Former Headquarters Church.
Matthew 8:20–22, 12:46–50, 25:31–46
The Historical Course Leading Up to the Sending of Jesus
We know that, from the very day human beings fell, a history of suffering, sorrow, and wretchedness began upon this earth. This was not the original purpose God planned at the time of the creation.
God, too, did not desire such a world, and human beings, too, did not wish to be born and live in it.
For this reason, God has come forth gathering this fallen world, having set up the purpose of clearing away this wretched history — this sorrowful and suffering history — and reclaiming the world of peace, the world of happiness, the world of freedom, and the world of goodness that He originally hoped for. This is precisely the path of restoration, the path of the providence of salvation.
Because God, who carries on the providence to save, cannot gather this world from an irresponsible position of looking on at all the suffering of this earth, He does not look on at all the suffering that human beings undergo in the fallen world as the suffering of human beings alone, but enters directly into the sphere of that suffering, bears responsibility, and confronts it.
Moreover, because He cannot save humankind without personally taking part in this sorrowful and wretched course of historical confrontation, He has come forth fighting up to now, accompanying the sorrowful history of humankind.
By what standard would He save this earth?
God desires to save the whole world at once, at an all-embracing standard. But because the entire fallen world is not in an environment where it can stand before God’s Will, He carries on the providence by laying a ground, establishing a chosen person, and passing through the order of restoration — a single family, a clan, a people, a nation, a world.
Thereby, having made the environment and the background of the age in which He can carry on the providence at an all-embracing standard, He intends, by saving the whole, to attain the desire and purpose of completing restoration. This is God’s providence of restoration, the providence of salvation.
Then, on the historical course, what kind of age was the age of Noah, or of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
It was a providential age centered on the individual and the family. Upon the foundation of such a providential age of the individual and the family, and upon the tradition and the foundation of heart bound to God, the Israelite people were to establish a national-level fidelity according to the law of God, who set up the tradition and the family code.
That was the responsibility of the chosen Israelite people. But because they failed to establish such fidelity, failed to keep the tradition inherited from God, and failed to fulfill the mission of the age, they collapsed without attaining the Will of national restoration that God had promised on the course of Israel’s restoration through the four-hundred-year period of bondage in Egypt.
And so God sought to accomplish, through Joshua and Caleb, the Will He had sought to accomplish by establishing Moses. Yet the Israelite people who entered the land of Canaan did not become a people who could bring national restoration to completion in their generation. Because they did not equip the environment, God again established countless prophets in age after age and came forth leading the people.
Passing through the age of the Judges, then through the age of King Saul, King David, and King Solomon, then through the age of the divided northern and southern kingdoms, then through the two hundred and ten years of the Babylonian captivity and return, and on to the period of preparation for the advent of the Messiah, He carried on the providence to bring the standard of national restoration to completion. There were the circumstances of God, who toiled together with history up until He sent Jesus, to prepare such a ground.
The Jewish People, Who Failed to Become One with Jesus
Upon such a national foundation, Judaism — which had set up a sovereign nation and formed the foundation of the national spirit and inner thought — was to become outwardly one with the Israelite people, unite the twelve tribes of Israel, and bring the standard of national restoration to completion.
This was the mission of the Israelite people up until Jesus came; yet despite this, the Israelite people and Judaism failed to prepare the ground for national restoration. And so, because the ground on which Jesus could be attended collapsed, we must realize that Jesus went away without bringing the mission of worldwide restoration to completion.
Had the Israelite people united in solidarity with Judaism, prepared the ground of national victory, and at the same time secured the national ground on which God’s providence of restoration and providence of salvation could be brought to completion, and offered it up whole before the coming Messiah — had Jesus thereby been able to stand in the position of governing and presiding over the entire people — Jesus would have set out, upon that foundation, on the course of worldwide restoration. That was the ideal God held when He sent the Messiah.
But the Israelite people did not recognize the Messiah, and did not know the purpose of the Messiah and the Will of God, who sent him. Had the Will of God and the national desire of Israel been in accord and linked to the Messiah, the historical desire of God would have been accomplished, and the national desire would have been accomplished.
Thereby, the Israelite people were to have appeared in the new age as a chosen people equipped with the priestly ideal that God had blessed; yet because they did not know the hope of God, who sent the Messiah, and did not become one body with the Messiah, Jesus came to walk the path of the cross.
By reason of this, what has become of history up to now?
Because the ground of Israel’s national restoration was not accomplished, it was centered on a new national standard, and after passing through the foundation of a nation, linked to the whole world up to today through Christianity. We must realize that this is the two-thousand-year history of Christianity.
Where lies the purpose for which God has carried on the providence in this way?
It is to set up an all-embracing standard and restore this heaven and earth to the world for the purpose of creation that God idealized. That is the providence God has led for six thousand years up to now.
The Messiah already came and went two thousand years ago. When he came to this earth, he had his hope and his circumstances. The One who came to this earth had the responsibility to establish a heavenly bond of love between God and human beings — a bond that the power of evil could never sever, however hard it tried.
