When Was the "Restoration of All Things" to Occur?

When Was the "Restoration of All Things" to Occur?

Below is the 20th of multiple excerpts from The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell. "THE PAROUSIA [SECOND COMING] AND THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS. "ACTS iii. 19-21 [Acts 3:19-21]---'Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ, who was before appointed unto you; whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restoration of all things, of which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world [Greek: aionos, age] began.' "It is scarcely possible to doubt that in this address the apostle [Peter] speaks of that which he conceived his [1st-century] hearers might and would experience, if they obeyed his exhortation to repent and believe. Indeed, any other supposition would be preposterous. Neither the apostle nor his auditory [audience] could possibly be thinking of 'times of refreshing' and 'times of restoration' in remote ages of the world; blessings which were at a distance of centuries and millenniums would hardly be powerful motives to immediate repentance. We must therefore conceive of the times of refreshing and of restoration as, in the view of the apostle, near, and within the reach of that generation. "But if so, what are we to understand by 'the times of refreshing and of restoration'? Are they the same, or are they different, things? Doubtless, virtually the same; and the one phrase will help us to understand the other. The restitution, or rather restoration ([Greek:] apokatastasis) of all things, is said to be the theme of all prophecy; then it can only refer to what Scripture designates 'the kingdom of God,' the end and purpose of all the dealings of God with Israel. It was a phrase well understood by the Jews of that period, who looked forward to the days of the Messiah, the kingdom of God, as the fulfilment of all their hopes and aspirations. It was the coming age or aeon, [Greek:] aion ho mellon, when all wrongs were to be redressed, and truth and righteousness were to reign. The whole nation was pervaded with the belief that this happy era was about to dawn. What was our Lord's doctrine on this subject? He said to His disciples, 'Elias [Elijah] indeed cometh first, and restoreth all things' (Mark ix. 12) [Mark 9:12]. That is to say, the second Elijah, John the Baptist [Matt. 11:14, 17:10-13], had already commenced the restoration which He [Jesus] Himself was to complete; had laid the foundations of the kingdom which He was to consummate and crown. "For the mission of John was, in one aspect, restorative, that is in intention, though not in effect [judgment]. He [John the Baptist] came to recall the nation to its allegiance, to renew its covenant relation with God: he went before the Lord, 'in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord' (Luke i. 17 [Luke 1:17]). What is all this but the description of 'the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,' and 'the times of restoration of all things,' which were held forth as the gifts of God to Israel? "But have we any clear indication of the period at which these proffered blessings might be expected? Were they in the far distant future, or were they nigh at hand? The note of time is distinctly marked in verse 20 [Acts 3:20]. The coming of Christ ["whom the heaven must receive until the restitution of all things," Acts 3:21] is specified as the period when these glorious prospects are to be realized. Nothing can be more clear than the connection and coincidence of these events, the coming of Christ, the times of refreshing, and the times of restoration of all things. This is in harmony with the uniform representation given in the eschatology [last days doctrine] of the New Testament: the Parousia [Second Coming], the end of the age, the consummation of the kingdom of God, the destruction of Jerusalem, the judgment of Israel, all synchronise. To find the date of one is to fix the date of all. We have already seen how definitely the time was fixed for the fulfilment of some of these events. The Son of man was to come in His kingdom before the death of some of the disciples [Matt. 10:23, 16:28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27]. The catastrophe of Jerusalem was to take place before the living generation had passed away [Matt. 23:36, 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32]. The great and notable day of the Lord is represented by St. Peter in the preceding chapter [of Acts] as overtaking that 'untoward generation' [Acts 2:40; also see Matt. 12:41, 12:42, 12:45, 16:4]. And now, in the passage before us, he as clearly intimates that the arrival of the times of refreshing, and of the restoration of all things, was contemporaneous with the 'sending of Jesus Christ' from heaven [Acts 3:20-21]. "But it may be said, How can so terrible a catastrophe as the destruction of Jerusalem [which occurred in A.D. 70, when the Romans demolished the city and the Temple] be associated with times of refreshing or of restoration? There were two sides to the medal: there was the reverse as well as the obverse. Unbelief and impenitence would change 'the times of refreshing' into 'the days of vengeance' [Luke 21:22]. If they 'despised the riches of the goodness and forbearance and long-suffering of God' [Romans 2:4], then, instead of restoration, there would be destruction; and instead of the day of salvation there would be 'the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God' (Rom. ii. 4, 5 [Romans 2:4-5]). "We know the fatal choice that [1st-century] Israel made; how 'the wrath came upon them to the uttermost' [1 Thess. 2:16]; and we know how it all came to pass at the appointed and predicted period, at the 'close of the [Old Covenant] age' [Hebrews 9:26, Greek: sunteleia tou aionon], within the limits of that generation [Matt. 10:23, 16:28, 23:36, 24:34, 26:64; Mark 9:1, Mark 13:30, 14:62; Luke 9:27, 21:32, 22:60; Revelation 1:7].

"We are thus enabled to define the period [i.e., the 'times of restoration'] to which the apostle makes allusion in this passage, and conclude that it coincides with the Parousia. "We are conducted to the same conclusion by another path. In Matt. xix. 2[8] [Matt. 19:28] our Lord declares to His disciples, 'Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory,' etc. ...[T]he 'regeneration' ([Greek:] palingenesia) of St. Matthew is the precise equivalent of the 'restoration' ([Greek:] apokatastasis) of the Acts [Acts 3:21]. What is meant by the regeneration is clear beyond the shadow of a doubt, for it is the time 'when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory' [Matt. 19:28]. But this is the [same] period when He comes to judge the guilty nation (Matt. xxv. 31) [Matt. 25:31; see previous Parousia blog post on the separation of the sheep and the goats]. There is no possibility of mistaking the time; no difficulty in identifying the event: it is the end of the [Old Covenant] age [Hebrews 9:26], and the judgment of [1st-century] Israel."