judgment

• by man › must be lodged in hands of social group

10:6.2Jus­tice is in­her­ent in the uni­ver­sal sov­er­eignty of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, but good­ness, mercy, and truth are the uni­verse min­istry of the di­vine per­son­al­i­ties, whose De­ity union con­sti­tutes the Trin­ity. Jus­tice is not the at­ti­tude of the Fa­ther, the Son, or the Spirit. Jus­tice is the Trin­ity at­ti­tude of these per­son­al­i­ties of love, mercy, and min­istry. No one of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties fos­ters the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice. Jus­tice is never a per­sonal at­ti­tude; it is al­ways a plu­ral func­tion.

• divine judgment › final application of justice

10:6.4Judg­ment, the fi­nal ap­pli­ca­tion of jus­tice in ac­cor­dance with the ev­i­dence sub­mit­ted by the per­son­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite Spirit, is the work of the Sta­tion­ary Sons of the Trin­ity, be­ings par­tak­ing of the Trin­ity na­ture of the united Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit.

• divine judgment › ever fulfills divine love of God

10:6.18Jus­tice is the col­lec­tive thought of righ­teous­ness; mercy is its per­sonal ex­pres­sion. Mercy is the at­ti­tude of love; pre­ci­sion char­ac­ter­izes the op­er­a­tion of law; di­vine judg­ment is the soul of fair­ness, ever con­form­ing to the jus­tice of the Trin­ity, ever ful­fill­ing the di­vine love of God. When fully per­ceived and com­pletely un­der­stood, the righ­teous jus­tice of the Trin­ity and the mer­ci­ful love of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther are co­in­ci­dent. But man has no such full un­der­stand­ing of di­vine jus­tice. Thus in the Trin­ity, as man would view it, the per­son­al­i­ties of Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit are ad­justed to co-or­di­nate min­istry of love and law in the ex­pe­ri­en­tial uni­verses of time.

• Universal Censors › are j. of Deity

19:4.1There are ex­actly eight bil­lion Uni­ver­sal Cen­sors in ex­is­tence. These unique be­ings are the judg­ment of De­ity. They are not merely re­flec­tive of the de­ci­sions of per­fec­tion; they are the judg­ment of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. Even the An­cients of Days do not sit in judg­ment ex­cept in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Uni­ver­sal Cen­sors.

• divine judgment › Universal Censors are organic part of dispensational adjudications

19:4.3One bil­lion Cen­sors are as­signed to each of the seven super­uni­verses. Both in an in­di­vid­ual ca­pac­ity and in as­so­ci­a­tion with Per­fec­tors of Wis­dom and Di­vine Coun­selors, they op­er­ate through­out all di­vi­sions of the seven super­uni­verses. Thus the Cen­sors act on all lev­els of the grand uni­verse, from the per­fect worlds of Ha­vona to the coun­cils of the Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns, and they are an or­ganic part of all dis­pen­sa­tional ad­ju­di­ca­tions of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

• Universal Censors › are j. of Deity

19:4.4When­ever and wher­ever a Uni­ver­sal Cen­sor is pres­ent, then and there is the judg­ment of De­ity. And since the Cen­sors al­ways ren­der their ver­dicts in li­ai­son with Per­fec­tors of Wis­dom and Di­vine Coun­selors, such de­ci­sions em­brace the united wis­dom, coun­sel, and judg­ment of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. In this ju­ridi­cal trio the Per­fec­tor of Wis­dom would be the “I was,” the Di­vine Coun­selor the “I will be,” but the Uni­ver­sal Cen­sor is al­ways “I am.”

• divine judgment › a thousand or a million witnesses may testify

19:4.5The Cen­sors are uni­verse to­tal­ing per­son­al­i­ties. When a thou­sand wit­nesses have given tes­ti­mony—or a mil­lion—when the voice of wis­dom has spo­ken and the coun­sel of di­vin­ity has re­corded, when the tes­ti­mony of as­cen­dant per­fec­tion has been added, then the Cen­sor func­tions, and there is im­me­di­ately re­vealed an unerring and di­vine to­tal­ing of all that has tran­spired; and such a dis­clo­sure rep­re­sents the di­vine con­clu­sion, the sum and sub­stance of a fi­nal and per­fect de­ci­sion. There­fore, when a Cen­sor has spo­ken, no one else may speak, for the Cen­sor has de­picted the true and un­mis­tak­able to­tal of all that has gone be­fore. When he speaks, there is no ap­peal.

• divine judgment › Magisterial Sons adjudicate to close planetary dispensations

20:2.51. Ju­di­cial Ac­tions. They act at the close of the plan­e­tary dis­pen­sa­tions. In time, scores—hun­dreds—of such mis­sions may be ex­e­cuted on each in­di­vid­ual world, and they may go to the same or to other worlds times with­out num­ber as dis­pen­sa­tion ter­mi­na­tors, lib­er­a­tors of the sleep­ing sur­vivors.

20:2.62. Mag­is­te­rial Mis­sions. A plan­e­tary vis­i­ta­tion of this type usu­ally oc­curs prior to the ar­rival of a be­stowal Son. On such a mis­sion an Avo­nal ap­pears as an adult of the realm by a tech­nique of in­car­na­tion not in­volv­ing mor­tal birth. Sub­se­quent to this first and usual mag­is­te­rial visit, Avo­nals may re­peat­edly serve in a mag­is­te­rial ca­pac­ity on the same planet both be­fore and af­ter the ap­pear­ance of the be­stowal Son. On these ad­di­tional mag­is­te­rial mis­sions an Avo­nal may or may not ap­pear in ma­te­rial and vis­i­ble form, but on none of them will he be born into the world as a help­less babe.

20:2.73. Be­stowal Mis­sions. The Avo­nal Sons do all, at least once, be­stow them­selves upon some mor­tal race on some evo­lu­tion­ary world. Ju­di­cial vis­its are nu­mer­ous, mag­is­te­rial mis­sions may be plu­ral, but on each planet there ap­pears but one be­stowal Son. Be­stowal Avo­nals are born of woman as Mi­chael of Neb­a­don was in­car­nated on Uran­tia.

• divine judgment › Magisterial Sons adjudicate to close planetary dispensations

20:3.1The Avo­nals are known as Mag­is­te­rial Sons be­cause they are the high mag­is­trates of the realms, the ad­ju­di­ca­tors of the suc­ces­sive dis­pen­sa­tions of the worlds of time. They pre­side over the awak­en­ing of the sleep­ing sur­vivors, sit in judg­ment on the realm, bring to an end a dis­pen­sa­tion of sus­pended jus­tice, ex­e­cute the man­dates of an age of pro­ba­tion­ary mercy, re­as­sign the space crea­tures of plan­e­tary min­istry to the tasks of the new dis­pen­sa­tion, and re­turn to the head­quar­ters of their lo­cal uni­verse upon the com­ple­tion of their mis­sion.

• divine judgment › Mighty Messengers are defense attorneys; Those High in Authority are prosecutors; Those without Name and Number are jurors

22:2.8In the super­uni­verse courts, Mighty Mes­sen­gers act as de­fend­ers of both in­di­vid­u­als and plan­ets when they come up for ad­ju­di­ca­tion; they also as­sist the Per­fec­tions of Days in the di­rec­tion of the af­fairs of the ma­jor sec­tors. As a group, their chief as­sign­ment is that of super­uni­verse ob­servers. They are sta­tioned on the var­i­ous head­quar­ters worlds and on in­di­vid­ual plan­ets of im­por­tance as the of­fi­cial ob­servers of the An­cients of Days. When so as­signed, they also serve as ad­vis­ers to the au­thor­i­ties di­rect­ing the af­fairs of the spheres of their so­journ. The Mes­sen­gers take ac­tive part in all phases of the as­cen­dant scheme of mor­tal pro­gres­sion. With their as­so­ciates of mor­tal ori­gin they keep the super­gov­ern­ments in close and per­sonal touch with the sta­tus and pro­gres­sion of the plans of the de­scend­ing Sons of God.

