There is no New True Parent, no New King and no New Center

“We sincerely hope and desire that today through the service we can return glory to our Heavenly Father and True Parents and bring joy to them as well.” 2009, Yeon Ah Nim

“God and True Parents blessed us with the blessed life and through this life they wish for us to inherit the true love of God, to become greater blessings to our spouse, our children, our families, our cities, our neighborhoods, our nations, to the world and to God.” 2009, Hyung Jin Nim

From 2005, when I was student of theology, I said very clearly, “There is no new True Parent, there is no new King and no new center. There are no new True Parents. It is that simple.”

When you look at the early disciples, the apostles, they gave their lives preaching the gospel of Christ. They didn’t go around saying they are the successor of Christ and that now God is going to use them to bring about salvation. In Matt 16:18 Jesus says, “And I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock, (pointing to Peter) on you I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” He gives Peter the biggest anointing. He says. “Upon you I will build my holy church. Upon you I give the mission of spreading the Gospel.”

Think about what kind of anointing that is! But Peter did not go around saying that he was the successor because he received that anointing. He did not say that now, after Jesus was gone he is the new Christ. That would have been a fatal error. He went and preached the Gospel. He went with John. He went with the early Apostles. In the Acts of the Apostles we see him moving, we see him meeting Paul, we see him witnessing, and we see miracles happening. Peter was very clear. He preached the crucifixion, the death and the resurrection of Jesus. And he blesses and praises and heals in the name of Jesus. That is a very important thing.

Let us read the second scripture, Matthew 10:24-25:

“A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub how much more the members of his household!”

Peter knew that he was a student of the teacher, but not the teacher. He knew he was a servant of the master, but not the master. It is enough for a student to be LIKE his teacher. So Peter tried to be Christ- LIKE, tried to be teacher-LIKE. That is why Christians to this day try to be Christ-LIKE, not to be the Christ, not to be the son of man, but to be Christ-LIKE, as the scripture says. This certainty and clarity is very, very important for us to understand as Unificationists, completing the mission of Christianity. This is the fatal flaw of those who may say they are the next True Parents or the next king or the center of God’s providence. This is what is very worrisome to True Parents.

There are, as you may know, splinter groups that say such things in Japan and in Korea. I tell members, “Don’t worry because the spirit world sees all and in the end our ancestors see how much we have been filial to True Parents. I absolutely believe to this day and continue to believe it from when I was studying theology, that True Parents are the eternal center of God’s providence and it is our task to not be the next True Parents but to inherit the Parental heart they have shown us and to bring glory to True Parents. That is the mission of the next generation.”

True Parents, not us, are the ones that were selected to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ. They were the ones selected to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ. They are the ones that died for us, descended into hell to take our place, and they were resurrected seven times. They are the ones who paid the indemnity price for individual, family, tribal, national, world and cosmic sin. There is no way that on our own effort we can pay this indemnity that has been accumulated from the time of the fall. So only the chosen son of God, only the one who has been prepared by the history of the providence can be the one that can pay this indemnity.

By the victory of true love and the inheritance of parental heart, which Jesus was to fulfill, we are given salvation. Not by our own doing. Not because we are great, not because we deserve it, but because of the salvific power, the resurrective power of true love. That is why we receive that grace.

They always ask me when I am doing interviews, “So you are the next successor. How do you feel about this big responsibility? (Imitates the voice of the interviewers in a funny way)” They ask me this all the time. I always have to answer this question. I tell them, “There is no new successor, there are no new True Parents for us. The early apostles centered their life of prayer and faith and testimony and witnessing on the rock of Christ, and so do we, so do I. We center our life on the rock of True Parents. We don’t believe that there are new True Parents, a new successor who could take on that role. They hold the ultimate authority.”

I tell them, “We are just employees just like you guys are working for your paper. We are employees, too. We are employees of True Parents. Our time comes and our time goes. We are a cloud, the next generation. Like in a Zen garden. When the beautiful black stones are hit by the rain they become shiny and beautiful. That is the time when the Zen garden is the most beautiful. Just like that we don’t become the rock. We are like the clouds that bring the rain, like the refreshing rain that makes the rock shiny and beautiful. That is our purpose. We are not here to proclaim ourselves as the new True Parents, the rock. The center is clear.”

This was the essential point that Father wanted us to be clear on. That is the reason why he told us to do a tour in America and to continue to tell this to our brothers and sisters in Korea and Japan.