Shincheonji lesson 45: figurative rock

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This lesson defines the rock as “the word of judgment” and “a Pastor who receives authority to judge.” It opens with the question students should carry into every class: “Am I at Mount Zion, or am I not?” It says a church that reads and discusses a parable has a “tiny” standard, and kindness and prayer are “too low a standard.” It reads Matthew 16:18 to say “a person with the word becomes like a rock upon which the church can be built,” and reads Revelation 2:17’s white stone as “the authority to judge” given to “one who overcomes,” insisting “the original translation is singular.” SCJ’s The Explanation of Parables (p. 81) concludes: “one can be saved by knowing the one who overcomes and belonging to God’s eternal kingdom He established through the one who overcomes.” Scripture calls God and Christ the rock, gives all judgment to the Son and promises the white stone to every believer who overcomes.

1. 1. “Do the people around me talk about what I’m learning here?”

   The lesson says a place of salvation appears before judgment, as in Noah’s and Lot’s days, and asks students: “Do the people around me talk about what I’m learning here? Or do they carry on with their lives as if nothing is happening?” If not, “can I be sure that I’m in the ark already?”

   • Jesus’ comparison to Noah is about suddenness: people “knew nothing until the flood came” (Matthew 24:39). It isn’t a test of whether your family discusses a course.
   • Peter says the ark prefigured salvation “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:20-21). (See Lesson 36; its new section isn’t live yet, so the link goes to the lesson page.)
   • This question teaches students to see family, friends and fellow churchgoers as people outside the ark.

2. 2. Love is not “too low a standard”

   The lesson says a church’s parable study is “tiny,” and kindness and prayer are “too low a standard.”

   • Jesus named the greatest commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart … Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).
   • “if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge … but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2).
   • “the only thing that matters is faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).
   • “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their adversity” (James 1:27).

   Scripture’s highest standard is love. Ranking a detailed account of prophecy above it reverses Jesus’ priorities.

3. 3. The rock is God and Christ

   The lesson rightly cites Deuteronomy 32:4 (“the Rock, his work is perfect”) and 1 Corinthians 10:4 (“the rock was Christ”). Then it makes the rock “a Pastor who receives authority to judge.”

   • In Scripture, the Rock is the Lord: “Is there any God but me? There is no other sheltering rock; I know of none” (Isaiah 44:8).
   • In Matthew 7:24, the wise man builds on rock by hearing “these words of mine” and doing them. The foundation is Jesus’ teaching.

4. 4. Matthew 16:18: Jesus builds his church

   The lesson says “a person with the word becomes like a rock upon which the church can be built.”

   • In context, Peter has just confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16:16). Whatever view one takes of “this rock,” Jesus says, “I will build my church” (16:18).
   • Paul writes that “no one can lay any foundation other than what is being laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). The church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20). That foundation was laid in the first century.
   • Every believer is a stone in the building: “you yourselves, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5).

   There’s no room for a later rock-person on whom the church must now be built.

5. 5. The cornerstone and capstone is Jesus

   The lesson rightly says Jesus is both the cornerstone and capstone (1 Peter 2:4-8; Matthew 21:42-44).

   • That should be affirmed. Matthew notes that the chief priests and Pharisees “realized that he was speaking about them” (21:45).
   • But if Jesus is both the first and the last stone of the building, the structure is complete in him. No new stone is laid on top.

6. 6. Judgment belongs to the Son

   The lesson cites John 5:22: God gave all judgment to the Son. Then it says, “So, Jesus is promising to give the authority to judge to the one who overcomes at the second coming.”

   • Read John 5:22-23: “the Father does not judge anyone, but has assigned all judgment to the Son, so that all people will honor the Son just as they honor the Father.”
   • God “has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he designated, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). The judge is the risen Jesus.
   • Where Scripture speaks of believers sharing in judgment, it’s plural: “the saints will judge the world” (1 Corinthians 6:2); the twelve apostles on twelve thrones (Matthew 19:28); those given thrones in Revelation 20:4. Never one modern figure.

7. 7. The white stone: A new name for each overcomer

   The lesson says the white stone symbolizes “the authority to judge.” SCJ’s book says it “signifies the word of judgment.”

   Read the verse:

   “To the one who conquers, I will give him some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on that stone will be written a new name that no one can understand except the one who receives it.” (Revelation 2:17)

   • The stone carries a new, personal name known only to the one who receives it. It’s an image of personal acceptance and belonging to Christ.
   • The same promise of a new name appears in Revelation 3:12: “I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God … and my new name as well.”
   • Nothing in the verse mentions authority to judge.

8. 8. Singular in form, but “one who overcomes” means everyone

   The notes insist “the original translation is singular in nature – one who overcomes.”

   • The same verse also says, “The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (2:17). That’s singular too, and it obviously means anyone with an ear, not one special person.
   • “The one who conquers” works the same way. It’s a promise to whoever overcomes, in every one of the seven churches (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21).
   • Revelation sums it up: “The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son” (21:7).
   • John defines the conqueror: “everyone who has been fathered by God conquers the world … who is the person who has conquered the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4-5). (See Lesson 18 and Lesson 22.)

9. 9. The Nicolaitans were a first-century problem

   The lesson says the one who overcomes must win a promised war, starting with the Nicolaitans (Revelation 2:6).

   • Jesus told the church in Ephesus: “You hate what the Nicolaitans practice—practices I also hate” (2:6). Ephesus was already doing this in the first century, and Jesus commended them.
   • Pergamum had some who followed their teaching (2:15). These were problems in real first-century congregations, not a future war fought by one man.

10. 10. Satan’s rock and hiding among the rocks

    • Deuteronomy 32:31 says “our enemies’ rock is not like our Rock.” Moses is contrasting the gods of the nations with the Lord.
    • Revelation 6:15-16 describes people hiding in caves and among the rocks, begging the mountains to fall on them “and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.” It echoes Isaiah 2:19. It’s the terror of people facing God’s judgment, not a picture of churches.

11. 11. Salvation “by knowing the one who overcomes”

    The Explanation of Parables (p. 81) says “one can be saved by knowing the one who overcomes and belonging to God’s eternal kingdom He established through the one who overcomes.”

    • Jesus said: “Now this is eternal life—that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent” (John 17:3).
    • “there is salvation in no one else” (Acts 4:12). There is “one intermediary between God and humanity, Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
    • The kingdom isn’t established through a modern overcomer. Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18).

12. 12. “Am I at Mount Zion, or am I not?”

    • Hebrews answers for every believer: “you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God … and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 12:22-24). (See Lesson 44; its new section isn’t live yet, so the link goes to the lesson page.)