Despite this, because the Israelite people betrayed him, Jesus, driven and pursued before those people and made to bear the cross and go to the summit of Golgotha, could not bequeath his hope, his circumstances, his heart to anyone on this earth.
It was a desire he had meant to realize upon the earth, a heart he had meant to establish upon the earth; but Christians the world over must realize that he simply bore it away together with the cross.
The saints who believe on this earth today, we who have met the age of consummation, must look back once more upon the day of Jesus two thousand years ago.
Had the Israelite people and Judaism fulfilled their responsibility at that time, what would have happened?
Upon the foundation of the Israelite people and Judaism, he could have set out on the course of worldwide restoration with the ideal of a worldwide religion. That was the desire of God, who sent the Messiah. But because they failed in their responsibility and Jesus died on the cross, only spiritual restoration — that is, only spiritual salvation — came to be accomplished.
We must realize that linking that national foothold and drawing it forth into a worldwide form is the history of the providence of restoration up to now.
Then, two thousand years ago, did God send Jesus to this earth to set him in a sorrowful place? No. Absolutely not.
The Place Where Jesus Ought to Have Been
For four thousand years, God prepared a new day, driving even countless prophets into death. To send a single Savior who, as a new leader for the age, for the people, and for the nation, could govern the world, He sent prophets and prepared a long historical course. He protected the chosen Israelite people — the Israelite people centered on Jacob — through countless courses of tribulation, and came forth leading and driving them to accomplish the promise of one day; this was the four thousand years of history up to Jesus’ time.
Having done so, did God send Jesus to set him in a sorrowful place?
We must realize that it was absolutely not so.
Then what was the mission of Jesus?
In what place and how was he to live, and what kind of life ought he to have lived?
Jesus did not come to live as a carpenter’s assistant in a carpenter’s household. He was not one to be born in a stable. Where had the Israelite people, prepared for four thousand years, gone, that they had to so despise the Messiah who came?
That they had to fail to recognize him and treat him with contempt?
That they had to receive in so forlorn a place the Messiah who came as the King of kings? To do so was not the purpose of God, who prepared for four thousand years and sent Jesus.
The Israelite people were to have attended the Messiah whom God sent in the royal palace of that nation, and, with the priests and the teachers of the Law at the center, the many religious officials were to have welcomed him as king in a place of glory above their own. Such a place was the place where the Messiah, the hope of the Israelite people, ought to have abided; and that was the desire of God, who sent the Messiah to this earth.
But Jesus, who came as the Messiah, was born in a stable. The God who foretold to Mary the birth of the Messiah did not desire that the Messiah be born in such a wretched place. That it turned out so was entirely because human beings failed in their responsibility.
Yet Christians today say that Jesus was born in a stable because, to become the Savior of all people, he had to lay the ground all the way from a wretched place to a place of glory. It is absolutely not so.
Jesus was to have governed the teachers of the Law and taken counsel with the priests. In the stead of the sovereign of that nation, he was to have commanded all people. That was the purpose for which God sent the Messiah, and the purpose of Jesus, who came bearing the mission of the Messiah upon this earth.
From birth, Jesus was to have taken counsel with people of the highest authority, commanded them, secured a worldwide foothold, and become the protagonist of judgment who could strike down the evil world.
How Did Jesus Live When He Came to This Earth?
But how did Jesus live when he came to this earth?
He was reviled and driven about. When they drove him out of this village, he had to flee to that village; when they drove him out of that village, he had to flee to this one.
Such a life was not the life the Messiah, who came upon a ground prepared for four thousand years, ought to have lived.
Did God send Jesus to such a place because He desired that the Messiah come to this earth and live so?
From the time of his birth, Jesus knew well what kind of life he, as the Messiah, was to live on this earth, and what the purpose was for which God sent him as the Messiah.
Such a heart of Jesus was more earnest even than the heart of Moses, who felt the responsibility of the mission to lead the Israelite people out of Egypt and strike down all seven tribes of Canaan.
Jesus was to have struck down all the satanic nations of the whole world and restored them to God’s side, thereby avenging God’s enemy and making all people into the sons and daughters of God. That was the original responsibility of Jesus, who came to this earth as the Messiah.
Yet what was the stage of life of Jesus, who came to this earth?
It was wretched. You must realize that Jesus was less than even the position of any high priest or religious official of the Jewish people, or of any person of that age.
Having no place to be, he said,
“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matt 8:20).
And he said, “Who are my parents? Who are my brothers and my sisters? It is whoever does the Father’s will.” He meant that the one who acts according to the Father’s will is his brother and his parent.
This is why he wandered seeking parents who act according to the Father’s will, an elder brother who acts according to the Father’s will, a younger brother who acts according to the Father’s will. But was there such a family?
Was there such a clan and people?
There was not. Even his brothers did not understand Jesus. When he stayed behind rather than going up to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles, he was rebuked by his younger brothers.
Jesus also said to Mary, “Woman, what have I to do with you?” (John 2:4).
This, too, is no ordinary saying.
