CSG 1.4
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1God, who created all things, poured His utmost love into the creation of human beings. God invested his sincere heart into the creation of human beings, more than anything else He had created in the preceding five days, so that they would manifest His glory and His hope. He wanted human beings to grow up and fulfill His hope, to sing with joy and establish a peaceful family with whom He could dwell. Prior to the Fall, God was delighted with the original Adam and Eve, His creations. God watched them grow with a heart of sincere anticipation, waiting for the time when His great hope would come to glorious fruition in them. As He surveyed His creation, God thought, "I am pleased with all the things I made for you, Adam and Eve. Yet, I am even more pleased to look at you, who will govern all these things." Such were the heart and mind of their Heavenly Parent for Adam and Eve. They were indeed the central beings. God placed His cherished hope in them, for they were to be the foundation of His happiness. Moreover, they were essential to the whole created world. They should never have experienced the Fall; they should not have known even one day of sorrow. Yet one day Adam and Eve made a tragic mistake and the word "Fall" appeared. At that moment the word "sorrow" also came to exist, and a dark force invaded the world for which God had had such hope. This is truly something to lament and regret.
2Since it was our first ancestors who committed the Fall, it was natural that they would suffer sorrow. But the Fall brought sorrow even to God, who had created them with such great hope. That is, when human beings fell into sorrow, they wronged God and brought Him to a miserable and painful state. This should never have happened on the earth; it should never have occurred under the sun. Nevertheless, the mistake of our first ancestors led to the unimaginable incident that we call the Fall.
3God's ideal of creation should have brought Him boundless joy and delight in the garden of love, based on His love and truth. But God's joy was frustrated as a result of the Fall of Adam and Eve, and He has had to toil in history for thousands of years. You need to experience the sorrowful heart of God, who suffers to this day even as He fights Satan in order to fulfill the ideal of creation, which Adam and Eve did not fulfill due to the Fall. You must also experience God's intense grief at the loss of Adam and Eve, when they betrayed Him and fell. Unless you first understand what God's love is all about and experience how much God loves human beings, you can never fathom the depth of His sorrow upon losing them.
4God was supposed to have emerged as a glorious being. Our joy should have been God's joy, and God's joy should have been our joy; this would have been the ideal of creation. But due to the Fall that ideal was lost, and God ended up miserable. The God who appears to us is not the God of glory. He is incomparably more wretched and deserving of pity than anyone in all of history. God originally should have been the God of glory, but since the day of the Fall His situation has been the opposite. God should have been able to entrust everything to human beings, and we should have been able to entrust everything to God; but this sort of open relationship with God became impossible. How deeply painful it is for parents if their children see them in deep misery. Accordingly, God does not want to reveal His painful heart and situation to His children. Though He is toiling endlessly, He does not want to show His sad face.
5To this day, we human beings have thought of God as the God of glory, not the God of suffering or pain. Many religions in history have taught this, and believers have led their lives of faith with this idea. But the truth is that God is in the situation where He has lost His family, His children, His property, His nation and His world. Our Father is in that kind of situation. We have thought that once we meet our Father, all our pain and suffering will be dissolved and all our wishes fulfilled. However, when I came to meet our Heavenly Parent after seeking Him for so long, I discovered that everything He owns -- His children, His property, even the whole world -- was in the hands of the enemy.
6You must become filial sons and daughters who can attend the God who has suffered in sorrow throughout history, who can comfort Him, and offer Him joy and glory. Even now, God laments in disappointment. Hence, you must reach the point where you can welcome the day of God's victory; and not only you but all humankind with you. To comfort God's heart of bitter sorrow, you must attend Him, beyond your own people and beyond the world, to advance with the full authority of the cosmos. You need to devote yourselves to becoming children of God whom God wants to bless rather than judge. You have to become a group of people who can endure. No matter what cruel situations or adverse circumstances you suffer, you should be able to say, "Even if no one else remains, I will survive." Only with this kind of heart can you connect your life to God. If you have this kind of relationship with God, even though strong winds and mighty storms may come against you, nothing can destroy that bond of heart, which holds the power of life.
7God is not seated upon a throne, receiving praise and glory. Instead, God is weeping bitterly every day as He works to save fallen human beings. This has long been God's situation, even as He guides humankind God is in such pain as He tries to save people from the pit of misery into which they have fallen, to awaken them, shouting, "Come! Come to Me!" But even though God does all that, He cannot force people to come to Him. We must fulfill our portion of responsibility. God cannot do our part for us, though He may want to. How difficult this is for God!
8God is the Lord of sorrow and the Lord of pain. Our Father, whom we are supposed to attend, wants to experience joy and glory, yet He has never had the chance. God is in bitter sorrow due to the Fall, yet He carries still more grief and suffering. We think that heaven is a garden of happiness, but in reality that is not the case. I have thoroughly searched in every corner, looking for anything to rejoice over, but I could not find anything. God is supposed to have the power and authority to rule the world; He is supposed to experience glory and honor, and to sing in happiness. Yet the elements of joy, glory and goodness are all gone, while all that remains are sorrow and pain. This is God's lament. In heaven and on earth, there is no greater suffering than this.
9God is the most sorrowful being. He is more sorrowful than a son who weeps in front of his dying mother. He has been treated more unjustly than a person wrongfully sentenced to death as a traitor to his people when they should have recognized him as a champion of goodness. God is the Lord who holds the title as the most wronged and most miserable. Religions should be teaching this to the point that people's hearts are deeply moved. God does not wear a robe of glory; His robe is soaked in blood and sweat. That robe was made by the bloody hands of sons and daughters who desperately tried to hold onto Him but could not. God's feet are scarred from walking the thorny paths of His children's struggles throughout history. When individuals sought Him and fell down on the way, God took the blows on their behalf. He chose one people even as other peoples fell away, but when even that people betrayed Him, He allowed Himself to be struck on their behalf in order to continue the fight. The God in whom we have believed is, in fact, a being deserving of sympathy.
10God exists in a state of confinement. He has been living with a painful heart as the Parent who long ago lost His only children, His son and daughter Adam and Eve. He is the God of bitter sorrow. He has been endlessly shedding tears, beating His chest. God, while following after human beings, has experienced countless deaths. He has endured this over and over again, even to this day. There are so many nails driven into His heart that they could cover the whole world. Nowhere in the world can there be found a sorrow as profound as His.
11God is the Lord of the world, but He has never been able to wield His authority as the Lord. He is the subject partner of love, but He has never been able say to us, "I love you." Even though He is in the position to own everything, He cannot say to us, "You are mine," and hold us as He wishes. Among the countless human beings on earth, God never had His own son or daughter, not even one brave soldier who could totally defeat Satan. Even though there are countless Christians on earth who believe in Jesus, among them God has not had even one commander-in-chief who could order a total offensive against Satan. God tried to relate to the earth by having Jesus give orders to the angelic world, but this did not succeed. God also gave a vision for the ideal of the bride to the people on earth and searched everywhere for her. Yet He never met even one such woman whom He could proudly present before Satan. Indeed, as a group of people, we ought to feel deeply repentant before God.
12God is a being who truly deserves sympathy. God is in the difficult position of having to embrace sinful human beings and call them His beloved ones. God comes to the world where His sinful children are living, only to be mistreated -- torn, wounded and cornered. He weeps bitterly; His heart is scarred and broken in pieces. His heart was in pain and desperation each time He raised up a people only to have them fall away.
13God carries bitter sorrow in His heart because of the Fall. The twists and turns in God's story of relating with human beings are beyond description. He is out of breath, running after people and trying to save them. How miserable God is! Even a beggar on earth is better off. For God, this is what it has come to. If God could simply sit on a throne and order everyone in heaven and on earth to do as He wished, why then has He struggled to deal with sinful humankind for the past six thousand years? Truly, God is the being most deserving of sympathy. He is the Lord of all, and our Father, yet He could never assume those roles. Nothing could be more frustrating. Although God created everything, He could not do as He pleased with His creation. He could never call us His sons and daughters even though we were created as such. God has led His providence for six thousand years in order to break down these walls.
14Of the beings in this world, none is more deserving of sympathy than God. God has labored harder than anyone; He is the King of hard work. From the moment God created human beings He had to relate with them, even if He did not want to face them. God could not avoid this destiny, because He is their Father. Throughout history God has struggled to relate with human beings. For six thousand years He has been unable to separate from them, even for one second. At the same time, God has to relate to people who believe that He destined them to a life of screaming and moaning. How miserable does that make God?
15God has been the God of sorrow throughout history, in every age. God was sorrowful in the past and remains so in the present. Those who do not recognize and respond to our grieving God will face judgment. If you truly love God, how can you ask Him to take away your pain and sorrow? God has taken responsibility for all the pain and sorrow throughout history, and we should feel indebted and grateful that He has done so. Yet without recognizing this fact, we bring our own pain and sadness to God. For this, we are bound to face judgment. God will recognize the person who weeps alone over his or her own sorrow, unable to pray to God about such personal pain, knowing that God has already endured so much pain and sorrow through all the ages of history. We must be the sons and daughters who can say, "God, Your pain is so great compared to mine! I will manage my own situation. Please let me do Your work, even if I have to face death." If you constantly ask God for blessings, you will not be able to raise your head before God. You should recognize how sinful that attitude is. The more deeply you go into the realm of God's love, which is full of grace, the more you will realize that you are a sinner who cannot lift your head in front of God.
16God, the eternal being, sheds tears for us. His tears are to eliminate the way of death, the way of pain and the way of sorrow. God sheds tears to eliminate all of these paths. We need to understand that God is shedding blood, sweat and tears for us to eliminate the ways of sorrow, pain and death. Then, it is only right that we take His Will upon our shoulders so that He does not have to keep going to the point of death on our behalf. Thus far, God has placed our ancestors in positions where they had to shed tears, shed their blood and sweat, and confront death. It was not because God had no love that He did this; He did so in order to ultimately eliminate such situations. Yet God Himself experienced much greater suffering than they. How painful it is for a father and mother to see the death of their beloved child! How their heart is grieved to watch their child suffer! It is more painful than if they were to die themselves. With such a painful heart, God has been suffering throughout human history. We may have to endure pain, but it is just within our one generation; then we are done with our responsibility. But God had to endure that kind of indescribable pain every time our ancestors went the way of death, the way of tears, the way of blood and sweat, and the way of sorrow and suffering.
