Chambumo Gyeong - 495. From individual to family salvation
True Parents declared that the fundamental unit of human society is the family, not the individual. They taught that we must establish God-centered families, and then expand the scope of salvation from the family to the whole world. Therefore, religions, that up to now have been concerned with saving the individual, must take up the work of saving the family. This is how they can take the lead in restoring the world.
To emphasize the importance of family salvation, 40 years after the church was founded as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC), in 1994, True Parents changed the name to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU).
8 Religions until today have served mainly the purpose of pursuing salvation for individuals. Religions have sought to go over that one hill, individual salvation, ever since the beginning of history. However, having gone over the hill of individual salvation, we have come to the next hill, the hill of family salvation.
The Unification Church is not a church that pursues the goal of saving the individual. Religion has focused on individual salvation for 6,000 years. However, religion's purpose should now be changed to the salvation of the family. This is the historical task that the Unification Church has undertaken and is addressing.
Until now, no religion has arisen that made family salvation its goal. Because the goal of the numerous religions that have arisen and developed in history until now was saving the individual, they could not rise to the level of establishing God's nation. They did not have the salvation of society and the nation as their goal.
Thus, the Unification Church has taken on the challenge of saving the family. No individual can go over this hill of family salvation alone. Inevitably two people must go over it together. While a husband and wife are going over this hill together, they should have a relationship of left and right, not front and back. This is because the Fall occurred when Eve followed the Archangel and Adam followed Eve. Therefore, a husband and wife should stand side by side with the same rank. In that way they will be able to save each other within their mutual relationship. (031-010, 1970/04/08)
9 Until now in the age of the church, the focus has been on saving the individual. Now, however, the providential age has begun wherein the focus is on saving the family, led by families that have received the Blessing. When families are united with God, we will move into the providential age for saving the clan and the nation. Then, when the leaders of the clan receive the Blessing, the entire clan will be saved. In the next age we enter, if the head of a nation receives the Blessing the entire nation receives salvation. The level of salvation will take a leap. The age of the church is passing.
The fall of two individuals, Adam and Eve, turned the family, the clan, the nation and the world upside down. We must restore all of it. The mind and body must become one in God, the family must become one in God, the nation must become olie and the world must become one. All must be united as one in God's love.
In Adam's family, everything was pulled apart when it became connected to Satan's lineage, a deviated lineage. Yet now with the emergence of True Parents, we have arrived at the age of unity when the world will move toward equality. On the foundation of True Parents, families can come to be under the leadership of husbands and wives who have each established mind-body unity, and on the foundation of those families the whole world can be restored.
True Parents have brought the true lineage whereby the individual's body and mind can be reconnected with God. On that basis, a man and a woman who have perfect unity within themselves can form a perfect union in their marriage and family life. The world that expands horizontally from these perfect families is the kingdom of heaven where God reigns. (285-167, 1997/05/01)
10 With individual salvation as their goal, existing religions have been teaching individuals what they need to do to be saved from evil. However, the religion the world needs in the future is not a religion that focuses on the individual, but one that saves the family. For this, it will need to prepare a foundation. The new movement to save the family that must appear will have to endure and overcome all manner of trials in order to stand in the position that is secured within the will of heaven and publicly recognized by humankind. Both God and human beings must be united in recognizing it. Once this happens, the movement will grow and expand worldwide.
The movement for the salvation of the family will not be limited to a particular nation, Korea for instance; rather the ideal it promotes for the family will transcend any particular nation or people. The religion that arises to engage in this kind of movement will definitely become the religion that the world needs from this time on. (032-199, 1970/07/15)
11 It is not our purpose to work for individual salvation. We are here to set up the foundation for family salvation. Godly families are the cornerstone for building a godly society and a godly nation. That is why true families have to appear.
