|
Jesus
According to the Principle, the people of Israel were supposed to accept and support Jesus. He would then have chosen a bride and married. Together they would have become the new parents of mankind and given rebirth to sinful people, bringing the solution for original sin. Thus he spoke of himself of the father of his disciples whom they should love more than their physical family so that they could be separated from their ‘father, the devil’.
Jesus was rejected and thus the solution for sin did not come at that time and Satan remained the ruler. The Principle speaks of a partial salvation through the providence of the cross. However, the victory here is not the crucifixion. According to the Principle Jesus was railroaded to the cross by the religious establishment of the nation of Israel, who saw him as a threat.
The victory was the resurrection of Jesus, the fact that Satan – the ruler – had to allow the appearance of Jesus to the people in Israel. Following the resurrection Jesus appeared spiritually to people and after 40 days ascended to the spiritual world, where he opened the realm of the paradise.
According to the Principle, paradise is an intermediate realm of goodness where those that truly live according to the spirit of the gospel can go and stay until the second coming of Christ. Satan had to allow the opening of this realm due to Jesus’ willingness to die on the cross.
It is very interesting to note, that access to the realm of paradise is not exclusive to Christians who accepted Jesus as their savior during their life on earth. According to recent revelations from the spirit world1, even some conscientious, yet unreligious people have entered there. Neither is formal acceptance of Jesus Christ as the savior and baptism a ticket to paradise. The same revelations say that people who just pay lip service to the gospel, living an otherwise self-centered life, go to the massive middle realms, even to hell.
The details around the coming of Jesus provide interesting insight into the way, how the Principle sees the maneuvering between God and Satan behind the scenes. According to the teaching, Satan extended his utmost effort to kill Jesus, working through the establishment of the nation of Israel. According to Sun Myung Moon, ‘Satan understands the Principle very well’. After all, as one of the highest angels he participated in the creation of the cosmos and due to mankind’s submission his rule is based on the principles of creation.
Sun Myung Moon said that Satan did not exactly understand the future implications of Jesus’ death, while he was plotting to kill him. He extended his utmost efforts to end his presence on earth, but did not anticipate the resurrection and the creation of paradise. On the other hand it is clear, that, had he allowed Jesus to live in order to avoid these repercussions, then Jesus would have created even more damage to the rule of Satan. Thus, due to the foundations accomplished during history until then, evil ended up in a situation, where it had to retreat one way or the other. This is basically the approach that God and the good side take towards the reconstruction of the original ideal.
The notion that the Principle or Sun Myung Moon calls Jesus a ‘failure’ is actually grossly exaggerated. It certainly does not reflect the mindset of members of the movement. True, the Principle speaks about the “failure to accomplish physical salvation”2, but that term really just means the opposite of success, naming a fact without attaching a valuation.
I remember reading the world failure adjacent to the name of Jesus in Sun Myung Moon’s speeches, but it never occurred to me that the intention was to devalue the accomplishment of Jesus. I never experienced that the man derives any kind of satisfaction out of ‘being better than Jesus’. Neither do I know of any member who would find it accurate to say that Jesus failed or that Sun Myung Moon is better because he didn’t.
Using the word failure to discredit Jesus accomplishments makes for flashy statements that can discredit the movement in the eyes of Christians. However, a few more accurate descriptions of the real contents might accomplish the same. There is for example the fact that according to the Principle, Jesus was not supposed to die, that he would have established a family, that he did not resurrect in the body, that he is not God himself or that some Christians don’t enter paradise etc. etc.
Of course, that would take a bit more analysis.
|
