True Family Values

Joong Hyun Pak and Andrew Wilson

Chapter 6 - Spreading Gods Blessing [Part 3]

The Blessing

Of all the blessings we can share with others, the most precious by far is the Blessing of marriage when God comes to dwell in the union of husband and wife. As has been said, the Blessing promises liberation from the fetters that prevent the expression of true love in the family. It can free us from the baneful spiritual influences that plague the intimate sphere of family life and turn it into a battleground. It empowers us to build lasting and prosperous marriages, producing pure-hearted and righteous children. When society is then filled with loving and faithful blessed families, it will prosper as never before. The Blessing provides the best path to solve the problems of family breakdown and social decay because it addresses their root cause. Let us examine the meaning of the Blessing in more depth and enumerate its spiritual benefits.

First, the grace of the Blessing resolves the problems of love brought on by the Fall of humankind. The Fall can be likened to a spiritual disease which tainted human love, made the family dysfunctional, and caused conflict in the soul. Rev. Moon says,

As the descendants of Adam and Eve, all human beings are born with original sin. The Fall gave rise to conflict of mind and body within every person and caused our societies to be filled with tainted love, and people do things that contradict the desire of their original minds.13

God, who is absolute Love and who created us out of that same pure love, never intended the love of human beings to be corrupt. Nevertheless, an illicit relationship between Adam, Eve and Lucifer defiled the love of Adam and Eve and wrecked their family life. The Fall laid a curse upon conjugal love, as described in Genesis. The verse, "I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed" (Gen. 3:15), means that men acting the part of Lucifer continually abuse and violate women. The verse, "In pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Gen. 3:16), describes the unresolved mixture of pain and desire, love and domination, that characterizes love in many marriages.

By afflicting the intimate human relationships within the family, the Fall spawned the state of inner contradiction between our original mind and our evil mind which Paul so eloquently described: "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate ... For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin." (Rom. 7:15, 22-23) While it is still quite possible for someone who is spiritually advanced to develop a saintly character and a heart of compassion for all creatures, the moment that person steps into his or her family circle all life's ordinary miseries arise. The most outstanding rulers and patriots who gave of themselves for the sake of the people without reservation, the most brilliant scientists and philosophers, often kept mistresses, were unfaithful to their wives, or lacked feeling for their children. Monks and nuns, yogis and shamans traditionally remain celibate.

Until now, all human families have been afflicted by the original sin, and their intimate relationships could not fully manifest true love. Then, in 1960, Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon inaugurated the Blessing, establishing the first marriage completely free from sin. Overcoming all satanic influence and accusation, they perfected the true family for the first time in human history. From this starting point, they have been offering the Blessing to all the families of the world. The Blessing affords every family the opportunity to enter this previously unattainable realm of grace and become true families.

Second, the Blessing is a gate, not a cure-all. Blessed couples do not automatically become true families without some condition on their part. The full promise of the Blessing can only be realized when we practice a life of responsibility. Therefore, at the Blessing ceremony, the participants vow to renounce forever the corruption of love. They swear before God to be faithful to their spouse for ever and never violate their marriage bond with illicit love. They pledge never to divorce, but to work out every difficulty in God's grace. They pledge to educate their children to this standard of true love. And they pledge to dedicate their families to the peace and welfare of the larger community, nation and world. Those couples who do not make sufficient effort to live up to their vows, who then lapse into a selfish life and accumulate sins, are liable to lose the Blessing.

Third, the Blessing is for everyone. People of every religion and creed, including those with no formal religious faith, can enhance their life immeasurably through the Blessing. Whatever faith they practice can be a good foundation upon which to build life as a blessed family. Thus, for Christians who have already found fellowship with God through Jesus Christ, the Blessing opens the door to an even deeper fellowship. Jesus ordained Rev. Moon to advance his work; hence the blessing of Jesus and the Holy Spirit imbues in the Blessing offered by the True Parents. Likewise, every religion has enabled believers to experience God's holy presence-as individuals. The Blessing offers an added benefit, building upon that existing foundation of faith and love, to bestow sanctification on the family. Thus, the Blessing makes one a better Christian, a more devoted Buddhist, a more faithful Muslim or a more loving humanist.

The values of the Blessing are universal. They are consistent with the ethical teachings about family, charity and community service found in all religions. All religions teach that children should honor their parents and husbands should be faithful to their wives. Their teachings serve as reliable guides to blessed couples as they strive for the full realization of their divine potential. They are in accord with the principles of the Family Pledge as discussed in this book. Therefore, there is no requirement to believe in a particular doctrine or theology. Couples of every religious tradition can attain the highest ideal according to their integrity, effort and devotion.

