The Restitution Of All Things

[FineLinen]

The Heavenly Pioneer

Jesus Christ is the Author & Finisher of faith. (Hebr. 12:2)

The Author= Archegos =

Chief Leader/ Prince/ Author.

Hebrews 5:9 has no English equivalent to express the meaning here.

The Author = Archegos=

Prince/ Author/ Captain.

Archegos Meaning in Bible - New Testament Greek Lexicon - New American Standard

Prodromos Meaning in Bible - New Testament Greek Lexicon - New American Standard

 

[FineLinen]

Can the love of God be defeated?

Do you believe the unchanging love of God can be defeated?

"I believe implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when all things shall be subject to Him and when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor 15:24-28). For me, this has certain consequences. If one man remains outside of the love of God at the end of time, it means that one man has defeated the love of God—and that is impossible. Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of our God. If God was no more than a King or judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if His enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only king and Judge, God is Father—He is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family. The only triumph a father can know is to have all of his family back home again. –Dr. William Barclay-

 

[FineLinen]

A victorious devil?

The question of universalism (the Restitution of all things) is usually argued on a basis altogether misleading (as though the point involved was chiefly, or wholly, man's endless suffering).

Odious and repulsive to every moral instinct, as is that dogma, it is not the turning point of this controversy.

The vital question is this, that the creed by teaching the perpetuity of evil, points to a victorious devil, and to sin as finally triumphant over God.

It makes the corrupt, yes, the bestial in our fallen nature to be eternal. It represents what is foulest and most loathsome in man, the most obstinate sin as being enduring as God Himself.

It confers the dignity of immortal life on what is morally abominable.

It teaches perpetual anarchy, and a final chaos.

It enthrones pandemonium as an eternal fact side by side with Paradise; and, gazing over its fetid and obscene abysses, is not afraid to call this the triumph of Jesus Christ, this the realization of the promise that God shall be "All in All"?

-Thomas Allin (Christ Triumphant)-

 

[FineLinen]

Perfunctory Genuflections: no.

Worship: yes.

"God also has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." -Phil. 2

Rev 5:13,14

Every created thing (παν κτισμα). Every creature in a still wider antiphonal circle beyond the circle of angels (from κτιζω, for which see 1Ti 4:4; Jas 1:18 ), from all the four great fields of life (in heaven, upon the earth, under the earth as in verse 3, with on the sea επ της θαλασσης added). No created thing is left out. This universal chorus of praise to Christ from all created life reminds one of the profound mystical passage in Rom 8:20-22 concerning the sympathetic agony of creation (κτισις) in hope of freedom from the bondage of corruption. If the trail of the serpent is on all creation, it will be ultimately thrown off.

Saying (λεγοντας). Masculine (construction according to sense, personifying the created things) if genuine, though some MSS. have λεγοντα (grammatical gender agreeing with παντα) present active participle of λεγω, to say.

And to the Lamb (κα τω αρνιω). Dative case. Praise and worship are rendered to the Lamb precisely as to God on the throne. Note separate articles here in the doxology as in 4:11 and the addition of το κρατος (active power) in place of ισχυς (reserve of strength) in 5:12.


Rev 5:14

Amen (Αμην). The four living creatures give their approval to the doxology after the antiphonal songs.

Fell down and worshipped (επεσαν κα προσεκυνησαν). In silent adoration that closes the whole service of praise to the One upon the throne and to the Lamb. As in 4:10 so here the representatives of the redeemed bow in silent worship. Pliny says that the Christians sing a song to Christ as to God. He is here worshipped by the universe. (Php 2:10) -Robertson Word Pictures

 

[FineLinen]

"Restitution is God putting things back together into union with Himself until all separation and division is healed, every deficiency replenished, all imbalance corrected, and all extremes harmonized. In this state of being, selfhood, self-will, duality, sin and death forever cease to exist. God becomes all in all."~Ray Prinzing.

Deficient =

Shortage / insufficient.

Replenish =

To fill or make complete again.

To inspire/ nourish.

Imbalance =

The state of being out of equilibrium.

Harmonize =

To bring into agreement or harmony.

To be in agreement & harmony.

Correct =

To make or put right.

To remove errors from.

To improve or reform/ remedy.

To adjust so as to meet a required standard & condition free from error or defect.

At-one-ment

 

[FineLinen]

Of all the conceptions of the divine, of all the language Jesus could put on the lips of the God character in the story he tells, that what he has the Father say. You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.

Millions of people in our world were told that God so loved the world, that God sent his son to save the world, and that if they accept and believe in Jesus, then they'll be able to have a relationship with God...

But there's more.

Millions have been taught that if they don't believe, if they don't accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God will have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell... A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormentor who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony... if your God is loving one second and cruel the next, if your God will punish people for all eternity for sins committed in a few short years, no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able to disguise that one, true, glaring, untenable, acceptable, awful reality... sometimes the reason people have a problem accepting the gospel is that they sense that the God lurking behind Jesus isn't safe, loving, or good. It doesn't make sense it can't be reconciled, and so they say no... God create, because the endless joy and peace and shared life at the heart of this God knows no other way. Jesus invites us into THAT relationship, the one at the center of the universe... so when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will get into heaven, that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club.

