Pyeong Hwa Gyeong (136) Book 8. The Reunification of Korea and World Peace CHAPTER 5. God’s Will and Korea
3. The thirty-eighth parallel is a national level cross
As you know, two thieves were crucified with Jesus. The thief on the left accused Jesus, while the thief on the right testified to Jesus and defended him, admonishing the thief on the left. Thus, the thief on the right came to represent the side of goodness, while the thief on the left came to represent the side of evil, and in this way the crucifixion was the focal point in the confrontation between God and Satan.
There is deep providential significance in the fact that Jesus, who was the way, the truth and the life, and who loved even his enemies, suffered on the cross with good and evil on either side.
This reveals the principle of reconciliation and unity, centering on God’s love. It teaches us that the struggling and warring sides can be reconciled and united through sacrificial love. We can also learn from this the lesson that if we practice God’s love no matter how difficult the situation, we can lead any sinner to repentance.
We must also understand that the two thieves represent seeds that bear the fruits of good and evil that will confront each other at the consummation of human history. The appearance in the Last Days of the right wing, or the free world, as the side of goodness, and the left wing, or the communist world, as the side of evil, originated at the crucifixion of Jesus.
Moreover, this confrontation between the two thieves is the prototype of many subsequent conflicts and struggles. The designations “right wing” and “left wing” actually have their historical origin in the thieves on the right and the left of the cross.
The thief on the right, as he was dying, testified to Jesus and opposed the thief on the left. Consequently, after his death, he was resurrected and entered into paradise. This indicates that if the United States, standing as the thief on the right, maintains to the last moment a strong stance against communism, then it will receive God’s approval and will be able to enter the kingdom of heaven on earth.
The actual situation of today’s conflicts and struggles, whose prototype was the opposition between good and evil at the crucifixion, is intensely expressed by the current Military Demarcation Line across the Korean Peninsula.
Therefore, the thirty-eighth parallel separating North and South Korea represents the cross that the Korean nation must bear in order to providentially redeem the divided world. The Korean nation corresponds to Jesus on the cross, even as it is the foundation for the Second Coming of Christ.
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