God, Women and World Peace

* This was an invitational address delivered on September 7, 1993 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Honorable President Ganev, your excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to you for coming here today. As leaders of the United Nations, you bear the responsibility of guiding this world into the next millennium. The promise of a peaceful and prosperous future depends directly upon the collective actions we take today.

God’s ideal of creation

As we all know, our contemporary world is not a world of peace and happiness. It is a world of conflict and despair. We are confronted by the breakdown of our families and the moral decline of our societies.

We debate issues over and over again and yet find no solutions. Why is this? It is because a true solution has to include God and deal with the root of the problem and not only the symptoms. To find this root, we first need to understand God’s purpose of creation and realize that today we face the most critical turning point in the history of God’s providence.

At this crucial time in history, God has asked my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, to bring a new revelation to the people of the world. I have been supporting him in his work and I recently concluded a yearlong tour that took me to twelve countries, where I spoke on the topic, True Parents and the Completed Testament Age.

A few weeks ago, toward the end of a speaking schedule that took me to all fifty states of the United States, I addressed members of the United States Congress in Washington, DC on this same theme. I would like to take this opportunity to convey this important message to you, assembled delegates of the United Nations and other distinguished guests.

God’s ideal in creating Adam and Eve was that they would perfect themselves through true love so that, as True Parents, they could then create a good family of true love, true life and true lineage. Such a good family would have formed on the basis of hearts and minds united among the family members before God.

When God created Adam and Eve, His first son and daughter, God wanted them to be better than Himself. Conventional thinking would say that this is absurd. However please take a moment to think about it. When we as parents look into the faces of our children, we wish upon them an infinite amount of love and hope. We want them to grow and achieve things we ourselves only dreamed of.

Similarly, God wants to give limitlessly to His children. God is not content in giving just 100 percent. God’s desire is to give a thousand times more than what He has. The nature of God’s love is to give completely and then forget what He has given. Unlike some, who calculate how much they have given and decide that it is enough, for God enough is never enough.

Moreover, God’s purpose in creating the world was to have an object partner of love. His purpose in creating parents and children, husbands and wives, and all things in this world in complementary pairs was to substantiate true love throughout His creation. Likewise, parents are to live for their children, and children for their parents. Husbands are to live for their wives, and wives for their husbands. All beings in creation are to live for, and give to others.

If God’s ideal of true love had been realized through Adam’s family, that family would have become the beginning of the heavenly kingdom. It would have expanded throughout history to the clan, the nation and the world. This would have been the world of true love, the kingdom of heaven on earth. Furthermore, there would have been a parallel expansion of the heavenly kingdom in the spiritual world.

Human history’s false start and the providence of salvation

If God’s original ideal had been realized, there would have been no need for a Messiah or for God’s providence to save humanity. Adam’s family, though it was merely a single family, would have been the center of the clan, the nation and the world. It would have been the blueprint for all future families and the model for the realization of God’s ideal world.

Because of the Fall of our first ancestors, God’s work of salvation had to begin. Salvation history had to be extended repeatedly through the complicated and suffering courses of the Old and New Testament Ages, culminating in today’s Completed Testament Age.

God’s ideal of the true family and the heavenly kingdom, which He wanted to realize through Adam’s family, was destroyed because Adam and Eve fell away from God. Due to the Fall, this present world is far from the good world of God’s ideal. In fact, today’s world is a false world, in that it is flooded with self-centered love.

This came about because Adam and Eve became false parents based on the false and self-centered love of Satan. They multiplied evil rather than goodness, creating a false family and passing on false life and a false lineage to their descendants. Thus, false clans, false nations and a false world came into being.

Therefore, the goal in God’s dispensation of salvation is for a man and a woman, representing Adam and Eve, to be restored as True Parents centered on God’s true love, so that they can form a true family. From them eventually would flow the true clan, the true nation and the true world that God originally planned. In other words, the seed from which God’s true love, true life and true lineage can grow has to be created.

My dear friends, have you ever wondered how a world filled with such evil and corruption could come from a God of love and goodness? If you read the Bible carefully, you will see that the Fall involved the loss of Adam’s entire family. First, the position of parents was lost through the Fall of Adam and Eve. Second, the position of children was lost as Cain murdered Abel. God’s blueprint for an ideal family and world perfection was lost.

Therefore, to restore the original family, God works in reverse to reclaim the positions of Cain and Abel, and then the positions of True Mother and True Father. This pattern requiring the reconciliation of Cain and Abel as the foundation for restoring the True Parents has been God’s consistent formula throughout the history of restoration.

The separation of fallen humankind into a Cain-Abel division occurred over and over again in Judeo-Christian history. God first of all separated fallen humankind into two opposing fraternal sides of Cain, representing Satan, and Abel, representing God, to resolve the emotions that resulted from the Fall. God used the method of having the Abel side be attacked first and sacrificed. As a result, the Abel side was able to stand on that very foundation to embrace the Cain side and receive the blessing that Cain, in the elder son position, had received.

