temples

• temple of God › human body

1:4.2The phys­i­cal bod­ies of mor­tals are “the tem­ples of God.” Not­with­stand­ing that the Sov­er­eign Cre­ator Sons come near the crea­tures of their in­hab­ited worlds and “draw all men to them­selves”; though they “stand at the door” of con­scious­ness “and knock” and de­light to come in to all who will “open the doors of their hearts”; al­though there does ex­ist this in­ti­mate per­sonal com­mu­nion be­tween the Cre­ator Sons and their mor­tal crea­tures, nev­er­the­less, mor­tal men have some­thing from God him­self which ac­tu­ally dwells within them; their bod­ies are the tem­ples thereof.

• celestial temples › of wisdom on Uversa

28:5.10You can just faintly com­pre­hend what all this means to those who are re­spon­si­ble for the con­duct of the super­uni­verse gov­ern­ments. The im­men­sity and the com­pre­hen­sive­ness of these trans­ac­tions are quite be­yond fi­nite con­cep­tion. When you stand, as I re­peat­edly have, in the spe­cial re­ceiv­ing cham­bers of the tem­ple of wis­dom on Uversa and see all this in ac­tual op­er­a­tion, you will be moved to ado­ra­tion by the per­fec­tion of the com­plex­ity, and by the surety of the work­ing, of the in­ter­plan­e­tary com­mu­ni­ca­tions of the uni­verses. You will pay homage to the di­vine wis­dom and good­ness of the Gods, who plan and ex­e­cute with such su­perb tech­nique. And these things ac­tu­ally hap­pen just as I have por­trayed them.

• temple of God › human body

34:6.7Those who have re­ceived and rec­og­nized the in­dwelling of God have been born of the Spirit. “You are the tem­ple of God, and the spirit of God dwells in you.” It is not enough that this spirit be poured out upon you; the di­vine Spirit must dom­i­nate and con­trol ev­ery phase of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

• celestial temples › of records on Jerusem

39:4.166. The Re­cord­ers. These ser­a­phim are the keep­ers of the three­fold rec­ords of the lo­cal sys­tems. The tem­ple of rec­ords on a sys­tem cap­i­tal is a unique struc­ture, one third ma­te­rial, con­structed of lu­mi­nous met­als and crys­tals; one third mor­ontial, fab­ri­cated of the li­ai­son of spir­i­tual and ma­te­rial en­ergy but be­yond the range of mor­tal vi­sion; and one third spir­i­tual. The re­cord­ers of this or­der pre­side over and main­tain this three­fold sys­tem of rec­ords. As­cend­ing mor­tals will at first con­sult the ma­te­rial ar­chives, Ma­te­rial Sons and the higher tran­si­tion be­ings con­sult those of the mor­ontia halls, while ser­a­phim and the higher spirit per­son­al­i­ties of the realm pe­ruse the rec­ords of the spirit sec­tion.

• celestial temples › shrine of Most Highs on Edentia

43:6.3Cen­trally lo­cated in this mag­nif­i­cent gar­den is the wor­ship shrine of the Most Highs. The Psalmist must have known some­thing about these things, for he wrote: “Who shall as­cend the hill of the Most Highs? Who shall stand in this holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to van­ity nor sworn de­ceit­fully.” At this shrine the Most Highs, on ev­ery tenth day of re­lax­ation, lead all Eden­tia in the wor­ship­ful con­tem­pla­tion of God the Su­preme.

• all worlds of mortal ascent have

44:3.54. The wor­ship builders—the ex­pe­ri­enced ar­chi­tects of the spirit and the mor­ontia tem­ples. All the worlds of mor­tal as­cent have tem­ples of wor­ship, and they are the most ex­qui­site cre­ations of the mor­ontia realms and the spirit spheres.

• celestial temples › of light on transitional culture world #7
• celestial temples › of the Father on 7th transitional world

45:1.9Num­ber 7. The World of the Fa­ther. This is the silent sphere of the sys­tem. No group of be­ings is domi­ciled on it. The great tem­ple of light oc­cu­pies a cen­tral place, but no one can be dis­cerned therein. All be­ings of all the sys­tem worlds are wel­comed as wor­shipers.