The good news is better than that.

-Rob Bell (Love wins)

The good news is better than that.

 

[FineLinen]

Out of Him, into Him

The law of circularity requires that even as all things began in Christ, all shall end in Christ. "I am ALPHA and OMEGA, the beginning and the end, the first and the last," says the Lord (Rev. 22:13).

Only the glorious mind of Christ can reveal to our hearts what that means!

Through a glass darkly I can see that He was the first - "before all things." Can I also believe that He is the last?

If He is the beginning can my feeble mind dare to comprehend what it signifies when He says that He is also the end? All that existed IN CHRIST before the ages began, shall return into Him again that He may be the FIRST and the LAST, the BEGINNING and the END.

All that came out of Him, lowered into the realm of the negative, completes its circuit and returns once more to its former estate - IN GOD!

The first Adam had power to take ALL with him into death, without their knowledge, or consent: therefore, the Last Adam, the Lord from heaven, gathers up the same number in His redemptive work and man who came out of God shall return, that the circle may be unbroken. -J. Preston Eby-

 

[FineLinen]

"What we find in Colossians is a theology that locates the origin of creation, the revelation of God, and the salvation of world in Christ.

It recognizes the massive rupture introduced into the world through sin, and it sees the solution to this problem in the death of Christ.

It requires a response of obedient faith to share in Christ and in the inheritance of eternal life. It offers no hope of a nice God letting everyone into heaven no matter how they live or what they believe.

In spite of that, it holds before us a confident hope in the salvation of the whole creation. It is God's covenant purpose that his world will one day be reconciled in Christ. For now, only the Church shares in that privilege, but this is not a position God has granted his people so they can gloat over the world. On the contrary, the Church must live by gospel standards and proclaim its gospel message so that the world will come to share in the saving work of Christ." -Dr. Robin Perry

 

[FineLinen]

A Mystery disclosed

Col. 1

”You yourselves are a case study of what God does.

At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don't walk away from a gift like that!

You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted.

There is no other Message - just this one.

Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message. I want you to know how glad I am that it's me sitting here in this jail and not you. There's a lot of suffering to be entered into in this world - the kind of suffering Christ takes on.

I welcome the chance to take my share in the church's part of that suffering. When I became a servant in this church, I experienced this suffering as a sheer gift, God's way of helping me serve you, laying out the whole truth.

This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open.

God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message.

We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.” -MSG-

 

[FineLinen]

"Any authentically Christian system is going to have to keep off the kick of human merit and demerit and stick resolutely to a universalism of grace that overrides the subject of human works." - Robert Farrar

"The Cross is the ultimate evidence that there is no length the love of God will refuse to go in effecting reconciliation." - R. Kent Hughes

 

[FineLinen]

"What we find in Colossians is a theology that locates the origin of creation, the revelation of God, and the salvation of world in Christ.

It recognizes the massive rupture introduced into the world through sin, and it sees the solution to this problem in the death of Christ. It requires a response of obedient faith to share in Christ and in the inheritance of eternal life. It offers no hope of a nice God letting everyone into heaven no matter how they live or what they believe.

However, in spite of that, it holds before us a confident hope in the salvation of the whole creation. It is God's covenant purpose that his world will one day be reconciled in Christ. For now, only the Church shares in that privilege, but this is not a position God has granted his people so they can gloat over the world. On the contrary, the Church must live by gospel standards and proclaim its gospel message so that the world will come to share in the saving work of Christ." -Dr. Robin Perry

 

[FineLinen]

Love: What is it?

Love is commitment. Caring, unceasing commitment.

Love governs the universe.

Love is not a what. Love is a Who.

Love is God! God is Love! He is Holy and pure Love that is guileless, passionate, tender, and kind. Unfailing!

Far more than being a mere sentimental or affectionate feeling, Love is a Person who is caring commitment in action.

Love reveals Himself in deeds, deeds done in truth. Integrity!

Love — God Himself — never fails, therefore He always succeeds.

We can count on Him — even when we cannot count on ourselves — at all times, and in all realms, in all worlds. Forever! ~Charles Slagle

God Never Gives Up -- Not Ever!

 

[FineLinen]

 

[FineLinen]

"Unto You, O Lord, belongs mercy; for You render to every man according to his work. The religious mind, however, educated upon the theories yet prevailing in the so-called religious world, must here recognize a departure from the presentation to which they have been accustomed: to make the psalm speak according to prevalent theoretic modes, the verse would have to be changed thus:

To You, O Lord, belongs justice, for You render to every man according to his work." -George MacDonald

"Our current criminal justice system has no provision for restorative justice, in which an offender confronts the damage they have done and tries to make it right for the people they have harmed...Instead, our system of 'corrections' is about arm's-length revenge and retribution, all day and all night." - Piper Kerman

"Retributive justice is largely Western. The African understanding is far more restorative - not so much to punish as to redress or restore a balance that has been knocked askew." - Desmond Tutu

