2) The Final Goal of the Providence of Restoration
In what position will the unfallen Adam and Eve stand? They are the same as the substantial being of God. What family will be formed by Adam and Eve internally becoming one with God and externally becoming one with each other? This indeed is the God-centered family. And whose sons and daughters will those born in this family be? They indeed will be the sons and daughters of God.
However, Satan took Eve and even made Adam fall. Satan committed the crime when Adam and Eve were only sixteen years old. They were still in their teens, the time they yet did not know anything about love, nor what is good or bad. They came to form an unlawful love relationship, and where God was to dwell, Satan came to occupy.
God therefore lost His true son and daughter, to whom He wanted to give all His love. In terms of relationship between man and woman, we lost one couple centered on God. In terms of children, we lost the true parents. Through the action of the fall, we lost these three.
Then, how can we indemnify all at once these three Shimjungs through the principle of restoration through indemnity and stand in the position which God can recognize? This is the problem. First of all, we must restore the standard based upon which God can love us as His true sons and daughters. Through this process, and when the time comes, a couple centered on God's love has to be formed. They must have children of goodness to form a four position foundation which God desires and from which God will be able to feel joy once again.
Although we human beings were created from God, today we are unable to act as God's sons and daughters. First of all, God cannot love humankind as His sons and daughters. God cannot love us, and we cannot receive love as God's sons and daughters. Second, we are unable to have a holy ceremony as sons and daughters receiving God's love; and third, we cannot form a family centering on God's love. If humankind were able to realize these three, then we would not be as miserable as we are today. If these had been realized, the cultural benefits of today would have been realized much sooner. However, because humankind failed to do so, we have come the way of restoration and we are struggling now to reform the culture and make some other kind of world.
Therefore, we must search for a place where we can meet, a place where we can finally settle. The nations throughout the world must search for their original home country and the many tribes must search for their original parents. This has been the whole purpose of God's providence.
The goal of restoration is to restore Adam's family. God started His providence of salvation immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve. However, Cain killed Abel and the providence of salvation centering on Adam's family moved to Noah's family. Centering on Noah's family, God planned to destroy all the people through the flood judgment in order to set up a family which was free from Satan's condition of accusation, and to form a foundation for the providence on earth. This was prolonged again to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, to the age of Moses, to Jesus and to our age today. Therefore, our final goal in the providence of restoration is to search for Adam's lost family.
For what has God been searching until today? He has not been searching for a subject. He has been searching for an ideal object. He has been searching for an object with the internal and external content of the world created through God as the model. What will be the base of this result? It will be a family. Nothing else but a family can represent the universe.
For what has God been searching throughout the six-thousand year providence of restoration? What did He have to find before searching for a nation, tribe or church? It was a family. In other words, He had to find his reciprocal partner and a family. In order for a nation to be formed, there must be a family. Therefore, what is the origin of everything? It is a family.
Adam's family, which was the ancestor of humankind, was destroyed; therefore it must be restored. Jesus had to come as the unfallen Adam. Therefore, Jesus came as the second Adam. Because our first human ancestor Adam became a fallen ancestor, God sent Jesus as the unfallen true ancestor of humankind, in order to set up the original will. We must search for and find Adam's family centering on this true ancestor.
Why did Jesus come? He came to find a family. The history of salvation is a history of restoration. Because we became sick, we have to be heated. Jesus came to save fallen humankind. Then what is salvation? Because we lost our family, salvation is to find that family again. How can we do that? Unless we return to our original position, it is not possible. Then for what reason does humankind have to search for a family once again? Why did Jesus have to come to search for a family? It is because we lost our original family. Because we became sick, we have to be healed. In other words, because we fell, we have to be restored.
If we look at the Bible, it says that the first human ancestors fell. When the human ancestor fell, did he fall alone or with another person? [Two of them fell.] That is the problem. Even if there were a fall, if it were only one person, the problem would be simple. If only one fell, God as the Creator could have created another one.
The salvation of an individual, which the religious groups, especially Christianity, have had as their goal or as their faith, does not refer to individual perfection, but only to a primitive salvation which represents the start of one stage.
