Shincheonji special lesson 63: Zion and the word

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This lesson traces Zion through the Bible and says, “Jesus at the first coming became Zion. And his organization of 12 disciples became Mount Zion.” It says, “If the Lamb is going to be at Mount Zion, then we also need to be at that same place,” and “If you are in a place that is only talking about what Revelation might be like, then that is not Zion.” The class wants to know the name of the place, and the instructor holds it back: “So be patient. We’re getting there, I promise.” The hope is to “identify and find Mount Zion at the Second Coming!” SCJ’s The Physical Fulfillment of Revelation (p. 11) says “we must be harvested and taken to Mount Zion (i.e., the barn of heaven) because all other churches, pastors, and people come to an end,” that those who “remain in their churches, are the weeds tied in bundles to be burned,” and that “salvation can only be obtained through the promised one who overcomes.” Scripture traces Zion to Jesus and then to the heavenly Jerusalem.

1. 1. “What is God really looking for in his people? Effort.”

   Students had the questions and answers to the test in advance. The instructor says it measures effort, urges students who scored 92 or 95 to retake it (“Hit that gas pedal to 100”), and reads Luke 13:24 as “give it your all and your best shot.”

   • God looks at the heart: “the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). Salvation isn’t by effort: “by grace you are saved through faith … it is not from works” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
   • In Luke 13:24-27, the narrow door is entry into the kingdom, and the people shut out hear, “I don’t know where you come from.” The issue is knowing Jesus, not exam scores. (See Lesson 62; its new section isn’t live yet, so the link goes to the lesson page.)

2. 2. Psalm 2: The king on Zion is Jesus

   The lesson uses Psalm 2 to say Zion’s king is installed while the kings of the earth fight against it.

   • The apostles applied Psalm 2 directly to Jesus. When they prayed, they quoted “The kings of the earth stood together, and the rulers assembled together, against the Lord and against his Christ,” and said it was fulfilled when “both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together in this city against your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:25-27).
   • Paul quoted Psalm 2:7 (Psalm 2:7), “You are my Son; today I have fathered you,” and said God fulfilled the promise “by raising Jesus” (Acts 13:33).
   • Psalm 2’s fulfillment is Jesus’ death and resurrection, not a modern group under attack.

3. 3. Isaiah 37: A sign for Hezekiah

   The lesson takes Isaiah 37:30-32 and draws a rule: “God needs someone he will use to build something new from the remnant of the old.”

   • The passage is God’s sign to King Hezekiah during the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem: a year of eating what grows wild, then what grows on its own, then planting again, and “a remnant will leave Jerusalem; survivors will come out of Mount Zion” (37:30-32). It was fulfilled when God delivered Jerusalem that same chapter (37:36-37).
   • The rule about “someone” building from a remnant isn’t in the text.

4. 4. Isaiah 2: The word went out from Jerusalem

   • “For Zion will be the center for moral instruction; the Lord’s message will issue from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3).
   • Jesus said repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be “proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). Acts records the word going out from Jerusalem to the nations (Acts 1:8; 8:4). (See Lesson 44.)

5. 5. Isaiah 60:14: The city is the one addressed

   The notes ask who the “you” of Isaiah 60:14 is and answer “Jesus,” so “Jesus at the first coming became Zion.”

   • The verse: “They will call you, ‘The City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel’” (Isaiah 60:14). The “you” is the city, God’s restored people.
   • Jesus applies this promise to the faithful church in Philadelphia: “I will make them come and bow down at your feet” (Revelation 3:9).
   • Scripture doesn’t say Jesus became Zion. It says God laid Jesus as the cornerstone in Zion: “Look, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone” (1 Peter 2:6; Isaiah 28:16). And the twelve disciples aren’t Mount Zion. They’re the foundation of the church, “with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20).

6. 6. The blessings of Zion belong to the heavenly Jerusalem

   The lesson lists blessings from Psalms 132 and 133 and Obadiah 17: God’s dwelling, provision, salvation, life forevermore and deliverance.

   • These were promises to God’s people in Jerusalem. The New Testament says where they now belong: “you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22). “the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (Galatians 4:26).
   • Every believer in Christ already has a share in them.

7. 7. Revelation 14 and 15: Zion is in God’s presence

   The lesson says, “If the Lamb is going to be at Mount Zion, then we also need to be at that same place,” and reads Revelation 15:2-5 as the same people at the tabernacle of the testimony.

   • The 144,000 sing “before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders” (14:3). It’s a heavenly scene.
   • In Revelation 15, the victors stand “by the sea of glass” (15:2), which is “in front of the throne” (4:6). Then “the temple (the tent of the testimony) was opened in heaven” (15:5), and the seven angels with the seven plagues come out of it (15:6). It’s in heaven, and what comes out is judgment. (See Lesson 25.)
   • Believers get to the Lamb’s Mount Zion through Jesus, not by traveling to a place:

   “you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem … and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 12:22-24)

8. 8. A church that only talks about what Revelation might be like

   The lesson says, “If you are in a place that is only talking about what Revelation might be like, then that is not Zion.”

   • This test favors any group that claims Revelation has already been fulfilled in its own history. Several groups make that claim, with conflicting accounts. (See Lesson 5.)
   • Scripture’s test for a teaching is what it confesses about Jesus (1 John 4:2) and whether it matches the gospel already preached (Galatians 1:8).

9. 9. “So be patient. We’re getting there, I promise.”

   The class wants the name of the place, and the instructor holds it back, while saying “The test is not an option” and the intermediate class is coming.

   • Holding back the name while building the need to find it keeps students moving forward before they can evaluate the answer.
   • Paul taught openly: “we have rejected shameful hidden deeds, not behaving with deceptiveness or distorting the word of God, but by open proclamation of the truth” (2 Corinthians 4:2). Jesus said, “I have said nothing in secret” (John 18:20).

10. 10. Psalm 43:3: God’s light leads to him

    The memory verse is Psalm 43:3: “Reveal your light and your faithfulness. They will lead me; they will escort me back to your holy hill, and to the place where you live” (Psalm 43:3).

    • It’s a prayer asking God to lead. (See Lesson 5.)
    • In the New Testament, Jesus himself is the light and the truth: “I am the light of the world!” (John 8:12); “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). God’s light leads to God through Jesus.

11. 11. All other churches coming to an end

    SCJ’s book says “all other churches, pastors, and people come to an end,” that those who stay in their churches “are the weeds tied in bundles to be burned,” and that “salvation can only be obtained through the promised one who overcomes.”

    • Jesus said the sorting of wheat and weeds belongs to angels at the end of the age, and told his servants not to do it themselves (Matthew 13:29-30, 39). (See Lesson 1.)
    • “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The name is Jesus.