• celestial temples › of Material Sons on Jerusem

45:5.1The great di­vi­sions of ce­les­tial life have their head­quar­ters and im­mense pre­serves on Je­ru­sem, in­clud­ing the var­i­ous or­ders of di­vine Sons, high spir­its, super­an­gels, an­gels, and mid­way crea­tures. The cen­tral abode of this won­der­ful sec­tor is the chief tem­ple of the Ma­te­rial Sons.

• celestial temples › of System Sovereign on Jerusem

46:5.16The fifth cir­cle is the abode of the La­non­an­deks, the son­ship or­der of the Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns and the Plan­e­tary Princes. The three groups min­gle as one when at home in this do­main. The sys­tem re­serves are held in this cir­cle, while the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign has a tem­ple sit­u­ated at the cen­ter of the gov­ern­ing group of struc­tures on ad­min­is­tra­tion hill.

• celestial temples › in circle of Sons on Jerusem

46:5.19These cir­cu­lar reser­va­tions of the Sons oc­cupy an enor­mous area, and un­til nine­teen hun­dred years ago there ex­isted a great open space at its cen­ter. This cen­tral re­gion is now oc­cu­pied by the Mi­chael memo­rial, com­pleted some five hun­dred years ago. Four hun­dred and ninety-five years ago, when this tem­ple was ded­i­cated, Mi­chael was pres­ent in per­son, and all Je­ru­sem heard the touch­ing story of the Mas­ter Son’s be­stowal on Uran­tia, the least of Sa­ta­nia. The Mi­chael memo­rial is now the cen­ter of all ac­tiv­i­ties em­braced in the mod­i­fied man­age­ment of the sys­tem oc­ca­sioned by Mi­chael’s be­stowal, in­clud­ing most of the more re­cently trans­planted Sal­ving­ton ac­tiv­i­ties. The memo­rial staff con­sists of over one mil­lion per­son­al­i­ties.

• celestial temples › of records on Jerusem

46:5.22The fourth cir­cle is held by the ad­min­is­tra­tor ser­a­phim, and the ser­a­phim serv­ing in a lo­cal sys­tem like Sa­ta­nia are an “in­nu­mer­able host of an­gels.” The fifth cir­cle is oc­cu­pied by the plan­e­tary ser­a­phim, while the sixth is the home of the tran­si­tion min­is­ters. The sev­enth cir­cle is the tar­ry­ing sphere of cer­tain un­re­vealed or­ders of ser­a­phim. The re­cord­ers of all these groups of an­gels do not so­journ with their fel­lows, be­ing domi­ciled in the Je­ru­sem tem­ple of rec­ords. All rec­ords are pre­served in trip­li­cate in this three­fold hall of ar­chives. On a sys­tem head­quar­ters, rec­ords are al­ways pre­served in ma­te­rial, in mor­ontia, and in spirit form.

• celestial temples › of power on Jerusem

46:5.264. The cir­cles of the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers. The var­i­ous or­ders of the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers are con­cen­tri­cally ar­ranged around the vast tem­ple of power, wherein pre­sides the power chief of the sys­tem in as­so­ci­a­tion with the chief of the Mor­ontia Power Super­vi­sors. This tem­ple of power is one of two sec­tors on Je­ru­sem where as­cend­ing mor­tals and mid­way crea­tures are not per­mit­ted. The other one is the de­ma­te­ri­al­iz­ing sec­tor in the area of the Ma­te­rial Sons, a se­ries of lab­o­ra­to­ries wherein the trans­port ser­a­phim trans­form ma­te­rial be­ings into a state quite like that of the mor­ontia or­der of ex­is­tence.

• celestial temples › undedicated temple on Jerusem

46:5.327. The cir­cles of the fi­nal­i­ters have a unique struc­ture at the cen­ter. And this same va­cant tem­ple is found on ev­ery sys­tem head­quar­ters world through­out Neb­a­don. This ed­i­fice on Je­ru­sem is sealed with the in­signia of Mi­chael, and it bears this in­scrip­tion: “Unded­i­cated to the sev­enth stage of spirit—to the eter­nal as­sign­ment.” Ga­briel placed the seal on this tem­ple of mys­tery, and none but Mi­chael can or may break the seal of sov­er­eignty af­fixed by the Bright and Morn­ing Star. Some day you shall look upon this silent tem­ple, even though you may not pen­e­trate its mys­tery.