Jesus, born into the household of Joseph, was of so pitiable a lot. When Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary received a special love from God, but as the years went by and the times passed, they changed utterly from the heart they had held in the time when God sent an angel to them to foretell the conception of Jesus.
When Joseph looked quietly at Jesus, what kind of child was he?
Joseph had indeed heard the voice of God that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but still, he was a stepson. So Joseph’s heart changed. Joseph ought to have stood, throughout the course of Jesus’ thirty-odd years, in a position of attending Jesus and praying for Jesus, with the heart of unbending loyalty toward the Will; but he held a merely human heart and, rather, ill-treated Jesus.
When the festivals of the Jewish nation came around, Joseph and Mary wished to give good clothing and good food to Jesus’ younger brothers, but, because Jesus was the son God had chosen and established, they did not so much as think of giving him food or clothing especially generously. Jesus walked such a sorrowful and infuriating course of life.
For Jesus, who came to this earth as the Messiah, what business had he with an adze, what business with a saw, what business with a plane?
The Messiah, a carpenter’s assistant?
In a period of preparation when, together with God, he was to bear responsibility for the destiny of all people and lay a ground he could pioneer, what business had he with the life of a carpenter?
The Reason the Jewish People Walked the Path of Suffering
When the whole world became a realm of darkness, and the priests and all the Israelite people, not knowing the Will of God and failing to understand the Messiah who came, went off in a direction twisted to their liking, how grieved and how aching must Jesus’ heart have been, who had to gather them up?
Since God had sent the Messiah upon the ground of the Israelite people prepared for four thousand years, Jesus was to fight and win against Satan, accomplish the Will of God, and resolve God’s bitterness; yet Jesus had no foothold to stand on. For this reason, Jesus was ashamed to face God.
When a person sent out as the envoy of a nation, bearing the nation’s special commission, fails utterly in the responsibility and duty he was to carry out, has he the face to return before his sovereign?
If it is so even for the envoy of a nation, how much more so for Jesus, who came as the Messiah?
Because the Israelite people and Judaism — prepared through four thousand years of bloody, sweaty toil and untold hardship — failed to become one and uphold Jesus, Jesus’ life became wretched. It was not wretched because he went hungry for food. It was not wretched because he was stripped bare. It was wretched because Jesus, who came for God’s sake, had no face to meet God.
God wished to link the historical altar, steeped in tears of blood, which He had prepared for four thousand years, and bequeath it to Jesus, so that Jesus might gather it up, set up a sovereign nation centered on the people God had established, and, with the authority of the King of kings, govern all people.
But Jesus could not even ascend the throne, nor so much as stand in the position of a sovereign. We today must realize the circumstances of Jesus, who, though inwardly he held the substance with which he could command the whole world, was in an infuriating position where he could not, and who suffered a sorrow greater than being driven out by traitors and treacherous ministers.
Who would have known that Jesus, who came to this earth as the Crown Prince of Heaven, would become so wretched and so pitiable?
The Israelite people, who betrayed the Messiah they had awaited for four thousand years, were all punished. Why was it that, for two thousand years after Jesus died, they could not establish a sovereignty and became a wandering people?
Why was it that the massacre of six million Jews took place?
It was the receiving of a punishment that ought rightly to be received. Because they killed Jesus, it ultimately turned out so. It is the price of the sin of having betrayed the Will of God.
Since they made Jesus wander, the meaning is: become a wandering people; since they made Jesus an orphan in his lot, live a life like an orphan; since they made Jesus one driven and pursued, be driven and pursued. The meaning is: be pursued and driven the world over.
That the central nation God chose failed in its responsibility took place within a level sphere confined to a single nation; but viewed from the standpoint of God’s Will, it is by no means level and limited. Because the Israelite people killed the Messiah, who represented the world, they must walk a worldwide course of indemnity.
Since the disbelief of the Israelite people became God’s han, the time when that han is all indemnified on this earth, and a new nation of Israel can again be founded and restored upon this earth, is viewed in terms of the Will — the Last Days.
Though Jesus came to this earth and never became the head of a household, he came equipped with the character of a finer head of a household than anyone who had ever come to this earth since the creation of heaven and earth; though he never carried out the responsibility of a clan-head, he came as a finer person of responsibility than any clan-head on this earth; and though he never sat in the seat of a sovereign or an emperor, he came bearing a responsibility greater than any sovereign or emperor. He was to have completed that responsibility on this earth and realized the nation that this heaven and earth had longed for — the nation God sought to establish at the time of the creation, the nation of love, the nation of hope, the nation of freedom and liberation.
To realize such a nation worldwide all at once, God sent Jesus. And yet, having killed such a Jesus, do they say they will gather the world by making people believe in the cross?
Though Jesus walked a course of life of only thirty-odd years upon this earth, he grasped through experience (체휼) the sorrowful heart that God felt on the four-thousand-year historical course, and he drank to the dregs the bitter cup of defeat on this earth. This is why, at the end, Jesus said that he was naked and hungry.
When Jesus came to this earth, how greatly the Israelite people slandered and betrayed him! Yet Jesus grieved more than over himself at the fact that, if he were to die in this way, an enormous path of suffering would remain before the New Testament believers of later generations.
