CSG 2.2
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1There have never been true parents in all of history. Because there were only false parents on the earth, there were no true parents in the heavenly world either. God is called the Parent of humankind, but what position is God in? For God Himself to become a true parent, He must have true children. If He does not, He cannot be a true parent. Therefore, when we look at God's own position, we see that even though He created us, He could not take the position of the True God, the one who created us. In other words, because the first human ancestors fell, God could not become the True God. If human beings had attained perfection, the true family of humankind with True Parents at the center would have emerged, and together with this true family, the true tribe, true people, true nation and true world would have emerged. If this had happened, people would have had blood ties to the True God and would have inherited the heart of the True God. Being related by blood to the True God, they would have formed the people of the True God. Based on that one people, one nation under God's direct governance would have been established.
2Because we are fallen people, we are an extended family that has lost its true parents. Since we lost our true parents, we could not become true children. Even though the highest ideals of goodness that God intended to establish at the time of creation -- true parents and true children -- all broke down, God has vowed that He will bring true parents into being, even if a course of historical hardship is necessary, even if He has to endure endless hardship and suffering. At the same time, God is working to restore true children, true husbands and wives, true siblings, true nations, the true world, true humankind, and the true cosmos. God did not work by coming into the hearts of fallen people from the outset; He started working from a distance. First He connected to fallen people through all things and then through His true Son. Now He intends to come into the heart of each individual to become the Father of heart. This is the final goal of the providence of restoration.
3The history of the fallen world shows us that the parents born into this world are fallen parents. Fallen parents have created a fallen world. We live in a world connected to false parents. It has nothing to do with the world of the original ideal that God had envisioned and the True Parents envision. Countless people have lived and died during the world's long history, but not one could proudly proclaim to the universe, "I am so happy that I was born as a human being! I have succeeded in all aspects of being human."
4The hope of all people in history has been to receive and attend the True Parents. God founded the nation of Israel and the religion of Judaism so that they could receive the Messiah. The Messiah is the True Parent. God created Christianity and Christian culture to receive the Lord at his Second Coming. The returning Lord comes as the True Parent and the third Adam.
5What is the hope that we should nurture? We should hope that we can genuinely attend the True Parents who come to the earth on behalf of Heaven. We should not want to attend the True Parents only after they are victorious, when all people look up to them and respect them. We should want to attend them while they are passing through their sorrowful course. Your ancestors feel deep sorrow because they could not attend the True Parents during their course of suffering. It is the hope of all humankind to truly serve the True Parents. Therefore you should become true, filial sons and daughters, willing to serve the True Parents in miserable circumstances rather than in glorious ones.
6At the time of the True Parents advent, the nations of the world were relating to each other as brothers and sisters. At the end of the Second World War, the victorious nations liberated the nations that they defeated. The former, in the position of the older brother, had defeated the latter, in the position of their younger brother. Then these victorious nations blessed the nations in the younger brother's position. Had they not, the victorious nations would have been held accountable by the Heavenly Parent. That is why this unprecedented historical phenomenon took place. History has been yearning for the encounter with the True Parents. Religions came about for the sake of that encounter. Furthermore, all the nations of the world are looking for the True Parents. Thus, religions and nations emerged with the mission to prepare the way for the True Parents.
7The True Parents are the symbol of all hope, the symbol of absolute hope for fallen people. They are the fruit of history, the center of all ages and the center of all the nations of the world. The True Parents are the starting point of a future that connects to the ideal world. What have our ancestors wished for throughout the ages in history? If the world were united, whom would it wish to find? It would wish to find the True Parents. In other words, it would wish to relate with the True Parents eternally.
8No one in history was able to call out the name "True Parents." They never even conceived of it. But today you are in the glorious position of being able to call their name, know them and attend them. So you are in a happier and nobler position than anyone in history: Many people throughout history toiled and made tremendous sacrifices to lay the foundation for the victory of the True Parents at their coming, and to this day they are still toiling. Considering this, you should know that the words "True Parents" that we speak today signify the greatest blessing for humanity. It is because the True Parents are the ones who bring healing to the chaos of history; they are the starting point of our advancement toward a new world; they are laying the internal conditions that can subjugate Satan; and by conquering Satan, the being that has ruled the external world, they are establishing the center that will liberate God. Therefore you should first be thankful for this amazing grace by which you can live together with the True Parents, receiving and carrying out their instructions.
9The True Parents represent the greatest hope and the greatest foundation of victory in history. As they are the central point of hope in history, all people must seek them. The place of historical hope is neither a nation nor the world. Outwardly it may appear to be a nation or the world, but you cannot solve the external world's problems by working through the external world alone. The purpose of God's providence is to save the world, and in order to do so, He must send good parents to the earth to create a perfect foundation. Without that foundation there is no way to create a perfect nation or to save the world. Therefore, the overall hope of history is neither a nation nor the world; it is the True Parents. In this context, people can have neither their own ethnic views nor their own worldviews. Ethnic views should emerge only after the True Parents, lineage has been bequeathed to humankind. Tribes and peoples should be organized after inheriting their lineage, and then the world can be restored to God. Without True Parents, none of these is possible. Without receiving the True Parents, nothing can work.