Even where there are apparent contradictions between the Blessing and the ways of other faiths, further examination reveals a deeper convergence. For example, the Blessing does not allow divorce or polygamy, though certain religions permit it. Yet the scriptures of those religions explain that they were granted as concessions to human weakness and not as guidance for those striving for the highest good. While Muslim men may marry up to four wives (Qur'an 4.3), this was given expressly as a concession in times of war to provide support for widows and orphans. The Qur'an makes clear that this falls short of the ideal arrangement: "You will not be able to deal equally with your wives, however much you wish to do so." (Qur'an 4.129) The Mosaic Law allows divorce, yet God spoke through the prophet Malachi, "I hate divorce" (Mal. 2:16), and Jesus clearly stated, "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." (Matt. 19:8) Hence, Jewish, Christian and Muslim couples who strive to become ideal families through the Blessing live in accordance with the highest teachings of their respective faiths.

What of Jesus' and Paul's advocacy of celibacy as a path superior to marriage? (Matt. 19:12; 1 Cor 7:32-35) They rightly understood that there existed a spiritual barrier blocking our way to perfect conjugal love. Jesus never married and could not reveal the path to forming a true family; how could any of his followers surpass him? As the church exalted monasticism as the way to imitate Christ, it came to regard sexuality as something shameful or forbidden, even a temptation from the Devil. To this day, many Christians have a certain ambivalence regarding sexual pleasure. Neither Luther nor Calvin regarded marriage as a sacrament; they viewed it rather as an expedient institution to prevent the temptation of licentiousness. The Roman Catholic Church did not institute the sacrament of marriage until the 10th century, and regards it only as a temporary grace to be dissolved at death-this even though we observe that true love grows ever deeper in old age. Is there not a certain contradiction between these traditional attitudes towards conjugal love and the divine institution of marriage at the creation? (Gen. 1:28; 2:24) Yet they were justified as long as the spiritual barrier preventing perfect conjugal love, the curse of Adam and Eve's fall, had not been taken away. However, with the advent of the Blessing, this ancient barrier is finally transcended. God can be deeply present in human conjugal love based upon His Blessing of our marriage. The Blessing is unexpected and mysterious. It is a new gift of God, not based upon human works. Today, zeal for the celibate life is flagging, another sign that the world has moved into a new dispensation.

Fourth, the Blessing enables us to grow into a new level of spiritual and emotional oneness with God. Our souls are knitted to God as we become His true children. For the true child of God, God is not distant, as Paul says, "Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying `Abba! Father!"' (Gal. 4:6) A child of God truly experiences that God his Heavenly Father is as close as his own physical father; thus, Paul and Jesus addressed God with the familiar term "Abba," daddy. A child of God is intimate with the feelings in God's heart. He participates in God's life and gladly assists God to further the divine providence on earth. His joy is to comfort God and ease His pain by making love triumphant. Jesus Christ lived in this state of God-consciousness all his life. Saints have glimpsed it. Rev. Moon abides in it, and through the Blessing our families can attain it as well. Our home then becomes God's home, as prophesied long ago: "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them." (Rev. 21:3)

Fifth, the Blessing transforms our lineage. The benefits of the Blessing, therefore, are received by the family as a whole and are heritable to subsequent generations. Individual salvation is not similarly passed on. Every generation of Christian children needs baptism; every new generation needs to find Jesus as their personal savior. There are Christian couples who are happy into their old age, loving each other with a love that is beautiful to behold, yet their children wander far astray. Many children, while living saved lives, endure alcoholic or divorced parents. This is because without the Blessing, the root of lineage remains in Satan's possession. Salvation of the individual cannot cope with this problem; only salvation that encompasses the entire family and its lineage can resolve it completely.

