Book One - True God
Chapter Four - True Father's Insights on God
Section 3. A God Confined and Incarcerated

3.1. God lost His rightful position

My own pain and grief are nothing. God has not been able to fulfill His role as God. You must understand that God's bitter tears which melt the marrow of His bones and His bloodstains which spread throughout the course of history are crying out from the ground. I have been doing this work because I know that the mission remains to liberate God from His anguish. (137-175, 1986.1.1)

We must liberate God. God is confined by love. He may as well be in prison. He has not been set free. Due to the Fall, the ideal world that the all-knowing and almighty God, the Creator of the universe, intended to establish based on love was snatched away by Satan. Thus, God could not be liberated in heart. The foundation for liberating God's heart has not emerged in this universe. God is thus confined. His mind and heart cannot be at rest when His beloved children have died. (138-261, 1986.1.24)

We should liberate God with our own effort. He is not free. He is in confinement. He lost His sons and daughters. Even if one has ten times the filial piety of the lost filial son, one cannot easily free the original heart of a parent who has lost His sons and daughters, or worse, suffered from the death of His son of filial piety. Yet I am going to liberate this God. (135-283, 1985.12.15)

God is full of grief and distress. Why? Those who work hard in this world during their youth are assured of a hopeful future. Although God has invested painstaking efforts since the beginning of history, when did He have hope? When will His hopes be realized? Is God young or old? How old do you think He is? Because God transcends the universe, He has no age. Does God go around the sun once a year? We do not need to calculate this, because He is beyond the solar system. What is there to calculate? (105-184, 1979.10.21)

God, who is our Parent, cannot free Himself from lamentation without freeing all people from lamentation. How can any parents be comfortable while their loving children are living in anxiety? This explains why we should liberate God who is in such a situation.

How will we liberate God? God is restrained from loving all people; we are responsible to find a realm of liberation in which God can freely love all of humankind. Since we were corrupted through the Fall, we must liberate God by becoming children who are victorious over the Fall. (65-100, 1972.11.13)

What happened due to the Fall? God was shackled and restrained and so were the first ancestors of the human race and the realm of angels. Countless religious people in history have struggled against these shackles. It is the same for all humankind. (79-26, 1975.6.16)

You should know that a child who does not demonstrate filial piety restricts the parents. To liberate those parents, the child must display a filial piety greater than his impiety and also be officially recognized by the general public. Only then can he cleanse himself of his past sins. This is the heavenly law. By the same principle, I do not need people who say, "I will live only for you, Father." The neighbors, this nation, this people -- they are all a pitiable lot.

For five thousand years we have sung, "I will build a small cottage and attend both parents for tens of thousands of years." I am glad they will attend both parents, but why live in a small cottage for tens of thousands of years? They are a pitiable people. We must guide them. If these people, who are penniless and poor, also fail to obtain God's blessings, where will they go and live? (85-263, 1976.3.3)

3.2. God could not function as God

How long will the Unification Church last? The Unification Church must persist until it liberates our planet Earth, the spirit world, and, ultimately, with a heart of love, God. We must ultimately liberate humankind, the spirit world and God. I am sure you are hearing this for the first time. So far we have looked to God to liberate us, but in fact, we have to liberate God. You should know that God's heart has been restrained. (85-270, 1976.3.3)

If loving parents have a child who does not show filial piety, their hearts cannot be liberated until they see that child rise to the position where he can freely fulfill the parents' expectation. In the same way, God created Adam and Eve as His greatest partners of love. They are His partners of love. Vertically they are in a parent-child relationship with God and horizontally they were created to become husband and wife. Thus, God intended to practice all the ideals of love in heaven and on earth. Yet God lost everything due to the Fall. Even God ended up being confined. (210-308, 1990.12.27

A person who has not established heaven on earth and lived there cannot go to heaven in the spirit world. Even when I went to prison and manacles were placed on my wrists, they could not restrain me because I had love. When I was in a cramped position that made it hard to sleep, I woke up at night to find light shining from my hand. Why was there light? It was because God was embracing me. I discovered His love. That is why light could shine even in that dark room. If I sat quietly and reverently in the corner of a prison cell after hearing someone groaning and crying, the following day people would give me packets of rice powder. They had heard a distant voice, "If you don't give this food to this particular prisoner, all the prisoners and even your family will be uncomfortable." My God is a God of love. The Unification Church members should not be an ungrateful group of people who persecute such a God. (137-202, 1986.1.1)

We should know that for six thousand years, God has sought people thirsting for faith and hope and burning with love who say, "God is in shackles on account of humankind, including me; God was accused by Satan because of me; Jesus died on the cross for me; the Holy Spirit went through a bloody history of struggle on my behalf. God, please give me the strength. I will bring rest and liberation to the Father. I will also liberate Jesus and the Holy Spirit." (7-162, 1959.8.30)

If God and Satan fight each other, who will stop them from fighting? Would the fight just end? There has been no place for God to stand, because He did not have a devoted son or a system of love through which people could uphold the heavenly kingdom by fulfilling the way of a loyal subject, saint and divine son or daughter. Until now, God has been incarcerated and confined. The heavenly kingdom became an empty ruin. God has carried this sorrow in His heart. (302-226, 1999.6.14)

Have you ever met a grandfather or grandmother whom God is seeking? Because of the Fall, you have not. Have you ever met a mother or father whom God is searching for? Have you ever met a wife or a husband whom God is looking for? Have you ever met a son or a daughter whom God is seeking? How can the bitterness of this quest be dissolved? Who can sever the chains that bind this heart? Nothing except the love of God. Nothing except God's essential love can do this. (209-106, 1990.11.27)

God can do anything at will, but because of the reality of unprincipled love His hands have been tied. No one knows how He suffers under such lasting regret and sorrow and how unimaginably weary He is. (197-327, 1990.1.20)

In the established churches people say, "Oh! Holy, holy God! Oh! God of glory! Give me blessings." But God is not that kind of God. On the contrary, He is a miserable God, suffering in confinement. He can be liberated from His sorrowful situation only through the birth of a son. Hence, you must liberate God. Unless you do so, the heavenly path cannot be made straight, and thus the ideal world cannot be established on earth. It has been the history and the mission of the Unification Church to rectify this. (22-151, 1969.2.2)

What lies within the sermons, core teachings and the words you hear from the Unification Church? Its teachings can liberate God, whose heart is in confinement. God is lamenting in grief because of the Fall. From the outset, the history of such lamentation has been a global one. Thus, Paul said that all creation, our ancestors and we ourselves wait with eager longing for the appearance of God's true sons and daughters. It is because they long to free and separate themselves from that realm of grieving. (65-100. 1972.11.13)