Almost two thousand full years have passed since Jesus walked the face of this planet.   And during that time the hope of faithful Christians has been fixed on the day of Christ's return.  For when Jesus returns, the expectation is that the world of true goodness, the Kingdom of Heaven can finally be established.

It is perhaps natural that many Christians hold the hope that the time we live in looks ripe for the return of Jesus.   We certainly have had our share of wars, rumors of wars, famines and earthquakes as Jesus foretold.  Further, Jesus' commission to carry Christianity to all the Earth has largely been realized.  Members of the Unification Church, that is followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, believe the same thing.

Broadly speaking, human history as traced in the Bible, can be divided into three great ages:1) 2000 years of the pre-Old Testament age from Adam to Abraham, 2) 2000 years of the Old Testament Age from Abraham to Jesus and 3) the 2000 years from Jesus to the present day.  (It should be noted though that the age from Adam to Abraham, while being calculated through the Bible as being close to 2000 years, was in reality much longer-perhaps many hundreds of thousands of years.)   Closer examination also reveals profound parallels between these three periods.  For instance, the approximately four hundred period the Israelites suffered slavery in Egypt corresponds to the four centuries of persecution of early Christianity by first the Jews and later the Roman Empire. 

We are now in actuality living in the time of the Second Advent, but the reality is that Jesus himself cannot be the one to come back.  Christians have emphasized that Jesus was resurrected bodily, but that body was in fact a spiritual body.  God's principle is that  the spiritual body cannot reincarnate.  This applies to  Jesus as well.  That is why Jesus must anoint one person on earth to inherit and complete his mission.  The faith of Unificationists worldwide is that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is the one God has sent to take on and complete the messianic work of Jesus.

I've talked about how Christians can receive spiritual rebirth through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Yet this rebirth does not cut the original sin, working through the physical body.  Christians continue to have susceptibility to temptation by Satan, and the children of Christians are born with the original sin.

That is why Jesus said he had to return.  Jesus 2000 years ago was never able to receive his bride.  He was the new and victorious Adam.  But to restore the fall of Adam and Eve and start a new history there had to be a new Eve.   We know Jesus lived a single life for 33 years.   Yet, that was not God's original desire.  If there had been a foundation of sufficient belief then God could have brought about the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (mentioned in the Book of Revelation).  Jesus and his bride would have stood in the position of perfected Adam and Eve, and parents of goodness.

Rebirth must come through parents.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit are able to give spiritual rebirth to believers because they stand in the position of spiritual parents for humankind.  The key is that their love, in the spiritual dimension, is greater than the false love of Satan.  They have the authority to claim believers as their spiritual children, and rebirth (out of Satan's lineage) can take place.  Spiritually they are True Parents for humanity.

Similarly, Jesus and his Bride would have been able to fulfill the position of True Parents, both physically and spiritually, had he not been crucified.  Through the recreative power of their love they would have had the authority to cut the original sin.  All sins and fallen nature sprout out from the root of original sin.  Only when the original sin is removed is it possible to overcome and remove all others sins once and for all.

That is why Christ must return, and that is why he must return as a man in the flesh.  Also, that is why the Marriage Supper of the Lamb must be realized and True Parents for humankind established.  I want to explain more later, but for Unificationists Reverend and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon are fulfilling that role of True Parents, done with Jesus' full knowledge, anointing and blessing.

I shared last time my view that in the process of the rebirth Jesus stands in the position of a new and victorious Adam, while the Holy Spirit is his feminine spiritual counterpart- the new and victorious Eve.  Christians are reborn through the cooperative love of Jesus and the Holy Spirit-spiritual True Parents for humankind.  The Holy Spirit represents the love of a mother, and so we are reborn within the womb of the Holy Spirit.

Is then the process of salvation complete?  Did Jesus with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit accomplish all that he had and wanted to do?  No,  the New Testament authors make it clear that Christ must come back again.  If he doesn't return, then a world without sin, the reign of God's love on earth, that is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, can't be realized.

Although some Christians believe that the salvation they have already is sufficient and complete, in reality only when Christ returns will he open the doorway to full and complete salvation.  That is, no matter how much grace a Christian may receive in his/heart by accepting Jesus, there is still the problem of sin.  No one has been able to stop from sinning.  Sin doesn't arise from nothing.  It is connected to a tendency, an inclination to sin inside human nature.  We have the promise that when all is fulfilled, when the Kingdom of Heaven is at last realized, we shall be like Christ, there will no longer be any trace of sin.  There must come a fundamental change in our hearts by which the nature and proclivity to sin no longer exist.

This proclivity to sin has been called by many Christians "original sin".  Before they fell, the first human ancestors Adam and Eve did not have this nature to sin.  They were pure, naked but unashamed.  Yes, because they were immature, in their teenage years, they were not yet fully one with God in heart and love.   They could be tempted by misdirected love.  However, only after they were deceived by Satan and fell did that horrendous tendency to sin become engrained in their nature.  And they passed it on to their children and all subsequent generations.  Unless that nature is cut we can never fully realize the Kingdom of God.

Did then the spiritual rebirth brought by Jesus and the Holy Spirit cut the root of original sin?  No, it did not.  If it had, then it would be possible for Christians to completely separate from sin and live lives of total goodness.  Further, it has to be admitted that even the most devout Christians still give birth to children who have the nature to sin.  It means the original sin has not been cut yet.

That is one of the main reasons Jesus said he had to return.  The purpose of the Second Advent is complete the work of the First Advent.  Yes, devout Christians, once they pass on, can be with Jesus in a sphere in the spiritual world free from Satan's accusation.  This realm, called Paradise, is a world of great beauty and peace, yet it is not heaven.  Reverend Moon describes clearly the difference between Paradise and the Kingdom of Heaven in his teachings.  That is what I want to talk about next time.