Shincheonji lesson 40: figurative flesh and blood of the Lamb, part one
Lesson 40 · Introductory
Main verses used
Links open the NET Bible.
What SCJ teaches
This section comes from class notes that an attendee wrote down during SCJ’s 9-month Bible study seminar, posted with the full Closer Look study. They are not SCJ’s printed curriculum, so the wording is the note-taker’s.
The hope and the pattern
The hope for the day is “To partake in the Passover promised in Revelation and Receive Eternal Life.” The teacher explains that communion “is only a symbol of what the flesh and blood of the lamb truly signify,” and that God has “a fingerprint, a pattern in which He operates.”
A warning from the wilderness
Numbers 14 shows Israel refusing to enter the land after the spies’ report. Caleb said the Lord would give the land if he was pleased with them, and Hebrews 11:6 links pleasing God with faith. The notes say, “So, knowledge directly leads to faith.” Those who grumbled died in the wilderness, and the class is warned: “God does not change. He is the same God today as the God who punished these people.” When Israel tried to go up anyway, “they were destroyed. Defeated. This is what happens when God is no longer with someone, yet they still believe that God is with them.” Caleb, with “a different spirit,” is the model.
From Isaiah 14:24, God always does what he promised, even when it seems strange: “But let’s be those who follow what God says anyway because the blessing is always on the other side of following what God has promised.”
Flesh and blood are his words
Jesus is the Lamb of God (John 1:29). In John 6:54, he said whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood has eternal life. Many who heard him took offense, and the notes compare their reaction to today’s online spaces: “That’s why those spaces are like a sea filled with undrinkable water.” In John 6:63, Jesus explains that his words are spirit and life, so “The Lamb is Jesus, and His flesh and His blood represent His words of life.” One eats words “By listening to them attentively, savoring them.” Peter’s reply in John 6:68 is the memory verse. The teacher adds, “If there’s something you don’t understand, ask.”
Passover, then and now
In Genesis 15, God promised Abram that his descendants would “come out” of slavery. In Exodus 12, each household ate a spotless lamb in haste, put its blood on the doorframes, and left Egypt. “If someone did not follow these instructions exactly as recorded, their firstborn would be no more.”
At the first coming, the notes say Israel was enslaved again, this time to the Pharisees, Sadducees and teachers of the law. Jesus called people to eat his flesh and blood, his words, and so cross “from death to life” (John 5:24). “But only twelve did it. Only twelve really ate Jesus’s flesh and His blood.”
At the second coming, Revelation 18:4 calls God’s people out of Babylon: “There will be a place that emerges at the time of the second coming, referred to as Babylon.” It is “a place akin to the sea,” one that “has swallowed up God’s people.” The destination is the Lamb on Mount Zion (Revelation 14:1): “a Passover is promised in our time, and it is connected to this place.” The review asks each student: “Am I at a place that I need to come out of?” A student who is unsure should “continue to value the open word and continue to study.” Part two follows in the next lesson.
In SCJ’s own books
Each passage was checked against the scanned page image; page numbers are as printed.
The Explanation of Parables (Shincheonji), page 64, gives the true meaning as “The word of Jesus who is life.” The same page says the figurative lamb is Jesus, “who was offered up as the atoning sacrifice.” It adds that the blood of an animal cannot forgive anyone’s sin, “only the blood of Jesus on the cross can.” Page 65 describes the second coming: “When the Father’s kingdom is fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven according to the new covenant (New Testament), Jesus gives the word of life (Jesus’ flesh and blood), the revealed word of the New Testament’s fulfillment to the people of all nations who had been led astray.” Its conclusion begins:
“The food those who keep the Passover of the new covenant must eat at the Second Coming is the revealed word of the New Testament’s fulfillment, which is Jesus’ flesh and blood. To eat the Lamb’s flesh and blood means to hear, perceive, and keep his words.”
How the lesson notes compare with the books
- Flesh and blood = Jesus’ word of life; a Passover at the second coming. Same teaching (notes; Parables pp. 64-65).
- The cross. Difference in emphasis. The notes move past the sacrifice: “We may know that He had to be sacrificed on the cross, but there is actually a deeper level.” The book states plainly that “only the blood of Jesus on the cross can” forgive sin (Parables p. 64).