• divine judgment › Mighty Messengers are defense attorneys; Those High in Authority are prosecutors; Those without Name and Number are jurors

22:3.4Hav­ing su­perb ad­min­is­tra­tive wis­dom and un­usual ex­ec­u­tive skill, these bril­liant be­ings as­sume to pre­sent the cause of jus­tice in be­half of the super­uni­verse tri­bu­nals; they fos­ter the ex­e­cu­tion of jus­tice and the rec­ti­fi­ca­tion of mis­adap­ta­tions in the evo­lu­tion­ary uni­verses. There­fore, if you should ever be cited for er­rors of judg­ment while you are as­cend­ing the worlds and spheres of your or­dained cos­mic pro­gres­sion, it is hardly likely that you would suf­fer in­jus­tice since your pros­e­cu­tors would be one­time as­cen­dant crea­tures who are per­son­ally fa­mil­iar with ev­ery step of the ca­reer you have tra­versed and are travers­ing.

• divine judgment › Mighty Messengers are defense attorneys; Those High in Authority are prosecutors; Those without Name and Number are jurors

22:4.3Since Those with­out Name and Num­ber are the su­pe­rior spir­i­tual minds of the sur­vival races, they are es­pe­cially qual­i­fied to sit in judg­ment and to ren­der opin­ions when a spir­i­tual view­point is de­sir­able, and when ex­pe­ri­ence in the as­cen­dant ca­reer is es­sen­tial to an ad­e­quate com­pre­hen­sion of the ques­tions in­volved in the prob­lem to be ad­ju­di­cated. They are the su­preme ju­rors of Or­von­ton. A mal­ad­min­is­tered jury sys­tem may be more or less of a trav­esty of jus­tice on some worlds, but on Uversa and its ex­ten­sion tri­bu­nals we em­ploy the high­est type of evolved spir­i­tual men­tal­ity as ju­ror-judges. Ad­ju­di­ca­tion is the high­est func­tion of any gov­ern­ment, and those who are in­trusted with ver­dict ren­der­ing should be cho­sen from the high­est and most no­ble types of the most ex­pe­ri­enced and un­der­stand­ing in­di­vid­u­als.

• divine judgment › based on faithfulness, not material success

25:1.6The Ha­vona Servi­tals and the Grad­u­ate Guides man­i­fest a tran­scen­dent de­vo­tion to their work and a touch­ing af­fec­tion for one an­other, an af­fec­tion which, while spir­i­tual, you could only un­der­stand by com­par­i­son with the phe­nom­e­non of hu­man love. There is di­vine pathos in the sep­a­ra­tion of the servi­tals from the guides, as so of­ten oc­curs when the servi­tals are dis­patched on mis­sions be­yond the lim­its of the cen­tral uni­verse; but they go with joy and not with sor­row. The sat­is­fy­ing joy of high duty is the eclips­ing emo­tion of spir­i­tual be­ings. Sor­row can­not ex­ist in the face of the con­scious­ness of di­vine duty faith­fully per­formed. And when man’s as­cend­ing soul stands be­fore the Su­preme Judge, the de­ci­sion of eter­nal im­port will not be de­ter­mined by ma­te­rial suc­cesses or quan­ti­ta­tive achieve­ments; the ver­dict re­ver­ber­at­ing through the high courts de­clares: “Well done, good and faith­ful ser­vant; you have been faith­ful over a few es­sen­tials; you shall be made ruler over uni­verse re­al­i­ties.”

• divine judgment › conciliating commissions settle minor difficulties

25:2.11The con­cil­ia­tors are of great value in keep­ing the uni­verse of uni­verses run­ning smoothly. Travers­ing space at the se­raphic rate of triple ve­loc­ity, they serve as the trav­el­ing courts of the worlds, com­mis­sions de­voted to the quick ad­ju­di­ca­tion of mi­nor dif­fi­cul­ties. Were it not for these mo­bile and em­i­nently fair com­mis­sions, the tri­bu­nals of the spheres would be hope­lessly over­spread with the mi­nor mis­un­der­stand­ings of the realms.

• divine judgment › unbiased testimony given by reflective seconaphim

28:4.114. The Voice of the An­gelic Hosts. The fourth pri­mary se­con­a­phim and ev­ery sev­enth se­rial prove to be an­gels pe­cu­liarly re­spon­sive to the sen­ti­ments of all or­ders of an­gels, in­clud­ing the super­na­phim above and the ser­a­phim be­low. Thus the at­ti­tude of any com­mand­ing or super­vis­ing an­gel is im­me­di­ately avail­able for con­sid­er­a­tion at any coun­cil of the An­cients of Days. Never a day passes on your world that the chief of ser­a­phim on Uran­tia is not made con­scious of the phe­nom­e­non of re­flec­tive trans­fer­ence, of be­ing drawn upon from Uversa for some pur­pose; but un­less fore­warned by a Soli­tary Mes­sen­ger, she re­mains wholly ig­no­rant of what is sought and of how it is se­cured. These min­is­ter­ing spir­its of time are con­stantly fur­nish­ing this sort of un­con­scious and cer­tainly, there­fore, un­prej­u­diced tes­ti­mony con­cern­ing the end­less ar­ray of mat­ters en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion and coun­sel of the An­cients of Days and their as­so­ciates.

• divine judgment › Memories of Mercy testify before courts of Uversa

28:6.6The Mem­ory of Mercy is a liv­ing trial bal­ance, a cur­rent state­ment of your ac­count with the super­nat­u­ral forces of the realms. These are the liv­ing rec­ords of mercy min­is­tra­tion which are read into the tes­ti­mony of the courts of Uversa when each in­di­vid­ual’s right to un­end­ing life comes up for ad­ju­di­ca­tion, when “thrones are cast up and the An­cients of Days are seated. The broad­casts of Uversa is­sue and come forth from be­fore them; thou­sands upon thou­sands min­is­ter to them, and ten thou­sand times ten thou­sand stand be­fore them. The judg­ment is set, and the books are opened.” And the books which are opened on such a mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion are the liv­ing rec­ords of the ter­tiary se­con­a­phim of the super­uni­verses. The for­mal rec­ords are on file to cor­rob­o­rate the tes­ti­mony of the Mem­o­ries of Mercy if they are re­quired.

• divine judgment › justice prevails when mercy exhausted

28:6.7The Mem­ory of Mercy must show that the sav­ing credit es­tab­lished by the Sons of God has been fully and faith­fully paid out in the lov­ing min­istry of the pa­tient per­son­al­i­ties of the Third Source and Cen­ter. But when mercy is ex­hausted, when the “mem­ory” thereof tes­ti­fies to its de­ple­tion, then does jus­tice pre­vail and righ­teous­ness de­cree. For mercy is not to be thrust upon those who de­spise it; mercy is not a gift to be tram­pled un­der foot by the per­sis­tent rebels of time. Nev­er­the­less, though mercy is thus pre­cious and dearly be­stowed, your in­di­vid­ual draw­ing cred­its are al­ways far in ex­cess of your abil­ity to ex­haust the re­serve if you are sin­cere of pur­pose and hon­est of heart.

• divine judgment › time is part of evidence before Ancients of Days

28:6.10In the as­sign­ment of trusts the coun­sel of the Im­ports of Time is in­valu­able. Time is a vi­tal fac­tor in ev­ery­thing this side of Ha­vona and Par­a­dise. In the fi­nal judg­ment be­fore the An­cients of Days, time is an el­e­ment of ev­i­dence. The Im­ports of Time must al­ways af­ford tes­ti­mony to show that ev­ery de­fen­dant has had am­ple time for mak­ing de­ci­sions, achiev­ing choice.

• divine judgment › exclusive function of beings of high training and creature experience

33:7.1The Mas­ter Son, Mi­chael, is su­premely con­cerned with but three things: cre­ation, sus­te­nance, and min­istry. He does not per­son­ally par­tic­i­pate in the ju­di­cial work of the uni­verse. Cre­ators never sit in judg­ment on their crea­tures; that is the ex­clu­sive func­tion of crea­tures of high train­ing and ac­tual crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence.

