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Chapter four
Loyalty and Filial Piety Toward God
Section 1. God’s Hope
What kind of being is God? He is the Parent of humankind, the King of kings of humankind, as well as the center of all creation. To become God’s son, you would have to become the filial son on the world level, as well as becoming the filial son on the family level.
Assuming that only a person who occupies the position representing the highest qualities of filial piety, loyalty, and holiness can attend God, people who attain only some but not all of these characteristics cannot. God desires to see the person who combines all these qualities together: a filial child, a patriot, and a saint of saints, simultaneously.
God is surely such a being. We are striving to attend Him as our Parent in order to meet our obligations to Him as His children. If there is a group, denomination, or race seeking to go the way of first-rate filial children, the path cannot be an easy one. Filial children of that caliber cannot come forth from the ranks of those who choose the easy way out. They do not emerge out of such backgrounds. From the point of view of the majority, this group of filial children is misguided. Everyone else wants to go east, but they have to go not only west, but also south, and east, and back again to the west… God will make His true filial children walk the path that others will be unable to follow. That kind of religion has to appear. Even through a commonsense approach we are bound to come to this conclusion. (62-33, 1972.9.10)
Historically, although there have been many patriots, filial children, and virtuous women centered on the king, no one centered truly on God’s will. Yet we of today are different. People of the past devoted themselves to freedom and liberation based upon earthly standards. They might have become the object partner of God’s concern, but they were not able to give Him comfort and joy. As yet there has been no loyal subject, filial child, or virtuous woman of whom God could be proud.
Becoming God’s patriots, filial children, and virtuous women is the right path for all people to follow; yet such people have never existed. Although people may have lived in this way for their king or their parents, none has done so for God. As God looked upon these people, how much He must have longed for them to become His patriots, filial children, and virtuous women!
(11-77, 1961.1.29)
God wants all people to become filial sons and daughters and patriots; and, from among them, He wants those who maintain the highest standard. God wants people who will only go the way of loyalty and filial piety.
Those who do not take responsibility for their parents’ life and assets, and do not bring peace and development to their families, cannot become filial children. If their parents lose all their assets, then they must be willing to offer up everything they have for them.
With the destruction of God’s ideal of creation, those standing in the position of having trampled upon life, assets, peace, and the ideal cannot become patriots or filial children. You have to ask yourselves, “When did I ever show concern for God’s affairs as if they were mine? When did I ever feel the threat to Father’s life? When did I ever agonize and strive to try to bring about peace and unification within Father’s family?” You may have attempted to do that, but from God’s point of view, instead of being loyal and filial, you have been disloyal and unfilial. (18-341, 1967.10.1)
God wants to elevate patriots and filial children and through them transfer His bitter pain to Satan. He cannot do that unconditionally, however. Thus, after raising up patriots and filial children, He transfers that bitter pain to Satan by making them walk the historical path of suffering as individuals. (13-128, 1963.12.20)
Finding a filial son who can liberate God and also liberate love itself is important. God Himself would also like to be in that position and say, “I wish I could be a filial child once.” True Parents also are saying, “I wish I could be a filial child once.” How wonderful it would be if there was such a road for God and True Parents to fulfill filial piety together in front of love.
God stands in the position of being the Father who has truly perfected love, and the son fulfills his filial duty based on God’s love and the fundamental love of the universe, thus uniting with the Father. How can God pave the way of filial piety of a higher dimension in front of this love? If this had been done, then the Fall would never have happened for all eternity.
This is the realm of the greatest of all liberation. This realm goes beyond the realm of the Principle. It is the original world of true love. When we think about this, then you must not think it is the end when you realize the ideal of the family, the Kingdom of God on Earth, and the Kingdom of God in Heaven. There are still some traces stained by Satan’s blood in the internal root, which have to be removed.
