Machiventa Melchizedek 

Many millennia before it occurred, the twelve Melchizedeks who oversee our world were informed that our local universe Creator Son would sometime incarnate on earth as a man. That prediction was fulfilled two thousand years ago by Jesus. Two thousand years before Jesus arrived, and on their own initiative, the twelve laid plans to prepare the way for this high Son of God. They proposed that one of their number incarnate as an adult male and ready the planet for Jesus’ visit. They had been observing our world for many an age and also knew the light of truth was waning. That was reason enough for Machiventa to precede Jesus in human form. And he prepared the religious soil for the spiritual truths that Jesus taught when he became a man on earth two thousand years later.

Several orders of celestial beings were involved in creating a body for Machiventa Melchizedek. Such incarnations are possible, although rare, and the fabrication of his bodily form was not seen by human eyes. He appeared as an average, fully grown, adult male approximately 2,000 years before Jesus arrived. Machiventa remained in human form for almost a century during which he established a school that trained missionaries to carry the gospel message (the truth of one God, and salvation by faith) far and wide. He started this school in the small town of Salem, which later became Jerusalem. It was there that he met and taught Abraham, a man who was pivotal in carrying on Machiventa’s mission after the incarnation ended.

When Machiventa disincarnated, he and his eleven Melchizedek brothers continued their ministry, personally working behind the scenes with certain humans to keep alive the truth of one God until Jesus’ appearance. These humans became known as prophets and were instrumental in preparing for the incarnation of Jesus after Machiventa appeared in the flesh. The prophets faithfully upheld the light of truth between the two incarnations, often becoming martyrs. They preserved and spread Machiventa’s elementary teachings and thereby fortified monotheism. Their efforts and sacrifices prepared the way for Jesus’ supernal teachings.

Machiventa’s incarnation about four thousand years ago, and subsequent work with the prophets, are intertwined with Jesus’ life for many reasons, but one factor stands out above the others: Machiventa and Jesus were both indwelt by the same fragment of God during their incarnations. This kind of divine fragment indwells all humans after the age of five or six and Jesus referred to it as the Indwelling Spirit of God. In Luke 17:21, Jesus is quoted, "The kingdom of God is within you," in reference to this indwelling presence of the divine. Jesus and Machiventa, having existed before their incarnations, were only temporary hosts to this one Indwelling Spirit. The cosmic plan for human souls is to permanently become one with their divine indwellers. This soul develops during life, and at some point, in this life or the next, the soul and the Indwelling Spirit become one in eternity. Faith is the only price to enter eternal life, something both Machiventa and Jesus taught during their time in the flesh.

Machiventa Melchizedek has a long history of caring for our world. In ancient times, he and his eleven brothers were assigned to guide our planet through the catastrophic failure and default of our Planetary Prince. Melchizedeks belong to one order of being and Planetary Princes are members of another. After life reaches a certain stage, and human will appears on an inhabited world, a prince and his staff are sent by the Most Highs to inaugurate civilization. Our prince, having the name Caligastia, arrived around 500,000 BCE.

Caligastia guided the development of earth’s civilization faithfully and loyally for 300,000 years before being drawn into a rebellion led by Lucifer and Satan, Caligastia’s superiors in authority and administrators of more than six hundred inhabited worlds. Lucifer’s manifesto declared there was no God and that he and the other planetary princes should be the sovereign leaders of their worlds. The immediate consequence of this rebellion was that our planet, and thirty-six others whose princes also rebelled, were quarantined. Although administrative rebellions are rare, they can occur because of God-given free will, an attribute enjoyed both by humans and celestial administrators. Rebellion is a spiritual disorder that requires measures to prevent it from spreading. This is no different than when patients with communicable diseases are quarantined. The Melchizedeks correspond to doctors who are called upon to treat the patients.

After the outbreak of the rebellion, Caligastia retained his princely title until Jesus deposed him. Before Jesus arrived, the Most Highs, who have authority in such matters, transferred the direction of our world from the prince to Machiventa and eleven of his Melchizedek brothers. These twelve faithfully discharged their duty as receivers up until the arrival of Adam and Eve almost forty thousand years ago, at which time they turned over the planet’s affairs to them. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve defaulted in a little over a century, thanks mostly to subterfuge by Caligastia. The Melchizedeks were then recalled to resume rulership of our world.

After the Adamic default, the Melchizedeks were informed that Jesus would, in due time, appear on our world to fulfill his final obligation as a Creator Son, to live life as a mortal. It was then that the Melchizedeks decided one of them should appear in human likeness to prepare for Jesus’ arrival. A Melchizedek incarnation had happened only six other times in the history of our local universe. Machiventa’s sudden appearance in human form was made necessary by the rebellion that caused the failure of both Prince Caligastia’s and Adam’s planetary administrations. Caligastia, a once brilliant and later rebellious planetary prince, is regarded with disdain by the celestials for his eagerness to abandon his planetary trust and disregard his responsibility for our early and vulnerable human race.

Despite the rebellion and the quarantine, Machiventa succeeded in his mission to prepare the way for Jesus’ visit to our world. In fact, the Melchizedek Sons have never failed, defaulted, or been disloyal in all of local universe history.

