119:8.2 ¶ It required almost one billion years of Urantia time to complete the bestowal career of Michael and to effect the final establishment of his supreme authority in the universe of his own creation. Michael was born a creator, educated an administrator, trained an executive, but he was required to earn his sovereignty by experience. And thus has your little world become known throughout all Nebadon as the arena wherein Michael completed the experience which is required of every Paradise Creator Son before he is given unlimited control and direction of the universe of his own making. As you ascend the local universe, you will learn more about the ideals of the personalities concerned in Michael’s previous bestowals.
119:8.3 ¶ In completing his creature bestowals, Michael was not only establishing his own sovereignty but also was augmenting the evolving sovereignty of God the Supreme. In the course of these bestowals the Creator Son not only engaged in a descending exploration of the various natures of creature personality, but he also achieved the revelation of the variously diversified wills of the Paradise Deities, whose synthetic unity, as revealed by the Supreme Creators, is revelatory of the will of the Supreme Being.
119:8.4 These various will aspects of the Deities are eternally personalized in the differing natures of the Seven Master Spirits, and each of Michael’s bestowals was peculiarly revelatory of one of these divinity manifestations. On his Melchizedek bestowal he manifested the united will of the Father, Son, and Spirit, on his Lanonandek bestowal the will of the Father and the Son; on the Adamic bestowal he revealed the will of the Father and the Spirit, on the seraphic bestowal the will of the Son and the Spirit; on the Uversa mortal bestowal he portrayed the will of the Conjoint Actor, on the morontia mortal bestowal the will of the Eternal Son; and on the Urantia material bestowal he lived the will of the Universal Father, even as a mortal of flesh and blood.
119:8.5 The completion of these seven bestowals resulted in the liberation of Michael’s supreme sovereignty and also in the creation of the possibility for the sovereignty of the Supreme in Nebadon. On none of Michael’s bestowals did he reveal God the Supreme, but the sum total of all seven bestowals is a new Nebadon revelation of the Supreme Being.
119:8.6 In the experience of descending from God to man, Michael was concomitantly experiencing the ascent from partiality of manifestability to supremacy of finite action and finality of the liberation of his potential for absonite function. Michael, a Creator Son, is a time-space creator, but Michael, a sevenfold Master Son, is a member of one of the divine corps constituting the Trinity Ultimate.
119:8.7 In passing through the experience of revealing the Seven Master Spirit wills of the Trinity, the Creator Son has passed through the experience of revealing the will of the Supreme. In functioning as a revelator of the will of Supremacy, Michael, together with all other Master Sons, has identified himself eternally with the Supreme. In this universe age he reveals the Supreme and participates in the actualization of the sovereignty of Supremacy. But in the next universe age we believe he will be collaborating with the Supreme Being in the first experiential Trinity for and in the universes of outer space.
119:8.8 ¶ Urantia is the sentimental shrine of all Nebadon, the chief of 10,000,000 inhabited worlds, the mortal home of Christ Michael, sovereign of all Nebadon, a Melchizedek minister to the realms, a system saviour, 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[2] to return to the world of his terminal bestowal, the World of the Cross.
119:8.9 [This paper, depicting the 7 bestowals of Christ Michael, is the 63rd of a series of presentations, sponsored by numerous personalities, narrating the history of Urantia down to the time of Michael’s appearance on earth in the likeness of mortal flesh. These papers were authorized by a Nebadon commission of 12 acting under the direction of Mantutia Melchizedek. We indited these narratives and put them in the English language, by a technique authorized by our superiors, in the year A.D. 1935 of Urantia time.]
PART IV
THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS
PAPER № 120
THE BESTOWAL OF MICHAEL ON URANTIA
120:0.1 Assigned by Gabriel to supervise the restatement of the life of Michael when on Urantia and in the likeness of mortal flesh, I, the Melchizedek director of the revelatory commission intrusted with this task, am authorized to present this narrative of certain events which immediately preceded the Creator Son’s arrival on Urantia to embark upon the terminal phase of his universe bestowal experience. To live such identical lives as he imposes upon the intelligent beings of his own creation, thus to bestow himself in the likeness of his various orders of created beings, is a part of the price which every Creator Son must pay for the full and supreme sovereignty of his self-made universe of things and beings.
120:0.2 Before the events I am about to delineate, Michael of Nebadon had bestowed himself six times after the similitude of six differing orders of his diverse creation of intelligent beings. Then he prepared to descend upon Urantia in the likeness of mortal flesh, the lowest order of his intelligent will creatures, and, as such a human of the material realm, to execute the final act in the drama of the acquirement of universe sovereignty in accordance with the mandates of the divine Paradise Rulers of the universe of universes.
120:0.3 In the course of each of these preceding bestowals Michael not only acquired the finite experience of one group of his created beings, but he also acquired an essential experience in Paradise co-operation which would, in and of itself, further contribute to constituting him the sovereign of his self-made universe. At any moment throughout all past local universe time, Michael could have asserted personal sovereignty as a Creator Son and as a Creator Son could have ruled his universe after the manner of his own choosing. In such an event, Immanuel and the associated Paradise Sons would have taken leave of the universe. But Michael did not wish to rule Nebadon merely in his own isolated right, as a Creator Son. He desired to ascend through actual experience in co-operative subordination to the Paradise Trinity to that high place in universe status where he would become qualified to rule his universe and administer its affairs with that perfection of insight and wisdom of execution which will sometime be characteristic of the exalted rule of the Supreme Being. He aspired not to perfection of rule as a Creator Son but to supremacy of administration as the embodiment of the universe wisdom and the divine experience of the Supreme Being.
120:0.4 Michael, therefore, had a double purpose in the making of these seven bestowals upon the various orders of his universe creatures: First, he was completing the required experience in creature understanding which is demanded of all Creator Sons before they assume complete sovereignty. At any time a Creator Son may rule his universe in his own right, but he can rule as the supreme representative of the Paradise Trinity only after passing through the seven universe-creature bestowals. Second, he was aspiring to the privilege of representing the maximum authority of the Paradise Trinity which can be exercised in the direct and personal administration of a local universe. Accordingly, did Michael, during the experience of each of his universe bestowals, successfully and acceptably voluntarily subordinate himself to the variously constituted wills of the diverse associations of the persons of the Paradise Trinity. That is, on the first bestowal he was subject to the combined will of the Father, Son, and Spirit; on the second bestowal to the will of the Father and the Son; on the third bestowal to the will of the Father and the Spirit; on the fourth bestowal to the will of the Son and the Spirit; on the fifth bestowal to the will of the Infinite Spirit; on the sixth bestowal to the will of the Eternal Son; and during the seventh and final bestowal, on Urantia, to the will of the Universal Father.
[2]
sometime, In 1955 text: some time. See note for 60:3.20.