Tens of millions of years of history have passed, and even if several times, ten times, or even more than a hundred times that time passes, do you think it is possible to forget the world of the Fall? You should ponder the thought that God’s highest hope is to forget all this, to have you and me join together, to have the sons and daughters join together, and become filial sons and daughters who can comfort God who takes the trouble to love us. (300-33, 1999.2.21)
When God held out His hands to bless Adam and Eve, what kind of hope did He have for them as their Father? He would most likely have said, “Embrace the great cosmos that I have created and become patriots attending me as the King.” God had this kind of hope.
Accordingly, Adam and Eve should have established the principle of being patriots amongst all the creation and should have lived their lives centering on this tradition for the whole of eternity. If Adam and Eve had become God’s truly filial son and daughter and had served and attended Him as their True Father, then the loyalty and filial piety they showed to God would have become the tradition. The history of the world would have continued down until now with the same tradition of unified heart amongst God and Adam and Eve. Had that been the case, evil would not have taken over. If evil could dominate the world of God’s heart, then the providence of restoration and salvation would be impossible. (9-105, 1960.4.24)
What God had hoped from His children, Adam and Eve, was to see them become filial children, patriots, saints, and a divine son and daughter when they grew up. God hopes that you will do the same, but have you ever thought that you must become a filial child in your family, a patriot in your nation, a saint in the world, or a divine child in heaven and earth?
Viewed historically, all the saints and great religious leaders have taught people to become filial children, patriots, saints, and divine children. Religions that do not teach this will not endure for long. In any case, that is the predestined course that humankind is following.
Destiny is to do with such things as the relationship between the parents and the children. You cannot change that destiny. There are some things in your fortune that you can change, but you cannot change those aspects of destiny.
If you do not understand these things, you will not be able to fulfill the role of true parents in your families. As true parents, you should teach your children how to become filial children, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters. You have to teach them to fulfill all these with you and beyond that in front of God. (287-23, 1997.8.10)
The first couple of God’s ideal should have returned glory to Him; yet through the Fall they brought sorrow instead of glory. This was not just the responsibility of Adam and Eve; it was also due to the archangel’s disloyalty. The archangel should first have fulfilled his duty of loyalty and filial piety toward God. The Fall came about because he failed to do so. Consequently, the providence of restoration is to establish loyalty, filial piety, and virtue.
Because God installed loyalty, filial piety, and virtue in the center of our minds, all religions and paths of faith are destined to uphold them. All the ascetics have striven to achieve this, and even Jesus sought to have a family so as to establish the way of loyalty, filial piety, and virtue.
God founded the nation of Israel for the sake of establishing such a family. Jesus should first have established the way of loyalty, filial piety, and virtue. The high priest should then have established loyalty, filial piety, and virtue, and then Satan would have been subjugated. Our Blessed Families should not be outdone by others in exemplifying loyalty, filial piety, and virtue. All these qualities begin at home. The Blessing signifies inheriting the hope of the Father.
Until now there have been families that demonstrated loyalty and filial piety before God, but not virtue. He cannot establish virtue before we usher in God’s Day. Moreover, as long as the condition for Satan to invade remains, virtue will not be established (14-209, 1964.11.4)
To stand upright before God, just being loyal to one’s country, such as Korea, will not do. By doing that, you cannot fully become God’s sons and daughter. The Apostle Paul understood this point. Anyone can love their own race. Everyone can love their own countries, but you have to love people from other countries, too. This is because God does not only love Korea. You should understand that God loves everyone equally.
In order to understand God’s heart, we ought to go in search of a country that has been struck by adversity and which is facing difficult circumstances, and espouse its cause. This must be done. Even from a principled viewpoint, we are required to establish the way of loyalty and filial piety in at least three countries.
Now in Korea when you determine to attend me, and fulfill your duty of loyalty and filial piety to Heaven, you should not think that this loyalty and filial piety that you are practicing is for you alone. You should pray to God, “Father, I am offering my loyalty and filial piety first for this race, first for the world, first for heaven and earth. Please let it remain as belonging to heaven, and belonging to earth.”