For example, the religion that advances the purpose of salvation always receives Satan’s severe persecution. It walks the path of receiving constant opposition, yet it continues its sacrificial efforts to save the sinful world. Likewise, good people always stand in the position of being struck first and sacrificed.

Looking almost anywhere in our fallen world, we observe struggle between good and evil, similar to the struggle between Cain and Abel. These struggles start in the conflict between mind and body in each of us. The mind, which represents the Abel side, struggles to overcome the body, which represents the Cain side. The struggle within individuals has expanded to the family, nation and world.

As a result, humankind has always been divided into two opposing camps, one good, or Abel-like, and the other evil, or Cain-like, locked in struggle at every level. Always it has been God’s intention, however, that both sides be restored, not that one triumph over and destroy the other.

An example of this division is the thief on the right side of Jesus’ cross, who represented Abel, and the thief on the left, who represented Cain. So the key to God’s work of salvation has always been to unite such divided sides, based on His ideal, in order to build a foundation on which to reclaim the True Mother and True Father.

Self-centered love and the breakdown of the family

Ladies and gentlemen, if a family is not centered on God’s ideal of love, there will be conflict among the members of that family. Without God’s love as an absolute center, the family will ultimately break down. Moreover, a nation of such families will also decline.

Because illicit, self-centered love invaded the family of our first ancestors, selfishness and greed have continued to dominate human history from the individual to the family, society, nation and world. For this reason, God’s work of restoration begins at the individual level. Since Satan knows this, he also focuses his efforts on the individual level.

It is not by chance that selfish individualism has become the dominant way of life in these Last Days. People feel increasingly alienated from those around them and bear little sense of responsibility for the well-being of their country, community, or even their own family.

Rising divorce statistics indicate that husbands and wives feel little responsibility toward their marriage; parents do not take proper responsibility for their children; and individuals, devoid of any sense of human dignity, reject accountability for their own lives.

The United States and many other countries of the world have seen such phenomena, beginning with the youth movement of the 1960s. Idealistic youth rejected the materialism around them in order to seek love and peace, although in the process they also abandoned morality and responsibility. Unable to attain the true love they sought, many disillusioned young people resorted to drug use and free sex, leading to self-destruction, including suicide.

Of all these, what pains God most is free sex. A world of free sex is absolutely contrary to the Will of God and the ideal of the family. Love comes from the stimulation of unblemished emotion, however free sex is totally devoid of purity or true emotion.

How many of us have been touched by the cruelty of infidelity and divorce? Where is God in all the one-night stands? What about the nightmare of children who are sexually abused by a parent? Is free sex worth the price of a broken child?

Indeed, in the domains of homosexuality, free sex, drugs and alcoholism, the world of true love is far away. It is a world in which Satan openly tells people, “Drink! Take drugs! Have sex!” Those who do God’s Will, on the other hand, live a lifestyle that is 180 degrees different from this. Throughout history, those who chose to walk a spiritual path of self-sacrifice have been bitterly opposed and persecuted by the rest of the world.

For example, it is only God’s love and blessing that have allowed the Unification Church to prosper, despite worldwide opposition. The fact that our church has risen from obscurity in war-torn Korea to become a worldwide religious movement in only thirty-eight years testifies to God’s continued guidance and support.

There are those who continue to oppose the Unification Church, whispering rumors to prevent our teachings from being heard. Again, Satan’s way is always to attack that which is most precious to God. Yet those who go against the Will of God can never prosper. The principle holds true that those on God’s side who can endure unjust persecution will win the right to take back the blessing. God’s strategy is always to be struck first and then take back what is rightfully His.

Restoring true love

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible teaches that Eve was the first to disobey God and enter into a relationship with Satan. Due to the Fall. Eve and Adam and also their sons Cain and Abel inherited Satan’s lineage, based upon selfishness and false love. As the descendants of the first couple, which was compromised by Satan, we have all inherited Satan’s lineage. For this reason, Jesus said in John 8:44, “You are from your father, the devil...”

The Old Testament describes a process of restitution according to the formula “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” (Ex. 21:24) In the Divine Principle we refer to making restitution for a wrong as paying indemnity. To make restitution for her wrong actions, fallen Eve needed to take on the entire responsibility. She needed to have reversed the actions of the Fall and made spiritual and physical restitution for each step of the Fall.

It was God’s Will that Eve assist her younger son, Abel, to unite with the Will of God. We know from Genesis that God accepted Abel’s offering. However, this was not all that was expected of Abel. Abel’s love was supposed to bring Cain to recognize Abel as God’s chosen person and unite with him, and Eve was supposed to help them achieve that unity.

If Cain and Abel had united, the second problem of the Fall would have been solved. The unity between Cain and Abel, centering on Eve, would have been the foundation to restore the whole of Adam’s family. Throughout providential history, we see God calling special women to play this exact role, to help unite the positions of Cain and Abel as restitution for fallen Eve’s role.

Rebekah as a model of restoration

In the Bible, one of these special women is Rebekah, Isaac’s wife. As the mother of Jacob and Esau, Rebekah held the same position in Isaac’s family that Eve held in Adam’s family. Unlike Eve, however, Rebekah understood God’s providence and helped her second son, Jacob, representing Abel’s position, to gain the blessing intended for the first son, Esau.

