­lin­eate, Mi­chael of Neb­a­don had be­stowed him­self six times af­ter the simil­i­tude of six dif­fer­ing or­ders of his di­verse cre­ation of in­tel­li­gent be­ings. Then he pre­pared to de­scend upon Uran­tia in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, the low­est or­der of his in­tel­li­gent will crea­tures, and, as such a hu­man of the ma­te­rial realm, to ex­e­cute the fi­nal act in the drama of the ac­quire­ment of uni­verse sov­er­eignty in ac­cor­dance with the man­dates of the di­vine Par­a­dise Rulers of the uni­verse of uni­verses.

120:0.3In the course of each of these pre­ced­ing be­stowals Mi­chael not only ac­quired the fi­nite ex­pe­ri­ence of one group of his cre­ated be­ings, but he also ac­quired an es­sen­tial ex­pe­ri­ence in Par­a­dise co-op­er­a­tion which would, in and of it­self, fur­ther con­tribute to con­sti­tut­ing him the sov­er­eign of his self-made uni­verse. At any mo­ment through­out all past lo­cal uni­verse time, Mi­chael could have as­serted per­sonal sov­er­eignty as a Cre­ator Son and as a Cre­ator Son could have ruled his uni­verse af­ter the man­ner of his own choos­ing. In such an event, Im­manuel and the as­so­ci­ated Par­a­dise Sons would have taken leave of the uni­verse. But Mi­chael did not wish to rule Neb­a­don merely in his own iso­lated right, as a Cre­ator Son. He de­sired to as­cend through ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence in co-op­er­a­tive sub­or­di­na­tion to the Par­a­dise Trin­ity to that high place in uni­verse sta­tus where he would be­come qual­i­fied to rule his uni­verse and ad­min­is­ter its af­fairs with that per­fec­tion of in­sight and wis­dom of ex­e­cu­tion which will some­time be char­ac­ter­is­tic of the ex­alted rule of the Su­preme Be­ing. He as­pired not to per­fec­tion of rule as a Cre­ator Son but to su­prem­acy of ad­min­is­tra­tion as the em­bod­i­ment of the uni­verse wis­dom and the di­vine ex­pe­ri­ence of the Su­preme Be­ing.

120:0.4Mi­chael, there­fore, had a dou­ble pur­pose in the mak­ing of these seven be­stowals upon the var­i­ous or­ders of his uni­verse crea­tures: First, he was com­plet­ing the re­quired ex­pe­ri­ence in crea­ture un­der­stand­ing which is de­manded of all Cre­ator Sons be­fore they as­sume com­plete sov­er­eignty. At any time a Cre­ator Son may rule his uni­verse in his own right, but he can rule as the su­preme rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity only af­ter pass­ing through the seven uni­verse-crea­ture be­stowals. Sec­ond, he was as­pir­ing to the priv­i­lege of rep­re­sent­ing the max­i­mum au­thor­ity of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity which can be ex­er­cised in the di­rect and per­sonal ad­min­is­tra­tion of a lo­cal uni­verse. Ac­cord­ingly, did Mi­chael, dur­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence of each of his uni­verse be­stowals, suc­cess­fully and ac­cept­ably vol­un­tar­ily sub­or­di­nate him­self to the var­i­ously con­sti­tuted wills of the di­verse as­so­ci­a­tions of the per­sons of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. That is, on the first be­stowal he was sub­ject to the com­bined will of the Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit; on the sec­ond be­stowal to the will of the Fa­ther and the Son; on the third be­stowal to the will of the Fa­ther and the Spirit; on the fourth be­stowal to the will of the Son and the Spirit; on the fifth be­stowal to the will of the In­fi­nite Spirit; on the sixth be­stowal to the will of the Eter­nal Son; and dur­ing the sev­enth and fi­nal be­stowal, on Uran­tia, to the will of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