17God's original position was as our True Parent. Yet something occurred that had nothing to do with the original ideal of creation, and His position as the True Parent was usurped. Although God is the Creator, He was unable to intervene and prevent this from happening. Nevertheless, He has been taking responsibility to deal with it ever since.
18God's enemy deprived Him of His throne. Unable to become the God of glory, He was left to preside over a history of sorrow Although God most certainly is the King of His kingdom and King of the universe, He has been treated with contempt, as if He were dead. Meanwhile, all His beloved children were violated and the planet Earth became the enemy's playground.
19As a result of the Fall, God became the Parent who lost His children. Is there any father or mother who delights in his or her own glory while their children are in prison? It is the same for God; it fills Him with endless pain. Further, God created everything in the universe for human beings, but as a result of the Fall, God had to hand his children over to Satan's authority. From the moment He lost His beloved object partners, God, the Lord of true love, became infinitely lonely. Moreover, God could not exercise His authority as the Lord of all things, not even once. Even fallen people can boast, but God has never had the chance to demonstrate His full authority and stature as the Creator. Even though He is the Lord of all living things, God could not assume His majesty in front of them, not even once.
20What was lost as a result of the Fall? First, the ideal world of true love was lost. Second, the ideal family of true love was lost; in particular, the husband and wife of true love were lost. Third, their sons and daughters of true love, the first grandchildren of God, were lost. These are God's three kinds of sorrow.
21God's era, in which He hoped to complete His Will, disappeared without a trace because of the Fall. The Fall brought fundamental destruction to the place where He had created all things in hope. Everything that He had planned, the realm of His ideal object partners of eternal love, was violated and destroyed at the root. How sorrowful God must have been when Adam and Eve committed the Fall and disappeared from His presence. They were to have been God's ideal partners, embodying God's pure original love. How bitter God's grief must have been over losing them.
22Christians say that God is the glorious judge who consigns people to hell or to the kingdom of heaven. Yet in fact God is the most miserable being in the world. When the Fall turned the brilliance of heaven and earth into the darkness of hell, God went through the most unimaginable and bitter pain. It was as though God Himself plummeted into hell. Yet when He opened His eyes, came back to consciousness and regained His composure, He became intent on recovering His children who had died.
23God and human beings should be together for eternity. Can we imagine God's pain and indignation when the first human beings separated from Him? Can we comprehend His bitterness and sorrow? They should have grown to maturity while building a foundation of love for God that they would not have exchanged even for the entire universe. This would have established a single axis, so that vertical and horizontal could meet on a level plane. Had the first human beings done this, they would have become the standard of love for all existing beings and for all things of creation in heaven and on earth. Then, any being that connected to their love would have been able to reach that standard.
24God wants His partners of love to be better than Himself. His beloved partners are none other than us, human beings. Nonetheless, we lost that privileged value and instead came to struggle throughout our lives. How miserable God must feel when He looks at us! He thinks, "They were meant to be My direct children, inheriting My love, My life and My lineage. But now they are struggling as victims who moan and lament in pain and wander in despair until the end of their lives." How miserable God must feel, looking down at this. He is such a sorrowful God.
25When you are comforted by someone who has more reason to be upset than you, you can find some consolation in that. However, God has no one to comfort Him, because He has more grievances than anyone in the world. God is the alpha and the omega. A knot of bitterness remains in the depths of His heart. How can He resolve it? This has been God's deep, inner anguish. Under these circumstances God has carried out the providence of restoration to this day. The spirit world transcends time and space; hence, even the sorrow of six thousand years ago can persist forever throughout the realms formed by the ages of history. If you have ever experienced the joy of devoting yourself as a true offering, you will never forget that experience for the rest of your life. With the passage of time, more and more people will recognize and respect you for your offering. The breadth and depth of your offering will increase, and you will be ever more deeply connected with the infinite Origin. When you have such mystical experiences, you will recognize that God's sorrow has not been merely momentary, but has continued up to the present day.
26We should not thoughtlessly insist on our own desires, putting ourselves first. How can we simply assert our own views if we understand even a little about the heart of God? God is immersed in bitter sorrow as He labors behind the scenes of history to lead the providence of restoration, trying to find His lost children who can express their true selves. Day and night, we have to live to build the ideal family. If only we can build the ideal family that God has awaited for six thousand years, that is precisely where the original peaceful world will begin. The ideal family is the starting point of the kingdom of heaven on earth. It is from that point that God's bitter sorrow will begin to dissolve.
27God is the Absolute Being. Therefore, He must accomplish what He has purposed, and He must bring His Will to pass. In order to rectify the situation that arose after the Fall, God must put Adam and Eve into a repair shop, remake them into people who can receive God's original love, and place them in the ideal positions they had prior to the Fall. Then, having restored them as the Parents, God must connect all His children to them. Because God is in the situation where He must do all this, He had to begin the providence of salvation.
28God's Will cannot change. Although there are countless people in the world, there is only one way to advance toward the accomplishment of God's Will. There is only one way because God is absolute. There cannot be two ways. You cannot just go this way and that as you please. God's way is one straight fine.
29The absolute God must have His own view of history, and His view of history is revealed in His providence. As He pursues the course of His providence, there are some people who follow the providence and others who do not. In short, there are two kinds of people: those who lead a life of faith and those who do not. The Will of God is seen in His striving to bring all the cultural spheres, east, west, north and south, into one world. His ideal is definitely one. God's Will, and His purpose in having us pursue it, is not to lead us on the path to destruction but to guide us on the way to liberation and peace. Therefore, He must be directing human history toward the final destination of peace, the world of unity.
30What if you and I loved each other based on God's love and in alignment with God's Will? How beautiful it would be! It is our cherished hope to constitute such a family, such a clan, people and nation. What if we belonged to such groups, where we were welcomed, where we could breathe, and where we could interact, giving and receiving with the heart of subject partners? Would it not be exciting? Suppose you, in the position of a subject partner, could expand yourself to the infinite world, shrink yourself to the minutest of worlds, and bring these two worlds together in harmony? Suppose by doing that, you could make God's heart beat with excitement -- would that not be marvelous? If you were like that, God would follow you wherever you go. If you were to hide out somewhere, God would be in trouble. At such a height of awareness, unity becomes possible.
31Even if the external providence is completed, unless we also complete the internal providence that goes along with it, the whole purpose cannot be fulfilled-This is the viewpoint of the Principle. Then, which is more important: the internal or the external? Between the two, the internal is more important. This is because the internal issues are for God, while the external issues are for human beings. From this point of view, we cannot help but regard God's Will as of paramount importance. God's Will is to raise up one person who is internally united with Him, and through that person to form an internally united family, through that family an internally united tribe, and through that tribe an internally united people and nation. This is God's plan.
32Salvation is the process of changing the sinful world into a sinless world. We need to understand that this is what salvation means; it is restoration. Originally, God's Will was not salvation. Therefore, we have to return to God's original Will. The purpose of the Messiah's coming is to fulfill God's Will. Then what is God's Will for the Messiah? It is to save humankind from Satan, the devil, and then eventually to cast him out. Satan is on this earth today, ready to accuse you whenever you commit sin. He must be expelled. Satan has violated and devastated humankind. God intends to save all people by eliminating him from the planet Earth forever.
33If anything is important to God, surely it is to fulfill the Will. And to fulfill the Will, nothing is more important than fulfilling God's ideal of creation. But God cannot fulfill the Will and the ideal of creation by Himself. The fulfillment of the Will is not only up to Him; its success or failure depends ultimately on His counterparts. These counterparts were Adam and Eve. Before God created them, He made all things of creation. After He created Adam and Eve He made them the center of the creation. God desired that these central beings become the fruits of victory. However, whether those human beings would fulfill this could not be determined by God, but only by each person.
34Since human beings were born from fallen, that is, false, parents, they cannot relate directly with God, no matter how great their effort. That is to say, they have no base upon which to build an internal relationship with the Creator of heaven and earth. However, we human beings have a bond with God, who created us not to fall but to attain perfection according to the standard of the Principle of Creation. Based on this bond, God had us fulfill our responsibility again through a second course, the providence of restoration. Its purpose is to raise us up to the position we had prior to the Fall. As a result of the Fall, human beings had plummeted into a realm devoid of the Principle. In other words, we fell into a world outside of the Principle where God, even though He wanted to, could not intervene.
35Human beings are trapped in a pit of bitter sorrow that has nothing to do with God. It stands to reason that they cannot escape from it unless they make God their subject partner and the driving force of their life. God knows that originally, according to the Principle of Creation, He and human beings should be joined in a parent-child relationship. Therefore He tries to bring them back to the position of His children. But it is not an easy task. Compared to the process of creation, the course of restoration is far more difficult. God has had to walk a path of tribulation many times more difficult. God has been working through history to provide a ladder for human beings, who fell into the realm devoid of the Principle, and pull them up.
36After the Fall of Adam's family, God started His providence centered on Abel. Because the parents made a mistake, God began the providence with the children. The purpose of His providence is to fulfill the Will. What, then, is the purpose of the Will? It is to complete the ideal of creation, the purpose of creation. Completing the purpose of creation means to realize the ideal of unity in love. This ideal of unity in love was not realized in Adam's family. This is what we call the Fall. Thus, the Fall was not only the Fall of the Will but also the Fall of heart. In order to restore, that is, to recreate this, God called Abel and began His work. Abel's will was not to have remained separate from God's Will; they were to have become the same. But was Abel's viewpoint the same as God's? Of course, Abel's position as an individual was different from that of God, who deals with the Will in its entirety. Nevertheless, as he proceeded for the Will, he should have moved in the same direction as God with respect to the Will. In this regard, Abel was supposed to unite with Cain to complete the providence of salvation. The challenge for him was to become one with Cain.