The goal of salvation is conceptualized as a base of one family. By the salvation of a family being the base, we mean a family which can lead the world and take responsibility for saving the world. To form a family of that realm of heart has to be the highest ideal in our life of faith.
What have all the religions throughout history been doing? Until now, religion has been searching for one man. Religions until now did not permit the concept of having a reciprocal partner. They did not permit something new. If you continue to go forward without having the concept of reciprocal partnership, you will perish. However, in the history of searching for one man, if you have reached the point of finding that man, then as the next step you must search for a woman. The movement which proposed to search for a woman was the Unification Church we have today. Therefore, what does the Unification Church do? It is a church in search of a family.
Until now, religion has been searching for an individual. Do you understand? If you find an individual and form a family, that family will became a clan. That family will become a tribe and then will form a nation. Therefore, that family, until a nation is formed, will become more and more united. The more sons and daughters, the more the family will be united: It will be united as hard as a stone of steel.
When this is realized centering on the providence of restoration, the movement in search of a nation has already begun; therefore, from that time on, everything will run a normal course toward finding a world. It must reach out to the world. A family centered on the providence of restoration must be formed first, and then a tribe must be formed. When a tribe is formed, the fortune of the world will start to change. History is now moving in that direction.
Religions until now have had the salvation of individuals as their goal; however, in our new age beginning now, the religion which God sets up and over which the world will be able to rejoice has to be one which can save families.
Therefore, if a man is saved, women will follow. And if all women emerge to indemnify, men will follow. It will be like that. When Eve fell, Adam followed her. Likewise, the man who believes in the woman's word even at the risk of his life will go to heaven. Also, the woman who believes in the man's word also will go to heaven. This way or that way, everything will lead them to heaven.
Therefore, woman should have man who will believe her at the risk of death, who will risk his own life for her; and man should have woman who can risk her life for that man. If those people appear, they will be God's sons and daughters.
The goal of religion until now was to save the individual. However, the Unification Church's goal is to save the family rather than the individual. We say that salvation should be of the family and that you cannot go to heaven alone.
The view of salvation in the Unification Church does not feature sending the husband to heaven and wife to hell. We make them both go to heaven. Also, we are not sending mothers and fathers to hell; we are telling sons and daughters to serve the mothers and fathers and to go to heaven together. The Unification Church is a religion which teaches the way through which you can take all your loving family and tribe to heaven. Therefore, the level is different from other religions. Religions until now have emphasized remaining single; however, the Unification Church lays importance on families. We go centering on families. That family is for the world and for God. This is the way which the members of the Unification Church should go, and the way which you should live your own lives from now on.
Transcending law, system, all environmental backgrounds and even transcending yourselves, the love of parents, love of husband and wife, and love of children tries to form a relationship which will be together eternally. There can be no social system which ignores this and a nation cannot be formed ignoring this. Therefore, the Unification Church does not hope for an individual church, but hopes for a family church. The Unification Church does not hope for the salvation of an individual, but hopes for family salvation. The Unification Church does not make its goal individual salvation, but tries to fulfill family salvation. The Unification Church differs from Christianity in this point.
If we cannot find a God-centered family, we cannot find a nation or a world; therefore, Jesus also tried to form a family which God could love on this earth. Therefore, Jesus as a bridegroom had to find a bride. Centering on a man, a true parent, true husband and wife and true brothers and sisters can appear. The marriage feast of the lamb is a prophecy that this will be accomplished absolutely. It is to receive the bride and the bridegroom.
What is the common goal which should be the final goal of all humankind? What are the common barriers through which all must go? It is not a nation or a world. It is not even the communist world or democratic world. Before the communist world, there had to be an original family. Before the democratic world, there had to be an original family which could found the democratic world. Where has there been the system, education or standard for this goal? This absolute standard has not appeared on this earth. Unless it appears, there can never be a peaceful kingdom, peaceful ideal nation or peaceful world.
Therefore, we hope that an ideal family, an original family, a family which we can meet and live with will definitely appear on this earth, and that the time will come when this family can share its fate together with human history. This way, the providential investment of God in this earth will be realized, which will be the beginning of a blessed land or a nest for settlement.
The family is the base where God's ideal can be realized and the base where the happiness of humankind can be realized. This is the position where the final work of man and woman will be finished and where God's work will be completed.