What sort of person is Jesus? What is the relationship between Jesus and God? What is the relationship between Jesus and the Holy Spirit? What is the relationship between Jesus and fallen man? What do trinity and rebirth mean?

Christology deals with these questions. In order to answer them, we must begin by understanding the value of an original, true, person. The reason for this is that if Adam and Eve had perfected themselves and had become true human beings, true husband and wife, and true parents, giving birth to descendants who were the embodiments of goodness, there would have been no reason for the Messiah (and thus no Christological discussions).

From the following viewpoints, let us discuss the value of a person who fulfills the Purpose of the Creation, that is of one who attains the value of the perfect Adam.

First of all, what is the value of this perfect person in relation to God? According to "The Principles of the Creation", man is created as the child of God, as the object that substantially resembles the invisible God. When a person fulfills the Purpose of the Creation, he becomes God's body, a being in which the spirit of God dwells (1 Cor 3:16). Naturally he has a divine nature and is one in heart with God. He is a true person, one who is perfect as his Heavenly Father is perfect, as Jesus said (Mt 5:48). Thus, a true person is one who is the visible embodiment of God, is God's true son or daughter, has a divine nature, and fulfills the Purpose of the Creation.

Secondly, what is the value of a perfect person in relation to other people? According to "The Principles of Creation", God's purpose in creating man is for God to enjoy happiness through him. Therefore, each person is an object substantially resembling the characteristics within God, the subject. Since all human beings resemble the universal aspects of God, all persons share a common nature. However, each individual also resembles certain unique characteristics within God. Thus, no two individuals are the same. If God created, anywhere in his entire Creation, two or more individuals whose characteristics were exactly alike, then God's own Creation would be wasteful. Since man is created to be eternal, God's desire to experience stimulating joy through a certain individual is sufficiently satisfied through that one individual. Therefore, a person who fulfills the Purpose of the Creation, is a unique individual who will never be duplicated throughout eternity, so he has an innate unique value, which cannot be denied.

Thirdly, what is the value of a perfect person in relation to the rest of the Creation? According to "The Principles of the Creation", man was recreated to rule the invisible spirit world by means of his spirit self and the physical world by means of his physical self. Man then functions as the medium through which these two worlds interact.

A person who fulfills the Purpose of Creation is to rule the entire cosmos (Gen 1:28).

Man's spirit self is to be the microcosm of the entire spirit world and his physical self is to be the microcosm of the entire physical world. A true human being, one who fulfills the Purpose of the Creation, is the microcosm of the entire cosmos. Man is a microcosm (of the Creation) and has the value of the cosmos. The fact that man is originally of such cosmic value underlies Jesus saying "'For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?"' (Mt 16:26).

A. Jesus and the Perfect Person

As explained in "The Fall", if Adam had become the first man who fulfilled the Ideal for the Creation, he would have become the very Tree of Life referred to in Genesis 2:9, and thus, all of his descendants would have become trees of life. However, because Adam fell, he could not realize the ideal of the Tree of Life (Gen. 3:24), and ever since, fallen people have hoped to restore themselves and become trees of life (Prov 13:12, Rev 22:14).

Though fallen man has the "name of being alive", he is, in reality, a false tree of life and dead (Rev 3:1). Since fallen people cannot restore themselves as trees of life by their own power, a Tree of Life -- in other words a man who has fulfilled the Ideal for the Creation - - must come and graft fallen man to him. The man who comes as the Tree of Life is Christ (Rev 22:14). Therefore, perfected Adam, symbolized by the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, and Jesus, who is likened to the Tree of Live in Revelation 22:14, are identical from the standpoint of their both being persons who have fulfilled the Ideal for the Creation.

Then, is Jesus a human being? Yes, he is. He is an example of a person who has fulfilled the Ideal for the Creation; he is a true person, an example of man as he was originally created, and as such his value is not to be compared with the value of fallen man.

