The Kingdom of Heaven in the Family

1. Where did the Fall begin? What was the Fall that happened in the family? What can fall in a family?

It can be nothing apart from love. Do you think the Fall happened through the eating of a literal fruit? Could the original sin result from eating a fruit? People say that eating the fruit is a sin, but what fruit could cause one's descendants for thousands of generations to be sinners?

This is a matter of lineage. If the root of sin is planted into lineage, it will last forever through heredity. The only way this can occur is through love. The misuse of love, illicit love, was the cause of the Fall. (23-167, 1969.05.18)

The course we must go for the restoration of the family

2. Due to Adam and Eve's Fall, God could not relate to them as the true ancestors or parents of humankind or as His sons and daughters. Adam and Eve were God's only son and daughter, but they fell to a position where He could not relate to them as such.

If they had reached maturity, He would have blessed them as a couple and recognized them as His object partners of joy and comfort. Yet, they failed to become His object partners, as children or as bride and bridegroom.

God had endowed them with infinite value proportionally to His hope for them; yet because of their Fall, He experienced from them neither the filial heart of children nor the heart of comfort as a husband and wife.

God had hoped that Adam and Eve would establish the way of filial piety and loyalty so they could stand before Him as the ancestors of hope and the sovereigns of all humanity. (20-082, 1968.04.28)

3. God is the King and Lord of true love. If He is the King and Bridegroom of true love, to say that He needs a Queen as His partner is absolutely within the Principle. In front of God, who is absolute, the first true man and woman are the people who can become His partners in love.

You need money, knowledge, and power, but if you do not have a spouse, these are all in vain. A husband needs his wife and children, and a wife needs her husband and children.

The family is where we live with our loved ones. Families who attend God, the subject partner of love, become the base on which begins God's kingdom of heaven on earth, centered on His true love.

Just as we wish for our loved ones to be infinitely more valuable than we are, God also wishes for His partners in love to become beings of infinite value. This is the status of true men and women. Adam and Eve were to have become such a man and woman. (270-238, 1995.06.07)

4. Due to the Fall, God lost the True Parents and the children of Adam's family. God lost His true son and daughter. God has had no family that could inherit His lineage of true love. Because we inherited false love, false life, and false lineage through our fallen parents, our mind, and body came into conflict.

Adam and Eve turned into enemies, and bloody wars broke out among their sons and daughters. The providence of salvation, through which God has worked to resolve this conflict, is the providence of restoration. In this providence, a son and a daughter whose minds and bodies are united, representing those who were lost, must become husband and wife in absolute unity.

Their sons and daughters must unite with them, centered on God's true love, and build a true family in which all live eternally in attendance of God. Then this family unites with Christianity, the religion in the position of the bride, to establish a blood relationship with God.

Together, they re-organize, through God's true love, the family, tribe, people, nation, and world of oneness. That is the completion of God's providence of salvation. (270-243, 1995.06.07)

5. What is God's purpose in establishing religions? His Will is to form a beloved family, tribe, people, and nation centered on His most beloved son and daughter, in whom His flesh and bones can become one.

Then what is the Messiah? He is the one who comes to earth with God's eternal true love as his root. He is the first to perfect the ideal that all religions pursue. The purpose of God's providence of salvation is for him to expand true life and true lineage throughout the earth, centering on the true love that was lost, and finally recover the ideal family. (270-243, 1995.06.07)

6. All things exist for human beings. The objective of history must be a model family, which includes material things as well as children and parents. This is the basic foundation of the universe.

Without parents, children cannot be born; those children should have dominion over the material world centered on their parents. Adam and Eve should have had dominion over the material world. All of this should have come about simultaneously. (35-277, 1970.10.25)

7. The family of Adam, the ancestor of humankind, was invaded, so this family must be redeemed. That is why Jesus had to come as unfallen Adam. As such, he is the second Adam.

Since Adam, the first ancestor of humankind, became the fallen ancestor, God, to establish His original Will, sent Jesus as the true ancestor who has nothing to do with the Fall. Through that true ancestor, Adam's family should have been recovered. (20-335, 1968.07.14)

8. Every conceivable incident has taken place in the family. This began in Adam and Eve's family. Through their wrongful union, Adam and Eve drove God out of their family.