This is why he prayed three times in the garden of Gethsemane: “Abba, Father, if it be possible, let this cup be taken from me” (Matt 26:39).
The path the Lord walked is the path that all human beings on the earth must walk. The sons and daughters follow the path the Father walks. Since the Father goes to establish a nation, his children, too, must follow all the way to that nation.
They must go in obedience all the way to that nation, and, even while collapsing midway, must not die. This is why God established a single Messiah, facing the final battlefield of world history.
The desire of God, who established the Messiah, is precisely the building of a good Israel.
So, though the First Israel perished, God established Christianity as the Second Israel and formed a worldwide Israel-nation form, which is democracy. Here, that which stands in the same position as Judaism is Christianity.
Jesus’ Desire and the Reason the Unification Church Appeared
The Lord who came to the land of Judea two thousand years ago — the history of welcoming the national-level Messiah, setting up a national sovereignty, and making a worldwide start — was cut off; but God’s providence cannot be cut off.
At a heavenly standard, the worldwide foothold must be laid, even if only outwardly, and bequeathed to the democratic camp as the people of the Second Israel and to Christianity as the Second Judaism, and so raised.
For that, Christianity must be unified. If it is not unified, it perishes.
If Christianity fails to do the responsibility Jesus sought to do — the responsibility of gathering the Israelite people — it perishes. It is to do such a mission and responsibility that the Unification Church has come forth.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus, who came to this earth, was to have completed worldwide restoration in his generation and become the King of kings. But since he passed on bearing a han, he must be met again on a worldwide stage where the Second Israel is established and the national foundation is linked; and he must be met at a national starting point where the Second Judaism is established worldwide. That is precisely today’s Christianity and democracy.
This responsibility ought to have been done in Jesus’ own generation, but it was not. He could not utter even a single word about that responsibility. In Jesus’ heart, would he not have said, “Where has the true filial son gone, with whom I wish to live together in such a nation and whom I wish to have at my side in that nation?”
On the day when the Will of God and the hope of humankind are completed, he longed for the true children who, centered on Jesus, would govern all heaven and earth and return that glory before God. Jesus came with such an ideal, yet not once did he accomplish that Will. He could not even speak such words a single time.
Jesus said that the members of his household were his enemies. He meant that the village he lived in was his enemy and the nation he lived in was his enemy. In his very self, this body was his enemy. His mother and father were his enemies, and his clan, his people, his nation, and this world were his enemies.
Did Jesus, who came to this earth utterly alone, with a lot like an orphan’s, ever once get to speak his desire?
Is it in the Bible?
He said, “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what would I wish, if it were already kindled?” (Luke 12:49).
He cast the fire, but the fire did not catch. The fire did not catch. So how stifling must the suffocation of his heart have been? We must realize the sorrowful heart of Jesus, who, gazing over the city of Jerusalem, said,
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not!” (Matt 23:37).
In his infuriated heart, he even cursed the Israelite people. The fate of Israel was twisted at that moment.
Consider the heart of Jesus when he said, in Matthew 23:29,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” (Matt 23:29).
Throughout his thirty-odd years of life, Jesus could not express at all the heart he had so carefully cherished, his inner conviction. He held in that heart an adamant resolve, but he could not speak it to anyone.
Those blockhead disciples — what apostles were they?
Fellows who fled when things turned against them — apostles indeed? They did not represent one nation only. Called before history, they were not people who represented only the nation of Israel and Judaism. They represented the world and represented all people. They were a special task force who appeared, by God’s special commission, representing all people.
And yet they ran away, fearing the sword? They ran away lest their necks be cut off? And still they are called apostles?
It was only because Jesus, after his resurrection, went again for over forty days and gathered them up that they could become apostles. Until just three days before, they had vowed, adamant as iron and stone, “Even if we all die, we will not forsake the Lord” — and they backed away and fled.
When Jesus, who died in such a horrifying place, went again to seek them out three days later, what must his heart have been? Did he rejoice, saying, “Why, I have risen and come”? No. It was a truly wretched figure.
Jesus’ Plight, Which Could Not Be Told
Who entered Paradise first?
The thief entered first. You must realize this.
We saints, placed in the Last Days, must know the injustice Jesus suffered when he came to this earth. We must know the plight of Jesus, who was so wronged.
Because he could not accomplish the Will of God, he was wronged and infuriated; and because, though he had much he desired and much he wished to say upon the earth, he could not say it, he was wronged and infuriated. Though he was beaten, he could not say that it hurt.
Why did the Son of God become a forlorn lot, driven about by the satanic world?
Yet Jesus must not show the wretched figure of himself shedding tears. He must go in a manner befitting a loyal subject of God, befitting a filial son of God. However much he was beaten and pursued, he must not hold a heart of bitterness. He must go nobly, befitting a son of God.
Consider the plight of Jesus, who went without fulfilling his responsibility before God; the plight of Jesus, who came bearing a responsibility and a desire upon this earth and yet went without being able to speak them; the plight of Jesus, who was to have saved and restored all the people of the world in his generation and yet could not, and had to die together with four thousand years of history.
