The Path of Rebirth and Restoration

1. When we look into the origin of the Fall, we discover that it began with misdirected love. The Fall occurred when human beings, who were intended to embody God and receive His love, instead came to embody Satan.

Had Adam and Eve become temples of God by becoming one with Him, and become husband and wife as originally intended, since they would have been united with God both spiritually and physically, they would have given birth to God-centered sons and daughters.

Yet in John 8:44 Jesus indicated that Satan is the father and ancestor of humanity. The fact that our ancestors fell means that human beings ultimately became Satan's temples. This means they came to embody Satan and gave birth to Satan's sons and daughters.

This was the Fall. The Fall was that Adam and Eve, going against God's desire, paired with Satan and engaged in love relations that were corrupt and immoral. (72-122, 1974.06.02)

Human beings need rebirth and restoration

2. What is God's plan for achieving His desire to save humankind? No matter how much God wants to save us from the realm of the Fall, He cannot do it by Himself. God must send another Adam and Eve to this earth as the True Parents.

They must have nothing to do with the Fall and reach a higher level than the first Adam and Eve. Then God must have these True Parents go through the course of labor to give rebirth to all humankind. In this way, God will bring human beings to exist without any relationship with Satan and be eternally free from his accusation, so that God alone can have dominion over them.

Human beings have original sin. Unless they are born again, they cannot be freed from that state and brought to a state of sinlessness. (22-240, 1969.05.04)

3. When I say you must be born again, it does not mean you need to go through another birth from the flesh and blood of parents who are the descendants of the fallen Adam and Eve. It means you must be reborn through the flesh and blood of the Parents who have no connection to the Fall.

Otherwise, you cannot return to God. The root of sin originated with Adam and Eve. Unless you break this bond and attain the qualification of having been born without a connection to original sin, you cannot return to God's side. (22-240, 1969.05.04)

4. When you came into this world, all of you were born with the enemy's blood in you. You were born into the bloodline of Satan, and you bear his mark, the mark of a traitor in front of God. In the old days in Korea, when a king put to death an enemy on the throne, he would execute that enemy's entire household, including all relatives to the seventh degree of kinship.

In light of this, since you were born with the blood of the enemy, you cannot protest even if your flesh is repeatedly thrown to the vultures. Be grateful that this has not happened to you. Nevertheless, having been born with the enemy's blood, we have to extract this blood and eliminate it.

That is why God has worked through religion, encouraging people to fast, to be meek and humble, and to lead an ascetic life. (17-182, 1966.12.18)

5. We were created as God's children. Therefore, it is our original nature to pursue a standard as high and expansive as heaven and earth. Because of the Fall, however, God could not bestow such great blessings on us.

We desire to rule the world; it is our inborn nature, an innate desire. Although, due to the Fall of our first ancestors, we were born in the position of thieves, betrayers, and traitors, the original mind we were endowed with at the time of creation still inclines toward Heaven. This has not been taken away from us.

That is why we still desire to become the highest and the greatest beings in the universe. Religion, however, teaches us to rid ourselves of Satan's lust and anger. These are in the body; therefore religions encourage us to fast.

It is a way to sever our connection to Satan's blood. If you have not fasted at least seven days for Heaven, when you arrive in the other world you will not be able to register in the kingdom there. (17-182, 1966.12.18)

6. Jesus comes again to restore people to God's lineage. For this, he first sets up the foundation for restoration and then begins the work of restoration. We discovered that our birth into this world made us citizens in Satan's world.

Therefore, we must be born again to be restored as God's children. But to be reborn we must find and again go into a mother's womb, and then come out. Rebirth means to be born a second time. (17-181, 1966.12.18)

7. For a child to be born, the seed of life originates in the man and then goes through the woman.

Where does the change of lineage occur? It is within the woman's womb. That is why churches appeared that proclaimed that the Lord would return through a mother's womb. In other words, conditions were continually established throughout history for human beings to return to the starting point.

Although life is conceived in the womb, it cannot be conceived by itself. There must be a woman to conceive and a man to impregnate her. Ultimately, God has to accomplish His work centering on one family.

Given complete restoration, the seed of the baby, which lay dormant in a man's body – in his bones, flesh, and blood – must journey from that starting point to the woman's womb.

