Reverend Sun Myung MoonJamsil Gymnasium, Seoul Korea, February 6, 2003 Respected current and former heads of state, leaders from the religious, political and academic worlds, representatives from 189 different countries, representatives from each family, ladies and gentlemen!
I would like to truly thank all of you who have gathered here to congratulate me on my 83rd birthday and my wife, President Han Hak-ja, on her 60th birthday.
But above all else, I would like to return all this glory to God, who has protected and looked after me until this day.
My life is such that you cannot explain it without God, and in this truly meaningful place, I would like to speak to all of you today with thanks in my heart. The title of my talk today is, "God's True Love and the Liberation of the Relationship of Heaven and Earth and Humankind."
Throughout human history, all people have talked a lot about God, or the Absolute Being. They have praised and worshipped Him in many different ways, and in other ways they have felt free to evaluate Him. There have even been some people declaring that there is no God, or that God is dead. However, there has not been one instance in which God Himself appeared directly saying, "This is how I have lived." There have been many people who have prophesied that, with the development of science, the people who believe in God would disappear. However, the number of people who believe in God in modern society is not diminishing. God is the living origin of all things, the Creator, the True Parent of humankind.
The God that I have been teaching about is not just some vague or obscure God. From the time I first experienced God at the age of 16, when I was worrying about the meaning of life and the universe, I have lived my whole life in communication with God. The driving force which has preserved my life of suffering, during which I have touched the boundary between life and death, is the living God's promise and my absolute faith.
I searched every corner of the spiritual world. I met the five great holy men and many other saints and sages, and I received their official recognition of my mission. Ladies and Gentlemen! God is the most decent and modest being, and He is the True Parent of humankind. He is the origin of all our lives, and He is the being with whom all people must establish a relationship. Also, the one thing that you all must know clearly is that the spiritual world, the world that we must all someday go to, does exist. You must not doubt the existence of the spiritual world or have some vague belief in God.
I have set a record in sponsoring many "God Conferences," something which has no parallel in history. The first three conferences I held in the 1980's, attended by representatives from each religion and each denomination, as well as by outstanding theologians and religious scholars, caused a great sensation.
There were three main points that I wanted to teach through these conferences: Firstly, that although each religion has its own special and unique character, there are actually many more points in common between religions. Secondly, the conflict and disharmony that exist between religions is due to the narrow-mindedness of the believers themselves, and it is absolutely not the will of the absolute being. Thirdly, God desires the realization of true love rather than any emphasis on belief or ceremony.
The papers and discussions that were presented at these conferences are still being used today as a textbook in the top theological seminaries of each denomination. From that time forward, the spirit of sincere dialogue and cooperation between each denomination was begun. Such dialogue and cooperation had hitherto been blocked by the high walls that had been erected between them. Since then I have invested a great amount of money each year to expand the Religious Federation and the Supra-religious Peace Association in each country and throughout the world.
For three days, beginning on December 26 last year in Washington D.C., I held a different level of "God Conference." During that time, under the theme "God and a World of Peace", 312 participants, including not only religious leaders from all corners of the world, but also representatives from politics, academia, the media, business, culture and the arts, and from various NGOs, gathered together.
God is not just the God of believers. He is the God of all people. Especially at this time, we are living in an age in which God stands before the world, not just as some vague and abstract God, but as a God with a definite purpose and will. It is an age of great change in which all people must awaken to this God. It is a time in which all people must awaken to the fact that modern people are buried within the whirlpool of individual, family, national and world-level problems, which will never be solved if God is ignored.
At this conference, the 312 participants adopted a resolution that declared the following:
Firstly, that they would recognize and establish the God who is the True Parent, True Teacher and True Owner, and the substantial True Parents, as the vertical axis of absolute value for the individual, the family, the nation and the world.
Secondly, that they would cooperate with and follow the resolution of the five Saints and all the sages in the spiritual world to join together and help people on Earth to bring about the completion of God's will.
Thirdly, that they would actively support and join together with the movement to realize true love, with the movement for the reform of the United Nations, as well as with the other plans of True Parents in order to realize the ideal of a peaceful world.
The ultimate purpose of religion is to recover the original father and the original country. The word "religion" does not have humankind as its prime object. Rather, religion is the teaching in which God, the parent, is established as the head. There is a certain course through which we establish a relationship with God and mature in a life of following God. Therefore, holy men and women have to support the will of Heaven and they have to declare what has been preordained by Heaven.
A true religion must teach people about God. A true religion should not have some vague ideas about God; a true religion must be able to give a clear picture of God so that people can understand Him. A religion which makes compromises concerning the relationship between God and man cannot be called a religion of a higher order. That kind of religion will finally decline.
A true religion must teach people how to know God clearly, how to become one with God, and how to return to the original world of creation. The purpose of religion is to make a world without sin, the ideal world where we establish the original relationship with God.
God is not seeking a religious world, but His ideal world of creation. The purpose of religion is not for the religion itself, but to realize the world of God's ideal. So we have to think about the purpose and ideal of creation. God created the world, so it is necessary to explain this ideal of creation.
What do you think God's will is? It is to complete His ideal of creation. What do you think that God wanted to achieve through creating our human ancestors, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden? God, who is the essence of love, created humankind because He needed a partner of love.
Humans were created as the true sons and daughters of God so that God's ideal of true love could be realized. They were to grow as a true man and a true woman, then become husband and wife, create an ideal family, and then make an ideal country and world. To repeat once again, centering on the true love of God, they should have perfected the ideal family, expanding this to make the ideal world. But because of the Fall of our human ancestors, God's ideal of creation was destroyed at that time.
Accordingly, the purpose of religion is to find a true person, a true family, a true nation, and a true world, where all people can live together in peace. This is the purpose of God's Providence for this world.
Religion is seeking a "good" world. However, a good world cannot be realized before a good country is first established. And for a good country to appear, there must be first a good race, and before there is a good race, there must first be a good tribe, and before there is a good tribe, there must first be a good family. And before there is a good family, there must first be a good man and a good woman.
What was the purpose of the 4,000 years of the history of Israel after the fall of Adam? Externally, it was a time in which the world developed, but internally, the sole purpose of this time period was to find one true child, to find the true Adam. The fact that, due to the Fall, there was not one son or daughter who could inherit the life and blood lineage centering on God's love, was God's deepest grief and resentment. Thus, the person who God made again as the owner of true love, life and the blood lineage and sent him to this world is the Savior.
According to different points of view, this person has been called the Savior, the Messiah, and the Lord of the Second Advent. He comes as the Savior to rescue all people in this world from poverty, from suffering, from war and from evil, and, centering on the Absolute Being, God's will for salvation. He is the mediator who will connect all religious people to the way of life. He has been called the Messiah in the first and second Israel, and has been called the Lord of the Second Advent in God's Providence of Restoration. The names Savior, Messiah, or Lord of the Second Advent have all been used centering on the course of salvation and restoration.
Restoring fallen men and women, who have been born and have lived in conflict and in sin through their connection to false parents and false ancestors, to the position they were in before the Fall, does not mean that everything has been accomplished. The will of God and the original hope of humankind is to become the ideal person of the original world of creation and to complete the ideal world of creation. This means that after becoming an individual who has achieved God's ideal of love, he or she should then become a husband and wife of true love and then become true parents.
In order for this to happen, God absolutely needs the True Parents as the source of God's true love, true life and true lineage. So, in order to complete God's Providence of Salvation, it is not one man, the Savior, the Messiah, or the Lord of the Second Advent, who must appear, but it is the True Parents, husband and wife, who resemble God completely and who have completely realized His true love, who must appear. In the same way that God first created Adam and made Adam's eternal partner by taking a rib from him, God's son, the restored Adam, must first appear, and then restore Eve, and then, by recreating her, realize the ideal of true love, completing the role of True Parents. The source of humankind's true love and true life begins from the True Parents and in them is the true model of the ideal of true husband and wife and true parents.
Humankind's sin and suffering originated in the false love of the fallen ancestors, who were born as the fruit of false parents and false ancestors. Accordingly, the only way to complete the ideal and be liberated from the connection to the Fall is through the coming of True Parents. The original ideal of humankind, which has been sought through religion, and that the world has been waiting so eagerly for, are the True Parents, who will fulfill God's ideal of love.
We can say that religion is the place where humans are remodeled. If there had been no Fall, then religion would have been unnecessary. Religion is the way to remodel humans, whose mind and body are in conflict due to the Fall, into becoming peaceful people who will not fight for eternity, but who will become God's substantial objects. It is where people are changed into original people of true character, resembling God.
When we look at our mind and body, the body is the base of the evil spirit Satan and the conscience is the base of God. Generally speaking, the body directs the mind. Religion is the way to attack the body which is controlling our mind, trying to weaken it. Religion teaches that the body is the thing that is to be most disliked. Religion commands us to fast, to serve, to sacrifice ourselves, to go the way of suffering and even to offer our lives for the sake of righteousness. The logic behind the seemingly paradoxical teaching of the Bible, "Those who seek to die will live, and those who seek to live will die", is that if you live according to the desires of your body, you will go the way of death into hell, but if you kill your body and enter the realm where your conscience is liberated, you will have eternal life and go to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The person who is unable to unify his or her mind and body and allows this struggle to continue, will not be able to become accustomed to God's unified ideal world of love. Usually, people say that if you believe in a particular religion, you will go to Heaven or Paradise. However, Heaven is the place only for God's children, whose mind and body have become one, centered on God's love.
The love of the fallen world is usually a love centered on oneself, and this is centered not on the mind, but on the body. The body is the devil's dancing hall. The original mind should take the subject position in place of God, but the body becomes another subject and plays with the original mind as with a puppet. This is what we have to change. Religion is the repair shop which God made to fix this. It is the repair shop which remodels humans into perfect people of true character, whose mind and body are one for eternity.
Religion teaches us not to rest, but to pray unceasingly. The devil doesn't rest and uses the body as its horizontal stage all 24 hours. As God is in the vertical position, He can only perform His works through the vertical mind. In order for the body not to be controlled by the horizontal body, the mind itself has to stand in the vertical position through prayer and devotion and by doing this it can receive three or four times a greater power from God.
If you live a life of sincere prayer and devotion for between three to five years, the mind can be liberated from the body's horizontal and habitual influence.
Respected leaders, ladies and gentlemen!