How infuriating it must have been! Even when Jesus shed tears, he shed them from a cosmic-historical position; and even bearing the cross in a cosmic-historically wretched place, he did not despair but went nobly.
Jesus knew all too well every historical fact of heaven and earth. He knew that if he cursed them, the providence of salvation for humankind would all collapse.
If Jesus had said, “God, avenge my enemy!” the entire Israelite people would have gone to hell. Since they had trampled upon Jesus’ desire and trampled upon God’s desire, to judge them would have meant sweeping them all away.
But Jesus knew that the Israelite people were a people God had toiled for four thousand years to establish. He knew how greatly God had toiled, even to the point of preparing the Israelite people to await him and establish him. This is why he could not curse them.
In just this way, the Israelite people — whom God, when they perished, gathered and established again, toiling tens of millions of times to establish — fell from the position of receiving God’s eternal blessing upon this earth.
Yet Jesus thought, “God set His hope on these and sent them to the land of Israel, and for thirty-odd years I have lived for these and fought for these. The purpose of fighting for them was to save them, not to punish them.
If I curse them here, then they, and even their descendants, will all go to hell, and the history of restoration built up until now will all collapse.” This is why he prayed three times. He made a blood-steeped appeal: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not according to my will, but according to the Father’s will.”
Who knew such a heart of Jesus?
Do those today who say they will believe in Jesus, go to heaven, and become the bride know it? The bride? The word is fine. The term, of course, is fine.
But what of the public course, the suffering, the sorrow, and the wretchedness that are needed to establish that term?
A price must be paid. The meaning is that one must not become a debtor.
We, Who Must Know the Heart of Jesus, Who Bore the Cross
Jesus could not lift his face toward Heaven, and when he looked upon the earth, he wished to stop his ears against the clamor of betrayal. Yet because he was in a position where, as the King of kings, he had to take hold of them and go on, he pleaded, “O Father, forgive their sin.
Even though it cost me my life, forgive their sin,” and so he appealed for the pardon of the historical sin and guilt of the Israelite people; he forgave the enemies who had bound him; and he yearned to set free the sphere of lamentation that the descendants of the future would meet.
In this way, Jesus took responsibility for the path of the cross and crossed over it steadfastly. Because he did so, God could, through Jesus’ resurrection, establish a sphere of historical victory, establish the initiative of the age, and unfold the start of a new history. And because the condition was established that, by following the resurrected Jesus again, one could be resurrected, the apostles could begin. Otherwise, it could not be done, for Satan accuses.
Only upon a foundation that had received God’s public recognition and Satan’s public recognition, at a standard that brought a worldwide settlement by setting up at least the condition that Jesus had forgiven those who betrayed him, could the apostles be sought and established again. In this way, the sovereignty of Heaven is reclaimed.
You must know the heart of Jesus, who bore the cross. What a forlorn man Jesus was! My friends, could you look at Jesus, equipped with historical value and historical authority, in the face?
My friends, would you have the face to look upon the Jesus of that time?
Could you believe in a Jesus who was driven about by the Israelite people who believed in the Old Testament Scriptures, driven about and pursued by the Jewish believers, a man hounded from place to place, mocked as a madman possessed by Beelzebul?
Since an unkempt young bachelor went about leading a widow around, how much gossip there must have been? Why, pouring perfumed oil on his feet and wiping it with her hair….
My friends, would you believe in such a Jesus?
Even people who are world-renowned doctors of theology, who say, “Ah, I am the foremost bride of the Lord,” would they believe in such a Jesus? They would most likely become the first to throw stones.
Now that Jesus has come to be recognized as great, and now that it has become an environment in which his historical value can be recognized, they believe.
Jesus like an orphan, Jesus the wanderer, Jesus driven about as a traitor to the people, Jesus who, bearing the cross, shed forlorn and wretched tears and shed blood as he set down one step at a time, Jesus who was wronged and infuriated, Jesus who went as an offering of atonement bearing an indignation no one knew — Jesus, who promised his return and went, vowing, “As long as my blood does not die, my prayer will not die; as long as my prayer does not die, my desire will not die; as long as my desire does not die, my circumstances will not die; as long as my circumstances do not die, my heart will not die; and as long as my heart does not die, there will be a day when I come again.”
Live your life of faith earnestly and ask Jesus. While he lived, there were many things Jesus wished to eat.
People who believe in Christianity today say, “Why, God would have given Jesus everything.” Some think Jesus neither passed water nor relieved himself. They think he did not even drink water.
If that were so, why would Jesus have died on the cross? They say, “Oh, Jesus, with whom nothing is impossible!” — but is it so? You must clearly understand. Was Jesus almighty when it came to subduing the power of Satan?
If so, how good that would be! Would it not be good if you, too, had such power?
The Reason Jesus Prays at the Right Hand of God
What prayer did Jesus pray in the period of preparation?
What prayer did he pray throughout his thirty-odd years of life? He prayed, “O God, though I live like this, do not worry.
