Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon |
You should know that the reason Moses introduced the God of authority, God of ability, and God of judgment, instead of the God of love was to give the law to the Israelites and protect and raise heavenly people with the law. It was to accomplish the will of restoration to drive them to the land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. (35- 276, 1970.10.25)
Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey, was a place that could be entered only by the reborn people who had received the Ten Commandments and the law and carried the Ark of the Covenant in the wilderness. God gave His words to the Israelites who left Egypt in order to recreate them as God's people, but when they did not follow His words, He appeared to them as a terrifying God who struck and punished them.
The Old Testament Age, in which Satan reigned as the king, was an age of the devil's power until the appearance of the Messiah. Jehovah God therefore appeared to Moses as the God of fear, God of revenge, and God of jealousy, and struck with the law the people who had become servants of sin and mercilessly punished the violators of the law. This was the Old Testament Age.
If you look at the attributes of Jehovah God of the Old Testament Age, He was a jealous God who terrified worshipers of other gods, a cruel God who ordered the Israelites to exterminate the seven tribes of Canaan leaving no survivors, and a merciless God who slaughtered the Israelites who had violated the commandments and law.
Could the God of love, who created the universe, have the character to feel such jealousy, exact such revenge, instill such terror, and exhibit the cruelty to exterminate the seven tribes of Canaan? This happened because the Old Testament Age was an age when angels, as mediators, served in the role of God. The revengeful legalism that says "a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, and a stripe for a stripe" cannot stem from the character of the Creator God. God is the God of love and forgiveness.
God appeared to Moses several times: in the burning bush on Mount Horeb where He called Moses and also at the top of Mount Sinai where He gave him the Ten Commandments. To this day we have not known that the God who appeared to Moses was an angel; but if you look in chapter seven of the book of Acts in the New Testament, it is recorded that He was an angel: "Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush... you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it."
The Jehovah who appears in the Old Testament Age this way is an angel and not God. The Old Testament Age is the age of the servant, and God cannot appear as a father to a servant, because he is not a son. When Moses asks God for His name, He answers, "I am who I am" and tells him his name is Jehovah. But, when Moses stands in front of the people, he emphasizes that Jehovah God is the God of their ancestors, that is, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Jehovah is an angel.
Since the Old Testament Age was the age of the servant, God could not reveal Himself directly. In the Old Testament, did God tell them to fight or not to fight? Do you know that Saul was punished because, after winning the war, he went against God's instruction to kill all the men? Why do you think He did that? If men of the satanic world were spared, that world would invade again. He did it because the survival of the satanic men would preserve that system as they took wives and continued as they had before. Yet cutting off their lineage would end the system, as the women and children belonged to God's side. That is why He did this.
Saul was punished because his failure to act as instructed allowed the invasion of the heavenly nation by the worship of gentile gods and by all their adulterous customs. (124-202, 1983.2.15)
Since God created angels before creating Adam, today's religions are the creations of the angelic realm on earth. That is the religious sphere. What is the task of the religious realm? It must succeed in creating Adam. Then, what is the global center of religion? It turns out to be Judaism. What does Judaism do? It is a religion that introduces the bridegroom. This is the philosophy of the Messiah and Savior. (50-56, 1971.10.31)
Until God created Adam and Eve, the archangels were the guardians of traditional philosophy. As a servant, the archangel was supposed to teach Adam and Eve the new customs and tradition of life before God did, saying, "The sons and daughters of the Master should live in such and such a way."
Is it not the responsibility of the old servant to keep the master's sons and daughters from going astray? Isn't he responsible to guide and instruct them along a smooth path? (50-181, 1971.11.6)
God established religions in order to save fallen people. What are those religions? God established the religion of Eve and the religions of the archangel in the world. Because the Fall was due to Eve and the archangel, human beings are restored through the religions of Eve and the archangel. They are restored through this path.
Religions are in the realm of archangel; whether there are a hundred or a thousand religions, they all belong to the realm of archangel. Although there are a great number of religions, they can be divided broadly into four great religions. Their center is Christianity, and the main philosophy of Christianity is the philosophy of the bride. (239-136, 1992.11.24)
Only God is the true deity, and other god-like beings are angels. To distinguish clearly monotheism and polytheism, the polytheistic religions are founded by heavenly beings, that is, angels. Among these religions, some result from good angels' efforts to elevate human spirituality and heart. These are the advanced religions. You should know that God has been cultivating human hearts through these good religions.
The religions of the archangel do not clearly know the fundamentals. They do not know who God is, nor do they know what is happening in the Last Days. Their teachings have been centered on the external concepts of spiritual training. Because they do not have a clear tradition, in the Last Days they have to wrap up their basic necessities and go to the master's house to serve. (237-186, 1992.11.17)
Let us think about those who followed God's will in the Old Testament Age and in the New Testament Age. In the Old Testament Age, there were primitive forms of religion, and in the New Testament Age, a religion befitting that era emerged. In other words, in the New Testament Age religions have been connecting to modern, twentieth-century civilization.
What kind of religion is the Unification Church? The Unification Church should be on a new level, a futuristic religion compared with the primitive religions and the religions of the age. (122-9, 1982.10.31)