Beings whose nature is true unite with others that are true, even if they are told not to. On the other hand, no matter how much we try to unite what does not have the nature to unite, oil and water for example, they will not unite but remain separate. In fact, the more we try, the more they resist. If we become families with the essential quality that can attract other families to harmonize and unite with us, we can become their role models, and we should be able to form a tribe sharing the same essential quality.
The family that I am talking about is different from families that live according to the habitual ways they inherited from their forebears. It is different from families that conform to present-day society and its norms, and who plan their lives and take measures according to their circumstances in the world. I am talking about becoming model families that do not conform to todays society and environment, but transcend them. (035-130, 1970/10/11)
12 Until now, people had faith in order to receive salvation as individuals. Our faith must be fundamentally different from that. Its substance must be different. In other religions, people on the path of faith say, "More than what happens to the world—my nation, my tribe, even my family—what is paramount is my own salvation. If need be, I would even cut off from my family rather than risk my own salvation." On the other hand, in the Unification Church our path should demonstrate that I exist as an individual in order to save my family, which exists to save our tribe, and our tribe exists for the salvation of our people. Our nation, likewise, does not exist for its own sake but for the salvation of the world. This should be the stance of members of the Unification Church. It is fundamentally different from that of believers in other religions.
The family is the foundation for building God's nation. Since that is our goal, we do not focus on individual salvation but rather on family salvation. In the past when people made a relationship with God, they mainly focused on their vertical position in front of God. But in this era, our relationship with God must encompass more than just our vertical position before Him. That exclusively vertical focus is limited to the individual level.
Thus far, a life of faith was limited to the individual. Now, however, after establishing that vertical aspect in your relationship with God, you must become a subject partner who substantiates the fruit of your vertical relationship of oneness in your relationships with others on the horizontal plane. You need to build that foundation of unity both vertically and horizontally. This differs from the life of faith that other believers have been leading. Today we in the Unification Church need to strive to stand in a position that is entirely different from the position that believers in conventional religions have sought until now. (045-061, 1971/06/13)
13 There are multitudes of people in this world, and we can divide them into men and women. Our fundamental purpose is to seek for the secret that will enable man and woman to become one. When we find it, the original family that was lost in the beginning will emerge as the fruit of history. Thus far that original family has not emerged, despite humankind's long search for it. But once that origin appears and spreads its seeds, it will become a new tree. This is the meaning of the Blessing in the Unification Church.
A wise person thinks about how to leap from the individual stage to the family stage, and then how to leap from the family stage to the tribal stage. People who do that can save the family, and when such families are formed, they can save the tribe. In die same way, the tribe must surmount obstacles to save the people, the people must surmount obstacles to save the nation, and the nation must surmount obstacles to save the world. In this way, the restoration of the world will be simple. We must go over seven stages, that of the individual, family, tribe, people, nation, world and cosmos. When we go beyond these seven stages and ascend to the eighth stage, we reach Gods level. (031-191, 1970/05/31)
14 Jesus said, "God is my Father, and I am His only begotten Son." The only Son of God is the one whom God the Father loves entirely. In this way, Jesus clearly revealed the relationship between God and himself, which is applicable to all human beings. As God's only Son and the first to receive God's complete love, Jesus revealed the essence of the relationship between heaven and earth. Hence, there is no one who understands God's love for human beings as Jesus does.
Further, Jesus called himself the Bridegroom and referred to us as his brides. To be his brides means we are all his counterparts in love. In fact, there is no relationship more intimate than that of bride and groom. Also, Jesus called us his brothers and sisters. Here he was speaking of the family that is formed by the will of God and the will of human beings together. Only Christianity has discussed this issue. We human beings long to be a part of that family. Thus the path to forming it is the path of hope.
When a man and a woman create a family together, their family should become not only a haven for the human heart, but also a haven for heavens heart. Jesus sought for such a family, one that would be centered on God as well as on human beings, a family where husband and wife, and God would be united. Only when God and human beings become one flesh can the ideal world be realized. (039-261, 1971/01/15) |