• divine judgment › justice prevails when mercy exhausted

33:7.8How­ever un­fairly hu­man con­tentions may some­times ap­pear to be ad­ju­di­cated on Uran­tia, in the uni­verse jus­tice and di­vine eq­uity do pre­vail. You are liv­ing in a well-or­dered uni­verse, and sooner or later you may de­pend upon be­ing dealt with justly, even mer­ci­fully.

• divine judgment › System Sovereigns enforce mandates of constellations and local universe

33:8.1On Sal­ving­ton, the head­quar­ters of Neb­a­don, there are no true leg­isla­tive bod­ies. The uni­verse head­quar­ters worlds are con­cerned largely with ad­ju­di­ca­tion. The leg­isla­tive as­sem­blies of the lo­cal uni­verse are lo­cated on the head­quar­ters of the one hun­dred con­stel­la­tions. The sys­tems are chiefly con­cerned with the ex­ec­u­tive and ad­min­is­tra­tive work of the lo­cal cre­ations. The Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns and their as­so­ciates en­force the leg­isla­tive man­dates of the con­stel­la­tion rulers and ex­e­cute the ju­di­cial de­crees of the high courts of the uni­verse.

• by man › do not prejudge fellows

38:2.4An­gels are su­pe­rior to you in spir­i­tual sta­tus, but they are not your judges or ac­cusers. No mat­ter what your faults, “the an­gels, al­though greater in power and might, bring no ac­cu­sa­tion against you.” An­gels do not sit in judg­ment on man­kind, nei­ther should in­di­vid­ual mor­tals pre­judge their fel­low crea­tures.

• divine judgment › of nonsurvivors

40:4.1When the mor­tals of time fail to achieve the eter­nal sur­vival of their souls in plan­e­tary as­so­ci­a­tion with the spirit gifts of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, such fail­ure is never in any way due to ne­glect of duty, min­istry, ser­vice, or de­vo­tion on the part of the Ad­juster. At mor­tal death, such de­serted Mon­i­tors re­turn to Di­vin­ing­ton, and sub­se­quently, fol­low­ing the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the non­sur­vivor, they may be re­as­signed to the worlds of time and space. Some­times, af­ter re­peated ser­vices of this sort or fol­low­ing some un­usual ex­pe­ri­ence, such as func­tion­ing as the in­dwelling Ad­juster of an in­car­nated be­stowal Son, these ef­fi­cient Ad­justers are per­son­al­ized by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• God merciful with primitive mortals

40:5.11The Gods who or­dained that mor­tal man should climb to higher lev­els of spir­i­tual in­tel­li­gence through long ages of evo­lu­tion­ary tri­als and tribu­la­tions, take note of his sta­tus and needs at ev­ery stage of the as­cent; and al­ways are they di­vinely fair and just, even charm­ingly mer­ci­ful, in the fi­nal judg­ments of these strug­gling mor­tals of the early days of the evolv­ing races.

• divine judgment › no adjudication for probationary nursery children who do not choose survival

47:2.7When ma­te­rial life has run its course, if no choice has been made for the as­cen­dant life, or if these chil­dren of time def­i­nitely de­cide against the Ha­vona ad­ven­ture, death au­to­mat­i­cally ter­mi­nates their pro­ba­tion­ary ca­reers. There is no ad­ju­di­ca­tion of such cases; there is no res­ur­rec­tion from such a sec­ond death. They sim­ply be­come as though they had not been.

• divine judgment › belongs to Ancients of Days

53:1.2Lu­cifer was a mag­nif­i­cent be­ing, a bril­liant per­son­al­ity; he stood next to the Most High Fa­thers of the con­stel­la­tions in the di­rect line of uni­verse au­thor­ity. Not­with­stand­ing Lu­cifer’s trans­gres­sion, sub­or­di­nate in­tel­li­gences re­frained from show­ing him dis­re­spect and dis­dain prior to Mi­chael’s be­stowal on Uran­tia. Even the arch­an­gel of Mi­chael, at the time of Moses’ res­ur­rec­tion, “did not bring against him an ac­cus­ing judg­ment but sim­ply said, ‘the Judge re­buke you.’” Judg­ment in such mat­ters be­longs to the An­cients of Days, the rulers of the super­uni­verse.

• divine judgment › must prove satisfactory to all related persons

54:3.2Al­though con­scious and whole­hearted iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with evil (sin) is the equiv­a­lent of nonex­is­tence (an­ni­hi­la­tion), there must al­ways in­ter­vene be­tween the time of such per­sonal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with sin and the ex­e­cu­tion of the penalty—the au­to­matic re­sult of such a will­ful em­brace of evil—a pe­riod of time of suf­fi­cient length to al­low for such an ad­ju­di­ca­tion of such an in­di­vid­ual’s uni­verse sta­tus as will prove en­tirely sat­is­fac­tory to all re­lated uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties, and which will be so fair and just as to win the ap­proval of the sin­ner him­self.

54:4.1An­other prob­lem some­what dif­fi­cult of ex­pla­na­tion in the con­stel­la­tion of Nor­la­ti­adek per­tains to the rea­sons for per­mit­ting Lu­cifer, Sa­tan, and the fallen princes to work mis­chief so long be­fore be­ing ap­pre­hended, in­terned, and ad­ju­di­cated.

54:4.2Par­ents, those who have borne and reared chil­dren, are bet­ter able to un­der­stand why Mi­chael, a Cre­ator-fa­ther, might be slow to con­demn and de­stroy his own Sons. Je­sus’ story of the prodi­gal son well il­lus­trates how a lov­ing fa­ther can long wait for the re­pen­tance of an erring child.

54:4.3The very fact that an evil-do­ing crea­ture can ac­tu­ally choose to do wrong—com­mit sin—es­tab­lishes the fact of free-will­ness and fully jus­ti­fies any length de­lay in the ex­e­cu­tion of jus­tice pro­vided the ex­tended mercy might con­duce to re­pen­tance and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

54:4.4Most of the lib­er­ties which Lu­cifer sought he al­ready had; oth­ers he was to re­ceive in the fu­ture. All these pre­cious en­dow­ments were lost by giv­ing way to im­pa­tience and yield­ing to a de­sire to pos­sess what one craves now and to pos­sess it in de­fi­ance of all obli­ga­tion to re­spect the rights and lib­er­ties of all other be­ings com­pos­ing the uni­verse of uni­verses. Eth­i­cal obli­ga­tions are in­nate, di­vine, and uni­ver­sal.

54:4.5There are many rea­sons known to us why the Su­preme Rulers did not im­me­di­ately de­stroy or in­tern the lead­ers of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. There are no doubt still other and pos­si­bly bet­ter rea­sons un­known to us. The mercy fea­tures of this de­lay in the ex­e­cu­tion of jus­tice were ex­tended per­son­ally by Mi­chael of Neb­a­don. Ex­cept for the af­fec­tion of this Cre­ator-fa­ther for his erring Sons, the su­preme jus­tice of the super­uni­verse would have acted. If such an episode as the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion had oc­curred in Neb­a­don while Mi­chael was in­car­nated on Uran­tia, the in­sti­ga­tors of such evil might have been in­stantly and ab­so­lutely an­ni­hi­lated.

54:4.6Su­preme jus­tice can act in­stantly when not re­strained by di­vine mercy. But the min­istry of mercy to the chil­dren of time and space al­ways pro­vides for this time lag, this sav­ing in­ter­val be­tween seed­time and har­vest. If the seed sow­ing is good, this in­ter­val pro­vides for the test­ing and up­build­ing of char­ac­ter; if the seed sow­ing is evil, this mer­ci­ful de­lay pro­vides time for re­pen­tance and rec­ti­fi­ca­tion. This time de­lay in the ad­ju­di­ca­tion and ex­e­cu­tion of evil­do­ers is in­her­ent in the mercy min­istry of the seven super­uni­verses. This re­straint of jus­tice by mercy proves that God is love, and that such a God of love dom­i­nates the uni­verses and in mercy con­trols the fate and judg­ment of all his crea­tures.

