Gen15:9-13    Abraham’s symbolic offering.
[Because Abraham did not cut the dove and pigeon in two as he should have, birds of prey came down and defiled the sacrifices. As a result of his mistake, the Israelites were destined to enter Egypt and suffer hardships for four hundred years. Why was it a sin not to cut the birds in half? This question can be understood only with the help of the Principle.

Let us first investigate the reason why Abraham was instructed to cut the sacrifices in half. God’s work of salvation aims to restore the sovereignty of goodness by first dividing good from evil and then destroying evil and uplifting the good. This is the reason Adam had to be divided into Cain and Abel before the sacrifice could be made. This is the reason why in Noah’s day, God struck down evil through the flood judgment and winnowed out Noah’s family as the good. God had Abraham cut the sacrifices in two before offering them, with the intention of doing the symbolic work of dividing good from evil, which was left unaccomplished by Adam and Noah.

The sacrifices were to be divided, first, to restore the situation in Adam’s family in which Abel and Cain were divided into a representative of good and a representative of evil. Second, it was to restore the situation of having divided good from evil during the forty days of Noah’s flood. Third, it was to make the symbolic condition to separate a realm of good sovereignty out of the universe ruled by Satan. Fourth, it was to make the condition to sanctify the offering by draining out the blood of death, which had entered fallen humanity when they were bound in blood-ties to Satan.

Why was it a sin not to divide the offering? First, not dividing the offering has the significance of not dividing Abel from Cain. Without being divided, the offering could not be acceptable to God because it did not provide Him with an Abel-type object partner which He could take. Consequently, the mistakes Cain and Abel had made in their sacrifices were not restored. Second, not dividing the offering was tantamount to repeating the failure of the providence in Noah’s time, when good and evil remained undivided despite the flood. Like the failure of Noah’s family, Abraham’s failure to divide the offering also deprived God of His good object partner. Thus, it repeated the mistake which made the dispensation of the flood a failure. Third, not dividing the offering meant there was no symbolic condition to separate a realm of God’s good sovereignty out of the universe under Satan’s dominion. Fourth, because the blood of death was not drained out of it, not dividing the offering meant it could not be a sanctified offering acceptable to God. In other words, when Abraham offered the birds without first dividing them, it meant that he offered what had not been wrested from Satan’s possession. His mistake had the effect of acknowledging Satan’s claim of possession over them.

​The dove, symbolizing the formation stage, remained in Satan’s possession. Consequently, Satan also claimed the ram, symbolizing the growth stage, and the heifer, symbolizing the completion stage, both of which were to be fulfilled based upon the formation stage. Since it had the effect of handing over the entire symbolic offering to Satan, not dividing the birds constituted a sin.

Next, let us examine what is meant by the verse that birds of prey descended upon the carcasses. Since the Fall of the first human ancestors, Satan has always been stalking those with whom God worked to fulfill His Will. When Cain and Abel were making their sacrifices, Satan was couching at the door. (Gen4:7) In the story of Noah, the raven circling about signifies how Satan was looking for an opportunity to invade Noah’s family right after the flood. (Gen8:7) Similarly, when Abraham was making his symbolic offering, Satan was on the lookout for an opportunity to seize the sacrifice. He profaned it as soon as he saw that the birds were not divided. The Bible describes this by the image of birds of prey descending upon the sacrifice.

Abraham’s mistake in making the symbolic offering caused the offering to be defiled. All the conditions God intended to restore through it were lost. As a consequence, Abraham’s descendants had to suffer oppression and slavery for four hundred years in the land of Egypt. Let us investigate the reason for this.

