Shincheonji special lesson 12: faith and willpower

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This is a New Year session built around commitment. It redefines faith as believing in “promise + fulfillment,” says that faith without belief in the fulfillment is “incomplete and void,” turns all of the armor of God into the word, says you’re not fully protected if there are parts of the Bible you don’t understand and closes with a written pledge to stay in the class for nine months. SCJ’s The Creation of Heaven and Earth (p. 81), in the same passage about the armor, states the goal: believers “must find the promised pastor, the one who overcomes, in order to attain eternal life.” The verses the lesson uses don’t support any of these additions.

1. 1. Hebrews 11: Faith is being convinced of what is not seen

   The lesson says true faith is believing both the promise and its fulfillment, and that faith without belief in the fulfillment is “incomplete and void.”

   • Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see.” Faith is trust in what hasn’t been seen yet.
   • The lesson’s own example, Abraham offering Isaac (11:17-19), shows faith before fulfillment: Abraham “reasoned that God could even raise him from the dead.”
   • Hebrews says the people of faith “died in faith without receiving the things promised” (11:13) and “were commended for their faith, yet they did not receive what was promised” (11:39). Their faith was not void.
   • Jesus: “Blessed are the people who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

2. 2. Blind faith is not biblical: So what is the concrete basis?

   The lesson says “blind faith is not biblical” and that God never asks people to believe without first giving them something concrete. That is true, and it should be admitted. But what is the concrete thing?

   • John: “these are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).
   • Paul: God has set a day of judgment, “having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31), and he lists eyewitnesses of the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).
   • The concrete basis for faith has already been given: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, recorded by eyewitnesses. It doesn’t need a modern fulfillment to complete it.
   • The lesson’s formula says faith is believing what God has done “in the way God has done it.” In practice, “the way” will be SCJ’s explanation of events. Scripture’s object of faith is Jesus.

3. 3. Romans 10:17: The word that brings faith is the message about Christ

   The memory verse says faith comes from hearing.

   • The full verse: “faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). The content is the message about Christ.
   • A few verses earlier, Paul says what that word is: “the word of faith that we preach,” namely “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:8-9).
   • “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (10:13).
   • SCJ’s book (p. 81) says believers must find the promised pastor to attain eternal life. Romans 10 says confess and believe. The book adds a condition the chapter doesn’t contain.

4. 4. Ephesians 6: The word is one piece of the armor

   The lesson says the armor of God is the word, and SCJ’s book (p. 81) says the only weapon against Satan is the word.

   • Paul lists the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, feet fitted with “the preparation that comes from the good news of peace,” the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and “the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God)” (6:14-17). The word is the sword, one piece.
   • Then Paul adds prayer: “With every prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit” (6:18).
   • The armor is God’s. Paul starts with “be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his power” (6:10), and the images echo Isaiah, where God himself “wears his desire for justice like body armor, and his desire to deliver is like a helmet on his head” (Isaiah 59:17). Righteousness and salvation come from God. They are not knowledge we build up.

5. 5. The shoes: The good news of peace is not “prophecies and fulfillments”

   The lesson defines the gospel as “prophecies and fulfillments,” citing Luke 4.

   • In Luke 4:18-21, Jesus reads Isaiah 61 and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled even as you heard it being read.” The fulfillment is Jesus himself.
   • Paul defines the gospel: “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
   • Paul calls it “the good news of peace” (Ephesians 6:15) because through Christ “we have peace with God” (Romans 5:1; Ephesians 2:14-17).

6. 6. The helmet: Salvation, not prepared responses

   The lesson says the helmet means “mentally preparing defensive responses for difficult conversations.”

   • Paul calls it “the helmet of salvation” (Ephesians 6:17), and elsewhere speaks of putting on “as a helmet our hope for salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8). It is the assurance of being saved by God.
   • Scripture does tell believers to be ready with an answer, but for a different purpose: “always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess” (1 Peter 3:15). “Yet do it with courtesy and respect” (3:16). That means being open about your hope in Christ, not rehearsing defenses for conversations with family and friends about the class.