Then even after your death your loyalty and filial piety will remain as that which belongs to heaven and to earth. Humankind will pass this tradition down as that which belongs to earth. That is how it is. (155-235, 1965.10.31)
The time for us to become God’s filial children will not always be there. It will not exist in the spirit world after our death. In our earthly lifetime – which, when viewed against the backdrop of eternity, is as brief as the tick of a clock – we must establish the condition of having loved God and of having fulfilled our filial duty to Him.
Furthermore, we have to confirm our status as the children whom God absolutely needs, and we must accomplish this within our lifetime on earth. (26-114, 1969.10.19)
We are bound together by the destiny resulting from the unfolding history of God’s providence, in which He has been pursuing His long-cherished goal of dissolving the anguish He has accumulated over six millennia. Accordingly, even though we have different surnames, we should live with greater love than blood brothers and sisters.
Although you are attending parents who are not your natural parents, you are the people that seek to attend the Parents, centering on God, even more sincerely than you would your natural parents. On top of that, despite having our own country, we are the people that seek to live for the sake of God’s nation with loyalty, filial piety, and virtue. (47-81, 1971.8.19)
Now the final time has come. Parents must find “my country.” To do that, all Blessed Families are to stand in a circle horizontally around Father and Mother and represent them by progressively fulfilling the duties of filial children, patriots, saints, and divine children. You will thereupon occupy those positions and proceed to observe the laws of the palace and uphold the laws of God’s nation. You should understand that the Heavenly Constitution actually begins through us. This is what “my country” means. (197-87, 1990.1.7)
The day that the Korean people understand God’s heart is the day that they will dominate Heaven and earth. Why is this so? Even though there are many children, and many citizens, there is only one greatest filial and loyal child. If it is natural even for parents in the fallen world to pay more attention to one of their children who is being victimized, do you not think it would be even more so for God?
God is not looking for any one particular race of people. He is looking for that filial son and daughter that He can love completely. He wants to be proud of them in front of all humankind. God moved the world to recover one people and set up Israel to recover one people. He then sorted out that one people to recover one family, and sorted out that one family to recover one person.
Recovering this one person is equivalent to recovering the world, and this person must be the filial child with the heart to dissolve all God’s historical anguish. Only the emergence of such a truly filial son renders it possible for evil people to atone for their sins. (10-239, 1960.10.16)
In the Last Days, above all we must become the people who understand God’s heart. Humankind is imbued with the three key elements of intellect, emotion, and will, and it remains for us to attain heavenly emotion on the foundation of intellect and will. God’s love flows through our hearts, and because there is a heavenly providence concerning the Korean people, our hearts must beat more strongly with ardor, filial piety, and loyalty for Heaven than those of any other race. (4-250, 1958.6.22)
If you want to become Heaven’s loyal subject, you must take revenge upon God’s enemy. If you want to become a filial child, you cannot succeed as long as your parents’ enemies remain, so you must subjugate and replace the sinful dominion with God’s dominion. It is the same thing for a virtuous woman. Until the day you make the enemy account for his sins, if you are not prepared to go forth to fight at the risk of your eternal life, you will not be able to surmount the heartbreaking mountain of the Fall. It is only when you cross over this peak that for the first time God will be able to set His troubled mind at rest and say to you, “My loyal, filial, and virtuous child whom I have long awaited for six thousand years!” He will raise both hands to bless you. God cannot enjoy His Sabbath until such a standard of heart has been established. (9-122, 1960.4.24)
God is the First Parent among parents, the First King among kings, the One who alone can rule over all Heaven and earth, and the First Ancestor capable of formulating His ideal. Our purpose in the Unification Church is to attend Him as His sons and daughters who are capable of offering Him filial piety, loyalty, and saintliness and, for the first time, stand before Him and inherit His vast work of creation without shame or accusation. (84-205, 1976.2.29)
Section 2. Absolute Loyalty and Filial Piety that Moves God
Noah could overcome intense persecution amidst troubled circumstances by pouring every ounce of energy into his work. He went forth with a humble heart merely to obey God’s laws as His faithful and filial child.