• celestial temples › of finaliters on transitional world #1

47:1.1Al­though only fi­nal­i­ters and cer­tain groups of sal­vaged chil­dren and their care­tak­ers are res­i­dent on tran­si­tional world num­ber one, pro­vi­sion is made for the en­ter­tain­ment of all classes of spirit be­ings, tran­si­tion mor­tals, and stu­dent vis­i­tors. The sporna­gia, who func­tion on all of these worlds, are hos­pitable hosts to all be­ings whom they can rec­og­nize. They have a vague feel­ing con­cern­ing the fi­nal­i­ters but can­not vi­su­al­ize them. They must re­gard them much as you do the an­gels in your pres­ent phys­i­cal state.

• celestial temples › of New Life on mansion world #1

47:3.5From the Tem­ple of New Life there ex­tend seven ra­dial wings, the res­ur­rec­tion halls of the mor­tal races. Each of these struc­tures is de­voted to the as­sem­bly of one of the seven races of time. There are one hun­dred thou­sand per­sonal res­ur­rec­tion cham­bers in each of these seven wings ter­mi­nat­ing in the cir­cu­lar class as­sem­bly halls, which serve as the awak­en­ing cham­bers for as many as one mil­lion in­di­vid­u­als. These halls are sur­rounded by the per­son­al­ity as­sem­bly cham­bers of the blended races of the nor­mal post-Adamic worlds. Re­gard­less of the tech­nique which may be em­ployed on the in­di­vid­ual worlds of time in con­nec­tion with spe­cial or dis­pen­sa­tional res­ur­rec­tions, the real and con­scious re­assem­bly of ac­tual and com­plete per­son­al­ity takes place in the res­ur­rec­tion halls of man­so­nia num­ber one. Through­out all eter­nity you will re­call the pro­found mem­ory im­pres­sions of your first wit­ness­ing of these res­ur­rec­tion morn­ings.

• celestial temples › of Morontia Companions on 1st mansion world

47:3.11The cen­ter of the seven ma­jor cir­cles of the first man­sion world ad­min­is­tra­tion is oc­cu­pied by the tem­ple of the Mor­ontia Com­pan­ions, the per­sonal guides as­signed to as­cend­ing mor­tals. These com­pan­ions are the off­spring of the lo­cal uni­verse Mother Spirit, and there are sev­eral mil­lion of them on the mor­ontia worlds of Sa­ta­nia. Aside from those as­signed as group com­pan­ions, you will have much to do with the in­ter­preters and trans­la­tors, the build­ing cus­to­di­ans, and the ex­cur­sion super­vi­sors. And all of these com­pan­ions are most co-op­er­a­tive with those who have to do with de­vel­op­ing your per­son­al­ity fac­tors of mind and spirit within the mor­ontia body.

• celestial temples › of the Father on 7th transitional world

47:9.2While so­journ­ing on man­so­nia num­ber seven, per­mis­sion is granted to visit tran­si­tion world num­ber seven, the world of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Here you be­gin a new and more spir­i­tual wor­ship of the un­seen Fa­ther, a habit you will in­creas­ingly pur­sue all the way up through your long as­cend­ing ca­reer. You find the Fa­ther’s tem­ple on this world of tran­si­tional cul­ture, but you do not see the Fa­ther.

• open-air arenas of worship in light and life

55:5.5Schools are vastly im­proved and are de­voted to the train­ing of mind and the ex­pan­sion of soul. The art cen­ters are ex­qui­site and the mu­si­cal or­ga­ni­za­tions su­perb. The tem­ples of wor­ship with their as­so­ci­ated schools of phi­los­o­phy and ex­pe­ri­en­tial re­li­gion are cre­ations of beauty and grandeur. The open-air are­nas of wor­ship as­sem­bly are equally sub­lime in the sim­plic­ity of their artis­tic ap­point­ment.

• temples on Urantia › Father’s temple in Dalamatia

66:3.4The city was laid out in ten sub­di­vi­sions with the head­quar­ters man­sions of the ten coun­cils of the cor­po­real staff sit­u­ated at the cen­ters of these sub­di­vi­sions. Cen­ter­most in the city was the tem­ple of the un­seen Fa­ther. The ad­min­is­tra­tive head­quar­ters of the Prince and his as­so­ciates was ar­ranged in twelve cham­bers im­me­di­ately grouped about the tem­ple it­self.

66:3.5The build­ings of Dala­ma­tia were all one story ex­cept the coun­cil head­quar­ters, which were two sto­ries, and the cen­tral tem­ple of the Fa­ther of all, which was small but three sto­ries in height.