What the Bible says
- Paul names Christ himself, sacrificed, as the Passover lamb. Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough—you are, in fact, without yeast. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. (1 Corinthians 5:7, NET)
- Peter says the ransom was paid by the Lamb’s real blood. You know that from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors you were ransomed—not by perishable things like silver or gold, but by precious blood like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb, namely Christ. (1 Peter 1:18-19, NET)
- In John 6, the flesh Jesus gives is given for the life of the world. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:51, NET)
- In the same chapter, Jesus says eternal life is for the one who believes. I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life. (John 6:47, NET)
- In Numbers 14, God forgave the people at Moses’ request, even though that generation did not enter the land. Then the Lord said, “I have forgiven them as you asked. (Numbers 14:20, NET)
- Hebrews tells believers they have already come to Mount Zion and to Jesus’ sprinkled blood. But you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the assembly and congregation of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, who have been made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks of something better than Abel’s does. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NET)
Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible
This lesson’s hope is “To partake in the Passover promised in Revelation and Receive Eternal Life.” It says communion “is only a symbol,” and that “We may know that He had to be sacrificed on the cross, but there is actually a deeper level”: Jesus’ flesh and blood “represent His words of life.” It retells the Exodus Passover, says Israel at the first coming was enslaved to the Pharisees and “Only twelve really ate Jesus’s flesh and His blood,” and points to a Passover “promised in our time,” connected to “a place” on Mount Zion. It ends by asking students, “Am I at a place that I need to come out of?” SCJ’s The Explanation of Parables (p. 65) says the food of the new covenant Passover “at the Second Coming is the revealed word of the New Testament’s fulfillment, which is Jesus’ flesh and blood.” Scripture says Christ our Passover has already been sacrificed, once for all.
1. Numbers 14: The problem was unbelief, and God forgave
The lesson uses Numbers 14 to warn that God “is the same God today as the God who punished these people,” and that “knowledge directly leads to faith.”
- Israel’s problem wasn’t lack of knowledge. God said, “how long will they not believe in me, in spite of the signs that I have done among them?” (14:11). They had seen his works and still didn’t trust him.
- Caleb’s “different spirit” (14:24) was trust in God’s promise, not superior decoding.
- Moses interceded, and God said, “I have forgiven them as you asked” (14:20).
- Hebrews applies this story directly: the wilderness generation “could not enter because of unbelief,” and “we who have believed enter that rest” (Hebrews 3:19; 4:3). The lesson for us is to believe God’s promise in Christ.
2. “Follow what God says anyway” and “pray that God takes that away”
The lesson says God’s plans may not make sense, but students should “follow what God says anyway,” and “If we are feeling our hearts rumbling a little bit, let us pray that God takes that away.”
- Trusting God when we don’t understand is right. But here “what God says” is the course’s interpretation, and the student’s unease is something to pray away rather than examine.
- Scripture tells believers to test what they hear: “examine all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21); “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1). A troubled conscience is worth listening to, not suppressing.
3. John 6: His flesh is given for the life of the world
The lesson says, “The Lamb is Jesus, and His flesh and His blood represent His words of life,” citing John 6:63.
- Jesus defines his flesh in the same chapter: “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51). His flesh is given, which points to his death.
- In John 6, “eating” is believing: “The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty” (6:35). “the one who believes has eternal life” (6:47).
- John 6:63 (“The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life”) means his teaching here is about spiritual life received by faith, not a code where flesh becomes “words.” His words point to himself and the flesh he will give.
4. The Last Supper: Body given, blood poured out
The lesson says, “We may know that He had to be sacrificed on the cross, but there is actually a deeper level.”
- At the Last Supper, Jesus said, “This is my body which is given for you,” and “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:19-20). Body given, blood poured out: his death.
- Paul: “every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).
- “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).
There is no “deeper level” beyond the cross. The cross is the center of the gospel: “I decided to be concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
5. SCJ’s own book agrees, then changes the meaning
The Explanation of Parables (p. 64) says “the blood of a physical lamb cannot forgive anyone’s sin — only the blood of Jesus on the cross can.” That’s right.
- But page 65 then says the flesh and blood eaten at the Second Coming is “the revealed word of the New Testament’s fulfillment.”
- Peter says we were ransomed “by precious blood like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb, namely Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19). The blood that saves isn’t a later explanation of prophecy. It’s Christ’s blood shed on the cross.
6. Christ our Passover has already been sacrificed
The lesson’s hope is a “Passover promised in Revelation,” and it says “a Passover is promised in our time.”
- “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). Past tense. The Passover is fulfilled in Christ’s death.