54:4.7The mercy de­lays of time are by the man­date of the free will of the Cre­ators. There is good to be de­rived in the uni­verse from this tech­nique of pa­tience in deal­ing with sin­ful rebels. While it is all too true that good can­not come of evil to the one who con­tem­plates and per­forms evil, it is equally true that all things (in­clud­ing evil, po­ten­tial and man­i­fest) work to­gether for good to all be­ings who know God, love to do his will, and are as­cend­ing Par­adis­e­ward ac­cord­ing to his eter­nal plan and di­vine pur­pose.

54:4.8But these mercy de­lays are not in­ter­minable. Not­with­stand­ing the long de­lay (as time is reck­oned on Uran­tia) in ad­ju­di­cat­ing the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion, we may re­cord that, dur­ing the time of ef­fect­ing this rev­e­la­tion, the first hear­ing in the pend­ing case of Ga­briel vs. Lu­cifer was held on Uversa, and soon there­after there is­sued the man­date of the An­cients of Days di­rect­ing that Sa­tan be hence­forth con­fined to the prison world with Lu­cifer. This ends the abil­ity of Sa­tan to pay fur­ther vis­its to any of the fallen worlds of Sa­ta­nia. Jus­tice in a mercy-dom­i­nated uni­verse may be slow, but it is cer­tain.

54:5.1Of the many rea­sons known to me as to why Lu­cifer and his con­fed­er­ates were not sooner in­terned or ad­ju­di­cated, I am per­mit­ted to re­cite the fol­low­ing:

54:5.21. Mercy re­quires that ev­ery wrong­doer have suf­fi­cient time in which to for­mu­late a de­lib­er­ate and fully cho­sen at­ti­tude re­gard­ing his evil thoughts and sin­ful acts.

• divine judgment › never destroys what mercy can save

54:5.32. Su­preme jus­tice is dom­i­nated by a Fa­ther’s love; there­fore will jus­tice never de­stroy that which mercy can save. Time to ac­cept sal­va­tion is vouch­safed ev­ery evil­doer.

54:5.43. No af­fec­tion­ate fa­ther is ever pre­cip­i­tate in vis­it­ing pun­ish­ment upon an erring mem­ber of his fam­ily. Pa­tience can­not func­tion in­de­pen­dently of time.

54:5.54. While wrong­do­ing is al­ways dele­te­ri­ous to a fam­ily, wis­dom and love ad­mon­ish the up­right chil­dren to bear with an erring brother dur­ing the time granted by the af­fec­tion­ate fa­ther in which the sin­ner may see the er­ror of his way and em­brace sal­va­tion.

54:5.65. Re­gard­less of Mi­chael’s at­ti­tude to­ward Lu­cifer, not­with­stand­ing his be­ing Lu­cifer’s Cre­ator-fa­ther, it was not in the prov­ince of the Cre­ator Son to ex­er­cise sum­mary ju­ris­dic­tion over the apos­tate Sys­tem Sov­er­eign be­cause he had not then com­pleted his be­stowal ca­reer, thereby at­tain­ing un­qual­i­fied sov­er­eignty of Neb­a­don.

54:5.76. The An­cients of Days could have im­me­di­ately an­ni­hi­lated these rebels, but they sel­dom ex­e­cute wrong­do­ers with­out a full hear­ing. In this in­stance they re­fused to over­rule the Mi­chael de­ci­sions.

54:5.87. It is ev­i­dent that Im­manuel coun­seled Mi­chael to re­main aloof from the rebels and al­low re­bel­lion to pur­sue a nat­u­ral course of self-oblit­er­a­tion. And the wis­dom of the Union of Days is the time re­flec­tion of the united wis­dom of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

54:5.98. The Faith­ful of Days on Eden­tia ad­vised the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers to al­low the rebels free course to the end that all sym­pa­thy for these evil­do­ers should be the sooner up­rooted in the hearts of ev­ery pres­ent and fu­ture cit­i­zen of Nor­la­ti­adek—ev­ery mor­tal, mor­ontia, or spirit crea­ture.

54:5.109. On Je­ru­sem the per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Su­preme Ex­ec­u­tive of Or­von­ton coun­seled Ga­briel to fos­ter full op­por­tu­nity for ev­ery liv­ing crea­ture to ma­ture a de­lib­er­ate choice in those mat­ters in­volved in the Lu­cifer Dec­la­ra­tion of Lib­erty. The is­sues of re­bel­lion hav­ing been raised, the Par­a­dise emer­gency ad­viser of Ga­briel por­trayed that, if such full and free op­por­tu­nity were not given all Nor­la­ti­adek crea­tures, then would the Par­a­dise quar­an­tine against all such pos­si­ble half­hearted or doubt-stricken crea­tures be ex­tended in self-pro­tec­tion against the en­tire con­stel­la­tion. To keep open the Par­a­dise doors of as­cen­sion to the be­ings of Nor­la­ti­adek, it was nec­es­sary to pro­vide for the full de­vel­op­ment of re­bel­lion and to in­sure the com­plete de­ter­mi­na­tion of at­ti­tude on the part of all be­ings in any way con­cerned there­with.

54:5.1110. The Di­vine Min­is­ter of Sal­ving­ton is­sued as her third in­de­pen­dent procla­ma­tion a man­date di­rect­ing that noth­ing be done to half cure, cow­ardly sup­press, or oth­er­wise hide the hideous vis­age of rebels and re­bel­lion. The an­gelic hosts were di­rected to work for full dis­clo­sure and un­lim­ited op­por­tu­nity for sin-ex­pres­sion as the quick­est tech­nique of achiev­ing the per­fect and fi­nal cure of the plague of evil and sin.

54:5.1211. An emer­gency coun­cil of ex-mor­tals con­sist­ing of Mighty Mes­sen­gers, glo­ri­fied mor­tals who had had per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence with like sit­u­a­tions, to­gether with their col­leagues, was or­ga­nized on Je­ru­sem. They ad­vised Ga­briel that at least three times the num­ber of be­ings would be led astray if ar­bi­trary or sum­mary meth­ods of sup­pres­sion were at­tempted. The en­tire Uversa corps of coun­selors con­curred in ad­vis­ing Ga­briel to per­mit the re­bel­lion to take its full and nat­u­ral course, even if it should re­quire a mil­lion years to wind up the con­se­quences.

54:5.1312. Time, even in a uni­verse of time, is rel­a­tive: If a Uran­tia mor­tal of av­er­age length of life should com­mit a crime which pre­cip­i­tated world-wide pan­de­mo­nium, and if he were ap­pre­hended, tried, and ex­e­cuted within two or three days of the com­mis­sion of the crime, would it seem a long time to you? And yet that would be nearer a com­par­i­son with the length of Lu­cifer’s life even if his ad­ju­di­ca­tion, now be­gun, should not be com­pleted for a hun­dred thou­sand Uran­tia years. The rel­a­tive lapse of time from the view­point of Uversa, where the lit­i­ga­tion is pend­ing, could be in­di­cated by say­ing that the crime of Lu­cifer was be­ing brought to trial within two and a half sec­onds of its com­mis­sion. From the Par­a­dise view­point the ad­ju­di­ca­tion is si­mul­ta­ne­ous with the en­act­ment.

54:5.14There are an equal num­ber of rea­sons for not ar­bi­trar­ily stop­ping the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion which would be par­tially com­pre­hen­si­ble to you, but which I am not per­mit­ted to nar­rate. I may in­form you that on Uversa we teach forty-eight rea­sons for per­mit­ting evil to run the full course of its own moral bankruptcy and spir­i­tual ex­tinc­tion. I doubt not that there are just as many ad­di­tional rea­sons not known to me.

• by man › must be lodged in hands of social group

70:10.13Jus­tice was thus first meted out by the fam­ily, then by the clan, and later on by the tribe. The ad­min­is­tra­tion of true jus­tice dates from the tak­ing of re­venge from pri­vate and kin groups and lodg­ing it in the hands of the so­cial group, the state.

