Who we are
Shincheonji USA, which is also known as New Heaven and New Earth Church, is a branch of Shincheonji Church of Jesus Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony. Ever since the fall of man, God has been working to establish His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Shincheonji is organized into 12 tribes and its governing structure mirrors the hierarchical structure of God’s throne in Rv 4. The kingdom and people of Shincheonji together comprise the culmination of God’s efforts recorded throughout biblical history—God’s eternal kingdom (Dn 2:44) and the kingdom for which we have all been praying when we recited the Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:10, Rv 21:1-3).
Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Shincheonji strives to uphold three biblical ideals
City of Truth
City of Truth
The Bible promises God’s people will be gathered together as a City of Truth in the last days and united in their understanding of God’s word of truth (Jn 17:17). The members of Shincheonji work hard to write God’s word in their hearts and minds, grow a life-changing faith, and put that faith into action by sharing God’s word with those around them. In our hope for heaven and eternal life, we strive to be the light of God in the world.
Righteousness & Justice
Righteousness & Justice
God has been working in every generation to create His kingdom and priests who represent Him properly and help Him heal the world (Ex 19:5-6, Rv 5:9-10). In addition to speaking the truth (Mal 2:7), the people and priests of God must seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness (Mt 6:33). Righteousness is the “right path” from which we must not turn (Mal 2:8). Can those who lack the word of truth walk in righteousness from God’s perspective? Since we are judged according to the standard of God’s word rather than our own thoughts (Jn 12:48, Rv 20:12), the people of Shincheonji strive to align our thoughts and actions with the Bible and help others do the same.
Virtuous Kings
Virtuous Kings
In the last days, when God’s kingdom is completed on earth as it is in heaven and the tabernacle (dwelling place) of God is once more among men, the Bible promises that all the nations will come and worship (Rv 15:4-5). If God’s kingdom is to rule the world, then the leaders of that kingdom must act as holy and virtuous kings. This is why 1 Pt 2:9-12 speaks of a “royal priesthood” and holy people of God who will reveal the truth of God to the world. They must be transformed such that their behavior becomes truly excellent so that even non-believers will come to glorify God. This is how the 12 tribes of God’s kingdom accomplish the healing of the nations (Rv 22:1-2).
Our name
As stated above, the full name of our denomination is “Shincheonji Church of Jesus Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony.” Let’s explore each component of this name in turn.
Shincheonji was established in Gwacheon, South Korea in 1984. The word Shincheonji is an abbreviated form of the compound Korean word Shincheonshinji, which means “new heaven and new earth.” This is a reference to a concept mentioned several times in the Bible. For example, 2 Peter 3:13 says, “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” Similar promises also appear in Isaiah 65-66.
Revelation too promises a new heaven and a new earth to which the Kingdom of Heaven in the spiritual world—the Holy City New Jerusalem—descends in the last days (Rv 21:1-2). This new heaven and new earth appear after the first heaven and first earth pass away. Many have misunderstood this to refer to the physical destruction of our planet and God’s creation of a new Planet Earth to which believers will be delivered. Instead of reading this literally, we must recognize that the prophecies of the Bible are using the physical concept of the heavens and the earth symbolically to refer to a new kingdom and people of God created after His previous kingdom grows corrupt and is lost.
According to Hebrews 8:5, God showed Moses a vision of heavenly things and commanded him to build God’s tabernacle on earth as it is in heaven. Because God does not live in houses made by human hands (Acts 7:44-48), this tabernacle was a “copy and a shadow” pointing to God’s true house in the future. Two thousand years ago, it was Jesus who established the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The people of the Kingdom of Heaven are meant to be the lights of the world and temples for God’s spirit (1 Cor 3:16), but before he left, Jesus promised darkness was coming again (Jn 9:4-5). Fortunately, he also promised that the Kingdom of Heaven would again come in the last days (Mt 6:10, Lk 22:16-18, Mt 13) and that all those doing the will of the Father would enter it (Mt 7:21-23).
Just as the light, rain, and air from the heavens give life to the earth, when the kingdom of God is established in the last days, it becomes a source of divine revelation of God’s word that heals and gives life to the hearts of its people. Shining its revealed word into the hearts of its members, Shincheonji is that kingdom—the New Heaven and New Earth.
Two thousand years ago, when Jesus walked the Earth in his flesh, the words he spoke were the revelation of the true meaning of what we now call the Old Testament, especially its prophecies (Jn 5:39, 46-47). That revealed word gathered for God from among the Jews and the gentiles a new kingdom and a new people who would be washed in the blood of Jesus and eventually be known as Christians. It was God who opened and gave that revelation to Jesus (Jn 17:8). The full revelation of God’s word that gathers believers together to Him in the last days as His new kingdom and priests is opened by Jesus. In other words, because Jesus is the one revealing God’s will in the last days (Rv 1:1-2), it is Jesus who establishes God’s forever church. Because we have received that word, we are that church—the Church of Jesus.
Revelation 15 promises that when those who overcome the beast, his image, and the number of his name are gathered to stand upon the sea of glass, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony is opened (Rv 15:2-5). This place is the final kingdom of God to which all the nations will come and worship. Then, what does its name indicate? A temple is a holy house where God is worshiped, but rather than just referring to a physical building, the temple of God represents the hearts of those who belong to Him (1 Cor 3:16). These are the people who have the revealed word and so can worship God in spirit and all truth (Jn 4:24).
God’s tabernacle is the dwelling place of His spirit. Just as God commanded Moses to build the tabernacle in the wilderness (Acts 7:44), so also the Tabernacle of the Testimony is established on earth according to the pattern in heaven. It is God’s kingdom on earth to which God and the kingdom of heaven in the spiritual world descends and dwells (Rv 21:2-4). When this happens, there will no longer be any death, mourning, crying, or pain because the fullness of the spirit of God will be united with His people forever.
Then, why is it referred to as the Tabernacle of the Testimony? A testimony is given by a witness regarding what they have seen and heard. As Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the New Testament recorded in the Gospels and in the book of Revelation, a witness sees and hears the fulfillment. This witness (i.e., the promised shepherd) overcomes the opposition of Satan and is commanded to testify about the fulfillment of the prophecies to the world. This process of revealing the fulfillment and true meaning of the prophecies gathers those who believe it, and they become the members of the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony.
Our logo
Shincheonji’s logo is a symbolic image representing the throne of God and the Holy City New Jerusalem coming down to the New Heaven and New Earth.
- The two outer rings represent the heavens and the earth.
- The inner square represents the Holy City New Jerusalem as described in Rv 21.
- In the center, the Bible, the blue jasper, and the red carnelian represent God, who is the Word of eternal life (Jn 1:1, Rv 4:2-3).
- God’s throne is surrounded by an emerald rainbow that represents His everlasting covenant.
- The blue cross represents both Jesus’s cross and the spring of life from which the rivers of the water of life flow all over the world. These rivers of the water of life flowing from God and His throne are God’s word and the path by which we return to Him.
- The 12 gates of the 12 tribes, three each on the north, south, east, and west walls (Rv 21:12-13), allow entry into the Holy City.
- Wherever the river of life flows, the trees of life flourish. These trees, which bear 12 kinds of fruit every month and whose leaves heal all the nations, are the 12 tribes of New Spiritual Israel (Rv 22:1-2).
The 12 Tribes
The Creator’s Kingdom
Ever since the beginning when God commanded the man He created to be fruitful and multiply, God has been working to create His kingdom on this earth. Also working from the beginning, however, God’s enemy the devil has opposed God’s work by deceiving God’s people and enticing them to turn away from Him.
After judging the corrupt world of Adam’s descendants with the flood and after the cursing of Noah’s second son Ham as well as Ham’s son Canaan (Gn 9), God next chose from among Noah’s descendants a righteous man named Abraham. God promised Abraham that although his descendants would be enslaved for 400 years in a foreign land, God would ultimately deliver them and bless them by leading them into a Promised Land. God fulfilled this promise as he established the 12 tribes of Israel as His kingdom on this earth.
The Meaning of Israel
The name Israel, which means overcomer or victor, was bestowed upon Abraham’s grandson Jacob after he wrestled with an angel of God. This man Israel was then blessed with 12 sons who became the 12 patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel. God led the descendants of Israel into the land of Egypt and allowed them to be enslaved for 400 years according to the promise He made to Abraham. At the appointed time, God chose Moses and commanded him to lead Israel out of Egypt. God gathered His people at Mt. Sinai, gave them the Law, and made a covenant with them. In this covenant, Israel promised to keep God’s word and never turn away from Him.
As Joshua led Israel into the Promised Land of Canaan, God commanded them not to intermarry with the Canaanites because He knew the gentiles would turn their hearts away from following Him. In a particularly egregious example of disobedience, Israel’s King Solomon married hundreds of gentile wives and began to worship their false gods (1 Kgs 11). He even built temples to false gods in the capital city of Jerusalem. Thus, because the 12 tribes of Israel turned their backs on God, breaking their covenant with Him, God left them. Without God’s continued protection, the united kingdom of the 12 tribes crumbled and was overrun. The gentile nation of Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, and later, the gentile kingdom of Babylon conquered the southern kingdom of Judah.
Spiritual Israel
But God did not give up on His plan to establish His kingdom on this earth. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God spoke about giving Israel and Judah a certificate of divorce because of their infidelity in worshiping other gods and breaking their covenant (Jer 3:8). God also promised through Jeremiah that He would create a new thing on the earth and establish a new covenant with Israel in the future (Jer 31:31-34). How was this fulfilled?
Six hundred years after those promises were made through Jeremiah, Jesus was born to a virgin in Bethlehem. It was through Jesus that God created His new kingdom and established the new covenant He had promised. Jesus overcame the world, the devil, and even death (Jn 16:33) to become a new “Israel.” Rather than having physical sons like Jacob before him, Jesus gathered 12 spiritual sons (i.e., the 12 disciples) to become the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of a new spiritual kingdom of Israel. Rather than the physical kingdom of Israel that turned away from God, Jesus established the new covenant with this new kingdom of Spiritual Israel (i.e., Christians). This was what Paul meant when he referred to the difference between outward Jews and inward Jews in Romans 2:28-29. In other words, although the Jews had been God’s people in the past, they could no longer be considered Israel unless they accepted Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promises in the Old Testament. In God’s eyes, it was the Christians who had become the “true Jews.”
New Spiritual Israel
In addition to his sacrifice for sin, Jesus had another task to complete at the time of his first coming. He came to sow the seed of God’s word into the hearts of his followers (Jer 31:27, Mt 13:24). As in the past, however, the devil did not just stand idly by and let this happen; he quickly began sowing the tares—his own false teachings and misunderstandings—into the hearts of Jesus’s followers (Mt 13:25). This is how the unified church of Jesus eventually became the many different denominations we see today, all teaching their own specific interpretations of the Bible. Knowing that this would happen, Jesus prophesied a harvest at the end of the age in which he would gather all the sons of the kingdom of heaven (i.e., the true Christians) to himself (Mt 13:37-39, 2 Thes 2:1).
The book of Revelation promises a harvest of 144,000 first fruits who will stand with the Lamb on Mt. Zion (Rv 14). These people, who are gathered at the end of the age and sealed with the revealed word of God, are divided into twelve tribes (Rv 7:4-8). These twelve tribes are a new kingdom and people of God established in the last days when a promised messenger of Jesus overcomes to become a new Israel. Working with the harvesting angels, this overcomer and those who receive the word from him gather more and more people to join God’s kingdom on earth. This kingdom is Shincheonji Church of Jesus—Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony. The twelve tribes of Shincheonji were established on March 14, 1995 using the names of Jesus’s twelve disciples (Mt 19:28). Although each of the twelve tribes is head-quartered in South Korea where Shincheonji was first established, they are now spreading the revealed word of God all over the world. It is through these twelve tribes that God and Jesus are working today to heal all nations and restore all creation to God.