37To this day, fallen human beings have not attained eternal value. Their value is nothing that the world can approve of, either on earth or in heaven. Therefore, fallen human beings still have the mission to restore the value of their life on the individual level, and going beyond that to the world level, and finally to recover eternal life in heaven. In this way God established His providential Will, and to this day He has been seeking to fulfill His purpose to have all human beings realize their life to the fullest value. Where is the conclusion in this? It will not end with you as an individual, or even with the world. We must recover life of such value that God can rejoice in it through the unity of heaven and earth, life in which the entire world can rejoice and in which every individual can rejoice. Only then will God's providence of salvation finally come to an end and Satan's world come to an end, and relative concepts of morality would come to an end. All fallen human beings have the responsibility to pioneer this course, to recover the original value of life.
38The struggle to eliminate the original sin started in Adam's family. Providential history began with the separation of Cain and Abel in Adam's family. God loved Abel and had him offer a sacrifice. In making that offering, he had to be absolutely obedient to God's Word. If Satan came against him, he would have to overcome Satan's opposition as well. Abel prevailed over all the challenges in his environment and properly made his offering with the utmost devotion in accordance with God's desire. In doing so, Abel surpassed fallen Adam by being absolutely obedient to God's word. Next, Abel was supposed to become a substantial being that would have nothing to do with Satan for eternity and be permanently one with God. Then he would have attained the position to receive God's love totally. He would have been liberated from the evil sovereignty and would have entered the sovereignty of goodness.
39When will the day come when a special human being emerges who will substantially manifest as the Lord and realize God's Will? Unlike any other created being in heaven and on earth, the Lord will fully manifest anew on a higher plane all of God's hidden internal character. It has been God's objective to welcome this one astonishing and exciting day. Having determined it, God has toiled endlessly throughout history to accomplish it through the providence of restoration.
40In order to save human beings, God has suffered through a history of unceasing indemnity, filled with incredible hardships. Although God has the power to reclaim human beings by destroying the devil, He will not do that. It is God's original Will to raise human beings in true love and have them build families, tribes, peoples, nations and the world with love. Therefore He has to keep forever the heart that He had prior to the Fall. Even though, through their fall, Adam and Eve left God's heart, God cannot force them to return to Him. It is because they already had formed a love relationship with the devil. A love relationship, once engaged, determines ownership; it determines the right of inheritance. It determines the right to live together, the right to share the same position, and the right to participate in each other's work. With respect to all these rights, Adam and Eve came totally under Satan's ownership.
41As a consequence of the Fall, God was unable to have a day of joy, the ancestors of humankind were unable to have a day of joy, and all things that God created for Himself and for human beings were unable to have a day of joy. It is only natural that if their owners are sad and suffering, those who follow them cannot experience joy either. Because God and human beings fell into a place of sorrow, the things of creation could not avoid the same fate. In the Bible, Romans 8 says that the whole creation is groaning. Not only is the creation groaning; all people are also groaning. God, who is the subject partner of humankind and of the creation, is also groaning. Human history started not in joy but in sorrow. God's providence is His effort to restore this sorrowful history to a joyful history. That is salvation.
42God has been toiling throughout the providence for the sole purpose of realizing His Will. What is the final destination of God's Will? It is where God and human beings live together, sharing joy and sorrow. When we fulfill God's long-cherished hope and Will, and when we come to have a relationship with Him such that He and we can eternally share each other's joys and sorrows, then God will become our true Father and we will become His true children. When this happens, we will desire what God desires and we will live in harmony with all creation, offering glory to God and forever singing hymns in praise of His wisdom, benevolence and grace. God, humankind and all creation are waiting for the coming of this day. The Will is the ideal of God's creation, and it is also the everlasting ideal for fallen human beings. Hence, once the Will is fulfilled, God and human beings will become one body. Then, we will rejoice when God rejoices, and God will rejoice when we rejoice. God's desire will be our desire and our desire will be God's desire -- the two will be one, in harmony. We will give God the joy of the eternal ideal, and we too will experience eternal joy.
43God should have become the owner of this world. If human beings had established a relationship of love with God and formed the family of His children, they would have gone on to form a tribe, a nation and world. Needless to say, that would have been the world governed by God and the nation governed by God, families governed by God and individuals governed by God. However, due to the Fall, everything, from the individual to the family, the tribe, the people, the nation and the world, is opposing God. This is the fallen world that has resulted from fallen history. If God were to leave the world as it is, He would not be able to establish the world of eternal love that He desires, in accordance with the ideal of creation. Furthermore, for God to restore His authority as the Absolute Being, He must consummate the ideal of creation that He originally intended. He keeps this standard, even as He has been rectifying the world's evils and leading this world toward the ideal world He originally planned. This is God's providence for the fallen world.
44To this day, God's hope is that human beings will connect with all things of creation and with Him. That is why God has been working to raise up fallen people from the servant's position to the adopted child's position, the direct child's position and the parent's position. This is in order to sever our painful connection with the Fall and enable all things, human beings, and God to form relationships of total oneness. Then God's joy becomes our joy, and our joy becomes the joy of all things. God wants to proudly present His sons and daughters to the natural world and even to the world of angels, and to live for their sake. We human beings are not in the original state in which God created us to live. Yet we still have an emotional nature, experiencing emotions such as sadness and joy. In particular, we can feel joy and sorrow by relating with our counterparts. It is human nature to be proud of our joy. When our counterpart's joy becomes our own, we want to show it off. The same is true of God. God feels delight when He sees us filled with joy, and we human beings are happy when we experience God rejoicing with us over our joy. That is the joy of giving and receiving.
45It is not possible to return to the original world by human effort alone. Therefore God is working to raise us up -- this is the providence of restoration. The providence of restoration would be easy if we human beings cooperated, but up till now we have not cooperated with God's providence. Despite this situation, God managed to expand His providence from the individual to the family, tribe, people, nation and world. The internal and external difficulties God has encountered in the course of this are beyond description. From an external perspective nations and peoples may have suffered, but in front of God they cannot speak of it. This is even more so for individuals. Except for a handful of human beings, there has been no one, either on earth or among those who lived and then went to the spirit world, who can declare in front of God that they suffered in order to cooperate with Him. This is an undeniable fact. Given that people are like this, God Himself took responsibility to lead them. He personally took up the fight, and He labors hard to this day.
46For six thousand years God has been working hard for the sake of the multitudes of humankind. After six thousand years of toil, we hear that we are now in the Last Days. What, then, are the Last Days? In this world, there are people who live in the position of a true servant, people who live in the position of a true adopted child, and people who live in the position of a true child. Upon the foundation of the birth of a group of people who are in the position of true children, the True Parents will come. This is the concept of the Second Coming. That is why the Bible speaks of the day when the bride has made herself ready for Jesus. One Father and one Mother must appear on earth. The Marriage of the Lamb is the moment when we can finally start building on earth our lost original home. In order to build that home, we must have the Parents and we must have brothers and sisters. Upon this foundation we can propagate children, and from them will unfold the original tribe, people, nation and world. Then, finally, the existing evil world will be vanquished. This is how the providence of restoration progresses toward the world of goodness.
47Due to the Fall, human beings fell into the realm devoid of the Principle. Angels are God's servants; in comparison to them, how far did human beings plummet? They plummeted into a realm lower than that of angels, lower than servants. They were to be princes and princesses, and as such, the lords of the angels, but they fell to a position lower than servants. Hence they have to climb back up. From the position of a servant of servants, they must climb to the positions of a servant, an adopted child, a stepchild, and a child of direct lineage; and then through the mother to reach the position of the father. This is restoration. The providence of salvation is to bring human beings back to the standard of health they enjoyed before they became sick. That is why the providence of salvation is the providence of restoration. The providence of restoration is not carried out at random.
48In order to recover the world defiled by the Fall, God has been leading the providence of salvation by building relationships with human beings through the angels that remained on His side. God has been pursuing the providence of salvation in order to once again relate to human beings, even though they betrayed the glorious God through the Fall and fell to such a miserable state, lower than the things of creation. Human beings are under Satan's dominion and subject to his accusation, yet God has worked to bridge the gap between Himself and us so that He might govern us. He has continued this work through the Old Testament Age and the New Testament Age, even to this day.
49Why has God endured a path of suffering through the many millennia of the providence of restoration? Is it simply because He has a kind heart? Why has God continued His providence of salvation for the tens of thousands of years of human history without becoming exhausted? It is not because He is all-knowing and almighty. It is because He is on the path of love, seeking His beloved sons and daughters. Love has the great power to triumph over all the tribulations in its way. With love, we feel as if a thousand years are but one day.
50God's true love is such that He gives and forgets what He has given, and gives and forgets again. Because of this, God has been able to continue the providence of salvation until now. Centering on true love, God continues to lead history by repeatedly investing and forgetting how much He invested. Even in the world today, God keeps on giving. He continues investing, through individuals and through organizations. God created the universe based on His essential love. In recovering the universe after it fell, God has to unceasingly maintain that original standard of investment in order to realize the ideal of true love. Otherwise, He cannot regain His authority as the Absolute Being.
51Even though people commit sin, God does not just say, "Hey, you! Why did you sin?" He knows well the situation of people who sin. He cares for them more than for Himself. To sorrowful people He comes with a heart of sorrow; to suffering people He comes with a heart of suffering; and to people feeling wronged He comes with a heart of indignation. Yet, how much have you empathized with the heart and circumstances of God? He comes into our life empathizing with our situation. Moreover, He comes to us with a heart that affirms, "Although you betrayed me, I am still your Father." Because He has such a heart, He has been reaching out to us for six thousand years.
52Children inherit their parents' flesh and blood. That is why when their mother sheds tears, they should be able to connect with her and weep with her. When their father sheds tears in sorrow, they should naturally be able to sympathize with him. And yet, how difficult it has been for God to raise and nurture His children to feel that way toward Him! No matter how much God weeps, human beings ignore His tears. No matter how sorrowful He is, human beings do not feel His sorrow. This is because human beings were born from the flesh and blood of Satan. Satan rejoices to see God in sorrow and exults when he sees His ruin. With human beings linked to such a being, God has to go through so much trouble to guide them and teach them the direction of the path they must forge! God could not have led the providence if He did not have a heart to live for the sake of others and a heart that is caring and compassionate, whether for a single individual or for a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand or more.
