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The Meaning of the Last Days

Next, we will look into the consummation of human history. At the end of the world, Will heaven and earth literally burn up and melt, the sun and moon lose their light and the stars fall from heaven as described in the Bible? Will the dead literally rise from the grave, and will all living people be raised up to the clouds to meet Jesus in the air? Or, like in many parts of the Bible, are these symbolic or metaphorical? Let us examine these prophecies of the Last Days, keeping in mind the purpose of God's creation, the facts of the fall, and God's purpose of restoring this fallen world.

If Adam and Eve had perfected themselves in the Garden of Eden by observing God's commandment, they would have become the origin of the ideal family and produced children of goodness. The center of their thought and action would have been God and they would have formed the Kingdom of Heaven on earth in which only God's sovereignty of goodness would have reigned. If this had occurred, their individual and family histories, as well as the ensuing history, would have been histories of goodness. God has sought this history of goodness.

However, because of the fall of the first human ancestors, sin began and they formed the family that God had not purposed, and thus Satan came to rule man and the world. This world then became hell on earth, full of sin and pain, and each individual and family, up to the world itself, has given rise to a history full of contradiction and sin.

The human history God desired was the history of goodness, but at the onset, history began contrary to His desire. Would God then leave the world as it is? No, God wants to achieve the world of His original intent through His providence of salvation. Thus, we call the period of transition from the sinful world of satanic sovereignty into the original world of God's sovereignty the end of the world, or the Last Days.

The Last Days are the time of change from the fallen hell on earth into the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, where the ideal of creation is realized. Therefore, the Last Days are not only the time of fear when earthly catastrophes occur, but also, the time of joy for which the original mind of each person has been waiting since the beginning of human history. Since God cannot just leave this world of evil and hell as it is and begin another world of goodness and heaven, a time of judgment, a time of destroying sinful things, must accompany the Last Days.

The Present Days are the Last Days

Based on an overall view of the history of God's Dispensation for Restoration, we can know that we are now living in the actual age of the Second coming. This will be explained more fully in the chapter "The Second Coming". However, we can also know that our time is the Last Days by observing events in the world around us. As Jesus said, "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tenderand puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates." (Mt 24:32, 33)

What kinds of signs would indicate that we are in the Last Days? The goal of human history is the establishment of God's ideal world, which is the world based on the realization of the Three Blessings. The Last Days is when the evil world is destroyed, but it is also the time just prior to the establishment of the ideal world. Therefore, if our era is the Last Days, we should be able to see signs in the world that the Tree Blessings are being realized. Based on this understanding, we will show that we are now living in the Last Days. Let us examine our era in light of the Three Blessings.

The first Blessing is that each person can perfect his character and become one in heart with God. In God's ideal, such a person is to enjoy complete freedom of thought and action and is to embody original love and have the character and value of a child of God and a lord of the Creation. Thus he would live the life that is lived in the Kingdom of Heaven. However, because of the Fall, man could not realize the First Blessing. The Last Days is the last stage in God's dispensation to restore each fallen person as a person of perfected character.

In the present era, fallen man is developing a deep inner thirst for restoring the contents of the First Blessing as a reality in his life. This inclination is evident in the recent worldwide interest in new faiths and in movements toward universal love, liberty, equality, and human rights and dignity. The real purpose underlying these trends is not the restoration of man's external and superficial freedoms or values. It is for man to restore the original love, original value, and original freedom which were endowed at his creation, but then lost. The conclusion of God's dispensation in the Last Days will bring about the realization of the First Blessing.