Just as Cain killed Abel, Esau wanted to kill Jacob when the blessing went to his younger brother. However with Rebekah’s help, as recorded in Genesis, these brothers eventually reconciled in a warm embrace, rather than resorting to violence.

This reconciliation was a major victory for God. This victory, nevertheless, was not complete, since the reconciliation was only a symbolic purification of the lineage. The substantial purification of the lineage had to be accomplished in the womb. This is the reason for the paradoxical story of Tamar.

By understanding that Tamar, like Rebekah, was in the position of fallen Eve, it becomes possible to understand why Jesus was born of her lineage, the tribe of Judah. I am sure that many of you have read the story about the birth of her twins. She conceived with Judah, her father-in-law, the twins Perez and Zerah. The Bible tells us that the two sons struggled even in the womb for the position of firstborn.

During Tamar’s labor, Zerah’s hand was the first to emerge and the midwife tied a red string around his wrist. Then Zerah’s hand disappeared back into the womb and Perez, the younger, was born as the elder. Thus, the positions of Cain and Abel were restored before birth took place. It was on this foundation that the nation of Israel was chosen to receive the Messiah.

In terms of conventional morality, the actions of Rebekah and Tamar are questionable at best. Why God blessed them has been a theological mystery until today. As we now see, through these women, God was able to reclaim His lineage from Satan so that Jesus could be born. Their lineage was the point from which the Israelite nation started expanding. The word Israel means victory. Their victory was the reversal of Cain and Abel in the womb, the purification of the lineage.

Mary’s life and her dangerous course

The lineage of Judah developed for generations, expanding to the levels of the tribe, society and nation. From this lineage, Mary was born in Israel two thousand years later.

Mary had the responsibility of uniting the Cain and Abel figures on the family, clan and national levels through paying appropriate indemnity and restoring the right of the elder son. Mary responded to God’s call and conceived Jesus, even though, in the eyes of others, she had betrayed her parents and Joseph, to whom she was engaged.

At that time it was customary to stone to death a woman who became pregnant out of wedlock. However, Joseph, standing in the position of Adam, courageously protected his fiancée and would not abandon her.

Because of Mary’s faith, and the victories of Rebekah and Tamar, Satan could not claim sovereignty over Jesus in Mary’s womb. Jesus was born in the position of a true Son under God’s complete, direct lineage. He is the first true son of God, based upon the purification of the fallen lineage.

That is why Jesus, the only begotten son of God, is the saint of all saints and the ancestor of God’s true lineage. His birth represented the conclusion of the Old Testament Age at the national level and the dawn of the New Testament Age at the worldwide level.

Mary, in the position to restore fallen Eve, had to build unity between Jesus, who was in the position of Abel, and his elder cousin, John the Baptist, who was in the position of Cain. This unity was essential if the people of Israel were to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

John was the elder. He had a great following and was widely respected. He described his own role by saying, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, and ’Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” (John 1:23)

Also, Jesus explained to his disciples that the ministry of John was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy that says, “I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” (Mal. 4:5)

However did John fulfill his responsibility in God’s providence? The Gospel of Luke tells us that John came “with the spirit and power of Elijah.” (Luke 1:17) John, however, denied that he was Elijah and doubted that Jesus was the Messiah, even after he had received a clear revelation at the Jordan River at the time of Jesus’ baptism.

John was a well-respected religious figure, while Jesus was seen as only the illegitimate son of a poor carpenter. Without the support of John, it was unlikely the Jewish people would believe in and follow Jesus. Alone, Jesus undertook the difficult path of self-proclamation.

John the Baptist was supposed to have helped Jesus reach the religious leadership of Israel. If John had fulfilled his role, then the religion of Judaism, in the position of Abel, and the nation of Israel, in the position of Cain, could have united with Jesus.

A dream unfulfilled

This Cain-Abel unity would have laid the foundation for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Jesus would have stood as the True Father of humanity, and his Bride would have stood as the True Mother.

In less than seven years his teachings would have expanded rapidly to the worldwide level, winning Asia and Rome to his side before he reached the age of forty. Eventually, as True Parents, Jesus and his Bride would have achieved the individual heavenly kingdom, family heavenly kingdom, clan heavenly kingdom and national heavenly kingdom.

However, this glorious destiny could not be realized. It was the religious people themselves who rejected Jesus’ words and called for his crucifixion.

Confronted by the disbelief in Israel, Jesus determined to give his life to achieve spiritual salvation for humankind. However, he knew that Christ would have to come again in order to bring physical salvation on earth in addition to spiritual salvation.

As a result of Jesus’ death on the cross, the conflict between supporters of left-wing and right-wing ideologies appeared, echoing the two thieves who were crucified with him. This is similar to the separation between Cain and Abel that resulted from Adam’s Fall. Likewise, Islam and Christianity appeared and began struggling. Because such separation was caused by the crucifixion of Jesus, Christ will work for the unity of these divisions at the time of the Second Coming.