First, however, that man has to achieve unity with God based on His love. If that is not done, no condition will suffice to establish the foundation for the total change of lineage. (35-162, 1970.10.13)

8. To go the way of complete restoration, your tainted blood must be purified. Your body received Satan's blood. However, here is the question: rather than understanding it conceptually, based on the Divine Principle lectures you heard, do you truly feel that your body is the enemy of God, the enemy of humanity, and the enemy of history?

Do you sense that the blood of the traitor entered your body and is still coursing through it? Furthermore, do you feel that your eyes are Satan's eyes and that your mouth, hands, feet, and your entire body are Satan's? That is why Christianity tells you to wash away your sins. It means you must purify yourselves.
(72-123, 1974.06.02)

9. If our bodies had not become the dens of sin through Satan's bloodline, God's work of restoration could have been done instantly. Originally, God was supposed to be our Father.

However, since we were born as Satan's children, it is extremely difficult for us to feel that God is our Father. If we compare Satan to the North Pole, then God is the South Pole. The hardest thing in the world is for us to separate from the lineage we inherited.

It means we have to find a way to know God, whom we did not know as our Heavenly Father, better than we know our Father. Unless we do this, we cannot return to God's kingdom by the providence of salvation. That is why salvation has been the most difficult task of history.

It is the reason the all-knowing and almighty God has not been able to complete the work of salvation even after six thousand biblical years.
(72-124, 1974.06.02)

Rebirth through change of lineage

10. Our first ancestors became the false parents, weaving together the false love, false life, and false lineage that have remained within us to the present day. That is why the True Parents must come.

The True Parents intimately know the Heavenly Parent. They know the secrets of Heaven's world and the secrets of Satan's world. They come to restore God's kingship by giving the Blessing to the people of both worlds.

To restore God's kingship, True Parents must put an end to the fight between God and Satan. Who else has the authority to do this? Only the coming of the True Parents can stop the fight. This is because the false parents sowed those seeds. (357-202, 2001.10.30)

11. What the Unification Church promotes is the family. It is a new family with the True Parents at the center. You who begin anew as sons and daughters within this new family system must clean up your past.

Regardless of your different lineage and background, if you want to take after the True Parents, you must first be engrafted. To achieve this, you must complete your path of indemnity. What started with the false parents must be settled through the True Parents. That is why we must be engrafted by the True Parents.

Because Adam became a false parent instead of a true parent, God has been continuously seeking the True Parents. In this era of the Second Coming, the bridegroom, the bride, and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb are all to recover the True Parents. (24-203, 1969.08.10)

12. The Completed Testament Age is the age of marriage. As a result of the Fall, God was unable to bless Adam and Eve in marriage. Therefore, the Lord of the Second Advent, the True Parents, must come and wed men and women on God's behalf. You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven alone.

Only couples can enter. Even Jesus has been dwelling only in paradise, as he said in the Bible. (Luke 24:43) That is why he must receive the Blessing, and likewise, all the other religious founders must also be wed by the True Parents.

You, too, can be saved only when you allow True Parents to cut your wild olive tree and sever you from the false lineage, allowing True Parents* lineage to be engrafted onto you. In the future, once all humankind has received this engrafting, religion will cease to exist. (344-031, 2001.02.26)

We must love God absolutely

13. God created human beings according to His original ideal, with the desire to connect with them through His true love. Unless you feel such a profound love toward God that you aren't concerned about losing your life, you cannot overcome life-and-death circumstances.

Therefore, a perfect religion does not start from affirmation but from denial – from complete denial, even of life itself. Without going through such a position of total denial, you cannot stand in front of Satan with a clear conscience.

This has been the position of those who have pursued a life of faith.
(35-161, 1970.10.13)

14. Human beings fell due to their disbelief in God. To reverse this we must believe in the Savior and follow him. In so doing, we need to prepare a home filled with love. This means we must become one with the returning Jesus, substantially unite with him as bridegrooms and brides, and then all three should unite in heart.

This is the process that humankind must go through to be restored. Thereupon the state originally desired by God at the time of the creation – the place where God, True Parents, and True Children come together – will become a reality on earth. It is where a new heaven and a new earth will begin.

Everything in the world thus far is the result of leaving God. Therefore, we need to go through the course of indemnity. Given the current situation of humanity, we Unification Church members are in a critical position.

We must do our work well to save the people of Korea and the world. Our sacrifices up to this point were to build the altar on the level of the Korean people.

