Sun Myung Moon
August 1, 2005
World Culture and Sports Festival 2005 Congratulatory Banquet
Lotte Hotel, Seoul, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Distinguished guests from home and abroad, ladies and gentlemen:
Before I begin, I would like to ask you to bear one thing in mind. I do not stand here before you on this momentous day to greet you with a routine, conventional address. I have come to earth in the capacity of the True Parent, to save humanity from sin. Although I will speak only briefly, I would like to take this opportunity to convey to you a message sent to us from God. My speech is entitled, “True Parents Are the Embodiment of God.”
Ladies and gentlemen, is there anyone here who has seen God? He exists as a being without form. Even when we pass on to the spirit world, we will not be able to see Him. Therefore, for God to establish a relationship with us human beings, who are composed of flesh and blood and jostling against each other, He needs to manifest as the Father here on earth through a physical body. God created our first ancestors Adam and Eve according to this heavenly law. Through them, He intended to manifest Himself on earth, both in spirit and body. Adam and Eve would have also represented the spirit world and the physical world coming together in harmony, and so would have represented the unity of the cosmos.
Then how can human beings, born with a physical body, be the manifestation of God, who has none? God’s nature is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, and He created His greatest masterpiece, human beings, to reflect fully all aspects of that nature. The physical body, created based on the principles of the temporal world of substance, cannot exist forever. Once Adam and Eve had reached perfection, however, God planned to dwell within them, to have complete oneness with them. He planned that He would enter a relationship of eternal true love with them, wherein He would be Adam and at the same time God. Likewise, He would be Eve and at the same time God. If Adam and Eve had not fallen, if they had abided by the commandment of God, achieved perfection as individuals, and come together in a holy matrimonial union with the Blessing of God, their children and their descendants would have lived forever as His substantial embodiments, inheriting His nature generation after generation.
We can achieve the realm of true love’s absolute value only when we firmly establish the sphere of true love relationships. If Adam and Eve had attained such a standard, human beings automatically would have been elevated to the position of God’s absolute object partners, in which position they and their descendants would have enjoyed an eternal life of happiness. As things turned out, however, the human Fall dealt God a devastating blow. From the vertical perspective, God and human beings were to have been in a relationship of True Parent and true children. From a horizontal view, human beings were to have been God Himself as well as His children. Through the Fall, God lost all this.
If Adam and Eve had become the visible form of God, He would have dwelt in their heart and reigned over the corporeal, physical world and the incorporeal, spirit world. In other words, God would have reigned over the world together with Adam and Eve. Together they would have created the kingdom of God on earth, that is, the peace kingdom. Adam would have become the King of the kingdom of heaven on earth and the King of the kingdom of heaven in the spirit world. Having inherited the nature of God in all its glory, Adam would have stood above all creation as an absolute being, a unique being and an eternal being. He would have been the unchanging Parent, Owner, Teacher and King of true love in this world of substance. Moreover, each of the 6.5 billion people living in the world today would also have been the visible form and incarnation of God.
What stood in the way of achieving this? As I have said, the central problem was the Fall. The Fall drove all people into the sphere of ignorance. It turned them into lonely orphans. Though their eyes gazed upon the natural scenery spread out before them, the Fall made them insensible to God, the root of all creation. They became unable to hear, see or feel His presence.
God, however, sank into suffering and grief even greater than that of human beings. Satan arose as God’s archenemy, violated His ideal of creation, defiled His beloved son and daughter, and took away planet Earth, God’s ideal garden of true love. Earth became Satan’s playground. Can you imagine how torn with sorrow and anguish God’s heart was? There are no words to describe it. It was simply a horrid, wretched outcome. How many tears have you shed out of sympathy for God and His plight?
God was given no choice but to relinquish His beloved son to His enemy. It was not because He did not have the authority or the power to hold fast to His son. It was because God could not trample upon the heavenly way of love, the rules and principles of Heaven that He had established. Therefore, our Heavenly Parent persevered and waited, shedding tears unceasingly as He proceeded with His providence to restore what had been lost. Suffering the indignity of having to deny Himself as the Creator, God has walked the path for the restoration of His children for six thousand years. All-knowing and all-powerful though He is, to restore the true lineage, God still had to follow a course more torturous than if He had been imprisoned in hell.
