Shincheonji lesson 4: identifying good from evil, part one
Lesson 4 · Introductory
Main verses used
Links open the NET Bible.
What SCJ teaches
This section comes from class notes that an attendee wrote down during SCJ’s 9-month Bible study seminar, posted with the full Closer Look study. They are not SCJ’s printed curriculum, so the wording is the note-taker’s.
Two kinds of spirits
The lesson opens with its claim and its aim: “There are two kinds of spirits. Holy spirits and evil spirits.” The stated hope is “to discern the differences between God and Satan, as well as understand Satan’s origins.”
Who God is
The notes list God’s attributes from John 4:24, Genesis 1:1, Ephesians 4:6, Isaiah 37:16 and Exodus 3:14. On “I AM WHO I AM,” they say God is “the eternal, self-existent One with no beginning and no end.” From Luke 18:19 the lesson draws a definition: “Good is defined by those three letters: G-O-D. So for anything to be truly good, it must originate from and belong to God.”
Who the angels are
Using Hebrews 1:14, “Angels are ministering spirits to those who will receive salvation.” They are created, “Countless,” and ordered in a hierarchy; the commander in Joshua 5:14 “is believed to be the Archangel Michael.” The notes add: “Before creation, in the spiritual realm, there was no evil – only perfection, unity and holiness.”
Who Satan is
The serpent of Genesis 3:1 is “talking about a spiritual entity,” identified through Revelation 20:2. From 2 Samuel 19:22 the notes say the Hebrew word “means adversary,” and they read 1 Peter 5:8 alongside it.
The lesson then reads Genesis 3:22 in a particular way. It says God’s “one of us” refers to “a being who deviated from the initial state of pure good and came to also know evil.” Isaiah 14:12-15 follows: “Lucifer desired to become like God; not just similar, but to actually become God.” Of Ezekiel 28, the notes ask, “The human king of Tyre was not alive at that time, so who is this really referring to?” Their conclusion: “God did not create Satan in his current evil state. He created a guardian angel who later became Satan by his own choice.”
Demons and their number
“Demons are fallen angels,” the notes say, and from 2 Peter 2:4, “When cast into hell, they became demons.” They call it “a common misconception that a third of the angels rebelled.” The evangelist review gives the number from Revelation 9: “Revelation chapter 9 states their number is 200 million, which is not a third of the countless angels.” The instructor review says the guardian angel “was able to convince other angels to rebel with him,” and “These angels fell due to the sins of pride and greed.”
Pride and repentance
The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) brings the lesson home. “The Pharisee reminds God of Satan in his pride.” So “we need to repent and humble ourselves repeatedly, not just once.” The session ends, “Let’s be those who repent always,” with Luke 18:14 as the memory verse.
What is at stake
The reviews state the stakes: “If we cannot distinguish, we risk becoming casualties in this spiritual war.” They warn that evil spirits “will not appear with stereotypical pitchforks and horns. Rather, they will seem like angels of light – a much more effective deception.”
In SCJ’s own books
Each passage was checked against the scanned page image; page numbers are as printed.
The Creation of Heaven and Earth, Lee Man-hee (Shincheonji Press), page 31:
“Out of pride and greed, one archangel wanted to be like God. He left his position of authority, abandoned his home, and formed a sect within heaven (Is 14:12-15). The spirits that united with that fallen archangel are evil spirits (Rv 9:14-16). God revealed their identities by calling them “devils” and “Satan,” which mean adversaries (1 Pt 5:8; 2 Sm 19:22), alienators, and segregators.”
The Physical Fulfillment of Revelation, Lee Man-hee (Shincheonji Press), page 203:
“What is the true identity of the two hundred million mounted troops of Satan (Rv 9:16)? The horses and their riders refer to the flesh and spirits who belong to the four angels who sinned.”
“Satan’s army includes the four angels who sinned, his two hundred million evil spirits, and the people in whom they reside.”
The Creation of Heaven and Earth, page 411:
“Believers should understand that anyone who fails to maintain his or her proper position—anyone who abandons his or her home to create a sect and oppose us—this person is an antichrist who has received the spirit of Satan.”
How the lesson notes compare with the books
- Satan’s origin. Same teaching. Both point to Isaiah 14:12-15, the wish to be like God, and “pride and greed.” The book’s wording is “formed a sect within heaven” (p. 31); the evangelist review says the angel “started a coup.”
- The name Satan. Same teaching. The notes and the book both use 2 Samuel 19:22 and 1 Peter 5:8 for “adversary” (p. 31).
- The 200 million. Difference. The notes count 200 million fallen angels. Creation also links Revelation 9:14-16 to evil spirits (p. 31), but Physical Fulfillment says the horses and riders are “the flesh and spirits” and that Satan’s army includes “the people in whom they reside” (p. 203).
- How the origin story is applied. Difference. The book applies the fallen angel’s “sect” to anyone who leaves “us” (p. 411). The lesson notes for this session do not apply it to people.
