Pyeong Hwa Gyeong (048) - The Path of Life for All Humankind
8. Completion of the providence of salvation
Had Adam and Eve not fallen, they would have been the children and royal descendants of God’s direct lineage. Adam and Eve were in the position of prince and princess who stood to inherit the kingdom of heaven in the spirit world and on earth. At the same time, because they were created as the object partners of the invisible God, who is the subject partner, Adam and Eve were substantial beings who could receive God’s love. They were substantial manifestations of the invisible God.
It is the special privilege of a child of God to say, “God is mine. All that is Gods is also mine. Even God’s love, life and ideals are mine.” It is up to human beings to recover this amazing and incredible value that was originally ours.
If God is the subject partner of love who exists eternally, then the reciprocal partners of God’s love also exist eternally. When I become one with God’s love, God becomes me. Had Adam and Eve not fallen, their bodies would have been the homes where God could dwell. They would have placed God at the center of their hearts and become entities of love, life and lineage who would be united eternally through true love. If they had done this, our mind and body would not be in conflict today.
The Fall means that we inherited the life and lineage of evil, centering on evil love. We were born from false parents, false olive trees. We must therefore rebuild the lineage by changing that false olive tree into a true olive tree. We have to be engrafted onto the true olive tree, go through at least three generations, and produce fruit that itself becomes true olive trees representing the original standard. Then the providence of salvation will be completed, and fallen people will be restored to their original state.
In this way, God is trying to make us into children of the Parents of goodness, based on loving oneness with God. This is why God sends the Messiah to earth as the True Parents. The Messiah is the one who comes to restore the lineage of all of humankind to God and establish the original ideal of creation.
All people desire to be the best. We want to be God’s sons and daughters, God’s princes and princesses, heirs to God’s kingship. Everyone has this original desire, yet we have inherited a different lineage. We say that life is an ocean of suffering as we lament at our birth, lament over our lives and lament even as we die.
Thus, it is important to know how to end the struggle between our mind and body and unite them as one. A person who cannot unite his or her own mind and body will not be able to play a role in uniting the nation, the world or the spirit world.
Once a subject partner and object partner form a reciprocal relationship, they need to become one with a greater entity. Once a man and woman become one as reciprocal partners, that couple has to become an object partner to a greater subject partner, serving their nation as patriots. Likewise, a patriot who enters into an even greater partnership with the world will be engrafted onto the way of saints. A saint becomes part of a greater partnership with the cosmos and is engrafted onto the way of divine sons and daughters. Only after we have achieved the way of divine sons and daughters can we be engrafted onto God.
Before seeking to excel on the world stage, humans first have to excel as the original family of Adam and Eve. Had Adam and Eve taken their places as the lineal prince and princess before God, they would have been the most exalted among all men and women. However, they fell and lost their rightful positions of the elder son and daughter, the crown prince and princess. This tragedy has remained throughout human history. That is why humankind has traveled a path of life in search of the positions of first son and first daughter so that we might recover God’s true love.
If we are to receive God’s true love, we cannot live selfishly, centering on our own interests. Instead, we need to live for the sake of God and humankind as our brothers and sisters. The more a person sheds blood and tears for his or her brothers and sisters in place of their parents, the deeper, wider and higher will be the love he or she receives. This is the son and daughter we have to become if we are to inherit everything from our parents. Every man and woman will walk this path. Even if we have to face death ten times or a hundred times, we have to continue our search for God’s true love. This is the supreme path of life.
The Divine Principle of the Unification Church teaches that the Fall occurred when human beings left the realm of God’s true love. Restoration means to return to that realm. When a person enters the realm of such love, that person can merely look at his or her body and praise it tens of thousands of times. In that world, you know that your own body is what receives God’s true love. Words cannot express such joy. This wonderful world is called the kingdom of heaven. |