The Messiah and the Completed Testament Age

The world desperately needs to make a transition into a new direction. Despite the effort of countless scholars and leaders, not one of our religious, racial, moral, political or economic problems are being solved; they only continue to accumulate. This impasse exists because we are moving in the wrong direction. Therefore, it is the day in which we absolutely need a heavenly leader, the Messiah, who can provide the new direction. In the beginning, human history started in the wrong direction, and we must reverse direction 180 degrees.

At the conclusion of World War II, the free world was united and Christianity prospered. The hour had come for God to reveal this truth. That precious opportunity, however, was missed. God worked to rebuild the foundation to reveal His truth, and now that time has come again. In biblical terms, it is the end of the New Testament Age and the beginning of the Completed Testament Age.

The coming of the Messiah is necessary because God's will at the beginning of history was not fulfilled. God desired that the first ancestors, Adam and Eve, become true parents, setting the tradition of true love in their family. Their God-centered love, life and blood lineage then would have expanded into the physical world and eternal spirit world. No Messiah would have been necessary.

God's building block for the Kingdom of Heaven was this true family, based upon the relationships of heart between parents and children, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters. They and their descendants would have been like royalty, living a "royal familyship", as kings and queens in their families, clans, nations and across the world.

This ideal world is held together by true love, the ability of people to live sacrificially for the sake of others. The fall meant that love became selfish. Today men and women follow Satan's false love--life for the benefit of self at the expense of others. After the fall, the first parents transmitted this false love to their children, Cain and Abel, separating them from God's true blood lineage. The satanic world expanded from its satanic origin. When we look at the world today, we see hell, 180 degrees opposite God's desire.

Each nation knows unhappiness, the suffering in families, the corruption of youth, poverty and wars. The greatest gift of God, which is true love, has become merely a physical pursuit. The essence of God is love. Love's central point is emotion and deep feeling. Free sex is only physical, mechanical love, devoid of emotion. Its fruit is unhappiness, broken families, crime, and diseases such as AIDS.

The divine goal is to restore the original love, life and blood lineage. To accomplish this, God works the opposite of Satan. Satan divides people so he can exercise his dominion. God inspires people to sacrificially love and unite. Out of love for His children, God began the work of salvation immediately, in Adam's family. Due to the fall, Adam separated from Eve and Cain from Abel. God tried to reverse that pattern. If Cain had united with Abel, rather than killing him, then true love would have been re-established, and a Messiah could have been raised up.

Satan's nature is to attack first, while those who side with God are sacrificial and conciliatory. They bear the attack of Satan and, by their perseverance and unity with God's love, become victors in the end. God is always on the side of the one who is struck, raising that one up through suffering. This has been God's strategy throughout human history.

God most desires unity of love in the family, and here is where Satan strikes directly. In contemporary society we see dysfunctional families, domestic violence, incest, free sex, homosexuality--resulting in divorce, AIDS, death, broken hearts and dreams.

The base of Satan's world is the self-centered family, separated from God. In families we often see inter-generational conflict between grandparents, parents and children. In nations such as America, the family is almost annihilated by the estrangement of young and old. Selfish individualism prevails, an outlook that leads to apathy toward family, clan and nation. With weakened families, a nation that was once mighty, with political liberty and vibrant religious life, will crumble from within.

Throughout history, God has been trying to create the foundation for the Messiah. The Messiah comes as the new Adam to establish a family as True Parents, with a new Eve, a literal bride, restoring true love, life and lineage for all humankind.

Therefore, Jesus was to receive a literal bride. This marriage of a true man and woman was to establish the True Parents of humankind. They would have been a model for all people and would have created a physical lineage of true love.

The Messiah, as True Parents, are human beings as were Adam and Eve. The Messiah must be parents, not a single individual. The True Parents would create a physical lineage, as well as engraft "adopted" children from the fallen world, who could inherit God's blessing and learn the tradition of true love.

Jesus came on the Old Testament foundation of restoration. That process began with Jacob and Esau and their mother, Rebecca, who restored Eve's causing Cain and Abel to be fallen children. She cooperated with Jacob, who was on God's side, to win the blessing and win over Esau by sacrificial love. These two brothers set a pattern of restoration. Esau, the elder in Cain's position, who was farther from God, followed Jacob, the younger in Abel's position, who was closer to God. Assisted by their mother, Jacob and Esau changed from enemies to loving brothers. The providence of restoration started in this one family.

However, Esau and Jacob were grown men, and restoration must ultimately take place in the womb, for the Messiah to be born a man without sin in the position as God's son. A subsequent stage, therefore, was required to change the blood lineage. That took place when Tamar gave birth to the twins, Perez and Zerah, an event which restored the womb. The Messiah, Jesus, was born from this restored lineage of Judah. The Israelites were the people chosen to be the bride to receive the Messiah.

Like Rebecca and Tamar, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was in a restored Eve's position. At the birth of Jesus, a true blood lineage was established through the only-begotten son of God, through which all people could connect to God.