• temples on Urantia › Father’s temple in Dalamatia

66:4.13These an­ti­do­tal com­ple­ments of the Sa­ta­nia life cur­rents were de­rived from the fruit of the tree of life, a shrub of Eden­tia which was sent to Uran­tia by the Most Highs of Nor­la­ti­adek at the time of Cali­gas­tia’s ar­rival. In the days of Dala­ma­tia this tree grew in the cen­tral court­yard of the tem­ple of the un­seen Fa­ther, and it was the fruit of the tree of life that en­abled the ma­te­rial and oth­er­wise mor­tal be­ings of the Prince’s staff to live on in­def­i­nitely as long as they had ac­cess to it.

• temple of philosophy on continental nation

72:3.5All sex in­struc­tion is ad­min­is­tered in the home by par­ents or by le­gal guard­i­ans. Moral in­struc­tion is of­fered by teach­ers dur­ing the rest pe­ri­ods in the school shops, but not so with re­li­gious train­ing, which is deemed to be the ex­clu­sive priv­i­lege of par­ents, re­li­gion be­ing looked upon as an in­te­gral part of home life. Purely re­li­gious in­struc­tion is given pub­licly only in the tem­ples of phi­los­o­phy, no such ex­clu­sively re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions as the Uran­tia churches hav­ing de­vel­oped among this peo­ple. In their phi­los­o­phy, re­li­gion is the striv­ing to know God and to man­i­fest love for one’s fel­lows through ser­vice for them, but this is not typ­i­cal of the re­li­gious sta­tus of the other na­tions on this planet. Re­li­gion is so en­tirely a fam­ily mat­ter among these peo­ple that there are no pub­lic places de­voted ex­clu­sively to re­li­gious as­sem­bly. Po­lit­i­cally, church and state, as Uran­tians are wont to say, are en­tirely sep­a­rate, but there is a strange over­lap­ping of re­li­gion and phi­los­o­phy.

• temples on Urantia › stone shrine of Father in Garden of Eden; its destruction

73:5.1At the cen­ter of the Edenic penin­sula was the ex­qui­site stone tem­ple of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the sa­cred shrine of the Gar­den. To the north the ad­min­is­tra­tive head­quar­ters was es­tab­lished; to the south were built the homes for the work­ers and their fam­i­lies; to the west was pro­vided the al­lot­ment of ground for the pro­posed schools of the ed­u­ca­tional sys­tem of the ex­pected Son, while in the “east of Eden” were built the domi­ciles in­tended for the prom­ised Son and his im­me­di­ate off­spring. The ar­chi­tec­tural plans for Eden pro­vided homes and abun­dant land for one mil­lion hu­man be­ings.

• temples on Urantia › stone shrine of Father in Garden of Eden; its destruction

73:6.6When Van and his as­so­ciates made ready the Gar­den for Adam and Eve, they trans­planted the Eden­tia tree to the Gar­den of Eden, where, once again, it grew in a cen­tral, cir­cu­lar court­yard of an­other tem­ple to the Fa­ther. And Adam and Eve pe­ri­od­i­cally par­took of its fruit for the main­te­nance of their dual form of phys­i­cal life.

73:6.7When the plans of the Ma­te­rial Son went astray, Adam and his fam­ily were not per­mit­ted to carry the core of the tree away from the Gar­den. When the Nod­ites in­vaded Eden, they were told that they would be­come as “gods if they par­took of the fruit of the tree.” Much to their sur­prise they found it un­guarded. They ate freely of the fruit for years, but it did noth­ing for them; they were all ma­te­rial mor­tals of the realm; they lacked that en­dow­ment which acted as a com­ple­ment to the fruit of the tree. They be­came en­raged at their in­abil­ity to ben­e­fit from the tree of life, and in con­nec­tion with one of their in­ter­nal wars, the tem­ple and the tree were both de­stroyed by fire; only the stone wall stood un­til the Gar­den was sub­se­quently sub­merged. This was the sec­ond tem­ple of the Fa­ther to per­ish.

