The role and mission of the Messiah
74 God's purpose in calling the Israelites to the land of Canaan was to have them complete a victorious foundation as one people. Upon that foundation, they were to build a kingdom in Canaan under Heaven's sovereignty and prepare the foundation for the coming of the Messiah. The people of Israel were to attend the Messiah as the central person who would rule over their country. Then they were to defeat Satan's world and complete God's providence of restoration together with the Messiah. Although that was their mission, the people of Israel and their religious leaders did not know it. In those days, there were those among them who thought that when the Savior came, they would automatically become the nation that could rule the world. They did not grasp that they had to complete the history of restoration by first gaining victory on the level of a people and then on the level of the nation before they could achieve a victorious worldwide foundation. (13-181, 1964.03.15)
75 Unless individuals attain perfection, they cannot form families with a new and higher awareness. And without such new families, a new people and a new nation cannot emerge. Therefore the Unification Church has come forth with a focus on bringing about the perfection of individuals through True Parents. God longs to complete the restoration of the individual. It has taken six thousand years, until today, to substantiate one perfect man. God has been toiling with the goal to bring forth that one perfect man; this has been the whole purpose of His providence of restoration, transcending time. Then, by centering on the one perfect man, God's intention is to recover one woman and form the model for the perfection of the family. This is the messianic teaching. God desires to conclude the providence of restoration by setting up the bridegroom and the bride according to this messianic teaching. By doing so, God plans to lay the foundation for all of human life. The way of life and the teaching that the Messiah brings are the eternal standards that all human beings need to follow. (21-301, 1968.12.08)
76 Another formula in God's providence of restoration is that before sending the Messiah, He works to set up one central religion and one central nation. God called the Israelites and Judaism. God planned to send Jesus upon that foundation and then expand that realm of goodness by having all humankind unite with him. In this way He would restore the world and realize the ideal of the kingdom of heaven. If the Israelites and Judaism, which God had prepared over four thousand years, had received Jesus, united with him and upheld the one Will in a sacrificial way, then Jesus would have united the Arab world and Asia, connected them to the Western world, and spread the Will quickly to the ends of the earth. In that way, Jesus could have established the kingdom of heaven on earth under God's sovereignty. (88-209, 1976.09.18)
77 Adam possessed the seed of true love and true life. After God lost Adam, He had to recover the Son, a man having the new seed. This Son has to be a man having no condition for Satan to accuse. Just as God made Adam first at the time of creation, in the providence of restoration, which is the providence of re-creation, God has to first set up a Son who has nothing to do with the Fall. This is the root of the messianic teaching. The Messiah is the true man with the new seed of life. He guides people of the fallen lineage to deny their life and then engrafts his new seed onto them. Even though the Messiah is rooted in God, as the second Adam he must clean up what Adam did. This is the reason God cannot send the Messiah as a superman having God's almighty power. (277-204, 1996.04.16)
78 The Savior is God's representative who can dissolve the bitter sorrow in God's heart, the sorrow that was brought by the first human beings' failure to fulfill God's love in accordance with His Will. Because they never realized God's love, all people are in despair and filled with bitter sorrow. The Savior is the one who dissolves this bitter sorrow and brings God's love to fulfillment. He comes to help people attain this original love. The Savior does not come to feed those who are hungry physically. He comes to liberate God. A man is liberated when he has a wife of true love. When a man has a wife who loves him and remains with him eternally, there is no imprisonment. He is free. Does God, the original central being, enjoy that kind of freedom? He is a sorrowful God, who, while searching for love and investing His love, had to forget how much He invested, only to invest again. (209-096, 1990.11.27)
79 God, by all means, has to restore the ideal of true love and peace that He has held onto since the beginning. God's providence of salvation is the providence to restore that original state; in other words, it is the providence of restoration. For the providence of restoration, God set up religions and expanded the realm of goodness. The Messiah whom God sends is responsible to complete the providence of restoration. Therefore the Messiah must come as the True Parents and quickly recover everything, starting from the root. Jesus, who came as the Messiah, had the mission of the True Parents. He came with true love to give rebirth to all humankind and to restore them as true individuals and as true husbands and wives, so that they too could become true parents. Unfortunately he could not complete this mission due to the disbelief of those on earth, and he departed with the promise to return. He must come again as True Parents in order to restore completely God's ideal of creation. (279-208, 1996.08.20) |
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