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Romans 4
9 Are these blessings meant for circumcised people or for those who are not circumcised? Well, the Scriptures say that God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith in him. 10 But when did this happen? Was it before or after Abraham was circumcised? Of course, it was before.
11 Abraham let himself be circumcised to show that he had been accepted because of his faith even before he was circumcised. This makes Abraham the father of all who are acceptable to God because of their faith, even though they are not circumcised. 12 This also makes Abraham the father of everyone who is circumcised and has faith in God, as Abraham did before he was circumcised.
Ecclesiastes 7
A good reputation
at the time of death
is better than loving care
at the time of birth.[a]
2 It’s better to go to a funeral
than to attend a feast;
funerals remind us
that we all must die.
3 Choose sorrow over laughter
because a sad face
may hide a happy heart.
This reading was given at the 7/1 and 7/8 Jeol Holy Day Celebrations at the Unification Sanctuary on August 20, 2018.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
Feb 10, 1981
The title I will speak on today is “History of the Providence of Restoration through Indemnity.” People in general, people in the secular world will not know what this is about.
Today, we refer to God’s providence as the providence of salvation. It is easy to talk about how He conducts His providence of salvation, but until now no one knew this content. Only God knew it.
So why was it that only God knew? When human beings fell, they fell without knowing. They fell without knowledge and in ignorance. For this reason, God has been conducting His spiritual work throughout human history so that human beings could escape from the realm of ignorance. A person who is in ignorance, who is in the environment of ignorance cannot just leave by claiming to know everything. There is the fallen world with problems a person cannot just solve and leave.
Because human beings fell, they live with the results of the fall.
In the providence of salvation, God exists and He conducts His providence to save humanity from the world of ignorance, the world of the fall. And the realm that has fallen into the results that are opposite to the path that God goes, the realm centered on Satan that is opposite to God, always obstructs. So we cannot go this way without resolving all the things that obstruct us. This was where indemnity was absolutely necessary in the course of history. When a person commits a crime and goes to prison, he must pay for his crime or set some other condition to be released. Then he needs to go through a process of defense before this can be officially acknowledged. Only then can he be released. So the term indemnity refers to the absolute need to correct things that have gone wrong in the course of history.
So, what does indemnity mean? If a person commits a crime that must be indemnified over a hundred years, the person will not be able to live that long. He needs to indemnify the crime over 100 years, but he can’t. And if he dies without completing the indemnity, nothing will be accomplished. So a time period – such as one year or 10 years – needs to be chosen that is a minimum amount that he can still accomplish during his lifetime.
Here, God tries to have the period be just a year, but Satan says, “No, let’s make it 10 years.” So, what happens? God says, “All right. Let’s see if we can find a way that we do it your way but also according to my way.” And Satan says, “Yes.” This is how, in restoration through indemnity, Satan tries to strike a person over a long period, while God tries to forgive the person with a shorter period. You need to know that there is this kind of struggle.
So God says to Satan, “Isn’t it true that human beings originally weren’t supposed to be accused by you? Isn’t it true that human beings weren’t created to be accused by you or imprisoned by you?” Then Satan states his own position, saying, “I know all that. But isn’t it also true that love can be claimed forever? When we look at love from a Principle perspective, once a person establishes a relationship of love, that person belongs to that love partner forever. Isn’t this the law of love?” Then God says, “Isn’t it true from a Principle perspective that I created human beings, and they should have become my sons and daughters, but you established a relationship by illegal means?”
There’s no solution here. The claim that Satan makes is correct from a Principle perspective, and the claim that God makes from a Principle perspective is also correct. So, centering on human beings, God looks for ways for us to love Him more than we love Satan. Isn’t that Principle? For people who are caught up in Satan’s world to follow God, for them to love God more than Satan, they need to throw away everything that is of this world. They must reject everything that is of this world. There need to be conditions that they love God even in the face of opposition from everyone in the world and despite any problem that may arise. When Satan says, “You can have the sons and daughters who love you more than me but not those that love me more than you,” God will say, “Yes.”
When God asks for one year, Satan says, “I want 10 years.” So the two compromise. Satan will say, “Those who love you and seek you can have one year. But is it all right if I make them suffer as much in one year as they would otherwise suffer in ten years?” This is the condition he puts out. You need to know the concept that this is the reason people of faith have extra persecution. This is the reason in the religious world that liberation begins at a point that lies in the position of death. Evil Satan has forced many people of heaven to sacrifice.
Just because indemnity conditions have been established and love has been established and everything is indemnified at once, it doesn’t mean that restoration of the individual, family and the whole can occur at once. Restoration must occur in stages that are climbed one at a time. Whatever number of stages there are, they must be climbed. Do you understand what this means? As we say in the Unification Church, we climb upward starting with the era of the servant of servants and go through the era of the servant, the era of the adopted son and the era of the son to reach the era of parents. Do you understand this?
These indemnity conditions must be set at the servant of servants stage and again at the servant stage, at the adopted son stage, at the son stage, and at the parents stage. These were the unavoidable obstacles that had to be overcome in the course of history.
Originally in the Principle, the servant of servants cannot relate to God. There is no position for a servant of servants. The archangel’s position is that of a servant, so there is no servant of servants. So Satan can do whatever he wants with a person who is in the servant of servants position.
