your world.
52:7.7 ¶ Increasingly, true planetary allegiance to the Supreme Being grows. Generation after generation, more and more of the race step into line with those who practise justice and live mercy. Slowly but surely the world is being won to the joyous service of the Sons of God. The physical difficulties and material problems have been largely solved; the planet is ripening for advanced life and a more settled existence.
52:7.8 ¶ From time to time throughout their dispensation, Teacher Sons continue to come to these peaceful worlds. They do not leave a world until they observe that the evolutionary plan, as it concerns that planet, is working smoothly. A Magisterial Son of judgment usually accompanies the Teacher Sons on their successive missions, while another such Son functions at the time of their departure, and these judicial actions continue from age to age throughout the duration of the mortal regime of time and space.
52:7.9 Each recurring mission of the Trinity Teacher Sons successively exalts such a supernal world to ever-ascending heights of wisdom, spirituality, and cosmic illumination. But the noble natives of such a sphere are still finite and mortal. Nothing is perfect; nevertheless, there is evolving a quality of near perfection in the operation of an imperfect world and in the lives of its human inhabitants.
52:7.10 ¶ The Trinity Teacher Sons may return many times to the same world. But sooner or later, in connection with the termination of one of their missions, the Planetary Prince is elevated to the position of Planetary Sovereign, and the System Sovereign appears to proclaim the entrance of such a world upon the era of light and life.
52:7.11 It was of the conclusion of the terminal mission of the Teacher Sons (at least that would be the chronology on a normal world) that John wrote: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth and the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a princess adorned for the prince.”
52:7.12 This is the same renovated earth, the advanced planetary stage, that the olden seer envisioned when he wrote: “‘For, as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, so shall you and your children survive; and it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another all flesh shall come to worship before me,’ says the Lord.”
52:7.13 It is the mortals of such an age who are described as “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, an exalted people; and you shall show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into this marvellous light.”
52:7.14 ¶ No matter what the special natural history of an individual planet may be, no difference whether a realm has been wholly loyal, tainted with evil, or cursed by sin — no matter what the antecedents may be — sooner or later the grace of God and the ministry of angels will usher in the day of the advent of the Trinity Teacher Sons; and their departure, following their final mission, will inaugurate this superb era of light and life.
52:7.15 All the worlds of Satania can join in the hope of the one who wrote: “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.”
52:7.16 ¶ The departure of the Teacher Son corps, at the end of their first or some subsequent reign, ushers in the dawn of the era of light and life — the threshold of the transition from time to the vestibule of eternity. The planetary realization of this era of light and life far more than equals the fondest expectations of Urantia mortals who have entertained no more farseeing concepts of the future life than those embraced within religious beliefs which depict heaven as the immediate destiny and final dwelling place of surviving mortals.
52:7.17 [Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily attached to the staff of Gabriel.]
PAPER № 53
THE LUCIFER REBELLION
53:0.1 Lucifer was a brilliant primary Lanonandek Son of Nebadon. He had experienced service in many systems, had been a high counsellor of his group, and was distinguished for wisdom, sagacity, and efficiency. Lucifer was number 37 of his order, and when commissioned by the Melchizedeks, he was designated as one of the 100 most able and brilliant personalities in more than 700,000 of his kind. From such a magnificent beginning, through evil and error, he embraced sin and now is numbered as one of three System Sovereigns in Nebadon who have succumbed to the urge of self and surrendered to the sophistry of spurious personal liberty — rejection of universe allegiance and disregard of fraternal obligations, blindness to cosmic relationships.
53:0.2 In the universe of Nebadon, the domain of Christ Michael, there are 10,000 systems of inhabited worlds. In all the history of Lanonandek Sons, in all their work throughout these thousands of systems and at the universe headquarters, only three System Sovereigns have ever been found in contempt of the government of the Creator Son.
1. THE LEADERS OF REBELLION
53:1.1 Lucifer was not an ascendant being; he was a created Son of the local universe, and of him it was said: “You were perfect in all your ways from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you.” Many times had he been in counsel with the Most Highs of Edentia. And Lucifer reigned “upon the holy mountain of God,” the administrative mount of Jerusem, for he was the chief executive of a great system of 607 inhabited worlds.
53:1.2 Lucifer 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.
53:1.3 Lucifer is now the fallen and deposed Sovereign of Satania. Self-contemplation is most disastrous, even to the exalted personalities of the celestial world. Of Lucifer it was said: “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom because of your brightness.” Your olden prophet saw his sad estate when he wrote: “How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are you cast down, you who dared to confuse the worlds!”
53:1.4 Very little was heard of Lucifer on Urantia owing to the fact that he assigned his first lieutenant, Satan, to advocate his cause on your planet. Satan was a member of the same primary group of Lanonandeks but had never functioned as a System Sovereign; he entered fully into the Lucifer insurrection. The “devil” is none other than Caligastia, the deposed Planetary Prince of Urantia and a Son of the secondary order of Lanonandeks. At the time Michael was on Urantia in the flesh, Lucifer, Satan, and Caligastia were leagued together to effect the miscarriage of his bestowal mission. But they signally failed.
53:1.5 Abaddon was the chief of the staff of Caligastia. He followed his master into rebellion and has ever since acted as chief executive of the Urantia rebels. Beelzebub was the leader of the disloyal midway creatures who allied themselves with the forces of the traitorous Caligastia.
53:1.6 ¶ The dragon eventually became the symbolic representation of all these evil personages. Upon the triumph of Michael, “Gabriel came down from Salvington and bound the dragon (all the rebel leaders) for an age[1].” Of the Jerusem seraphic rebels it is written: “And the angels who kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he has reserved in sure chains of darkness to