- “he entered once for all into the Most Holy Place … by his own blood, and so he himself secured eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12). “he has appeared once for all at the consummation of the ages to put away sin by his sacrifice” (9:26).
- The church keeps the Lord’s Supper “until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26), remembering his death. Scripture doesn’t promise a new Passover at his return, eaten as a revealed explanation of Revelation.
7. Exodus 12: It was the blood that saved
The lesson says, “If someone did not follow these instructions exactly as recorded, their firstborn would be no more.”
- God said what protected them: “when I see the blood I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13).
- Their safety wasn’t the precision of their knowledge. It was the blood of the lamb. That’s exactly what the New Testament says Christ’s blood does for us (1 Peter 1:19).
8. “Only twelve really ate”
The notes say that at the first coming, “Only twelve really ate Jesus’s flesh and His blood.”
- One of the twelve was Judas. Jesus said at the end of John 6: “Didn’t I choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is the devil?” (6:70-71).
- Many others believed: the women who followed and supported Jesus (Luke 8:1-3), Mary, Martha and Lazarus (John 11:27), about 120 believers gathered after the ascension (Acts 1:15), and more than 500 who saw the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:6).
9. Enslaved to the Pharisees? Jesus says slavery is to sin
The lesson says Israel at the first coming was enslaved to the Pharisees and religious leaders, and cites John 8:32, that the truth releases people.
- Read the next verses: “everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin,” and if the Son releases you, you are truly released (John 8:34-36).
- The slavery Jesus came to break is slavery to sin, and the one who releases is the Son. It isn’t escape from a religious organization.
10. Revelation 18 and Mount Zion
The lesson says “a place” called Babylon will emerge at the second coming that “has swallowed up God’s people,” and that God’s people must come out to the Lamb on Mount Zion (Revelation 14:1): “a Passover is promised in our time, and it is connected to this place.”
- Revelation describes Babylon as a world city of trade, wealth and power (17:18; 18:11-19). “Come out of her, my people” means not taking “part in her sins” (18:4). (See Lesson 35.)
- Hebrews tells believers they have already arrived at Mount Zion: “you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem … and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood” (Hebrews 12:22-24).
- Paul: “the Jerusalem above … is our mother,” and she isn’t enslaved (Galatians 4:26).
Mount Zion isn’t a place to travel to on earth. Believers have already come to it through Jesus and his blood.
11. “Am I at a place that I need to come out of?”
- This question plants doubt about the student’s own church before the course has identified where they should go.
- Scripture’s question is different: have you come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to his sprinkled blood (Hebrews 12:24)?
What the lesson is really for
This lesson moves the Passover from the cross to the course:
- Communion “is only a symbol,” and there’s a “deeper level” beyond the sacrifice.
- Jesus’ flesh and blood are his words.
- A new Passover is promised in our time, connected to a place on Mount Zion.
- God’s people must come out of a “Babylon” that has swallowed them.
- SCJ’s book says the Passover food at the Second Coming is the revealed word of fulfillment.
The biblical answer: Jesus’ flesh is given for the life of the world (John 6:51), and his body and blood were given and poured out on the cross (Luke 22:19-20). Christ our Passover has already been sacrificed (1 Corinthians 5:7), once for all (Hebrews 9:12, 26). We were ransomed by his precious blood (1 Peter 1:18-19). The one who believes has eternal life (John 6:47). And believers have already come to Mount Zion, to Jesus and his sprinkled blood (Hebrews 12:22-24).
What’s happening behind the lesson
These notes are our reading of the lesson text, using Steven Hassan’s BITE model (behavior, information, thought and emotional control). They describe what the text does, not the teacher’s intent. Hassan notes that not every group uses every item. Source: Steven Hassan, BITE Model, Freedom of Mind.
- Emotional: can create fear of punishment. “He is the same God today as the God who punished these people,” and in the Passover, those who did not follow the instructions “exactly” lost their firstborn.
- Thought: can discourage doubt. God’s plans may “not, in the moment, make sense,” but students should “follow what God says anyway,” and “If we are feeling our hearts rumbling a little bit, let us pray that God takes that away.” Unease is treated as something to pray away, not to examine.
- Information: can limit trust in outside sources (our reading). Online spaces “are like a sea filled with undrinkable water.” In our reading, the warning points students away from outside discussion.
The notes also invite questions: “If there’s something you don’t understand, ask.” No technique is shown in that sentence.