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What Is Heaven?

Heaven is a catch-all term that is thought of by most people as our destination after we die. It is popularly thought of the place where God dwells, along with angels and other spiritual beings; the place where those who have lived a righteous life will spend eternity.

Jesus used the term “Kingdom of Heaven” interchangeably with the “Kingdom of God” in his ministry to our world. He also spoke of the “Father in heaven” and the “angels of heaven.” And in The Urantia Book, the word “heaven” is used hundreds of times. These usages are, one might surmise, a concession to the prevailing beliefs of mortals like us, but The Urantia Book offers us new ideas and new details regarding the heavens. “Heaven” essentially means the heavenly realms, which encompass any number of worlds that will prove heavenly.

Through Urantia Book teachings, we finally learn the true nature of the heavenly realms; we learn that heaven is not just one place; however, the place called “heaven” that most of us think of is most likely the first of the “many mansions” that Jesus spoke about; there are seven of these mansion worlds.

From The Urantia Book:

Jerusem, the headquarters of your local system of Satania, has its seven worlds of transition culture, each of which is encircled by seven satellites, among which are the seven mansion worlds of morontia detention, man’s first postmortal residence. As the term heaven has been used on Urantia, it has sometimes meant these seven mansion worlds, the first mansion world being denominated the first heaven, and so on to the seventh. Jerusem, the headquarters of your local system of Satania, has its seven worlds of transition culture, each of which is encircled by seven satellites, among which are the seven mansion worlds of morontia detention, man’s first postmortal residence. As the term heaven has been used on Urantia, it has sometimes meant these seven mansion worlds, the first mansion world being denominated the first heaven, and so on to the seventh. ~ The Urantia Book, (15:7.5)

…the system headquarters [of Jerusem] is truly the heaven visualized by the majority of twentieth-century religious believers. ~ The Urantia Book, (46:0.1)

You should consider the statement about “heaven” and the “heaven of heavens.” The heaven conceived by most of your prophets was the first of the mansion worlds of the local system. When the apostle spoke of being “caught up to the third heaven,” he referred to that experience in which his Adjuster was detached during sleep and in this unusual state made a projection to the third of the seven mansion worlds. Some of your wise men saw the vision of the greater heaven, “the heaven of heavens,” of which the sevenfold mansion world experience was but the first; the second being Jerusem; the third, Edentia and its satellites; the fourth, Salvington and the surrounding educational spheres; the fifth, Uversa; the sixth, Havona; and the seventh, Paradise. ~ The Urantia Book, (48:6.23)

Click to read more about the Mansion Worlds

Click to read more about heaven

Is Jesus In Heaven?

Traditionally, Jesus is thought to have ascended to heaven following his death and resurrection, where he sits at the right hand of God. While Jesus does not dwell in the Mansions that he spoke of, he does inhabit another of the heavenly realms: Salvington.

Salvington is a specially designed world from where Jesus embarked on his mission of incarnation to our world, and it is the place to which he returned following his resurrection.

The Master went to Edentia by way of Jerusem, where the Most Highs, under the observation of the Paradise Son, released Jesus of Nazareth from the morontia state and, through the spirit channels of ascension, returned him to the status of Paradise sonship and supreme sovereignty on Salvington. ~ The Urantia Book, 193:5.4

Salvington, the headquarters of Nebadon [the name of our universe], is situated at the exact energy-mass center of the local universe. But your local universe is not a single astronomic system, though a large system does exist at its physical center. ~ The Urantia Book, 32:2.4

But it was of Salvington that John wrote: “And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices” — the universe broadcasts to the local systems. He also envisaged the directional control creatures of the local universe, the living compasses of the headquarters world. This directional control in Nebadon is maintained by the four control creatures of Salvington, who operate over the universe currents and are ably assisted by the first functioning mind-spirit, the adjutant of intuition, the spirit of “quick understanding.” But the description of these four creatures — called beasts — has been sadly marred; they are of unparalleled beauty and exquisite form. ~ The Urantia Book, 34:4.12

Salvington is the personal headquarters of Michael of Nebadon [aka Jesus of Nazareth], but he will not always be found there. While the smooth functioning of your local universe no longer requires the fixed presence of the Creator Son at the capital sphere, this was not true of the earlier epochs of physical organization. A Creator Son is unable to leave his headquarters world until such a time as gravity stabilization of the realm has been effected through the materialization of sufficient energy to enable the various circuits and systems to counterbalance one another by mutual material attraction. ~ The Urantia Book, 32:2.5

Jesus Of Nazareth And Christ Michael Of Nebadon

The revelation of the true identity of Jesus and the true nature of his divinity is unique to The Urantia Book. It is part of the amazing gift that we have been given through the celestial personalities who mandated its delivery to our world.