God called upon Abraham and commanded him to make the symbolic offering at the completion of a four-hundred-year period for the separation of Satan. This period had been set up to restore through indemnity the ten generations from Adam to Noah and the forty-day period of the flood judgment, lost to Satan due to Ham’s sin. It was also the indemnity period necessary to establish Abraham as the father of faith when he completed the symbolic offering. When Abraham’s mistake in the symbolic offering allowed Satan to claim the offering as his, that four-hundred-year period was also lost to Satan. To re-create on the national level the situation before Abraham’s failure in the symbolic offering, which was itself parallel to when Noah was called upon to build the ark, God set up another four-hundred-year period for the separation of Satan. During this period, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. By enduring through this period, the Israelites were to restore — this time on the national level — the situations of Noah and Abraham at the outset of their missions as the fathers of faith, thereupon also laying the foundation for Moses to begin his mission. Hence, this period of slavery was both the time when the Israelites were being punished for Abraham’s mistake and the time when they were laying the foundation to cut off ties to Satan and commence God’s new providence.

As explained earlier, God had hoped to fulfill, all at once, the dispensations in the formation, growth and completion stages by having Abraham successfully make the symbolic offering of three types of sacrifices on one altar. Contrary to this plan, Abraham failed, repeating the mistakes of the past. Consequently, the providence centered on him was prolonged through the three generations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.] Exp. of the Divine Principle P2 C1 S3

There is more to this as you will see. Instead of abandoning Abraham as He had done to Noah when Ham made the crucial misstep, God could still work through Abraham. It is written, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exod3:6) But the neglecting to cut the birds in two was a serious mistake that has had to be completely restored and we, the people, need to understand this to deeply realize that our God truly is good, and all the time.

A lot of Christians currently don’t appreciate the significance of the sacrifice that Abraham made that was described in Genesis 15;9-13 and, until we do, we’ll be ill equipped to deal with aspects of the 2nd Advent of Christ and our proper response toward that.

Looking forward to hearing your views on this. Thank you for reading.

Andrew Derricutt

​The ark was full of symbolic significance. Before Noah could stand in place of Adam as the second human ancestor, he first had to make an indemnity condition for the restoration of the cosmos, which had been lost to Satan due to Adam’s fall. Hence, the object for this condition, which Noah had to offer in an acceptable manner, should symbolize the new cosmos. He offered the ark as this object.

The ark was built with three decks, symbolizing the cosmos which had been created through the three stages of the growing period. The eight members of Noah’s family who entered the ark represented the eight members of Adam’s family who, having been invaded by Satan, had to be restored through indemnity. Thus, the ark symbolized the cosmos; Noah, its master, symbolized God; the members of his family symbolized humanity; and the animals brought into the ark symbolized the entire natural world.

After the ark was completed, God judged the world with the flood for forty days. What was the purpose of the flood? According to the Principle of Creation, human beings were created to serve only one master. Since humankind was under bondage to Satan, full of corruption and debauchery, for God to relate with them He would have to assume the position of a second master. That would be unprincipled. Therefore, God brought about the flood judgment, eliminating sinful humanity in order to raise up a family who would relate only with Him.

