Sons and Daughters of God

Jewish and Christian scriptures call God our “heavenly Father”; this insight can be found in most of the world’s faiths.

Therefore, human beings are supposed to be God’s sons and daughters. How genuine that Parent-child relationship can be is the subject of the passages in this section.

Father Moon teaches that the depth and emotive power of our relationship with God should be even greater than the filial affection and obligation we feel toward our physical parents who gave us birth.

The notion that a human being can and should share God’s heart, God’s situation, and God’s sense of responsibility for the world in the same way that a filial son carries burdens for his aging father—what profound implications this can have for our life with God!

You are the children of the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 14.1

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Romans 8.14-17

Anas and ‘Abdullah reported God’s Messenger as saying, “All [human] creatures are God’s children, and those dearest to God are those who treat His children kindly.” Hadith of Baihaqi (Islam)

We are the children of our Maker and do not fear that He will kill us. We are the children of God And do not fear that He will kill. Dinka Prayer
(African Traditional Religions)

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. 1 John 3.1

Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Luke 18.16-17

I say, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you. Psalm 82.6

May the words of the prophet Asaph apply— “Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most High,”—lest we, abusing the Father’s most indulgent generosity, render that unfettered choice which He gave us harmful rather than beneficial. May some holy aspiration enter our hearts, so that we are not content with middling things, but pant for the highest and strain to achieve them, since we can if we will. Pico della Mirandola, On the Dignity of Man (Christianity)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
We are told that God is the God of love. We humans seek the supreme position where the God of love can truly love us. When we can occupy that position, God, from His position, cannot but love us.

It is the place where the human heart and the divine Heart are united as one. It can only be attained when we are relating with God in a parent-child relationship. I am not referring to the relationship we have with our own father and mother who gave us birth and raised us.

I am speaking about the original relationship between the absolute God who created the cosmos and human beings had they not fallen. It is the ultimate relationship human beings can have with God: God is our Father and we are truly His sons and daughters. God intends that we attain this incredible position. (53:286, March 4, 1972)

Once I entered a mystic state and asked God in prayer, “What is the basis of the universe?” God answered, “It is the relationship between father and child.” This does not mean our relationship with the parents who gave us birth, but to the relationship between God and human beings.

What is the exact content of this relationship? There is nothing closer, nothing deeper, than when the Father and His child are one: one in love, one in life, and one in ideals.

In that unity, God’s love is my love, God’s life is my life, and God’s ideal is my ideal. This is the first and original father-child relationship, where unification occurs. (69:78, October 20, 1973)

After creating Adam and Eve, God showered true love upon them. Who initiated true love? It was not Adam and Eve. It was God, loving them as His children. It is like a newborn baby who dwells in the warmth of its parents’ love; however, it is ignorant of love and thinks that its parents exist for it alone.

It knows nothing of its parents’ other concerns. God’s parental love encompasses everything, yet we first come into an awareness of God’s love just as babies come into an awareness of their parents’ love.

They smile to see their parents and are grateful for their protection. This is how the love of the Parent and His children grows. (149:312, December 21, 1986)

God created human beings out of His absolute love, to be His partners in love. This relationship forms an axis of love, linking God the Father with human beings as His sons and daughters.

Is there anything higher or more precious than to be a son or daughter of God? If anything were higher, then surely human desire would aspire to attain it. But there is nothing higher.

Do you think that when the omniscient and omnipotent God created Adam and Eve, He secretly reserved the highest position for Himself and made Adam and Eve to be only second best? We cannot imagine that God would do that to His children, to His partners who share absolute love with Him.

As our eternal True Parent, God invested Himself one hundred percent into the creation of human beings and endowed us with the right to have equal status with Him, to participate in His work as equals, to live with Him, and to inherit from Him. God bestowed upon human beings all of His attributes. (September 12, 2005)

God is the Father of human beings, and we are His children. Then suppose someone said to God, “Your child is more handsome than you.” Would God be happy to hear that remark, or would it make Him feel bad?

If He were to feel bad, then God would be beneath the level of humans. Of course, He would be happy. That is the logic of love. (40:343, February 11, 1971)

The horizontal love between a husband and a wife blossoms with God’s ideal love, and the fragrance of their love oscillates throughout the universe even as God’s love is added on to their love: This is the truth of the relationship of the Father with His children at its perfection. (101:34-35, October 28, 1978)

Sons have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. Isaiah 1.2 The Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he.

They have dealt corruptly with him, they are no longer his children because of their blemish; they are a perverse and crooked generation. Do you thus requite the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your Father, who created you, who made you and established you? Deuteronomy 32.4-6

We are all as the Buddha’s sons. The Buddha has always declared that we are his sons. But because of the three sufferings, in the midst of births-and-deaths we have borne all kinds of torments, being deluded and ignorant and enjoying our attachment to trifles.

Today the World-honored One has caused us to ponder over and remove the dirt of all diverting discussions of inferior things. In these we have hitherto been diligent to make progress and have got, as it were, a day’s pay for our effort to reach Nirvana.

Obtaining this, we greatly rejoiced and were contented… but still we did not perceive that we are really Buddha’s sons. Lotus Sutra 4 (Buddhism) For since in prayer we call God our Father, it is our duty always to deport and demean ourselves as godly children, that He may not receive shame, but honor and praise from us.
Martin Luther, The Large Catechism (Christianity)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
The original relationship between God and human beings is that of eternal Parent and child. Restoration, therefore, means recovering that relationship. (316:236, February 13, 2000)

Since God is the King of faith, He seeks a prince of faith, and since He is the King of love, He looks for a prince of love. (Way of God’s Will 2.2)

In relating to God, we should follow the way of children of filial piety. God is serious about the world situation. Is there someone who, with even greater seriousness, is desperate to experience God’s heart, and who forgets himself and spends sleepless nights in the struggle to become God’s child? This is what the question comes down to. (62:35, September 10, 1972)

God is your Father and you are your Father’s daughters. How much God has longed to embrace His daughters in His bosom? For that reason, you should become God’s filial daughters…

If each of you becomes a filial daughter, all your family members will follow suit. By the same token, the entire nation, world and cosmos will unite with you.

You will become God’s number one victorious daughter, a saint to the world, a holy daughter to the cosmos. That is how you become a mistress in the realm of the royal family. (293:208, May 26, 1998)

Mayest we become Thy simple and pure children
who can penetrate to Thy heart of longing and love which desires to embrace us… Father! Although we called Thee “Father,”
our voice did not flow out of a sincere mind and heart
springing forth from our flesh and bones.
There was never a time when we could rush to
Thee and cling to Thee out of such an emotion. (20:199, June 9, 1968)

Only after climbing over hills of sorrow,
hills of suffering and hills of resentment…
can we hold on to
Thy heart and say:
“Father, Thy sorrow is my sorrow,
thy suffering is my suffering, and
Thy troubles are my troubles.
Please entrust all
Thy suffering to me, while
Thou dost dwell in joy.” (4:294, September 14, 1958)