Furthermore, they caused the expulsion of the angelic world, they lost the world of creation, they lost the value of humanity, and they lost love. All of this occurred because of the wrongful union of a man and a woman in Adam's family.
(100-276, 1978.10.22)

9. A redeemed family substantiates the hope of history. God has been guiding the providence for six thousand years until now to redeem one family. Where should this hope, the substance of history, be realized? It should be realized in our present society, not sometime in the future.

This culminates in the Last Days. This redeemed family is the core of hope in history and the core of hope for all people today. It is the core of the past, present, and future hope of humankind. The countless saints and sages who came and left this world longed for this family. (21-051, 1968.09.01)

10. The term “restored family” appears for the first time when the returning Lord receives his bride. This family had to be restored; it is the family that all humanity has hoped for.

Throughout the past six thousand years, countless faithful religious believers who sacrificed their lives at the hands of rulers and politicians, ardently wished that the Lord would come and alleviate the bitter sorrow caused by their enemies. Yet, the Lord cannot do that alone.

If He could, He would have done it long ago. That is why God's family has to appear and lay a new foundation on earth. In so doing, it should be able to transform Satan's world with the explosive power of the heart.
(21-044, 1968.09.01)

11. What is our deepest sorrow? It is that Adam and Eve were unable to form a true family as the True Father and True Mother in the Garden of Eden at the beginning of history. This was God's bitter sorrow even before it was ours.

God created human beings to establish such a family and build the kingdom of peace on this earth. Nevertheless, His dream for this family was shattered; as a result, God has been guiding the prolonged history of restoration for six thousand years, harboring bitter grief.

To this day, God has traveled innumerable treacherous paths of suffering to complete this process. The returning Lord bears the responsibility to resolve this history. Then what should he do? He must form a family, not in midair, but upon the earth. Only then will there emerge a true tribe, people, nation, and world.
(21-051, 1968.09.01)

12. The coming Jesus will have to establish the family of God's hope — the True Family. Until now, humanity has been seeking true love, but there should have been no such thing as false love in the family or society.

Essentially, the one true family has to appear as the center of God's love and the center of the greatest love for which all humankind has longed. Without such a family, God cannot form a tribe and a people; without such a people, we cannot realize God's nation or world.

It starts in the family, the only place where the highest standards can be realized — the highest ideal God desires in His providence of salvation and the highest standard that people can attain. (32-198, 1970.07.15)

13. Throughout the ages, religions have sought one man. Yet, they did not encourage marriage and have refused to change that stance. If they continue like this, they will perish. Nonetheless, we have reached the point where that man has been recovered, and a woman has been recovered for him.

The Unification Church is the group that initiated this recovery of women. Consequently, the Unification Church is the church that is working to restore the family. (30-218, 1970.03.23)

14. Until now, the purpose of religion has been to save individuals. However, the purpose of the Unification Church is the salvation of the family, rather than the individual.

Although we seek salvation, it is based on the family, and while seeking the kingdom of heaven, we do not speak of a husband going to the kingdom of heaven while his wife goes to hell.

Both of them go to the kingdom of heaven together. Likewise, we do not let our parents go to hell. Instead, we bring them to the kingdom of heaven, along with our children.

The Unification Church teaches the way for us to go to the kingdom of heaven, bringing our entire beloved family and tribe. Hence, it is on a different level from other religions. Religions thus far have emphasized celibacy, but the Unification Church puts primary importance on the family.

We go the family-centered way, but our families are for the sake of the world and the sake of God. This is the way we Unification Church members are to go.
(34-359, 1970.09.20)

15. The love of parents, husband and wife, and children is what motivates us to forge eternal bonds of oneness. These bonds of love transcend laws, systems, all contexts, and circumstances, and even ourselves. No social system or nation that ignores this can endure.

The Unification Church's purpose is to attain family salvation in addition to individual salvation. This is what makes the Unification Church different from other religions. (34-328, 1970.09.20)

True families and God's kingdom

16. Our view of life is centered on the cosmos; the “cosmos” here refers to heaven and earth. From this viewpoint, each person has a mind that symbolizes heaven and a body that symbolizes earth.