Henceforth, we need to move forward once more and become sacrificial offerings on the world level. These are the two missions we must fulfill.
(015-263, 1965.10.17)

15. What did Jesus mean when he said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind? This is the first and greatest commandment.”

He meant that we should be public. To be public from an absolute perspective means there is no “I.” It means we represent the whole and treat the whole as our subject partner. This fallen world belongs to Satan's realm.

Therefore, we should attend God as our absolute subject partner, the central being who represents the entire. Again, we must have no concept of “I.” If we do, the condition for the satanic realms' ownership over us will remain.

From the point of strongly denying ourselves, we need to create oneness between all material things and our mind and body, with the absolute Subject Partner as our center. Then we should make offerings. (110-012, 1980.11.08)

16. Jesus told Nicodemus, "No one can see the kingdom of God without being born again." (John 3:3)

This means you must deny the life that you have lived thus far – your entire personal history.

Even if you have justifiable excuses or notable accomplishments, still you must deny yourselves. As fallen people, you cannot escape the realm of the Fall without going through this course. You lived your life thus far as dead people; hence it must be denied entirely. (6-278, 1959.06.07)

We have to enter, a world that is based on True Parents' hearts

17. Even though you have received the Blessing, you should delay cultivating your relationship with your spouse. First, you must yearn for True Parents. You should feel that without them there is neither day nor night and your existence is worthless.

Your heart of love and adoration for True Parents should consume every part of your life. Only then can you be called the sons and daughters of Heaven? Only after you have led this type of life should you finally receive your husband or wife. Otherwise, how can you possibly receive him or her?

Before anything else, you should yearn for True Parents with all your heart. You will not receive salvation unless you attend True Parents with the attitude that they are the source of your life, the entirety of your hope, and the beginning point of all your ideals and happiness.

You must have conviction enough to say, “I am a son (or daughter) of True Parents, and I will unite with them for eternity.” This kind of devotion must transcend even the awareness of your existence. This is the kind of firm conviction you must have. (30-238, 1970.03.23)

18. You cannot fully attend True Parents if you are by yourself. Whether you are a man or a woman, you need your partner. If you are single, you should get energy from the one who comes in the position of Adam.

In that state, you first must offer something to Adam, the Parent; then you can receive and inherit True Parents* love and connect it to your descendants through your lineage. You can pass on the valuable content of this love through your lineage.

Hence, you can serve God and the Parents through such a foundation of love. It is on the standard of the value of this relationship based on your lineage that you can attend True Parents. Otherwise, you cannot attend them. (35-239, 1970.10.19)

19. What was the beginning point of your life of faith when you joined the Unification Church? It started with a vivid realization about yourself, that you are God's child and that you must try to restore yourself to the position of a child who is centered on God's love.

If you receive God's love but are not proud of God's Word and do not have the conviction to proclaim it to the whole universe, you cannot stand as a son or daughter of God. You gain the authority of a son or daughter of God by standing on the foundation of God's authority.

With the authority of God's sons and daughters, you must be able to walk boldly through Satan's strongholds, no matter what happens. You must go the course of subjugating Satan, who violated Adam and Eve. Unless you bring Satan to surrender, you cannot reach the standard for receiving God's Blessing.
(22-205, 1969.02.04)

20. To become a filial child, you must know your parents' hearts. After joining the Unification Church, if you truly want to know me, you must enter the world of my heart.

There is no great secret to this. If you leaders and members have such a connection of heart with me that when you are walking the streets witnessing you break down in tears several times a day, your churches will blossom abundantly.
(093-065, 1977.05.01)

21. Have you blessed families of the Unification Church fulfilled your duties? Since you failed to establish a victorious foundation, if I were to leave you alone, your families would all go in separate directions.

However, as your representative, I have paved your way, so now you need to live with the sincerest heart, offering all your devotion. This means you need to become one with me in heart. To attain such oneness, you must transcend distance, your environment, and even history.

You should have the same heart as mine, a heart that strives to shorten all the ages and eras of restoration. You should be sad when I am sad. Furthermore, you should breathe with me as one; when I exhale you should inhale, keeping to my tempo. If you lead your life in this way, you can build a victorious foundation.

Therefore, consider your family as a special altar and pray without ceasing as you move forward. (100-286, 1978.10.22)