Leading a religious life is not something that you can choose to do or not to do. Because fallen men and women were born with a connection to the fallen love and fallen parents centered on Satan, then without exception all people must absolutely pass through the repair shop of religion, meet the True Parents, and establish a connection of True Love and True Life with them.
There is one important point you have to know. You should not go to the repair shop and stay there forever, you must emerge reborn. The religious life is the required course for all humankind; however, the religious life itself is not the basic purpose or the whole purpose of life. The ultimate purpose of human life is to complete the religious life, graduating from living a model life to then living a life as a man and woman of the original world of creation.
Religion came about only because of the Fall, so is it reasonable to say that the sole purpose of life is to live buried within that religion? If there had been no Fall, then how would men and women originally have lived? Humans are originally the children of God. And we should live with true love, realize a true family, and one world of freedom, peace, unity, and happiness. We are supposed to live a life in the Kingdom of Heaven.
God did not create men and women to repair them into becoming His reborn children through religion. Where is there a parent who would want to see his children suffer in conflict while repenting of their sins? Do you think that it was the original will of God the Father, who is the Lord of Creation, omniscient and omnipotent, that He would want to let His children live while suffering in sin?
The fallen world was not the world that God originally planned. The human ancestors' disobedience to God caused God to be unable to realize the world that He had originally planned. God is absolute and His will is also absolute. And God will realize His will again. The will is for complete recovery to the original state. This is why God's Providence of Salvation is the Providence of Restoration, the Providence of Re-creation. Religion is the tool of the Providence of Restoration. People are not just supposed to meet True Parents and go through the course of a religious life; they are supposed to become God's children and establish the connection of parent and child in their life, and attend God and build a world of a faith, which is shown through their daily life.
There has been no one in history who has revealed this precious truth, namely, that humans must graduate from living religious lives. I, who knew God's truth from an early age, did not want to create another sect or denomination. Christianity, which was the central religion of God's Providence, did not accept my teaching of Heaven's way and that is why I had to make the organization, "The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity."
It was an association, not another sect or denomination. But even though the Christian world continued to deny, to persecute, to label it as heretical, to turn its face away from us, when our movement started to become bigger, the world began to call us the Unification Church, instead of the long official title. That is how we became the Unification Church. However, from many, many years ago, I have lived in hope of seeing the day when we could take down the church sign, and I even prophesied about that day. Finally, in 1996, we took down the signs and started as "The Family Federation for World Peace."
This was a very important event in the history of humankind. This event was the beginning of a new world which changed the old world, where people lived with the burden of sin inherited from false parents, in suffering and conflict, living a life of faith, in which the only way to find God was through a life of prayer and repentance. It became a world where people could be reborn by receiving the Blessing from the True Parents and by living their lives by just reporting their actions to God.
There is no one who can know the course I have had to take in order to follow the command of Heaven and fulfill my mission as the True Parent, breaking down the walls, not just in this world, but also in the spiritual world, giving the grace of the Blessing freely on earth and in Heaven. Do you think it was an easy task to bring Satan, who throughout history has been acting as the false master, controlling people and disobeying God, to surrender?
You cannot set up the position of True Parents without first gaining official recognition from Satan. According to the direction of the True Parents, the privilege of the Blessing could reach all the people who were in Satan's realm of death, and all the people in the spiritual world, and the people on earth could cross over into true love's realm of life. This kind of miraculous age has begun.
Ladies and gentlemen, Together with Heaven's blessing that has come upon us, humankind must complete the religious life, receive the Blessing of true love, establish a true family, and live life keeping the standard of being true children. Only those who receive the Blessing on this earth and live a life of true love can enter the eternal homeland of the ideal world, namely, God's country, the Kingdom of Heaven.
What do you take with you when you go to the spiritual world? Is it money? Or power? Do you take knowledge or honor with you? These things belong to this world, and you must leave all these things when you enter the higher realm. These things have absolutely no value in the eternal, original world and you cannot take them with you.
The spiritual world is the world of love, and the true love that you experience on the earth, especially your life of true love, having received permission through the Blessing from the Parents of Heaven and Earth is the most precious thing and is the only thing that counts in the spiritual world. Please study more deeply about the spiritual world, and, through your life as a blessed couple, become children of God who perfect true love.
What I teach is not based on any teachings of man. And I do not educate people by giving them a moral lesson or in any conventional way. I am instructing you by speaking frankly, with words of life, based on God and the Heavenly Way. If God has given the mission of True Parents to me, you should understand that the relationship you have established with me today is most precious and meaningful. Please keep my words today deep within your hearts.
I would like to end by asking that God's blessing be with you and your families, that He remain with you in your public lives.
Thank you very much.
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Showing posts with label humankind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humankind. Show all posts
2.3.13
God's True Love and the Liberation of the Relationship of Heaven and Earth and Humankind
26.1.13
Cosmic Assembly for the Settlement of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind and for the Proclamation of the Word by God’s Substantial Self.
Distinguished guests participating in today’s event, I am truly happy and grateful to see you at this new assembly. What I am about to proclaim to you today is part of the course of True Parents’ tour that is to proclaim the ultimate conclusion and fulfillment of all aspects of the providence of restoration during the lifetime of the True Parents. The path taken by the True Parents shall serve as a tradition and historic example; thus, I am proclaiming that all of you should model your life course on this path, become families that pledge to inherit and fulfill the will of God that True Parents have already accomplished, and be true to this pledge.
On April 18, (2011) we celebrated our 52nd year of marriage. On that occasion, I brought to a close the era before the coming of heaven, which was marked by sin and indemnity [atonement], and proclaimed the era after the coming of heaven through which a new heaven and new earth will be realized by returning to true love.
Through this tour, I am leading a lifestyle befitting the era after the coming of heaven. Please engrave this point in your hearts.
All the blessed children in the heavenly and earthly worlds, who are related to the True Parents by blood, should keep this comprehensive and final proclamation in mind. This proclamation is being given in order to fully establish the ideal nation that comes from the incorporeal God and corporeal God, the God of Night and the God of Day, and from the ancestors of Jesus and of the True Parents.
Through this tour, I am leading a lifestyle befitting the era after the coming of heaven. Please engrave this point in your hearts.
All the blessed children in the heavenly and earthly worlds, who are related to the True Parents by blood, should keep this comprehensive and final proclamation in mind. This proclamation is being given in order to fully establish the ideal nation that comes from the incorporeal God and corporeal God, the God of Night and the God of Day, and from the ancestors of Jesus and of the True Parents.
The details of True Parents’ life course have already been disclosed and conveyed to you through my autobiography. I pray that you will all become the representatives and heirs of True Parents before the conclusion of the Cosmic Assemblies for the Settlement of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind and for the Proclamation of the Word by God’s Substantial Self. Please take heed of my autobiography, which is a record of my life’s work to enable the True Parents to succeed in their mission during their time on this earth, and build on my achievements. Please also inherit the teachings I have bestowed upon this world. In doing so, I pray that you will surely be triumphant in your course of life.
Like the True Parents have done, you too should become heavenly bridges for all your relatives and the members of your clan that are around you, and also a God-centered leader that can guide your clan to God’s kingdom.
I ask that you take this proclamation of True Parents to heart and pledge to put it into practice.
Aju.
I will now quote from content read at the 44th True God’s Day and the Coronation Ceremony for the Kingship of God. This represents the content in the textbooks and teaching materials that summarize all the content I have taught throughout my life course.
Respected leaders from around the world, distinguished guests from home and abroad, ladies and gentlemen!
On behalf of True Parents, True Family, the Republic of Korea, and Unification Church members who are blessed throughout the cosmos (i.e., spiritual world and physical world), I sincerely welcome and express my deepest appreciation to you for coming to participate in this ―Cosmic Assembly for the Settlement of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind and for the Proclamation of the Word by God’s Substantial Self.
In the past year, thousands of representatives and top leaders from 120 nations of the world have honored us with their presence on several occasions, including our Golden Wedding Anniversary and Coronation; the Legacy-of-Peace Memorial Festivals held at the United Nations headquarters building and in cities around the United States and the world; and many other significant events.
Once again, I would like to express my appreciation on behalf of all the people of the Republic of Korea and all of humankind.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very eventful time in God’s providence. Last year I celebrated my ninetieth birthday and took my first steps toward the hundredth year of my life. I have been blessed with a long life, beyond the average human lifespan. Last year my wife and I were also able to commemorate our fiftieth wedding anniversary. From a providential point of view, last year was not simply the year of our golden anniversary; it was also a Jubilee year.
We have fourteen children. Five have graduated from Harvard University, and among our forty-plus grandchildren several are already studying there. Moreover, a great number of good men and women from 194 nations have come to recognize and follow us as the King and Queen of Peace and the True Parents.
Throughout our lives, we have established many international organizations and institutions to promote world peace. We have invested unreservedly in many fields including interreligious cooperation, humanitarian projects to benefit society, intercultural activities, sports, education and the media. We founded all these initiatives with the aim of promoting peace and bringing salvation to humanity. After working to succeed in all these things, some people would commend us and say that we deserve to look back and comfortably enjoy the rest of our lives. They encourage us to forget about the world situation and sit back and enjoy the successes achieved during the past ninety years!
However, my wife and I cannot look at the lives we have led in such a worldly way. We have had to complete the mission of the actual True Parents, given to us by God, who is Himself the vertical True Parent of all humankind. Now, with less than two years remaining in this mission to make God’s kingdom, Cheon Il Guk, a reality, we are leading each day of our lives with more seriousness than ever before.
Throughout my life, I have offered myself for the liberation of God, the one and only True Parent of heaven and earth, to restore to Him His rightful position as Parent, to save all human beings who suffer in the realm of death, and to return them to God’s bosom.
For this purpose I have persevered and triumphed over countless tribulations while leading the people of the world, who are living like lost and unaware orphans searching for their heavenly parent, toward the goal of global salvation. Due to the Fall, brought about by our first ancestors, people are born into the false lineage. Every one without exception wanders in darkness even now, unable to break free of Satan’s bondage. Under such circumstances, how could we be anything less than completely serious in our lives as we guide the 6.5 billion people of the world along the path toward the building of God’s kingdom on earth?
The Three Stages of Life
Ladies and gentlemen, God created us as His children. As the original, absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal being, God created human beings by breathing His love into them to endow them with a soul. If not for the Fall, we would have been able to perfect ourselves, including our spiritual self, as God is perfect, fulfill the way of absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience, and attain eternal life.
