Witnessing Activities
Special Lectures
| Lecture 35 : [Restoration] Time in Providential History | |
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| Date created : 2015-05-06/ Views : 1387 | |
The Periods in Providential History
and the Determination of Their Lengths
35th Lecture: The Periods in Providential History
and the Determination of Their Lengths
Welcome back to the path to happiness, an introduction to the Unification principle. I’m your host, Dr. Tyler Hendricks.
From our last session, we could understand why Christianity could establish a global culture but only on the spiritual level, and why it has not been able to unite the mind and body, our spiritual ideals with physical reality, and why we still have wars between nations, races and religions, and a struggle between left and right in terms of governance. It all came from the course of Jesus.
But we also have hope… just as Joshua brought Moses’ foundation to substantial reality, God will send the Son of God again. Jesus will call his successor just as Moses called Joshua, and he will bring Jesus’ foundation to substantial reality—following the same principles of restoration that we have seen in the Bible.
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Now we extend our study beyond the history recorded in the Bible. To do so, we identify patterns in the Bible, and look for evidence of them in the post-biblical history.
Academic historians, examining the course of human history, often find cases where the character of one period in history is repeated during a later period. Some historians, such as Spengler and Toynbee, point out that history progresses in a spiral movement. Through the principle, we can understand the cause of this.
When a period of history repeats the events of a previous period, we refer to these two periods are referred as parallel periods.
How do parallel providential periods come about? The parallel periods are formed because human history is God’s providence of restoration. As we’ve learned, the providence of restoration takes people opposite the way of the human fall, for the purpose of laying the foundation for the Messiah.
As we observed in our study of the Bible, if a central figure fails his responsibility to restore the foundation for the Messiah, the providential period centering on that person comes to a close.
Yet, since God has predestined the absolute and eventual fulfillment of His Will, He chooses another person to carry on the same mission. Since this new period restores the previous period, the same providential events will be repeated, appropriate to the later time period. This is how periods come to be parallel to one another.
This is the basic historical view of the Unification principle.
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Let’s look at some of the rules that are involved here.
First, when the providence of restoration is prolonged, it may extend to as many as three stages. Why would the providence of restoration be prolonged? As we learned in the principle of predestination, the predestination of God’s Will is absolute, but the fulfillment of that absolute Will is conditional. God’s Will is fulfilled only when God’s portion of responsibility and the human portion of responsibility are combined. Accordingly, when the central figure of the providence fails to fulfill his portion of responsibility, God will prolong the providence.
The rule for prolongation is based on God being a being of the number three. All things created in His likeness manifest themselves through a three-stage process with their mode of existence, movement and growth. Therefore, the providence of restoration may extend to as many as three stages. The failure in Adam’s family was prolonged three times in the families of Noah and Abraham. When Abraham made his mistake in the symbolic offering, the dispensation was prolonged through Isaac in the second generation, and was fulfilled by Jacob in the third generation. Moses and Jesus’ courses each extended to three courses. Therefore, the entire course to fulfill the providence of restoration has awaited a third providence for its realization and completion; through the three stages of Adam, Jesus, and Christ at the Second Advent.
Second, the indemnity conditions over a long expanse of time need to be collapsed and restored in one lifetime. The conditions that accumulate in providential history due to the failures to complete our responsibility are called vertical indemnity conditions. The task of the central figure to fulfill all these conditions in a short time is called horizontal restoration through indemnity. For example, Abraham in his offering had to restore horizontally all the vertical indemnity conditions from Adam’s family and Noah’s family. Jacob had to fulfill a condition to horizontally restore through indemnity the vertical indemnity conditions accumulated through the twelve generations since Noah. For this purpose, he was given twelve sons, from whom descended the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus chose twelve disciples and seventy followers in order to restore in a short time the vertical indemnity conditions which had accumulated from Jacob’s course, in which God had worked with Jacob’s twelve sons and seventy kinsmen, and from Moses’ course, in which God had worked with the twelve tribes of Israel and seventy elders.
Third, the horizontal restoration through indemnity also can be carried out vertically. Because Abraham failed in his symbolic offering, the condition was prolonged vertically to the 3 generations from Isaac to Jacob, covering periods of 120 years, 40 years, 21 years and 40 years. Abraham thus restored vertically the horizontal indemnity conditions as if there were no prolongation.
Fourth, there is a time period necessary to restore the foundation of faith. We have to pass through the time period by establishing the four-position-foundation, and embody certain numbers. A time period of indemnity is needed to restore the number to complete the four position foundation, which was invaded by Satan, and we chart these numbers in history. What are these numbers?