Mary was in the mother's position to unite Jesus and John the Baptist. That unity was the same as Cain and Abel becoming one. On the national level, the religion, Judaism, was in the Abel position, closer to God, and Israel as a nation was to follow in the Cain position. Had those two united, centering on Jesus, this national unity of Cain and Abel would have restored the mother's position on the national level. The human fall destroyed the unity of the original family, and the goal of restoration is to reverse that. the providence at the time of Jesus was to create a united family and nation, centering on the Messiah. But those around Jesus did not understand their responsibility. He was abandoned, and had to make his own foundation in the midst of opposition. Finally he was crucified.

If the Old Testament had come to a successful conclusion, Jesus could have restored the nation and world within 40 years. Instead, 2,000 years passed in preparation for the Second Coming. With Jesus' resurrection, Christianity was born as the new bride to await the new bridegroom. Those who believed in Jesus were adopted into God's spiritual lineage, but because Jesus did not marry, his physical death blocked the way to physical salvation. The Lord of the Second Advent comes on the foundation of the New Testament Age and, like Adam and Jesus, must be born on earth to establish physical salvation.

The crucifixion of Jesus set a pattern for continued Cain-Abel divisions.

Human struggle originated in the disunity of the individual's mind and body after the fall. The mind seeks God's side and the body is tempted toward Satan's side. This struggle expands from the individual to the family, clan, nation and world. As a result, the world divided into religious and non-religious spheres. Three criminals surrounded Jesus as he was crucified. They prefigure the children who are to be united by the bride in the New Testament preparation for the second coming. The thief on the left--the Cain side--is secularism and communism, the thief on the right--the Abel side--is Judeo-Christianity. Barabbas, the released criminal, represents Islam.

We can see examples of this separation, such as the north-south division between communism and democracy in Korea and the religious strife that divides the Middle East. The religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam all were born of Abraham, but they have often been in violent conflict as enemies. These divisions must be healed as a foundation to receive the Messiah in the Completed Testament Age.

In the Last Days, God separated the Abel side from the Cain side on a world level. Following the historical pattern, Satan influenced Cain to strike Abel. This was the pattern of the First and Second World Wars and the third global conflict--the Cold War.

As the "bride" religion for the Lord who is coming as the bridegroom, Christianity played an important role in the World Wars. The allied Christian nations of England, America and France were struck first by the Axis powers, which lost in the end. We can see that through communism Satan attacked Christianity and all religions. All religions receive persecution in pursuit of God's will.

With the Axis defeat, the free world united, centering on America, the representative Christian nation which is the worldwide second Israel, and Christianity, the bride religion. The Allied victory was not only in their winning the war, but in how they helped their defeated brothers rebuild their countries.

As history progressed, God's work on the family level expanded to the national and world level, giving to nations the roles in the original family--Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel. This helps explain the providential significance of World War II. England, an island nation, took the mother position and the United States and France were in the roles of Abel and Cain. In the Garden of Eden, the relationship of Eve, Cain and Abel was lost on the family level. This relationship was restored on the world level through the relationship between America and France, centering on England. As Rebecca gave birth to Jacob, England gave rise to America, leading to the spread of Christianity worldwide in preparation to receive the Messiah. Thus, the Allied solidarity after the war was the decisive foundation to receive the Second Advent. That unity, unfortunately, was short-lived.

In 1945, at the moment the Christian culture finally achieved a unified world, I, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, was prepared to proclaim that I am the Lord of the Second Advent. In the role of bride, the Christian nations, centering on America, were to receive my message. Christian missions had spread throughout the world and it was a time when believers reported prophecies and signs. Western Christians had reached deep into Korea and were aware of my work.

By recalling the fate of Jesus 2,000 years ago, we can recognize why I was misunderstood. The Jewish people were awaiting a Messiah to appear in the sky, and today many Christians are waiting for Christ to return in the literal clouds. The Israelites expected that Elijah would come from heaven in power and glory, but he came in the person of John the Baptist who was to testify to Jesus, the humble son of a carpenter. When the Messiah comes in the Completed Testament Age, he, too, will be born of a woman, in a humble way not anticipated by most Christians. Only by understanding God's providence will people be able to recognize him.

In my ministry, I have been persecuted and misunderstood from all sides. Israel was to have welcomed Jesus and offered him the prepared bride and messianic kingship. John the Baptist, the leaders of Israel, and the entire nation should have attended Jesus as their king. But they rejected him. To rebuild that foundation, Jesus had to gather his own 12 apostles, 70 disciples and 120 followers.

In the same way, I had to postpone my ministry, originally intended to develop quickly on the foundation of world Christianity. To rebuild that foundation, in 1954 I created the Unification Church.

The seven years between 1945 and 1952 were to be a period when Christianity received the Messiah and expanded his tradition to the world. The Christian failure to do so meant that the 4,000 years of providence from Abraham until today was lost. To restore this, centering on the Unification Church, I led a 40 year period of spiritual and substantial activity, indemnifying the 4,000 years of the Old and New Testaments: 20 years in Korea representing the 2,000 year Old Testament era, and 20 years in America representing the 2,000 year New Testament era. I have worked to bring love and truth from the family level to the world level. I continuously faced severe persecution, rejection, ridicule, torture and imprisonment as a falsely-accused criminal. Yet after 40 years I, centering on the Unification Church, am able to stand as the True Parent and Messiah on a worldwide foundation of restored Christianity.