These two, mind and body, are to unite with God inwardly and outwardly. In the original state in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, each with a united mind and body, should have united with each other, making God their center. Had they completed a family centered on God, God would have dwelt in that family.
(20-308, 1968.07.14)

17. Culture drives history's development. The world of culture is driven by the purpose of seeking one embodiment of true character. That is, it is seeking one being with a character that embodies truth. Therefore, history seeks truth, true words, and the true way.

Then what is ideology or philosophy? Originally, there was no need for such concepts. If you nevertheless want to name it, you would call it “Adam's philosophy,” “Adam's way of thinking” or “Adamic thought.” Adamic thought is neither communism nor democracy. It is the parent-centered way of thinking.
(21-331, 1969.01.01)

18. Godism is what we can call the way of thinking Adam and Eve would have developed had they not fallen, but attended God as their Father and grown up as His son and daughter.

This way of thinking accepts and assimilates the whole, centered on God, and draws all people to harmonize with the subject partner. It encompasses both the individual and the whole. Therefore, we accept one another, and no divisions come about. Nonetheless, because of the Fall, that philosophy did not emerge.

We have had to recover it. This is Godism, which is the philosophy of sons and daughters centered on God. The Unification Church also introduces “cosmos-ism,” which refers to the way of thinking based on the cosmos—heaven and earth.

It advocates that sons and daughters become couples and establish families centering on God. This is a cosmic worldview. In the word for cosmos, cheonju (天宙) the second Chinese character, ju (宙 ), means house. I chose the character house because a house is a place where a family, with a husband and wife, dwells. (21-331, 1969.01.01)

19. To love the world, you first have to love people. To love people, you first have to Love your spouse. A man must love a woman, and a woman must love a man. That is a couple, husband, and wife.

Those who are bonded as husband and wife will be able to love the world with the heart of love they have for their spouse. In other words, a woman who loves her husband should honor all men of the world as she honors him. She should likewise love and honor all women of the world, recognizing that they are loved and valued by their husbands. It is the same for men.

Each man should honor all women of the world as worthy to receive the love he has for his precious wife. He should also honor all men as worthy to receive the same quality of love he receives from his wife.

We should go forward on the path of love like this, step by step. It must not be ambiguous. Therefore, the family is the standard for the formation of a nation. It is the standard for the whole world, no matter how big.

For this reason, the Unification Church advocates a worldview centered on Heaven's family. We call it the cosmos-centered worldview because cheonju (the cosmos) signifies Heaven's home. (51-169, 1971.11.21)

20. Unification Church members have to live according to cosmos-ism, a way of thinking centered on heaven and earth, Heaven's home. This means to build God's home, which should be maintained based on Godism.

God is the King of the world, the subject partner who maintains the households of the world. He should be able to lead everyone to do so, based on Godism. Therefore, the Unification Church blessed families, who live where this worldview is taught, should live for others, not just for their husband or wife.

We were never meant to live that way. This is different from the past. We move forward based on the family. We must be saved, but salvation is not for the individual alone.

We absolutely cannot go to the kingdom of heaven alone. The Unification Church has introduced this new teaching on earth. Who will be the owner in the future? The family will be the owner, the family of God's tradition. (59-149, 1972.07.16)

21. The teaching of the Unification Church is the way of thinking centered on the cosmos. For the fallen world, teaching is like a ship in which we can cross the waters. It is a means that can guide us through a certain time and process only.

When we discuss the cosmos-centered way of thinking, the word cosmos means something like a house. Why a house? It is because we cannot build the kingdom of heaven without the family, which dwells in a house.

To become the Third Israel, we have to go through the house; in other words, we have to go through the family. To build the kingdom of heaven in the Garden of Eden, we have to go through Adam's family.

When the members of that household honor the law, the order, and the teachings of the family, and their descendants for thousands of generations inherit these practices and expand them horizontally to the worldwide level, the kingdom of heaven will come about. (158-299, 1968.02.04)

22. The cosmos-centered way of thinking is based on True Parents. It is rooted in the idea of the Parents. This should be the outlook of your home, your nation,n and yourself. Whose view of life would the world have embraced had there been no Fall?