The providence of restoration God is carrying out cannot be random. It cannot deviate from the principles and rules of Heaven. To succeed in His endeavors, God has to seek out and anoint the True Parents on earth. They will restore all people, the degraded descendants of the Fall who have inherited the blood lineage of the false parent, Satan. God originally intended that Adam establish the lineage of Heaven after he attained individual perfection and was blessed by God in holy matrimony. God thus has to install here on earth the visible God with the mission to begin that heavenly lineage. In short, the aim of the providence of God is to create, here on this planet Earth, true families, true nations and a true world, unrelated in any way to Satan.
For this purpose, Jesus Christ came as the Second Adam two thousand years ago. The nation of Israel and its leaders, however, did not understand the Will of God, although God had prepared that nation for four thousand years. They were unable to believe in Jesus. Although he was sent to the earth as the Savior and Messiah, the disbelief of those to whom he was sent frustrated the restoration of our lineage centering upon Jesus. Once again, God sank into a valley of sorrow and anguish. Again He had to wait for the day of new beginning. He has been waiting for the day He could completely uproot the false blood lineage of Satan and begin the true lineage of God.
Ladies and gentlemen, the man who stands before you here and now, Rev. Moon, is the person who appeared in this evil world after receiving the ordination of the cosmos. You surely are not aware of it, but I cannot help seeing my life as one of innumerable hardships and trials. It has been a great, lonely and desperate battle. As a lone fighter, armed with only silent resolve, I had to face Satan’s forces, six billion strong. However, I could not lose this battle no matter the cost. It was a struggle through which I had to bring the enemy Satan to voluntary submission and recover what Satan had seized, the royal seal of God.
I searched far and wide in the spirit world, challenging the four great religious founders: Buddha, Confucius, Jesus and Muhammad, and even God Himself. I underwent indescribable ordeals, all to reveal the mysteries of the Creation and to find the answers regarding the salvation of humanity. I learned that, according to heavenly law, the salvation of the spirit world had to precede the salvation of the physical world. Therefore, I completed the salvation of the spirit world first.
On that foundation, I have arrived at this stage of accomplishment in full stride. My path is that of a man of integrity and perfected character, whom God can utilize as His visible form. I have accomplished the path of the True Parent, founding the true tribe that carries the true lineage of God that can never again be defiled. I have walked the path of Savior and Messiah, whose mission it is to restore all humanity. This path transcends the individual, family, tribe, race, nation and world levels to include even the billions of people in the spirit world. The light of truth I sought and finally found is illuminating the path for the 6.5 billion people of the human race, all of whom are blind.
The path humanity needs to follow is now more than clear. There are no further obstacles in your way as you travel at top speed on the superhighway in the Era after the Coming of Heaven. Open up your hearts, receive the Word of God, and take the path to individual perfection. Become representatives of the True Parents. Become horizontal true parents in the Era after the Coming of Heaven, passing on the Blessing of God to others freely and without reserve. Build the peace kingdom here on earth and become the blessed citizens of the kingdom of heaven, serving God forevermore as true parents yourselves.
Even as we speak, we hear cries of pain throughout the world. I ask you to be aware of the importance of your roles as leaders who are concerned about the future of humanity and who are working on the front line for the realization of world peace.
The message I have conveyed to you on this formal occasion is neither my own personal philosophy nor the theory of the Unification Church; it is the law of Heaven. It is the way of Heaven that God has been preparing for six thousand years. God is utilizing my physical body, the body of the True Parent, and is carrying out His works through me as the incarnate True Parent.
Please leave here tonight with the new hope of Heaven in your hearts. I hope and pray that, as the people attending True Parents, you will stand at the forefront in the ranks of those working to establish the peace kingdom.
May the blessings of God forever be with you and your nation.
Thank you.