Shincheonji lesson 41: figurative flesh and blood of the Lamb, part two

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This lesson completes the Passover teaching from Lesson 40. Its opening statement: “The Passover meal of salvation that one must eat at the time of the second coming … is the blood and flesh of the Lamb Jesus, that is, the revealed word of the New Testament’s fulfillment.” The board defines Passover as “Come out!” It says “communion is great, but we forgot why,” because its power is in “the promise that Jesus will come and eat and drink again at the time of the second coming.” It tells students, “You cannot have one foot here and the other foot there … You have to fully come out,” and closes, “If we truly value it, then we must come out, right?” SCJ’s The Creation of Heaven and Earth (p. 454) names the destination: “Where, then, is the kingdom of God where the new Passover wine can be found? It is Shincheonji.” This is the first lesson where SCJ’s books name SCJ as the place. Scripture’s Passover, Lord’s Supper and New Jerusalem say something very different.

1. 1. The Passover’s center is the lamb’s blood, not coming out

   The board defines Passover as “Come out!”

   • At the first Passover, God said what saved Israel: “when I see the blood I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13). Leaving Egypt followed, but the protection was the lamb’s blood.
   • “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). The fulfillment of Passover is Christ’s death.
   • Turning Passover into “coming out” shifts the focus from Christ’s sacrifice to leaving one place for another. (See Lesson 40.)

2. 2. Moses, Christ and “the one that God was using”

   The lesson says the law’s rituals were a shadow and “the reality is Christ!” (Colossians 2:16-17; Hebrews 10:1). That’s right. Then it adds that people “no longer had to keep the traditions of old but had to follow the one that God was using at that time.”

   • Colossians says the reality is Christ himself. It doesn’t say the reality is whichever messenger God is using in a given era.
   • Hebrews contrasts Moses with Christ: Moses was faithful “as a servant,” but Christ “as a son over God’s house” (Hebrews 3:5-6).
   • The pattern “follow the one that God was using” sets up the next step: following a modern messenger, the “New John.”

3. 3. Matthew 23: Jesus didn’t tell the crowds to leave

   The lesson says the Pharisees held God’s people captive and, using Matthew 15:14 (“Leave them!”), concludes, “You have to fully come out.”

   • In Matthew 23, Jesus told the crowds: “The experts in the law and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do” (23:2-3). He condemned the leaders’ hypocrisy without telling ordinary people to leave the synagogue.
   • In Matthew 15:14, “Leave them!” answered the disciples’ worry that the Pharisees were offended (15:12-14). It meant: don’t worry about them. (See Lesson 29.)
   • Scripture’s command for believers is not to abandon meeting together (Hebrews 10:25).

4. 4. Miracles are not “the icing on the cake”

   The lesson says Jesus’ miracles “were only the icing on the cake,” and “The real substance, the main meat and potatoes, was prophecy and fulfillment.”

   • John says the signs were written for a purpose: “these are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:30-31).
   • After the first sign at Cana, “his disciples believed in him” (2:11). Jesus said, “believe the deeds, so that you may come to know and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (10:38).
   • The substance is Jesus himself. Both his fulfilled prophecies and his miracles point to who he is.

5. 5. The Lord’s Supper: Paul tells us why

   The lesson says “communion is great, but we forgot why,” and that its power is in “the promise that Jesus will come and eat and drink again at the time of the second coming.”

   • Jesus said why: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). “this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28).
   • Paul tells us what it does: “every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).
   • The church hasn’t forgotten why. The Supper remembers Jesus and proclaims his death, and it looks forward to his return.

6. 6. Luke 22: Fulfilled in the kingdom of God

   The lesson uses Jesus’ words that he won’t eat the Passover again “until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (Luke 22:16, 18) to say a new Passover meal comes at the second coming, which is “the New Testament prophecy and fulfillment.”

   • Matthew records it: “from now on I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (26:29). Jesus himself will drink it with you. It’s a promise of personal fellowship with him.
   • Revelation calls it “the wedding celebration of the Lamb” (19:9), at Jesus’ return (19:11-16).
   • Nothing says this meal is a revealed explanation of Revelation given through a messenger before Jesus returns.

7. 7. The “New John” again

   The lesson says “Someone like John must appear,” a “New John,” who receives the open scroll and prophesies to peoples who are “Trapped where? In Babylon.”

   • John himself took and ate the little scroll, and was told to prophesy again about peoples, nations, languages and kings, which he did in the rest of Revelation (10:9-11). He signed the book: “I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things” (22:8). (See Lesson 39.)

8. 8. “It is Shincheonji”

   The Creation of Heaven and Earth (p. 454) says the kingdom of God where the new Passover wine can be found “is Shincheonji, because … the holy city New Jerusalem, descends upon the new heaven and new earth (Rv 21:1-2).”

   Read what Revelation says about the New Jerusalem:

   • It comes “descending out of heaven from God” after “the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more” (21:1-2).
   • “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more—or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist” (21:4).
   • “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God lights it up, and its lamp is the Lamb” (21:23).

   In the New Jerusalem, death no longer exists. SCJ members die, grieve and suffer like everyone else. By Revelation’s own description, no organization on today’s earth can be the New Jerusalem.

   Jesus also warned: “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’” (Luke 17:20-21).

9. 9. Revelation 7:14: Washed in the blood of the Lamb

   The lesson says the 144,000 and the great multitude take part in the second-coming Passover.

   • Revelation says of the great multitude: “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb!” (7:14).
   • They’re cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, to whom heaven sings, “you were killed, and at the cost of your own blood you have purchased for God persons from every tribe, language, people, and nation” (5:9). Not by a revealed word. (See Lesson 31.)

10. 10. Mount Zion

    The lesson says the kingdom of God comes to “Mount Zion, the place where the Lamb is.”

    • “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). Believers have already come to Mount Zion through Jesus. (See Lesson 40.)

11. 11. “If we truly value it, then we must come out”

    • This connects valuing the course to leaving one’s church.
    • Jesus says, “I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved” (John 10:9). Entering through Jesus is how anyone is saved, not leaving one congregation for another.
    • “by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are made holy” (Hebrews 10:14). Nothing remains to be added by a second Passover.