• day of judgment › taught by Egyptians and Zoroaster

95:6.6The Jew­ish tra­di­tions of heaven and hell and the doc­trine of dev­ils as re­corded in the He­brew scrip­tures, while founded on the lin­ger­ing tra­di­tions of Lu­cifer and Cali­gas­tia, were prin­ci­pally de­rived from the Zoroas­tri­ans dur­ing the times when the Jews were un­der the po­lit­i­cal and cul­tural dom­i­nance of the Per­sians. Zoroaster, like the Egyp­tians, taught the “day of judg­ment,” but he con­nected this event with the end of the world.

• day of judgment › under Mithraism

98:5.4The ad­her­ents of this cult wor­shiped in caves and other se­cret places, chant­ing hymns, mum­bling magic, eat­ing the flesh of the sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mals, and drink­ing the blood. Three times a day they wor­shiped, with spe­cial weekly cer­e­mo­ni­als on the day of the sun-god and with the most elab­o­rate ob­ser­vance of all on the an­nual fes­ti­val of Mithras, De­cem­ber twenty-fifth. It was be­lieved that the par­tak­ing of the sacra­ment en­sured eter­nal life, the im­me­di­ate pass­ing, af­ter death, to the bo­som of Mithras, there to tarry in bliss un­til the judg­ment day. On the judg­ment day the Mith­raic keys of heaven would un­lock the gates of Par­a­dise for the re­cep­tion of the faith­ful; where­upon all the un­bap­tized of the liv­ing and the dead would be an­ni­hi­lated upon the re­turn of Mithras to earth. It was taught that, when a man died, he went be­fore Mithras for judg­ment, and that at the end of the world Mithras would sum­mon all the dead from their graves to face the last judg­ment. The wicked would be de­stroyed by fire, and the righ­teous would reign with Mithras for­ever.

• by man › judge savages according to their enlightenment

101:9.2When you pre­sume to sit in crit­i­cal judg­ment on the prim­i­tive re­li­gion of man (or on the re­li­gion of prim­i­tive man), you should re­mem­ber to judge such sav­ages and to eval­u­ate their re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence in ac­cor­dance with their en­light­en­ment and sta­tus of con­science. Do not make the mis­take of judg­ing an­other’s re­li­gion by your own stan­dards of knowl­edge and truth.

• by man › must be lodged in hands of social group

104:2.5For ex­am­ple: The Mas­ter, when on earth, ad­mon­ished his fol­low­ers that jus­tice is never a per­sonal act; it is al­ways a group func­tion. Nei­ther do the Gods, as per­sons, ad­min­is­ter jus­tice. But they per­form this very func­tion as a col­lec­tive whole, as the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

• Universal Censors › judges and censors decree mortal survival

108:6.6And as you are the hu­man par­ent, so is the Ad­juster the di­vine par­ent of the real you, your higher and ad­vanc­ing self, your bet­ter mor­ontial and fu­ture spir­i­tual self. And it is this evolv­ing mor­ontial soul that the judges and cen­sors dis­cern when they de­cree your sur­vival and pass you up­ward to new worlds and never-end­ing ex­is­tence in eter­nal li­ai­son with your faith­ful part­ner—God, the Ad­juster.

• Universal Censors › appropriate Adjuster and seraphic records for j.

112:4.2In some way not fully un­der­stood, the Uni­ver­sal Cen­sors are able to gain pos­ses­sion of an epit­ome of the hu­man life as it is em­bod­ied in the Ad­juster’s du­pli­cate tran­scrip­tion of the spir­i­tual val­ues and mor­ontia mean­ings of the in­dwelt mind. The Cen­sors are able to ap­pro­pri­ate the Ad­juster’s ver­sion of the de­ceased hu­man’s sur­vival char­ac­ter and spir­i­tual qual­i­ties, and all this data, to­gether with the se­raphic rec­ords, is avail­able for pre­sen­ta­tion at the time of the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the in­di­vid­ual con­cerned. This in­for­ma­tion is also used to con­firm those super­uni­verse man­dates which make it pos­si­ble for cer­tain as­cend­ers im­me­di­ately to be­gin their mor­ontia ca­reers, upon mor­tal dis­so­lu­tion to pro­ceed to the man­sion worlds ahead of the for­mal ter­mi­na­tion of a plan­e­tary dis­pen­sa­tion.

• divine judgment › if in doubt, Judges invariably rule in personal interests of individual

112:5.7If ever there is doubt as to the ad­vis­abil­ity of ad­vanc­ing a hu­man iden­tity to the man­sion worlds, the uni­verse gov­ern­ments in­vari­ably rule in the per­sonal in­ter­ests of that in­di­vid­ual; they un­hesi­tat­ingly ad­vance such a soul to the sta­tus of a tran­si­tional be­ing, while they con­tinue their ob­ser­va­tions of the emerg­ing mor­ontia in­tent and spir­i­tual pur­pose. Thus di­vine jus­tice is cer­tain of achieve­ment, and di­vine mercy is ac­corded fur­ther op­por­tu­nity for ex­tend­ing its min­istry.

• divine judgment › universe authorities would rather risk system rebellion than deprive one mortal of ascending career

112:5.8The gov­ern­ments of Or­von­ton and Neb­a­don do not claim ab­so­lute per­fec­tion for the de­tail work­ing of the uni­ver­sal plan of mor­tal reper­son­al­iza­tion, but they do claim to, and ac­tu­ally do, man­i­fest pa­tience, tol­er­ance, un­der­stand­ing, and mer­ci­ful sym­pa­thy. We had rather as­sume the risk of a sys­tem re­bel­lion than to court the haz­ard of de­priv­ing one strug­gling mor­tal from any evo­lu­tion­ary world of the eter­nal joy of pur­su­ing the as­cend­ing ca­reer.

• divine judgment › Judges will not deprive any being of personality who has not finally and fully made eternal choice

112:5.9This does not mean that hu­man be­ings are to en­joy a sec­ond op­por­tu­nity in the face of the re­jec­tion of a first, not at all. But it does sig­nify that all will crea­tures are to ex­pe­ri­ence one true op­por­tu­nity to make one un­doubted, self-con­scious, and fi­nal choice. The sov­er­eign Judges of the uni­verses will not de­prive any be­ing of per­son­al­ity sta­tus who has not fi­nally and fully made the eter­nal choice; the soul of man must and will be given full and am­ple op­por­tu­nity to re­veal its true in­tent and real pur­pose.

• divine judgment › account of endowments and stewardships asked in next world

112:5.10When the more spir­i­tu­ally and cos­mi­cally ad­vanced mor­tals die, they pro­ceed im­me­di­ately to the man­sion worlds; in gen­eral, this pro­vi­sion op­er­ates with those who have had as­signed to them per­sonal se­raphic guard­i­ans. Other mor­tals may be de­tained un­til such time as the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of their af­fairs has been com­pleted, af­ter which they may pro­ceed to the man­sion worlds, or they may be as­signed to the ranks of the sleep­ing sur­vivors who will be reper­son­al­ized en masse at the end of the cur­rent plan­e­tary dis­pen­sa­tion.

• divine judgment › human lives recorded in seraphim and Censors

112:6.4In the mor­ontia es­tate the as­cend­ing mor­tal is en­dowed with the Neb­a­don mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the cos­mic-mind en­dow­ment of the Mas­ter Spirit of Or­von­ton. The mor­tal in­tel­lect, as such, has per­ished, has ceased to ex­ist as a fo­cal­ized uni­verse en­tity apart from the un­dif­fer­en­ti­ated mind cir­cuits of the Cre­ative Spirit. But the mean­ings and val­ues of the mor­tal mind have not per­ished. Cer­tain phases of mind are con­tin­ued in the sur­viv­ing soul; cer­tain ex­pe­ri­en­tial val­ues of the for­mer hu­man mind are held by the Ad­juster; and there per­sist in the lo­cal uni­verse the rec­ords of the hu­man life as it was lived in the flesh, to­gether with cer­tain liv­ing reg­is­tra­tions in the nu­mer­ous be­ings who are con­cerned with the fi­nal eval­u­a­tion of the as­cend­ing mor­tal, be­ings ex­tend­ing in range from ser­a­phim to Uni­ver­sal Cen­sors and prob­a­bly on be­yond to the Su­preme.