Living like this is better for me than living in a royal palace. Living like this, wielding the adze and the plane, is better for me than living in luxury and ease in a royal palace.”
Even in such a wretched place, because Jesus knew the desire of God, who sent him in terms of history, he rather comforted God, saying, “Do not be disheartened. Do not lose heart.”
For example, if a parent bequeathed to a beloved son all of his life’s achievements and the rest, and the son who received that inheritance kept none of it for himself but divided it among his brothers, could the parent call the son to whom he had bequeathed it and punish him, saying, “You wretch, I gave you everything; why do you live wretchedly and divide it all among your brothers?” He could not.
That I receive such suffering and live so is because I know your heart that wishes to give, and know your heart that wishes to make me the protagonist.
Even if, in an environment where one ought to live singing of joy and happiness, one enters and lives in a wretched place, when one comes to stand in a good position, one is gathered before Heaven with the opposite value. It is a difficult saying, is it not? Yes, I understand. The lower the place one enters, the greater that value becomes.
For whose sake was it that Jesus, who ought to have eaten well and lived well, could not eat and lived wretchedly?
It was because all the people did not believe in him.
Jesus, who, even while setting up such a condition throughout his thirty-odd years of life, comforted the grieving God! Because he could not but step forward-looking toward a coming day, before the indescribably chaotic Israelite people, before the powers that trampled and trampled upon the Temple under Roman oppression — he stepped forward, resolved upon death.
And so, for thirty years, with the heart of compassion of the Messiah, he cried out, “All people, follow me.” At the time he set out on that path, he vowed and vowed again hundreds of times that he would fight even if he died.
But when all the Jews drove Jesus out, he resolved that, even without them, he would accomplish the Will of God, and set out seeking people of the lower classes.
He set out seeking people like fishermen, tax collectors, and harlots — people like the refuse of that age.
Since the disciples of Jesus, who came as the King of kings, were of that sort, what must God’s heart have been?
It was grievous. And how the heart of Jesus must have burned and ached, who had to gather these stifling, pitiable ones and command and charge them to gather the world and bear responsibility for it!
Jesus, who came and went so, has carried on the providence of salvation for this earth up to now. It is said that Jesus prays at the right hand of God, but would he pray if he were at ease?
Would he pray if all things prospered?
Jesus did not bear fruit. You must realize that Jesus cannot give a blessing.
Why Must Jesus Come Again?
The purpose of God’s history of restoration is to restore the whole world through indemnity. God sent Jesus to restore it completely, inwardly and outwardly, in spirit and in body, and to bring this to completion was the purpose for which Jesus came.
Yet Jesus passed on without attaining that purpose. And to such a Jesus you say, “Give me blessing”? I am afraid he is rather worried lest the blessing he has be taken away.
Jesus cannot give a blessing. He cannot give a blessing before the world.
Unless, perhaps, Jesus prays and gives a blessing through the work of God?
If Jesus prays and God helps, and Jesus’ disciples are made to take part in it and bear fruit, then the foundation for blessing on a worldwide level can be laid, but people do not become a blessed people.
Jesus’ disciples, too, did not become blessed apostles. However fine an apostle, however foremost a disciple, however much one of the three chief disciples, they could not go forward to the position of the bride. An apostle is a servant. The meaning is that he cannot go forward to the position of the bride.
Because he passed on leaving such a han of restoration, Jesus, gathering again before Heaven and before Israel all that he could not take responsibility for in terms of history, must take the suffering in their stead whenever one people suffers, and one family suffers.
The meaning is that he must indemnify them in their stead. This is why he has prayed for two thousand years. He is one to be pitied. Who, since the beginning of history, is the most pitiable person? It is precisely Jesus.
Because the thousand and ten thousand kinds of suffering and the heartbreaking stories must be settled by being bound to Jesus, all the saints upon the earth, when they come to suffer, must, without fail, set up a condition of prayer before God.
Because Jesus did not accomplish his desire, he must gather the corpse and set out from the position before he failed to restore a worldwide Israel. Because the Israelite people were utterly broken, he had to gather the individual, gather the family, gather the clan, the people, the nation, the world — not in spirit and body, but spiritually only.
The Israelite people of that time, who awaited the Messiah after four thousand years of preparation, could have attended the Messiah in spirit and body together.
They were to have attended Jesus, received liberation from sin, and lived multiplying sinless sons and daughters upon the earth. But because they accomplished this spiritually only, we today need religion.
What is the religious life?
It is a life of striking the body. It is not eating what one wishes to eat, fasting, and striking the body. It is separating the body from Satan. How fierce is this battle! All of this came about because they killed Jesus.
The day of welcoming the bridegroom is a day of feasting, and on a feast day, one simply eats and makes merry. The bridegroom does not come to live sorrowfully. Yet because they killed such a bridegroom, it became sorrowful.
In terms of his historical mission, Jesus is One to be pitied; and since he went bearing the han of the age, he is One to be pitied. He is also one to be pitied, since he went without fully accomplishing his historical mission and responsibility.
