The Urantia Book. Urantia Foundation
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Son who presides over that domain.
20:1.13 (224.3) The Creator Sons seem to possess a spiritual endowment centering in their persons, which they control and which they can bestow, as did your own Creator Son when he poured out his spirit upon all mortal flesh on Urantia. Each Creator Son is endowed with this spiritual drawing power in his own realm; he is personally conscious of every act and emotion of every descending Son of God serving in his domain. Here is a divine reflection, a local universe duplication, of that absolute spiritual drawing power of the Eternal Son which enables him to reach out to make and maintain contact with all his Paradise Sons, no matter where they may be in all the universe of universes.
20:1.14 (224.4) The Paradise Creator Sons serve not only as Sons in their descending ministrations of service and bestowal, but when they have completed their bestowal careers, each functions as a universe Father in his own creation, while the other Sons of God continue the service of bestowal and spiritual uplifting designed to win the planets, one by one, to the willing recognition of the loving rule of the Universal Father, culminating in creature consecration to the will of the Paradise Father and in planetary loyalty to the universe sovereignty of his Creator Son.
20:1.15 (224.5) In a sevenfold Creator Son, Creator and creature are forever blended in understanding, sympathetic, and merciful association. The entire order of Michael, the Creator Sons, is so unique that the consideration of their natures and activities will be reserved to the next paper in this series, while this narrative will be chiefly concerned with the two remaining orders of Paradise sonship: the Magisterial Sons and the Trinity Teacher Sons.
2. The Magisterial Sons
20:2.1 (224.6) Every time an original and absolute concept of being formulated by the Eternal Son unites with a new and divine ideal of loving service conceived by the Infinite Spirit, a new and original Son of God, a Paradise Magisterial Son, is produced. These Sons constitute the order of Avonals in contradistinction to the order of Michael, the Creator Sons. Though not creators in the personal sense, they are closely associated with the Michaels in all their work. The Avonals are planetary ministers and judges, the magistrates of the time-space realms—of all races, to all worlds, and in all universes.
20:2.2 (225.1) We have reasons for believing that the total number of Magisterial Sons in the grand universe is about one billion. They are a self-governing order, being directed by their supreme council on Paradise, which is made up of experienced Avonals drawn from the services of all universes. But when assigned to, and commissioned in, a local universe, they serve under the direction of the Creator Son of that domain.
20:2.3 (225.2) Avonals are the Paradise Sons of service and bestowal to the individual planets of the local universes. And since each Avonal Son has an exclusive personality, since no two are alike, their work is individually unique in the realms of their sojourn, where they are often incarnated in the likeness of mortal flesh and sometimes are born of earthly mothers on the evolutionary worlds.
20:2.4 (225.3) In addition to their services on the higher administrative levels, the Avonals have a threefold function on the inhabited worlds:
20:2.5 (225.4) 1. Judicial Actions. They act at the close of the planetary dispensations. In time, scores—hundreds—of such missions may be executed on each individual world, and they may go to the same or to other worlds times without number as dispensation terminators, liberators of the sleeping survivors.
20:2.6 (225.5) 2. Magisterial Missions. A planetary visitation of this type usually occurs prior to the arrival of a bestowal Son. On such a mission an Avonal appears as an adult of the realm by a technique of incarnation not involving mortal birth. Subsequent to this first and usual magisterial visit, Avonals may repeatedly serve in a magisterial capacity on the same planet both before and after the appearance of the bestowal Son. On these additional magisterial missions an Avonal may or may not appear in material and visible form, but on none of them will he be born into the world as a helpless babe.
20:2.7 (225.6) 3. Bestowal Missions. The Avonal Sons do all, at least once, bestow themselves upon some mortal race on some evolutionary world. Judicial visits are numerous, magisterial missions may be plural, but on each planet there appears but one bestowal Son. Bestowal Avonals are born of woman as Michael of Nebadon was incarnated on Urantia.
20:2.8 (225.7) There is no limit to the number of times the Avonal Sons may serve on magisterial and on bestowal missions, but usually, when the experience has been seven times traversed, there is suspension in favor of those who have had less of such service. These Sons of multiple bestowal experience are then assigned to the high personal council of a Creator Son, thus becoming participants in the administration of universe affairs.
20:2.9 (225.8) In all their work for and on the inhabited worlds, the Magisterial Sons are assisted by two orders of local universe creatures, the Melchizedeks and the archangels, while on bestowal missions they are also accompanied by the Brilliant Evening Stars, likewise of origin in the local creations. In every planetary effort the secondary Paradise Sons, the Avonals, are supported by the full power and authority of a primary Paradise Son, the Creator Son of their local universe of service. To all intents and purposes their work on the inhabited spheres is just as effective and acceptable as would have been the service of a Creator Son upon such worlds of mortal habitation.
3. Judicial Actions
20:3.1 (226.1) The Avonals are known as Magisterial Sons because they are the high magistrates of the realms, the adjudicators of the successive dispensations of the worlds of time. They preside over the awakening of the sleeping survivors, sit in judgment on the realm, bring to an end a dispensation of suspended justice, execute the mandates of an age of probationary mercy, reassign the space creatures of planetary ministry to the tasks of the new dispensation, and return to the headquarters of their local universe upon the completion of their mission.
20:3.2 (226.2) When they sit in judgment on the destinies of an age, the Avonals decree the fate of the evolutionary races, but though they may render judgments extinguishing the identity of personal creatures, they do not execute such sentences. Verdicts of this nature are executed by none but the authorities of a superuniverse.
20:3.3 (226.3) The arrival of a Paradise Avonal on an evolutionary world for the purpose of terminating a dispensation and of inaugurating a new era of planetary progression is not necessarily either a magisterial mission or a bestowal mission. Magisterial missions sometimes, and bestowal missions always, are incarnations; that is, on such assignments the Avonals serve on a planet in material form—literally. Their other visits are “technical,” and in this capacity an Avonal is not incarnated for planetary service. If a Magisterial Son comes solely as a dispensational adjudicator, he arrives on a planet as a spiritual being, invisible to the material creatures of the realm. Such technical visits occur repeatedly in the long history of an inhabited world.
20:3.4 (226.4) Avonal Sons may act as planetary judges prior to both the magisterial and bestowal experiences. On either of these missions, however, the incarnated Son will judge the passing planetary age; likewise does a Creator Son when incarnated on a mission of bestowal in the likeness of mortal flesh. When a Paradise Son visits an evolutionary world and becomes like one of its people, his presence terminates a dispensation and constitutes a judgment of the realm.
4. Magisterial Missions
20:4.1 (226.5) Prior to the planetary appearance of a bestowal Son, an inhabited world is usually visited by a Paradise Avonal on a magisterial mission. If it is an initial magisterial visitation, the Avonal is always incarnated as a material being. He appears on the planet of assignment as a full-fledged male of the mortal races, a being fully visible to, and in physical contact with, the mortal creatures of his day and generation. Throughout a magisterial incarnation the connection of the Avonal Son with the local and the universal spiritual forces is complete and unbroken.
20:4.2 (226.6) A planet may experience many magisterial visitations both before and after the appearance of a bestowal Son. It may be visited many times by the same or other Avonals, acting as dispensational adjudicators,