It would have been Adam's view of life, the way of thinking centered on True Parents. It is the way of thinking centered on the Father and Mother. There can be no ideology higher than that.

That is why the Unification Church strives to resolve matters of the heart based on Heaven's viewpoint, within the framework of the original ideal family based on True Parents' worldview. As long as we apply this teaching and system in our families, the Unification Church will not perish. (26-201, 1969.10.25)

23. Where does the kingdom of heaven begin? It begins with the family. Then what is our ideology? We have a family-centered ideology. The word cheonju just (cosmos-centered way of thinking) contains cheon, meaning Heaven, and ju, meaning house, so it means the philosophy of Heaven's house.

Only this explanation makes the meaning of the word cheonju (the cosmos) clear. The sixty-six books of the Bible are filled with words that express the desire for the ideal family. Furthermore, what is it that all men desire? It is to have an ideal wife.

The greatest desire of all women is to have an ideal husband. Consider a woman who earned a doctorate. No matter how proud and famous she is, her deepest desire remains to meet an ideal man she can love and bear children with. This is the root of happiness. The ideal of the Unification Church does not lie anywhere else. It begins and ends with the family. (26-103, 1969.10.18)

24. God's ideal is not something vague that exists only in His mind. It is not intended to remain a mere concept but is to be realized in the actual lives of people on earth. It does not refer just to the personal daily lives of men and women as individuals.

God planned to realize His ideal based on the foundation of family life. When the ideal is realized in the family, children who are true and ideal will appear. Those children will bring forth the tribe, people, nation, and world that will eventually realize God's ideal world.

God's ideal is to realize this world, which begins not from the individual but from the family. (101-086, 1978.10.22)

25. What is the way for a man and a woman? It is the family. The foundation of the family is a man and a woman in complete unity. That is where it begins. Without harmony in the family, everything will be shattered and confused. Men and women should not have different ideals.

They should have one ideal by God's ideal. That is, these three, God, man, and woman, create a family in which God's ideal begins centered on one man. By doing so, the ideals of both the man and the woman are realized and embodied.
(101-085, 1978.10.22)

26. Where do we expect the ideal of love first to be realized? Will it begin out in the world? Will a nation create it? The action of love is relational and not individual; it has to begin in the home.

Even if someone were to unify the world, if he were unable to unite his family,, he would be an unhappy person. The kingdom of heaven starts in the family. Do you think that after Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” he went on to say, “Singles, come here and the kingdom of heaven will be realized”?

No, he did not. What did Jesus say? He referred to himself as a bridegroom, which implies a bride. He was speaking of the family. The Messiah has to return to find his bride.

That means he is coming to make his home. God's ideal of a principled family had never been realized, so He intended to make Jesus' family the first model family in history.

It would have been a textbook to educate all people, connecting families and bringing about a unified world, realizing the concept of the kingdom of heaven on earth. (92-088, 1977.03.20)

27. In our families we can sing of happiness, freedom, and the ideal, and we can embrace the world. This is the ideal world, the world where we can be satisfied. Nothing is lacking in that world.

Within our families, we are satisfied whether in our hearts or material things, and we offer gratitude and glory to God. In this way, we can enter the kingdom of heaven.

What kind of people can enter the kingdom of heaven?

It is those who attend to their parents at home, share their happiness, freedom, ideals, and satisfaction with their brothers and sisters, and overcome difficulties to return glory to God, in a joyful place of dominion over the creation in heaven and on earth. (12-258, 1963.05.22)

28. The earth is where we determine the foundation of God's ideal. Where on earth? It is in the family, where a man and a woman unite as one in love, centered on God.

When we mention the kingdom of heaven, what comes to mind? It should be the place where God, my family, and I have reached unity. Even if you went to that kingdom, if God were not there, it would not be the kingdom of heaven. God's presence is required.

But will God's presence alone be enough? If you do not have your ideal partner, even God's love will have no value to you. Therefore, in the spirit world, those who have lived ideal family lives are the closest to God. (90-083, 1976.12.19)

29. To love our parents is to love heaven and earth; to love our children is to love humankind; to love material things is to love the whole universe. We have to love our parents, children, and material things in our daily lives.