Even now, he has not escaped from his han-laden position. It is because the worldwide ground of an Israelite people, on which the Lord can be met in spirit and body together, has not yet been prepared upon the earth.
Currently, this earth, viewed on the level plane, is divided into democracy and communism. Moreover, the environment of the present age grants religious freedom and also, in some nations, establishes a state religion. This is equivalent to a Paradise-world.
Such an outward environmental standard must build a worldwide foundation that can blend with the spiritual foundation. Thereby, we must again establish a worldwide Israelite sphere that can blend with the spiritual standard, establish a worldwide Jewish church, and prepare an environmental ground on which the coming Lord can meet all people.
And so, centered again on a single sovereign nation, we must establish a foundation of governance in spirit and body together, from the position of the Israelite people in Jesus’ day. The day on which such a purpose is realized worldwide is the day of the Second Advent of which Christianity speaks.
To Liberate Jesus
Jesus, who from a providential standpoint must fulfill his responsibility and mission, who since he came and went has borne the two-thousand-year history up to now and is carrying out the mission of atonement — Jesus is One to be pitied.
When has he ever once lived together with God?
Is there such a word in the Bible?
Does it say anywhere that he lives together with God? It says he is praying.
When has God ever once rejoiced?
Has Jesus ever once been able to say, “O Father, now Thou hast Thy sons and daughters, Thou hast all nations, Thou hast all people, Thou hast the whole world; and this is like the world of goodness that was never invaded by Satan in the beginning, so receive through me the glory Thou shouldst have received upon the foundation of victory of Adam and Eve”? He has not.
So Jesus must come again. And how does he come? Does he come riding on the clouds? How good it would be if he came riding on the clouds — but the age in which one must so believe has passed.
Jesus, who went without fulfilling his mission, knew that God, who gazes upon such a self, is to be pitied. He felt: God, who toiled to send me, has met not the one day of His purpose but the one day of sorrow — how pitiable! Israel has become a pitiable people! The First Israel has perished and must be resurrected again into God’s sphere of blessing — how pitiable!
You must realize that Jesus weeps as he gazes upon the two-thousand-year history of Christianity.
For what were the three prayers in the garden of Gethsemane?
He prayed so because he knew that if he died on the cross, the descendants of Israel would have to walk the path of the cross.
The Israelite people were to have received salvation in spirit and body together through Jesus, but because that could not be, and Jesus went bearing a bitter grievance, he knew that the descendants, too, would become so. This is why Jesus, who must restore through indemnity upon the earth the bitter grievance of these descendants, cannot but come again to this earth.
Upon the summit of Golgotha on the earth, God’s han is bound, the Israelite people’s han is bound, and the han of their descendants and of humankind is bound. This is why you must realize that the path of Golgotha, ordained by the heavenly principle, remains for Christianity.
You must realize that Christianity, having passed through the path of the individual Golgotha, the family Golgotha, and the clan Golgotha, is now seeking the summit of the worldwide Golgotha.
The Jesus who bore the cross and went was a Jesus who held a historical sorrow, a Jesus who held a sorrow of the age, a Jesus who held a sorrow of the future. He was a Jesus who went bearing a wounded heart.
The Jesus who was to have smashed the cross upon the hill of Golgotha, judged the enemies, and charged forward in full advance, died bearing a wronged heart.
Because he did so, just as Jesus had not to die but live and meet the glory of resurrection, so too he cannot but bear the responsibility of crossing over again the Golgotha from which he was driven and of leading the Israelite people onward.
While the bridegroom is in a place where he goes hungry and weeps aloud, can the bride sleep at ease?
While the bridegroom kneels before Heaven and offers an offering of atonement, can the bride eat and live at ease? Yet in what position is Christianity today? The meaning is that there must not be a single day of ease.
Because Jesus’ han was bound by the national-level standard, the history of Christianity cannot help but be wretched until it crosses over the national-level standard.
For the Second Israel to prepare a ground of national-level victory and go forward onto the worldwide stage, just as Jesus, when he set out on his public ministry, received and won the three great temptations, it must set up the condition of victory in the three great worldwide temptations and then go forward.
How, then, must the Christians scattered the world over act to attend as bridegroom the Jesus who was so to be pitied? They must grieve more than Jesus grieved.
For when God sent Jesus, it was to resolve the han of four thousand years of history; but since Jesus came and went, to God’s four thousand years of han has been added the two thousand years of han since Jesus died — and so Christians today must grieve more than Jesus.
When you pray, you must first pray for the nation. Next, pray for the world; next, pray for the angels in the spiritual world and the ancestors in the spiritual world; and next, pray for the liberation of God.
Do you think God is in a place of ease?
Not knowing even what one’s own task is, nor how the fortune of the world is turning, people say, “O Lord, send me to heaven.”
In order today to liberate the Jesus who was to be pitied, we must receive from history the testimony, “He is to be pitied.” We must receive from the forefathers of history the testimony, “You alone, of all our descendants, are dignified.
You have raised the whole of history.” And in addition to that, we must receive the testimony, “He has taken responsibility for the mission of the age and the mission of the people, and has fulfilled the mission of a son and the mission of a parent, the mission of a filial son and a loyal subject.”
