Acts 3:19 Therefore repent and return, so that the sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; 20 and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, 21 whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.
We have embarked on a journey to discover the full meaning of the restoration of all things and the part we all have to play in that restoration as sons of God. It involves personal restoration of spirit, soul, and body and also of creation itself.
Our restoration is centered in the power of Jesus death symbolized by the cross. This manifested in history 2000 years ago but has always been in place spiritually from God’s perspective. Redemption, rescue, ransom, reconciliation, restoration but the key is the resurrection.
The cross is the symbol that we use to deal with our sin and symbolizes our redemption and forgiveness. Nail things to the cross so that their power over us is broken and removed. Resurrection is the evidence that sin’s wages death is dealt with and we have the power of a new life in Jesus.
Son on the day of resurrection everything changed for mankind. I took back the keys of death and Hades and included all in Me. I began to dwell in all men. When I breathed into my disciples they represented mankind just as Adam once did.
All were made alive in Me although only those who had a previous relationship with Me knew it was Me. My Spirit has been working in all flesh to reveal Me as the Way, Truth and life so I can reveal the Father to them to become mature sons and fulfill their destinies.
All who were separated alienated and lost in their trespasses and sin were trapped in the futility of their own fallen mindsets but I included them in Me and they are now alive and able to believe through the gift of My faith.
Everyone is saved by My grace at work in them, but everyone needs to realize this by the faith that is produced when the veil of darkness is penetrated by the light of love. That is the power of the resurrection to restore all things.
What is the evidence for the resurrection? Biblical evidence. Legal evidence in history. Personal evidence of meeting Jesus ourselves. Testimony of lives transformed.
Eph 1:4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.
Heb 4:3 although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. Heb 9:26 Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
1 Peter 1:20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you. Rev 13:8 The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
The resurrection was even prophesied hundreds of years before by Hosea. Hosea 6:2 “He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him.
2 Cor 5:15-16 Now if all were included in his death they were equally included in his resurrection. This unveiling of his love redefines human life! Whatever reference we could have of ourselves outside of our association with Christ is no longer relevant.
2 Cor 5:17 Now, in the light of your co-inclusion in his death and resurrection, whoever you thought you were before, in Christ you are a brand new person! The old ways of seeing yourself and everyone else are over. Acquaint yourself with the new!
2 Cor 5:17 In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God did not redeem a compromised replica of you; he rescued the original, blueprint you, created in his radiant mirror likeness!
2 Cor 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus took onto Himself all of our individual sin, lost identity, depravity, brokenness within the sin of the whole creation
2 Cor 5:21 this is the divine exchange: he who knew no sin embraced our distortion; he appeared to be without form; this was the mystery of God’s prophetic poetry.
2 Cor 5:21 He was disguised in our distorted image and marred with our iniquities; he took our sorrows, our pain and our shame to his grave and birthed his righteousness in us. He took our sins and we became his innocence.
Adam representing all mankind turned from God, the source of life, to sin the source of death causing death described as the ‘wages’ (Rom 6:23) or a ‘debt’ (Matt 6:12). Sin and Death: The destructive consequences of sin described as the curse of death (Rom 5:12; 6:23) resulted in fear and bondage.
The gospel is the good news that Jesus came to rescue, redeem or ransom us from the curse of sin which is death. The cross is the decisive and final redemptive act, through which He set us free from the power of sin, the corruption of lost identity, and the condemnation of death itself.
Jesus took on the whole human condition represented all, just as Adam did, in order to heal and restore it all, including the curse of death itself. Jesus freely forgave sin throughout his ministry, and then on the Cross forgives once, for all and forever.
‘It is finished.’ What did Jesus mean? All sin was forgiven and all debts were cancelled by this amazing act of mercy and grace then and for all time. All separation had ended and the veil between heaven and earth was torn.
The power of death was removed and all judgments made from that moment now legally declare everyone reconciled righteous and innocent. Our believing this does not make it happen it just realizes and accepts that it is already finished completed and available through the gift of faith.
Forgiveness reconciles everyone back to the Father. Jesus dies to enter death itself to break death’s power, overcome it and eradicated it for us. The victory is completed manifested and proven effective in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
The whole of Jesus death including his resurrection represents the sacrificial love of God as He became man to enter the full human condition going into death and Hades to rescue all His children. Death could not hold Him
For those who hold to ‘penal substitution,’ the gospel takes seriously the penalty of sin (death) and the substitution of Christ as our representative, but it is distinguished from the doctrine that identifies the penalty with God’s wrath and punishment rather than sin’s consequences and curse. Brad Jersak
Jesus the living Word of God Himself, saves us from sin and death and all its consequences by swallowing them up in the amazing victory of His grace through the resurrection. He gifts faith to everyone so they can believe and pours out the Spirit on all people to work in them to reveal this awesome good news.
Gal 1:15 But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased 16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles,
Gal 1:15 God’s eternal love dream separated me from my mother’s womb; his grace became my identity. 16 This is the heart of the gospel that I proclaim; it began with an unveiling of his Son in me, freeing me to announce the same sonship in the masses of non-Jewish people.
Jesus became us, the whole 108 billion+ of us and He died all our deaths. That is love personified when I looked into His eyes on the cross it was like looking into the eyes of pure love with His arms stretched wide welcoming me.
The restoration of all things begins for us with Jesus the last Adam undoing all that the first Adam initiated. The power of the resurrection overcame the wages or consequences of sin, and everything associated with death and its curse.