Central to the Blessing is the sacrament of the holy wine. As the Eucharistic wine represents Jesus' blood, the holy wine represents the blood of the True Parents. Just as in the partaking of the Eucharist, we receive Jesus' flesh and blood to be reborn as God's children as individuals, so the holy wine ceremony forges a powerful connection to God's life, love and lineage by couples:

The holy wine... is the wine of love, the wine of the husband, and the milk of the mother. It represents the water of life, the blood of the parents, the manifestation of all glory, and the love of bridegroom and bride. It contains in it the life force of God the Father. With the holy wine I am giving out the substance of the Father's heart and blood lineage. Through it I am giving out God's life force and forming a connection of lineage.14

Receiving the holy wine breaks the chain of false love, forged link by link from parents and children in every generation that bound us to the root of sin in the Garden of Eden. It links us with God's lineage, newly founded by the True Parents. This connection of heart and lineage is, of course, conditional on how we live our lives thereafter. By offering God our devoted service, we make that bond of heart substantial, as Paul said:

We are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. -Rom. 8:17

The Blessing changes a family's lineage once and for all. The change of lineage never needs to be repeated, provided one keeps the Blessing unstained. Its benefits continue and accumulate in the lives of the children and grandchildren. This means that the children and grandchildren of blessed couples are in an entirely different position than their parents. From birth they already belong to God's lineage, unstained by the original sin. Nevertheless, they cannot escape their own portion of responsibility, just as Adam and Eve, born without sin, were responsible to obey the commandment in their generation. Their parents should inculcate them with true family values so that they can resist the allure of the present world and welcome the Blessing when their time comes to marry. In other words, the grace of the Blessing is cumulative, ever increasing for future generations.

Sixth, blessed families are eternal. The eternal God created humankind to be His eternal partners in love. Therefore, when God dwells in the conjugal love of a true family, that marriage will become God's eternal counterpart. The conjugal love between husband and wife will resonate with the eternal unity between God's dual characteristics, participating in God's eternity. This is the eternal Four Position Foundation, in which God participates as a member of the family. God did not intend marriage to be "'till death do us part." True families on earth continue in the spirit world for ever. As discussed previously, by virtue of the Blessing, families are entitled to enter the highest heavens.

Seventh, let us consider the impact of the Blessing on society as a whole. Families formed through the Blessing shine forth as beacons of God's love to the other families in their communities. Because they have a firm moral compass, clearly understanding the family ideal and what is required to achieve it, they can show the way to other families who grope in the darkness and confusion of this present age. In a world where media images portray the average high-school girl as having sexual affairs with three or four boyfriends, where extramarital affairs are commonplace and divorce is even expected, society needs families which stand up for the eternal values of virginity before marriage and absolute fidelity in marriage. Many young people are confused about family values, yet desire from the bottom of their hearts to find true love with one partner that will last for eternity. Unless they find people among their peers who are righteous about these matters, whom they can follow and thus preserve their purity, they will be sucked down into the contemporary maelstrom of immorality and left with only shattered dreams.

When a person's love is broken or corrupted, it coarsens his behavior in all areas of social life. All manner of greed, betrayal, oppression, political corruption, violence, alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental illness ensue when people lack true love. Families who are confident and generous in loving others will renew our current decadent social climate. As upstanding citizens, by their example and service they bring out the goodness in people and encourage their public spirit.

Eighth, as was discussed in connection with the fourth pledge, the Blessing advances the ideal of a global family. Thus, Rev. and Mrs. Moon perform the Blessing in a mass ceremony including hundreds of thousands of couples from every nation, race and religion. Through satellite hookups, participants in every part of the world receive the Blessing at the same time. The ceremony itself, as a huge public demonstration, signals the promise of world peace based on ideal families. This global family ever expands as more and more people participate in the Blessing. Anywhere they travel, a blessed family will find a warm welcome in the homes of other blessed families and feel as though they are visiting their brothers and sisters. Furthermore, many blessed families are themselves international and interracial. Young people who take a spouse of a different race or culture offer their marriages as crucibles for dissolving the ancient prejudices of racism and nationalism in the fire of true love. The children of these marriages will have the blood of two races flowing through their veins. In loving them and loving each other, the couples will achieve interracial harmony and show the way for others to do likewise. As blessed families link the world together with bonds of heart, the barriers of color, language and national pride will fall away. Here is the starting point for a global transformation, the dawning of world peace founded on true love.

Ninth, the Blessing opens the way to build the Kingdom of God on earth. This has been the desire of the ages, sought for by visionaries, prophets and philosophers since ancient times. Utopian dreams proliferated in the twentieth century, yet in reality this tragic century has seen more war, bloodshed and aggregate suffering then at any other time in human history. It was thought that advances in science and technology could create an ideal world. Yet while making life easier and more comfortable, science has created fearsome weapons and polluted the earth with industrial toxins. Moreover, by freeing people from heavy economic burdens, it has loosed the behavioral restraints which formerly kept the family together. The march of technology and industrialization has been accompanied by massive unemployment, the breakdown of the family and the loss of traditional moral values.