• concomitant of lengthening time unit in experience

118:1.3There is a di­rect re­la­tion­ship be­tween ma­tu­rity and the unit of time con­scious­ness in any given in­tel­lect. The time unit may be a day, a year, or a longer pe­riod, but in­evitably it is the cri­te­rion by which the con­scious self eval­u­ates the cir­cum­stances of life, and by which the con­ceiv­ing in­tel­lect mea­sures and eval­u­ates the facts of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence.

118:1.4Ex­pe­ri­ence, wis­dom, and judg­ment are the con­comi­tants of the length­en­ing of the time unit in mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence. As the hu­man mind reck­ons back­ward into the past, it is eval­u­at­ing past ex­pe­ri­ence for the pur­pose of bring­ing it to bear on a pres­ent sit­u­a­tion. As mind reaches out into the fu­ture, it is at­tempt­ing to eval­u­ate the fu­ture sig­nif­i­cance of pos­si­ble ac­tion. And hav­ing thus reck­oned with both ex­pe­ri­ence and wis­dom, the hu­man will ex­er­cises judg­ment-de­ci­sion in the pres­ent, and the plan of ac­tion thus born of the past and the fu­ture be­comes ex­is­tent.

118:1.5In the ma­tu­rity of the de­vel­op­ing self, the past and fu­ture are brought to­gether to il­lu­mi­nate the true mean­ing of the pres­ent. As the self ma­tures, it reaches fur­ther and fur­ther back into the past for ex­pe­ri­ence, while its wis­dom fore­casts seek to pen­e­trate deeper and deeper into the un­known fu­ture. And as the con­ceiv­ing self ex­tends this reach ever fur­ther into both past and fu­ture, so does judg­ment be­come less and less de­pen­dent on the mo­men­tary pres­ent. In this way does de­ci­sion-ac­tion be­gin to es­cape from the fet­ters of the mov­ing pres­ent, while it be­gins to take on the as­pects of past-fu­ture sig­nif­i­cance.

118:1.6Pa­tience is ex­er­cised by those mor­tals whose time units are short; true ma­tu­rity tran­scends pa­tience by a for­bear­ance born of real un­der­stand­ing.

118:1.7To be­come ma­ture is to live more in­tensely in the pres­ent, at the same time es­cap­ing from the lim­i­ta­tions of the pres­ent. The plans of ma­tu­rity, founded on past ex­pe­ri­ence, are com­ing into be­ing in the pres­ent in such man­ner as to en­hance the val­ues of the fu­ture.

118:1.8The time unit of im­ma­tu­rity con­cen­trates mean­ing-value into the pres­ent mo­ment in such a way as to di­vorce the pres­ent of its true re­la­tion­ship to the not-pres­ent—the past-fu­ture. The time unit of ma­tu­rity is pro­por­tioned so to re­veal the co-or­di­nate re­la­tion­ship of past-pres­ent-fu­ture that the self be­gins to gain in­sight into the whole­ness of events, be­gins to view the land­scape of time from the panoramic per­spec­tive of broad­ened hori­zons, be­gins per­haps to sus­pect the non­be­gin­ning, non­end­ing eter­nal con­tin­uum, the frag­ments of which are called time.

• by man › do not prejudge fellows
• by man › must be lodged in hands of social group
• divine judgment › vested in hands of those knowing antecedents, motives

133:1.2“Ga­nid, it is true, you do not un­der­stand. Mercy min­istry is al­ways the work of the in­di­vid­ual, but jus­tice pun­ish­ment is the func­tion of the so­cial, gov­ern­men­tal, or uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tive groups. As an in­di­vid­ual I am be­holden to show mercy; I must go to the res­cue of the as­saulted lad, and in all con­sis­tency I may em­ploy suf­fi­cient force to re­strain the ag­gres­sor. And that is just what I did. I achieved the de­liv­er­ance of the as­saulted lad; that was the end of mercy min­istry. Then I forcibly de­tained the ag­gres­sor a suf­fi­cient length of time to en­able the weaker party to the dis­pute to make his es­cape, af­ter which I with­drew from the af­fair. I did not pro­ceed to sit in judg­ment on the ag­gres­sor, thus to pass upon his mo­tive—to ad­ju­di­cate all that en­tered into his at­tack upon his fel­low—and then un­der­take to ex­e­cute the pun­ish­ment which my mind might dic­tate as just rec­om­pense for his wrong­do­ing. Ga­nid, mercy may be lav­ish, but jus­tice is pre­cise. Can­not you dis­cern that no two per­sons are likely to agree as to the pun­ish­ment which would sat­isfy the de­mands of jus­tice? One would im­pose forty lashes, an­other twenty, while still an­other would ad­vise soli­tary con­fine­ment as a just pun­ish­ment. Can you not see that on this world such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties had bet­ter rest upon the group or be ad­min­is­tered by cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the group? In the uni­verse, judg­ment is vested in those who fully know the an­tecedents of all wrong­do­ing as well as its mo­ti­va­tion. In civ­i­lized so­ci­ety and in an or­ga­nized uni­verse the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice pre­sup­poses the pass­ing of just sen­tence con­se­quent upon fair judg­ment, and such pre­rog­a­tives are vested in the ju­ridi­cal groups of the worlds and in the all-know­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors of the higher uni­verses of all cre­ation.”

• by man › dangers and unfairness of sitting in personal j.

133:3.6When in Rome, Ga­nid ob­served that Je­sus re­fused to ac­com­pany them to the pub­lic baths. Sev­eral times af­ter­ward the young man sought to in­duce Je­sus fur­ther to ex­press him­self in re­gard to the re­la­tions of the sexes. Though he would an­swer the lad’s ques­tions, he never seemed dis­posed to dis­cuss these sub­jects at great length. One evening as they strolled about Corinth out near where the wall of the citadel ran down to the sea, they were ac­costed by two pub­lic women. Ga­nid had im­bibed the idea, and rightly, that Je­sus was a man of high ide­als, and that he ab­horred ev­ery­thing which par­took of un­clean­ness or sa­vored of evil; ac­cord­ingly he spoke sharply to these women and rudely mo­tioned them away. When Je­sus saw this, he said to Ga­nid: “You mean well, but you should not pre­sume thus to speak to the chil­dren of God, even though they chance to be his erring chil­dren. Who are we that we should sit in judg­ment on these women? Do you hap­pen to know all of the cir­cum­stances which led them to re­sort to such meth­ods of ob­tain­ing a liveli­hood? Stop here with me while we talk about these mat­ters.” The cour­te­sans were as­ton­ished at what he said even more than was Ga­nid.

• divine judgment › account of endowments and stewardships asked in next world

133:4.7To the Ro­man judge he said: “As you judge men, re­mem­ber that you your­self will also some day come to judg­ment be­fore the bar of the Rulers of a uni­verse. Judge justly, even mer­ci­fully, even as you shall some day thus crave mer­ci­ful con­sid­er­a­tion at the hands of the Su­preme Ar­biter. Judge as you would be judged un­der sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances, thus be­ing guided by the spirit of the law as well as by its let­ter. And even as you ac­cord jus­tice dom­i­nated by fair­ness in the light of the need of those who are brought be­fore you, so shall you have the right to ex­pect jus­tice tem­pered by mercy when you some­time stand be­fore the Judge of all the earth.”