Why did God choose a forty-day period for the flood? The significance of the forty-day period should be understood in terms of the meaning of the numbers four and ten. The number ten signifies unity. It was ten generations after Adam when God called upon Noah to restore through indemnity the Will which He could not fulfill through Adam. By fulfilling a period of indemnity containing the number ten, God meant to bring the dispensation back into unity with His Will. Furthermore, since the goal of restoration is to complete the four position foundation, God worked to raise up each of these ten generations by setting up an indemnity period to restore the number four. (For the first human ancestors to construct the four position foundation in their family, Adam and Eve should have joined in loving oneness, centered upon God, as husband and wife and raised children. This would have been the fulfillment of the second blessing)  In total, the period from Adam to Noah was an indemnity period to restore the number forty. Due to the lustfulness of the people of those days, however, this indemnity period of the number forty was defiled by Satan. The dispensation of Noah’s ark was God’s new attempt to complete the four position foundation. Therefore, God set the period of the flood judgment at forty days as the indemnity period to restore the number forty, which had been defiled when the earlier period was lost to Satan. By fulfilling this numerical period of indemnity, God intended to restore the foundation of faith.
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The number forty thus became characteristic of dispensations for the separation of Satan, which are necessary for restoring the foundation of faith. There are many examples of this: Noah’s forty-day flood; the four hundred years from Noah to Abraham; the Israelites’ four hundred years of slavery in Egypt; Moses’ two forty-day fasts; the forty days of spying in Canaan; the Israelites’ forty years of wandering in the wilderness; the forty-year reigns of King Saul, King David and King Solomon; Elijah’s forty-day fast; Jonah’s prophecy that Nineveh would be destroyed in forty days; Jesus’ forty-day fast and prayer in the wilderness; and the forty-day period from Jesus’ resurrection to his ascension.
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In the Bible we read that at the end of forty days of rain, Noah sent forth from the ark a raven and a dove. (Gen8:6-7) Let us examine what future providential situations this foreshadowed, as it is written, “Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” (Amos3:7) By building the ark and passing through the forty-day flood judgment, Noah fulfilled an indemnity condition for the restoration of the cosmos. 

​What was foreshadowed when Noah sent forth the raven, which circled about looking for a place to land until the waters subsided? It signified that Satan would be looking for a condition through which he could invade Noah’s family, just as the Archangel vied for Eve’s love soon after the creation of human beings, and just as Satan couched at the door looking for an opportunity to invade the offerings of Cain and Abel. (Gen. 4:7)

What was foreshadowed when Noah sent forth the dove three times? Although it is written in the Bible that Noah sent out the dove to see if the water had subsided, that was not its only purpose. Certainly Noah could have looked out the opening from which he set forth the dove to examine the situation for himself. The sending forth of the dove had a deeper significance connected with the mysterious Will of God. Seven days after God proclaimed the flood judgment through Noah, the flood began. (Gen. 7:10) Forty days later, the dove was first sent out. It flew about but then returned to the ark because it found no place to land, and Noah took it back inside. (Gen. 8:9) The dove, when it was sent out the first time, represented the first Adam. God created Adam with the hope that His ideal of creation, which He had cherished from before time, would be realized in Adam as the perfect incarnation of the divine ideal on earth. Due to Adam’s fall, however, God could not realize the divine ideal on earth through him. God thus had to withdraw His ideal from the earth for a time and postpone its fulfillment to a later date.

Seven days later, Noah sent forth the dove a second time. Still the water had not yet dried, and again the dove returned. This time it carried in its mouth an olive leaf, indicating that there would be a place for it to land the next time. (Gen. 8:10-11) The dove, when it was sent out the second time, symbolized Jesus, the second Adam, whose coming would be God’s second attempt to realize the perfect incarnation of the divine ideal on the earth. These verses foreshadowed that if the chosen people were to disbelieve in Jesus at his coming, then he would have “nowhere to lay his head” (Lk9:58) and thus would not be able to realize God’s complete Will on the earth. In that situation, Jesus would have to go to the cross and return to God’s bosom, leaving behind the promise of the Second Advent. The dove returned to the ark because the water had not yet dried up. By analogy, had more of the Jewish people faithfully attended Jesus, he would have found a secure place to stand among them. He would not have been crucified and would have gone on to build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

After another seven days had passed, Noah sent out the dove for the third time. This time the dove did not return to the ark, for the ground was dry. (Gen8:12) The dove, when it was sent out the third time, symbolized Christ at the Second Advent, who is to come as the third Adam. This foreshadowed that when Christ comes again, he will surely be able to realize God’s ideal of creation, which will never again be withdrawn from the earth. 

Due to Adam’s faithlessness and failure to complete his responsibility, Jesus had to come as the 2nd Adam. Furthermore, if the Jewish people were to disbelieve in Jesus and thus fail to complete their responsibility, Christ would certainly have to come again as the 3rd Adam. Just as the creation of heaven and earth took a seven-day period, the seven-day intervals for sending forth the dove indicate to us that the restoration of heaven and earth requires certain providential periods of time.