53A dismal history of pain and sorrow began on the earth from the day of the human Fall. This was not God's original plan or purpose. God did not want a world like this, nor did we want to be born in such a world. Therefore, God wants to eradicate this miserable, sorrowful and painful history. He is taking steps to deal with this fallen world, with the purpose of restoring the world that He originally hoped to create, a world of peace, happiness, freedom and goodness. This is the way of restoration and the way of salvation.
54God has been seeking to recover His relationship with fallen human beings and the lost ideal garden. Through the course of restoration, He is striving to rebuild the garden where once, prior to the Fall, He joyfully related to Adam and Eve. From that state of joy, He wants to create and build a world through which He can realize His ideal. This is the history of the providence of salvation that God has been leading, and this is the history of restoration we must pass through. Therefore, as you go through the course of restoration, surrender yourself to the ways of Heaven. Examine yourself objectively from that standpoint and then reflect seriously about where you stand and the situations in which you struggle. God established religions out of His love. It is through religions that God has been trying to teach human beings their proper position and give them direction. Throughout history God has been looking for us, seeking, through the path of religion and based on our faith, to bring us back to Him.
55If Adam and Eve had not eaten the fruit of good and evil and had not fallen, they would have married within God's realm, inherited His love, life and lineage, and become His children. Such people would have had no need for the Savior. They would have had no need for spiritual nurturing. As God's children in the original world of creation, they would naturally have connected to God, totally one with Him in mind and body. The problem arises from the struggle between mind and body. If your mind and body are not united on earth, you will have to make them one in the spirit world even if it takes millions of years. They need to be united based on true love. Without true love it is impossible to make oneness. True Parents are the representatives of true love, who teach the way of true love. The teaching that they bring can uproot all the sins of history. When we practice it, we can finally achieve liberation.
56Religion does not exist to fulfill people's desires; it exists to fulfill the Will of God. Once we have fulfilled God's Will, then it becomes possible to fulfill our human desires. This is the Principle of Creation, the purpose for which God created human beings. The fallen world has not seen an age when God's Will was fulfilled; hence it has not seen an age when human desires were fulfilled. Therefore, to this day human history has been focused toward the ideal world, the original world of a higher dimension of life. The goal of this pursuit is not to fulfill any one purpose based on human desire; it is to fulfill God's Will. From that point, pursuits for the fulfillment of human desire can begin. This is God's providential view of history. God's Will is, first of all, the perfection of Adam and Eve. Then it is the perfection of the spirit world, the perfection of the angelic world. God is the center, and it is He who has been leading the providence of salvation toward the fulfillment of His Will.
57The fulfillment of God's Will is not what the people of this world are pursuing. God's Will has nothing to do with material conditions. It has nothing to do with worldly knowledge or power. What is the condition that God is seeking? It is the standard of perfection based on love. The world's various religions, although from different historical backgrounds and different ages, have been pursuing this purpose. That is why every religion teaches a concept of benevolence or love. What kind of love meets the standard for perfection? The love of God for Adam is not only for Adam, and the love of God for Eve is not only for Eve. The love of God for Adam and Eve is to flow through the family, tribe, people and nation, and through all their future descendants. From one ideal husband and wife centered on this love, the ideal family of love, the ideal tribe, people, nation and world of love can arise.
58Religions were established by God; among them are the mainstream religions of His mainstream people. To advance the providence to realize God's ideal, God wants to connect a mainstream religion with a central people and a mainstream thought. God's plan is to set up a mainstream religion as the foundation for the realization of His ideal, and then on that foundation to establish a people and a nation through which to bring His ideal into reality. Without these two, a mainstream religion and a central people, there is no way for the human race to inherit God's ideal of creation. Therefore, in history, God sets up a people who can inherit His ideal, based on the religion that is closest to Him. That religion connects individuals, families, tribes, peoples and nations to the world that can inherit God's ideal. This is the way of God's Will and the path by which humankind is to inherit God's ideal.
59The path of religion is to enable people to start living centered on God's Will. Therefore, religions exist for people to follow the way of God's Will. Because God's Will is absolute, it is eternally one. It cannot be two. Therefore, the person who lives centered on God's absolute Will is living the life of the kingdom of heaven on the individual level. A family that lives that way is living the life of the kingdom of heaven on the family level, together with God. If all people throughout the world live in unity, focusing on God's Will for the world -- beyond the levels of one people or one nation -- the world will become the kingdom of heaven on earth.
60The way of the Will is one. The Will moves in one direction, not two. There is only one place where the Will can settle. Look at the people living on earth today: they each take a direction in life based on their own will as they determine it to be. Everyone chooses differently and goes in a different direction. Following their own volition, they pursue various avenues to success and places to settle.
61God's original Will at the time of creation was for God and human beings to live in harmony, in one love and centered on the one Will. All of heaven and earth were to live in the joyous reality of His love, and with His love at the center of their lives, they were to live as one. Yet due to the Fall of Adam and Eve, God's love remained as only His love. That is, God's love was supposed to create relationships with and among human beings, but being unable to forge those relationships, it departed from them and from the entire world of creation. Hence, the ideal that God envisioned in the beginning remains unfulfilled. The love that He hoped for remains unrealized as well. Nevertheless, God will fulfill the Will by all means. That is the reason God has led the providence for six thousand years and continues leading it to this day.
62We are now in the process of fulfilling God's hope, which is our ultimate purpose. As you move forward in that process, you should be able to fulfill the promises you make in faith. If you fulfill them and even go beyond that limit, then you will begin paying back the Lord, whose flesh and blood we received in these Last Days. In this context, what should you do? You should be able to stand boldly for Jesus, in front of him and behind him, at his right side and at his left side, above him and below him, acting on his behalf. You should stand boldly for the Holy Spirit, in front of her and behind her, at her right side and at her left side, above her and below her, acting on her behalf. You should stand boldly even for God, in front of Him and behind Him, at His right side and at His left side, above Him and below Him, acting on His behalf. We must bring God's Will for human beings in heaven and on earth to a conclusion, for only in this way can Jesus' will be fulfilled and God's Will be fulfilled. It may seem as though we are insignificant individuals, but in submitting to God's Will our value is tremendous.
63You are the ones who have to carry out the final remaining adventurous mission on the level of the universe at the conclusion of six thousand years of history. Since this is a universe-level mission, in order to meet it you must also be on the level of the universe. You must be courageous and filled with inner determination to carry out this mission. If your life of faith falls short of what is needed for God's Will, what will happen? Up to the present, God's history progressed when individuals took a bold course that transcended ordinary reality. Hence, you too must go through the gate of an adventurous universelevel course. Only then can you uphold the flag of final victory, sing "Hosanna" in front of God, and stand in the position of His brides before the entire universe. If you are to become God's princes and princesses, you must overcome all conditions without stumbling, and weather any circumstances, even persecution or ridicule. You must set a standard of boldness that transcends ordinary reality.
64You must attend the Lord in the manner that gives Him the maximum freedom, the greatest glory and the greatest joy. In order to do this, you must make every effort to free the Lord from all the conditions throughout history that permit Satan to accuse Him. If you become this kind of person, then when you call "Father!" God will come to you. He will come even before you call Him. This is the standard you need to set in your daily life. God is looking for one person whose character reflects His universal love, a person whose character has such value that he can stand in the position of Jesus and stand in the position to represent history. Jesus wants him to then gather people of like nature and recover the nation, the world and all of heaven and earth. This is God's desire.
65The reason God continues to lead providential history, even repeating it, is to inspire people to respond to His providence. Only in this way can He stand in front of humankind as the God of the ideal. Yet to human beings who live in the realm of Satan, God appears as the fearful God of judgment. To attend God as the God of the ideal, we must be able to experience the grief that was caused Him by the human Fall. We must be able to establish a relationship in which we can abide with Him in His grief. Otherwise, God cannot appear to us as the God of the ideal and cannot appear to us as the Lord of the ideal of creation. On the way to attend the God of the ideal, our path requires that we fight the evil forces that constantly try to block us. This is the path of restoration through indemnity that is required of fallen human beings.
66We know that God's providence is the providence of restoration. What is the providence of restoration? It is taking actions to recover and reinstate what has been lost. In other words, it is the work of re-creating human beings through the Word. Because the human beings, whom God created, completely lost the Word, they need to be created again. We fallen people lost the Word by which we can align our mind and body and experience constant joy in our heart. Hence, we must find the Word, namely, the truth. The Word is also called the truth. The truth is the principle that governs any system. At the same time it is the root of Heaven's principles. That is why the world seeks for the truth to this day. However, the true Word in all its fullness has not yet appeared. Since there has been no true Word, there has been no one who could embody true life. Since no one has embodied true life, there has been no one who could embody true love. Since no one has embodied true love, the true cosmos, the true heaven and earth, have not emerged.
67God's providence of restoration is not guesswork. Since the providence of restoration is the work of re-creation, and it is the work of recovering what was lost, God must do it based on certain principles. God is carrying it out according to the principles of creation. Because God lost human beings as a result of the Fall, even though God created them, they are standing in the position as if God did not finish creating them. So God has to bring them back to the conditional position of having created them again.
68The providence of salvation is the providence of restoration. The providence of restoration is the providence of re-creation. How is the providence of re-creation carried out? During the creation, what did God create first? He created the world of angels first. Then He made all things. Then He created Adam and Eve. These were the three stages of His creation. History likewise has developed to this day through this three-stage principle. That is because all of history has been within the realm of the work of recreation. In order to save fallen human beings, God has had to pursue a course based on the work of recreation.
69Through the providence of salvation, God seeks to restore the form of the original ideal. Hence the providence of salvation is the providence of restoration. Then, by what sort of providence does God carry out the providence of restoration? It is by the providence of re-creation. For the providence of recreation, we must reinvest on God's behalf the same kind of love that He has invested repeatedly to form relationships of love with human beings. That is the only way we can become His ideal creations. For this reason the Bible says: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is, you shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matt 22:37) There is also a third commandment: You shall love all things of creation as you love your mother and father, your spouse and your children. These are the first, second and third commandments. Practice these, and you will achieve everything. You will enter the realm of God's ideal that combines vertical love with horizontal love. This leads to the actualization of that ideal.