• temples on Urantia › stone shrine of Father in Garden of Eden; its destruction

74:0.1Adam and Eve ar­rived on Uran­tia, from the year A.D. 1934, 37,848 years ago. It was in mid­sea­son when the Gar­den was in the height of bloom that they ar­rived. At high noon and unan­nounced, the two se­raphic trans­ports, ac­com­pa­nied by the Je­ru­sem per­son­nel in­trusted with the trans­porta­tion of the bi­o­logic up­lifters to Uran­tia, set­tled slowly to the sur­face of the re­volv­ing planet in the vicin­ity of the tem­ple of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. All the work of re­ma­te­ri­al­iz­ing the bod­ies of Adam and Eve was car­ried on within the precincts of this newly cre­ated shrine. And from the time of their ar­rival ten days passed be­fore they were re-cre­ated in dual hu­man form for pre­sen­ta­tion as the world’s new rulers. They re­gained con­scious­ness si­mul­ta­ne­ously. The Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters al­ways serve to­gether. It is the essence of their ser­vice at all times and in all places never to be sep­a­rated. They are de­signed to work in pairs; sel­dom do they func­tion alone.

• celestial temples › of Material Sons on Jerusem

74:1.5This Je­ru­sem pair left be­hind them on the cap­i­tal of Sa­ta­nia and else­where, one hun­dred off­spring—fifty sons and fifty daugh­ters—mag­nif­i­cent crea­tures who had es­caped the pit­falls of pro­gres­sion, and who were all in com­mis­sion as faith­ful stew­ards of uni­verse trust at the time of their par­ents’ de­par­ture for Uran­tia. And they were all pres­ent in the beau­ti­ful tem­ple of the Ma­te­rial Sons at­ten­dant upon the farewell ex­er­cises as­so­ci­ated with the last cer­e­monies of the be­stowal ac­cep­tance. These chil­dren ac­com­pa­nied their par­ents to the de­ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion head­quar­ters of their or­der and were the last to bid them farewell and di­vine speed as they fell asleep in the per­son­al­ity lapse of con­scious­ness which pre­cedes the prepa­ra­tion for se­raphic trans­port. The chil­dren spent some time to­gether at the fam­ily ren­dezvous re­joic­ing that their par­ents were soon to be­come the vis­i­ble heads, in re­al­ity the sole rulers, of planet 606 in the sys­tem of Sa­ta­nia.

• temples on Urantia › stone shrine of Father in Garden of Eden; its destruction

74:4.4It was near the dawn of their sev­enth day on earth that Adam and Eve heard the startling news of the pro­posal of these well-mean­ing but mis­guided mor­tals; and then, even while the pas­sen­ger birds were swiftly wing­ing to bring them to the tem­ple, the mid­way­ers, be­ing able to do such things, trans­ported Adam and Eve to the Fa­ther’s tem­ple. It was early on the morn­ing of this sev­enth day and from the mount of their so re­cent re­cep­tion that Adam held forth in ex­pla­na­tion of the or­ders of di­vine son­ship and made clear to these earth minds that only the Fa­ther and those whom he des­ig­nates may be wor­shiped. Adam made it plain that he would ac­cept any honor and re­ceive all re­spect, but wor­ship never!

74:4.5It was a mo­men­tous day, and just be­fore noon, about the time of the ar­rival of the se­raphic mes­sen­ger bear­ing the Je­ru­sem ac­knowl­edg­ment of the in­stal­la­tion of the world’s rulers, Adam and Eve, mov­ing apart from the throng, pointed to the Fa­ther’s tem­ple and said: “Go you now to the ma­te­rial em­blem of the Fa­ther’s in­vis­i­ble pres­ence and bow down in wor­ship of him who made us all and who keeps us liv­ing. And let this act be the sin­cere pledge that you never will again be tempted to wor­ship any­one but God.” They all did as Adam di­rected. The Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter stood alone on the mount with bowed heads while the peo­ple pros­trated them­selves about the tem­ple.

• first fetish places because dead buried in

88:2.3The hearth—fire­place—be­came more or less of a fe­tish, a sa­cred spot. The shrines and tem­ples were at first fe­tish places be­cause the dead were buried there. The fe­tish hut of the He­brews was el­e­vated by Moses to that place where it har­bored a super­fe­tish, the then ex­is­tent con­cept of the law of God. But the Is­raelites never gave up the pe­cu­liar Ca­naan­ite be­lief in the stone al­tar: “And this stone which I have set up as a pil­lar shall be God’s house.” They truly be­lieved that the spirit of their God dwelt in such stone al­tars, which were in re­al­ity fe­tishes.