As already mentioned, a true person is one who fulfills the Purpose of the Creation, is the incarnation of God, and is perfect as God is perfect, possessing divine value. A perfect person is also a unique, non-duplicable individual who is the lord of the cosmos and has cosmic value. Jesus is a true man, and thus is a person of such value.

The Principle does not flatly deny the conventional belief held by many Christians that Jesus is God, because a perfect, true person is one with God. Furthermore, when The Principle asserts that Jesus is a true human being, this does not in any way diminish his value. It is simply that when one examines the value of the perfect person, we find it is equivalent to the value of Jesus. In fact, if the first man and woman had not fallen and had become a man and a woman of such value, then Jesus' coming would not have been necessary. It would be a grave error, indeed, to suppose that the value of fallen man can be compared with Jesus' value simply because Jesus was a human being. He was a true human being. Let us examine the biblical bases for saying this:

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Tim 2:5)

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous. (Rom 5:19)

For as by a man [Adam] came death, by a man [Jesus] has come also the resurrection of the dead. (1 Cor 15:21)

... because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:31)

These passages indicate that Jesus was a man. Jesus also referred to himself as the Son of man in many places in the Bible (e.g., Lk 17:26, 18:8).

Up until now, many Christians have believed that Jesus is God, the Creator, based primarily on the following passages from the Bible.

When Philip asked Jesus to show him God, Jesus replied "'He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, "Show us the Father"? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?'" (Jn 14:9,10). However, this does not mean that Jesus is God. As clarified above, Jesus was a visible manifestation of the invisible God and is one with God in heart; yet, this does not mean that he is God. Philip asked Jesus to show him God. But God can only be experienced so completely by a person who is perfect. Philip was not yet perfect, and so Jesus had no choice but to show only himself.

Again, the Bible says, "He [Jesus] was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not" (Jn 1:10). Based on this passage, Christians have believed that Jesus is the Creator.

The center of God's Ideal for the Creation is man, and the cosmos is so designed and created as to be the domain which each ideal person is to rule. Thus, God established the person who fulfills the Purpose of the Creation as the highest ideal. From the lowest being to the highest, God created all of them, and then he finally created Adam as lord over all. Then, Jesus, as a person who was fulfilling the Purpose of the Creation, was the ideal person God had envisioned before the creation was created. In this sense, Jesus existed from the beginning.

Some try to identify Jesus with God on the basis of the quote in John 8:58, in which Jesus said, "'... before Abraham was, I am.'" But Jesus didn't mean that he was God. Rather, Jesus could say this because, although on the basis of his genealogy Jesus was a descendant of Abraham, in fact he is the ancestor of Abraham because he came to give rebirth to all mankind from the position of the perfect Adam, that is from the position of a True Parent, a True Ancestor of all mankind.

If Jesus had been God, then in the spirit world, after his resurrection, he would be one and the same with God, rather than in a position "next to" God. However, in the spirit world, Jesus is said to be at the right hand of God, interceding for us (Rom 8:34). Jesus was born on earth as the Son of man and had a human external appearance like anyone else. In the spirit world he lives as a spirit person just as his disciples do, the only difference being that his spirit self is without original sin and shines brilliantly.

If Jesus were God, how could he intercede with himself? When he prayed, he made it clear that he was not God by calling God Father (Jn 17:1). If Jesus were God, how could he be tempted (Mt 4:1) and tortured and driven to the crucifixion by Satan? It is especially evident that Jesus is not God when, on the cross, he cried out, "'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" (Mt 27:46).

A fallen person is not comparable to Jesus. A fallen person does not fulfill the Purpose of the Creation, and is far from the Heart of God. What is more, because he has original sin, he is in such a miserably low state that he even envies the angles, who were created to be man's servants, and he cannot free himself from Satan's accusation. Thus, fallen man is very different from Jesus, who was a perfect, true person. However, though Jesus, who as to be the True Father, a fallen person will be restored as a spiritual child and will come to resemble Jesus. Then Jesus becomes the head of the Church (Eph 1:22), and fallen people are his body and members (1 Cor 12:27). Jesus is the main temple and we are the branch temples; Jesus is the vine and we are the branches (Jn 15:5). In order to become true olive trees, we as wild olives shoots, should be grafted onto Jesus, who is the true olive tree (Rom 11:17). Thus Jesus called us his friends, and John said that when Jesus appears, we shall be like him (1 Jn 3:2). The Bible also says that Christ is the "first fruits", and we shall be the next (1 Cor 15:23).