70Even as Satan strives to subvert and destroy God's Will, God strives to advance the process of recreation with each victory He wins over him. This cannot be done randomly. Paying indemnity cannot be done in a haphazard way. God has to go back to the point where the process of creation started. This is what you learn when you study the entire providence of salvation, namely that God has been conducting the providence of salvation by the providence of restoration through indemnity. Evaluating the whole of history, we find that first it is the providence of salvation, second it is the providence of restoration through indemnity, and third it is the providence of re-creation. Accordingly, we can say that the providence of salvation is the providence of restoration. It is the providence to bring human beings back to their original position. If a patient who is hospitalized and on the verge of death is revived, he says, "I am saved!" In the same way, salvation means to return to the original position or state. Furthermore, the providence of salvation is the providence of restoration through indemnity. You cannot go back to the original point without investing; you have to pay indemnity.
71God's providence of salvation is the providence of restoration, and the providence of restoration is carried out through indemnity. The providence of restoration cannot be done for free. Sins that were committed must necessarily be indemnified. Paying indemnity means to separate from Satan. When you commit sin, you fall into the realm of Satan's possession. When you pay indemnity you can separate yourself from Satan and return to your original position. How much sin have fallen people committed throughout the long course of history to this day? How can we indemnify all the sins committed by all evil people? Although most people do not know it, good people have been paying that indemnity by being sacrificed. It is the same for national sins. The sins that nations committed in the past are being paid for by the sacrifice of some of its good people. Unless they make sacrifices, no indemnity is paid. Looking further, this is the path along which humankind has developed, all the way up to the world level. In the process, numerous good people sacrificially offered themselves. They paid indemnity for all the sins committed by humankind so that the world could return to its proper state.
72Throughout human history, it was by paying indemnity that a separation was made between good and evil, a separation was made between happiness and sadness, and a separation was made between the way that brings blessings and the way that brings punishment. It is the same throughout the world. Therefore, God's providence of restoration must also proceed by indemnity. There are no exceptions. Indemnity became necessary as a result of the Fall. Those who live their lives without realizing that they are fallen people are living as though they are on the path of the Fall every day. Because of the Fall, God became the God of sorrow, even as He leads the course of the providence of restoration. And God became the God of pain. Yet sorrow and pain were not the end of it; He lost every precious thing that He cherished. To restore that which He lost, God must go the way of pain; to recover them He must again suffer in sorrow. This is what God must endure as He strives to reclaim what He has lost.
73The Fall caused God to lose what was most precious to Him. It is not the case that the Fall only affected human beings, with God having nothing to do with it. God and human beings are in a parentchild relationship. That relationship is in order to realize the ideal of love -- the ideal of oneness between them based on love. However, because human beings separated from God, that ideal of unity in love cannot be found. That is what God lost, and that is what He needs to recover. However, just following the course of indemnity is not enough to recover the ideal of oneness in love that God is seeking. To recover this ideal, there needs to be a program for re-creation. Human beings need to be remade based on a blueprint, just as a blueprint is needed for manufacturing a product in a factory.
74God's purpose in calling the Israelites to the land of Canaan was to have them complete a victorious foundation as one people. Upon that foundation, they were to build a kingdom in Canaan under Heaven's sovereignty and prepare the foundation for the coming of the Messiah. The people of Israel were to attend the Messiah as the central person who would rule over their country. Then they were to defeat Satan's world and complete God's providence of restoration together with the Messiah. Although that was their mission, the people of Israel and their religious leaders did not know it. In those days, there were those among them who thought that when the Savior came, they would automatically become the nation that could rule the world. They did not grasp that they had to complete the history of restoration by first gaining victory on the level of a people and then on the level of the nation before they could achieve a victorious worldwide foundation.
75Unless individuals attain perfection, they cannot form families with a new and higher awareness. And without such new families, a new people and a new nation cannot emerge. Therefore the Unification Church has come forth with a focus on bringing about the perfection of individuals through True Parents. God longs to complete the restoration of the individual. It has taken six thousand years, until today, to substantiate one perfect man. God has been toiling with the goal to bring forth that one perfect man; this has been the whole purpose of His providence of restoration, transcending time. Then, by centering on the one perfect man, God's intention is to recover one woman and form the model for the perfection of the family. This is the messianic teaching. God desires to conclude the providence of restoration by setting up the bridegroom and the bride according to this messianic teaching. By doing so, God plans to lay the foundation for all of human life. The way of life and the teaching that the Messiah brings are the eternal standards that all human beings need to follow.
76Another formula in God's providence of restoration is that before sending the Messiah, He works to set up one central religion and one central nation. God called the Israelites and Judaism. God planned to send Jesus upon that foundation and then expand that realm of goodness by having all humankind unite with him. In this way He would restore the world and realize the ideal of the kingdom of heaven. If the Israelites and Judaism, which God had prepared over four thousand years, had received Jesus, united with him and upheld the one Will in a sacrificial way, then Jesus would have united the Arab world and Asia, connected them to the Western world, and spread the Will quickly to the ends of the earth. In that way, Jesus could have established the kingdom of heaven on earth under God's sovereignty.
77Adam possessed the seed of true love and true life. After God lost Adam, He had to recover the Son, a man having the new seed. This Son has to be a man having no condition for Satan to accuse. Just as God made Adam first at the time of creation, in the providence of restoration, which is the providence of re-creation, God has to first set up a Son who has nothing to do with the Fall. This is the root of the messianic teaching. The Messiah is the true man with the new seed of life. He guides people of the fallen lineage to deny their life and then engrafts his new seed onto them. Even though the Messiah is rooted in God, as the second Adam he must clean up what Adam did. This is the reason God cannot send the Messiah as a superman having God's almighty power.
78The Savior is God's representative who can dissolve the bitter sorrow in God's heart, the sorrow that was brought by the first human beings' failure to fulfill God's love in accordance with His Will. Because they never realized God's love, all people are in despair and filled with bitter sorrow. The Savior is the one who dissolves this bitter sorrow and brings God's love to fulfillment. He comes to help people attain this original love. The Savior does not come to feed those who are hungry physically. He comes to liberate God. A man is liberated when he has a wife of true love. When a man has a wife who loves him and remains with him eternally, there is no imprisonment. He is free. Does God, the original central being, enjoy that kind of freedom? He is a sorrowful God, who, while searching for love and investing His love, had to forget how much He invested, only to invest again.
79God, by all means, has to restore the ideal of true love and peace that He has held onto since the beginning. God's providence of salvation is the providence to restore that original state; in other words, it is the providence of restoration. For the providence of restoration, God set up religions and expanded the realm of goodness. The Messiah whom God sends is responsible to complete the providence of restoration. Therefore the Messiah must come as the True Parents and quickly recover everything, starting from the root. Jesus, who came as the Messiah, had the mission of the True Parents. He came with true love to give rebirth to all humankind and to restore them as true individuals and as true husbands and wives, so that they too could become true parents. Unfortunately he could not complete this mission due to the disbelief of those on earth, and he departed with the promise to return. He must come again as True Parents in order to restore completely God's ideal of creation.
1Due to the Fall, God lost everything that He had created in six days, from the first to the sixth day. Because of human beings, He lost everything. To restore this, God has led providential history for six thousand years. Now this history is moving on to the seventh millennium. Christianity speaks of a kingdom that will last a thousand years, but that thousand years could be understood as one day. The thousand-year kingdom actually refers to the realm of resurrection on the world level.
2You have to build a foundation in your daily life that connects your life in this world to your eternal life. Otherwise that connection will not be made. Adam and Eve should have fulfilled the full potential for their lives on a universal level, but they fell, and God has been toiling for six thousand years to restore this. That is why the history of the providence of restoration is called the history of God's toil.
3If human beings had reached perfection centered on God, their joy would have been God's joy and their glory would have been God's glory. But because they were unable to attain that state, instead of featuring joy and glory as God had hoped, they ended up living in sorrow. Having sinned, they fell far from the garden of the ideal. Ever since then, God has endeavored to restore fallen human beings. This has been the history of the providence of restoration.
4To this day, no one knew that human history was the history of the providence of restoration. Explaining the course of history by the concept of restoration is the Unification Church's great contribution to the study of history. God is the root of history; thus He took responsibility for it, led it and developed it. Along the way there were numerous individuals, families, tribes, peoples and nations who were responsible for the mission of restoration, and whose efforts made it possible for history to advance step by step.
5Looking at things from God's viewpoint, from the beginning of history to the present time God has not yet seen the day of total victory, the day when He could celebrate. Instead, God has been toiling for thousands of years to achieve His ideal of creation, from the day Adam and Eve fell, through the history of the providence of restoration. Still He has not yet reached the stage at which He can claim victory and glory. We have not yet reached that stage; we are still on the way. What God ultimately desires is true victory, when the truth has absolute authority and exercises its power. This power is not to be exercised only once, but should operate continuously throughout history -- past, present and future. On the basis of God's victory, the truth should pervade everything. Nevertheless, God has not yet welcomed such a day. At certain points in the course of the providence of restoration, God attained a partial victory, only to have the next stage in the historical process end in failure.
6The history of the providence of restoration since Adam and Eve has been carried out through vertical relationships. People need to pray, "God! God! Please help us reach the standard of perfection." They have to climb up through the positions of servant of servants, servant, adopted child, direct child and parent. They have to go back to the Old Testament Age before Jacob and become as servants of servants. Then they must climb up through the positions to become adopted children, and to become direct children. Only in this way can they finally meet the True Parents, the Messiah who with his bride stands in the position of the Parents of humankind. In this way the era when human beings were servants of servants, the era when they were servants, and the eras when they became adopted children, direct children and parents, can all be liberated.
7We are the people who must recover the kingdom of heaven, the garden of victory that people throughout history have been seeking with hope and faith. To do so, we ourselves must become individuals that God can be happy with and form families that God can be happy with. However, in order to form such families, we must restore ourselves as true brothers and sisters, true couples, and true parents. It is to restore all of these that God has been conducting His providence in history. The Old Testament Age was the age that symbolized hope, and the New Testament Age was the age that symbolized faith. But in the future, the age that symbolizes love will come. We call it the Completed Testament Age. This destiny is now unfolding, from the heavenly world to the earthly world.
