Claim. SMM frames salvation history in three ages defined by what is sacrificed and what is found: Old Testament sacrificed all things to find God’s people, New Testament sacrificed sons and daughters to find the Parents, and the Completed Testament Age sacrifices the Parents’ family to liberate God.
Elaboration. The schema in Section 4. Revelation in Folk Songs gives a tight three-age providence: ‘The Old Testament Age was the age of finding God’s people by establishing all things; the New Testament Age was the age of finding the Parents by sacrificing the sons and daughters; and the Completed Testament Age is the age of liberating God by sacrificing the Parents’ family.’
The escalation logic is striking. Each age raises the cost: things → children → the Parents’ own family. And the object changes correspondingly: people → Parents → God Himself. The Completed Testament Age is not about humans finding God, but about humans liberating God — a reversal of the conventional soteriological direction. ‘This means bringing the Original Parents to this earth and living with them for thousands of years.’
Several implications follow. First, the suffering of True Parents’ own family (which UC members are aware of historically — the deaths of Heung Jin Nim, family scandals, etc.) is theologized as the necessary sacrifice of the third age. Second, indemnity is not a closed accounting but an escalating offering. Third, God Himself is in a sense the beneficiary of the providence, not just its agent — a position that pushes against classical theism’s impassibility but coheres with UC’s emphasis on God’s han and need for liberation.
The phrase ‘I have never prayed to receive any blessing’ frames SMM’s posture within this age — he sees himself not as petitioner but as offeror. Worth a future thread on how this schema maps to Hebrews 9-10 typology that evangelical critics know well, and on the distinctive claim that God needs liberation — a claim Bible references like Romans 8:19-22 (creation groaning) can be marshaled toward but which classical theology resists.