^6:1.3 The Universal Father never personally functions as a creator except in conjunction with the Son or with the co-ordinate action of the Son. Had the New Testament writer referred to the Eternal Son, he would have uttered the truth when he wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

^6:1.4 When a Son of the Eternal Son appeared on Urantia, those who fraternized with this divine being in human form alluded to him as “He who was from the beginning, whom we have heard, whom we have seen with our eyes, whom we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, even the Word of life.” And this bestowal Son came forth from the Father just as truly as did the Original Son, as is suggested in one of his earthly prayers: “And now, O my Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory which I had with you before this world was.”

^6:1.5 ¶ The Eternal Son is known by different names in various universes. In the central universe he is known as the Co-ordinate Source, the Cocreator, and the Associate Absolute. On Uversa, the headquarters of the superuniverse, we designate the Son as the Co-ordinate Spirit Centre and as the Eternal Spirit Administrator. On Salvington, the headquarters of your local universe, this Son is of record as the Second Eternal Source and Centre. The Melchizedeks speak of him as the Son of Sons. On your world, but not in your system of inhabited spheres, this Original Son has been confused with a co-ordinate Creator Son, Michael of Nebadon, who bestowed himself upon the mortal races of Urantia.

^6:1.6 Although any of the Paradise Sons may fittingly be called Sons of God, we are in the habit of reserving the designation “the Eternal Son” for this Original Son, the Second Source and Centre, cocreator with the Universal Father of the central universe of power and perfection and cocreator of all other divine Sons who spring from the infinite Deities.

2. NATURE OF THE ETERNAL SON

^6:2.1 The Eternal Son is just as changeless and infinitely dependable as the Universal Father. He is also just as spiritual as the Father, just as truly an unlimited spirit. To you of lowly origin the Son would appear to be more personal since he is one step nearer you in approachability than is the Universal Father.

^6:2.2 The Eternal Son is the eternal Word of God. He is wholly like the Father; in fact, the Eternal Son is God the Father personally manifest to the universe of universes. And thus it was and is and forever will be true of the Eternal Son and of all the co-ordinate Creator Sons: “He who has seen the Son has seen the Father.”

^6:2.3 In nature the Son is wholly like the spirit Father. When we worship the Universal Father, actually we at the same time worship God the Son and God the Spirit. God the Son is just as divinely real and eternal in nature as God the Father.

^6:2.4 The Son not only possesses all the Father’s infinite and transcendent righteousness, but the Son is also reflective of all the Father’s holiness of character. The Son shares the Father’s perfection and jointly shares the responsibility of aiding all creatures of imperfection in their spiritual efforts to attain divine perfection.

^6:2.5 The Eternal Son possesses all the Father’s character of divinity and attributes of spirituality. The Son is the fullness of God’s absoluteness in personality and spirit, and these qualities the Son reveals in his personal management of the spiritual government of the universe of universes.

^6:2.6 God is, indeed, a universal spirit; God is spirit; and this spirit nature of the Father is focalized and personalized in the Deity of the Eternal Son. In the Son all spiritual characteristics are apparently greatly enhanced by differentiation from the universality of the First Source and Centre. And as the Father shares his spirit nature with the Son, so do they together just as fully and unreservedly share the divine spirit with the Conjoint Actor, the Infinite Spirit.

^6:2.7 In the love of truth and in the creation of beauty the Father and the Son are equal except that the Son appears to devote himself more to the realization of the exclusively spiritual beauty of universal values.

^6:2.8 In divine goodness I discern no difference between the Father and the Son. The Father loves his universe children as a father; the Eternal Son looks upon all creatures both as father and as brother.

3. MINISTRY OF THE FATHER’S LOVE

^6:3.1 The Son shares the justice and righteousness of the Trinity but overshadows these divinity traits by the infinite personalization of the Father’s love and mercy; the Son is the revelation of divine love to the universes. As God is love, so the Son is mercy. The Son cannot love more than the Father, but he can show mercy to creatures in one additional way, for he not only is a primal creator like the Father, but he is also the Eternal Son of that same Father, thereby sharing in the sonship experience of all other sons of the Universal Father.

^6:3.2 The Eternal Son is the great mercy minister to all creation. Mercy is the essence of the Son’s spiritual character. The mandates of the Eternal Son, as they go forth over the spirit circuits of the Second Source and Centre, are keyed in tones of mercy.

^6:3.3 To comprehend the love of the Eternal Son, you must first perceive its divine source, the Father, who is love, and then behold the unfolding of this infinite affection in the far-flung ministry of the Infinite Spirit and his almost limitless host of ministering personalities.

^6:3.4 The ministry of the Eternal Son is devoted to the revelation of the God of love to the universe of universes. This divine Son is not engaged in the ignoble task of trying to persuade his gracious Father to love his lowly creatures and to show mercy to the wrongdoers of time. How wrong to envisage the Eternal Son as appealing to the Universal Father to show mercy to his lowly creatures on the material worlds of space! Such concepts of God are crude and grotesque. Rather should you realize that all the merciful ministrations of the Sons of God are a direct revelation of the Father’s heart of universal love and infinite compassion. The Father’s love is the real and eternal source of the Son’s mercy.

^6:3.5 God is love, the Son is mercy. Mercy is applied love, the Father’s love in action in the person of his Eternal Son. The love of this universal Son is likewise universal. As love is comprehended on a sex planet, the love of God is more comparable to the love of a father, while the love of the Eternal Son is more like the affection of a mother. Crude, indeed, are such illustrations, but I employ them in the hope of conveying to the human mind the thought that there is a difference, not in divine content but in quality and technique of expression, between the love of the Father and the love of the Son.

4. ATTRIBUTES OF THE ETERNAL SON

^6:4.1 The Eternal Son motivates the spirit level of cosmic reality; the spiritual power of the Son is absolute in relation to all universe actualities. He exercises perfect control over the interassociation of all undifferentiated spirit energy and over all actualized spirit reality through his absolute grasp of spirit gravity. All pure unfragmented spirit and all spiritual beings and values are responsive to the infinite drawing power of the primal Son of Paradise. And if the eternal future should witness the appearance of an unlimited universe, the spirit gravity and the spirit power of the Original Son will be found wholly adequate for the spiritual control and effective administration of such a boundless creation.