8The ideal world of creation was to be built based on the one Will, but due to the Fall it was not fulfilled. Nevertheless, God has absolute authority. Even though the entire external world may change, God will never change. Even though He lost Adam and Eve and all things to the devil, Satan, since God is still God, the Absolute Being, He must bring Satan, who was originally an archangel, to voluntarily surrender. He has to establish His authority as the absolute God, but in a natural way that does not insist upon His authority. God is good. Therefore, He cannot strike the evil Satan first. In the realm of God, who is good and whose essence is love, there can be no cause or motive for striking first. God must live even for that enemy. God invests and invests Himself for all created things and lives for their sake. This is the dignity and absolute authority of God. Hence, even though the devil came into existence and no matter how much he opposes God, he can never cause God to compromise His dignity and authority. Since God continues living for others even in that position, His providence of salvation inevitably has taken thousands of years. Yet through this course He is bringing the devil ever closer to natural submission.
9Human history is the struggle between good and evil. God originally intended to govern true parents, true children, true families, true nations, a true world and a true universe according to the ideal of true love. However, Satan has been governing false parents, false children, false families, false nations, a false world and a false universe through false love. To restore this, human history has entailed repeated struggles between good and evil. That is to say, from individuals up to the global level, Satan has mimicked God's way of developing history through the Principle, imitating the principled world before the true one could emerge. He seized the initiative, with the pretense that his was the true world, and tried to destroy the world of the Principle. Hence, struggles between good and evil were inevitable. In leading the providence of re-creation, God takes an altruistic stance. He acts for the sake of others again and again and follows the strategy of being struck first and then taking back what is His. On the other hand, Satan takes a self-centered stance and strikes first; but later he must pay compensation for the damage. God's strategy is to be struck first and later to claim damages; Satan always strikes first but comes to ruin later. In this way, the good side advances by being struck first, receiving persecution and making sacrifices, while Satan's side does the opposite.
10When we look at the overall course of restoration in history, we see that God leads the providence through the three stages of formation, growth and completion. The course of the providence advances from the Old Testament Age, the era of servants, to the New Testament Age, the era of adopted children, to the Completed Testament Age, the era of true children, and finally to the era of true parents.
11Human history can be categorized into three ages: the Old Testament Age, the New Testament Age and the Completed Testament Age. The Old Testament Age was the age when children were redeemed by sacrificial offerings. It was a time to make preparations for the coming of God's Son. In the New Testament Age, Jesus became the offering. Based on this, we received the Parents. During that time, God made preparations for the coming of the bride and bridegroom, so that we could receive the Parents at the time of the Second Coming. The reason why I, bearing the name True Parent, have suffered for forty years as the central person of the Completed Testament Age is to welcome God on earth and achieve oneness between God and human beings.
12How is it that God has continued in bitter sorrow through the six thousand years of history? He had to lead human beings, who were positioned between God and Satan, to make certain conditions. These conditions are the mountains of offering sacrifices. Looking back at the six thousand years of providential history, in the Old Testament Age God led human beings to climb the mountain of offering by sacrificing the things of creation; and in the New Testament Age they climbed the mountain through the offering of Jesus Christ, who gave his actual body. What, then, are you to offer as a sacrifice in the Completed Testament Age? You faithful believers have to climb the mountain by offering yourselves as sacrifices. Thus it is that providential history has advanced overall based on the offering of sacrifices. In the Old Testament Age people climbed the mountain by offering the things of creation. In the New Testament Age, the offering of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, surmounted the mountain of sacrifice. Now, in the Completed Testament Age, you, representing the bridegroom and the bride, have to climb over the mountain of sacrifice by offering yourselves. You will not see the world of true peace, freedom and the ideal until you have climbed over the mountain of sacrifice.
13In the Old Testament Age, the things of creation were sacrificed as offerings to God; in the New Testament Age the offering was made by the sacrifice of His Son; and in the Completed Testament Age it is the Parents who sacrifice themselves. God's purpose in having human beings sacrifice material things and in denying their right of ownership was to restore them as His sons and daughters. His purpose in sacrificing His Son, Jesus, was to recover the Parents, and the purpose of the Parents carrying the cross is to attend God. Therefore the Old Testament Age is the age of righteousness by works, the New Testament Age is the age of righteousness by faith, and the Completed Testament Age is the age of righteousness by attendance.
14In order to attend 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. Then, what needs to be done from now on? You must stand in the position representing the Parents, Mother and Father. All the things of creation represent the Old Testament Age, and God's sons and daughters represent the New Testament Age, and the Parents represent the Completed Testament Age.
15On the path of restoration, we should go up from the era of servant of servants through the era of servants and the era of adopted children to the era of direct children. But how can we complete the course from the era of servant of servants to the era of servants to the era of adopted children, and be connected to the era of the direct lineage? Connecting to the era of the direct lineage cannot be done just like that. Following the Principle, we are required to go through the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance, which are necessary for the foundation to receive the Messiah. That is, we need to welcome the Messiah. The Messiah is the true Son of God, but the lineage of a true son is different from that of an adopted child. This is why we need the change of lineage.
16What is the fundamental issue as we go the path of restoration through indemnity? We have to fulfill the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Completed Testament. Fulfilling the Completed Testament means the whole world will come under God's sovereignty. This is what is required to fulfill the Completed Testament Age. The Old Testament Age was the era for restoring all things of creation, the New Testament Age was the era for restoring the people of God's kingdom, and the Completed Testament Age is the era for restoring God's sovereignty. This means we have to restore God's sovereignty over the world. Jesus' mission was to restore the people of the world. In other words, the mission of Christianity is to restore all the people of the world as one people, and the mission of the Lord of the Second Advent is to restore the world to the sovereignty of the One.
17The Old Testament Age was the age of the servant. It was the era when people in the position of servant of servants were restored to the position of servant. Even Abraham was God's servant, not His son. God established the way of loyalty by setting up servants of servants and then servants. This was the way God advanced His providence in history, a providence that will ultimately bring together all the people in the world and bring the world stage, hitherto under the dominion of evil, 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 a servant of servants to that of a servant, and from the position of a servant to that of an adopted son.
18In the Old Testament Age, the providence of salvation for all humanity was to bring them to the position of God's servants. Yet restoring them to the position of servant required that the central figures of that age attain victory from the beginning to the end. That is why God had to make incredible sacrifices through four thousand years of history just to set up central figures such as Noah and Abraham.
19Human history began with religion, and throughout history religion has flowed together with humanity. It exists to show us the way of hope. From the day of the Fall, God took responsibility for having created human beings. He has been toiling throughout the course of history in order to save fallen people. As a result of the Fall, Satan took dominion over human beings and drove them into unimaginable situations. Yet because they were not supposed to love centered on Satan, God had to push people to positions so low that even Satan would lose his grip on them. That is why God began the providence of salvation for human beings by taking them to the position of servant of servants. This is the reason God conducted His providence through the religions that teach the way of a servant of servants. They teach that we must serve for the sake of humanity. As long as we are in the position of a servant of servants, we are not qualified to have anyone serve us. Therefore, we have no other way but to surrender and obey unconditionally. In the position of a servant of servants, your master is another servant, not a rightful master.
20Before the Old Testament Age, people were in the position of servant of servants. After the Old Testament Age began, they could reach the position of servant, and hence they could relate with the Lord. People in the position of servant of servants cannot, on their own, pioneer the way to become a servant, so God pioneered the way for them. God had to educate people who were far more evil than servants of servants. But since people cannot see the invisible God even if He stands right in front of them, He chose prophets to educate them. God chose prophets to represent Him on earth, and the people had to obey them in order to follow God's orders.
21What did the prophets have to teach the people? They had to teach the people that in order to follow God's desired providence they had to go against the stream of fallen history and establish the way of obedience to Him. God needed them to be more loyal to Him than they were to Satan. In short, God, through the prophets, had to teach them their duty as servants. After they completed that duty, they had to set up a system to form individuals, families, tribes and a people who would prepare the environment in relation to the providential Will. But they were unable to set up this environment while in the position of servants. God therefore led the providence by presenting them with the messianic ideal and promising that He would send them the Savior someday. This was the providence that centered on the Israelites.
22In the Old Testament Age, God found those whom He could use as His servants by having them make sacrificial offerings. Such was Old Testament history. Human beings had fallen to a position lower than the things of creation. Since the things of creation were closer to God than the people were, God worked through the things of creation. He ordered the Israelites to cut them in half, and separate what belonged to Him from what belonged to Satan. Why did God tell them to divide and sacrifice these things? It was not because of God or Satan; it was because of human beings, who were unable to fulfill their responsibility. The inheritance of Satan's lineage was the point at which they failed to fulfill their responsibility.
23Although human beings fell, they could not entirely leave God. In striving to come back to Him, they had to start from the position of servant of servants. What does "servant of servants'' mean? It means that they do not have their originally intended master. Thus fallen people have to be loyal to God and serve Him from the position of servant of servants. Satan was an archangel, God's servant. Human beings were pressed into the service of this servant. Therefore, in order to return to God they had to demonstrate their loyalty to God from the position of a servant of servants.
24The Old Testament states that God called Noah and Abraham to serve as His messengers and deliver His word to the people. The people of the world had fallen into darkness. In order to lift them up to a position where the Heavenly Father could relate with them as His children, He called Abraham and established the people known as the Israelites. Through this people, God pioneered the way for humankind to gradually return to Him. God toiled during that era of four thousand years, utilizing the angels to help achieve the standard in His work. That standard was the preparation for the coming of Jesus, who would establish the victorious foundation upon which the people of Israel could relate directly to the Father. It was also the foundation for Jesus to fulfill God's Will for Adam and Eve.
25Jesus Christ came to the earth to fulfill God's covenant with the Israelites, by having them uphold God's Will. He came to fulfill God's covenant with the people who at an earlier point in history had been in the position of servants, and restore them to the position of adopted children and then true children. One who has faithfully fulfilled his or her duty as a loyal servant can then stand in the position of adopted child. That is why in the providential history of restoration God tried to lead the Israelites to fulfill the duty of loyal servants, and upon that foundation He wanted to relate to them as His adopted children.