But unfortunately, human beings are living as descendants of the Fall. In order to live a perfect life, all people without exception must receive new life through the blessing from True Parents and pass through the three stages of rebirth, resurrection and eternal life. Rebirth, in this context, refers to an individual attaining new life. Resurrection is when a family and nation attain new life, and eternal life refers to all of humankind attaining perfection and living forever in God’s homeland after establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth and in the spirit world by attending True Parents, the King and Queen of Peace.
Your ancestors who are in the spirit world shall now return to this earth at this time of the True Parents, who directly govern all life and all things as the substantial entity of God who exists without form. They will go through the three-stage blessings of rebirth, resurrection and eternal life and complete the Original Divine Principle education — the education on absolute marital fidelity — organized by True Parents. Only then can they take part in the original authority granted by the Sunghwa — ascension and liberation — and attain the qualifications to become citizens of Cheon Il Guk while on earth.
We can clearly see that each person’s life goes through three stages. Everyone is conceived as a new being through the grace of God and the love of True Parents through a blessed family. The first stage of life is the nine months spent in the mother’s womb. No one is exempt from this! Whether or not we are conscious of it at the time, all of us without exception do spend nine months in our mother’s womb. Even though a woman’s womb is smaller than some rice cookers, from the perspective of a fetus, it is larger than the entire universe.
What about our birth into the second stage of our lives, which occurs on earth? How could we find words adequate to describe the struggle of a newborn baby as it is faced with a completely unfamiliar, new world? The first lonely cry of a newborn as it experiences the large and wide world that it finds upon exiting the womb also represents the promise of a one-hundred-year future, the blessing and celebration of entering a new time and space.
We have all received the blessing of birth that enabled us to live in the second stage of our lives. Although a hundred years is much longer than the nine months we spend in the womb, please do not forget that there is still a course we must follow to a higher end. Although we have all forgotten the standard of consciousness that we possessed in our mother’s womb, and though you may think that we are now enjoying our lives fully in this big, wide world with a higher standard of consciousness, there is yet one final stage of our lives, which is the way toward eternal life.
This third stage occurs in the world of eternal life, the spirit world, which we enter upon ending our life on this earth. We were originally meant to enter the spirit world having first perfected our spirits during our life on earth. It is a world that cannot be imagined by people descended from the Fall. It is a world in which we transcend time and space. Just as the fetus in his or her mother’s womb cannot imagine life on earth, we, as people living and breathing air in this earthly world, cannot easily understand the spirit world, where we will be reborn in our spiritual bodies, living and breathing true love.
Ladies and gentlemen, as people face death, they may tremble in fear and terror if they do not understand the true meaning of passing on. Although human history has continued for more than six thousand years, no one, unfortunately, has clearly taught the truth regarding death. Now, in the Last Days of history, I, as the True Parent of humankind, have been able to reveal this truth, this heavenly secret.
The Sunghwa Ascension Ceremony
Ladies and gentlemen, the word ―death is sacred. It is not a synonym for ―sadness and suffering. True Parents have created the term Sunghwa [ascension] to explain the true significance of death. The moment we enter the spirit world should be a time that we enter a world of joy and victory with the fruits born of our lives on earth. It is a time for those of us remaining on earth to send off the departed with joy. It should be a time for great celebration. We should be shedding tears of joy instead of tears of sadness. That is the way of the sacred and noble Sunghwa Ceremony, the first step the spirit of the departed takes toward enjoying eternal life in attendance to God, within His embrace. At the moment of death, our spirits should feel more excited and thrilled than a newlywed bride feels when she goes to her groom’s home for the first time.
In order to open the door for all people to experience this kind of precious eternal life, I held a Sunghwa Ceremony at the United Nations headquarters in New York on March 18, (2010) last year in honor of world leaders who had recently passed into the next world.
The following are the names of those commemorated on that occasion:
General Alexander Haig, a former U.S. secretary of state, who with the UN forces saved my life, through the bombing that liberated the North Korean Heungnam Special Labor Camp where I was imprisoned during the Korean War; Mr. Kim Dae-jung, our former South Korean president, who won the Nobel Peace Prize; Mr. Hédi Annabi, a Tunisian diplomat and head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, who died in the 2010 Haitian earthquake; the one hundred UN workers who died alongside Mr. Annabi; Mr. Rodrigo Carazo Odio, a former president of Costa Rica, who is known internationally as ―the Peace President; Mr. Abdurrahman Wahid, a former president of Indonesia, who gave his entire life for the sake of his great nation; Mr. Steingrimur Hermannsson, a former prime minister of Iceland, who helped host the meeting of then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and United States President Ronald Reagan, which accelerated the end of the Cold War; Shaykh Hassan Cissé of Senegal, who is respected as a great scholar of Islamic authority; and Mr. Laxmi Mall Singhvi of India, who is remembered as the ―Ambassador of Reconciliation and Peace by India’s 1.1 billion people.
There are other people whom we also remembered through this ceremony and sent to the spirit world with the Sunghwa Blessing. I’m sure you have heard about the sinking of the ship Cheonan in Korea where 46 sailors suddenly lost their lives in the course of duty. During my four-city speaking tour in Korea in April last year, my wife and I bestowed the grace of the Sunghwa Blessing on these unfortunate seamen who died.
Later, during another event at Las Vegas, I bestowed the Sunghwa Blessing on one Dr. Reiko Kawasaki, a 17th-generation descendant of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the last shogun in Japanese history, who united the Japanese archipelago in the 17th century. She was a medical doctor from Las Vegas, and recently passed away after living a life of continuous service to others. Before her passing, she played an important role for the sake of the realization of world peace by setting a foundation for the future resolution of various issues in Korea, Japan and the United States, including political and economic issues. Thus, I have included her in the list of those who received this sacred Sunghwa Blessing.
However altruistic and philanthropic people’s lives may be, none of them can be guaranteed entry into the world of eternal life without receiving the Marriage Blessing and the Sunghwa Blessing of the True Parents, Rev. and Mrs. Moon. This is because the parent-child relationship between God and humankind was severed due to the Fall of the first ancestors. Please take this point seriously.
Ladies and gentlemen, this era, when God has introduced the heavenly calendar, is a serious one. It is now the time in which all 6.5 billion of the world’s people must understand the teachings I received from heaven, which I bequeath as the True Parent who is responsible to give eternal life to all of humankind. Now is a time that you can share the good news of the coming of the True Parents throughout the entire world.
The time has come to honor and inherit the tradition and spirit of the Korean people, from which the True Parents emerged, establish the heavenly tradition, and bring about world peace by uniting all 6.5 billion people of the world with the United Nations. With the start of the heavenly calendar, please do not forget that the Sunghwa Blessing Ceremony is a sacred rite in which anyone can inherit the worldview of a holy citizen of the kingdom of heaven and celebrate God’s liberation and all humankind’s liberation.
In this way, the ideal of a family based on true love can be completed, and God and all people, the heavenly spirit world and the earthly physical world, can be completely united to usher in a reign of peace over the world. Please take this time to express your gratitude to God and True Parents for giving the keys of the Blessing Ceremony and Sunghwa Ceremony to all the world’s nations, allowing for the establishment of the traditions of God’s kingdom, Cheon Il Guk, through True Parents.
Please join me in giving a round of applause to our Heavenly Father and to True Parents for their benevolence, through which we can receive the grace of precious life without being asked for anything in return.
One Family Under God
Ladies and gentlemen, what is the path that humankind should take today? Even now tens of millions of innocent lives are being lost each year to war, disease, starvation and natural disasters that arise in all parts of the world. In every field you observe, from the individual to the collective level — whether religion, politics, education, culture or ideology — people are deeply mired in the swamp of self-centered egoism, raising walls around themselves. We now live in a world brought to ruin, where genuine communication has broken down.
Ultimately, the problems afflicting humanity can only be resolved through the worldview of One Family under God, in other words, the ideology based on true love, which my wife and I, the True Parents, have learned from Heaven and have championed and taught throughout our lives. This is the only way for humankind to find the path toward peace and happiness.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in a historic time of great cosmic transition. It is a time for a great cosmic revolution to change history, to unite the spiritual and physical worlds and to create the ideal kingdom of heaven that God has longed for since the beginning of time. We can no longer postpone or prolong the fulfillment of His wish. I have already proclaimed that January 13, 2013 will be―Foundation Day. That day will be the actual beginning of God’s Kingdom of Cheon Il Guk. That day will be the origin. Yet, less than two years remain until then.
Therefore, it is time for all people to be humbly obedient to Heaven’s decree. An unavoidable time is upon us today when we must invest ourselves completely with a life or death commitment for these remaining two years under the guidance of the True Parents who carry out the providence on earth as the substantial representatives of God, the King of Kings. All the good spirits in the spirit world are mobilized and are already moving forward a step ahead of you.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you have any idea how much pain God suffered the moment our first ancestors, into whom God had invested His complete and unreserved devotion since time immemorial, fell and disappeared into darkness, becoming part of Satan’s lineage? Are you even remotely aware that our Heavenly Father — who endured tens of thousands of years of excruciating heartache so great that His bones shed tears and His flesh quivered — had to go through the long, dark tunnel of indemnifying the human Fall in order to save His lost children? How many of you have spent days and nights in tears, yearning to comfort our Father in Heaven?
The Mission of the Korean People
All people of the Christian faith recognize that God sent His true son Jesus Christ to earth two thousand years ago to save humankind. However, Jesus suffered a miserable fate. The leaders of Judaism and the people of Israel were supposed to receive Jesus as the Messiah and follow him with absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. They should never have allowed Jesus’ crucifixion to take place. He suddenly left this world, leaving behind the words, ―It is finished. Yet these words apply to spiritual salvation only, and he promised to return.
Ladies and gentlemen, God quietly raised and prepared the Korean people over a period of thousands of years. After two thousand years of preparation, His labor has finally borne fruit with the Second Coming of Christ on the far distant Korean Peninsula. The Korean people have, from long ago, served God with the sense that He is their original ancestor and that they are descended from Heaven. They have referred to Him as ―The Honored One, that is, Hana-nim, and attended Him as the Lord (Creator of night and day). Thus it is, that the origin of all numbers lay in one and two. Because Koreans attend such a God as their original ancestor, the spirit of interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values is alive in the soul and tradition of the Korean people. They have maintained themselves over five thousand years of history, yet not once have they invaded or plundered another nation or people. The spirit of benefiting all mankind still flows in the veins of the Korean people. The spirit of filial piety, fidelity, and loyalty, which are the fundamental virtues of human life, are still alive and breathing in Korean history. These values can be found in the men and women of Korea and reflect the pride and spirit of the Korean people.