It was in the age of Abraham that human beings overcame the position of the servant of servants and rose to the position of servants. History up until the time of Abraham was the history of the servant of servants. It was Jacob who fought the angel and won. He fought the angel at the Ford of Jabbok and won. The angel was in the position of angels prior to the fall, and by defeating this angel, human beings rose to the level not of an angel on Satan’s side but of an angel on God’s side. The angel that appeared at the Ford of Jabbok stood in the position of angels prior to the
human fall and fought with a human being. The fact that the human being won the fight meant that the archangel on Satan’s side had been defeated. That is how, centering on Jacob, we could have a people of victory called “Israel.” This people of victory were not in the position of the archangel on Satan’s side. They were a people of victory in the position of the archangel on God’s side. This is still not the position of the son. Originally, it was only the real son and
daughter who could live with God. Only these two could live in the heavenly family. The servant could not live with God. That is the reason that they needed to go to a pagan land. They had to go to a satanic land, fight against the kingship there, and return victorious.
So, the Israelites went to Egypt and fought for 400 years. They formed their own ethnic group and fought against the sovereign of Egypt. After 430 years, they left and headed for the blessed land of Canaan. They left to form a nation of their own. Once they entered Canaan, they established that nation. After they established their country, God taught them consistently through time that the Messiah would come.
So what does the Messiah do when he comes? The Messiah is God’s son. He gives the qualification of a son. When people rise above the stage of servants, they must go through the stage of the adopted son to the position of the son. The people of Israel had to restore themselves to Canaan, establish the nation of Israel and defeat Rome. They needed to rise beyond the era of the nation and represent a world-level nation so as to go up against Rome. Ultimately, Canaan became a vassal of Rome. This was the same as if they had been absorbed by Rome. I’m saying that the country of Israel being a vassal of Rome was effectively the same as Israel being a part of Rome.
They needed to be liberated from there. For that to happen, Rome could not be strong. If Rome were strong, Israel could not be liberated from it. So, Heaven conducted its spiritual work so that Rome would be as weak as possible so as to match it up with the needs of the providence. (Translator: “Did you say Rome could not be strong?”) In the fullness of time, God conducted His providence so that Rome fell into paralysis and drew near a situation where it could be destroyed. In preparation for this time, a person such as John the Baptist appeared and expanded the foundation of revival.
John was chosen by God, but what was his position? He was a mediator who could inherit the position of the adopted son. He was a representative who could be an intermediary between the positions of servant and son. John appeared in the adopted son realm, which Heaven had established anew on the foundation of Judaism. If the people of Israel had faithfully followed the words of John, they could have left their position as servants and pass over into the position of adopted sons. They could have passed through the process of an era on a horizontal plane. That means in one generation. They would pass through horizontally.
Then who was John supposed to introduce to the Israelites in his position representing the adopted son realm? It was the Messiah, who is the direct son. John needed to declare the son of God to the people of Israel.
In the heavenly kingdom, there is the son, the adopted son and the servant. These are spread out on a horizontal plane. Here, the Messiah is the son. John is the adopted son, and the people of Israel are servants.
So the people of Israel, in the servant realm, must be absolutely obedient to the words of John the Baptist. They must say “Yes” to any order he may give and follow. And no matter what the son of Heaven may command, John, in the adopted son realm, must say “You’re right” and follow. There can be no objections here. He must obey absolutely.
When these three become one, whom will they fight? They must wrestle against Rome. Just as the archangel and Jacob fought at the Ford of Jabbok. That is the kind of fight they must do. In that time, Rome’s sovereignty was exhausted and preparations were budding that would allow all the weak ethnic groups to claim their independence. If Jesus had carried out such a movement, the Arab realm would have been completely unified.
When faced with an enemy, those who hate the enemy will unite with each other. They become one. When the enemy is large, everyone who feels threatened by the large enemy, everyone who opposes the enemy will become one. In this case, if these three had become one, Rome would have been brought down completely. Do you understand what this means? But John the Baptist went his own way, Judaism went its own way, and Jesus went his way. As a result, the foundations That had been laid through history – the servant of servants foundation and the servants foundation – disappeared.
Jesus came on the expectation that there would be the foundations of the adopted son and of the servant. These disappeared, though, and Satan accused Jesus, saying, “Jesus, there’s no value in your coming.” Jesus lost all the providential footing that had been prepared.
But, there was the testimony that John the Baptist had given to Jesus. There was the foundation of John having testified. He testified by saying, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) The standard of John having testified became an issue here. If John had died without even giving this testimony, Jesus would not have been able to accomplish any part of God’s will. There would have no nation that had testified, no people that had testified and no world that had testified.
The foundation of John’s testimony meant that even if Jesus were to die, even if he were captured and killed, Christians could live to replace and act in place of the Jews to establish Israel’s adopted son realm and servant realm. This is how Christianity came to form the adopted son realm. This was the providence of spiritual salvation that took place following Jesus’ death.
Christianity inherited this and for 400 years, … They resisted Rome and paid with their lives to conquer Rome. They endured the suffering of death. They devoted their full energy. This was the re-indemnification of the full history of indemnity. Surviving in that situation would have been … If you go to underground caves like the catacombs, you can see the tragic history of Christianity. The catacombs were caves that were dug as resting places for corpses.