26How can one become an adopted child? Until the Son of God came to this earth, it was not possible. After the Son of God came to the earth, those who listened to the Son's commands and obeyed them could finally become adopted children. This is how God worked to connect the Old Testament Age to the New Testament Age. Believers in the Old Testament Age were servants who wished to receive the inheritance, which is a benefit of becoming adopted children. That is why they waited for the coming of the Messiah. In other words, their desire was to surmount the sorrowful circumstances of a servant and advance, through the Messiah, to the position of adopted children. In the absence of a son or daughter of direct lineage, an adopted child is entitled to receive the inheritance from his or her parents. God, in directing the servant-level Old Testament Age, therefore guided the people so that they would maintain their desire to transcend the servant's position and thus benefit from attending His Will. God desired them to do so. This is why the Israelites continued to long for the privilege of leaving behind the position of servant and receiving God's inheritance, and why they maintained the concept of being the chosen people.
27Jesus went one step higher and introduced God's love. In the Old Testament Age, Moses introduced only the God of authority, the God of power and the God of judgment, but he was not able to introduce the God of love. It was Jesus who introduced His love. Yet although he introduced the God of love and was himself a man of love, the people of his time did not accept him.
28Two thousand years ago, Jesus was sent to the earth. On the foundation of Judaism, he was to establish the realm of a world religion in his lifetime. He was to stand as the axis of a religious movement on God's side that would assimilate Rome, even though it might face Rome's opposition. That is, in Jesus, God sent the very Messiah that Judaism had been waiting for. Who was Jesus? He came as the Messiah of Judaism and died while pioneering the way of the Messiah of the world. Then, what happened to Judaism? Up to that time they had been attending God as the God of Judaism, but that was no longer sufficient. What did Jesus come to earth to teach? He did not come to teach about God according to the teachings of the Old Testament. He came to teach about the God of the New Testament Age.
29As a first step, God raised up Israel as a servant nation and raised a people who would serve. Then, when Jesus, the Son of God, came to them, had they believed in him and believed his words, then by their faith in him they would have been elevated from the position of servants to that of adopted children. Then, when Jesus had gone a step higher, his believers would have become his children. What do I mean when I talk about Jesus going a step higher? After the Fall on earth, there were no original ancestors. Therefore, if Jesus had been elevated to the ancestor's position, the people of Israel could have gone from the position of adopted children, been engrafted into him as God's children, and received their right of inheritance. However, this did not happen. That is why Romans Chapter 8 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, "The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" This shows that they could only become adopted children. Christians today are adopted children, from a different lineage.
30What must you do to become adopted children? That is the question. Adopted children should be better than servants. Adopted children should be better than the servants on God's side and better than Satan, who is the king of the evil world. Satan was originally an archangel, a servant; to be an adopted child you have to be better than a servant. This is logical from the viewpoint of the Principle. Therefore, you must have the conviction that you will conquer Satan's world with your own hands; otherwise you cannot become adopted children. In order for God to move forward, today He needs one representative who can live for His sake more than anyone else has in history. Only when that person appears can we enter the era of adopted children. God has toiled throughout the long ages of history, through a vertical history age after age, to mobilize one people and create the realm of adopted children. We too need to emerge as adopted children in order to earn our right of inheritance from God, our Parent.
31If God had His own children, He would have no need to adopt children. It is because He has no children of His own that He needs adopted children. God's purpose in adopting children is eventually to restore true children. Therefore, an adopted child should have the heart that the inheritance he or she receives from God is not really theirs to keep; it is meant for God's direct sons and daughters. This is how adopted children should be. Adopted children should be willing to offer their lives for the sons and daughters who are to come. They should hope to see the birth of the sons and daughters of direct lineage whom God desires, although it may require sacrificing everything they have. They must always prepare such a heart to receive them. Unless they uphold this standard as adopted children, they will have no relationship with the direct children of God.
32What does the Completed Testament refer to? It refers to the fulfillment of God's covenant to establish the ideal of creation. Then what does the Completed Testament Age refer to? Adam and Eve were supposed to be God's children and complete the ideal of creation, but they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. The Completed Testament Age occurs when they return as the son and daughter on God's side, the ones who can finally represent God's kingship on the world level. On this foundation, we will be able to return to a world that has nothing to do with the Fall, where God will welcome individuals, families, tribes, peoples, nations and the world.
33What is the Completed Testament Age? The Completed Testament Age is the time when humankind advances toward God's ideal, which is based on families on earth that center on the Parents' love, a new world free from Satan's accusation. The Completed Testament Age, from the point of view of the Principle, is the realm of the Parents who have completed their portion of responsibility. A covenant entails responsibility. The Fall was the failure to fulfill the human portion of responsibility. The Old Testament refers to the old covenant, the New Testament refers to the new covenant, and the Completed Testament that we are now talking about refers to the time of completing the covenant. Completing the covenant means that all the people of the world complete their portion of responsibility. Because of the prior failure to fulfill human responsibility, our responsibilities as individuals, families, tribes, peoples, nations, the world and cosmos still remain before us. What is more, Satan's world came into existence. Since Satan came into existence because of our failure, we now need to fulfill our responsibility in order to eliminate him.
34Looking at God's providence, we can see that it consists of three stages. They are the Old Testament Age, the New Testament Age and the Completed Testament Age. Christians believe that everything was finished with the Old and New Testaments, but that is not the case. They do not know that the Completed Testament Age lies in front of them. Jesus must return to complete the Will; we call this the Completed Testament. We have the Old Testament and the New Testament; those covenants should be completed, should they not? The Lord of the Second Advent comes to this earth to complete the Will.
35The Completed Testament Age is the age of fulfillment. We should fulfill its covenant on the levels of the individual, family, tribe, people, nation and world. All these levels should be linked, centered on God's love, God's life and God's lineage. In this way, we will establish one lineage, one love and one life as the tradition. When this happens, Satan will have to leave. This is done by the work of engrafting, which will naturally remove our connection to Satan's lineage.
36In the Old Testament Age, the things of creation were sacrificed to pave the way for the Son and, in the New Testament Age, the Son offered himself as a sacrifice to pave the way for the Lord of the Second Advent, the True Parents. In the Completed Testament Age, True Parents sacrifice themselves in order to bring God's vertical love to the earth. In relation to humankind, God is the vertical Parent of true love. True Parents are the horizontal Parents, whose true love is aligned at a ninety-degree angle with the vertical Parent. On the foundation of this vertical and horizontal love, God's love and life will be able to burst forth for the first time. With the virtuous union of husband and wife with God, new blood ties between them will expand, based on the love of True Parents. In this way, the seed of life that began in God's love based on the standard of the original Principle will appear on earth for the first time in human history.
37The Old Testament Age was the age when the things of creation were sacrificed to find sons and daughters. In the New Testament Age, sons and daughters were martyred to pave the way for the coming of the Parents. When the Parents come to the earth, they will pave the way for God to come. The mission of the True Parents is to build a horizontal base for the vertical Father, encompassing all the peoples of the world. As the True Father's horizontal realm of heart unfolds, the Heavenly Father's vertical realm of heart will naturally unfold and settle there. When God reaches the point where He can embrace both vertical and horizontal love, for the first time He will make the transition to the age when He can go beyond the fallen-world, attain the core position, and reestablish His original, ideal authority. Then He will say, "Everything is accomplished."
38We look at God as the Lord of our hope and the Lord of our faith. He is also the Lord of our love. God, the Lord of hope, faith and love, guided human history through the Old Testament Age, which represents hope, and the New Testament Age, which represents faith. Therefore, henceforth we need to go through the Completed Testament Age, which represents love. What is the one main element of the Completed Testament Age, that is, the age of the Lord of the Second Advent, which will remain unchanging forever? It is God's love. God's love is the central element overall; it is also the ideal element overall. For the sake of this love, people have walked their providential courses with hope and faith. Nevertheless, if you do not now walk the providential course of love, the foothold of unity on earth will crumble. God needs to set this up, centering on love.
1To complete the providence of restoration, we must restore all levels that were not completed. This includes the level Adam could not attain after the Fall and the level Jesus Christ was unable to reach. All of these we have to explain, indemnify and restore in the context of our present time. This is the mission of the Unification Church. I have to fulfill them myself, and I have to lead all the Unification Church members worldwide who follow me to do the same. This is my mission.
2We must awaken to an understanding of God's plan for the world -- the environment and the ideal that He bestowed upon Adam and Eve prior to their Fall. We have to have a clear ideological standard and conviction so that we can overcome any harsh environment, no matter how much our enemy, the devil, may oppose and struggle against us. With this we should be strong enough to overcome all the evils that influence society and affect our daily life. If we are pulled down and fall away, it will be impossible to complete the providence of restoration. That is why each of us who is alive on earth and who knows the Will must resolve, "I am the one who will solve the problems of this world. I will do it, even if I am the only one left on earth." Without having such conviction, we cannot stand as representatives of the world in front of God, the subject partner. Thinking of this, unless our basic attitude is that we are free from attachments to this world, unless we uphold the ideal that God had for Adam and Eve before the Fall, unless we have the mindset that we are the embodiments of the subject partner, and unless we are resolved to transcend this world of death, we will surely fail repeatedly on the way of the Will.
3Up to now there has never been a true family, a family whose lineage is based on God's true love. Our ancestors are fallen, and our ties with them are based on false love, false life and false lineage; that is the reason our mind and body struggle against each other. Adam and Eve became enemies, and killing occurred among their children. God's providence of salvation is the providence to restore all this. In order to complete the providence of salvation, we have to build the true family that was lost. That is, we have to be sons and daughters who unite our mind and body, and then we have to become couples that absolutely unite in true love and live with God eternally.
4When the Messiah comes again, what will be his purpose? It will be to shatter Satan's sovereignty, bring humankind back to God, expel Satan from this world, and work with Christianity to finish God's providence of salvation. These are the purposes that the Messiah comes to fulfill. In other words, the mission of the Messiah is to complete the providence of restoration for the sake of returning to the original world of God's Will.
5The Lord of the Second Advent comes to complete the foundation of God's providence of restoration that Jesus left. Specifically, he comes to perfect the ideal of True Parents, who are the origin of God's true love, true life and true lineage. Thus, he is the original seed for completing the ideal of creation. He comes upon the victorious foundation of the fundamental providence on God's side that had been completed up to the time of Jesus. This means that he comes directly upon the foundation of the victories that Jesus established in his life up through the time of his maturity as an individual. Then he fulfills the tasks that Jesus left to be accomplished later. These are to find his bride, to become the True Parents, and to save all of humankind.