Attempts to build ideal societies through ideological and political policies have failed miserably. Changing the "system" does not touch the core issue for human fulfillment, which is love. It does not remove the root cause of alienation, the corrupt state of human love. Socialist experiments like the Israeli kibbutz movement floundered as the second generation left for the allure of city life. Somehow the idealism of their parents did not attract them, for it did not touch the heart of their longing. Communist nations tried to end the alienation of man from his labor, but when the liberated members of the proletariat returned home each evening from the factory or collective, they found the same lack of fulfillment. A bottle of vodka became the only recourse for the workers' drab, empty lives in the former Soviet Union. Episodes of ideological and political fanaticism and terror tore families apart and brought on additional suffering.

An ideal society becomes possible only when the core problem of human life is resolved: the problem of love. By transforming the conjugal relationship between husband and wife, the Blessing provides the key to building a genuinely utopian culture where all the cherished hopes of humankind can be realized. We call it the culture of heart. Purified, sinless humanity will participate in a new cultural movement which exalts true love as the goal of all social and cultural activities. Families living in true love and participating in a harmonious society ruled by love will build the Kingdom of God on earth. The culture of heart will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.

Finally, let us consider the value of the Blessing from God's point of view. In the beginning, the Blessing of Adam and Eve was to be the moment of fulfillment for God's purpose of creation. God intended that human beings, as the crown of creation, be the hub around which the entire universe would turn and realize its fulfillment. God created Adam as the microcosm and encapsulation of all the masculine qualities in the cosmos, and Eve as the microcosm and encapsulation of all the feminine qualities in the cosmos. Had Adam and Eve married under God's Blessing, the entire cosmos would have danced in harmony and become whole, revolving about Adam and Eve as its center. Instead, when Adam and Eve fell, the creation lost its center. Ever since, as Paul stated, "the whole creation has been groaning in travail" while it "waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God." (Rom. 8:22, 19)

Ever since the tragic day when humanity squandered the promise of Eden to live in pain and toil, God's ultimate goal has been to bestow the Blessing. He has been working throughout human history for that one purpose. In this light, we can truly understand that it was for the sake of the Blessing that Jesus went to the cross. He gave up his body so that one day he could return and complete the unfinished work of salvation by instituting the Blessing. Likewise, the Israelites suffered slavery in Egypt, and later exile in Babylon, only so that one day their descendants could welcome the Messiah and receive the Blessing. Countless Christian believers were martyred, fed to the lions in Rome's coliseums, for the hope of the future resurrection that comes with the Blessing. Rev. Moon, too, suffered imprisonment and torture so that one day he could bring the Blessing to humanity. In this sense, the Blessing is more valuable than one's life. It is more valuable than any religion or philosophy. Its value even exceeds that of the United States of America with all its vaunted freedoms. Indeed, its value equals that of the entire universe!

The Blessing Is Received through Faith

Many older members of the Unification Church received the Blessing after years of sacrifice and indemnity. The Blessing was not given easily; it was thought of as a reward given only after years of hard effort. Qualifications were heavy, including a seven-day fast and three spiritual children. Members were instructed to go the formula course: three-and-a-half years of fundraising and three-and-a-half years of witnessing-all the while maintaining absolute celibacy. Thinking from this perspective, how difficult it was to receive the Blessing!

However, since 1992, our True Father has been offering the Blessing to all the people of the world as a free gift! The onerous conditions formerly required of Unification Church members no longer apply: no years of celibacy as preparation, no fasting, no fundraising, no witnessing. Certainly, it is still worth taking time to prepare oneself to receive the Blessing by cultivating the inner qualities of faith and love and by strengthening the power of the conscience over the desires of the flesh. Fasting, celibacy, prayer, evangelism and tithing are recognized as good training for family life in all religions. Nevertheless, today such training is no longer a formal prerequisite for the Blessing, which is offered to all as a free gift, to be received by faith.

For older members, this reveals to us that we did not earn the Blessing. We should not resent the newcomers who receive it for free, or think that our Blessing is more valuable, when in fact everyone's Blessing is of equal worth. As in Jesus' Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, we are like the workers hired in the morning for one denarius; we have no cause to grumble at the newcomers hired late in the day who received the same wage. (Matt. 20:11-16) The gift of the Blessing is entirely of God's generosity. We all were unworthy to receive it.