"God's justice is a saving, healing, restorative justice, because the God to whom justice belongs is the Creator God who has yet to complete his original plan for creation and whose justice is designed not simply to restore balance to a world out of kilter but to bring to glorious completion and fruition the creation, teeming with life and possibility, that he made in the first place." ― N.T. Wright

 

[FineLinen]

"In the Christian story God descends to re-ascend. He comes down.... down to the very roots and sea-bed of the nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him." -C.S. Lewis-

"For He pre-destined us to be adopted by Himself as sons through Jesus Christ--such being His gracious will and pleasure--to the praise of the splendour of His grace with which He has enriched us in the beloved One. It is in Him, and through the shedding of His blood, that we have our deliverance--the forgiveness of our offences--so abundant was God's grace, the grace which He, the possessor of all wisdom and understanding, lavished upon us, when He made known to us the secret of His will. And this is in harmony with God's merciful purpose for the government of the world when the times are ripe for it--the purpose which He has cherished in His own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its one Head in Christ; yes, things in Heaven and things on earth, to find their one Head in Him. And you...." -Saint Paul

"God's saving, cross-shaped love excludes nobody. It wants all people to come to repentance and find salvation (2 Pet 3:9). I think that the reflective Christian ought to start by taking the tradition as the default position, it should be assumed to be correct unless good grounds can be found to reject it. I suggest that the problem is not that the universalist sentimentalizes God's love and forgets his wrath but, rather, that the traditional theologians underestimate God's love and unhelpfully disconnect it from his justice. -Dr. Robin Perry

 

[FineLinen]

For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope (Romans 8:20)

Creature = ktisis

Made subject = hypotassō

Futility = mataiotēs

Not willingly = ou hekōn

By reason of Him = dia hypotassō

This is the situation:

Man did not choose to be a sinner. He was made subect to futility.

The hypotassō is by reason of Him who made it so.

To what end?

See verse 21.

"The creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay."

"That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy." MSG

 

[FineLinen]

I believe:

I believe in the restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouths of the prophets since the world began. -Acts 3:21-

I believe that the good tidings of great joy will be to all people. -Luke 2:10

I believe that believers in Christ Jesus are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. -John 1:13-

I believe

I believe that God appointed Jesus Christ heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. -Hebr. 1:2-

I believe that no man can come to Christ unless the Father who sent Him draws him. -John 6:44

I believe God gave Jesus authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as God gave him. -John 17:2-

I believe the Father has given all things into Jesus hands. -John 13:3-

I believe

I believe that Jesus Christ was the true light which gives light to every man who come into the world. -John 1:9

I believe that just as the result of one trespass was condemnation to all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness is justification for all men. -Romans 5:18

I believe one mans sin brought condemnation for all mankind. -Romans 5: 19-

I believe one mans righteousness brings right relationship with God, and new life for everyone. -Romans 5:19-

I believe one mans sin made the whole of mankind sinners. I also believe the righteousness of one Man makes the whole of mankind righteous.

 

[FineLinen]

The power of God is almighty; nothing can resist his will; nothing can defeat his purpose; nothing can prevent the fulfillment of his promise.

What he had promised he was able to perform. (Rom. 4:21) If God were not almighty, then the world might not be saved; but he is almighty; none can stay his hand, or say unto him, what do You do and therefore, in Gods own time (and that is the best time), and by his own means, the whole world shall be saved. God not only wills the salvation of all men; not only has purposed to save them all; not only has promised it; and has confirmed that promise by an oath); but also has provided the means, in the death of Christ, for the salvation of all men. Jesus died for all. He gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. (1 Tim. 2:6)

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. (Heb. 2:9) And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)

Here are three expressions: 1st, ALL; 2nd, EVERYMAN; 3d, THE WHOLE WORLD.

The sacred writers took the utmost care to guard against being misunderstood in this important particular. Some would have us believe that these expressions are to be understood only in a general sense, in opposition to the contracted opinions of the Jews, who confined the blessings of God to their own nation only; and that the words are intended to declare, that Jesus died for Gentiles as well as Jews. We cannot so restrict the sense. Look at the connection in which these passages are found, and it will be seen that the terms used, apply to all men, in the widest sense of these terms. Paul instructs Timothy to pray for all men; not for Jews and Gentiles in the general sense, but for kings and all in authority; for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, who will have all men to be saved. So John says, if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father. (1 Epistle John 1:1)

Is not the language here designed to apply to all men: Who can dispute it? -Thomas Whittemore-

 

[FineLinen]

Nothing = adynateō

Luke 1:37 "For with God nothing shall be impossible."

Romans 8:38 "Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus."

adynateō = Cannot be done. Impossible.

Our God is the God of UN (limited) "My dear friend, clear your mind of can't." -Samuel Johnson-

 

[FineLinen]

Can the love of God be defeated?

Do you believe the unchanging love of God can be defeated?

"I believe implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when all things shall be subject to Him and when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor 15:24-28).

For me, this has certain consequences. If one man remains outside of the love of God at the end of time, it means that one man has defeated the love of God and that is impossible.

Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of our God. If God was no more than a King or judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if His enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out.

But God is not only king and Judge, God is Father He is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family.

The only triumph a father can know is to have all of his family back home again." ~Dr. William Barclay-