• virgins dedicated themselves to tending fires in

89:8.1Sac­ri­fi­cial re­demp­tion and tem­ple pros­ti­tu­tion were in re­al­ity mod­i­fi­ca­tions of hu­man sac­ri­fice. Next came the mock sac­ri­fice of daugh­ters. This cer­e­mony con­sisted in blood­let­ting, with ded­i­ca­tion to life­long vir­gin­ity, and was a moral re­ac­tion to the older tem­ple har­lotry. In more re­cent times vir­gins ded­i­cated them­selves to the ser­vice of tend­ing the sa­cred tem­ple fires.

• celestial temples › in foreground of Father Melchizedek’s home

119:1.4And this is about all that ap­pears on the rec­ords of Sal­ving­ton re­gard­ing the first Mi­chael be­stowal. Noth­ing more ap­pears un­til af­ter one hun­dred years of Uran­tia time, when there was re­corded the fact of Mi­chael’s re­turn and unan­nounced re­sump­tion of the di­rec­tion of uni­verse af­fairs. But a strange rec­ord is to be found on the Mel­chiz­e­dek world, a recital of the ser­vice of this unique Mel­chiz­e­dek Son of the emer­gency corps of that age. This rec­ord is pre­served in a sim­ple tem­ple which now oc­cu­pies the fore­ground of the home of the Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek, and it com­prises the nar­ra­tion of the ser­vice of this tran­si­tory Mel­chiz­e­dek Son in con­nec­tion with his as­sign­ment to twenty-four mis­sions of uni­verse emer­gency. And this rec­ord, which I have so re­cently re­viewed, ends thus:

• temples on Urantia › of Neptune in Alexandria

130:3.4By the fourth hour af­ter land­ing they were set­tled near the east­ern end of the long and broad av­enue, one hun­dred feet wide and five miles long, which stretched on out to the west­ern lim­its of this city of one mil­lion peo­ple. Af­ter the first sur­vey of the city’s chief at­trac­tions—uni­ver­sity (mu­seum), li­brary, the royal mau­soleum of Alexan­der, the palace, tem­ple of Nep­tune, the­ater, and gym­na­sium—Gonod ad­dressed him­self to busi­ness while Je­sus and Ga­nid went to the li­brary, the great­est in the world. Here were as­sem­bled nearly a mil­lion manuscripts from all the civ­i­lized world: Greece, Rome, Pales­tine, Parthia, In­dia, China, and even Japan. In this li­brary Ga­nid saw the largest col­lec­tion of In­dian lit­er­a­ture in all the world; and they spent some time here each day through­out their stay in Alexan­dria. Je­sus told Ga­nid about the trans­la­tion of the He­brew scrip­tures into Greek at this place. And they dis­cussed again and again all the re­li­gions of the world, Je­sus en­deav­or­ing to point out to this young mind the truth in each, al­ways adding: “But Yah­weh is the God de­vel­oped from the rev­e­la­tions of Mel­chiz­e­dek and the covenant of Abra­ham. The Jews were the off­spring of Abra­ham and sub­se­quently oc­cu­pied the very land wherein Mel­chiz­e­dek had lived and taught, and from which he sent teach­ers to all the world; and their re­li­gion even­tu­ally por­trayed a clearer rec­og­ni­tion of the Lord God of Is­rael as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in heaven than any other world re­li­gion.”

• temples on Urantia › of Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and Apollo in Rome

132:0.2While at Rome, Ga­nid had reg­u­lar hours for study and for vis­it­ing places of in­ter­est about the city. His fa­ther had much busi­ness to trans­act, and de­sir­ing that his son grow up to be­come a wor­thy suc­ces­sor in the man­age­ment of his vast com­mer­cial in­ter­ests, he thought the time had come to in­tro­duce the boy to the busi­ness world. There were many cit­i­zens of In­dia in Rome, and of­ten one of Gonod’s own em­ploy­ees would ac­com­pany him as in­ter­preter so that Je­sus would have whole days to him­self; this gave him time in which to be­come thor­oughly ac­quainted with this city of two mil­lion in­hab­i­tants. He was fre­quently to be found in the fo­rum, the cen­ter of po­lit­i­cal, le­gal, and busi­ness life. He of­ten went up to the Capi­tolium and pon­dered the bond­age of ig­no­rance in which these Ro­mans were held as he be­held this mag­nif­i­cent tem­ple ded­i­cated to Jupiter, Juno, and Min­erva. He also spent much time on Pala­tine hill, where were lo­cated the em­peror’s res­i­dence, the tem­ple of Apollo, and the Greek and Latin li­braries.