A similar situation arose in the early Christian church when Gentiles began to join in great numbers. The first Christians were Jews who had kept the burden of the Mosaic Law for years in expectation of the coming of the Messiah. They complained in their hearts as they saw the Gentiles who had not kept the Law receiving the same salvation without having to adopt the yoke of the Law. Nevertheless, as Jesus taught in the parable, they were not to question the wisdom of God. In fact, it was the Gentiles, the late-comers, who built up the church while the Jewish Christians faded into obscurity. Likewise, who knows what great works God intends to accomplish through the couples who receive the Blessing in the present time and benefit from Heaven's newfound generosity?

What sort of faith is required to receive this gift of grace? It is faith in the True Parents. Faith in the True Parents does not require a full understanding of the Divine Principle. It does not even require that one believe that Rev. Moon is the Messiah! In its simplest form, faith in the True Parents means to acknowledge that God has granted them His authority to bestow the grace of the Blessing upon the families of the world. It means to value the Blessing offered by the True Parents as worth receiving and keeping. It means to respect the True Parents as the world teachers who can guide us as we strive to realize true families.

Let us examine from the viewpoint of the Divine Principle why today the Blessing can be offered as a free gift to all the people of the world. According to the Principle of Restoration, an individual can receive the Messiah and be cleansed of sin through the Blessing only upon reaching the top of the growth stage. (Restoration 1) To arrive at that point, he must make conditions to indemnify the Fall, which occurred at the top of the growth stage. These are the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance. The former requirements for the Blessing, including the seven-day fast, three spiritual children and seven-year formula course, were are for the purpose of making these conditions. The Divine Principle goes on to state that after receiving the Messiah, a person can grow through the completion stage by attending him and participating in God's will. The path of faith after receiving the Messiah no longer consists of making indemnity conditions to restore the Fall; it is rather a path of re-creation which traverses a realm which Adam and Eve never attained. People do not tread this path as individuals, but rather as blessed families.

For the Blessing to be offered as a free gift, the recipients must already be at the top of the growth stage. How can this condition be obtained for people who have made no special conditions? It is possible because the True Parents' worldwide victory has lifted up the entire world to stand at the top of the growth stage. Today, Rev. Moon has completed his wilderness course and restored the situation which had existed in 1945, when he began his ministry and sought to be received by worldwide Christianity.

At that time, world Christianity stood at the top of the growth stage, based on the merit of Jesus, the saints, martyrs and righteous people. Its foundation is Jesus Christ, who offers resurrection to the growth stage. (Resurrection 2.2.3) Furthermore, the democratic world had just then achieved victory in the Second World War, which "fulfilled the growth-stage indemnity condition to restore God's three great blessings worldwide" and "the growth-stage foundation to restore God's sovereignty." (Preparation 4.3.6) Therefore, in 1945 the Christian world stood at the top of the growth stage and was ready to receive the Messiah. Had the Korean Christians received him then, he would shortly have begun performing worldwide Blessing ceremonies similar to those of today.

Instead, with his rejection, the world lost its foundation to receive the Messiah. Rev. Moon then had to go to the bottom of hell and build it again from scratch by restoring all 6,000 biblical years of providential history. In the seven years from 1945 to 1952 he went through a course of repeated imprisonment to restore the foundation laid in God's providence during the age from Abel to Abraham. In the twenty years of his ministry in Korea from 1952 to 1971 he restored the foundation first laid during Old Testament Age. In the twenty years of his ministry in America from 1972 to 1992 he restored the foundation first laid during the New Testament Age. During these difficult wilderness years, all Unification Church members, as the body of the True Parents, walked that course with him. Following the Principle of Restoration, they restored the entire course of providential history step by step. They had to restore the lost foundation for the Messiah by going the way of the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance on the individual, family, clan, tribal, national and worldwide levels. Blessings were held at periodic intervals as one or another of these foundations was achieved. During that period, therefore, providential necessity required the imposition of severe qualifications to receive the Blessing. These difficult conditions reflected not only a member's individual course, but also his participation in the True Parents' thorny wilderness course.