6Jesus was to be the Parent of all human beings. He was sent by God to be the second Parent. For the victorious third Parent to appear, he must build on what Jesus accomplished as he strove to become the second Parent. This is logical. For Jesus to become the second Parent, he had to restore the position of Adam and Eve, who should have been the first Parents. Yet he was unable to restore the position of the first Parents, which would have been his victorious foundation to be the second Parent. Because Jesus died before he could lay this foundation, the providence was prolonged to a third attempt. Therefore, the returning Lord, who comes for this third attempt, must establish a victorious foundation by indemnifying, both spiritually and physically, the failure of Adam and Eve, the first Parents, and the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who came in the position of the second Parents. If he does not do so, he cannot emerge on earth with his bride as the victorious True Parents.
7Adam failed, and Jesus died before he could conclude his mission as the second Adam. Hence, it is the Lord of the Second Advent, coming as the third Adam, who must complete their missions both spiritually and physically and eliminate Satan's domain and sovereignty. He must finish the providence of salvation and guide the world to return to God's original perfect ideal. One of the last tasks in God's providence of salvation is to connect the kingdom of heaven on earth and the kingdom of heaven in heaven, so that they may freely interact.
8The people who are in the spirit world and the people who live on earth come from different time periods. Nevertheless when they live according to True Parents' principled path, all the barriers between them will be broken down. They will establish structures based on the original standard, so that all may advance to the kingdom in heaven. When all people do this, True Parents' mission will be conclusively completed. Considering this, we should not forget that the era of completion, the era for the fulfillment of God's Will, is unfolding before our very eyes!
9We must liberate God by centering on His love. God has been confined because of fallen love. It is as if He is in prison. He has never been set free. Although the God who created the universe is allknowing and all-powerful, it has always been His intention to establish the ideal world based on love. Yet due to human beings, the universe was snatched away by Satan. As long as God does not separate Satan from this world, He cannot be liberated in heart. That is, as long as Satan is not cut off, the foundation to liberate God in heart has not come about in the universe; consequently God remains confined. Can His heart and mind be at rest when His beloved children are no better than dead?
10The Fall took away God's freedom. I am saying that the Fall put God in shackles and chains. The Fall also put the first ancestors of the human race in shackles, and the realm of angels as well. Not only that, countless religious people in history lived a fettered existence, struggling against these shackles. Such is the case for all of humankind.
11Unless all people are freed from the realm of lamentation, God our Parent cannot be free from the realm of lamentation. No parents can be comfortable while their beloved children live amid worries and fears. Since God is in such a situation, we should liberate Him. How can we liberate God? God is in a prison where He is unable to freely love all people. He must be released into the realm of freedom where He can freely love all of humankind. This is something that we are responsible to do. This problem was caused by the human Fall; therefore we ourselves must liberate God by becoming sons and daughters who are victorious over the Fall.
12Who can stop the fighting between God and Satan? Will that fight just come to an end? How can it, when almost no one has been a devoted son or daughter showing the way of filial piety to God, and no one could fulfill the duties of loyal patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters of God's kingdom? God has had no place to stand, having lost the mainstream of love through which people would uphold God's kingdom. That is why God has been incarcerated and confined to this day. The spirit world includes hell, the middle realms and paradise. Jesus is in paradise, although he should be in the kingdom of heaven. How can there be such places as paradise, the middle realms and hell in the world that God created? It is because of the Fall that God suffers this anguish.
13Have you ever met the ideal grandfather or grandmother whom God has been searching for? Have you ever met a grandfather or grandmother whom God wanted to become like? Have you met that person, or not? Because of the Fall, you never could meet such a person. Have you met the ideal mother or father whom God has been searching for? No, you have not. Have you ever met the ideal wife or husband whom God has been searching for? No, you have not. Have you ever met the ideal son or daughter whom God has been searching for? No, you have not. God has not found such people, so how can His bitter sorrow ever be dissolved? What can sever the chains and bonds around God's heart? It can only be done by love, by God's love. Nothing except God's essential love can do it.
14We need to liberate God; it is our destiny. We should have faith that thirsts to liberate God and hope that hungers to liberate God. We should be burning with love. We should be the people whom God has sought for six thousand years, who can say, "It is on account of humankind that God is in shackles; not only that, it is my fault that God is in shackles. It is my fault that Satan is accusing God. It is my fault that Jesus died on the cross. It is my fault that the Holy Spirit has been going through a bloody history of struggle. Oh, God, please give me strength! I will bring You to the place of Sabbath and liberation. Father, I will also bring Jesus and the Holy Spirit to the place of liberation."
15We call God "Father." Do you think God would say, "Good; you are doing well," when He sees people on earth, the good and the bad alike, dancing to Satan's tune and under his dominion? Because God has ties with us as a Parent with His children, He cannot help but toil and struggle to free our hearts from their prison-like confinement and to alleviate the sad and miserable conditions that afflict heaven and earth and everything under the sun. Therefore, we have to understand God's inner situation and liberate Him from that situation.
16We have to liberate God. This involves the number four. After the Old, New, and Completed Testament Ages, there will come the era of liberation from sorrow. When the era of liberation from sorrow comes, we must offer everything. It does not mean that God will receive everything and keep it all for Himself. Rather, He will hand it over to Adam. After Adam receives it, he will give it back to God, and then God will hand it back to Adam -- to True Parents. From that point they will begin to distribute the right of ownership back to us. When we receive it and take ownership, we will be able to enter the era of the kingdom of unity. These are necessary steps for realizing the kingdom of heaven on earth.
17We need to save the nation and the world. Yet in order to save the world, we first must liberate God. Only after God is liberated can the world be liberated. What I am saying is that we have to liberate God first and then liberate the world. For this, we Unification Church members have to reach out to the ends of the earth. The bonds of heart we establish with people should be like stakes of love sunk deep into the earth. In this way we will melt the world with love.
18When parents have lost a child, to whom can they appeal about their miserable situation? Unless that child comes back to life and assuages his or her parents' grief, the bitter sorrow embedded in their hearts cannot be dissolved. Nor can they remove the nail that pierced their heart. Who will take out that nail from God's bitter heart and liberate it with tears of love? Who can pull that nail out of the flesh and blood of God's heart and heal it with restored flesh? Who can give God release from His sorrow? It is we who must liberate God, and we should do so before tending to our own liberation. You should know that this is the path to the ultimate liberation that religious people are seeking.
19Christianity teaches the idea of the returning Christ. But when Jesus returns, what will he do? God has not been able to evade Satan's incessant demands. Only the Messiah can cut off Satan; only he can stop Satan from making demands on God and making claims for his unrighteous cause. That is why the Lord of the Second Advent has to come to earth and liberate God. The Lord of the Second Advent must carry out the central role, to stand for public righteousness and take responsibility for liberating God.
20"Tears are flowing from God's eyes; red blood is surging in His heart. Yet the blood vessels through which His blood should be flowing are clogged, and He is brought low as if at the point of death. I am resolved to liberate this suffering God by following the way of a filial son, patriot, world saint and divine son. And after I have done all that, and God comes and embraces me and says with tears, "You have worked hard," still I will have to say, "I have done nothing." I turn away to shed my own tears only after I have dried God's tears. I am going such a way according to Heaven's law. It is the path that I must go as the True Father.
21I am trying to liberate God by my own efforts. God is not free; He is in confinement. He is the Parent who has lost His sons and daughters. When a filial child dies, even if another child is ten times more devoted than the deceased child and does everything to ease his or her parents' hearts, still that child cannot liberate them to the point of restoring their hearts to their original state. I am like that second devoted child, trying nevertheless to liberate God who is in that situation. Meanwhile, Christians today mistakenly believe that God is omnipotent and therefore can do anything He pleases.
22Just to look at me, you may think that I am no different from other people. Yet, my way of thinking is different; I have a different philosophy. It is not my face or my body that makes me great, but my philosophy. My spirit is such that when I move, God Himself wants to move with me; He wants to follow me. This is my strength. God has been unable to fulfill the purpose of love. Yet I am asserting that with love I will liberate Him. Through my encounters with God, I have come to know His bitter sorrow over His unfulfilled purpose of love. I am trying to liberate God from this bitter sorrow. What I am saying is logical. I assert it based on systematic logic and scientific proof.
23In order to attain God's original ideal, what is the work that sons and daughters of God must do, for which God will praise them with a liberated heart? My teaching, and the teaching of the Unification Church, is that husbands and wives have to be sons and daughters born from God's lineage, and attend Him as their eternal Parent for a thousand, even ten thousand years. That is how we can become God's own, qualified to receive God's eternal praise. We have to reach that position if we are to heal the wounds that remain in God's heart as a result of the Fall.
24Some people pray, "O God of glory! Please give me blessings." But God is not in that position. On the contrary, He is in misery, suffering in confinement. God is in such a sorrowful situation because He has no true sons and daughters, and only through their birth can He be liberated. That is why we must become true sons and daughters -- in order to liberate God. Unless we do so, the way of Heaven cannot be properly secured and the ideal world cannot be established on earth. This has been the mission of the Unification Church during the course of its history. That mission is to correct what went wrong.
25God is in the process of restoration. He is not in His original state as God. Rather, He is a God of sorrows, a God who deserves to be consoled. He is not the God of joy, but of despair. For God to return to His original state, we must liberate Him. We cannot do it with money or power. Human capacity falls short. It is possible only by true love.
26Unification Church members are working as a unit for God's liberation. We are not talking about liberating the world. Liberating the world is rather easy. Liberating the world merely requires bringing peoples and nations together, but liberating God requires unity of heart. For this we need the Principle, which is a system of thought that can unite the realm of love. We have to untangle the entangled relationships in the spirit world and build bridges of heart on earth. It is a revolution more fearsome and difficult than any other. This is why I say that liberating humanity is easy compared to liberating God. It simply amazes me that I have become the standard-bearer for tackling a task unprecedented in this world. It is remarkable that I have been able to provide answers to the fundamental issues of providential history.
End of The God Who Needs Liberation