I never hide from persecution or controversy. God's strategy is that the one who is struck without cause finally prevails. Everyone has gone against me: individuals, families, denominations, nations and the entire world. But by my receiving this unprecedented persecution, a global territory is now claimed by God and made righteous. I have performed international mass weddings, creating a new heavenly family order, reconnecting all the broken relationships from the family to the nation and world. Further, I have proclaimed Godism, a God-centered philosophical value system. I have carried this out at the cost of my life.

By analogy, I have restored a good tree, one with healthy roots but no branches or twigs. The task now is to help that tree flourish. To accomplish this purpose, I have raised up Tribal Messiahs throughout the world. They will be the branches and twigs of the tree.

After World War II, conflicts between the right and left wings, between Islam and Israel, and between democracy and communism were insoluble, even though the free world was united and Christianity was prospering. The reason is that Christianity failed to welcome the Lord of the Second Advent. Therefore, I had the task to restore the realm of the bride (Christianity), lost through the failure of England, America and France. To do this, I re-established Cain and Abel countries, and created a harmonious atmosphere worldwide. Eventually I had to unite the realm of Barabbas, and make conditions of restoration centering on seven providential countries, Korea, Japan, America, England, Germany, France and Italy, to restore the bridal realm.

My wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, representing all humankind, is fulfilling the role of literal bride to receive the Messiah. After World War II, the bride religion, Christianity, failed its responsibility and lost its providential position. This has been restored by Mrs. Moon through the organization of the bride, the Women's Federation for World Peace. She delivered lectures on world peace, and was received by women leaders in the seven great providential countries and the former communist world.

She has accomplished her mission in the bride's as well as True Mother's position. Thus, she stands in the position of mediator for all people to engraft into the bridegroom, the Messiah. From God's viewpoint, the true liberation of women and the family has now taken place. And I and my wife now stand as the True Parents to all humankind.

This time in history is thus the transition from the New Testament Age to the Completed Testament Age. On the global as well as individual level, the mind must lead the body back to God. To accomplish this, I have inspired the creation of cooperative internal and external organizations for world peace. The Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace serves the internal role, uniting the living faiths around God's love. The International Federation for World Peace, comprised of statesmen, scientists, economists and national leaders, serves the external role of creating a healthy community of nations.

I have called Unification Church members in formerly-enemy nations--Korea, Japan, America, Germany, Italy, France and England--to work together for God. I have prayed for these seven providential nations for 40 years. When I sent missionaries to the world, they went as trinities of American, Japanese and German. Representatives of these nations served as missionaries in America, where they sacrificed for your nation's resurrection as the second Israel. I have used the same principle in other nations as well.

Nations obtain God's blessing by their service to the world, something the multi-racial America is uniquely equipped to do. However, a wealthy nation which tries to keep God's blessing for itself will decline. The Roman Empire fell, and the dominance of the British Empire is past. Nations that demand worship from others fall into obscurity.

The same applies to religions. Those that consider themselves "chosen" must not see others as subservient to them. God chooses those who serve and sacrifice for the world. This is what I teach in the Unification Church. If any religion wants to be at the forefront, it must be willing to serve the others. Only love grants a religion greatness. Love threatens no one, yet is the most powerful force. God gives His blessing to a people or religion to accomplish restoration of the world. God's heart is such that, if He must, He will sacrifice His chosen son or people to restore others.

With the coming of the True Parents, the people of all religions can be engrafted into this tradition of true love. In this age, all persons in the world can inherit the role of messiahship. By following the example of the True Parents, everyone may participate in the salvation of the individual, family, nation and world.

God continues to see America as central in the Completed Testament Age, for it represents the fruit of the traditions of the first and second Israels--Judeo-Christianity. America must repent for its decadent ways and resurrect its moral traditions. To make world unification and world peace, America should unite providentially with the True Parents and Korea as the third Israel. Korea, the third Israel, should be unified and play the central role in the Pacific cultural sphere. For Korea to do that, she needs America's total support. To restore the failure of England, America and France after World War II, Japan, an island nation, takes the mother position and the United States and Germany are in the roles of Abel and Cain. They must unite providentially to support Korean unification.

I have been consistent in my message since my ministry began, and since I first proclaimed it in the United States in 1972. The True Parents beckon every individual and family to live in God's true love.

In our time, the satanic age will pass away. We will meet God, from whom we separated, and unite beyond the family, race, nation, world and cosmos, centering on God's Will. Then God will dwell with His creation in a unified, peaceful world. Here, we lead life for the sake of others with true love. The Kingdom of Heaven on earth is the ideal world of one great family. We will attend God and True Parents with eternal hope, and there will be overflowing freedom, happiness and peace. Amen.