The True Adopted Child and the False Adopted Child
The pastors of the established churches today say, “Ah, I am a holy servant of God,” but can a servant go to the Kingdom of Heaven?
Can one go to the Kingdom of Heaven in the body of a servant?
One cannot. In the body of a servant, one cannot go. The Kingdom of Heaven is the place where sons and daughters go.
After receiving the title of loyal subject, one must enter the position of an adopted child. If, yearning to become a direct son, one renders full loyalty before the Father, one becomes an inheriting adopted child.
When a child of a different lineage enters the position of the direct son and receives the inheritance, if he holds greed and says, “Oh, I will inherit that estate,” he is not an adopted child. He is a falsely adopted child.
The true adopted child must be able to say, “Is not the Father’s lineal son such a son as this?” and, “You, who ought to have a son who can suffer more than the Father when the Father suffers and grieve more than the Father when the Father grieves, did not have such a son, so I will become the representative of that son.”
Only after fully equipping oneself with the inner standing of the adopted child, and then receiving the inheritance, can one enter the position of standing in the stead of the son.
In Romans 8:23, it is written,
“Even we who have received the first fruits of the Spirit groan within ourselves, awaiting our adoption as children.”
To become an adopted child: just as Jesus lived and went as a loyal subject who rendered loyalty toward God even upon the cross and rendered loyalty toward Heaven even upon the earth, since it is the proper part of a son to protect Jesus and attend him as the Father, only by not losing the heart that says, “I too must follow the Father,” and walking the path of a loyal subject, does one become a true adopted child. With the mindset of a thief, one cannot accomplish God’s providence of restoration.
The view of the adopted child that the Teacher holds is this. Only by struggling as the representative of the direct son and receiving God’s public recognition can one enter the sphere of inheritance, putting forward the standing of the adopted child. We must today clearly realize that we are placed in such a position.
Are you still in the position of a servant?
If you are in the position of a servant, your faith must become greater than Abraham’s. You must suffer more than Jacob suffered through twenty-one years of toil at Haran to seize the blessing of the firstborn.
You must suffer more than Moses, who suffered for forty years in the court of Pharaoh, forty years in the wilderness of Midian, and forty years on the course of restoring Canaan — one hundred and twenty years in all.
And so, becoming brothers like Cain and Abel, you must bind such a bond upon the earth — each saying before the Father, “Acknowledge my elder brother,” “Acknowledge my younger brother,” so that the Father can say, “Yes,” “Yes” — only then can one become an adopted child. But because the day on which one could hold such authority of the adopted child was lost, the Christian believers scattered throughout the world today, who are the first fruits of the Spirit, await their adoption as children.
We today, knowing the inner han, the outer han, and the family-level han of Jesus, must, even when we look upon a single individual, see him as a world-historical individual; when we look upon a family, see it as a world-historical family; see the clan too as a world-historical clan, the people too as a world-historical people, and the nation too as a world-historical nation.
Jesus was one who, setting up such a religious ideal, sought to establish a nation of hope and a world of hope. It will not do to make oneself the standard and say, “Let me alone live well.”
Qualification as the Bride
Then where is the bride who has been reared as a true-disciple type? Many people who believe in Jesus today think that they can become the bride, saying, “Oh, I have believed in and prayed to Jesus, who became my bridegroom, for as long as forty years….”
Then what is the particular standard for becoming a bride?
First, holding Jesus’ individual han, one must struggle and possess a certificate of individual victory.
Next, holding Jesus’ family-level han, one must come forth as a family victorious on a world-historical course of trial, and one must also win at the clan-level and national-level standards.
And so one must become a person for whom the nation, the world, heaven and earth, and even Satan can ask a blessing, saying, “It is right. He is the first son to be victorious in the history of heaven and earth. Or she is the first daughter.” I do not know how you understand it, but the bride the Teacher knows is like this.
You say you will become God’s daughter-in-law?
You say you will become God’s son-in-law?
You say you will become the bride of the Crown Prince?
In the world, merely being the son or daughter of a president makes one put on airs. It is a world in which people are bought and sold for a few coins. It is a world in which, given even a few hundred won, one runs Satan’s errands.
How filthy it is! It is a state of affairs in which, if one goes about with a few million won, a few tens of millions, a few hundred millions, people follow, saying, “Oh, how nice. Oh, how nice.”
In such a world, one must become a person who can gather the individual and command all people, gather the family and command countless families, gather the scattered clan and command countless clans, and command countless nations and the people of the world — a person who, holding such victorious authority, can receive public recognition before God and be acknowledged before Satan.
In a place that passes through every bond of past, present, and future, one must receive public recognition from Satan in the presence of God. Only then is there the qualification of the bride.
Placed in this age, one must be a person who seeks to settle the six thousand years of the history of tears that God has carried on in His providence and turn its direction; a person who seeks to link and tread out the foundation of the cross of six thousand years of history; a person who can fight and win against the Satan who has toyed with humankind for six thousand years.
Only such a person is a true disciple of Jesus.