Krista Moon and Tyler Hendricks
March 6, 2013
A translation distributed by FFWPU International of the meaning of the Cheon Il Guk Foundation Day Heavenly Fortune Spiritual Seal presented to True Mother during the Foundation Day event on February 22, 2013; and an additional biblical explanation of the significance of the seals by Dr. Tyler Hendricks, of the Unification Church USA.
Cheon Il Guk Foundation Day Heavenly Fortune Spiritual Seal
Heavenly parent, now the new heaven and the earth of the kingdom of universal peace and unification which is the heavenly kingdom of peace and ideal of original creation were solemnly opened. Today, starting from this Foundation Day, the human race entered into a new era of God’s providence.
Foundation Day is a promise for the completion of the providence of salvation over the past 6000 years. Foundation Day is the day of glory and blessing, in which numerous people’s wishes will be fulfilled as a gift of True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.
It is the day to inherit the heavenly fortune of our Heavenly Parent who is omnipresent and almighty. The ideal world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness will unfold in heaven and earth from today.
All of humankind in Heaven and on Earth will praise “Jinseongdeok Hwangje” (True Father’s title in spirit world) and attend them [True Parents] as the parents of eternity.
On this meaningful Foundation Day as a new start of providence, True Parents gifted a seal of “Cheon Il Guk Foundation Day Heavenly Fortune Spiritual Seal” to those who made efforts on the front lines to build Cheon Il Guk. This seal binds seven billion people as “One Family under the Heavenly Parent.”
Dr. Tyler Hendrick’s Interpretation of the Seal of Cheon Il Guk
We Americans face a variety of challenges in receiving True Parents’ words in momentous ceremonies. For one thing, there is the cultural gap, the divergence of social worlds and the meanings embedded in words. For another, there is the religious gap. The pageantry is foreign to low Protestant types, and American culture is low Protestant. Even the Divine Principle exalts George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, who was thrown into prison for refusing to take off his hat before a member of the aristocracy.
So, the solemn presentation of a heavily decorated box to a queen, no matter how much we personally regard and even love her, is hard for us to comprehend. We look down at the printed program and wonder what comes next?
It’s a shame, really, because True Mother is doing just what God wants, and the Bible tells us so. So, I find it therefore helpful to take a deep breath, back up, and read the Bible, before striving to fathom the meaning of what God is doing through our church. I hope a little excursus for this purpose might help you as well. In God’s history, a seal is a serious matter.
The first appearance of the word in the Bible is very interesting, from the Unification Church point of view. A seal plays a major role in the relationship of Tamar and Judah:
He said, “What pledge should I give you?” “Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,” she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. (Gen 38:18)
So, a seal represents a person’s identity, and it happens to appear in the key action of a man and woman in the change of blood lineage, the purification of the womb that would, eventually, receive the Messiah. Christ is referred to as the Lion of Judah, and it was Judah who gave his seal to Tamar, whom he thought to be a prostitute. It reminds one of Esau giving his birthright to Jacob, whom he treated as a servant.
A seal also can represent a tribe’s identity. The next appearance of a seal in the Bible is when we find God giving a seal to each of the twelve tribes of Israel:
There are to be twelve stones, one for each of the names of the sons of Israel, each engraved like a seal with the name of one of the twelve tribes. (Ex 28:21)
A seal can also represent God’s identity or ownership. The seal of God was affixed on the most holy place:
Make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it as on a seal: holy to the Lord. (Ex 28:36)
In Daniel are numerous references to the Word of God or prophecies of God being sealed up until the end times. It means that God’s identity, or his Word, is protected and identified by a seal:
But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.” (Dan 12:4)
Jesus stated that God placed a seal on him as His Son, the living Word:
Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” (Jn 6:27)
Paul called himself sealed as an apostle (1 Cor 9:2) and said that all believers have the seal of the Holy Spirit; in fact, the Holy Spirit itself is the seal!
[God] set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (2 Cor 1:22)
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit… (Eph 1:13)
So the seal represents human identity, God’s protection and God’s ownership, and it is the Holy Spirit itself. The seal went to Tamar, the female, and returns as a female indwelling, the Holy Spirit.
The culminating biblical providence of the seal of God is in Revelation. First is the protection of the scroll of God’s Word with its seven seals, which only the Lamb of God could open.
And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” (Rev 5:2)
And finally there is the sealing of the 144,000 faithful followers of the Lamb and his Bride…
After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. (Rev 7:1-4)
They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. (Rev 9:4)
In this perspective, the appearance of the Spiritual Seal of Cheon Il Guk that was presented to True Mother during the Foundation Day Ceremony is consistent with God’s Providence from its very foundation. True Mother, after all, is the living Holy Spirit.
True Parents declared that the foundation is completed for the Kingdom of God on earth and in heaven. The seal represents God’s ownership of Cheon Il Guk, God’s ownership of True Parents, God’s ownership of His Word in the Divine Principle and True Parents’ words, and God’s ownership of those attending the Lord at the Second Advent.
With that in mind, Satan is pushed back to a respectful distance, and the power and glory of True Parents’ declaration begins to find its way into my heart.