10What has history been searching for? What have all ages been searching for? What should the future search for? It is True Parents. Unless everything is connected to them, we cannot find the standard for real happiness in the course of history or in the universe. As for love, originally its vertical and horizontal foundations, centering on God and human beings, both have to be the same. Ever since these foundations were separated, fallen humankind has yearned to make them one again. Therefore, Christianity seeks the relationship of the bridegroom and the bride centering on Jesus.
11We are seeking our purpose now, not a thousand years in the future. The purpose we have found now is one that even our future descendants will look back to. That purpose is the True Parents. The True Parents belong to the past, and also to the present and the future. They are eternal. Based on this understanding, you should not only welcome True Parents in the coming world; you should yearn to attend True Parents in the present. Although you are living in the present era, you should also become the fruit of the past and the origin of the future. The three eras -- past, present and future -- must become one. Living in the present era, you should become a person who can unite the past that is behind you and the future that is to unfold. By what means will they be united? It is by True Parents' love. With whom should they be united? It is with their sons and daughters. Who are these sons and daughters? They are those who make True Parents love their center, like the sons and daughters who would have been born of Adam and Eve had they not fallen. They would have come forth from Adam and Eve as the sons and daughters of Heaven. Hence, when you become a son or daughter of the True Parents, you will be connected to the love of the three ages. Even though you are fallen people, you must retrace the course of history and regain that position.
12If we understood that our original parents, the parents of original nature, were dead, and found a way to bring those parents back to life, we would have to offer indescribable devotions without words to pioneer that path. Even if we felt wronged and humiliated, with our heartstrings rent and broken by the sorrows of Heaven, we would want to offer unchanging loyalty for their sake. We must prepare the way so that our parents can revive. It is our duty as filial sons and daughters. It is our responsibility. We must pioneer this way without caring whether we live or die. We shouldn't care about the good things in the world or be dismayed by the bad things, even if the world persecutes us and we have to go the path of death. We must cleave to the way of loyalty and filial piety in order to pioneer this way.
13Today we are attending True Parents in this world where we live. However, this earth is inhabited not only by True Parents’ sons and daughters but also by the children of fallen parents. Originally, all people were to have been God's beloved children, descended from the flesh and blood of True Parents, but due to the Fall they became fallen sons and daughters instead. So the Savior must come again as the Lord of the Second Advent in order to rectify and clear away all the wrongdoing stemming from our first ancestors.
14Jesus was to be the True Parent who had nothing to do with the Fall. He came with the mission of the True Parent. Since Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, fell and created a fallen lineage, they could not become one with God in the original ideal world of His desire, the world that had never experienced the Fall. They could not become the True Parents who give birth to sons and daughters of God's direct lineage. Instead they had a relationship with Satan and became his minions, giving birth to children who are spiritually dead. All humankind today is descended from those false parents. You must therefore deny the lineage of the false parents and receive the True Parents.
15The Fall sowed the false love, false life and false lineage of the devil. People have the love, the life, and the lineage they received from their ancestors. Each is a fruit of the love, life and lineage inherited from his or her ancestors through history. Because we received Satan's love, Satan's life, and Satan's blood, each of us stands as an enemy of God. Peace on earth cannot come about until we disengage from, disown and discard our connection to Satan. That is why I have brought the ideal of the True Parents. The True Parents are fighting to completely eliminate this false love and completely clean away the evil elements that obstruct the work for peace, so that individuals, families, tribes, peoples and nations can be separated from Satan.
16You do not know the innumerable sacrifices Christianity has made in order to build its current worldwide foundation. The miserable screams of those who were sacrificed and offered on the altar of martyrdom permeate Christian history; they have been heard in every corner of the world. We should know that these bloody altars still exist. That historical sorrow is right in front of our eyes, and it is our solemn task to resolve it. We must liberate God. What a wretched history Christianity has suffered, from its inception until now! We must liberate it. America and Christianity have been caring for all humanity as the subject-partner nation and the subject-partner religion representing the cosmos. But now they must not only do that but also receive the right of the victorious prince -- the right of the eldest son -- for generations and generations to come.
17What is the desire of all people? What are their ideals, their hopes? Which of them is their culmination? Which of them do you think comes first? The greatest hope a person can have is to become a son or daughter of God, and next is to be a son or daughter who receives God's love. After that, it is to inherit all that belongs to God. There is nothing greater than these. The hope of each person is to become a child of God, to become a son or daughter who receives God's love, and to inherit all that belongs to God.
18What is happiness? We human beings lost our parents, and have been orphans for six thousand years; hence happiness is to find our parents for the first time. What could be more joyful than this? We follow a religion in order to find such parents. The parents we believed to be lost for eternity can actually come back to life. If our parents can be brought back to life, we would do whatever it takes to bring them back. Would money be an obstacle on the way of finding our parents? Would our relatives be a problem? Would our nation or the world pose a problem? Nothing would stand in the way. We should put everything aside and offer all our devotion and effort toward finding our Parents.