A. The Meaning of Rebirth

Jesus told Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, that unless one is born anew, he cannot see the Kingdom of God (Jn 3:3). Then, why must man be reborn?

If Adam and Eve had fulfilled the Ideal for the Creation and had become true human beings, a true couple, and the True Parents, and had given birth to true children (without sin), the Kingdom of Heaven on earth would have been realized. However, because of their fall, they became false parents, and their descendants have original sin and have realized the Kingdom of Hell on earth. Therefore, fallen persons cannot see the Kingdom of God unless they are reborn as heavenly children, free of original sin.

We cannot be born without parents. Fallen persons absolutely need parents of goodness who can give them rebirth as children without original sin, enabling each to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus was the True Father who came to give us rebirth as children of Goodness. Therefore, 1 Peter 1:3 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our

Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ...". This shows that Jesus is the source of rebirth. He is also called the "last Adam" (1 Cor 15:45) and the "Everlasting Father" (Is 9:6) because he was to be the True Father, which Adam failed t become.

However, to give fallen persons rebirth as children of goodness, there must be not only a True Father, but also a True Mother. The Holy Spirit is the one who works as the True Mother with the resurrected Jesus. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born again -- born of the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:3-5). Since the Holy Spirit came as True Mother, or second Eve, there are many who receive revelations, indicating that the Holy Spirit is a female spirit. The Holy Spirit works to console and move the hearts of the people (1 Cor 12:3-10). Jesus has been working in the spirit world, while the Holy Spirit has been working on earth to cleanse the sins of mankind. When we believe in Jesus, we enter the love generated by the cooperative relationship between the resurrected Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who are the spiritual True Father and spiritual True Mother, respectively. Being born again by believing in Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit means that one's spirit is made new and one receives true life through the love of the spiritual True Parents. This is spiritual rebirth. However, since man fell both spiritually and physically, each person must be reborn both spiritually and physically. This is the reason for the Second Coming.

Up to the present, in accordance with Christian theology, Christians have understood that the God who has worked for the salvation of man is a Triune God and have believed that when he reveals himself he appears as one of three persons; Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. When he reveals himself as the Creator, he is in the person of our Heavenly Father; when he reveals himself as the Savior, he is in the person of the Son; and when he reveals himself as the peacemaker, he is in the person of the Holy Spirit.

The theory of the Trinity has caused much debate throughout history. Let us look at this in light of The Principle. If the Fall of man had not occurred, God would not have had to have Jesus and the Holy Spirit work for the salvation of man. If Adam and Eve had perfected themselves as God's son and daughter, each becoming an embodiment of God's divine nature, then they would have been "'... perfect, as [their] heavenly Father is perfect'" (Mt 5:48), and they would have attained the ideal of union with God (Jn 14:20). Then Adam would have become God's holy son, and Eve, his holy daughter. They would have become true husband and wife, centered on God. If Adam and Eve had then become one as the True Parents, centered on God, together with God they would have been the original Trinity, a trinity centered on God's Heart and ideal.

This is the fundamental condition for realizing the Three Blessings and the Four Positions Foundation which fulfill God's Purpose for the Creation. Yet, because of the Fall, Adam and Eve became the false parents of man, and failing to fulfill the Purpose of the Creation, formed a trinity centered on Satan. Therefore, in order to fulfill the Purpose of the Creation, God had Jesus and the Holy Spirit take Adam's and Eve's places, as the second Adam and second Eve and as the True Parents. However, in establishing the spiritual trinity centered on God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit accomplished only the mission of the spiritual True Parents. Therefore, the Lord of the Second Coming comes to be the True Father who is to establish the trinity both spiritually and physically.

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