I have inherited such traditional values as the true filial piety exemplified in the folk tale Shimcheong, about a devoted daughter who offered her life so that her blind father could see; the profound love and fidelity displayed by Choonhyang, who overcame the fear of death in order to keep the promise she had made to her husband; and the unbreakable loyalty exhibited by Admiral Yi Soon-shin, who gave his life to save his nation and people despite being abandoned by his king and other leaders. These lofty Korean values and traditions are not just matters of historical chance. Based on these values, Heaven has prepared this people; this was all part of the providence of creating a foundation to send the returning Messiah. On the foundation of such preparation, and riding on the energy of this peninsula, I finally came, having received Heaven’s seal as the True Parent of humankind and the king of kings.
The Path Humankind Should Take
Distinguished Guests, your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The path that humanity must now take is clear. What would give you cause to hesitate in the face of the ―D-Day that Heaven has revealed through us, the True Parents? There are now only six hundred days remaining. Heaven’s blessings will be with you on your ambitious and busy course.
If you view the flow of history through eyes that focus on God’s providence, you can see that the changes of the times can be broadly classified into three stages. First was the ―nature-centered era, a time when instinctual feelings, materialism and a closeness to animals and the things of creation were prevalent. Next came a ―human-centered era when people’s knowledge, feelings and emotions took precedence and dominated the world.
However, these eras were transitional. They were courses of preparation necessary in order to enter the era in which people could rid themselves of their fallen nature, return to their original selves and live as one united family where they attend God as their father. When that happens we will enter a ―God-centered era, the final stage in which human beings who know and feel God’s Heart and Will follow the path of living for the sake of others. They will do this through establishing an absolute standard on the foundation of purifying themselves, both inside and out, through the holy Blessing Ceremony. This is the time of opening up the era of God’s kingdom, Cheon Il Guk, a time in which we can return to the heart of the one true God. Please engrave this point on your hearts.
Once the actual era of Cheon Il Guk begins, the spiritual and earthly worlds will be connected and brought into oneness, and all things will be governed under the ―Union of the Spiritual and Physical World’s Association, which will be established on earth for the first time. Moreover, the providence will be carried out according to heavenly law and the heavenly way. Elections conducted in a purely secular fashion will disappear from the face of the earth. All people will become one family through cross-cultural marriage and the World Peace Marriage Blessing; and we will enjoy tranquility and true love in happiness during the sacred reign of peace. Let me say it again: this day is drawing near.
As part of preparing for that time, on February 14, (2010) last year I proclaimed to all of heaven and earth the start of the new heavenly calendar. The Gregorian calendar and Lunar calendar shall now stand in the positions of Cain and Abel and serve the role of supporting the Heavenly calendar, by which we will record and indicate the progress of God’s providence.
You must all now engrave True Parents’ teachings onto your bones and practice them in your life. We have no choice. If we do not prepare now, we will surely be left behind. We should learn from the courage and fortitude of the white-necked cranes that fly across the Himalayas — which are more than seven thousand meters high — in preparation for winter.
My Final Words for Humankind
True Parents have already prepared the last words I will give to humankind. These have been prepared based on my triumphs over six or seven life-or-death situations, including six periods of unjust imprisonment. I am leaving behind eight textbooks and teaching materials for humankind to use for all eternity. Altogether, these are published in almost a thousand volumes.
They are:
The Sermons of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon,
Exposition of the Divine Principle,
Cheon Seong Gyeong [Heavenly Scripture],
The Family Pledge,
Pyeong Hwa Shin Gyeong [Messages of Peace],
True Families—Gateway to Heaven,
Owner of Peace and Owner of Lineage, and
World Scripture.
These are textbooks you will have to read and study even after you go to the spirit world. They are not just teachings that come from the mind of one person; they are textbooks and teaching materials that teach the heavenly way that God has granted to His suffering children for their salvation.
You should now set up the HoonDokHae study tradition in your families using the books I have mentioned. That is the tradition where three generations of a family start each day by reading Heaven’s word, and lead a life of practicing what they read, with a new heart. Let’s create a world where people in the spirit world and the earthly world can both attend True Parents at the same time, and read the word on the heavenly path together.
Once this happens, no matter how hard Satan may try to worm his way in, to infest your lineage, once he encounters the HoonDokHae tradition he will find no room to move. If a family is aligned with God as at high noon, where no shadow is cast and still does not receive God’s blessings, who then could ever be deserving of them? When such heavenly families fill the earth, the world will automatically become the heavenly kingdom on earth and in the eternal spirit world, fulfilling the vision of ―One Family Under God.
Ladies and gentlemen, two years ago, my memoirs, “As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen,” an honest and candid account of my life, was published. Through this book I share how I discovered God’s will for humankind and the path that we, as God’s children, should follow. My life has been a typical model of the saying, ―If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again. I have as much faith in this book as in the HoonDok textbooks and teaching materials I have mentioned. For this reason, I recommend it to you, believing that it will show you how to lead your lives according to true principles. It does not subtract or add anything to the ninety years of my life, which I have led under Heaven’s decree. I pray you will carefully read this articulation of true love and find great inspiration.
I have already mentioned that a life of vertical ―noon-time alignment casts no shadow. If we can all shine as we live such glowing lives, there will be no chance for the shadow of sin to be cast. Those who receive the light will be indebted to the light. I pray that we can now wipe away the tears of people in misery and poverty, and lead an illuminated life of eternal true love that dissipates all darkness.
You should now set up the HoonDokHae study tradition in your families using the books I have mentioned. That is the tradition where three generations of a family start each day by reading Heaven’s word, and lead a life of practicing what they read, with a new heart. Let’s create a world where people in the spirit world and the earthly world can both attend True Parents at the same time, and read the word on the heavenly path together.
Once this happens, no matter how hard Satan may try to worm his way in, to infest your lineage, once he encounters the HoonDokHae tradition he will find no room to move. If a family is aligned with God as at high noon, where no shadow is cast and still does not receive God’s blessings, who then could ever be deserving of them? When such heavenly families fill the earth, the world will automatically become the heavenly kingdom on earth and in the eternal spirit world, fulfilling the vision of ―One Family Under God.
Ladies and gentlemen, two years ago, my memoirs, “As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen,” an honest and candid account of my life, was published. Through this book I share how I discovered God’s will for humankind and the path that we, as God’s children, should follow. My life has been a typical model of the saying, ―If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again. I have as much faith in this book as in the HoonDok textbooks and teaching materials I have mentioned. For this reason, I recommend it to you, believing that it will show you how to lead your lives according to true principles. It does not subtract or add anything to the ninety years of my life, which I have led under Heaven’s decree. I pray you will carefully read this articulation of true love and find great inspiration.
I have already mentioned that a life of vertical ―noon-time alignment casts no shadow. If we can all shine as we live such glowing lives, there will be no chance for the shadow of sin to be cast. Those who receive the light will be indebted to the light. I pray that we can now wipe away the tears of people in misery and poverty, and lead an illuminated life of eternal true love that dissipates all darkness.
Proclamation of the Era of the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind
Ladies and gentlemen, last year in Las Vegas, there was a special proclamation centered on God that was given by the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind on two separate days—one part at 2:20 AM on the 8th day of the 5th month of the Heavenly Calendar (June 19, 2010) and the other at 3:25 AM, on the 15th day of the 5th month of the Heavenly Calendar (June 26, 2010).
The number 3 from 3:25 AM represents the three eras from the saying ―Success comes at the third attempt. It also symbolizes the Old, New and Completed Testament ages. Twenty-five minutes, or the number 25, is a quarter of one hundred. The True Parents have achieved ultimate unity and offered and proclaimed the era of God’s full transcendence, full immanence, full authority and omnipotence upon the standard of perfection, completion and conclusion.
Furthermore, with the Sunghwa Ceremony for former United States Secretary of State General Alexander Haig, I proclaimed that the ceremony for the victory of the first, second, and third Israels, which completed the ceremonies for rebirth, resurrection and Sunghwa during my lifetime, was transferred to Korea.
Korea will now become God’s homeland and hometown. Declaring that Korea is God’s homeland, the ―World Assembly for the Settlement of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind and for the Proclamation of the Word by God’s Substantial Self was completed in Korea on July 8, and again in ceremonies in the United States, representing Christianity, the second Israel, and in Jerusalem. Through these proclamation ceremonies, all the borderlines in the entire cosmos have been abolished. Consequently, centering on God, heaven and earth shall exist eternally, night and day, under God’s reign and with the support of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.
Distinguished guests, at this serious and important time, a revolutionary and cosmic change must now take place in your lives. In light of this let us summarize the message Heaven has given to us today.
First, all blessed families should attend God at the center of their families and every day carry out HoonDok education, which can completely unite parents and children. In other words, you should thoroughly teach the Divine Principle, the textbooks and teaching materials True Parents have bequeathed, True Father’s autobiography, and absolute marital fidelity taught through the ‘Original Divine Principle.’
Second, Heaven has permitted the grace of the authority of Sunghwa for rebirth and resurrection to be bestowed on the family unit. Here, a requisite condition is the complete unity between parents and children. In other words, you must establish the standard for absolute parents and absolute children, and establish an absolute family in the normal course of events.
Third, humankind has moved out of the authority of the era of restoration through indemnity, thanks to the grace of True Parents who have suffered hardships through which they sweat blood. Therefore, do not forget the fact that during True Parents’ lifetime we all have the responsibility to liberate families, tribes, peoples, nations and the world in which God can dwell, from the authority of hell. Now that the era of restoration through indemnity has ended, what kind of era is dawning? The reign of tranquility and prosperity in the victorious authority centered on God and True Parents shall be eternal.
Fourth, we are now entering the era of the authority of God’s direct dominion. Ladies and gentlemen, I have said that less than two years remain until the ―D-day proclaimed by Heaven. I beg that you inscribe in your hearts the fact that we have entered the era of the authority of the cosmic Sabbath in which your direct family members in the spirit world shall return to the earth to receive the Original Divine Principle education, and where eight generations will live together in a single family. Aju!
