Complete Restoration
“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you – even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.” Acts 3:19-21
The beggar at one of the entrance gates to the temple has just been miraculously healed. A crowd is rapidly gathering and Peter begins preaching.
He tells the crowd that there is coming a time when God will restore all things. That day obviously hasn’t yet come, but in anticipation of its coming, God is allowing times of refreshing. The healing of the beggar is a wonderful example.
What does ‘God restoring all things’ look like? He will ‘bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ’ (Ephesians 1:10); through Christ ‘reconcile to himself all things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross’ (Colossians 1:20). He will create ‘a new heaven and a new earth, the house of righteousness’ (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1). He will overcome every power that has corrupted the first creation so God will be ‘all in all’ (1 Corinthians 15:28).
The ultimate promise is that there will be a final restoration of all things, a restoration that has already begun in Jesus. What God is going to do for all creation He has already done in His Son by raising him from the dead. Jesus will reappear when God is ready to ‘restore everything,’ to bring heaven and earth together as one (Revelation 21:1).
What do we have to do to be part of this great restoration? We have to ‘Repent … and turn to God’ (Acts 3:19). What will happen if we do this? Our ‘sins (will) be wiped out’ (Acts 3:19) and ‘times of refreshing (will) come from the Lord’ (Acts 3:19). These ‘times of refreshing’ are an advance anticipation of what we will see when God finishes His work.
In his Acts 2 Pentecost preaching, Peter had linked receiving the Holy Spirit as God’s sign that the prophetic ‘last days’ had begun (Acts 2:15,16). Paul emphatically wrote that the Holy Spirit was ‘a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance’ (Ephesians 1:13;2 Corinthians 1:22;5:5). He saw the Holy Spirit as a first-fruits guaranteeing a much greater measure of God’s abundance at Christ’s return.
Peter saw the healing of the beggar as typical of the ‘times of refreshing.’ We can believe for God’s miraculous intervention in the same way. Every miracle will be another example of God’s ‘times of refreshing’ until the day of Christ’s return.
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