The more Noah went before God, the more sorrow he felt from his heartless environment, and he would go to God shedding tears of repentance with a sorry heart. No one could block his path.
Just think about Noah who endured for 120 years. The satanic world set all sorts of schemes in motion to attack that one person, Noah, opposing him in every way possible; but he did not deviate in the slightest from the standard God had set. That standard established the absolute center of the cosmos, the man of righteousness of the universe, and the victor of truth. As such, God wanted to eliminate all elements of His enemies who opposed this standard. (18-159, 1967.6.4)
Walk the way of loyalty unswervingly all the days of your lives. As much as the people around you criticize you, to that degree our sphere of activity will expand toward the global level. Today we have to grapple with our local state of affairs, but as our situation eases, we will start to take on global issues. Let us therefore hasten the day on which God can proudly welcome and bless His sons and daughters who exemplify loyalty to the world. Only thus will the peace of the Sabbath break out all over Korea for the first time. When the thirty million people of this country have accomplished their duty of loyalty to the world, and all the world’s peoples acknowledge that they had been able to become God’s sons and daughters with the help of Korea, and subsequently fulfill their own duty of loyalty, then, for the first time, the foundation for the Sabbath in Korea will have been laid. (155-263, 1965.10.31)
God has toiled assiduously until now to create a providential culture or epochal period in Korea. As that moment has arrived, we need to be people who are as faithful as cows. There were three sacrifices on Abraham’s altar: the pigeons, the sheep, and the heifer. Today is now symbolically the age of the heifer. God likes cows.
The age of the heifer! Do we like cows because we can butcher and eat them? That is not the case. Farmers do not like cows because they can slaughter them for food either. They put cows to all kinds of work, and then perhaps eat them later. That is how it is.
Then, what do you need to become in order to be God’s sons and daughters? Do you need to become a pig? Of course we are talking about things figuratively. Because God is like the greatest king of cows who offers loyalty and devotion for the sake of humanity, who are His children, thus we of today, as His children, have to become like calves before Him. Of course, I am not saying that you should literally become a calf. It is a figurative expression. (156-17, 1965.11.2)
You have to wonder about whether there is someone else who is being more loyal to Heaven than you are. Would he be from the East or from the West? You have to wonder about this. If there is a loyal person, then what kind of person is he? What kind of work does he do? You have to evaluate this very carefully. (155-248, 1965.10.31)
On your path of loyalty to God, you should have the conviction that you will not yield even an inch. Determine that you will go even one extra step more than any other person or loyal subject. Work harder than any person who ever lived on earth. You must live up to a higher standard than those who were loyal to their country and toiled assiduously for the public good. Go even the extra mile. This is an iron rule. (102-98, 1978.11.26)
In the age of the servant, you must fulfill absolute loyalty. In the age of the adopted child, you have to practice absolute loyalty in your life. If you do not go through these two stages, you cannot reach the standard to become one with God’s begotten children. You cannot reach the standard of being unified mind and body with God. The representative people who accomplished for the first time in history the task of connecting the earthly world with the heavenly world will become the Third Israel. (45-82, 1971.6.13)
You have to endure with the heart of yearning, and you must struggle with all your might in every situation you are in to indemnify and liberate all the elements of God’s grief. You should bear in mind that a person with this kind of heart will never stumble or fail. Even if you do stumble, and you think that there is no way to go before the Lord, remember that God is alive. He has been enduring until now, and so, when you stumble in the cause of loyalty and devotion while yet alive, He will raise you up and open the way for you to at least pray, and He will show you the direction how to live from then on. Then He will send you people who can help you. (153-255, 1964.1.7)
From God’s point of view, you have to become a person who can make the internal heart of your people cry. You should also be a person who can realize the internal heart of the cosmos. The filial sons and daughters who can lovingly relate to God even in the position of great misfortune must comfort the heart of the unfortunate head of the household, whether it is the king or the parents. Then such a son and daughter should single-handedly tackle all the problems surrounding the situation and solve them. Those having such a mind of loyalty and filial piety will go to the Kingdom of Heaven. People who think that they can enter Heaven just by believing in Jesus shall in no way do so. These people have vilified and persecuted us to our exasperation and mortification, but we cannot take revenge on them with guns and knives. (19-300, 1968.3.10)