120:0.5Mi­chael, there­fore, com­bines in his per­sonal sov­er­eignty the di­vine will of the sev­en­fold phases of the uni­ver­sal Cre­ators with the un­der­stand­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of his lo­cal uni­verse crea­tures. Thus has his ad­min­is­tra­tion be­come rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the great­est pos­si­ble power and au­thor­ity al­though di­vested of all ar­bi­trary as­sump­tions. His power is un­lim­ited since it is de­rived from ex­pe­ri­enced as­so­ci­a­tion with the Par­a­dise De­i­ties; his au­thor­ity is un­ques­tioned inas­much as it was ac­quired through ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence in the like­ness of uni­verse crea­tures; his sov­er­eignty is su­preme since it em­bod­ies at one and the same time the sev­en­fold view­point of Par­a­dise De­ity with the crea­ture view­point of time and space.

120:0.6Hav­ing de­ter­mined the time of his fi­nal be­stowal and hav­ing se­lected the planet whereon this ex­traor­di­nary event would take place, Mi­chael held the usual pre­be­stowal con­fer­ence with Ga­briel and then pre­sented him­self be­fore his el­der brother and Par­a­dise coun­selor, Im­manuel. All pow­ers of uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion which had not pre­vi­ously been con­ferred upon Ga­briel, Mi­chael now as­signed to the cus­tody of Im­manuel. And just be­fore Mi­chael’s de­par­ture for the Uran­tia in­car­na­tion, Im­manuel, in ac­cept­ing the cus­tody of the uni­verse dur­ing the time of the Uran­tia be­stowal, pro­ceeded to im­part the be­stowal coun­sel which would serve as the in­car­na­tion guide for Mi­chael when he would pres­ently grow up on Uran­tia as a mor­tal of the realm.

120:0.7In this con­nec­tion it should be borne in mind that Mi­chael had elected to ex­e­cute this be­stowal in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, sub­ject to the will of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. The Cre­ator Son re­quired in­struc­tions from no one in or­der to ef­fect this in­car­na­tion for the sole pur­pose of achiev­ing uni­verse sov­er­eignty, but he had em­barked upon a pro­gram of the rev­e­la­tion of the Su­preme which in­volved co-op­er­a­tive func­tion­ing with the di­verse wills of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties. Thus his sov­er­eignty, when fi­nally and per­son­ally ac­quired, would ac­tu­ally be all-in­clu­sive of the sev­en­fold will of De­ity as it cul­mi­nates in the Su­preme. He had, there­fore, six times pre­vi­ously been in­structed by the per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the var­i­ous Par­a­dise De­i­ties and as­so­ci­a­tions thereof; and now he was in­structed by the Union of Days, am­bas­sador of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity to the lo­cal uni­verse of Neb­a­don, act­ing on be­half of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

120:0.8There were im­me­di­ate ad­van­tages and tremen­dous com­pen­sa­tions re­sul­tant from the will­ing­ness of this mighty Cre­ator Son once more vol­un­tar­ily to sub­or­di­nate him­self to the will of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties, this time to that of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. By this de­ci­sion to ef­fect such as­so­cia­tive sub­or­di­na­tion, Mi­chael would ex­pe­ri­ence in this in­car­na­tion, not only the na­ture of mor­tal man, but also the will of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of all. And fur­ther, he could en­ter upon this unique be­stowal with the com­plete as­sur­ance, not only that Im­manuel would ex­er­cise the full au­thor­ity of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of his uni­verse dur­ing his ab­sence on the Uran­tia be­stowal, but also with the com­fort­ing knowl­edge that the An­cients of Days of the super­uni­verse had de­creed the safety of his realm through­out the en­tire be­stowal pe­riod.

120:0.9And this was the set­ting of the mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion when Im­manuel pre­sented the sev­enth be­stowal com­mis­sion. And from this pre­be­stowal charge of Im­manuel to the uni­verse ruler who sub­se­quently be­came Je­sus of Naz­a­reth (Christ Mi­chael) on Uran­tia, I am per­mit­ted to pre­sent the fol­low­ing ex­cerpts: