THE HOLY HISTORY AS I SEE IT

So many centuries have passed since the Hada tribe first came to Japan. A few months ago, when I visited "Misumi-Ike," and stood by the pondside, thinking at the legend of the beautiful male child, I felt as if I were being led by the spirit of Moses. I could not refrain from pondering over the mysterious way in which the Hada tribe had been led to Japan and had given so much influence upon the Japanese history.

We believe God has laid His hand upon our nation in her historical development, just as He has had His hand upon the history of His chosen people Israel. In Japan, for more than two decades, God has raised up and used our Makuya (Tabernacle) or the Original Gospel Movement to spread His Life - "Hitlahabut" upon this earth. In our movement, we have laced a special emphasis upon the significance of the development of God's Holy History (Heilsgeschichte). 1 It is generally believed that history is a record of battles in which the weak fall prey to the strong, or a chronicle of conquerors and the conquered. Is history a mere record of accidents, or does it have its aim? Some think from the view point of dialectical materialism that history proceeds in a zigzag way to a goal, which to them is an establishment of a communistic society. Others hold a view that a welfare of the world can be achieved by human efforts. What is the aim of world history? No one seems to be able to answer this question.

By reading the Holy Scriptures with an open mind, however, we can see that the course of history lies in the hand of God; the Bible reveals the aim and the direction of history toward the fulfillment of His Providence on this earth.

First He chose Abraham as the ancestor of the sanctified people and bestowed upon him a blessing. The Lord promised him, "In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." One thousand years later, at the time of the King David, this promise seemed to have been fulfilled, but soon the misfortune of ruin befell the people of Israel because of their wickedness Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other great prophets rebuked their sins, and at the same time assured that, though the nation might be conquered by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, God's providence would not be changed and the land would for ever belong to Israel. These prophets continued to advocate the physical and spiritual reconstruction of Jerusalem as well as the restoration of the nation as a whole.

The majority of the people of Israel were dispersed through out the world by a series of misfortunes that had taken place: the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, the invasions by the Greeks and the Romans, which culminated in the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. Over nineteen hundred years they had to live in exile, but never they have forgotten their yearnings toward the land. The Psalm 137 is one of the most touching Psalms that express their deepest emotions toward their homeland.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the willow-trees
we hung up our harps.
For there those who carried us off
demanded music and singing,
and our captors called on us to be merry:
"Sing us one of the songs of Zion."
How could we sing the LORD's song
in a foreign land?

If l forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither away,
let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.

The Holy Bible clearly prophesied that Israel would eventually return to their own land to come to play a vital part in the unfolding of God's providence upon this earth. People of the Old and New Testaments believed that the words of the Lord would not pass away unfulfilled, even if heaven and earth might vanish.

Jesus Christ, who prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, said that the destruction of the City was not eternal but temporal; she would only be trodden underfoot by foreigners until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled (Luke 21:24).

Now that the City is restored to Israel, I believe that the times of the Gentiles spoken by Jesus are already fulfilled. I see in the restoration of Old Jerusalem to Israel an important step forward in the progress of the history of God's redemption. Jesus said,"Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise our heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

All great thinkers from Augustine to Heschel saw the work of God in human history and unanimously asserted that God's revelation works at the decisive moments of history. Hegel writes, "The whole of history originates in Messiah and aims at Him. Therefore, the appearance of the sons of God is the axis for history to revolve around."

Some thirty years ago, I was surprised to see big shoals of salmon and trout swimming upward in the Horonai River of Sakhalin. The river was so filled with the fish going upward, it looked as if the stream was reversed. But it was only a temporary phenomenon: fish cannot change the current of the stream.

In like manner, man cannot change the current of world history. Napoleon or Hitler seemed at one time to turn the world history, but once defeated, they lost war after war until they ended in misery. Great as he looks, man is nothing but a checker in the hand of God. The story of the world drama is being written by God, not by man; it is written in Heaven and is performed upon earth.