Depending upon your attitude when you write, you can feel joy at just dotting an ‘i’. At the same time, that one dot could even symbolize hope. In relation to that, when God who made Heaven and earth created an object partner, however small, it occupied the position of a being from which He derived joy and comfort in His solitude. As such, it brought God the greatest joy and thereby constituted an essential factor inherent in the object partner to have loyalty and filial piety. We can thus understand that when God ponders over His creation and wonders about the outcome of adding something here and taking away something there, He does so always with a joyful heart amidst hope. (39-226, 1971.1.15)
Who will liberate God? Filial children resolved to fulfill their duties of loyalty and filial piety with utmost devotion must appear and bear all responsibility for His anguish associated with the cross. Such sons and daughters must appear. Understand that, if we fail this, God will not be liberated. (101-255, 1978.11.1)
If, seeing your faithful determination, God takes heart and steps forward to declare, “I am going to tear down this evil world!” then, in that instant, His sphere of activity will expand due to your efforts. This will be a gift of joy from Heaven more wonderful than any coveted position, throne, place of honor, and even awards that would be heaped upon you over not only one but over many lifetimes.
You should determine to confront any kind of persecution in the course of human history and even beyond that. This is the path filial sons and daughters who take on the responsibility to represent the history of eternity should take. This is the way of loyalty to the eternal Kingdom of Heaven. (255-121, 1994.3.10)
In conclusion, God wants absolute families who have absolute loyalty and filial piety. Until now, absolute loyalty and filial piety have never existed. Without a global foundation of absolutely divine children, namely God’s children, God cannot descend upon the earth. Alone, God cannot do anything providential on the earth. This is why we refer to Him as a sorrowful God deserving of pity.
It is an amazing fact that European members who follow me are realizing such families for the first time. Everyone without exception desires loyalty and filial piety. Until now God has had no other option but to be in a miserable state over this fallen world. How can we liberate God? It all depends on how we build the family, the tribe, the people, the nation and the world. (297-202, 1998.11.20)
Section 3. The Loyalty and Filial Piety of Jesus
Jesus said that no matter what kind of difficult circumstances we encounter we have to have endurance in order to overcome. He said that we have to have more loyalty and filial piety for God’s will than sinners show towards evil. This is the basis of the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit which is taught in Christianity. If you live a life of love, then happiness and peace will arise; and through endurance, mercy and goodness will arise; and through a life of loyalty, gentleness and humility will arise.
Jesus emphasized that in order to get rid of all their evil elements, people who are in the realm of the Fall should adopt heavenly love, heavenly endurance, and heavenly loyalty. This is a practical philosophy that can realize the ideology of the Kingdom of Heaven, but do you have this love of Christ in your hearts today?
Also, do you have endurance and the heart of loyalty? Jesus represented God’s heart and was the incarnation of His love. Even when he was on the road to Golgotha he was the master of endurance who was worried about the suffering of all humankind and he was the representative person of loyalty who was more loyal to God than any other person in human history.
So where did the love, endurance and loyalty of Jesus come from? These things did not arise from within Jesus of himself. He was the mediator who connected God’s love to humankind. He was the incarnation of love and the substantial being with God’s value, and he came to save humankind from their ignorance.
In order to accomplish the true will likewise, God searched to find a person like Himself, someone who could represent the value of the whole. For that purpose, God first showed loyalty to humankind before anyone showed loyalty to Him, and He endured limitlessly. Therefore, you have to empathize with God who has been working according to heavenly principles and who had the situation whereby He displayed endless loyalty towards humankind in order to realize His will. You have to empathize with the heart of God who sacrificed resolutely and unflinchingly to establish His will. In addition, you have to empathize with the heart of God who rose above Himself time and again to set up the ideology of the future, the heart that wants to give endlessly to you. (2-344, 1957.8.4)
Jesus came as the Father of humankind, and the Holy Spirit manifested on the earth as the Mother, but they were unable to become both physical and spiritual parents, and were only able to work as the spiritual parents.
