Shincheonji lesson 50: figurative living creatures and winds

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This lesson says the four living creatures are “four archangels,” “like commanders in God’s army,” and that winds are angels carrying out judgment. It has students draw heaven from Revelation 4, then argues that as Moses saw and built, “a new John must witness the actual reality” and “do on earth what he saw.” So the true church must mirror heaven: “At this place, there should also be 24 elders,” and “a replication of the four living creatures, the seven lamps, and the 12 gates.” It asks, “As we study the open word, are we not currently experiencing the sealing process ourselves?” and says that when the winds blow again, “congregations, denominations, doctrines, and churches must all come out.” SCJ’s The Explanation of Parables (p. 85) says the great multitude “come to the Twelve Tribes,” and people must “find the promised shepherd — the one who overcomes.” Revelation describes these figures in its own words, and draws none of these conclusions.

1. 1. The living creatures worship; they’re never called archangels

   • Scripture names one archangel, Michael (Jude 9), and speaks of “the archangel” at Jesus’ return (1 Thessalonians 4:16). It never mentions four archangels.
   • Revelation never calls the living creatures archangels. What they do is worship: “They never rest day or night, saying: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the All-Powerful’” (4:8). They fall down before the Lamb with the elders (5:8, 14) and say “Amen! Hallelujah!” (19:4).
   • Ezekiel identifies the creatures in his vision as cherubim (Ezekiel 10:20), not archangels commanding an army.

2. 2. Each creature in Revelation 4 has one likeness

   The notes say “each creature possesses all four faces: lion, ox, man, and eagle.”

   • Revelation 4:7: “The first living creature was like a lion, the second creature like an ox, the third creature had a face like a man’s, and the fourth creature looked like an eagle flying.” Each has one.
   • In Ezekiel 1:10, each creature has four faces, and four wings (1:6). In Revelation 4:8, each has six wings, like the seraphim of Isaiah 6:2.
   • The visions use related but different imagery. Merging their details shows the problem with a fixed symbol system: The texts themselves don’t line up that neatly.

3. 3. See, build: Moses was commanded, and Christ fulfilled it

   The lesson says Moses saw heaven’s pattern and built the tabernacle, so a new John must see heaven and “do on earth what he saw,” producing a church with 24 elders, four living creatures, seven lamps and 12 gates.

   • Moses received an explicit command to build according to the pattern (Exodus 25:9). Revelation 4 gives no such command to John or anyone else.
   • Hebrews says the earthly tabernacle was “a sketch and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary” (8:5), and that Christ “did not enter a sanctuary made with hands … but into heaven itself” (9:24). The shadow is fulfilled in him, not rebuilt.
   • In the new creation, John “saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God—the All-Powerful—and the Lamb are its temple” (Revelation 21:22).
   • A test that says the true church must have 24 elders, 12 gates and the like is a test built to match one organization’s structure. SCJ organizes itself into twelve tribes. Scripture’s tests for a church are about Jesus, the gospel and love (1 John 4:2; Galatians 1:8; John 13:35).

4. 4. John 5:19 is about the Son

   • “the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). It describes Jesus’ unique relationship with the Father.
   • It doesn’t set up a pattern for a later person to see heaven and reproduce it on earth.

5. 5. Zechariah 6 and Joshua 5: Different figures

   The lesson links the living creatures to the four chariots of Zechariah 6 and the commander Joshua met.

   • Zechariah’s chariots come “from between two mountains of bronze,” and are explained as “the four spirits [or winds] of heaven going out” over the earth (6:1-5). They’re never called the living creatures.
   • In Revelation 6, a living creature calls “Come!” and a rider goes out (6:1-2). The creatures and the riders are separate figures.
   • In Joshua 5:13-15, the “commander of the Lord’s army” receives Joshua’s worship and tells him to remove his sandals because the place is holy. He isn’t called one of four creatures.

6. 6. The winds and the angels are distinct in Revelation 7

   The lesson says winds are angels carrying out judgment.

   • Revelation 7:1: “I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth.” The angels hold the winds. They’re two different things.
   • Hebrews 1:7 quotes Psalm 104:4 (“He makes the winds his messengers”) to show the Son is greater than angels. It isn’t a rule that every wind in prophecy is an angel.
   • Jeremiah 4:11-12, which the lesson cites, describes God’s judgment as a scorching wind, with the invading army coming against Judah like a lion (4:6-7). The wind is the judgment, not an angel.

7. 7. Revelation 6:12-14: Cosmic imagery

   The notes say the falling stars are “people who betrayed and are now being judged.”

   • The sixth seal describes an earthquake, the sun turning black, the moon like blood, the stars falling “like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when shaken by a fierce wind,” and the sky splitting apart (6:12-14).
   • People of every rank then hide from “the wrath of the Lamb” (6:15-17). It’s a picture of universal judgment, not the punishment of a specific group of betrayers.

8. 8. “As we study the open word, are we not currently experiencing the sealing process ourselves?”

   • God’s seal is the Holy Spirit, given when a person believes the gospel: “when you believed in Christ—you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13). (See Lesson 47; its new section isn’t live yet, so the link goes to the lesson page.)
   • Attending a course isn’t being sealed.

9. 9. Sealed 100%, not 99%

   The lesson’s hope is “Let’s be sealed 100% and withstand with faith when winds blow!” Students must be sealed “100%, not just 50%, 75%, or even 99%.”

   • Scripture doesn’t describe a percentage of sealing. Believers “were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30), and God “sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment” (2 Corinthians 1:22).
   • Framing sealing as a percentage keeps students anxious about whether they’re fully in.

10. 10. The great multitude comes from every nation, not “out of the churches”

    The notes say the great multitude comes out of the tribulation, “or they come out of the churches,” and that “congregations, denominations, doctrines, and churches must all come out.”

    • Revelation 7:9: “an enormous crowd that no one could count, made up of persons from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”
    • They “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (7:14). God “will shelter them,” and “the Lamb … will shepherd them” (7:15-17).
    • It’s a heavenly scene of the redeemed from all humanity, not a migration from churches to an organization. The lesson’s redefinition of nations as churches and languages as doctrines isn’t in the text. (See Lesson 36; its new section isn’t live yet, so the link goes to the lesson page.)

11. 11. Finding the promised shepherd to be saved from the tribulation

    SCJ’s The Explanation of Parables says the great multitude “come to the Twelve Tribes,” and that “people must find the promised shepherd — the one who overcomes” to be saved from the tribulation.

    • Revelation says the Lamb is their shepherd (7:17).
    • Revelation 7:1-3 says the winds are held back until God’s servants are sealed. It doesn’t describe the winds being released to start the great tribulation, or a gathering to a particular organization.
    • Angels are “ministering spirits, sent out to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). Salvation comes through Christ, not by finding a shepherd who stands in for him.