Cheon Seong Gyeong Ⅱ - 312. Spiritual maturity
20 Why did Jesus claim to be the begotten Son of God? The reason he made a statement that was so hard for the people of his day to believe was because he wanted to give them the benefits of instantly making a leap forward in faith through having believed in him. If the people had boundless faith in Jesus, their cries would have reached Heaven and their faith would have grown with great strides. The higher the level of your faith in the center of the heavenly kingdom, the greater the works the spirit world can do through you. If you possess boundless faith, then according to the quality of your character, you will be able to immediately feel the realities of the world beyond your physical senses and beyond the physical universe to a degree you cannot imagine. Unfortunately, human beings lost this amazing ability. If a believer has the ambition to ceaselessly advance toward the infinite world, he or she will have to face a cosmic battle. He or she will have to vanquish the forces that insist that human beings remain within a hemmed-in realm of faith. (3-021, 1957.09.08) 21 Human beings were originally meant to reach perfection in both spirit and flesh. As long as Jesus remains only in the position of our spiritual parent, he can give us only spiritual salvation, which is one half of salvation. Accordingly, there is a need for the returning Lord to come to earth to give us physical salvation, in the flesh. Then the returning Lord is to unite the spirits of all who believed in Jesus together with Christians on earth and offer them all before God to inaugurate the Third Israel. Just as baptism enabled believers to become citizens of the Second Israel, believers need to go through the gate of the Blessing to become citizens of the Third Israel. (19-096, 1967.12.31) 22 Wrongful love led Adam and Eve to the Fall. In order to reverse this through indemnity, human beings need to go through the gate of the Blessing and be joined as brides and grooms in God’s love. Otherwise, they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. The responsibility to establish the Blessing was something that not even Jesus was able to fulfill. It is therefore the responsibility of the returning Lord, the Savior, to complete this task. Unless the Lord returns and takes up this task, and unless he controls the root of everything on earth, there is no way that he will be able to straighten out the entanglements on earth. The entire responsibility for giving the Blessing is his to fulfill. (19-096, 1967.12.31) 23 Because he was crucified, Jesus could not become the True Parent with a physical body. Although God’s lineage was spiritually established, the manifestation of True Parents, who have both spirit and body, could not be realized. The spiritual True Parent, Jesus, is limited to the spirit world, making only spiritual salvation possible. He did not accomplish physical salvation, namely, redemption for the sins committed in the flesh. Accordingly, Christianity has only had a spiritual father and a spiritual mother—Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when the True Parents come, we will need to be born anew through them, conditionally or symbolically reentering the womb of the Mother. For that sake, we have been groping our way forward on this course. (055-117, 1972.04.01) 24 Between the spirit self and the physical self, the spirit self is the more important. The physical self has a lifespan of seventy to eighty years in the limited physical realm, after which it decomposes. However, the spirit self transcends time and space. When you understand the historical responsibility that human beings are meant to fulfill, you must fulfill it. No matter how much you enjoy your life while living in the flesh, your body is destined to perish. Fleshly life is inevitably going to end. (20-326, 1968.07.14) 25 John the Baptist did not attend Jesus on the family level. Therefore Jesus had to indemnify this on John's behalf. Likewise, because the Christian cultural sphere did not attend the returning Lord, I, in the position of John the Baptist, had to establish the Unification Church in place of Christianity. Hence at the time of the Second Advent, the Unification Church is similar to Judaism on the global level. The United States, which is in the position of Israel, and the free world, should have become one with the Unification Church, but they are opposing it, as is Korea. Until such unity transpires, the Unification Church has no nation and can only carry out the providence of spiritual salvation, just as God carried out the providence of spiritual salvation through Jesus in the New Testament Age. If in the Last Days, Christianity, which has the global spiritual foundation, totally unites with me, then establishing the physical foundation will be no problem at all. (246-142, 1993.04.07) 26 We first need to free ourselves from Satan’s world. We should also develop emotions different from those of worldly people. That is, we must deeply experience God’s love spiritually and hate what Satan loves. We must also sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the entire world. If, centering on me, you are victorious on the individual, family, tribal, national and global levels, we can recover the spiritual Israel and the chosen people and establish them as the Third Israel. When this happens, God can save humanity spiritually and physically through us. (052-042, 1971.12.12) 27 Which is more important: spiritual standards or physical standards? We should not place physical standards in the primary position. Though the flesh exists for the spirit and the spirit for the flesh, do not cling to ways of the secular world. You should take the more meaningful position by concentrating your spirit and flesh on the essence of life. This is the path for those who uphold the Unificationist worldview. As it is, there are many people who care more about the body—about what to eat and where to live—than about living according to a spiritual standard. Everyone is caught by the conditions they create. (20-326, 1968.07.14) |