The providence in Noah’s family teaches us about God’s conditional predestination of the fulfillment of His Will and His respect for the human portion of responsibility. God found Noah’s family after sixteen hundred years of preparation. He guided Noah for 120 years while he constructed the ark and raised up his family at the cost of sacrificing the rest of humanity in the flood. However, even though they had been His beloved in the providence of restoration, when Ham made his seemingly small mistake, allowing Satan to taint them, the entire Will centering on Noah’s family came to naught. Excerpted from Exposition of the Divine Principle P2 Ch1 S2

Jesus' time was also the 'Last Days' but didn't take because of the people's faithlessness, necessitating a 2nd Coming. And, here we now are.

                        Andrew Derricutt

[Let us now present an overview of the entire course of history since the time of Adam, as reckoned in the Bible, and survey the providential ages which comprise it. God’s providence to have fallen people establish the foundation upon which they could receive the Messiah, and thence complete the purpose of creation, began with Adam’s family. However, God’s Will was frustrated when Cain murdered Abel. Ten generations later, the unfulfilled Will was passed down to Noah’s family. God judged the evil world with the flood in order to set apart Noah’s family and conduct the providence of restoration. God intended to complete the providence by establishing the foundation for the Messiah in Noah’s family and sending the Messiah on that basis. Yet due to the fallen act of Noah’s second son, Ham, the providence for Noah’s family and the ark failed. As a consequence, the ten generations and the forty-day flood which God had set up to prepare for this providence were lost to Satan. 

After four hundred years (ten generations) had passed in order to restore through indemnity what had been lost to Heaven’s side, God’s Will was entrusted to Abraham. If Abraham had established the foundation for the Messiah on the family level exactly as God had intended, the foundation would have expanded to the national level, and thereupon the Messiah would have come. However, because Abraham failed in the symbolic offering, God’s Will was frustrated once more. Consequently, the biblical two thousand years from Adam to Abraham, during which God had sought a father of faith who could receive the Messiah, was claimed by Satan. Yet Abraham’s situation differed from that of Noah. Although Abraham failed in the symbolic offering, the family foundation for the Messiah was eventually fulfilled through the three generations of Abraham’s family: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. On that basis, God multiplied the chosen people in Egypt and expanded the foundation for the Messiah to the national level. For this reason, Abraham is called the father of faith. (Rom. 4:11-12, 16-17) If we judge the significance of the age strictly by its outcome, we can understand that the two-thousand-year period from Adam to Abraham was for the purpose of finding one father of faith who could lay the foundation to begin the providence of restoration. Thus, God’s work of restoration can be said to have begun with Abraham. 
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However, due to Abraham’s mistake in making the symbolic offering, the two thousand years from Adam to Abraham were lost to Satan. Hence, a period had to be set up in which those lost years could be restored through indemnity to God’s side; this is the significance of the two-thousand-year period from Abraham to Jesus. If Abraham had not failed in making the symbolic offering, the Messiah would have come and stood upon the national foundation for the Messiah built by Abraham’s immediate descendants, and the providence of restoration would have been completed at that time. Likewise, had the Jewish people believed in and attended Jesus, they would have supported him to stand representing the nation as the living sacrifice before God. They then would have laid the national foundation for the Messiah. Jesus, standing as the Messiah on that foundation, could then have completed the providence of restoration. 