19God lost His beloved true son and daughter, whom He wanted to love to the fullest. From the viewpoint of the man-woman relationship, the God-centered husband and wife were lost. From the viewpoint of the child, the true parents were lost. By a single fallen act, God lost these three. How can these three types of love be recovered simultaneously through the principle of restoration through indemnity? How can a standard that God can approve of be established? These are the issues. First, the standard of a true son and daughter who can be loved by God must be restored. When the son and daughter who have gone through that process come of age, they should unite as husband and wife with God's love at their center. Then they must give birth to good children in order to form the four-position foundation that God desires and that can bring Him joy.
20The hope of all humankind is to meet the True Parents. This encounter with the True Parents is the fruit of history, the center of this age and the foundation for the future. You who are engrafted to them will become their branches. Up to this point, all the hopes of the ages in history have focused on the future, but the opportunity to connect with True Parents during your lifetime happens only once in eternity. This is a precious chance that comes only once. Your ancestors did not have it; nor will your descendants. Your hopes do not lie anywhere else. You are to become the devoted sons and daughters of the True Parents. In the future, the True Parents will hold the position of the King of kings on earth. That is why the place where you meet True Parents is the center where all hopes come to fruition, be it the hope of humanity, the hope of history or the hope of the present era. Your hopes do not lie elsewhere.
21What is the desire of all people today? It is to meet the True Parents, and after that to welcome one global nation. From whom would your future descendants want to be descended? Your sons and daughters would want to be born through the lineage of True Parents. I am saying that the True Parents will become the starting point of a new future. Those who can fully love True Parents can rightly claim that they completely love history. They are the ones who truly love the world and who are worthy to love their descendants in the future. Therefore you should be grateful to receive love from True Parents, even if you have to sacrifice your life. Then you will be worthy to inherit True Parents' love.
22Though we human beings were created by God, we are unable to act as His sons and daughters. The first reason for this is that God is prevented from freely loving us as His own sons and daughters. Since God cannot love us in that way, we cannot receive love as God's sons and daughters. The second reason is that we are unable to marry as God's beloved sons and daughters. The third reason is that we are unable to form heavenly families with God's love at the center. If human beings had been able to fulfill these three, they would not have become as miserable as they are today. Therefore people must seek the place where in the end all will be reunited and where all will abide. The nations of the world must find the original homeland, the numerous peoples of the world must find their original hometowns, and the numerous tribes must find their original parents. This has been the objective of God's providence to the present day.
23Salvation means returning to one's original state. Then, there should be some standard that determines what it means to be restored to one's original state. What is that standard? The human race is made up of both men and women. Therefore, the first standard of restoration is not only to become a son or daughter of God. After going through the role of a child, we should form a husband-wife relationship and become true parents so that we can establish a new lineage. This is the purpose for which God created us and the standard from which our history can begin anew. Therefore the problem is not one particular nation, people or tribe. The problem is also not a specific son or daughter. The problem is that we absolutely need True Parents. The greatest problem for God is to find and establish the True Parents, who are the manifestation of God in the flesh. The greatest problem and purpose for humanity is how to meet the True Parents whom God establishes.
1Your ancestors were born of false parents, but they can find salvation by helping their descendants in this age, when the perfected True Parents are on the earth. You must resemble the True Parents. The position of your ancestors in the spirit world changes as you live for the sake of others and dedicate your lives to the True Parents. The Messiah comes in the Last Days and educates the entire fallen generation of his time. The perfected True Parents come to rebuild all that was built before on this earth and in the spirit world by descendants of the false parents. They can rebuild it when you unite with them in accordance with God's original idea. To do this, Cain must follow Abel, the second son. The spirit world, in the position of the first son, must follow the earthly world -- the next generation-in the position of the second son. Thus Christianity came forth from Jesus, the second Son.
2The Bible says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Rev. 22:13) It means that due to the Fall, God was unable to fulfill His purpose as expressed in the Book of Genesis, but He will complete His purpose, as is written in the Book of Revelation. Jesus came to earth as what kind of person? Because Adam fell, Jesus had to come as the perfected Adam, one with God's love and untouched by the Fall. That is why 1 Corinthians 15:45 teaches, "The first man, Adam, became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit." The Bible indicates Jesus is a second Adam. The family as planned by God cannot come about without the positions of the true son and daughter, true husband and wife, and true parents. Therefore this family must appear on earth.
3Where can fallen people seek out the basis of original true love? It begins with the True God and the True Parents. From there, people will create harmony with one another, with the True God as their center. What does the Bible teach? The essence of what is needed to fulfill God's Will is taught in the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments. The core of God's hope and humankinds hope is the ideal world of love, the kingdom of heaven. The Bible teaches the direct path to the kingdom of heaven. The key point is that although God already existed, there were no True Parents. So the True Parents had to be recovered. The decisive providential fact is that Jesus came as the bridegroom to find his bride. They are what all the world's religions have been seeking. The conclusion of the Bible is the bridegroom and the bride. Once they are restored, they will recover the original garden of love.