• temples on Urantia › grove of Daphne, shrine of shame

133:8.1An­ti­och was the cap­i­tal of the Ro­man prov­ince of Syria, and here the im­pe­rial gov­er­nor had his res­i­dence. An­ti­och had half a mil­lion in­hab­i­tants; it was the third city of the em­pire in size and the first in wicked­ness and fla­grant im­moral­ity. Gonod had con­sid­er­able busi­ness to trans­act; so Je­sus and Ga­nid were much by them­selves. They vis­ited ev­ery­thing about this poly­glot city ex­cept the grove of Daphne. Gonod and Ga­nid vis­ited this no­to­ri­ous shrine of shame, but Je­sus de­clined to ac­com­pany them. Such scenes were not so shock­ing to In­di­ans, but they were re­pel­lent to an ide­al­is­tic He­brew.

• take men into temple before showing them its beauties

141:6.4That night Je­sus dis­coursed to the apos­tles on the new life in the king­dom. He said in part: “When you en­ter the king­dom, you are re­born. You can­not teach the deep things of the spirit to those who have been born only of the flesh; first see that men are born of the spirit be­fore you seek to in­struct them in the ad­vanced ways of the spirit. Do not un­der­take to show men the beau­ties of the tem­ple un­til you have first taken them into the tem­ple. In­tro­duce men to God and as the sons of God be­fore you dis­course on the doc­trines of the fa­ther­hood of God and the son­ship of men. Do not strive with men—al­ways be pa­tient. It is not your king­dom; you are only am­bas­sadors. Sim­ply go forth pro­claim­ing: This is the king­dom of heaven—God is your Fa­ther and you are his sons, and this good news, if you whole­heart­edly be­lieve it, is your eter­nal sal­va­tion.”

• temple of God › human body

143:2.4“By the old way you seek to sup­press, obey, and con­form to the rules of liv­ing; by the new way you are first trans­formed by the Spirit of Truth and thereby strength­ened in your in­ner soul by the con­stant spir­i­tual re­new­ing of your mind, and so are you en­dowed with the power of the cer­tain and joy­ous per­for­mance of the gra­cious, ac­cept­able, and per­fect will of God. For­get not—it is your per­sonal faith in the ex­ceed­ingly great and pre­cious promises of God that en­sures your be­com­ing par­tak­ers of the di­vine na­ture. Thus by your faith and the spirit’s trans­for­ma­tion, you be­come in re­al­ity the tem­ples of God, and his spirit ac­tu­ally dwells within you. If, then, the spirit dwells within you, you are no longer bond­slaves of the flesh but free and lib­er­ated sons of the spirit. The new law of the spirit en­dows you with the lib­erty of self-mas­tery in place of the old law of the fear of self-bond­age and the slav­ery of self-de­nial.

• temples on Urantia › of Melkarth at Tyre

156:4.2Daily, for this pe­riod of two weeks, the apos­tles and evan­ge­lists en­tered Tyre by way of Alexan­der’s mole to con­duct small meet­ings, and each night most of them would re­turn to the en­camp­ment at Joseph’s house south of the city. Ev­ery day be­liev­ers came out from the city to talk with Je­sus at his rest­ing place. The Mas­ter spoke in Tyre only once, on the af­ter­noon of July 20, when he taught the be­liev­ers con­cern­ing the Fa­ther’s love for all man­kind and about the mis­sion of the Son to re­veal the Fa­ther to all races of men. There was such an in­ter­est in the gospel of the king­dom among these gen­tiles that, on this oc­ca­sion, the doors of the Melka­rth tem­ple were opened to him, and it is in­ter­est­ing to re­cord that in sub­se­quent years a Chris­tian church was built on the very site of this an­cient tem­ple.