Closer Look response: Guarding against deception: false teachings and prophets
What the Bible says
- The verse the lesson uses counts “soldiers on horseback” in the sixth-trumpet vision; it does not call them the angels who fell with Satan. The number of soldiers on horseback was 200,000,000; I heard their number. (Revelation 9:16, NET)
- Revelation says the devil was thrown down with his angels, and it gives no number for them. So that huge dragon—the ancient serpent, the one called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world—was thrown down to the earth, and his angels along with him. (Revelation 12:9, NET)
- Isaiah addresses the taunt in chapter 14 to the king of Babylon. you will taunt the king of Babylon with these words: “Look how the oppressor has met his end! Hostility has ceased! (Isaiah 14:4, NET)
- Ezekiel addresses the lament in chapter 28 to the king of Tyre. “Son of man, sing a lament for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: “‘You were the sealer of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. (Ezekiel 28:12, NET)
- In Genesis 3:22 God is the speaker of “one of us,” and the verse does not mention Satan. And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” (Genesis 3:22, NET)
- Angels are servants sent for those who will inherit salvation. Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to serve those who will inherit salvation? (Hebrews 1:14, NET)
- In Jesus’ parable, the tax collector goes home justified after one plea for mercy. I tell you that this man went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14, NET)
- God gives grace to the humble, and believers resist the devil by submitting to God. But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.” So submit to God. But resist the devil and he will flee from you. (James 4:6-7, NET)
Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible
Much of this lesson is ordinary Christian teaching: God is eternal and good, angels are created servants, Satan is a real adversary, pride is deadly and humility is required. That should be admitted up front. The problems are in the specific details SCJ adds, several of which misread the text, and in how SCJ’s own books apply the origin of Satan to people who leave SCJ. That application is where this lesson is heading.
1. Luke 18:19: “G-O-D” is English wordplay, not Scripture
The lesson says good “is defined by those three letters: G-O-D.”
- The G-O-D wordplay only works in English. Luke wrote in Greek, so the spelling of an English word cannot be what Luke 18:19 means.
- Jesus answered the leader who asked about eternal life (Luke 18:18) with a question about who Jesus is: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Luke 18:19). He was pressing the man to think about Jesus’ identity, not defining a word by its letters.
This matters because it shows the method: a meaning is built on something that isn’t in the text, then presented as what the Bible teaches.
2. Genesis 3:22: “One of us” is God’s side, not Satan
The lesson says “one of us” (Genesis 3:22) means “a being who deviated from the initial state of pure good and came to also know evil.” SCJ’s The Creation of Heaven and Earth (p. 123) names that being: “the spirit of Satan, the angel that sinned.”
- God is the speaker, and the verse does not mention Satan.
- The serpent’s promise was “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (3:5). Verse 22 echoes that: the man has become “like one of us, knowing good and evil.” “Us” is God, as in “Let us make humankind in our image” (1:26).
- On SCJ’s reading, God would be including Satan in “us.” That makes God and Satan one group, the opposite of what the lesson is trying to teach.
3. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28: The kings are real
Many Christians read these chapters as also describing Satan’s fall, and SCJ is not unusual for holding that view.
- Isaiah 14 is addressed to “the king of Babylon” (14:4). Ezekiel 28 is addressed to “the king of Tyre” (28:12) and “the prince of Tyre,” who is told, “you are a man and not a god” (28:2).
- The notes ask, “The human king of Tyre was not alive at that time, so who is this really referring to?” The question assumes “You were in Eden” (28:13) must be literal. But the same chapter tells Tyre’s ruler, “you are a man and not a god” (28:2), and speaks of “the one who kills you” (28:9). Ezekiel uses Eden the same way for Pharaoh: “all the trees of Eden, in the garden of God, envied it” (31:9), and “This is what will happen to Pharaoh” (31:18).
- Any application to Satan goes beyond what the text says outright, and it can’t carry the weight SCJ puts on it.
4. 2 Peter 2:4: The angels in hell are locked up
The lesson says fallen angels “became demons” when “cast into hell” (2 Peter 2:4).
- Peter says God “threw them into hell and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment.” Jude 6 also says they are “locked up for the judgment.”
- If demons are the angels already chained in hell, they are locked up, yet the Gospels show demons active on earth (Luke 4:33-35; 8:30). The lesson’s definition contradicts its own proof text.
- Scripture does show the devil “and his angels” opposing God (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 12:7-9). 2 Peter 2:4 describes a group already confined, not where demons came from.
5. The 200 million: Not in the text, and SCJ’s book takes it further
The lesson says the “third of the angels” idea is a misconception and that Revelation 9 gives the number of fallen angels as 200 million.
- It is fair to say the Bible never directly says a third of the angels fell. Revelation 12:4 mentions a third of the stars, and linking that to angels is an interpretation.
- But SCJ replaces one assumption with another. Revelation 9:16 counts “soldiers on horseback” in the sixth-trumpet vision. It doesn’t say they are fallen angels, and they act during a judgment that God sends (9:13-15).
- Revelation 12:9 says the devil was thrown down “and his angels along with him” and gives no number.
