The Restoration of All Things? A reflection

 



                The first reading for this coming Sunday takes us to Acts 3, where Peter takes the opportunity to preach in Solomon’s Portico after he and John participated in the healing of a man with a disability. The lectionary reading ends in verse 19, though the sermon ends in verse 26. I plan to take the reading to verse 21, in part because, at least in the NRSV verse 19 ends with a comma, while verse 21 brings the sentence to a close. It’s in verse 21 that I find an intriguing phrase.

                Peter declares that Jesus will remain in heaven “until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.” Another way of rendering that statement about “universal restoration” is the “restoration of all things.” Although Jürgen Moltmann doesn’t believe that universal salvation is in play here (Moltmann suggests that Peter means by universal restoration the fulfillment of all of God’s promises). However, Moltmann does suggest that the cosmic theologies found in Ephesians and Colossians may indeed speak of universal restoration in the sense of universal salvation.

In the cosmic christology of the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians, not only all human beings and earthly creatures but the angels too—evidently the disobedient ones, since for the others it is unnecessary—will be reconciled through Christ. As reconciled, they will be gathered together under their head, Christ (who must here be understood as the personified Wisdom of Creation), and will thus be perfected. What is meant is nothing other than the restoration of all things, the homecoming of the universe in the form of what Irenaeus called the recapitulatio mundi. [Jürgen Moltmann. The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology (Kindle Locations 3467-3470). Kindle Edition].

                Some of the early theologians, including Irenaeus (mentioned by Moltmann), but also Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, spoke of some form of universal restoration. It might include some form of purgation. But they even seemed to envision the possibility of the restoration of the devil. So, consider this word from Gregory of Nyssa, which is found in his Catechetical Discourse (26:8):

For just as in the case of those who are healed with cuttings and cautery, they are indignant with [their] healers, cringing at the pain of the cut, but if through these things health should be regained and the pain of the cautery should be passed, they will be thankful to those who affected the healing in them; in the same manner, when the evil in nature, which is now mingled and growing with it, is taken out through long periods, when the restoration to the ancient [state] of those who are now lying in vice comes to pass, there will be thanksgiving in unison from all creation, both from those who have been chastised in purification and also from those who had no need of purification from the beginning. [Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Discourse: A Handbook for Catechists, (St. Vladimir’s Press, 2019), p. 120.

Gregory uses the Greek word apokatastasis (restoration) here, a word found in the New Testament only in Acts 3:21.

                Whenever we speak of that which lies beyond the grave or the end of time (if time ends), we can only speculate. While I’m part of a religious movement that disdained speculative theology (Alexander Campbell must have been related to Joe Friday), I find myself more and more intrigued by the more mystical theologies of Eastern forms of Christianity. That would include people like Gregory of Nyssa. I believe that Moltmann also has an interest in the theologies of Eastern Christianity.

                As I approach Sunday’s sermon with this brief phrase before me, I don’t have all the answers. I can only speculate, but I wonder what would the restoration of all things entail? Would it include, for the sake of argument, the devil? Here is where, perhaps the idea of purgatory has some value, does it not? At the very least, might there be a need for going through the refiner’s fire to rid ourselves of the dross that keeps us from fully embracing the things of God? Again, all of this is somewhat speculative, but thinking in terms of the hint given in Acts 3 as well as the messages present in Ephesians and Colossians, how might we envision this eschatological moment?  

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