• of living spiritual fellowship

157:4.5Je­sus, still stand­ing, then said to the twelve: “You are my cho­sen am­bas­sadors, but I know that, in the cir­cum­stances, you could not en­ter­tain this be­lief as a re­sult of mere hu­man knowl­edge. This is a rev­e­la­tion of the spirit of my Fa­ther to your in­most souls. And when, there­fore, you make this con­fes­sion by the in­sight of the spirit of my Fa­ther which dwells within you, I am led to de­clare that upon this foun­da­tion will I build the broth­er­hood of the king­dom of heaven. Upon this rock of spir­i­tual re­al­ity will I build the liv­ing tem­ple of spir­i­tual fel­low­ship in the eter­nal re­al­i­ties of my Fa­ther’s king­dom. All the forces of evil and the hosts of sin shall not pre­vail against this hu­man fra­ter­nity of the di­vine spirit. And while my Fa­ther’s spirit shall ever be the di­vine guide and men­tor of all who en­ter the bonds of this spirit fel­low­ship, to you and your suc­ces­sors I now de­liver the keys of the out­ward king­dom—the au­thor­ity over things tem­po­ral—the so­cial and eco­nomic fea­tures of this as­so­ci­a­tion of men and women as fel­lows of the king­dom.” And again he charged them, for the time be­ing, that they should tell no man that he was the Son of God.

• of living spiritual fellowship

157:4.7And ever since that day this same Je­sus has been build­ing that liv­ing tem­ple upon that same eter­nal foun­da­tion of his di­vine son­ship, and those who thereby be­come self-con­scious sons of God are the hu­man stones which con­sti­tute this liv­ing tem­ple of son­ship erect­ing to the glory and honor of the wis­dom and love of the eter­nal Fa­ther of spir­its.

• value of beauty leading up to worship

167:6.5It was also at Jeri­cho, in con­nec­tion with the dis­cus­sion of the early re­li­gious train­ing of chil­dren in habits of di­vine wor­ship, that Je­sus im­pressed upon his apos­tles the great value of beauty as an in­flu­ence lead­ing to the urge to wor­ship, es­pe­cially with chil­dren. The Mas­ter by pre­cept and ex­am­ple taught the value of wor­ship­ing the Cre­ator in the midst of the nat­u­ral sur­round­ings of cre­ation. He pre­ferred to com­mune with the heav­enly Fa­ther amidst the trees and among the lowly crea­tures of the nat­u­ral world. He re­joiced to con­tem­plate the Fa­ther through the in­spir­ing spec­ta­cle of the starry realms of the Cre­ator Sons.

167:6.6When it is not pos­si­ble to wor­ship God in the taber­na­cles of na­ture, men should do their best to pro­vide houses of beauty, sanc­tu­ar­ies of ap­peal­ing sim­plic­ity and artis­tic em­bel­lish­ment, so that the high­est of hu­man emo­tions may be aroused in as­so­ci­a­tion with the in­tel­lec­tual ap­proach to spir­i­tual com­mu­nion with God. Truth, beauty, and ho­li­ness are pow­er­ful and ef­fec­tive aids to true wor­ship. But spirit com­mu­nion is not pro­moted by mere mas­sive or­nate­ness and over­much em­bel­lish­ment with man’s elab­o­rate and os­ten­ta­tious art. Beauty is most re­li­gious when it is most sim­ple and na­ture­like. How un­for­tu­nate that lit­tle chil­dren should have their first in­tro­duc­tion to con­cepts of pub­lic wor­ship in cold and bar­ren rooms so de­void of the beauty ap­peal and so empty of all sug­ges­tion of good cheer and in­spir­ing ho­li­ness! The child should be in­tro­duced to wor­ship in na­ture’s out­doors and later ac­com­pany his par­ents to pub­lic houses of re­li­gious as­sem­bly which are at least as ma­te­ri­ally at­trac­tive and ar­tis­ti­cally beau­ti­ful as the home in which he is daily domi­ciled.

• temple of God › Jesus would raise up in 3 days

173:5.4Af­ter speak­ing this para­ble, Je­sus was about to dis­miss the mul­ti­tude when a sym­pa­thetic be­liever, mak­ing his way through the crowds to­ward him, asked: “But, Mas­ter, how shall we know about these things? how shall we be ready for the king’s in­vi­ta­tion? what sign will you give us whereby we shall know that you are the Son of God?” And when the Mas­ter heard this, he said, “Only one sign shall be given you.” And then, point­ing to his own body, he con­tin­ued, “De­stroy this tem­ple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But they did not un­der­stand him, and as they dis­persed, they talked among them­selves, say­ing, “Al­most fifty years has this tem­ple been in build­ing, and yet he says he will de­stroy it and raise it up in three days.” Even his own apos­tles did not com­pre­hend the sig­nif­i­cance of this ut­ter­ance, but sub­se­quently, af­ter his res­ur­rec­tion, they re­called what he had said.