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 the personal restoration of our spirit, soul, body and also of all of creation itself.
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.
Rom 8:14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ ..
Rom 8:19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
If we are not restored as sons and heirs then creation will not be restored. The restoration of all things begins with Jesus working in us and then through us now not just in an event when He comes someday in the future.
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
Eph 1:4 He associated us in Christ before the fall of the world! Jesus is God’s mind made up about us! He always knew in his love that he would present us again face-to-face before him in blameless innocence. God found us in Christ before he lost us in Adam!
Eph 1:13 Now you (Gentiles) also have discovered yourselves to be equally included in him having witnessed the unveiled logic of God. What exciting news! Your salvation is publicly announced. Consistent with the promise of God, the Holy Spirit gives guarantee to the fact of your faith, like the stamp of a signet ring that certifies a document.
Eph 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), God made us all alive when Jesus was resurrected not when we believed it
Eph 2:4-5 This is how grace rescued us: sin left us dead towards God, like spiritual corpses; yet in that state of deadness and indifference, God coquickened 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!)
Restoration of relationship with God and of our spirit, soul and body continues as an ongoing process. 1 Thes 5:23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
At the coming is a mistranslation from a futurist perspective. At- is actually in, among or within. Coming is actually better translated presence. Our restoration is within the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ now not at a future coming event.
1 Thes 5:23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are being entirely set apart to be complete without blame in his presence that is the resfreshing that is restoring the breath of life to us.
1 Thes 5:23 There, away from any effort of your own, discover how the God of perfect peace, who fused you skilfully into oneness – just like a master craftsman would dovetail a carpentry joint – has personally perfected and sanctified the entire harmony of your being without your help!
1 Thes 5:23 He has restored the detailed default settings. You were rebooted to fully participate in the life of your design, in your spirit, soul and body in blameless innocence in the immediate presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Gen 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule … Sonship mandate was in context of conflict with a fallen covering cherub and a third of the angelic realm – to subdue it.
Subdue – bring into subjection, tread under foot . Greek translation exercise authority over, overpower, master, lordship . properly, exercise decisive control as an owner with full jurisdiction.
First prophetic promise was of subduing and overcoming. Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Matt 22:44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Until I put Your enemies beneath Your feet”’? Luke 10:19 Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.
Rom 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush satan (the adversary the accuser) under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Eph 1:22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church (Ekklesia) 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Eph 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. To restore all things we must subdue all the works of the enemy who comes to rob us of our inheritance, kill us and destroy (apollumi) us by cutting us off from relationship by deceiving us about God and ourselves.
1 John 3:8 The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. Luo properly, loose (unleash) let go; release (unbind); (figuratively) release what has been held back. Restoration is giving us back our position as sons in heaven and on earth.
What adversary is operating in our lives that needs to be subdued and overcome? What bondage, restrictions or control in our lives needs to be loosed to prepare for restoration? What needs to be put under our feet so we can subdue and rule?
Matt 28:18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and disciple all the nations, 20 … and I am with you all the days until the full end of the age.
Rev 11:15 .. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign to the ages of the ages!’.” Rev 5:10 “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”
2 Cor 5 is a chapter that gives us insight into truth that is foundational to restoration. Truth about our eternal nature. Truth about the renewed mind. Truth about reconciled relationship . Truth about our restored identity. Truth about our revealed destiny.
2 Cor 5:5-6 God wired us this way; his Spirit already confirms within us the present evidence of eternity. We are eternal beings by design. We are cheerfully courageous, knowing that our immediate address in our earthly bodies cannot distance us from the Lord, since we originate from him.
John 3:13 and no one hath gone up to the heaven, except he who out of the heaven came down — the Son of Man who is in the heaven. Dual realms living so we can be gateways of heaven into the earth by seeing what the Fathers heart is.
2 Cor 5:10 For we have all been thoroughly scrutinized in the judgment of Jesus. We are taken care of and restored to the life of our design, regardless of what happened to us in our individual lives, whatever amazing or meaningless things we encountered in the body.
”I am what I am by the grace of God!” If we are still to be judged for good or bad deeds that we performed in the body, then the judgment that Jesus faced on humanity’s behalf was irrelevant.
2 Cor 5:14-15 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
2 Cor 5:14 The love of Christ resonates within us and leaves us with only one conclusion: Jesus died humanity’s death; therefore, in God’s logic every individual simultaneously died. When Jesus was resurrected every individual was made alive.