• divine judgment › vested in hands of those knowing antecedents, motives

133:4.12To the con­demned crim­i­nal he said at the last hour: “My brother, you have fallen on evil times. You lost your way; you be­came en­tan­gled in the meshes of crime. From talk­ing to you, I well know you did not plan to do the thing which is about to cost you your tem­po­ral life. But you did do this evil, and your fel­lows have ad­judged you guilty; they have de­ter­mined that you shall die. You or I may not deny the state this right of self-de­fense in the man­ner of its own choos­ing. There seems to be no way of hu­manly es­cap­ing the penalty of your wrong­do­ing. Your fel­lows must judge you by what you did, but there is a Judge to whom you may ap­peal for for­give­ness, and who will judge you by your real mo­tives and bet­ter in­ten­tions. You need not fear to meet the judg­ment of God if your re­pen­tance is gen­uine and your faith sin­cere. The fact that your er­ror car­ries with it the death penalty im­posed by man does not prej­u­dice the chance of your soul to ob­tain jus­tice and en­joy mercy be­fore the heav­enly courts.”

• by man › let others give account of themselves to God

139:6.5The apos­tles all loved and re­spected Na­than­iel, and he got along with them splen­didly, ex­cept­ing Ju­das Is­car­iot. Ju­das did not think Na­than­iel took his apos­tle­ship suf­fi­ciently se­ri­ously and once had the temer­ity to go se­cretly to Je­sus and lodge com­plaint against him. Said Je­sus: “Ju­das, watch care­fully your steps; do not over­mag­nify your of­fice. Who of us is com­pe­tent to judge his brother? It is not the Fa­ther’s will that his chil­dren should par­take only of the se­ri­ous things of life. Let me re­peat: I have come that my breth­ren in the flesh may have joy, glad­ness, and life more abun­dantly. Go then, Ju­das, and do well that which has been in­trusted to you but leave Na­than­iel, your brother, to give ac­count of him­self to God.” And the mem­ory of this, with that of many sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences, long lived in the self-de­ceiv­ing heart of Ju­das Is­car­iot.

• Jesus came not to judge but to offer salvation

140:3.17“You are com­mis­sioned to save men, not to judge them. At the end of your earth life you will all ex­pect mercy; there­fore do I re­quire of you dur­ing your mor­tal life that you show mercy to all of your breth­ren in the flesh. Make not the mis­take of try­ing to pluck a mote out of your brother’s eye when there is a beam in your own eye. Hav­ing first cast the beam out of your own eye, you can the bet­ter see to cast the mote out of your brother’s eye.

• day of judgment

140:3.20“In the great day of the king­dom judg­ment, many will say to me, ‘Did we not proph­esy in your name and by your name do many won­der­ful works?’ But I will be com­pelled to say to them, ‘I never knew you; de­part from me you who are false teach­ers.’ But ev­ery one who hears this charge and sin­cerely ex­e­cutes his com­mis­sion to rep­re­sent me be­fore men even as I have rep­re­sented my Fa­ther to you, shall find an abun­dant en­trance into my ser­vice and into the king­dom of the heav­enly Fa­ther.”

• by man › dangers and unfairness of sitting in personal j.

146:2.65. They who would re­ceive mercy must show mercy; judge not that you be not judged. With the spirit with which you judge oth­ers you also shall be judged. Mercy does not wholly ab­ro­gate uni­verse fair­ness. In the end it will prove true: “Whoso stops his ears to the cry of the poor, he also shall some day cry for help, and no one will hear him.” The sin­cer­ity of any prayer is the as­sur­ance of its be­ing heard; the spir­i­tual wis­dom and uni­verse con­sis­tency of any pe­ti­tion is the de­ter­miner of the time, man­ner, and de­gree of the an­swer. A wise fa­ther does not lit­er­ally an­swer the fool­ish prayers of his ig­no­rant and in­ex­pe­ri­enced chil­dren, al­beit the chil­dren may de­rive much plea­sure and real soul sat­is­fac­tion from the mak­ing of such ab­surd pe­ti­tions.

• day of judgment

147:3.3In speak­ing to those as­sem­bled, Je­sus said: “Many of you are here, sick and af­flicted, be­cause of your many years of wrong liv­ing. Some suf­fer from the ac­ci­dents of time, oth­ers as a re­sult of the mis­takes of their fore­bears, while some of you strug­gle un­der the hand­i­caps of the im­per­fect con­di­tions of your tem­po­ral ex­is­tence. But my Fa­ther works, and I would work, to im­prove your earthly state but more es­pe­cially to in­sure your eter­nal es­tate. None of us can do much to change the dif­fi­cul­ties of life un­less we dis­cover the Fa­ther in heaven so wills. Af­ter all, we are all be­holden to do the will of the Eter­nal. If you could all be healed of your phys­i­cal af­flic­tions, you would in­deed mar­vel, but it is even greater that you should be cleansed of all spir­i­tual dis­ease and find your­selves healed of all moral in­fir­mi­ties. You are all God’s chil­dren; you are the sons of the heav­enly Fa­ther. The bonds of time may seem to af­flict you, but the God of eter­nity loves you. And when the time of judg­ment shall come, fear not, you shall all find, not only jus­tice, but an abun­dance of mercy. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you: He who hears the gospel of the king­dom and be­lieves in this teach­ing of son­ship with God, has eter­nal life; al­ready are such be­liev­ers pass­ing from judg­ment and death to light and life. And the hour is com­ing in which even those who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the res­ur­rec­tion.”

• by man › judge not by a single unfortunate human episode

156:5.9Make not the mis­take of es­ti­mat­ing the soul’s worth by the im­per­fec­tions of the mind or by the ap­petites of the body. Judge not the soul nor eval­u­ate its des­tiny by the stan­dard of a sin­gle un­for­tu­nate hu­man episode. Your spir­i­tual des­tiny is con­di­tioned only by your spir­i­tual long­ings and pur­poses.

• by man › dangers and unfairness of sitting in personal j.
• by man › must be lodged in hands of social group

159:1.6Thus did Je­sus teach the dan­gers and il­lus­trate the un­fair­ness of sit­ting in per­sonal judg­ment upon one’s fel­lows. Dis­ci­pline must be main­tained, jus­tice must be ad­min­is­tered, but in all these mat­ters the wis­dom of the broth­er­hood should pre­vail. Je­sus in­vested leg­isla­tive and ju­di­cial au­thor­ity in the group, not in the in­di­vid­ual. Even this in­vest­ment of au­thor­ity in the group must not be ex­er­cised as per­sonal au­thor­ity. There is al­ways dan­ger that the ver­dict of an in­di­vid­ual may be warped by prej­u­dice or dis­torted by pas­sion. Group judg­ment is more likely to re­move the dan­gers and elim­i­nate the un­fair­ness of per­sonal bias. Je­sus sought al­ways to min­i­mize the el­e­ments of un­fair­ness, re­tal­i­a­tion, and vengeance.

• divine judgment › Father is source of all true j.
• Jesus came not to judge but to offer salvation

162:5.2“I am the light of the world. He who fol­lows me shall not walk in dark­ness but shall have the light of life. Pre­sum­ing to place me on trial and as­sum­ing to sit as my judges, you de­clare that, if I bear wit­ness of my­self, my wit­ness can­not be true. But never can the crea­ture sit in judg­ment on the Cre­ator. Even if I do bear wit­ness about my­self, my wit­ness is ev­er­last­ingly true, for I know whence I came, who I am, and whither I go. You who would kill the Son of Man know not whence I came, who I am, or whither I go. You only judge by the ap­pear­ances of the flesh; you do not per­ceive the re­al­i­ties of the spirit. I judge no man, not even my arch­en­emy. But if I should choose to judge, my judg­ment would be true and righ­teous, for I would judge not alone but in as­so­ci­a­tion with my Fa­ther, who sent me into the world, and who is the source of all true judg­ment. You even al­low that the wit­ness of two re­li­able per­sons may be ac­cepted—well, then, I bear wit­ness of these truths; so also does my Fa­ther in heaven. And when I told you this yes­ter­day, in your dark­ness you asked me, ‘Where is your Fa­ther?’ Truly, you know nei­ther me nor my Fa­ther, for if you had known me, you would also have known the Fa­ther.