4In Genesis it is written that there were two trees in the Garden of Eden; one was the tree of life and the other the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What do those trees symbolize? They symbolize the true man and the true woman whom God must recover. Because those who were to become the True Father and the True Mother were lost, they came to be symbolized by those trees. The Bible teaches many things in such a symbolic way. When God led the Israelites out of Egypt, a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud appeared before them, with the pillar of cloud leading them by day and the pillar of fire by night. What did those pillars symbolize? They symbolized a man and a woman, symbolically showing that in the Last Days the True Parents would come and that the people of Israel would follow them faithfully. Those who did not follow the pillar of fire and pillar of cloud perished.
5When the Israelites returned to Canaan after the course of forty years, it was in order to attend the Messiah. Their course returning to Canaan was to guide them in serving the Messiah, who would come as the True Parents in order to realize the kingdom of heaven on earth and the world of God's ideal. However, since God foresaw that the Israelites might all fall away in the wilderness, He gave them the two tablets of stone, which symbolically represented the Messiah. They were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. If the Israelites could uphold the tablets with absolute faith, this would be a condition for them to serve the Messiah absolutely when he came. In this way God showed them that they could begin the founding of the kingdom of heaven. Thus, God set up a symbolic messiah for their training. This was the idea behind the Tabernacle. It was symbolic preparation for the coming of the Messiah.
6What happens in the Last Days? Heaven and earth are turned upside down. This means that the natural order is changed. To say that the natural order is changed does not mean that the sky is split in two or that the round Earth is made flat. It means that the person arriving later becomes the ancestor and the person arriving first becomes the descendant from the standpoint of God's Will. In the Last Days, the true ancestors of humankind emerge for the first time in six thousand years. All people must receive the flesh and blood of the True Parents in order for the proper relationships to be established. That is why Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am!" (John 8:58). What did Jesus mean when he said he existed before Abraham? Jesus was supposed to establish the True Parents, and there cannot be more than one set of True Parents. There cannot be more than one original ancestor of humankind. Since Jesus came as the original ancestor to inaugurate the True Parents of humankind, from the viewpoint of God's Will he was "before Abraham."
7God's purpose in creating human beings was not to fulfill some fanciful idea of a spiritual nation. It was so that during their lives on earth, people would shed their sweat working on the land, form families and tribes, then a people and a nation. That nation would have been the kingdom of heaven that God hoped to see and that could receive God's love. The original purpose of creation was for people to set up this kind of nation and receive God's love. It was not God's wish to have a spiritual nation without any foundation on earth. Nor was it God's intention that the Lord who returns should descend to the earth on a cloud and build a fantasy nation. The purpose of the Lord's coming is to use the earth as his foothold. He will find his bride who can fully receive God's love, and carry out the work of recovering all that was lost six thousand years ago through the Fall -- through which our first forbears were unable to become the true ancestors and instead became false ones.
8God sent Jesus as the True Father of humankind He was a true man, and the fruit of four thousand years of His effort to establish relationships of love. If one true woman had emerged among the people of Israel, and had she loved Jesus, the True Father, from the position of the True Mother, the people of Israel would not have remained a pitiable people; they would not have become like orphans. Having begun as a people, from then on they would have risen to the world level. But instead they expelled Jesus, and thus they lost the one man who had come as the Son of God, who embodied God's love and whose purpose was to bond all people to God in love. Because this one man departed this earth without completing his purpose, he must return to complete it.
9There is one issue remaining that we must surely resolve. What is this one issue? It is God's love. His love does not come from the false parents but manifests on earth through the True Parents. In order for there to be True Parents, first there must be a True Father. The person who comes to the earth with the character of that father, representing God's love, is the central person in whom religious people today place their faith. That is, he is the Lord of the Second Advent.
10What is the concept of the Second Coming? It refers to the concept that the Messiah is the True Father through whom everyone must inherit a new lineage. In order to create a new lineage, the Messiah must come as the True Father and win over Satan's world. Then, together with Eve, the True Mother, the Messiah must establish a worldwide foundation that Satan cannot invade. Further, he and the True Mother must engraft sons and daughters horizontally to the True Parents by uniting them as husbands and wives to make families. This is the meaning of the marriage Blessing given in the Unification Church. The lineage of Unification Church members originates from God. That is why if Satan's world opposes us, it will have to pay reparations for the damage they cause.
11The idea of the Second Coming is the idea of True Parents. It refers to our bond with the True Parents and the change of our lineage through the True Parents. However, one man or woman alone cannot accomplish this change of lineage. Not only must we make a vertical relationship with them; we also must replace our existing horizontal bonds. This means things must be turned upside down. This is because we must make connections based on the True Parents heart.
12Unification Church members may think they have no relationship with Christianity, but that is absolutely wrong. The Old Testament Age was supposed to be the time for the restoration of Adam and Eve as the True Parents. The New Testament Age was also a time for the restoration of the True Parents, as is the Completed Testament Age. God's purpose to restore the True Parents has always been the same. The Messiah is the True Parents. Therefore the essence or purpose of Christianity, Judaism and the Unification Church is the same. Then what is different? Judaism was to receive the Messiah, the True Parents, on the national level, and then expand to the world. What about Christianity? Christianity was to receive the Messiah, the True Parents, on a global foundation after Jesus departed this world. What is the Completed Testament Age? It is on the cosmic level. Its goal is to have even the spirit world receive the True Parents. It is on a different dimension. We have to make this distinction clear.