Ladies and gentlemen, these concluding remarks explain the broad outline of all my endeavors. They bring to a close this rally that is being held for the religious circles, the earth, the spirit world, physical world, and Cain and Abel-type world, in order to finalize what I, the Rev. Moon, have achieved through the course of my entire life with God, the master of the spirit world and physical world. This is not something that could have appeared in history before now.
We have come to today’s assembly through the starting point of the Seoul Assembly that represented both Korea that will become God’s homeland; and the central nation of America, through the Washington DC-New York Assembly. These have been held in order to establish the realm of victory, and to make headlines that summarize my life course, which decisively brings to a conclusion the realm of victory, creating a world in which God, completely victorious in the providence, is liberated and completely freed through the life course of the True Parents; and in order to bring perfection, completion and conclusion to the era after the coming of heaven.
True Parents’ Special Instructions:
(I am conveying the following instructions to the 387 ambassadors of the 194 Abel UN member nations and 193 Cain-type UN member nations, to boon-bong-wangs and Ambassadors for Peace, to the presidents and national leaders of each nation who are present in Washington DC/New York, and to all of heaven and earth.)
Establishment of the New Tribal Messiah Global Federation for Peace in the New World:
1. Centering on Hwang Sun-jo, the President of UPF-Korea, the Sunghwa Ceremonies for the realm of the tribal messiah and for the first, second and third Israels were to be completed between October and December 31, 2010. The three-day ceremony and indemnity stick ceremony (of the Blessing) are also to be completed. Korea is God’s homeland and hometown; because it is True Parents’ nation, we should have all the people of Korea take part in these ceremonies.
2. Those who have accepted the responsibility of boon-bong-wang or Ambassador for Peace should hold and complete spiritual–physical world Blessing Ceremonies at the same time throughout the world, by D-day.
3. The ancestors from the realm of the original lineage and people belonging to the heavenly realm who received the Blessing centering on True Parents—including Adam and Eve, the Moon clan, boon-bong-wangs and Ambassadors for Peace, each nation’s president and leader of the national assembly—should realize the realm of oneness embodying all of God’s all-transcendent, all-pervading, all-capable and omnipotent qualities.
4. With October 14 sixty years ago as the beginning point, now, after sixty-years of restoration through indemnity, and in relation to the three days of the 14th, 15th and 16th day of the 10th month, by the heavenly calendar, in the 10th year of Cheon Il Guk, this proclamation rally being held on the 17th day of the 10th month by the heavenly calendar [November 22], in the first year of Cheon-gi (2010), is one of perfecting, completing and concluding the final stages of all the proclamations given in heaven and on earth up until the D-day proclamation of True Parents, and which correspond with the documented record of proclamations True Parents have made.
5. True Parents’ proclamation at the Assembly to Proclaim the Substantial Word and the Era of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind—the Washington DC-New York Assembly, the Hoover Dam Assembly in Las Vegas and the Seoul Assembly in Korea, which is becoming God’s homeland and hometown—signifies the ultimate perfection, completion and finalization of the providence. This mission must be completed within the next one year and eight months, by the D-day designated by True Parents.
6. In this way, Korea, which gave birth to the True Parents, will be perfected, completed and finalized as God’s homeland and hometown. Centered on President Lee Myung-bak, who represents the governments of Korea (south and north), which is God’s homeland and hometown, former US President George Bush and US President Obama, whose positions correspond to the presidents of the Cain-type UN and Abel-type UN, and all the presidents and citizens who participated in the G20 meetings must unite to bring about the success of these rallies and perfect, complete, conclude and offer them according to True Parents’ heavenly decree. If any among these are unable to participate, True Parents will select others and bring them to perfect that work in their place.
Advent of the Era of the New Substantial Image
Ladies and gentlemen,
As I believe you have seen in the video today, we are now in a time where God is concluding the providence and harvesting its fruits in the final stages. Not long ago, Prime Minister Danny Philip of the Solomon Islands personally visited True Parents. He was deeply moved by God’s Word, and before he left, pledged and promised that his nation would become an ally nation of True Parents. He showed his resolve to become God’s laborer and a soldier who stands in the frontline of the providence. In Nepal at this very hour, Original Divine Principle lectures received from True Parents are being broadcast by a national television station in Nepal, to educate all its people.
Activities centered on the United Nations are now on track and gaining speed. The Women's Federation for World Peace, which my wife and I founded, has been recognized for initiating activities that are in line with the UN’s founding purpose and goals. Thus, it is becoming recognized as one of the top tier organizations among the 3,400 plus NGOs registered with the UN. Furthermore, WFWP has achieved outstanding results in its activities promoting women’s rights, and solving problems of poverty and education for children. WFWP has already been awarded for its work on a number of occasions.
Recently, control of The Washington Times, which had been taken from my hands by trickery, has now been taken back. If this isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.
Top officials from the Cain-type realm, from the black and white races, will unite to create a federation centering on The Washington Times board of directors in order to promote the truth of God’s will for His homeland and hometown and to protect the nation of God’s sovereignty.
Ladies and gentlemen, the world is now revolving centering on True Parents. Historically, Korea and Japan, Japan and the United States, the United States and Russia and other such nations have been enemy nations. The people from these nations will also take part in the cross-cultural marriage blessing on a nationwide scale in order to eradicate the fallen lineage received from Lucifer and inherit the new heavenly lineage.
The ongoing project to build undersea tunnels between Korea and Japan and across the Bering Strait, which I have proclaimed to all the world, will be spearheaded by religious leaders on a worldwide scale and completed in attendance to our liberated God.
In this world, atheism and communism, which deny the existence of God, will be discarded, paving the way to building the world that God originally envisioned, where all people can freely communicate in harmony.
The historical conflict and strife experienced by the four great representative kings—that is to say, the God of Night, the God of Day, the King of Kings, and True Parents—and which arose because the first ancestors fell, has finally been completely resolved by the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind. A world where all people are equal and all nations become like brother nations to create ―one family under God is being created right before your eyes.
I pray that all of you will become victors who are part of this historic and providential revolution. May the heavenly fortune that flows through the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind be with you all.
I pray in the name of True Parents that God’s blessings be with you, your family and your nation.Thank you.
23.11.12
The History of the Providence of Restoration and Changes in Humankind's View of God
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book One - True God
Chapter Three - The History of the Providence of Restoration and Changes in Humankind's View of God
Section 1. The God of the Old Testament Age
1.1. The Old Testament Age was the age of the servant
Through the Fall, human beings fell into the non-Principle realm. How far did they fall? They fell into a realm even lower than that of the angels, who are God's servants. The princes and princesses, who were supposed to be the masters, fell to a position lower than servants, so they must go back up.
From the way of the servant of servants, they should go up through the way of a servant, adopted child, child by a concubine, and child of the direct lineage, and then return, through the mother, to the position of Adam, the father. This is restoration.
The providence of salvation is like returning someone to the standard of health he enjoyed before he became sick. He must return to the state of having had no sickness.
This is why the providence of salvation is the providence of restoration. The providence of restoration is not carried out arbitrarily. You cannot just "believe and be saved." (222-144, 1991.11.3)
Although human beings fell, they must go up from the position of servant of servants, because they cannot abandon God. Then what does "servant of servants" mean? It means to be without a master. Fallen people must serve God loyally from the position of the servant of servants. Satan was an archangel and God's servant. Since human beings were dragged in front of this servant, in order to return to God, they must set up the standard of having demonstrated their loyalty to God while standing as servants of servants. (17-73, 1966.11.12)
The Old Testament Age was an age when sacrificial offerings were made; thus, God could find people whom He could use as His servants. This is Old Testament history. Because human beings were lost, things were turned upside down and people became lower than all things of creation. Human beings came to be in a worse situation than all things of creation. For this reason, they had to divide all things, which were closer to God, into two and divide what belongs to God from what belongs to Satan. Such divided sacrificial offerings were not made because of God or Satan but because people failed to fulfill their responsibilities. You should know this. It is because people failed in their responsibilities that they came to receive Satan's blood. (136-228, 1985.12.29)
From the viewpoint of the providence, the time before the Old Testament Age, that is, before Jacob, was the age of the servant of servants; the time from Jacob to Jesus was the age of the servant; the time after Jesus was the age of the adopted son; and the time of the Second Advent is the age of the son. Because the age of the son has come, the son must have parents. Thus, through the age of the parents, humankind returns to God. (74-121, 1974.11.25)
The Old Testament Age was the age of the servant, an age where people in the position of servant of servants were restored to the position of servant. For this reason, even Abraham was a servant, not a son. God established the way of loyalty by setting up servants of servants. In this way, God has been moving His providence forward by bringing all humankind together throughout history to take possession of the worldwide stage of evil and bring it to God's side. Even Jacob triumphed as God's servant rather than as God's son. God has been working this way, restoring people from the position of servant of servants to that of servant, and from the position of servant to that of adopted son. (15-325, 1965.12.7)
Comprehensively examining the historical course of restoration, we can see that God has, until now, been leading the providence through the three stages of formation, growth, and completion. The course of restoration passes through the age of the servant, which is the Old Testament Age, the age of the adopted son, which is the New Testament Age, and the age of true children, which is the Completed Testament Age, and enters the age of True Parents. The providence of salvation in the Old Testament Age offered salvation to humankind in the position of servant. Hence, in that age, without establishing a central figure who could endure from beginning to end and achieve victory, the foundation for restoration to the position of servant could not be laid. Hence, God made many sacrifices while leading the four-thousand year history through central figures such as Noah and Abraham. (15-49, 1965.12.7)
What did God do in the Old Testament Age? Since the world became satanic, He took on the task of seeking His servants by sacrificing all things and establishing people on the heavenly side. God was not even looking for adopted sons. He was looking for servants of servants. The people of the satanic world have all become Satan's sons and daughters. God cannot take them away. Hence, God has been gathering those who have lost hope in the satanic world. It is a sad reality, but God has been collecting useless material. He has been dealing with junk. This process does not finish there. Sacrifice is required, and people go through the process of being a sacrificial offering. (136-222, 1985.12.29)