​However, just as Abraham failed in his symbolic offering, the Jewish people failed to make their offering on the national level when their leaders sent Jesus to the cross. Thus, a period of two thousand years — this time from Abraham to Jesus — was lost yet again to Satan. As a consequence, a parallel period had to be set up in which the earlier two-thousand-year period could be restored through indemnity to God’s side. This is the significance of the two-thousand-year period from Jesus’ time until today. During this age, founded upon the cross of Jesus, Christians must establish the worldwide foundation for the Messiah.] (EotDP P2 Intro S2)

How does this overview fit with your expectations for the 2nd Advent of the Messiah? This overview makes it clear that a proper response from mankind is required for the Will of God to be completed. This is quite different from the view of absolute predestination that was proposed by Biblical scholars such as John Calvin. It also makes plain that the chosen people of 2000 years ago made a fundamental error in not accepting Jesus as Messiah and, thus, believing in and following him. Needless to say, had they done so they would not have conspired with rejecting him and having him executed.
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Understanding why God created us in His image should strongly imply that we, the people, have a part in our own perfection and this is not going to be achieved autonomously as it is for all the rest of the creation. The relationship between God and mankind is very similar to the relationship between parents and children. We, as parents, cannot force compliance from our children and, similarly, God cannot interfere, or intervene, in the portion of responsibility that belongs to mankind. Since the Fall of Man resulted in inviting satan to become the false ruler, god, of this world, then it is we, the people, (God’s children) who are tasked with inviting satan out. This is the crux of the Last Days when mankind wakes up to this realization. 

The signs of the Last Days as recorded in the Bible seem, at first sight, to suggest that everything will be accomplished by God in a very dramatic, apocalyptic, way. But these same verses can be seen in an entirely different light when the human portion of responsibility is included. Have a look at these interpretations of “Heaven and Earth destroyed, and a new Heaven and Earth created”; "Heaven and Earth judged by Fire”; “the dead rising from their tombs”; “people on earth caught up to meet the Lord in the air”; and “the sun darkened, the moon not giving light and the stars falling from heaven”. (EotDP Pt1 Ch3 S3) The difference between a world centered on the false ruler, god, (Jn12:31; 2Cor4:4) through the false parents of the Fall is very different from a world that is a family of mankind centered upon God through true parents; so the apocalyptic verses in the Bible emphasise that.

Hoping that a reappraisal can be made by Christians worldwide to connect with a 2nd Coming that will bring the plain and complete truth (Jn16:12&25) rather than for a 2nd Coming characterized by cataclysmic miracles. After all, everyone knows that Communism is the godless worldview, but a Christian God-Centered Ideological worldview is going to be needed to completely defeat that.

As ever, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Let’s stop waiting for the ‘rapture’ and realize that we (the people) have to deal with this.

Andrew Derricutt 

[According to the Principle of Creation, (EotDP P1 C1 S6.3.2) the growth of the human spirit requires two kinds of nourishment: life elements received from God and vitality elements received through give and take action with the physical self. Spirits can neither grow nor be resurrected apart from a physical self. Consequently, the spirits of people who died before they could reach perfection during their earthly life can be resurrected only by returning to earth and completing their unaccomplished responsibility through cooperation with earthly people. By assisting people of faith living on the earth to fulfill their missions, the spirits may complete their missions at the same time. Herein lies the meaning behind the verse which foretold that in the Last Days the Lord will come “with his holy myriads.” (Jude14) We call this process returning resurrection. 

How do spirits help people on earth fulfill the Will of God? When people become receptive to spirits through prayer or other spiritual activities, the spirits descend to them to form a common base with their spirit selves and work with them. Spirits perform various works. For example, they pour spiritual fire on earthly people and give them the power to heal diseases. They help people enter states of trance and perceive the realities of the spirit world. They give people revelations and the gift of prophecy. They can also give deep inspiration to the soul. In these various works, spirits act on behalf of the Holy Spirit, guiding people on the earth to accomplish the Will of God. 

Spirits of those who kept the Mosaic Law and worshipped God sincerely while living on earth during the Old Testament Age came to abide at the form-spirit level of the spirit world. After the advent of Jesus, these spirits all returned to earth and assisted faithful people on earth to accomplish the Will of God. By thus helping the people to attain the level of life spirit, they too received the same benefit: namely, they became life spirits and entered Paradise. We call this dispensation growth-stage returning resurrection. 