13Before the heavenly kingdom emerges, a heavenly people must come forth. What must be done for this heavenly people to arise? A people does not come into being all of a sudden. A special clan must first emerge, and this clan must arouse its people. This clan must arise from an extended family of close relatives. For these close relatives to come forth, one family must emerge as their center. For this family to appear there must be children, and for children to appear there must be parents. For the parents to appear there must be one man who can represent everything in heaven. He is the Messiah. If he is to become a parent, he must find a partner and unite with her. This is the teaching of Christianity about what will happen in the Last Days. Centered on Jesus, over the past two thousand years what had been turned upside-down has been spiritually restored on the global foundation of Christianity. This is spiritual Christianity. Now at this time, when Christianity receives the Messiah, its mission will be fulfilled.
14The greatest of all religions will be the one that establishes the logic of love and insists on the complete rejection of the fallen world. That accomplished, this religion must infuse its churches with positive love to bring about a greater world. An ideal world can then emerge. What kind of church is the Unification Church? It is the church where God can taste a love He never experienced before with human beings. It is the church with the mission to implant the root of God's love in people and in our world, something that has never been accomplished before.
15The lord of goodness and the lord of evil are fighting each other. They are waging a battle of good and evil over human beings. Who will end this battle? Neither God nor Satan can end it. Who can bring to an end the fight between the evil god and the good God? Neither God nor Satan can. Only a true person can end the battle. That person must be the lord of love -- the one who begins from true love, possesses true love and can be followed by all people. Otherwise he would not be a true person, nor could he end the fight between God and Satan. Then who can resolve this fight? For this task, God has sent a representative entrusted with His mainstream teaching. This is the Messiahs teaching.
16What will the Messiah do when he comes? In all of history, God never had a nation. The Messiah comes as the commander-in-chief in the fight to restore one nation to God, a nation with sovereignty, territory and people. Then, on that foundation, the Messiah will fight to restore the entire world -- all the realms that expanded horizontally from the fallen ancestors -- to God. This is the mission of the Messiah. To subjugate Satan, it is not enough just to recover one nation. Since Satan has global sovereignty, he must be stripped of his sovereignty throughout the world. Only then will the realm of liberation unfold on the earth. God created the Garden of Eden as a garden of freedom and peace. If any shadow of Satan's opposition remains anywhere on earth, the ideal of that garden will not be realized. The kingdom of heaven on earth will be completed only when every shadow of Satan's antagonism has disappeared from the earth.
17The task of the Messiah on the individual level is to subjugate Satan and eradicate his lineage, thereby paving the way to individual victory. He then must pave the way to victory for the family, nation and world. This is the path the Messiah must walk. First, he must pave the way for individuals; second, for families; third, for nations; and fourth, for the world. After the Messiah wins the individual victory, even if Satan mobilizes the entire world -- even if the nations of the democratic world join in Satan's attack on the Messiah -- he must fight against them all and win. He must win on the family level and then on the worldwide level. In other words, he must gain victory in a one-on-one fight, just as Jacob did when he prevailed over the angel. Then he leads an all-out attack against Satan's world. Now the time has come for this. To accomplish it, a representative nation is needed at the forefront. That nation is Korea.
18What kind of person is the coming Lord? He is a man who must bring Satan to surrender, and then win over myriads of spiritual beings, the numerous spiritual leaders of the different religions, and the leaders of every walk of life who abide in the realms of the spirit world. One by one he must win them over. As he guides them with his godly character and true love, they will come to understand the true reality of religion and the universe, and they will surrender. This will happen because all beings in this universe desire to be absorbed into the realm of the Lord of love on earth, who is higher than they are. Once he wins them over through true love, he should inherit all their authority. He should receive the inheritance of a unifying authority. This is the responsibility the Messiah must fulfill on earth.
19There are spiritually oriented people today who brag as if they are something special in this world. However, they do not understand how to resolve the fundamental problems in the fallen realm. They are just offering devotions and biding their time. That is not enough. Victory must be gained first over Satan's realm, then over all the realms of the spirit world. That is not a visible world; it is invisible. Without fighting and defeating Satan in the invisible world, there is no way for us to go forward in the spirit world. In fact, we would not even be able to properly enter the spirit world, due to his incessant interruptions; and even if we could, we would not be able to win the battle. So we need to gain victory over Satan's realm. Then in the spirit world we need to win over all faiths, from the least up to the highest of the mainstream religions, including Christianity. This means we must inherit everything from these religions. When we have fought all these battles at every level we will receive God's official recognition of our victory in heaven and on earth. He will say to us, "You are the victors over Satan and over the evil spirit world." Then, with His words written on our banner, we can begin to take action here on earth. That work remains to be done.