In 1992, the True Parents finally restored everything which had been lost in 1945. The events of the Seoul Olympics in August 1988 and the end of communism in the following years signified the unity of worldwide Cain and Abel. The P'aljong-shik ceremony on August 31, 1989 celebrated True Father's victory of going through all eight stages of restoration. The True Parents' visit to North Korea in December 1991 signified the restoration of the original homeland, the Garden of Eden, and by the end of that year the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Through these and many other conditions, the stage was set. Where Christianity had stood some 47 years earlier, now the Women's Federation for World Peace stands in the role of the Bride of Christ to welcome all humankind to the Blessing. On August 24, 1992, Rev. Moon proclaimed the advent of the True Parents of humankind to a world which once again stood conditionally at the top of the growth stage.

The Blessing of 30,000 couples occurred the next day. Among the participants were elderly grandparents invited by their grandchildren and young people who had only heard a few lectures of the Divine Principle. They came through the prompting of the Spirit or their regard for the Unificationist who invited them. Yet by attending the Blessing ceremony and participating in the associated rituals, they could receive the Messiah, be cleansed of original sin, and begin to grow towards the ideal of the true family-all as a free gift.

There is no special indemnity course for those who receive the Blessing as a free gift, by faith. Everyone receives the same Blessing. Everyone who receives it, whether a dedicated Unification Church member or someone who heard about it only the day before the ceremony, stands at the same place-the top of the growth stage. After the Blessing, the couples work their way through the completion stage. To grow through this course they must attend God and the True Parents, though the content of attendance may be quite different for elderly grandparents, for a Muslim Sufi couple, or for young dedicated Unification Church members. This growth occurs beyond the level of the Fall. It is not fundamentally indemnity, for it is not restoring a past failure or paying off old debts. The efforts which we make in growing through the completion stage are an investment in our own future. The spiritual growth is real and palpable. Bit by bit we are transformed into the divine image.

For the same reason, the Family Pledge, the road map for blessed families in this age, nowhere uses the word "indemnity." Families living in the realm of God's Blessing are realizing their inborn potential to become God's true sons and daughters. Restoration through indemnity remains necessary, however, when we deal with our fallen environment, fallen ancestry and the spirit world. Thus, the first pledge concerns restoring one's hometown, and the fifth pledge speaks to the extra effort we must make to restore the evil which has been stored up in the spirit world due to the sins of our ancestors. In this regard, the burden of indemnity for blessed families has nothing to do with their qualifications to receive the Blessing, and everything to do with such individual and societal factors as the sins of their ancestry and the circumstances of their nations.

Once we understand that the Blessing is a free gift, to be received by faith, should we not invite our relatives and friends to participate with a joyful heart? We need to put aside memories of our thorny path and find the joy and happiness which comes with the Blessing. On meeting a young, excited blessed member, we should listen to his testimony and connect with his spirit. Everyone should be overjoyed to receive this wonderful gift. We should be overjoyed to share it.

As we share the Blessing with the people of our communities, we shall defeat Satan's stratagems of free sex, homosexuality, decadent lifestyles, corruption and materialism which literally destroy us. It means liberation from Satan's chains, which have been frustrating all the efforts of our original mind to achieve goodness. Upon receiving the Blessing, God empowers us to become His true children and realize every happiness: an inner life of oneness with God, a loving family, and abundant prosperity. Moreover, as the people of the world unite in true families, they also join together to constitute the great universal family. This will be the dawn of the Kingdom of God on earth. The Kingdom of God will be an eternal, unified culture moving in oneness with God's heart. To this topic we now turn as we study the seventh pledge.


Notes

1. Sun Myung Moon, "Let us Know Ourselves," God's Will and the World (New

York: HSA-UWC, 1985), p. 504

2. Sun Myung Moon, "The Standard-Bearer of Tradition," God's Will and the World, p. 234. 3. Ibid., p. 236. 4. On the sacrificial death of Heung Jin Nim, see Sun Myung Moon, "The Necessity for the Day of Victory of Love," God's Will and the World, pp. 67075. 5. See World Scripture, pp. 396-98. 6. Sun Myung Moon, "Total Indemnity," God's Will and the World, pp. 591-92.

7. Ibid., p. 593.

8. Ibid., pp. 594-97

9. Franchezzo, A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands (West Grove, PA: AIM Publishing Co., 1993), pp. 140-41.

10. See World Scripture, p. 694.

11. See World Scripture, pp. 697-98.

12. Sun Myung Moon, "God's Hope for Man," God's Will and the World, p. 174.

13. Sun Myung Moon, "View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation," Washington, DC. April 1996.

14. Sun Myung Moon, Blessing and Ideal Family (New York: HSA-UWC, 1993), p. 316.

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