The Household of God (6)

Restoration

In my last post, I talked about positioning ourselves with a view to eternity past and to eternity future - and waiting on God for His enlightenment concerning what He is doing in eternity and what He is doing on earth today.  This is one of my favourite pictures: alone with God hearing and seeing.

Last post I talked most about eternity past.  If we turn our eyes away from eternity past and look towards eternity future, what do we see?  Apostle Peter put it this way, “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:13)

But note, as scripture says, prophets have seen it.  Long before Jesus, Isaiah saw it.  “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17).  And what he prophesied for ancient Jerusalem is also true for the New Jerusalem: “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your offspring and your name remain.” (Isaiah 66:22)

John saw it prophetically in his vision: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband”  (Revelation 21:1-2)

God’s ‘future’ for us is not for Him to come and live with us in a time-space-matter limited world, but for us to inhabit eternity with Him, ruling and regulating a new heaven and a new earth – with a “new Jerusalem”.  The idea of future is for our benefit; God doesn’t have a future as we think of it.  He has eternity; and He has His Kingdom, His household and His family.  But to get there, there is some restoration work to do.

God’s Activity in Between: Restoration

Take note of Peter preaching as recorded in Acts 3:

And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance [in putting Jesus to death], just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, 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.

Jesus remains ‘in heaven’ until God has restored all things necessary for His purposes – things which even the Hebrew prophets of old spoke about.  As far as I can tell, we are still in that period of restoration, and the principal element of that restoration is no longer Israel but “spiritual Israel”, the ecclesia.  And the ecclesia itself needs to be restored.  Hence the scripture that says, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17)

The judgement brings the restoration, as God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – work in unison, by means of love, light and truth, to cleanse the Bride in preparation for the wedding.  What we live with on earth in the present time is the training, the discipline and the judgement that completes the work God began in us before the foundation of the world – and which we gave assent to when we turned to Jesus in love and faith.  As Paul says in Ephesians 1:

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the  praise of His glory. [italics added]

What a stupendous account.  Paul got it!  Paul was given the revelation of the mystery and he gave it to those who would listen.  Thanks to God, to Paul and to some hard-working scribes down through the years, we have it!

And this passage provides the link between the two parts I referred to earlier: the looking towards eternity past and eternity future, and the taking time to reconsider, (with the help of our Teacher, the Holy Spirit) the central truths of Righteousness, Salvation, Redemption and Justification.

What is God doing in eternity past?  Ruling and regulating His household and His kingdom.  What is God doing in eternity future?  Ruling and regulating His household and His kingdom in a new heaven and a new earth with a new Jerusalem.  In between the two, what is God doing?  Ruling and regulating His household and His kingdom as He restores all that was lost in the rebellion of Satan and the subsequent fall of man, and, in addition, binds to Himself a vast array of ‘sons’.

Cheers,

Kevin.