Separation and lost relationship. Lost identity and lost destiny. Sickness, disease, illness mental, emotional and physical. Brokenness, fragmentation. Fear of death. Death itself.
The disciples preaching that Jesus died on the cross did not cause the controversy or the persecution as they all knew that Jesus had died. It was the resurrection that created all the fuss because it is such a powerful message of hope, redemption, reconciliation and restoration.
Act 2:24 But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. 25 For David says of Him, 27 Because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.
Act 2:31 he (David) looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. Act 4:33 And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all.
Rom 1:4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom 6:5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.
John 14:19 After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. This was Jesus prophesying the day of His resurrection.
John 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies. Rev 1:18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
There was a sign that Jesus went to hades and overcame death and now had the keys of death and hades. Matt 27:52 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.
John 20:19 …Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
Eph 2:1 Picture where God found us. We were in a death trap of an inferior lifestyle, constantly living below the blueprint measure of our lives. 2 We were all part of a common pattern, swept along under a powerful invisible influence, a spirit-energy that adopted us as sons to its dictates through unbelief.
Eph 2:3 Throughout that time every one of us were warped and corrupted in our conduct; snared in a jumble of forbidden lusts, driven by the desires of the senses, completely engaged in an expression of a life ruled by mind games; it was as if a twisted passion parented a universal breed of people.
Eph 2:4 None of this could distract from the extravagant love of God; he continued to love us with the exact same intensity 5 This is how grace rescued us: sin left us dead towards God, like spiritual corpses; yet in that state of deadness and indifference, God co-quickened.
Eph 2:5 (he resurrected) us together with Christ. Sin proved how dead we were (the law confirmed it!) Grace reveals how alive we now are (the gospel announces it!) . Through the resurrection all of mankind was made alive
Eph 2:5 Before anyone but God believed it, he made us alive together with him and raised us up together with him. We had no contribution to our salvation! God’s masterplan unfolded in the mystery of the gospel declaring our joint inclusion in Christ’s death and resurrection.
God found us in Christ before he lost us in Adam! In the economy of God, when Jesus died, we died. God saw us in Christ, in his death and resurrection before we saw ourselves there! This is how God sees in the eternal now through the lamb sin offering slain before the foundation of the world.
Eph 2:6 (As much as we were concluded in his death,) we are concluded in his resurrection. We are also elevated in his ascension to be equally present in the throne room of the heavenly realm where we are co- seated with him in his executive authority. We are fully represented in Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:7 (In a single triumphant act of righteousness God saved us from the “gutter most” to the uttermost. Here we are now, revealed in Christ in the highest possible position of bliss! If mankind’s sad history could not distract from the extravagant love of God.)
Eph 2:7 imagine how God is now able for timeless perpetuity (the eternal future) to exhibit the trophy of the wealth of his grace demonstrated in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. Grace exhibits excessive evidence of the success of the cross.
1 Cor 15 focuses on Jesus’ resurrection and its vital importance to overcoming death itself including each of our deaths. Statements death where is your sting and death is swallowed up in victory. Jesus’ resurrection assures us of our resurrection and its power gives us age enduring life.
1 Cor 15:20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
In Paul’s understanding the body of Christ on the cross was the document of humanity’s guilt and the resurrection was the receipt of their acquittal [Col 2:14, 15 and Rom 4:25]. If humanity was still guilty after Jesus died, his resurrection would neither be possible nor relevant!
Acts 17:31 “because God had fixed a day on which he would judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead. Judgment is to life because of the resurrection that ended death’s power over all mankind.
1 Cor 15:20-22 However this very moment the risen Christ represents everyone who has ever died; exactly how the first fruit would represent the complete harvest. The same humanity who died in a man was raised again in a man. In Adam all died; in Christ all are made alive.
1 Cor 15:23 All are individually made alive in the order of Christ; he is the first fruit and in his immediate presence we are personally revealed as his own. The kingdom of God is the dominion of God’s life in human form.
Our righteousness is based on who we are and not on what we do; who we are by God’s doing and not who we are by our own doing; right being and not merely right acting. We can live in the continued power of resurrection life and be overcomers in life not victims.
Phil 3:10 Oh to comprehend the dynamic of his resurrection! His resurrection is evidence of our righteousness! In the revelation of God’s economy of inclusion, I actually co-suffered with him and co-died together with Christ!
Phil 3:10 (Because I was already fully represented in his sufferings, his death and resurrection, I am greatly inspired when faced with contradictions now!) The world may look to be in stark contrast to this amazing truth.
However, this very moment the risen Christ represents everyone who has ever died; exactly like how the first fruit would represent the complete harvest. The same humanity who died in a man was raised again in a man. In Adam all died; in Christ all are made alive.
Nail things to the cross so that their power over us is broken and removed. Live in the power of the resurrection in our new life in Jesus as an overcomer victorious over the bondage of sin, fear and death.
Engage the living God for restoration ask Him to reveal: What is missing from my life? What is broken in my life? What has been lost in my life? What has been robbed from my life? What needs to be restored in my life?
Look into the eyes of the resurrected Prince of Peace those the deep pools of the way, truth and life.
Close your eyes and begin to think of Jesus and let that form in your imagination .Look into the eyes of the Prince of Peace .Ask Jesus to reveal the power of the resurrection .Ask Jesus to restore all things to you .Ask Jesus to restore your sonship.
Ask Jesus to restore your glory and light. Ask Jesus to restore your passion and zeal for Him and creation.
Ask Jesus to restore you to your position of authority as a son. Ask Jesus to take you beyond where you have been before. Let Jesus take you back to your eternal origin within the heart of God.