1Today fallen people are wandering about, searching for a philosophy of hope and for the one point through which they can return to God. Their ultimate purpose is to find the one person who can rejoice, communicate and harmonize with heaven and earth and manifest the glory of Heaven. This one person is the one who will substantiate the purpose of our faith, hope and love. I believe that you have already learned through the Principle of Restoration that everything -- including the indemnity conditions needed to build the foundation of faith and to rid oneself of fallen nature -- is based on faith. In order to rid us of our fallen nature, however, we need the Messiah, who is the substantiation of hope. The time of hope we have been waiting for is when the Messiah comes. The Messiah is the very being for whom our faith and our hope is purposed. When this purpose is realized through the Messiah, what is the only thing that will remain to be fulfilled? Love. This love comes through becoming perfect embodiments of faith and hope. The Messiah is the one who comes as the representative of that love.
2People are yearning for the time when the impossible can become possible. Facing the impossible in their lives, fallen people wander in search of the right person -- the person who can realize the purpose of their faith, hope and love. Therefore in order to proclaim our faith, we need a person who is the substantiation of faith. To proclaim our hope, we need a person who is the substantiation of hope. To proclaim our love, we need a person who is the substantiation of love. The one who is the substantiation of faith, hope and love is a true person who was born without any ties to the Fall, the one who has no relationship to the world of the Fall. It is through him that heaven and earth will be set straight, through him that Heavens glory will begin for the first time, and through him that the love between the Father and His son will truly commence. Also through him, based on substantiating the father-son relationship, there will come a husband-wife relationship, and from that husband and wife a family will emerge. In this way a new heaven and earth will begin.
3The coming Messiah is the substantiation of faith, hope and love. To qualify as the substantiation of faith, he must achieve victory in a global-level struggle based on faith. The title of Messiah cannot be attained without that result. In order to become the substantiation of hope, he must achieve victory in a global struggle based on hope. The same sort of victory is needed to become the substantiation of love. What is the purpose of seeking to fulfill faith, hope and love in our lives of faith? Some might have faith to save themselves as individuals. Others might have faith to save their own families. Going one step further, some might seek to be the substantiation of faith for the sake of their tribe, nation, the world or heaven and earth. It is harder to save a family than an individual, harder to save a tribe than a family and harder to save a people than a tribe. The larger the level, the more difficult salvation becomes.
4What kind of person is the coming Messiah? He stands as the substantiation of faith, hope and love for the individual, family, tribe, people, nation, world and cosmos. Only when he stands in this position can the unfulfilled faith, hope and love in human history finally bear fruit. Otherwise neither faith nor hope nor love can bear fruit. His words are not just those of one individual. It is the same for you too when you speak with conviction your words will influence world history.
5God established religions in order to save the fallen world. The world had become Satan's territory. The Bible refers to wild olive trees, which are the olive trees under Satan's husbandry. Religions try to cultivate olive orchards that God can manage as He likes. Wild olive orchards are cultivated by Satan according to his desire, so God has no control over them. Through religion, however, God tries to bring Satan's orchards under His management. God expands the orchards under His control until He has a foundation that surpasses the global realm of Satan, the realm of evil olive trees. To do this, God created the various cultural spheres based on religion.
6Satan's realm already exists in the form of nations; hence, God needs a nation that He can lead for His providence. He also needs a man to come in the position of the Parent of this nation. This was the vision in Jesus' mind when he came as the Messiah to the people of Israel. If the first human beings had not fallen but become True Parents, then centered on them all humankind would have simply entered the kingdom of heaven. All people would have gone straight to heaven and become citizens of the kingdom, living in the heavenly palace. However, because of the Fall, all this was lost and instead the human race was plunged into hell. To correct this, God will send the true olive tree to the orchard of wild olive trees. But first, as the Owner preparing for the time when the True Parents will come, He established the realm of religion. This realm of religion is not yet composed of true olive trees. Still, among the orchards of wild olive trees on this planet Earth, there is a realm of wild olive trees that is, at least, within God's jurisdiction. Hence, when the true olive tree appears, they can be cut and the work of engrafting can begin.
7God created the world, but Satan stole it from him; that has been God's situation to this day. However, God ultimately cannot lose; thus His plan is to send one true olive tree to the earth to serve as a model. However, the true olive tree, the Messiah, should not come alone. Because Satan's world formed societies and nations centering on couples, the Messiah cannot bear fruit as the true olive tree if he comes alone. The Messiah needs his bride and they must become one; then he can bear fruit as the true olive tree. To fulfill this, Jesus came to the earth as the bridegroom to find his bride and then cultivate an orchard of true olive trees. He was supposed to lead the movement to cut all the wild olive trees of Satan's world and engraft them. God created the environment for this engrafting to be done all at once through Judaism, the chosen people of Israel; they were the sphere of tribes under His management.
8Six thousand years ago, centered on the vertical and horizontal love of both sets of parents -- God, the vertical Parent and the first human beings, the horizontal parents -- humankind was supposed to make a joyful beginning. But Satan invaded that original starting point. What was lost then should now be taken back; hence, you must become the sons and daughters of True Parents. Since you are wild olive trees, you need to receive a branch of the true olive tree and receive the engrafting. God intends that religions do the work of engrafting. That is why engrafting is a teaching of Christianity. The marriage feast of the bride and bridegroom must occur on earth.