God tried to bring people who were not even good enough to become servants in the satanic world and made them servants of servants in God's world. This is Old Testament history. This is why God made Jacob and Esau fight. This is why He called Noah. God took a servant of servants in the satanic world to a distant country. There, He isolated and exhausted him in order to make him God's servant. (154-334, 1964.10.5)
Satan treats human beings as enemies. They cannot even become Satan's servants. In the Old Testament Age God worked to turn such people into God's servants. Then, God wanted to make servants into adopted children, adopted children into children of direct lineage, children of direct lineage into brothers and sisters, and brothers and sisters into true parents by blessing them as bride and bridegroom. Since the God-centered true family was lost, restoration is the work of regaining it. The marriage feast of the Lamb was to be the occasion heralding Jesus as the true parent. (12-29, 1962.7.15)
God commissioned His servants and taught them, "I am your Father." He taught people through His servants and angels. Such was the Old Testament Age. Next, He worked through His son. This was the New Testament Age. Next, He worked through the Holy Spirit. (10-197, 1960.10.2)
God has been longing for people to be in relationship with all things of creation and with Him. Hence, God has been working to pull fallen people up from the servant's position, through the adopted son's position and children's position to the parents' position. This was in order to sever the painful connection with the Fall and enable all things, people, and God to form unifying relationships so that God's joy becomes humankind's joy and humankind's joy becomes the joy of all things. God wanted to take pride in His sons and daughters and present and dedicate them to the natural world and even to the world of angels. (11-279, 1962.1.3)
If we think about it, the Old Testament Age lasted four thousand years until the coming of Jesus. Was there a word like "Blessing"? Was it possible to bless a family in God's name? Since it was the servant's era, people were in the domain of the archangel, a servant. The archangel cannot be married; he must live a single life. In that era, God could not have a family, and God's sons and daughters could not marry. Can a servant be married? He cannot. (90-97, 1976.12.19)
1.2. In the Old Testament Age, angels worked on behalf of God
In order to restore the defiled land, God has been leading the providence of salvation by building a relationship with humankind through the angels. God is carrying out the providence of salvation in order to once again deal with human beings, who betrayed God through the Fall, and fell so miserably lower than all things. To govern humankind, dominated and accused by Satan, God has been working to build a bridge. This work has lasted throughout the Old Testament and New Testament Ages until now. (1-282, 1956.12.16)
Originally, in the Old Testament Age, God was supposed to work directly with people and relate to them in His glory, but the providence could not be completed because of the Fall. Therefore, in sorrow, God pioneered an alternative way of relating to people through angels, and this was the Old Testament Age. God established a standard whereby He could work through the angels. Since angels are also divine beings, they appeared to people like God and served temporarily as mediators until the coming of Jesus. (1-283, 1956.12.16)
If we look at the Old Testament Age, we see that God has used angels as messengers for the sake of building God's garden of freedom and the heavenly kingdom of liberation. If you want to enter the realm of grace where you can be liberated from the servant's position as God's son, you should be able to feel joyful even while losing your life. Only those who have such a free heart can go beyond the servant's position and enter the son's position. (4-321, 1958.10.12)
Look at the Bible. God has been working through the archangels in the spirit world, through His son, and through the Holy Spirit. God could not directly connect to this work in His heart. In the Old Testament Age He worked through the angels, and in the New Testament Age He worked through His son. From the heavenly viewpoint, the Old Testament Age was the age to regain the people, and the New Testament Age was the age to regain the children. (10-170, 1960.9.25)
Consider this: to restore the people of Israel, the angels in the heavenly world came and worked, the servants came and worked, and then the son came and worked. Now, the father is coming. The coming Lord is coming as a father. He will come as the True Parent, raise true children and give love. What will happen then? You could stay up all night with one beloved person.
God loved one man, Abraham, more than the people of the fallen world. He loved Moses, one person, more than all humankind, and He loved Jesus more than all humankind. Thus, you should know how precious each beloved son and daughter is to God. (10-354, 1960.11.27)
The God Jehovah, who appeared to Abraham, was also an angel. Originally, God, being without form, is invisible, but in Genesis three beings appeared as God, two going to judge Sodom and Gomorrah and the remaining one talking to Abraham as God (Genesis 18:118). Yet, they were angels sent by God, who commissioned them to work on His behalf. The people did not know this.
After twenty-one years of spiritual training, Jacob went back toward his hometown in Seir, where his elder brother lived, in order to satisfy his longing. Although Jacob had waited for twenty-one years, instead of giving him a joyful send-off and saying, "Have a safe journey," God sent an angel and had him wrestle with Jacob at the Ford of Jabbok with much shouting. If Jacob had lost to the angel, the hardships of his past twenty-one years would have been in vain. So, Jacob tenaciously held on to the angel, saying that he would not let go until his hands were pulled off or even if his arms broke. He was deadly serious! (51-344, 1971.12.5)
God had blessed him through Isaac and advised him to abandon everything and return to his hometown; then, why did God not guide Jacob and make his path smooth? When Jacob was pleading with God by the Ford of Jabbok all night with an anxious heart, why did God deal with him so heartlessly by sending an angel to strike him, instead of giving him encouragement and advice? (3-334, 1958.2.9)
What kind of people were our ancestors of faith who lived in the Old Testament Age? Since God is invisible, even if He were to appear no one would know Him. The ancestors of faith are thus the ones God sent to reproduce His work on His behalf in a way appropriate for the age and to help the people forge a connection with Him.
For this reason, in order for us to rise to the position of God's adopted son, we must connect with the historical deeds and retribution of many people. We must go through many stages, including becoming representatives of the world's people on the level of the individual, family, tribe, a people, and nation - and bind all of them together as one, representing the final destination. (77-132, 1975.4.6)
1.3. Why do angels become involved in human salvation?
What kind of beings are angels? They are beings that should have completed the path of loyalty to God in the servant's position, and served as a protective fence for Adam and Eve. They should have created an atmosphere of glory that would have lasted forever in the heavenly world and lived happily with Adam and Eve in God's love. In other words, the archangels were created for Adam and Eve. God, the Father of Adam and Eve, created the angels for their sake. (15-238, 1965.10.17)
Because the archangel's fall led to Adam and Eve bringing the human world to such ruin, the angelic world is working on God's behalf to fight against Satan. The evil Satan and good angels are fighting. Only when the side of the good angels wins the battle will there be a step forward. God cannot do as He pleases. This is the Principle. (109-18, 1980.10.26)
God created the three archangels as servants for the unfallen Adam and Eve and entrusted Adam and Eve to them, asking the archangels to raise them by educating and protecting them. Why did He have to do this? It is because the archangels are in a reciprocal relationship with their subject partner: the earth plane is the subject partner, and the angelic realm is the object partner. God's ideal in creating heaven and earth was to expand the horizontal realm of relationships in front of God's true love in this dual-realm environment. (208-256, 1990.11.20)
Who should educate Adam? It is not God, but the archangels who must do this. They should protect and raise him. The archangels were responsible to carefully supervise, guide, and educate him so that he would be untainted at the time of his marriage.
Since the Unification Church also had to follow this rule to accomplish restoration through indemnity, I have loved the 36 Couples more than my own children. (121-240, 1982.10.27)
God is the source of life. Parents nurture the lives of their children. They are the source of life, love and protection. They protect life, give love, and nurture. So where does happiness come from? Without a protected domain, life is threatened, and when life is threatened, love cannot manifest itself.
If you were to die now, would love manifest itself? It would not. This is why a protective realm is needed. So when this protective realm was secured, the archangels were responsible for it. After receiving life from God, the origin of life, Adam and Eve were educated in love under the archangels' protection. (51-173, 1971.11.21)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 2. The Identity of Jehovah God. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book One - True God
Chapter Three - The History of the Providence of Restoration and Changes in Humankind's View of God
Section 2. The Identity of Jehovah God
2.1. The attributes of Jehovah God
You should know that the reason Moses introduced the God of authority, God of ability, and God of judgment, instead of the God of love was to give the law to the Israelites and protect and raise heavenly people with the law. It was to accomplish the will of restoration to drive them to the land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. (35- 276, 1970.10.25)
Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey, was a place that could be entered only by the reborn people who had received the Ten Commandments and the law and carried the Ark of the Covenant in the wilderness. God gave His words to the Israelites who left Egypt in order to recreate them as God's people, but when they did not follow His words, He appeared to them as a terrifying God who struck and punished them.
The Old Testament Age, in which Satan reigned as the king, was an age of the devil's power until the appearance of the Messiah. Jehovah God therefore appeared to Moses as the God of fear, God of revenge, and God of jealousy, and struck with the law the people who had become servants of sin and mercilessly punished the violators of the law. This was the Old Testament Age.
If you look at the attributes of Jehovah God of the Old Testament Age, He was a jealous God who terrified worshipers of other gods, a cruel God who ordered the Israelites to exterminate the seven tribes of Canaan leaving no survivors, and a merciless God who slaughtered the Israelites who had violated the commandments and law.
Could the God of love, who created the universe, have the character to feel such jealousy, exact such revenge, instill such terror, and exhibit the cruelty to exterminate the seven tribes of Canaan? This happened because the Old Testament Age was an age when angels, as mediators, served in the role of God. The revengeful legalism that says "a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, and a stripe for a stripe" cannot stem from the character of the Creator God. God is the God of love and forgiveness.
God appeared to Moses several times: in the burning bush on Mount Horeb where He called Moses and also at the top of Mount Sinai where He gave him the Ten Commandments. To this day we have not known that the God who appeared to Moses was an angel; but if you look in chapter seven of the book of Acts in the New Testament, it is recorded that He was an angel: "Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush... you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it."
The Jehovah who appears in the Old Testament Age this way is an angel and not God. The Old Testament Age is the age of the servant, and God cannot appear as a father to a servant, because he is not a son. When Moses asks God for His name, He answers, "I am who I am" and tells him his name is Jehovah. But, when Moses stands in front of the people, he emphasizes that Jehovah God is the God of their ancestors, that is, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Jehovah is an angel.
Since the Old Testament Age was the age of the servant, God could not reveal Himself directly. In the Old Testament, did God tell them to fight or not to fight? Do you know that Saul was punished because, after winning the war, he went against God's instruction to kill all the men? Why do you think He did that? If men of the satanic world were spared, that world would invade again. He did it because the survival of the satanic men would preserve that system as they took wives and continued as they had before. Yet cutting off their lineage would end the system, as the women and children belonged to God's side. That is why He did this.
