Shincheonji lesson 22: figurative rod

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

The board defines the rod: “The word and a person who has the word.” The lesson says the “reed like a measuring rod” in Revelation 11 is “a person with weak faith,” that “anyone like Moses becomes God’s staff,” and that the iron scepter of Revelation 2 is “ecclesiastical authority” given to “the one who overcomes.” Every rod is either “God’s staff” or “Satan’s staff,” which “splinters you or pierces you.” SCJ’s books fill in the names. The Creation of Heaven and Earth (p. 207) says “John and his assistant, the reed like a measuring rod, are God’s two witnesses,” and The Explanation of Parables (p. 27) says believers are led to heaven by finding “the shepherd of God who received the iron scepter.” The passages the lesson uses say something different, and the iron rod in Revelation belongs to Jesus.

1. 1. Revelation 11:1: The measuring rod is a tool handed to John

   The board defines the reed: “A person with weak faith, given to measure the hearts and spirits of God’s people.”

   • John writes: “Then a measuring rod like a staff was given to me, and I was told, ‘Get up and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and the ones who worship there’” (11:1). It’s an object John is handed and told to use.
   • Measuring is a familiar prophetic image. Ezekiel watched a man measure the temple with a measuring stick (Ezekiel 40:3-5), and Zechariah saw a man with a measuring line go to measure Jerusalem, followed by God’s promise to be “a wall of fire surrounding Jerusalem” (Zechariah 2:1-5). Measuring marks out what belongs to God and is under his protection.
   • Nothing in the passage makes the rod a person.

2. 2. The book says “John and his assistant” are the two witnesses

   The Creation of Heaven and Earth (p. 207) says, “John and his assistant, the reed like a measuring rod, are God’s two witnesses who prophesy for 1,260 days.”

   • In Revelation 11, John is the one seeing the vision and doing the measuring. The two witnesses appear in verse 3 as separate figures: “I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy for 1,260 days” (11:3).
   • Revelation describes the two witnesses as “the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth” (11:4), echoing Zechariah 4. It never says they are John and a measuring rod.
   • The book turns the narrator and his measuring tool into the two prophetic witnesses, which the text doesn’t do.

3. 3. Matthew 11:7: Jesus says John was not a reed

   The Physical Fulfillment of Revelation (p. 229) says the reed is “a person who has weak faith like John the Baptist had when he doubted Jesus (Mt 11:7).”

   • Jesus asked the crowd, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?” (11:7). It’s a question expecting “no.” John was not a man who bent with every wind.
   • Jesus answers: “A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet!” (11:9). “I tell you the truth, among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist” (11:11).
   • The book cites the verse for the opposite of what Jesus said.

4. 4. “He will explain”: The explainer was the Messiah himself

   The lesson uses John 4:25 to sum up the Messiah’s work as “He will explain,” and asks whether the time has come for the opened word.

   • The Samaritan woman said, “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus replied: “I, the one speaking to you, am he” (John 4:25-26).
   • The Messiah who explains everything had already come, and he was talking to her.
   • The plain speech promised in John 16:25 came four verses later: “Look, now you are speaking plainly and not in obscure figures of speech!” (16:29; see Lesson 13).

5. 5. Psalm 23 and Isaiah 11: The rod belongs to the Lord and the Messiah

   • Psalm 23:4, “your rod and your staff reassure me,” belongs to the psalm that begins “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1-4). Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11).
   • The lesson praises sheep because “They ignore all other voices.” Jesus says his sheep follow him “because they recognize his voice” and “will never follow a stranger” (John 10:4-5; 10:27). The voice to follow is Jesus’.
   • Isaiah 11:4, the memory verse, says “He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth” (Isaiah 11:4). The “he” is the shoot from Jesse’s root stock (11:1): the Messiah, Jesus. Paul applies the same picture to Jesus, saying the Lord will destroy the lawless one “by the breath of his mouth” (2 Thessalonians 2:8).

6. 6. Isaiah 36:6: An enemy’s taunt about Egypt

   The lesson uses Isaiah 36:6 to contrast Pharaoh with Moses and conclude that “anyone like Moses becomes God’s staff.”

   • The speaker is the Assyrian king’s chief adviser, mocking Hezekiah centuries after the Exodus. He says Judah is trusting in Egypt, “that splintered reed staff,” which punctures the hand of anyone who leans on it (Isaiah 36:4-6).
   • He goes on to mock trust in the Lord as well (36:7, 15). God’s answer in the next chapter is to deliver Jerusalem when Hezekiah prays (Isaiah 37).
   • The passage contrasts trusting in human powers with trusting God. Moses isn’t mentioned, and nothing says a person becomes God’s staff.

7. 7. The Sadducees: Jesus answered from the books they read

   The notes say the Sadducees “only read and believed the first five books of the Bible” and look ahead: “The religious elite were ignorant then, and Jesus implies it will be similar upon his return.”

   • Jesus answered them from Exodus 3:6, part of the books they accepted: “‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living!” (Matthew 22:31-32).
   • Their error was denying the resurrection (22:23). Jesus said they didn’t know “the scriptures or the power of God” (22:29). It wasn’t about a sealed prophecy.
   • Jesus doesn’t say in this passage that today’s teachers will be like the Sadducees at his return. That is the lesson’s addition.

8. 8. The iron rod belongs to Jesus, and he shares it with all who conquer

   The lesson says the iron scepter of Revelation 2:26-27 is ecclesiastical authority given to “the one who overcomes.” The Explanation of Parables (p. 27) says believers who find “the shepherd of God who received the iron scepter” are led to heaven.

   • The iron rod comes from Psalm 2:9, about God’s Messiah.
   • Revelation names who holds it. The male child “who is going to rule over all the nations with an iron rod” was “suddenly caught up to God and to his throne” (12:5): Jesus’ ascension. And the rider called “the Word of God” will “rule them with an iron rod” (19:13-15).
   • In Revelation 2, Jesus promises to share that authority with the one who conquers, “just as I have received the right to rule from my Father” (2:26-28). Every letter’s promise is to the one who conquers, followed by the call to “hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (2:29). It’s for all faithful believers.
   • Scripture repeatedly says all who belong to Christ will reign with him: “I will grant the one who conquers permission to sit with me on my throne” (3:21); “If we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:12).
   • John defines the one who conquers: “the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:5).

   The iron rod is Christ’s authority, shared with every believer who conquers. It isn’t held by one shepherd whom people must find.

9. 9. The lesson says to “discern any claim to ecclesiastical authority”

   The lesson rightly tells students to discern claims to religious authority. Scripture gives the standard:

   • Jesus: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).
   • Paul’s authority was given “for building you up and not for tearing you down” (2 Corinthians 10:8).
   • Elders are told: “do not lord it over those entrusted to you, but be examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3).
   • Jesus told his disciples, “you have one Teacher and you are all brothers” (Matthew 23:8).

   Any claim that salvation depends on finding and relying on one man who holds the iron rod fails that test.

10. 10. “God’s staff” or “Satan’s staff”

    The lesson says every rod is either God’s staff or Satan’s, which “splinters you or pierces you,” and that a believer who doesn’t value study is “like a chicken with its head cut off.”

    • This leaves no category for an ordinary faithful pastor who teaches the gospel but doesn’t teach SCJ’s interpretations. Combined with the books, every teacher outside SCJ becomes “Satan’s staff.”
    • Scripture warns against false teachers, but it also recognizes many faithful teachers and pastors across many churches (Ephesians 4:11-13; Philippians 1:15-18).