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First, the number twelve needs to be restored. Some examples are: the 120 years it took Noah to build the ark, the 120 years of Moses’ leadership, the 120 years of the United Kingdom, and the 120-year period of Charlemagne’s original holy roman empire.
Secondly, the number four needs to be restored. Examples include: Moses’ forty-day fasts, the forty-day mission of the spies in the land of Canaan, Jesus’ forty-day fast, and the forty days of the ministry of the resurrected Jesus.
Thirdly, the number twenty-one. The number seven is the sum of the number of Heaven “three”, and the number of earth “four”. The periods of the formation stage, growth stage, and completion stage each require the number seven—so we end up with the total of 21. Examples include: Noah sent out a dove three times in seven-day intervals, Jacob labored in exile in Haran, enduring three seven-year periods. There was the 210-year period of the Israelites’ exile in Babylon and their return to Israel, and the 210-year period from the papal captivity and return to Rome on the eve of the Reformation.
Fourth, the number forty. When the number four, the number of four position foundation, is multiplied by the number ten, the number of unity, they form the number forty. For example, God had Noah endure the forty-day flood judgment. Noah sent a dove forty-days after the ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat, Moses’ forty-day fast, Israel’s wandering for forty years, the four hundred years from Noah to Abraham, the four hundred year period of slavery in Egypt, and the four thousand biblical years from Adam to Jesus.
Fifth, the parallel periods relate to the number of generations. We learned that God chose Noah as the central figure to restore the foundation of faith, ten generations and sixteen hundred years after Adam. But when the providence of restoration was prolonged due to his second son Ham’s mistake, God called Abraham after ten generations and four hundred years to restore it. Let us examine the numerical significance of the sixteen hundred years and the ten generations in the period of restoration through indemnity.
The growing period has three stages, each of which consists of three sub-stages. When these are completed, we have a total of nine stages. After passing through the nine stages, the creation can enter God’s realm of direct dominion and complete the purpose of creation by becoming one with God. The number ten is called the number of return or number of unity. Therefore, God set up Noah ten generations after Adam; God could return to the position to establish a new Adam.
Adam and Eve were to pass through a ten-stage course to maturity, which fulfilled the number forty and thereby become perfect embodiments of forty. Each position of the four-position foundation should fulfill that indemnity period to restore the number forty, so we end up with the number, 160. Since fallen people were to fulfill this number through ten generations, they had to complete an indemnity period of sixteen hundred years.
Likewise, God called Abraham ten generations and four hundred years after Noah. Ten generations had taken sixteen hundred years, but God shortened the human lifespan in the Bible, so the total was now four hundred years.
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Based on our review of the Bible, let us now examine the overall viewpoint of the periods in providential history. I would like to explain by referring to the chart of the “Parallel Time Periods.”
The six stage period from the course of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob is called the Age of the Providence to Lay the Foundation for Restoration. This was the age in which the parallels are of a symbolic nature, and it was the time to build the family foundation for the Messiah, so everything was on the family level.
The second stage is the two thousand years in six stages from the time Jacob took his twelve sons and 70 kinsmen, the descendants of Abraham, to Egypt, and then the Israelites fled Egypt under the leadership of Moses and entered the land of Canaan, until the coming of Jesus. This age is called the “providential age of restoration.” In this age the parallels are somewhere between symbolic and substantial, and we call these “image” parallels. It was the period to establish the national-level foundation for the Messiah.
Following that is the two thousand years in six stages centered on western Christianity since the time of Jesus. This was the time when the faithful Christians awaited Jesus’ Second Coming, and were obedient to Jesus’ will to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth, despite severe persecution.
This age is called the Age of the Prolongation of the Providence of Restoration. This is the age of substantial parallels. It was the time to establish the worldwide foundation for the Messiah.
As you see in this chart, God’s history of the providence of restoration follows the rule of creation based on number six, similar to God’s six stages, or “days,” of the creation of the universe. We can also see the rule of the three stages, which is the completion of the formation, growth, and completion stage.
This might seem abstract to us, but let us keep in mind that we are talking about people, men and women like you and me, living their lives in hopes that one day they would see a better world, but having no idea how or when. These are our mothers and fathers going back hundreds of generations, and these principles show how each person’s life ties into God’s great plan of salvation, and how each and every child of God will someday live together as families of true love in Heaven.
Until now we have observed the contents of Adam’s family, Noah’s family and Abraham’s family during the 2000 year-period of laying the foundation for restoration in detail. In the next lecture, I will talk about the Age of the Providence of Restoration and the Age of the Prolongation of the Providence of Restoration.
