The Restitution Of All Things

[Saint Steven]

“The feast of tabernacles means the feast of in-gathering. It takes an eight day period to bring in the fullness of the in-gathering. Eight is the number of new beginnings in scripture or full restoration ...

I've been hearing some teaching about the eighth day of creation. Humankind (the first Adam) was created on the sixth day and the second Adam (Christ) on the eighth day.

 

[FineLinen]

I've been hearing some teaching about the eighth day of creation. Humankind (the first Adam) was created on the sixth day and the second Adam (Christ) on the eighth day.

Dear Saint: The first Adam was created. The Last Adam, as a man, was the outcome of empying Himself of all that put Him in a place of equality with God. It is wonderful to know how little we truly know.

There was a book written many moons ago (Jesus 100 % Man of Faith) that pursues that theme which was a mighty awakening for me. Jesus Christ emptied Himself of the glory as part of the Echad to walk in absolute perfect harmony as a man, as He became the Archegos & Prodromos of our salvation.

"In order that, by His goodness to us in Christ Jesus, He might display in the Ages to come the transcendent riches of His grace." Eph. 2:7

 

[FineLinen]

"In order that, by His goodness to us in Christ Jesus, He might display in the Ages to come the transcendent riches of His grace."

Ephesians 2:7 in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Transcendent=

transcendence - Dictionary Definition

huperballo =

To throw over and beyond.

Exceeding / surpassing.

 

[Saint Steven]

"In order that, by His goodness to us in Christ Jesus, He might display in the Ages to come the transcendent riches of His grace." Eph. 2:7

Very interesting where this scripture lands in context. It changes my view of the context.
We don't need to become saved, we are saved but don't realize it. The realization is the living out of the grace we were saved by.

Ephesians 2:6-10
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

 

[FineLinen]

Very interesting where this scripture lands in context. It changes my view of the context.
We don't need to become saved, we are saved but don't realize it. The realization is the living out of the grace we were saved by.

Ephesians 2:6-10
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

My brother Steve: As the years pass by I am beginning to realize the vast areas of Father my being has not begun to envision. Just when one thinks he has finally uncovered the last star of His World, zillions more stars appear from one single pinprick of light. And, to add to our smallness, additional galaxies from that single pinprick.

It is little wonder in the year King Uzziah died, the mighty prophet of God cried out when He saw the Lord in the midst of the Heavenly Host, "woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips.."

Yes, Saint, we are learning to speak in a new tone as we join His Host in calling to one another....

Holy >>>Holy>>>Holy>>>Holy is the Lord

 

[FineLinen]

Very interesting where this scripture lands in context. It changes my view of the context.
We don't need to become saved, we are saved but don't realize it. The realization is the living out of the grace we were saved by.

Ephesians 2:6-10
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Dear Saint: I behold salvation in the present continuous tense of past, present and future. God's handiwork are we as the malista of His grace.

I am going to trot off to find the story of a young Salvation Army lass approaching a man and asking him if he was saved? What a lesson she learned that wonderful day!

The story has been told of a beautiful incident that occurred many years ago in the North of England.

A young Salvation Army girl, only recently saved, was overflowing with the joy of the Lord and was eager to share her salvation with all others. Walking along the street of a little Durham city, she saw a tall, gray-haired man coming toward her and, stranger though he was, she stopped him and said,

"Pardon me, sir, but are you saved?"

The tall stranger leaned over toward her and answered, with a quizzical smile playing on his kindly face:

"My dear, do you mean ESOTHEN, or SOZOMENOS, or SOTHESOMAI?"

The Salvation Army girl was bewildered - it was "all Greek" to her!

She did not know that she had stopped bishop Westcott, one of the greatest of Greek scholars and an editor of the famous Westcott and Hort edition of the Greek New Testament.

He had asked her, using three different tenses of the Greek verb: "Do you mean, I was saved, or do you mean, I am being saved, or do you mean, I shall be saved?"

