Triple Guidance

Triple Guidance

194:2.1 (2060.6)Jesus lived on earth and taught a gospel that delivered man from the superstition that he was a child of the devil and elevated him to the dignity of a son of faith of God. The message of Jesus, as he preached and lived it in his time, was an effective means of solving man's spiritual difficulties at the time he expressed it. And now that he has personally left the world, he sends in his place his Spirit of Truth which is intended to dwell in man and, for each new generation, to re-transmit this message of Jesus, so that each new group of mortals appearing on earth will have a new, contemporary version of the gospel, just such personal enlightenment and group guidance, which will prove effective in solving man's ever new, and varied spiritual difficulties.

194:2.2 (2060.7)The first mission of this spirit is, of course, to promote and individualize truth, for the understanding of truth is, after all, the highest form of human freedom. Next, it is the purpose of this spirit to nullify the believer's sense of orphanhood. Since Jesus has been among men, all believers would experience a sense of abandonment if the Spirit of Truth had not come to dwell in the hearts of men.

194:2.3 (2061.1)This bestowal of the Spirit of the Son effectively prepared the consciousness of all normal human beings for the subsequent universe-giving of the Spirit of the Father (the Richter) to all humanity. In a sense, this Spirit of Truth is the spirit of the Universal Father and the Creator-Son both.

194:2.4 (2061.2)Do not make the mistake of expecting to become strongly intellectually aware of the outpoured Spirit of Truth. The spirit never creates an awareness of itself, only an awareness of Michael, the Son. From the beginning, Jesus taught that the spirit would not speak of itself. Therefore, proof of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth cannot be found in your awareness of this spirit, but rather in your experience of a stronger union with Michael.

194:2.5 (2061.3)The spirit also came to help people remember and understand the Master's words, and likewise to shed light on and reinterpret his life on earth.

194:2.6 (2061.4)Then the Spirit of Truth came to assist the believer in bearing witness to the realities of Jesus' teaching and of life as he led it in the flesh, and as he now leads it anew and from the front in the individual believer of each passing generation of the spirit-filled sons of God.

194:2.7 (2061.5)Thus it appears that the Spirit of Truth truly comes to lead all believers into all truth, into the ever-expanding knowledge of the experience of the living, growing spiritual awareness of the reality of eternal, ascending sonship with God.

194:2.8 (2061.6)Jesus led a life that is a revelation of man subject to the will of the Father, not an example that any human being should seek to literally emulate. This life in the flesh, together with his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, soon became a new gospel about the ransom price thus paid to buy man free from the clutches of the evil one - from the condemnation of an offended God. But even though the gospel was seriously distorted, the fact remains that this new message about Jesus also carried with it many fundamental truths and teachings of his earlier gospel of the kingdom. And sooner or later these hidden truths of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man will emerge and effectively transform the civilization of all mankind.

194:2.9 (2061.7)However, these errors of the intellect in no way prevented the believer's great progress in growth in spirit. In less than a month after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, the apostles made more individual spiritual progress than during the nearly four years of their personal, loving association with the Master. Nor did this substitution of the fact of Jesus' resurrection for the saving gospel truth of sonship with God constitute an obstacle to the rapid spread of their teaching: on the contrary, this overshadowing of Jesus' message by the new teachings about his person and resurrection, seemed to greatly facilitate the preaching of the good news.

194:2.10 (2061.8)The expression “baptism by the Spirit,” which became so widely in use at that time, meant no more than the conscious acceptance of this gift of the Spirit of Truth and the personal recognition of this new spiritual power as an amplification of all the spiritual influences previously experienced by God-denying souls.

194:2.11 (2061.9)Since the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, man has been exposed to the teaching and guidance of a threefold mind-gift: the mind of the Father, the Mind-giver; the mind of the Son, the Spirit of Truth; the mind of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

194:2.12 (2062.1)To some extent humanity is exposed to the dual influence of the sevenfold appeal of the spirit-influences of the universe. The early evolutionary races of mortals are exposed to the growing contact with the seven assistant consciousness spirits of the Mother-Spirit of the local universe. As man reaches the higher steps of intelligence and spiritual vision, eventually the seven higher spirit influences come to hover above him and dwell within him. And these seven spirits of the advancing worlds are:

194:2.13 (2062.2)1. the bestowed mind of the Universal Father - the Mind Guides;

194:2.14 (2062.3)2. the spirit-presence of the Eternal Son - the spiritual gravity of the universe of universes and the sure channel for all spirit-community;

194:2.15 (2062.4)3. the spirit-representation of the Infinite Spirit - the universal spirit-consciousness of all creation, the spiritual source of the intellectual kinship of all progressive intellectual beings;

194:2.16 (2062.5)4. the spirit of the Universal Father and Creator-Son - the Spirit of Truth, commonly regarded as the spirit of the Universal-Son;

194:2.17 (2062.6)5. the spirit of the Infinite Spirit and the Mother-Spirit of the Universe - the Holy Spirit, commonly regarded as the spirit of the Universe-Spirit;

194:2.18 (2062.7)6. the consciousness spirit of the Mother Spirit of the Universe - the seven assistant consciousness spirits of the local universe;

194:2.19 (2062.8)7. the spirit of the Father, the Sons, and the Spirits - the new-name spirit of the ascending mortals of the realms, after the fusion of the spirit-born soul of the mortal with the Thought Giver from Paradise, and after subsequent divinity and glorification of the status of the Paradise Corps of Perfection has been achieved.

194:2.20 (2062.9)And so the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth to the world and its peoples has brought the final spirit-gift intended to aid in the ascending search for God.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book