9Satan tries to drag all human beings off to hell. But from among them, God separates people out one by one. These people were all wild olive trees in Satan's world, but God cultivates some to become wild olive trees on Heavens side. God made them olive trees on His side, and raised them to lead the world. This is the democratic world, which is based on Christianity. When the world on Satan's side weakens and the Christian cultural sphere is well established, the Lord will return, cut the wild olive trees all at once, engraft to them completely, make them one, and turn them around.
10The True Parents are the Lords who correct the lineage. They know the secret of how to do that. When the first parents fell they became the false parents, but the True Parents know how to deal with this problem and revive them by giving them an injection of life -- that is, by establishing the standard of true love, true life and true lineage, and then connecting that standard to them, replacing the false love, life and lineage. Thus they turn from false back into true. In reversing the situation, however, True Parents cannot give rebirth to all families at once. They will engraft themselves to those families branch by branch. In order to engraft to a wild olive tree family, there needs to be a model true olive tree family. When a shoot from the model olive tree family is engrafted and three years have passed, each wild olive tree family can bear the fruits of a true family. I am saying that I will engraft a shoot of the True Parents to the mothers and fathers from false, wild olive tree families and transform them into families of True Parents' sons and daughters.
11As a result of the Fall, this world became Satan's. Hence, in this world there are any number of individuals, families, tribes, and nations on Satan's side. But that is not so for Heavens side. There are individuals on Heavens side, but no families, tribes, peoples or nations that have reached Heavens standard. Hence, it is crucial that the Messiah as an individual has a foundation upon which to win over families, tribes and nations. Without it, there will be no way for ordinary people to rise to that standard. God prepared a realm within which individuals and families could rise together with the Messiah when he came to the earth. The people of Israel constituted that realm. They believed they were the chosen people. But the nation of Israel did not rise to that standard. It could not achieve that level. It is as if the chosen people are straddling the line; yet it is their hope to cross that line. If they do not, it is a serious problem. And yet, no matter how they try, they cannot succeed in it by themselves.
12When the Messiah comes to the people of Israel, if they unite with him with the determination to die for him and together with him, then Satan cannot pull them away no matter how hard he may try. Then individuals, families, tribes, peoples and nations will engraft and will be raised up at the same time. So there must be the principle of a chosen people in this world. Based on this people whom God chooses, He needs to form a nation. The existence of the term "chosen people" is itself evidence of God's existence. From the perspective of this principle, a prophecy that the Messiah will be sent is evidence of God's existence.
13Why do we need the Messiah? First, because of the Fall we have false parents. Our first parents, who were supposed to unite with God, were lost. The Messiah is the one who brings the position of Parents who are able to become one with God to us. Second, we need the Messiah to give us a second birth. We have Satan's blood in our veins, so the Messiah must extract that blood from us, removing us from the position of Satan's sons and daughters. He gives us this second birth by engrafting to us. Third, the Messiah makes Satan surrender, by means of us. In other words, the Messiah comes in order to qualify us to judge him and return him to the position of servant.
14What will happen in the Last Days? The cosmos-centered way of thinking will appear. It teaches us how to relate to God. People are ignorant of God and His existence, and hence they do not know how to deal with their situation in the Last Days. Also, they do not know what will happen at that time. The person Heaven sends to deal with this, when the time comes and the environment is prepared, is the Messiah, the Savior. The Savior is not just a historical, global, great teacher. Most of all, he is our Father. God is our internal Father and the coming Savior is our external Father.
1Because the first ancestors, Adam and Eve, fell at the completion level of the growth stage, all human beings lost their original parents. In other words, although God intended to establish our first ancestors as the True Parents, that did not happen. God wanted a family that could bring Him joy, but He had no such family. The four-position foundation with God at the center never materialized. Instead, fallen descendants were born in fallen families. They all fell into a realm of evil in which they had no direct relationship with God. Therefore God has been toiling to find a family with whom He can relate both inwardly and outwardly. This is the history of the providence of restoration.
2Fallen humankind must meet God's Son, who is outside the realm of Satan's accusation. The human race as a whole has no parents in the true sense. All of you have fallen parents, but you were unable to have parents who had attained perfection in accordance with Heavens Will. Once God has His Son and Daughter, He needs them to restore the Parents whom He can love, and then for those Parents to form a family. God will seek out that family. Where the Parents' family is, there is God's love. That is where we will meet with God.
3We on the earth today must find our brothers and sisters, our father and mother, and our own home in our original hometown. There, parents dwell centered on God's love. The love these parents give their family is well received by their sons and daughters. In that environment everything is in harmony and everything goes well. There, people sing songs of love. This hometown will expand horizontally to form a people. But first the family must be recovered through religion, because Adam lost the family.
4Before Adam and Eve fell they were like the substantial bodies of God. Had they become internally one with God and externally one with each other, the family they formed would have been God's family. The sons and daughters born to that family would have been God's sons and daughters. However, Satan violated Eve and ultimately caused Adam to fall as well. At the age of sixteen, while they were still immature and knew nothing about love, Satan invaded them. Satan made an unprincipled love relationship and entered the place where God should have dwelled. Then who was the father of Adam and Eve? It was Satan. That is why the Bible records that Jesus said, "You are from your father the devil" and called people a "brood of vipers." (John 8:44; Matt. 12:34) John the Baptist called them the same thing. The serpent mentioned in the Bible is the ancestor of the human race.