Jesus didn’t die 99% or for 99%. He died humanity’s death 100%! If Paul had to compromise the last part of verse 14 to read: “one died for all therefore only those who follow the prescriptions to qualify, have also died,” then he would have had to change the first half of the verse as well “Jesus died humanity’s death”
Only the love of Christ can make a calculation of such enormous proportion! The religious mind would question the extremity of God’s love and perhaps prefer to add a condition or two to a statement like that! Mirror Bible
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 5:15-16 This is radical and our most defining moment! No label that could possibly previously identify someone carries any further significance! Even our pet doctrines of Christ are redefined. Whatever we knew about him historically or sentimentally is challenged by this conclusion.
What labels have you lived under . Loser, failure, useless, rubbish, waste of space, addict, drunk, scum bag, criminal, mental, rebel sicko, pervert, homo, gay etc. etc. God sees you as His son and righteous heir loved blessed and highly favoured.
By discovering Christ from God’s point of view we discover ourselves and every other human life from God’s point of view! Paul sees by revelation that what Jesus redeemed in every person brings absolute closure and death to any other reasoning and judgment we may have had of ourselves or anyone else for that matter!
This is our ‘metanoia’ moment! “From now on therefore, we no longer know anyone according to the flesh, even though we once knew Christ from a human and religious point of view.”
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 5:17 Any other ‘self’ you’re trying to find or esteem will disappoint! Reckon your ‘DIY-law of works-self’ dead, and your redeemed self co-raised and coseated together with Christ! This is freedom indeed! No selfies necessary here!
2 Cor 5:18 To now see everything as new is to simply see what God has always known in Christ; we are not debating human experience, opinion, or their contribution; this is 100% God’s belief and his doing. In Jesus Christ, God exchanged equivalent value to redeem us to himself. This act of reconciliation is the mandate of our ministry.
2 Cor 5:19 Our ministry declares that Jesus did not act independently of God. Christ is proof that God reconciled the total kosmos to himself. Deity and humanity embraced in Christ;
2 Cor 5:19 the fallen state of mankind was deleted; their trespasses would no longer count against them! God has placed this message in us. He now announces his friendship with every individual from within us!
2 Cor 5:20 The voice God has in Christ he now has in us; we are God’s ambassadors. Our lives exhibit the urgency of God to persuade everyone to realize the reconciliation of their redeemed identity.
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.
Can everyone be restored those living and those physically dead? Will everyone be restored all the living and all the physically dead? What do we feel about that idea? Why would we not want everyone to be restored?
That includes Hitler, Stalin, Nero, Mao, Bin Laden, all the worst of the worst, satanists, paedophiles, rapists, murders, including all your abusers and victimizers. Do we make our own judgments of people’s worthiness to restored? What about our worthiness?
Can every created thing be restored? Will every created thing be restored? What do we feel about that idea? Why would we not want everything to be restored?
That includes the covering cherub, lucifer, devil, satan and every fallen angel, every unclean spirit or demon, Nephilim, dragon, giant, dimensional being etc. etc. How does that idea make you feel? On what basis would we make that judgment?
I am a Universalist or a Christian Universalist? I am not prepared to be labelled by anyone for what I believe for as soon as you have a label you are pigeonholed into a theological system that defines, restricts and limits you – truth is truth.
I am not trying to set up another theological belief system for you to believe. You are totally at liberty to disagree and have a different opinion but don’t let that opinion be based on second hand information.
I would encourage you to be willing to go engage the Father face to face and ask Him to reveal the truth about His love to you directly. If you don’t have face to face first hand direct revelation then keep an open mind. Let all be measured against love.
Do I believe all things will be restored? Why would I not want to believe that? I am hopeful and desirous that everyone and everything will one day be restored back God’s original intention but I cannot definitely guarantee that because we all have the free will to choose.
What I can guarantee is that God is love and His love will never fail or never give up. I can guarantee that through the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus everything that legally could stop the redemption, reconciliation and restoration of all things has already and finally been dealt with.
Son look into My eyes look into the radiance of My face shining with your image and the glorious representation of your sonship. Son see yourself as I see you, as you were always intended to be. Son your origin and design are only to be found in the mirror of My face you can see them nowhere else.
Son I make no seconds, no rejects and no mistakes only that which is perfect so see yourself as a glorious son see your restored image. Son do not be conformed to any previous thoughts you have had about yourself but be transformed by the renewing of your mind through seeing your restored image in Me.
Engage God who is Father, Son and Spirit and ask Him the questions: 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 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 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 take you beyond where you have been before. Let Jesus take you back to your eternal origin within the heart of God.