Jesus of Nazareth is the human incarnation of Michael of Nebadon, an “only-begotten” Creator Son of God. Michael is the Creator of our universe of Nebadon, and his ministry to our world, Urantia, was part of his mission to the entire universe. He incarnated seven times-each incarnation as one of the orders of beings who inhabit the universe. The seventh bestowal of this Creator Son was as the babe of Bethlehem who grew up as Jesus of Nazareth. Far from the popularly accepted idea of Jesus as ransomer or sacrificial lamb, Jesus’ real mission was threefold: to experience the life of a human being, to reveal to an entire universe the loving character of the Father in heaven and to reclaim our world from the dominion of those who were part of the Lucifer rebellion…namely, Satan, Lucifer and Caligastia, our traitorous Planetary Prince. These objectives were met.

Please click HERE to read about Michael of Nebadon and his incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth, and divine Son of God.

And please click HERE for even more information regarding Jesus.

Jesus is not only a Creator Son of God, Michael of Nebadon, but he is also a Master Son, a very unique designation granted only to those Creator Sons who have completed the bestowal process:

Before the completion of the bestowal career a Creator Son rules with certain self-imposed limitations of sovereignty, but subsequent to his finished bestowal service he rules by virtue of his actual experience in the form and likeness of his manifold creatures. When a Creator has seven times sojourned among his creatures, when the bestowal career is finished, then is he supremely settled in universe authority; he has become a Master Son, a sovereign and supreme ruler. ~ The Urantia Book, 21:3.15

Will We Meet Jesus In Heaven?

In this passage from The Urantia Book, you’ll get a glimpse of the adventure that waits in eternity. As you may suspect by now, heaven is not a single place in which we will sit and strum our harps all day. We will be learning, and growing and traveling through the heavenly realms, as we make our way to Jesus, the “Sovereign of all Nebadon”:

Before leaving the mansion worlds, all mortals will have permanent seraphic associates or guardians. And as you ascend the morontia spheres, eventually it is the seraphic guardians who witness and certify the decrees of your eternal union with the Thought Adjusters. Together they have established your personality identities as children of the flesh from the worlds of time. Then, with your attainment of the mature morontia estate, they accompany you through Jerusem and the associated worlds of system progress and culture. After that they go with you to Edentia and its seventy spheres of advanced socialization, and subsequently will they pilot you to the Melchizedeks and follow you through the superb career of the universe headquarters worlds. And when you have learned the wisdom and culture of the Melchizedeks, they will take you on to Salvington, where you will stand face to face with the Sovereign of all Nebadon. ~ The Urantia Book, 113:7.4

What Is Jesus’ Job In Heaven?

The Master Son, Michael, is supremely concerned with but three things: creation, sustenance, and ministry. ~ The Urantia Book, 33:7.1

Click to read more about the Relation of Master Sons to the Universe

The acquirement of supreme sovereignty by a Master Son implies the responsibility of personal devotion to the fostering and the administering of that which has already been designed and created, and of that which will subsequently be produced by those who have been thus designed and created. ~ The Urantia Book, 21:5.6

Click to read about the Destiny of the Master Michaels

Just as the Deity of the Supreme is actualizing by virtue of experiential service, so are the Creator Sons achieving the personal realization of the Paradise-divinity potentials bound up in their unfathomable natures. When on Urantia, Christ Michael once said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” And we believe that in eternity the Michaels are literally destined to be “the way, the truth, and the life,” ever blazing the path for all universe personalities as it leads from supreme divinity through ultimate absonity to eternal deity finality. ~ The Urantia Book, 21:6.4

Urantia is the sentimental shrine of all Nebadon, the chief of ten million inhabited worlds, the mortal home of Christ Michael, sovereign of all Nebadon, a Melchizedek minister to the realms, a system savior, an Adamic redeemer, a seraphic fellow, an associate of ascending spirits, a morontia progressor, a Son of Man in the likeness of mortal flesh, and the Planetary Prince of Urantia. And your record tells the truth when it says that this same Jesus has promised sometime to return to the world of his terminal bestowal, the World of the Cross. ~ The Urantia Book, 119:8.8

Said Jesus:

“This entire relationship of a son to the Father, I know in perfection, for all that you must attain of sonship in the eternal future I have now already attained. The Son of Man is prepared to ascend to the right hand of the Father, so that in me is the way now open still wider for all of you to see God and, ere you have finished the glorious progression, to become perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” ~ The Urantia Book, 142:7.13

Jesus is a divine Son, one in the Universal Father’s full confidence. He had been with the Father and comprehended him fully. He had now lived his earth life to the full satisfaction of the Father, and this incarnation in the flesh had enabled him fully to comprehend man. Jesus was the perfection of man; he had attained just such perfection as all true believers are destined to attain in him and through him. Jesus revealed a God of perfection to man and presented in himself the perfected son of the realms to God. ~ The Urantia Book, 142:7.15