5God's work of re-creation is to recover the lost family of Adam in the realm of Satan's world. It is to create a victorious family that will never perish, but will withstand Satan's strongest opposition. God is trying to create a family that will live in His palace, with His true life and true love at its center. That is the highest goal of the providence of salvation. The purpose of the history of the providence of salvation until today has been to find that perfect family. Jesus could not do this at his coming. Originally, Jesus was supposed to create a perfect family and govern the nation. Then he was to enter Rome and bring it to God. Had he done that, he would have united the world. Then he could have returned to his hometown.
6What has God been looking for? He does not seek a subject partner; rather He seeks ideal object partners. He looks for those who resemble Him and reflect the inner and outer aspects of the world He created. The result of this search, and the new starting point, is the family. Nothing can represent the universe better than the family. Unity with one's parents is the meeting point of past and present. In our families, with each of us at the center, we can love the past by loving our parents, love the present by loving our spouse and love the future by loving our children. To deeply experience the love of three generations is to connect the past, the present and the future. The family is the core body where these three kinds of love are concentrated.
7Throughout history up to the present day, individuals have modeled themselves on other individuals. Societies change, modeling themselves on more developed societies. Many people, and many nations, have tried to do this. However, there has not been a family that people have tried to emulate. In the history of the world, there has been no such family to this day. Nor has there been a teaching that guides people to emulate a certain family. There have been many assertions about emulating certain nations or individuals, but no such assertions about families. Then what is the problem that still remains? It is not that we need an individual or a nation to worship, but that we need a family that everyone can revere. It is only that kind of family that can found a new world and bring eternal happiness to the universe. If we settle down with such a family, it will become the basis for our happiness as well.
8What has God sought to establish through His providence of restoration over six thousand years? It is the family. Before establishing a nation, a tribe or a church, God sought to establish the family. More specifically, He sought to find partners through whom to establish His family. That family is indispensable for forming a nation. It is the basis of everything. Jesus, who came on the foundation of four thousand years of history, also needed to form a family. But he could not find his Eve, who would have been the basis of their family. In other words, he was unable to find his bride. And although he did find three disciples as his spiritual sons, they, in the position of Cain, had no opportunity to serve the sons and daughters of his direct lineage. Instead, these Cain-type disciples opposed him on the family level, and Jesus as the resurrected Lord could not reach the standard to restore that. Jesus family was to have represented the three stages of formation, growth and completion. To restore that requires the three eras of Adam, Jesus and the Second Coming. This lack of a family foundation was a major reason that Jesus had to die on the cross.
9Jesus came to recover the family. The work of salvation is the work of restoration. Humankind is sick, and those who are sick need to be healed. Jesus came to save fallen people. Since the family was lost, salvation means to restore the lost family. It is not possible to find that which is lost without returning to the original place. To repeat, why must we restore the family? It is because the original family was lost. Humanity is sick and in need of healing. People are fallen and must be restored.
10Today's religions uphold individual salvation as their standard, but the religion that the whole world can appreciate and that God will establish in the new age must be a religion that can save families. Even if only the husband is saved, if his wife follows him, she will automatically enter the kingdom of heaven with him. Likewise, if the wife pays all the necessary indemnity for her family, then her husband will go wherever she goes. In other words, a man who believes his wife's words to the point that he would put his life on the line to follow her will go to the kingdom of heaven. Also, a woman who absolutely obeys her husband's words will go to the kingdom of heaven.
11Unless we recover the family centered on God, we cannot recover a nation or the world. When Jesus came to the earth, he was meant to establish a family that God could love unreservedly. In other words, that one man came as the bridegroom. Had he found his bride, then from that point true parents, true husbands and wives and true brothers and sisters would have emerged. Because Jesus could not fulfill this during his time on earth, he prophesied that he would come again to fulfill it. This was the prophecy of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, the wedding of the bridegroom and his bride. Only when we have a God-centered family can we restore a tribe, restore a people and restore the world. That is why the family is the issue. This means that the bridegroom and the bride must meet.
12How will history unfold? The Lord, the bridegroom, will come and meet his bride. This will bring forth the era of the religious realm of the bridegroom and the bride. This can be viewed as the religion of the True Parents, but it is not really a religion. When this happens, what we know as religion will disappear. We will receive salvation by attending the True Parents. This means that the age of salvation through attendance is coming. Therefore True Parents' words should become the root of our words. All True Parents’ feelings, physical and emotional, should become our feelings. True Parents’ lifestyle should become the basis for the tradition of our own families; that is, it should become our family culture.
13We have already entered the era of the True Parents, so we do not need to focus on witnessing to others. We have to witness to ourselves. We have to save ourselves; we have to save our families. Our married couples must be saved and our sons and daughters must be saved. You are the fruits of the entire providence of history. You are its fruits. Until today, human beings have been unable to gather such fruit. There are lots of trees -- many denominations -- but none of them has been able to gather such fruit. It is in the Unification Church that such fruit is harvested for the first time.
End of True Parents and the Messiah