Shincheonji lesson 35: figurative sea

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This lesson defines the sea as “Satan’s World,” and says it’s not mainly about obvious places of vice: Satan’s “true target is beyond that.” It reads Revelation 17:15’s waters as “peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages,” then puts on the board: “People, multitudes, nations, and languages equal churches.” It concludes, “The sea at the second coming is Babylon that God’s people must come out of,” and urges, “Let’s have some urgency. Now’s the time. Let’s go. Let’s run.” When students feel uneasy, it says a caught fish flops because “The truth hurts them,” and asks, “who here is struggling?” SCJ’s The Explanation of Parables (p. 52) says the sea is “the world — where various denominations’ doctrines and teachings are,” and “the world of religion over which the dragon (Satan) and the false shepherds rule” (p. 53). The sea is a real biblical image of chaos and hostile powers, and that should be admitted. But Scripture explains its own sea images, and churches aren’t in the explanation.

1. 1. Revelation 17:15: The waters are peoples, not churches

   The angel explains the waters: “The waters you saw (where the prostitute is seated) are peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages” (Revelation 17:15).

   • The board adds “equal churches.” The text doesn’t say that.
   • Revelation uses “every tribe, people, language, and nation” for all humanity (5:9; 7:9; 13:7).
   • The prostitute herself is explained too: “As for the woman you saw, she is the great city that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth” (17:18). She is a ruling world power, not the churches.

2. 2. Revelation 18: Babylon is a world city of commerce and power

   The lesson says the sea is Babylon, and “God’s people must come out of” it, by which it means their churches.

   • Revelation 18 describes Babylon as “the great city” (18:10, 21), and at her fall “the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn for her because no one buys their cargo any longer,” with a cargo list of gold, silver, fine linen, spice, horses, carriages and “human lives” (18:11-13). Ship captains and seamen mourn her (18:17-19).
   • “Come out of her, my people, so you will not take part in her sins” (18:4). The call echoes Jeremiah’s call to leave ancient Babylon (Jeremiah 51:45). It means not sharing in her idolatry, luxury and violence.
   • It isn’t a call to leave Christian churches.

3. 3. Daniel 7: The beasts are kings

   The lesson uses Daniel 7 to say the sea means the world.

   • Daniel’s vision explains itself: “These large beasts, which are four in number, represent four kings who will arise from the earth” (7:17), and the fourth beast is “a fourth kingdom” (7:23).
   • The beasts are earthly empires. Neither Daniel 7 nor Revelation 13 identifies the sea or its beasts as churches. In Revelation 13, the beast is given “ruling authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation” (13:7), a political power over the world.

4. 4. The world lies in the evil one, and Jesus sends believers into it

   The lesson uses 1 John 5:19 to say “The sea, the world, is Satan’s dwelling place.”

   • John does say “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (5:19). But the same verse begins, “We know that we are from God,” and the next says Jesus “has come and has given us insight to know him who is true” (5:20).
   • “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (4:4).
   • Jesus prayed: “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them safe from the evil one … Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world” (John 17:15-18).
   • “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him” (John 3:17).

5. 5. “His true target is beyond that”

   The lesson says vulgar establishments already belong to Satan, and his true target is elsewhere, pointing at religious communities.

   • Scripture does warn that false teachers arise within the church (Acts 20:29-30). That should be admitted.
   • But it doesn’t make churches Satan’s dwelling. Jesus says of his church, “the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (Matthew 16:18). Paul calls the church “God’s temple,” where God’s Spirit lives (1 Corinthians 3:16). (See Lesson 5.)

6. 6. Matthew 5:14: “A city on a hill cannot be hidden”

   The notes add a line: “A city on a hill cannot be hidden unless it has been sunk in the sea.”

   • Jesus said only: “You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14).
   • The addition turns Jesus’ assurance that his people are visible into a picture of them sunk in Satan’s sea.

7. 7. The net: Angels sort at the end of the age

   The lesson asks, “So, what is your end? Back in the sea or gathered in the basket, which is where we want to be?”

   • Jesus explains: “It will be this way at the end of the age. Angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous” (Matthew 13:49).
   • The net holds all kinds together until then. The sorting isn’t done now by joining a group. (See Lessons 1 and 20.)

8. 8. The notes and the book disagree: Leave the sea or heal it?

   • The notes say God’s people “must come out of” the sea.
   • The Explanation of Parables (p. 53) says “the water of life … that God’s shepherd preaches makes the world of religion become new and born again,” drawing on Ezekiel 47, where the river makes the sea’s water fresh (47:8-9).
   • The book also lists a good sea, “the sea of glass before God’s throne” (Revelation 4:6; 15:2), while the notes treat the sea only as Satan’s.
   • And Revelation’s final picture is “the sea existed no more” (21:1). The images vary by passage, which shows again that no fixed symbol dictionary works.

9. 9. John 8:44: Jesus was speaking to people trying to kill him

   The lesson uses John 8:44 (“You people are from your father the devil”) to describe religious leaders as Satan’s sea creatures.

   • Jesus said this to people who were “trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth” (8:40), and who later picked up stones to throw at him (8:59).
   • It’s a specific rebuke, not a description of every religious community.

10. 10. “The truth hurts them” and “who here is struggling?”

    The lesson says a caught fish flops because “The truth hurts them,” and then asks the class who is struggling.

    • This makes a student’s unease into proof that the teaching is true. If struggling means you’ve been caught by the truth, nothing can ever count as a sign the teaching is wrong.
    • Scripture tells believers to “examine all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Discomfort can be a conscience warning, not just resistance to truth.

11. 11. The Lord slays Leviathan

    The memory verse is Isaiah 27:1, and the lesson urges students, “Hey, pick up your sword!” against the coiling serpent.

    • Isaiah says: “At that time the Lord will punish with his destructive, great, and powerful sword Leviathan … he will kill the sea monster” (27:1).
    • The victory is God’s. Christ disarmed “the rulers and authorities” and triumphed over them “by the cross” (Colossians 2:15). In Revelation 20:2, an angel from heaven seizes and binds the dragon.
    • Believers do take up “the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God)” (Ephesians 6:17). But they stand in a victory already won, not in a fight where the serpent will “squeeze the life out of you” unless they win it.

12. 12. Urgency: “Now’s the time. Let’s go. Let’s run.”

    • Urgency to leave one’s church, before the course has identified where to go, is a reason for caution. “A naive person will believe anything, but the shrewd person discerns his steps” (Proverbs 14:15). (See Lesson 33.)
    • Jesus warned against running after reports of where he is (Luke 17:23).