These together are the microcosm of the universe. We have to set this tradition in our family. Establishing such a tradition in the family is necessary.

We have to set up the tradition by reclaiming the family and seeking the ideal world in our family. If there had been no Fall, we would have loved our spouse and children and would have attained total oneness. We naturally would have gone to the kingdom of heaven. (129-267, 1983.11.13)

30. In the world today, we hear many people saying, “The world should become one.” They all want to see a peaceful and happy world. In religious terminology, we would say that we need to build the kingdom of heaven on earth; we need to build an ideal world.

But even though people say this, and even though the whole world wants this and tries to make it happen, they have yet to learn that this can only come about through the family.

For this reason, unless we build a worldwide foundation upon which we sing of the ideal in the family, build peace within the family, and sing songs of love and happiness in the family, no matter how much we dream of the ideal world or the kingdom of heaven on earth, that world will not come about.
(159-174, 1968.05.10)

31. How will the kingdom of heaven in the family come about? If the mother and father are united completely in love, the sons will want to have wives like their mother, and the daughters will want to have husbands like their father.

With the mother and father as a plus and the sons and daughters as a minus, they will unite as one perfect family; that is the kingdom of heaven of the family. At the place where this kingdom is realized, God's ideal can settle in the four-position foundation. The Principle states that the perfection of the ideal of creation is the perfection of the four-position foundation. (96-030, 1978.01.01)

32. The Unification Church has a clear viewpoint. Therefore today, wherever you go, if you are Equipped with the Unification Church teaching, nothing can block you.

You should build the kingdom of heaven for tomorrow with this confidence. We advocate building that kingdom in our everyday lives through our efforts. We build the kingdom of heaven of heart in our families, in our family life, and expand it to the environment, through our efforts.

God wanted to build an eternally blessed paradise so that He could dwell on earth. In our generation, we have to build what God intended, together with Him, and offer it to Him.

With all material things, with our sons and daughters, with our brothers and sisters, we have to lead our lives in praise of God. Otherwise, we cannot call ourselves His sons and daughters, who live by the Principle of Creation and the principle of the four-position foundation. (26-057, 1969.10.18)

33. What is true love? It is the combination of parents' love, husband-wife love, and children's love. Unless we set up the tradition of making sacrifices for one another, relationships of love will not last for long; they will break down.

Because parents make sacrifices for their children, this bond never breaks. Further, children who have grown up receiving genuine love from their parents can never be disloyal to them.

Moreover, blessings will come to the family of the husband and wife who relentlessly strive to serve and sacrifice for each other, with each saying to the other, “You have lived for my sake.” Such a family is the blessed land that God can come to visit. (43-324, 1971.05.02)

34. Again, I am saying that we have to change our families, one by one. The organizational structure of the Unification Church is based on families; families are the center. The focus has shifted from the individual to the family.

Until today, you may have disregarded the importance of the family, but it is essential. Now is the time in which the family, which you have neglected, will emerge with absolute authority. For this reason, the Blessing has unsurpassed value. (22-334, 1969.05.11)

35. Tribes will emerge centered upon blessed families, so please accomplish your mission as a tribal messiah. In the future, we will establish churches around the leaders of tribes. All blessed families are leaders of tribes. In the future, the Unification Church will not have services based on sermons; they will be based on testimony.

We will focus on testimonies that can bring honor and pride to our families. Thus, all family members will participate in such services together. We will learn from the testimonies of exemplary families.

Families with little to report will receive guidance. In this way, we will be able to build the kingdom of heaven in our families. Unless we do so, the kingdom of heaven will not be realized on earth. (23-063, 1969.05.11)

36. Only a husband and wife who love each other can enter the kingdom of heaven. A couple that lives in love on earth is already living in that kingdom. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within you, didn't he?

But today the Unification Church says the kingdom of heaven is within your family. If we do not realize the kingdom of heaven in our families, we will not fulfill the purpose of the Unification Church.

If we do realize it, we are fulfilling that purpose. With this in mind, we should walk the right way, centered on the Principle. (37-110, 1970.12.22)