Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 375
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 9: The Role of Nations in Realizing World Peace
Speech 15: The Path for America and Humanity in the New Millennium, pg 1404-1407
God’s providence of salvation and Messianism
Ladies and gentlemen, for whom has God been sacrificing Himself? It is not for America, nor is it for Christianity. It is for each of us—in other words, for you and me as individuals. Likewise, the reason Jesus was crucified was not to save the Messiah, himself; it was to save each one of us, you and me. Since the Fall began on the individual level, salvation must also begin on the individual level.
Accordingly, a representative of all human beings has to come and proclaim, “I will take full responsibility as a representative of all people. I will pay off the debt that humanity has incurred during the entire course of history and I will even become a person to whom God feels indebted.” Without such a determination, restoration is impossible. Our approach to salvation cannot be conceptual or theoretical. Unless we are willing to experience miseries on behalf of God more than anyone who is undergoing suffering in the world, we cannot reach God’s heart.
Have you ever prayed in desperation for the six billion people of the world, with a feeling that your own children are dying? How much of your heart have you invested to save a family, a tribe, a people, a nation and the world, with a willingness to sacrifice yourself for them? Few people are confident to say they’ve prayed and invested like this. However, the Lord of the Second Advent comes to the world to live according to this absolute standard of investment as the representative of all humanity.
God, who has been leading the providence of salvation, found Abraham two thousand years after the Fall of the first human ancestors. God anointed his descendants as the chosen people, Israel, and multiplied them on every level, as a new family, a new tribe and a new people. Based on Abraham’s victorious foundation, the Israelites were called as the chosen people to receive the Messiah. They became the central people to receive the substantial Messiah who was to come in the future.
If you examine the core of God’s providence of salvation, you can understand that the standard and ideology that the first human ancestors Adam and Eve were to have reached and fulfilled needs to be restored. From this comes the philosophy of the Messiah. In it, the believers stand in the position of the bride.
Therefore, the ultimate purpose of Christianity is not to build the kingdom of Christianity or the world of Christianity. Its most important mission is to prepare to become a bride qualified to receive the bridegroom. The people of Israel, because of Jesus’ Crucifixion, could not carry out and pass on this tradition. Although called by God as the First Israel, they fled their responsibility. Christianity, called as the Second Israel, arose to carry out the mission instead. God has led the six-thousand-year providence centered on this one purpose, so Christianity became the bride prepared to receive the bridegroom. We are now in the final stage of the providence.
Messianism is the restoration of True Parents for world salvation
Then what is the core of the messianic teaching? It is a teaching to save the world; it is a teaching that can unify the world and build ideal families, and its main purpose is to restore the position of the True Parents that was lost by the Fall of the first human ancestors.
By examining the teaching of the Old and New Testaments, one can understand that the Messiah comes with the authority of the Father, meets a substantial bride who represents the power of the Holy Spirit, and then restores the position of the True Parents. The appearance of the bride and bridegroom at the marriage supper of the Lamb prophesied in the Book of Revelation refers to the process of becoming the True Parents by first becoming a true husband and wife.
Due to the false parents who were influenced by Satan, God lost the ideal family of Adam. God wanted a true family, a true tribe and a true nation, but all these were lost. This is why today He has again sent the Messiah to the earth in order to regain what had been lost. This is God’s providence.
Jesus came with this same mission. However, when he lost his people and nation due to their faithlessness, he offered his life for the sake of the world and the kingdom God wished to build. The path of Jesus suffering on the cross was the same path of tribulation that God Himself walked. In such a situation of trial and tribulation, Jesus desperately prayed, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Even at the threshold of death, he forgave Rome and the group of people who opposed him, waiting for victory in the future. Therefore, the life of Jesus did not end at the age of thirty-three. With God’s help, Christianity inherited his spirit and became one of the four great worldwide religions in human history.
The development of human civilization and where it bears fruit
Ladies and gentlemen, although America is recognized as the sole world superpower, if it does not stand straight on the providential line of God, it will not continue to prosper. Let us look at the history of civilization.
Ancient civilizations were born mainly in the tropics and subtropics. Examples include the civilizations of the Mayas, Incas, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China. Had we not fallen, civilization would have begun in the warm zone, corresponding to spring, and then moved to the cool zone, corresponding to autumn. The cool-zone civilization is centered today on the free world and Western civilization. In general, the developed countries of the West, nations such as the United States, England, Germany and others, are above the twenty-third parallel north.
With the end of the cool-zone civilization corresponding to autumn, the cold-zone civilization analogous to winter comes for a short time. This is the appearance of communism. Many intellectuals may think that the Cold War system disappeared after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but materialism and atheism still prevail throughout the world. They manifest in two major ideologies, democracy and communism, both of which are gradually losing power.
God’s ideal of creation was to have begun in the warm zone akin to spring, but due to the Fall of the original human ancestors, human civilization started in the tropical zone. Now, however, the civilization of the true spring that we have been seeking from time immemorial will appear, overcoming the crisis of tropical-zone civilization and the threats of cold-zone civilization.
Who will be able to melt the block of ice frozen in the heart of God? And how will it be melted? It will not be by power, money, science or knowledge. As we can see from the movement of civilizations to different parts of the globe, centering on rivers and coastlines, the center of civilization is not fixed. Human civilization began to develop around the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile Rivers. The center of human civilization then shifted to the Mediterranean, especially focusing upon Greece, Rome, Spain and Portugal.
Then it moved to the Atlantic sphere, focusing upon Britain and the United States. Ultimately it has borne fruit in the Pacific civilization of the United States, Japan and Korea.
Thus, viewed from the perspective of the history of cultures, the Korean Peninsula occupies a most important position. To the north of Korea lie points that link it with the cold-region civilization of Russia and China. To the south and east lie points that link Korea with the cool-region civilization of the United States and Japan.
Thus, it is consistent with the providential viewpoint that Korea would give rise to a warm-region civilization representing the spring season of world history and having the capability to encompass the cold- and cool-region civilizations. From this perspective, solving the North-South problem and the East-West problem can only be described as the culmination of God’s providence. Rev. Moon has come from Korea to dedicate his life to this purpose. In fact, throughout my life I have transcended race, ideology and national boundaries to pursue a movement for one world under God. It is because of God’s providence that I have traveled this path. This is the principle of providential history, not a theory that I artificially devised.
FFWPU, USA