Saul was punished because his failure to act as instructed allowed the invasion of the heavenly nation by the worship of gentile gods and by all their adulterous customs. (124-202, 1983.2.15)
2.2. The religion of the bride and the religion of the archangel
Since God created angels before creating Adam, today's religions are the creations of the angelic realm on earth. That is the religious sphere. What is the task of the religious realm? It must succeed in creating Adam. Then, what is the global center of religion? It turns out to be Judaism. What does Judaism do? It is a religion that introduces the bridegroom. This is the philosophy of the Messiah and Savior. (50-56, 1971.10.31)
Until God created Adam and Eve, the archangels were the guardians of traditional philosophy. As a servant, the archangel was supposed to teach Adam and Eve the new customs and tradition of life before God did, saying, "The sons and daughters of the Master should live in such and such a way."
Is it not the responsibility of the old servant to keep the master's sons and daughters from going astray? Isn't he responsible to guide and instruct them along a smooth path? (50-181, 1971.11.6)
God established religions in order to save fallen people. What are those religions? God established the religion of Eve and the religions of the archangel in the world. Because the Fall was due to Eve and the archangel, human beings are restored through the religions of Eve and the archangel. They are restored through this path.
Religions are in the realm of archangel; whether there are a hundred or a thousand religions, they all belong to the realm of archangel. Although there are a great number of religions, they can be divided broadly into four great religions. Their center is Christianity, and the main philosophy of Christianity is the philosophy of the bride. (239-136, 1992.11.24)
Only God is the true deity, and other god-like beings are angels. To distinguish clearly monotheism and polytheism, the polytheistic religions are founded by heavenly beings, that is, angels. Among these religions, some result from good angels' efforts to elevate human spirituality and heart. These are the advanced religions. You should know that God has been cultivating human hearts through these good religions.
The religions of the archangel do not clearly know the fundamentals. They do not know who God is, nor do they know what is happening in the Last Days. Their teachings have been centered on the external concepts of spiritual training. Because they do not have a clear tradition, in the Last Days they have to wrap up their basic necessities and go to the master's house to serve. (237-186, 1992.11.17)
Let us think about those who followed God's will in the Old Testament Age and in the New Testament Age. In the Old Testament Age, there were primitive forms of religion, and in the New Testament Age, a religion befitting that era emerged. In other words, in the New Testament Age religions have been connecting to modern, twentieth-century civilization.
What kind of religion is the Unification Church? The Unification Church should be on a new level, a futuristic religion compared with the primitive religions and the religions of the age. (122-9, 1982.10.31)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 3. Jesus' View of God Based on the Parent-Child Relationship. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book One - True God
Chapter Three - The History of the Providence of Restoration and Changes in Humankind's View of God
Section 3. Jesus' View of God Based on the Parent-Child Relationship
3.1. The New Testament Age is the age of the adopted son
When Jacob triumphed and earned the name Israel, he did not triumph as God's son but as God's servant. This way, people were restored from the position of the servant of servants to the servant's position, and then in the New Testament Age from the servant's position to the position of the adopted child. Romans 8:23 says: "but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." They said that they were eagerly waiting to be adopted sons who could call God "Abba, Father." Even the most ardent people of faith in the New Testament Age, whether they were ministers, elders, or people holding doctorates, and so forth, are all adopted children before God. I am speaking to you frankly. They want to be adopted children. Adopted children have a different lineage. (154-257, 1964.10.3)
What step was Jesus elevated to? After humankind fell on earth, the ancestors disappeared. Therefore, when Jesus was elevated to the ancestor's position, the Israelites could be engrafted as God's adopted sons and receive the right of inheritance. This is why Romans chapter eight says, "but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies," and also, "For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father." They could only become adopted sons. Today's Christians are adopted children. Adopted children have a different lineage. (154-337, 1964.10.5)
An adopted son is different from the son of direct lineage. Whenever the son of direct lineage comes, the adopted son should be able to give him everything he possesses without hesitation, whether it is night or day. The possessions do not belong to him. Thus, even though he stands as an adopted son or was chosen as an adopted son, when the son of direct lineage is born, he should not say, "Why was this wretch born?" This is satanic nature. When God created Adam, the archangel should have been delighted to see Adam. So, he cannot say, "Why was he born?" The adopted son should know that he must protect the son. When the son of direct lineage is in the womb, the adopted son should not say, "Oh, I wish he were not going to be born." (09-135, 1971.10.9)
What must you do to be an adopted child? You should be better than the servants on God's side and better than Satan. Why do you have to be so? Satan was originally an archangel, a servant, and only one who is better than the servant can be an adopted child. This is according to the Principle. Then what kind of adopted child do you have to be? You should be an adopted child whose philosophy dictates that although you have received God's inheritance, it is not yours to keep but to return to His original sons and daughters. This is how adopted children should be raised. The adopted child should offer his life for the sake of the coming sons and daughters. He should hope to see the birth of the sons and daughters of direct lineage desired by God, although this may require sacrificing everything he has; he should be preparing in heart for them. Without gaining the qualifications of an adopted child, you have no relationship with the son. You should bear in mind that the one born as an intermediate being, one step above the archangel, is the adopted child. (89-203, 1976.11.22)
An adopted child has a different lineage. Originally, the one designated to be an adopted child at the start of the New Testament was John the Baptist. John the Baptist represented the archangel. He was designated as the representative on earth on the side of the archangel who could serve Adam to the end, rather than as the archangel who had opposed God's son Adam. But, a tragic history unfolded because John the Baptist failed to serve Jesus and become one with him. (48-92, 1971.9.5)
You should know that the Old Testament Age and New Testament Age are connected through history. As servants, the believers of the Old Testament era wished to receive the benefits of being adopted children, and this is why they waited for the coming of the Messiah. In other words, their desire was to surmount the sorrowful circumstances of the servant and advance, through the Messiah, to the position of adopted child. The adopted child is entitled to receive an inheritance from the parents in the absence of a son or daughter of direct lineage. So, God's will, which oversaw the servant-level Old Testament Age, guided the people so that they could maintain the desire to transcend the servant's position and attain the benefits of welcoming God's will. This is why they kept longing for the privilege of leaving behind the lot of the servant and receiving God's inheritance. This is the philosophy of God's elect in Israel. (42-281, 1971.3.27)
You should be restored and rise up, beginning from all things, through the victorious realm of the adopted son, through the victorious realm of the son, to the parents' position. But, no matter how devout you may be, in the New Testament Age you absolutely cannot be God's Son! (48-95, 1971.9.5)
Looking at history, the Old Testament Age used all things of creation as sacrificial offerings. They sacrificed the things of creation. The purpose of sacrificing all things was to liberate human beings and to help with the resurrection of humankind. The things of creation were sacrificed in order to restore people, to regain God's children. In the Old Testament Age, the things of creation were used as an offering, and in the New Testament Age, God's children shed their blood as they moved toward the realm of resurrection in this world. This has been the history centered on Christianity. In Christian history, Jesus and all individuals, families, peoples, and nations that followed Jesus have been sacrificed as offerings until the present. (166-276, 1987.6.14)
In Old Testament times, God had Moses bear witness to God's power. The people who did not believe in Him as the God of power were punished. Next, the age of Jesus introduced the God of compassion. Sick people were cured... Had Jesus not cured the sick, he would not have been killed. People die of sickness to pay the price for their ancestors' sins. Then why did he bring them back to life? Rev. Moon of the Unification Church could have cured hundreds of thousands of patients if he had tried. Even without someone curing their disease, lepers can be healed if they hear our words and delight in them. All kinds of diseases can be cured. (194-334, 1989.10.30)
3.2. The adopted child can call out "father"
On leaving the Old Testament Age and welcoming the new morning of the New Testament Age, Jesus declared God as the Father and elevated fallen people to the position of adopted child in order to bring them into a parent-child relationship with God. Adopted children are of a different lineage, but through the coming of the Lord, they were engrafted and thus able to call God "Father," with the title of son. You should know that the establishment of the parent-child relationship with God was a heavenly secret that could be accomplished by no one other than Jesus.
When Jesus called God "Father," the priests and Pharisees, who were immersed in the Old Testament concepts of the time, heard it as a presumptuous word blaspheming God. You should know that Jesus' view of God as the Father was that revolutionary. Jesus went a step higher and introduced God's love. In the Old Testament Age, Moses introduced only the God of authority, God of power, and God of judgment, without being able to introduce the God of love. But, Jesus introduced love. Although he introduced the God of love and his own loving self, the people of his era did not accept him. (35- 276, 1970.10.25)
Since the Old Testament Age was the age of the servant, God could not reveal His real form. God is the Father and a being of love. Since God is love itself, He is the Father of love who forgives all sins. The Old Testament law of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" disappeared. Through Jesus, God revealed His true loving form in which He loves His enemies and forgives a brother's faults, not just seven times but even seventy times seven. How could a father not forgive his child's faults?
God is not someone you can see; in Jesus, the invisible God appeared as the visible God. This is why Jesus proclaimed his oneness with God by saying in the Gospel of John, "I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Therefore, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" This is also why Paul said, "For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 8:38-39). Jesus came for the sake of God's love. (4-308, 1958.10.5)
You should know that from Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River, when heaven opened, to his ascension was a short period of three years. You should know that although Jesus brought out the view of God based on the parent-child relationship, he departed without being able to explain the details. He came as the Messiah of Judaism and died while pioneering the worldwide messianic course. Then, what happened to Judaism? A God who had thus far been attended as one dealing only with Judaism would not be viable.
What did Jesus come to teach on this earth? He was not to teach about God exactly as was taught in the Old Testament. He had to teach about the God of the New Testament Age. The mission of Jesus, who came as the national Messiah of Israel, was to teach by saying, "Now that we are going beyond the age of the national level to the age of the global level, we must lay the foundation of making strenuous effort for the world in order to absorb it." In this way, he was to dedicate his entire life to gaining the authority and prestige of the world-level Messiah. This was what he had to accomplish during his life. (105-213, 1979.10.26)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 4. The Completed Testament Age Is the Age of the Oneness of God and Humankind . |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book One - True God
Chapter Three - The History of the Providence of Restoration and Changes in Humankind's View of God
Section 4. The Completed Testament Age Is the Age of the Oneness of God and Humankind
4.1. True children should go through the change of lineage and rebirth
On the path of restoration, we should go up from the age of the servant of servants, through the age of the servant, through the age of the adopted child, to the age of the direct lineage. However, can we complete the course from the age of the servant of servants, through the age of the servant, and the age of the adopted child, and be connected to the age of direct lineage? Connecting to the age of direct lineage cannot be done just like that.