The death of Jesus by crucifixion did not mean that Jesus had gained the spiritual and physical victory over Satan. On the contrary, he was driven to his death by Satan. This is why Jesus gave up his body to Satan, and resurrected only spiritually. During his three days of spiritual resurrection on the earth, he gathered his disciples together, and, centering on the spiritual standard, launched the providence of the Second Israel, which started the two-thousand-year history of Christianity up to the present day.
So where is the First Israel? It was ruined. The Jewish nation as the First Israel was ruined because of their failure to believe in Jesus, and the Second Israel appeared. God had protected and nurtured the Israelites for four thousand years and He sent the Messiah on this foundation of His hard work.
However, the Israelites did not accept the Messiah, and they crucified him. This is why the Israelites became the enemies of God. After this, the Israelites became a people without a country, and they were unable to establish an independent nation until Jesus had come again. The Jews have had to endure unbearable suffering for two thousand years in order to indemnify their sin of having killed Jesus. The reason why the Israelites suffered so much and became a people without a country is because they shed the blood of Jesus, who had come as the ancestor for humankind, at the place of execution.
At that time Israel was a stable and vibrant country in both religious and secular terms. Jesus had come on the basis of Israel’s sovereignty with the responsibility to rule over the nations and restore the world. However, because the people of Israel rejected him and forced him to the way of death, he had no option but go to the spirit world. However, he did fulfill his duty of loyalty and filial piety to Heaven. Even while treading the path of death he was fulfilling his heavenly mission and responsibility in place of all humankind. He fulfilled his duty of filial piety and loyalty when he prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
That meant that Satan was unable to invade the standard of devotion even if Jesus died, and through this he could resurrect spiritually and set the standard for the spiritual Israel. (19-207, 1968.1.7)
When Jesus cried out, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” as his body was being torn, when his soul was about to be wrenched out of his body on the way of sacrifice, when he was just passing over the peak of death, he determined to fulfill his duty of filial piety and loyalty to God until the very end, and in so doing, he died a noble death peacefully in a higher position than anyone in the satanic world. What was the condition that enabled him to stand in a higher position than anyone in the satanic world who had died before him? It was the fact that he prayed for his enemies. This became the shield which made it impossible for Satan to invade any further. God loved Jesus, and Jesus loved God, and this love mobilized the power of Jesus’ resurrection. (50-201, 1971.11.7)
From his childhood, the people of Israel, whom He had chosen to go the way of loyalty and filial piety, should have served Jesus in the position that would have made God happy. Yet because they did not fulfill their mission, then the Inside the Belly Church had to revive Israel’s victorious position to give new impetus to this work. (24-191, 1969.8.10)
Had Joseph and Mary known that Jesus was the true son sent by God, God’s prince, and the Messiah of all the nations, they would have attended him as God’s prince from the day of his birth. They would have worshipped him daily. As the King of all kings, Jesus came vested with God’s authority to rule all of heaven and earth forever. That being the case, Joseph and Mary should have attended Jesus with loyalty and filial piety, completely devoting themselves to him from the moment he was born. From the humanistic point of view, where is there a law which requires parents to be loyal and filial to their son? However, that was exactly what heavenly law required. (16-27, 1965.12.26)
Why was Jesus unable to personally teach Heaven’s laws enabling us to attend our Parent, namely God? Originally, if there had been no fall, then God would have become Adam’s parent, but their father-son relationship was severed by the Fall. In order to restore through indemnity Adam’s inability to discharge his duties of loyalty and filial piety required of the father-son relationship, we are now doing it in his stead. God is unable to teach us from the parents’ position before this is accomplished. (15-219, 1965.10.10)
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