Shincheonji lesson 54: figurative groom, bride, widow and orphan

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This lesson’s board reads “Groom: Spirit | Bride: Flesh.” It says at the first coming “Groom → God” and “Bride → Jesus,” and at the second coming “Groom → Jesus” and “Bride → New John.” A widow is a “Pastor who betrayed without the Holy Spirit,” and orphans are his congregation: “Both of these places are judged at the second coming.” It says the oxen of Matthew 22 mean “Those that once belonged to God betrayed and are now being butchered,” and that “these details must be mentioned, or that place is not the true wedding banquet.” SCJ’s The Explanation of Parables (p. 91) says: “At the Second Coming, the bridegroom of the wedding banquet of the Lamb is Jesus, and Jesus’ wife (bride) is the promised shepherd, the one who overcomes.” Scripture names the bride of Christ many times, and it’s never one man.

1. 1. The bride of Christ is the church

   The board says the second-coming bride is “New John,” and SCJ’s book says it’s “the promised shepherd, the one who overcomes.”

   Scripture names the bride:

   • “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her … This mystery is great—but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:25, 32).
   • Paul to the Corinthian believers: “I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2).
   • At the wedding of the Lamb, the bride’s fine linen “is the righteous deeds of the saints” (Revelation 19:8), plural, all God’s people.
   • “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb!” and the angel shows John “the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:9-10). The bride is God’s whole redeemed people, pictured as a city.
   • “the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’” (22:17). The bride is the church inviting the world.

   Making one man the bride of Christ takes the place that belongs to the whole church and gives it to a single person.

2. 2. Jesus is the bridegroom, not the bride

   The board says that at the first coming, “Bride → Jesus.”

   • John the Baptist said of Jesus: “The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly when he hears the bridegroom’s voice” (John 3:29).
   • Jesus called himself the bridegroom: “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they?” (Mark 2:19-20).
   • Scripture never calls Jesus a bride.

3. 3. Hosea 2: God wins back the same wife

   The notes say Hosea 2:19 means “God is saying I will marry a different you.”

   • Hosea’s passage is about the same unfaithful wife: “in the future I will allure her; I will lead her back into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her” (2:14). “you will call me, ‘My husband’” (2:16). “I will commit myself to you forever” (2:19).
   • The chapter ends: “I will say to ‘Not My People’ … ‘You are my people!’” (2:23).
   • Paul quotes this to describe God calling “not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles” (Romans 9:24-26). God restores his people and widens his family. He doesn’t marry a different individual.

4. 4. Galatians 3: All are one in Christ

   The lesson uses Galatians 3:26-29 to say that because believers are called sons, “he implies that you all have the seed.”

   • Paul’s point is that “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith … There is neither Jew nor Greek … there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (3:26-28).
   • “if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants [seed]” (3:29). The seed is Christ (3:16), and believers are included by belonging to him. It isn’t a physical analogy about who carries seed.

5. 5. Galatians 4:19: Christ formed in them

   The notes say Paul is “representing himself like a spiritual woman, which essentially means a pastor,” who receives the seed and raises children.

   • Paul says, “My children—I am again undergoing birth pains until Christ is formed in you!” (Galatians 4:19). The goal is Christ formed in them.
   • Paul uses several family images for his care: like a nursing mother (1 Thessalonians 2:7) and like a father (2:11). They’re pictures of love, not a doctrine that pastors are brides.

6. 6. Bringing someone to study “really levels you up quickly”

   The lesson tells students, “God did not give you the open word for you to keep it only to yourself,” and that bringing someone to study “really levels you up quickly.”

   • Sharing the gospel is good. But students are being asked to recruit before they’ve finished the course, and before they’ve been told everything it teaches. Paul’s standard is “open proclamation of the truth” (2 Corinthians 4:2). (See Lesson 14.)

7. 7. The wedding banquet: The food is the feast

   The lesson says of the oxen of Matthew 22:4, “Those that once belonged to God betrayed and are now being butchered,” and that a true banquet must explain this.

   • In the parable, the king’s message is: “Look! The feast I have prepared for you is ready. My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet” (22:4). The animals are the meal.
   • If the oxen were betrayers, the guests would be eating betrayers. The detail simply shows the feast is ready and generous.
   • Jesus’ point: Those first invited refused (22:5-6), so the king invited “everyone you find” (22:9). God’s invitation is open to all. (See Lesson 31 on the wedding garment.)

8. 8. The morning star is Jesus

   The lesson says the one who overcomes receives the morning star (Revelation 2:28).

   • Jesus says, “I am … the bright morning star” (Revelation 22:16). The promise is that overcomers receive Christ himself.
   • The promise is “to the one who conquers” in Thyatira (2:26), and every believer is promised the same (21:7). Peter speaks of the day when “the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19). (See Lesson 45; its new section isn’t live yet, so the link goes to the lesson page.)

9. 9. The wedding supper is at Christ’s return

   The lesson says the Lamb stands on Mount Zion, so “That is the location of the wedding banquet.”

   • Revelation 19 announces “the wedding celebration of the Lamb” (19:7-9), and right after it, heaven opens and Jesus rides out as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (19:11-16). The wedding belongs to his visible return.
   • Believers have already come to Mount Zion through Jesus (Hebrews 12:22-24). (See Lesson 44; its new section isn’t live yet, so the link goes to the lesson page.)

10. 10. Widows and orphans are people to care for, and Jesus leaves no orphans

    The board says a widow is a “Pastor who betrayed without the Holy Spirit” and orphans are his congregation, and “Both of these places are judged at the second coming.”

    • In Scripture, widows and orphans are the vulnerable whom God protects: “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their adversity” (James 1:27).
    • Jesus promised his followers: “I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you” (John 14:18).
    • SCJ’s book names John the Baptist as the first-coming widow. Jesus said no one born of women is greater (Matthew 11:11). (See Lesson 37.)

11. 11. Babylon’s bridegroom

    The notes say that in Revelation 18:23, “The bridegroom is the devil or Satan.”

    • The verse says of fallen Babylon: “The voices of the bridegroom and his bride will never be heard in you again” (Revelation 18:23). It echoes Jeremiah’s descriptions of desolation, when the sounds of joy and weddings cease (Jeremiah 7:34; 25:10).
    • It describes a city so ruined that no weddings happen there anymore. It isn’t about Satan as a groom.

12. 12. “God’s grace in choosing us out of many”

    A side note says, “We must give thanks and be grateful for God’s grace in choosing us out of many people.”

    • Gratitude for grace is right. But Scripture’s chosen people are all who belong to Christ: “he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). It isn’t a select group within the church.