It was almost 2,000 years before the birth of Jesus that Machiventa incarnated with the mission to keep alive the light of truth. The truth of one God was at a low ebb at that time as a consequence of the confusion that crept in after the Lucifer rebellion and was compounded by the default of Adam and Eve. Because of this confusion, the longing and capacity for truth were at a peak.

Though little of Machiventa Melchizedek’s story is known outside the revelatory text of The Urantia Book, he was one of twelve celestial beings having oversight of our planet’s affairs. When this council of twelve planetary administrators learned that Jesus would one day incarnate as a babe and become a great teacher, they realized the world needed to be prepared. There had been previous celestial visitors who revealed the truth of one God to our world, Adam and Eve being the most recent. But because Adam and Eve failed in measure, the truths they taught faded over the millennia. The Melchizedeks who are not normally visible to human eyes, decided that one of them should take up physical form, incarnate as a man, establish a school, and become a teacher of truth. Machiventa was chosen and appeared as a fully grown man near a colony called Salem (later Jerusalem), in what is now the nation of Israel.

Salem sat at a crossroads of the caravan trails that connected the nations of the world and was therefore an ideal place to establish a school. This school attracted students from near and far, and Machiventa trained them as missionaries to carry the truth of one God in the four directions. He taught a great variety of men and women there, including Abram (later Abraham). Abram had heard about the Salem school and moved his family there to receive Machiventa’s teachings. He quickly became the school’s foremost student and proponent and was eventually chosen by Machiventa to be the one to sign a holy covenant on behalf of humanity. This covenant stated that God would provide everything if humans believed in and followed God.

Machiventa lived in human form for ninety-four years and was a teacher of truth throughout. During the latter part of his incarnation, his followers began to revere him as a superhuman being, which indeed he was. But he knew his teachings would be overshadowed by his person if he became the object of their worship. This was the primary reason he decided to end his incarnation when he did. Abraham was grieved by his teacher’s sudden and unannounced departure but soon recovered. He and his descendants went on to unite the Hebrews under one God.

During his incarnation, Machiventa taught monotheism, salvation by faith, and to expect another and greater teacher. He trained his missionaries to carry this three-part message to the many peoples residing in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Machiventa’s teachings had a positive impact on the world’s religions and uplifted its spiritual culture, even though he is little known.

After his incarnation ended, Machiventa worked behind the scenes, teaching and collaborating with Abraham, the Hebrew prophets, Moses, and other spiritual leaders, down to the times of John the Baptist. His monotheistic teachings are a common thread that runs through the writings of the Hebrew prophets and other teachers as they worked to keep the light of truth, of one God, alive. Machiventa’s teachings became a foundation for the great spiritual awakening of the sixth century BCE, that produced such outstanding teachers as Lao Tse, Confucius, Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha), and Zoroaster.

By the time Jesus arrived, most of the world’s religions had been uplifted by Machiventa’s missionaries that he had sent in every direction from his school at Salem in ancient Palestine. One example is Greece, where much of that nation’s superior philosophy was derived from the remnants of Machiventa’s teachings. Diogenes of Athens was a teacher of this philosophy. His teachings became the basis for Cynicism, and the Cynic preachers prepared the way for the later Christian missionaries. The apostle Paul, one of the founders of the Christian religion, was a Greek.

The major religions of the West and Middle East have roots in the teachings of Machiventa Melchizedek, primarily Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. But most other spiritual traditions of the East and the West can also trace all or part of their teachings back to the "Sage of Salem," including Cynicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Shinto, Taoism, and Confucianism. Without the school Machiventa established, and the missionaries he trained and sent out with the Salem gospel, the world would have been less prepared for the sublime teachings of Jesus, and the Spirit of Truth which he bestowed on all humanity at the end of his life.

During his incarnation, Jesus retrieved the planet from its rebellious administrator and was given the rebel’s former title, Planetary Prince. Recently, Jesus named Machiventa Melchizedek as the Vicegerent Planetary Prince. No doubt he, and his fellow Melchizedeks, are working today unseen, with receptive humans restating the divine message of Jesus. Machiventa is the de facto sovereign ruler of this world in Jesus’ stead. And in the ages of light and life to come, he will undoubtedly continue working to uplift faith in, and cooperation with, God as the supernal goal of all mankind.

Melchizedek is referred to in three books of the Bible, twice in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament.

In Genesis 14:17-20 Melchizedek and Abram meet.In the 110th Psalm, verse 4, the name Melchizedek, and his order, appear once:The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind: "You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek."The name Melchizedek appears in the book of Hebrews, chapters 5, 6, and 7. Chapter 5, verses 6 and 10 declare that Jesus is a "high priest" of the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 6:20 also states Jesus belongs to the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 7 has a number of verses that cite Melchizedek, including his various titles, his mysterious origin, and his relationship with Abraham.

Although the name Melchizedek does not appear in Islam’s holy scripture, the Qur’an, some have identified him with the figure known as the Khidr. In a sub-sect of Shia Islam, Melchizedek (known as Malik as-Salām; literally 'King of Peace') is believed to have been the one to initiate Abraham into prophethood. An Ismaili treatise dated to the 1300s proclaimed that Melchizedek would return following the resurrection of the dead as a righteous judge and reveal the divine mysteries which the prophets have kept secret throughout the centuries.