According to the Principle, we are required to go through the foundation of faith and foundation of substance in order to welcome the Messiah. The Messiah is the true son of God. The lineage of an adopted son and that of a true son are different. This is why we need a change of lineage. (55-192, 1972.5.9)
Since the Fall was an improper marriage in the Garden of Eden, this is now being rectified as the True Parents create proper marriages. True Parents are clearing away the evil deeds of the false parents, thereby abolishing hell, and giving the Blessing even to hundreds of billions of ancestors in the spirit world. Through the foundation of their descendants' families on earth, centered on true love, the ancestors in the spirit world and their descendants on earth unite vertically. Furthermore, based on the foundation of such families, the East and the West become connected to each other.
Since humankind has received satanic blood, people cannot return to God on their own. So the Messiah must accomplish absolute restoration of the lineage, renewing the blood line that was defiled by Satan. This transition must be made. This is why the Messiah must surely come. Without his coming, there will be no restoration of lineage. We must restore lineage. (172-53, 1988.1.7)
What do True Parents have to do? They must rectify the wrong lineage that forms the root of the satanic world, turn around the deviated life, and correct the misdirected course of love. The Bible says that those who seek to die will live, and those who seek to live will die. Why is this paradox necessary? It is because the satanic world must die. (169-37, 1987.10.4)
The ideal of loving oneness between God and humankind is their unity in a loving relationship based on the true and great love that God desired as His ideal at the time of creation. If God had fulfilled that ideal, today we would all enter the Kingdom of Heaven just as we are, without having to worry about heaven or hell. (275-54, 1995.10.31)
There were three ages in history: the Old Testament Age, the New Testament Age, and the Completed Testament Age. Among these, what kind of an age was the Old Testament Age? It was the age of redemption of children through sacrificial offerings. It was a time of preparation for the coming of God's son. In the New Testament Age, Jesus became the offering for us to receive the parents. This is why, in the age of the Second Coming, we have been preparing to receive the parents by establishing the bride and bridegroom. The reason that I, having the name of the True Parent, have been suffering for forty years as the center of the Completed Testament Age, is to receive God on earth. This will lead to the oneness of God and humankind in love. (227-94, 1992.2.10)
The original relationship between God and humankind is one of parent and child. In the New Testament Age, human beings were God's adopted children. But now, since we are in a parent-child relationship, what the son does is what the Father does, and what the Father does is what the son does. They are acting together. What belongs to the Father belongs to the son, and what belongs to the son belongs to the Father. The reason the Unification Church is fearsome is because it teaches this destined parent-child relationship. (31-324, 1970.6.7)
In the Old Testament Age, they sacrificed material things to pave the way for the coming of the true son. Jesus came as the son and sacrificed himself to pave the way for the coming of the parents. The True Parents come on this level plane, and walk a suffering path in order to invite God in. To what position do they come? To the original, vertical place. Since the original, great principle of heaven and earth was cut off from that point, peace cannot begin as long as that fundamental root is not rectified. This is absolute. (200-55, 1990.2.23)
You should not think of Rev. Moon as being the same as you. What is Rev. Moon's mission? The Old Testament Age was the age when the things of creation were sacrificed to find the sons and daughters. In the New Testament Age, the sons and daughters were sacrificed to pave the way for the coming of the parents. What are the parents to do on this earth after they come? They are to pave the way for God to come. The mission of the True Parents is to build a horizontal base, encompassing all the people of the world, for the vertical Father. As the horizontal father's realm of heart unfolds, the vertical Father's realm of heart will naturally emerge and settle here.
When God reaches the point where He can embrace both vertical and horizontal love, He will finally make the transition to the age when He can go beyond the world into the central position and reorganize the original, ideal authority. Then He will say, "Everything is done." (177-345, 1988.5.22)
The methods for fallen people to go back to God have differed according to the age. In the Old Testament Age, people could go to God by offering sacrifices; in the New Testament Age, it was by believing in Jesus, the son of God; and in the Completed Testament Age, people can go to God by attending the True Parents. (20-340, 1968.7.20)
In the future, you will not be able to marry your sons and daughters with people of the same nationality. God is looking at three generations. Now, you are as you are, but God wants to bring you into unity after three generations. One of these represents the Old Testament Age. So your marriage represents the Old Testament Age. The New Testament Age and the Completed Testament Age come next. The tradition will be established by the third generation, who will be born through the marriages of the second generation -- your sons and daughters. (146-275, 1986.7.20)
In the Completed Testament Age, True Parents sacrifice in order to bring the vertical God to earth. This is the final task. In relation to humankind, God is the vertical Father who is centered on true love. True Parents are the horizontal parents who are horizontally aligned at a ninety degree angle with the vertical Father, based on true love. Therefore, on the basis of this vertical and horizontal love, God's love and life finally burst forth. With the blossoming harmony of God and humankind, new blood ties will expand based on the love of True Parents. In this way, the seed of life that began in God's love and based on the original Principle standard will appear on earth. This is unprecedented in human history. (208-339, 1990.11.21)
Now, we must restore the rights of ownership. Since, in the course of attending God, the things of creation were sacrificed in the Old Testament Age, the son was sacrificed in the New Testament Age, and the parents were sacrificed in the Completed Testament Age, what has to be done now? You should stand in the position representing the mother and father. The sons and daughters are the New Testament Age, and all things of creation are the Old Testament Age.
Because the Old Testament, New Testament, and Completed Testament ages have all deviated from God's true love, Satan has become the owner. Now, however, we must indemnify all this and bring everything to the original owner. (208-345, 1990.11.21)
The Completed Testament Age is the age of accomplishment. We will accomplish as individuals, families, tribes, peoples, nations, and on the worldwide level. These are linked through God's love, God's life, and God's lineage. This is the tradition of one lineage, one love, and one life.
When this happens, Satan will have to leave. The work of engrafting will remove the connection with the satanic lineage. (226-275, 1992.2.9)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 5. God's First Manifestation. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book One - True God
Chapter Three - The History of the Providence of Restoration and Changes in Humankind's View of God
Section 5. God's First Manifestation
5.1. God finally reveals Himself
The age of the Unification Church is the age of the parents. We are paving the way whereby God can come and be present on earth. This is why it makes sense to say that by God's coming, we are saved through attending Him. This is how history progresses. 077-157, 1988.5.17)
What is it that will remain in the end? It is God and human beings, their life course, and their outlook on daily life -- the divine and human perspectives on life and the world. These perspectives will not be based on vague knowledge, but on an inseparable, eternal relationship. Why? Since God and humankind have been separated at the point where originally they could not be separated, they must reach a place higher than that point of inseparability. At such a point, they should come forward demanding a global stage for daily life where God and humankind are one. (65-125, 1972.11.5)
God is the center of the universe where we have to live for the sake of others. When you go near Him, you will want to be governed by Him for tens of thousands of years and even more. This is the path of attendance to God. We could not have imagined that human beings today could be governed in that way and that there could be no greater happiness than this. (77-328, 1975.4.30)
From now on, you should live a life of attendance. Up until now, a life of faith brought salvation through faith, but from now on you attain salvation through attendance. Originally, if we had not fallen, we would be following our normal path by attending God. You should attend Him in your daily life, and with your heart. (150-213, 1961.4.15)
God is the absolute Father, absolute True Parent, and the unique, unchanging and eternal True Father. Such a Father should bring about unique, unchanging, and eternal couples for the absolute sons. For such daughters, too, He should bring about absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal couples. So, the families in which they will settle peacefully are absolute, unique, unchanging, and eternal families. Such families can live together with God, and constitute the eternal base of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Justification through attendance signifies the age of realizing the Kingdom of Heaven in daily life. This is why we are talking about justification through attendance. The history of restoration is re-creating God's ideal of creation. (161-218, 1987.2.15)
Without creating a starting point from which we can bring God into our heart and where we human beings can be completely one body with God, there is no way to liquidate this devilish world. From this point of view, we understand our time as the age of attendance and the age of salvation based on justification through attendance. We are saved through attendance. God is not a God who is up there in the sky. We should attend God as our subject and Master in our daily life. (144-274, 1986.4.25)
God is not a fantasy or a conceptual God, nor is He an abstract God. With His leadership in our daily life, He is always with us as the master of our daily life. He does not merely receive our attendance, but is living together with us by sharing love. (168-111, 1987.9.13)
What was God's purpose in creating Adam and Eve? As human beings, we have a body, but the invisible God does not. Without a body, God cannot govern the spiritual and physical worlds. Hence, although God exists, if He wants to manifest as the Parent of humankind, He must acquire a body. God's representatives with that body were Adam and Eve. God would have appeared after assuming the body of Adam and Eve had they not fallen.
Adam and Eve were the first ancestors of humankind, and they were to be God who rules over heaven and earth. Assuming the external form, the body, of God who is in the eternal invisible world, and standing in the position of parents, Adam and Eve had the responsibility of governing the world. (133-91, 1984.7.10)
Since the invisible God has no substantial body, the True Parents represent His form. The True Parents are Parents of the individual, family, tribe, ethnic people, and nation. In the future, God will appear in the form of the True Parents in the spirit world. This is the greatness of the Unification Church. The greatness of Rev. Moon resides in the fact that God wants to assume Rev. Moon's form. (98-224, 1978.8.1)
Even if the hundreds of millions of people who have been parents were to come back to life all at once, none among them would have the glory of the True Parents whom you speak of today. Even if tens of thousands of generations of ancestors were all to resurrect and sing the glory of resurrection, this glory and song would still not transcend the domain of the Fall. Although your current situation may be miserable, you should know that the term "True Parents," taught in the Unification Church today, is a proud one and more valuable than hundreds of millions of ancestors rejoicing in a glorious place of earthly victory and liberation of all people. You should know that meeting the True Parents will lead you along the path to meet God, and meeting the Unification Church will lead you along the path whereby God's nation and the homeland desired by the True Parents can soon be found. (138-105, 1986.1.19)
The Completed Testament Age of justification through attendance is the age of directly attending God in our life. Since that is the time when God's tabernacle remains with us and the new Jerusalem in heaven comes down to earth, the form of the true God will finally appear to us then. This will happen for the first time since the creation of the world. Until now, God has not been able to appear in history, which has remained at an uncompleted stage since the Fall.
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 1. A God of Historical Bitterness, Grief and Pain. |
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