7. 7. “If there are parts of the Bible we don’t understand, we are not fully protected”

   • Peter admitted some things in Paul’s letters “are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16).
   • Paul said, “we know in part” and “Now I know in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9, 12). By the lesson’s rule, Paul was not fully protected.
   • Moses: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants forever” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
   • Scripture places a believer’s protection in God: “no one will snatch them from my hand” (John 10:28); God “is able to keep you from falling” (Jude 24); “the one who began a good work in you will perfect it” (Philippians 1:6).

8. 8. Hebrews 8:10-12: God writes the law, not our memorization

   The lesson pictures God checking a believer for his Son’s words (“You are good to go”) and encourages memorization so more of the word dwells in the heart.

   • Memorizing Scripture is good (Psalm 119:11). But in Hebrews 8:10, God is the one who acts: “I will put my laws in their minds, and I will inscribe them on their hearts.”
   • The covenant ends with forgiveness: “their sins I will remember no longer” (8:12).
   • “For by grace you are saved through faith … it is not from works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Being “good to go” doesn’t depend on how much you have memorized.

9. 9. Luke 18:8: Luke tells us what the parable is about

   The lesson says Jesus’ question, “will he find faith on earth?” must mean more than believing Jesus is the Son of God.

   • Luke gives the purpose at the start: “Jesus told them a parable to show them they should always pray and not lose heart” (18:1). The faith Jesus looks for is persistent, praying trust like the widow’s (18:8).
   • Believing that Jesus is the Son of God is not a lesser kind of faith. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been fathered by God” (1 John 5:1), and the one who has conquered the world is “the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (5:5).

10. 10. Matthew 24:15-16: The sign was Jerusalem’s siege

    The lesson makes it a goal for the year to learn what the abomination is, what the holy place is and which mountains to flee to (Matthew 24:15-16). SCJ’s book (p. 393) says “the only people who are saved will be those who flee to the mountains” upon seeing the abomination.

    • Luke’s parallel names the sign plainly: “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Those who are inside the city must depart” (Luke 21:20-21).
    • Jesus was speaking to people in Judea about the coming destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, which took place in the year 70. The early church historian Eusebius records that Jerusalem’s Christians left the city before the war.
    • The flight was escape from a physical siege. Jesus doesn’t say that fleeing is how anyone is saved eternally. SCJ’s book adds that.
    • Later lessons assign SCJ’s own meanings to the abomination, the holy place and the mountain. Luke has already said what they are.

11. 11. Waiting to share until you fully understand

    The lesson tells students “we should not share the word in a way when we don’t yet fully understand it.”

    • Combined with the helmet as prepared defensive responses, the effect is that students don’t talk the material over with people who might question it, and have rehearsed answers ready if they do.
    • In Scripture, people shared right away what they knew about Jesus (John 1:41; 4:28-29; Acts 9:20), and testing teaching was done openly and together (Acts 17:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:21).

12. 12. Hardship as Satan’s attack

    The lesson says “when someone starts studying Scripture more deeply, Satan takes notice and attacks,” and the pledge commits students to “recognize the enemy’s schemes and respond by pressing into God’s Word even more.”

    • Hardship can be spiritual opposition. But if every obstacle and every doubt is automatically Satan, then nothing can ever count as a legitimate reason to stop and reconsider.
    • Scripture tells believers to test what they hear (1 John 4:1) and to examine it (Acts 17:11), not to treat every hesitation as an attack.

13. 13. The determination letter

    The session ends with a first-person pledge: to study the new covenant and Revelation, to commit to “the nine months of this class,” and not to give up or cut back.

    • Jesus warned against oaths: “do not take oaths at all” and “Let your word be ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’” (Matthew 5:33-37).
    • “It is a snare for a person to rashly cry, ‘Holy!’ and only afterward to consider what he has vowed” (Proverbs 20:25). Students are pledging nine months to a course whose final conclusions and sponsoring organization have not yet been fully disclosed to them.
    • A pledge made to a class is not a vow to God. Stopping to reconsider is not breaking faith with God.