Let us draw some examples from the Bible. Since Elijah appeared as a spirit before Jesus and his disciples, (Mt17:3) it is clear enough that Elijah still lived in the spirit world. Yet Jesus referred to John the Baptist, who lived on the earth, as Elijah. (Mt17:12-13) Jesus called him Elijah because in terms of their common mission, John’s body concurrently served as Elijah’s body. The spirit of Elijah descended to John the Baptist to help John fulfill the mission Elijah had left unfinished during his earthly life. This was Elijah’s returning resurrection. 
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It is recorded in the Bible that when Jesus died on the cross, many bodies of the saints rose from their tombs. (Mt27:52) This verse does not mean that these saints’ decayed bodies were regenerated, enabling them to rise up in the flesh. Rather, it describes the spiritual phenomenon of returning resurrection. The spirits of the faithful Jews descended to the earth from the form-spirit level of the spirit world where they had been living. 

They returned to help the believers on earth, who had the opportunity to benefit from the redemption by the cross, to believe in Jesus and become life spirits. In doing so, the returning spirits also became life spirits. If the saints had risen bodily from their tombs, as is literally written in the Bible, they certainly would have testified to the fact that Jesus was the Messiah. Would anyone then have dared to persist in disbelieving in Jesus? Moreover, their deeds and works would have been recorded in the Bible, yet we have nothing other than the vague report that the saints rose from their tombs. This was a fleeting spiritual phenomenon perceptible only to those believers whose spiritual senses were open.

​Compared to Paradise, which people could enter by virtue of the redemption by Jesus’ crucifixion, the region of the spirit world where the spirits of the Old Testament saints were staying was relatively dark and miserable; thus it was called a “tomb.”] Exposition of the Divine Principle Part 1, Chapter 5, Section 2

We (the people) are spiritual beings with a physical body. A main purpose of this physical body is a means to perfect our spiritual self which is eternal and which does not have the limitations of the physical body. Losing this physical body before we reach the fulfillment of the purpose of creation means that we will have to cooperate with someone on the earth to reach maturity. This explains why Jesus was so focused on fulfilling his responsibility on the earth and gave rise to his significant prayer in Gethsemane, misinterpreted by many Christians. And also why giving the keys of the kingdom of heaven to Peter (his chief disciple) Jesus declared that, “what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Mt16:19) The fallen archangel Lucifer (re-named Satan after the Fall) is the false ruler, and false god, of this world. (Jn12:31; 2Cor4:4) Understanding this would change the whole focus of our lives to center upon being able to successfully graduate from this world rather than centering upon living our life while we’re here. A little bit like the contrast between two students at university where one is enjoying the social aspect of university life, whilst the other is mainly focused on life after university and graduating successfully. Our physical body, to make an analogy here, is like a car that has to get us where we need to go, rather than just enjoying the journey.

Had the first human ancestors taken God’s commandment, “do not eat” seriously then this type of conversation wouldn’t have even started. We (all mankind) would have been of the lineage of God and wouldn’t need re-birth. We would live in an environment that was naturally and spontaneously focused on fulfilling the Will of God, our Heavenly Father (Parent). But, nevertheless, here we are in a world that is in the Last Days of satan’s rule.

Returning resurrection is currently misunder-stood as reincarnation.  As creations of God we are unique and eternal having been created originally in the image of God. All of history has been to recover this lost image and the Messiah is, essentially, the re-creation of true parents that were lost at the time of the Fall. The Messiah, from this understanding, has to be born on the earth and cannot be spiritual. The ‘clouds’ that the Messiah comes on then are figurative clouds and all the signs of the Last Days do need to be re-appraised to enable us to align with God’s Will.

Looking forward to hearing your views about this. It should be becoming increasingly clear that we’re currently living in the Last Days right now. 

Andrew Derricutt