• Jesus came not to judge but to offer salvation

162:7.4“Which of you con­victs me of sin? If I, then, pro­claim and live the truth shown me by the Fa­ther, why do you not be­lieve? He who is of God hears gladly the words of God; for this cause many of you hear not my words, be­cause you are not of God. Your teach­ers have even pre­sumed to say that I do my works by the power of the prince of dev­ils. One near by has just said that I have a devil, that I am a child of the devil. But all of you who deal hon­estly with your own souls know full well that I am not a devil. You know that I honor the Fa­ther even while you would dis­honor me. I seek not my own glory, only the glory of my Par­a­dise Fa­ther. And I do not judge you, for there is one who judges for me.

• divine judgment › 3 questions asked of the rich

165:4.10To an­other stand­ing near by who asked Je­sus how the wealthy would stand in the day of judg­ment, he replied: “I have come to judge nei­ther the rich nor the poor, but the lives men live will sit in judg­ment on all. What­ever else may con­cern the wealthy in the judg­ment, at least three ques­tions must be an­swered by all who ac­quire great wealth, and these ques­tions are:

165:4.11“1. How much wealth did you ac­cu­mu­late?

165:4.12“2. How did you get this wealth?

165:4.13“3. How did you use your wealth?”

• day of judgment

166:3.4“But herein is the dan­ger to all who would post­pone their en­trance into the king­dom while they con­tinue to pur­sue the plea­sures of im­ma­tu­rity and in­dulge the sat­is­fac­tions of self­ish­ness: Hav­ing re­fused to en­ter the king­dom as a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, they may sub­se­quently seek en­trance thereto when the glory of the bet­ter way be­comes re­vealed in the age to come. And when, there­fore, those who spurned the king­dom when I came in the like­ness of hu­man­ity seek to find an en­trance when it is re­vealed in the like­ness of di­vin­ity, then will I say to all such self­ish ones: I know not whence you are. You had your chance to pre­pare for this heav­enly cit­i­zen­ship, but you re­fused all such prof­fers of mercy; you re­jected all in­vi­ta­tions to come while the door was open. Now, to you who have re­fused sal­va­tion, the door is shut. This door is not open to those who would en­ter the king­dom for self­ish glory. Sal­va­tion is not for those who are un­will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to do­ing my Fa­ther’s will. When in spirit and soul you have turned your backs upon the Fa­ther’s king­dom, it is use­less in mind and body to stand be­fore this door and knock, say­ing, ‘Lord, open to us; we would also be great in the king­dom.’ Then will I de­clare that you are not of my fold. I will not re­ceive you to be among those who have fought the good fight of faith and won the re­ward of un­selfish ser­vice in the king­dom on earth. And when you say, ‘Did we not eat and drink with you, and did you not teach in our streets?’ then shall I again de­clare that you are spir­i­tual strangers; that we were not fel­low ser­vants in the Fa­ther’s min­istry of mercy on earth; that I do not know you; and then shall the Judge of all the earth say to you: ‘De­part from us, all you who have taken de­light in the works of in­iq­uity.’

• divine judgment › those rejecting Jesus and his teachings will be brought to j.
• Jesus came not to judge but to offer salvation

174:5.7“He who be­lieves this gospel, be­lieves not merely in me but in Him who sent me. When you look upon me, you see not only the Son of Man but also Him who sent me. I am the light of the world, and whoso­ever will be­lieve my teach­ing shall no longer abide in dark­ness. If you gen­tiles will hear me, you shall re­ceive the words of life and shall en­ter forth­with into the joy­ous lib­erty of the truth of son­ship with God. If my fel­low coun­try­men, the Jews, choose to re­ject me and to refuse my teach­ings, I will not sit in judg­ment on them, for I came not to judge the world but to of­fer it sal­va­tion. Nev­er­the­less, they who re­ject me and refuse to re­ceive my teach­ing shall be brought to judg­ment in due sea­son by my Fa­ther and those whom he has ap­pointed to sit in judg­ment on such as re­ject the gift of mercy and the truths of sal­va­tion. Re­mem­ber, all of you, that I speak not of my­self, but that I have faith­fully de­clared to you that which the Fa­ther com­manded I should re­veal to the chil­dren of men. And these words which the Fa­ther di­rected me to speak to the world are words of di­vine truth, ev­er­last­ing mercy, and eter­nal life.

• divine judgment › at death, mortals stand in immediate presence of

176:2.7“But what is the sig­nif­i­cance of this teach­ing hav­ing to do with the com­ing of the Sons of God? Do you not per­ceive that, when each of you is called to lay down his life strug­gle and pass through the por­tal of death, you stand in the im­me­di­ate pres­ence of judg­ment, and that you are face to face with the facts of a new dis­pen­sa­tion of ser­vice in the eter­nal plan of the in­fi­nite Fa­ther? What the whole world must face as a lit­eral fact at the end of an age, you, as in­di­vid­u­als, must each most cer­tainly face as a per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence when you reach the end of your nat­u­ral life and thereby pass on to be con­fronted with the con­di­tions and de­mands in­her­ent in the next rev­e­la­tion of the eter­nal pro­gres­sion of the Fa­ther’s king­dom.”

• divine judgment › account of endowments and stewardships asked in next world

176:3.7Truth is liv­ing; the Spirit of Truth is ever lead­ing the chil­dren of light into new realms of spir­i­tual re­al­ity and di­vine ser­vice. You are not given truth to crys­tal­lize into set­tled, safe, and hon­ored forms. Your rev­e­la­tion of truth must be so en­hanced by pass­ing through your per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence that new beauty and ac­tual spir­i­tual gains will be dis­closed to all who be­hold your spir­i­tual fruits and in con­se­quence thereof are led to glo­rify the Fa­ther who is in heaven. Only those faith­ful ser­vants who thus grow in the knowl­edge of the truth, and who thereby de­velop the ca­pac­ity for di­vine ap­pre­ci­a­tion of spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties, can ever hope to “en­ter fully into the joy of their Lord.” What a sorry sight for suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of the pro­fessed fol­low­ers of Je­sus to say, re­gard­ing their stew­ard­ship of di­vine truth: “Here, Mas­ter, is the truth you com­mit­ted to us a hun­dred or a thou­sand years ago. We have lost noth­ing; we have faith­fully pre­served all you gave us; we have al­lowed no changes to be made in that which you taught us; here is the truth you gave us.” But such a plea con­cern­ing spir­i­tual in­do­lence will not jus­tify the bar­ren stew­ard of truth in the pres­ence of the Mas­ter. In ac­cor­dance with the truth com­mit­ted to your hands will the Mas­ter of truth re­quire a reck­on­ing.

176:3.8In the next world you will be asked to give an ac­count of the en­dow­ments and stew­ard­ships of this world. Whether in­her­ent tal­ents are few or many, a just and mer­ci­ful reck­on­ing must be faced. If en­dow­ments are used only in self­ish pur­suits and no thought is be­stowed upon the higher duty of ob­tain­ing in­creased yield of the fruits of the spirit, as they are man­i­fested in the ever-ex­pand­ing ser­vice of men and the wor­ship of God, such self­ish stew­ards must ac­cept the con­se­quences of their de­lib­er­ate choos­ing.

• by man › Spirit of Truth enables wise

180:6.2“Now that I am leav­ing you, see­ing that the hour has come when I am about to go to the Fa­ther, I am sur­prised that none of you have asked me, Why do you leave us? Nev­er­the­less, I know that you ask such ques­tions in your hearts. I will speak to you plainly, as one friend to an­other. It is re­ally prof­itable for you that I go away. If I go not away, the new teacher can­not come into your hearts. I must be di­vested of this mor­tal body and be re­stored to my place on high be­fore I can send this spirit teacher to live in your souls and lead your spir­its into the truth. And when my spirit comes to in­dwell you, he will il­lu­mi­nate the dif­fer­ence be­tween sin and righ­teous­ness and will en­able you to judge wisely in your hearts con­cern­ing them.