- SCJ’s book goes further than the class. The Physical Fulfillment of Revelation (p. 203) says the horses and riders “refer to the flesh and spirits who belong to the four angels who sinned” and that Satan’s army includes “his two hundred million evil spirits, and the people in whom they reside.” The class presents a count of fallen angels; the book uses the same verse to put people in Satan’s army.
6. 2 Corinthians 11:14: Paul gives the test
The lesson warns that evil spirits will appear as angels of light and leaves it open who they are.
- The lesson’s phrase draws on 2 Corinthians 11:13-15. Paul calls certain men “false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” He adds, “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light,” so “his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.”
- He says what they bring: “another Jesus,” “a different spirit,” “a different gospel” (11:4).
- So the test is not appearance. The test is whether the message about Jesus and the gospel matches what the apostles preached. Apply that test to a teaching that later says “salvation can only be obtained through the promised one who overcomes” (The Physical Fulfillment of Revelation, p. 11) and that “believers must find Jesus’ promised pastor” (The Creation of Heaven and Earth, p. 205).
7. What “Satan” means, and what SCJ adds
- The word Satan means adversary. In 2 Samuel 19:22, part of the passage the lesson cites, David uses it of his own men, the sons of Zeruiah, and the NET translates it “my enemy”: “You are like my enemy today!”
- SCJ’s The Creation of Heaven and Earth (p. 31) adds that the names mean “alienators, and segregators,” and says the archangel “formed a sect within heaven.” Neither “segregators” nor “sect” comes from the passages the book cites for them: 1 Peter 5:8, 2 Samuel 19:22 and Isaiah 14.
- These additions are not random. They set up the next step.
8. SCJ’s book applies Satan’s origin to people who leave
The Creation of Heaven and Earth (p. 411) says anyone who fails to maintain their proper position, abandons their home to create a sect and opposes “us” is an antichrist who has received the spirit of Satan. The class notes don’t say this, but the book shows where the lesson’s version of Satan’s story leads.
- The Bible defines the antichrist by doctrine about Jesus, not by leaving a group: “Who is the liar but the person who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist: the person who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22; see 4:3).
- By SCJ’s own standard, Lee Man-hee would fail. Before founding SCJ in 1984, he left earlier groups, including Park Tae-seon’s Olive Tree movement and the Tabernacle Temple, and then started his own. If leaving a group to start another makes someone an antichrist, the definition applies to SCJ’s founder first.
9. Luke 18:9-14: The parable is aimed at those who look down on others
The lesson uses the Pharisee and tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) to say “repent always.”
- Ongoing repentance is good Christian teaching (1 John 1:8-9). But notice the outcome: the tax collector made one plea for mercy and “went down to his home justified” (18:14). Jesus says he went home justified, and the parable does not make that depend on repeating the plea.
- Luke tells us who the parable targets: people who “were confident that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else” (18:9).
- A teaching that later describes other churches as weeds, other believers as in darkness and leavers as antichrists fits the Pharisee’s posture, not the tax collector’s.
10. The fear of becoming a casualty
The review warns, “If we cannot distinguish between good and evil forces, we risk becoming casualties.”
- Scripture tells believers the opposite: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
- “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
- At the cross, “Disarming the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15).
A believer’s safety rests on Christ, not on learning to identify spirits through a particular course.
What the lesson is really for
On its own, this lesson looks like basic theology. Its role in the course is to set definitions that later lessons will apply to people:
- Satan’s sin is defined as leaving his position and forming a sect (Creation, p. 31).
- Satan’s army is a count that, in SCJ’s books, includes people (Physical Fulfillment, p. 203).
- Evil appears as angels of light and is hard to recognize, so what looks good becomes suspect.
- The book applies all of this to anyone who leaves and opposes “us” (Creation, p. 411).
The biblical answer: the antichrist is the one who denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22), false teachers are identified by “another Jesus” and “a different gospel” (2 Corinthians 11:4) and believers stand secure, because the rulers and authorities were disarmed at the cross (Colossians 2:15; 1 John 4:4).
What’s happening behind the lesson
These notes are our reading of the lesson text, using Steven Hassan’s BITE model (behavior, information, thought and emotional control). They describe what the text does, not the teacher’s intent. Hassan notes that not every group uses every item. Source: Steven Hassan, BITE Model, Freedom of Mind.
Much of this lesson, on God, angels and pride, is ordinary Christian teaching; the items below are where the text adds pressure.
- Emotional: can create fear of being a casualty. The review says that failing to discern means “we risk becoming casualties in this spiritual war,” a war that “now threatens all of humanity.” Safety can be tied to learning to “distinguish” in the way the course will teach.
- Emotional: can keep guilt open-ended. The student’s own pride is likened to Satan’s (“The Pharisee reminds God of Satan in his pride”), and repentance can be read as an open-ended duty: “repeatedly, not just once,” “repent always.”
- Thought: can encourage distrust of what looks good. The warning that evil spirits “will seem like angels of light – a much more effective deception” is left open. The lesson does not yet say who these are, so the student may be primed to distrust what appears good until later lessons supply the answer.