And then bishop Westcott, who was indeed saved and knew that he was saved, lovingly explained a little of the three tenses of the gospel to the young girl, and showed her something of the riches of her past salvation, her ongoing salvation, and her future salvation, from spirit to soul to body; and before they separated that earnest young girl knew more about the gospel and her Saviour than she had ever known before, and went away rejoicing that she had asked this tall stranger whether he was saved."

 

[Saint Steven]

My brother Steve: As the years pass by I am beginning to realize the vast areas of Father my being has not begun to envision. Just when one thinks he has finally uncovered the last star of His World, zillions more stars appear from one single pinprick of light. And, to add to our smallness, additional galaxies from that single pinprick.

On a lesser scale, this reminds me of something curious.

I remember as a boy, a class project to make a box camera. It required a shoe box and a small sheet of photographic paper. (the size of the end of the box) Remember that stuff?

Anyway, a window opening was made in one end of the shoe box in which went a thin sheet of black paper. In that black paper was made a pinhole in the center of the end of the box. On the other end of the box was installed the sheet of light-sensitive photographic paper. Done in a dark room so as to not expose the paper to light.

The pinhole end was covered with masking tale or a thumb. We then found a spot for our "camera" and removed the tape or thumb for the exposure time and recovered the pinhole so as not to overexpose. We returned to the darkroom to run or sheet through the printmaking chemistry. First the developer, then the stop bath (so as to not over develop), then the fixer, then rinse and dry. The final print was a photographic print of whatever we were pointing our box camera at when we exposed the sheet to light.

The light coming into the box created a projection of light (like a theater movie projector) that traveled to the photo paper end of the box in perfect focus. What an amazing thing. And all from a pinhole.

Now we just use our phone. Which seems so far removed from the original process. But I'm glad. I don't particularly like the smell of the photographic chemicals on my hands. - lol

 

[Saint Steven]

Holy >>>Holy>>>Holy>>>Holy is the Lord

The folks in the holiness movement define holy as simply "sinless". It seems to me that there is either more to it, and/or it has nothing to do with sin at all.
What's your take?

Brad Jerzak was saying that Jesus didn't die to save us from sin. (as the holiness folks claim) He died to save us from death, the consequence of sin. Wow. Mind blowing stuff.

 

[FineLinen]

The folks in the holiness movement define holy as simply "sinless". It seems to me that there is either more to it, and/or it has nothing to do with sin at all.
What's your take?

Brad Jerzak was saying that Jesus didn't die to save us from sin. (as the holiness folks claim) He died to save us from death, the consequence of sin. Wow. Mind blowing stuff.

Dear Saint: The purpose of our Father is, and always has been, to not simply save us from the effect of sin and the gulf that resulted, but to bring us Home to Himself.

Brennan Manning: The furious longing of God.

"Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace." -Brennan Manning-

“Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever.” -Brennan Manning-

 

[FineLinen]

Light

Unspoken Sermons by George MacDonald: Light

'This then is the message,' he says, 'which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.'

Ah, my heart, this is indeed the good news for thee! This is a gospel! If God be light, what more, what else can I seek than God, than God himself!

Away with your doctrines! Away with your salvation from the 'justice' of a God whom it is a horror to imagine! Away with your iron cages of false metaphysics! I am saved--for God is light!

My God, I come to thee. That thou shouldst be thyself is enough for time and eternity, for my soul and all its endless need. Whatever seems to me darkness, that I will not believe of my God.

If I should mistake, and call that darkness which is light, will he not reveal the matter to me, setting it in the light that lighteth every man, showing me that I saw but the husk of the thing, not the kernel? Will he not break open the shell for me, and let the truth of it, his thought, stream out upon me? He will not let it hurt me to mistake the light for darkness, while I take not the darkness for light.

The one comes from blindness of the intellect, the other from blindness of heart and will. I love the light, and will not believe at the word of any man, or upon the conviction of any man, that that which seems to me darkness is in God. Where would the good news be if John said, 'God is light, but you cannot see his light; you cannot tell, you have no notion, what light is; what God means by light, is not what you mean by light; what God calls light may be horrible darkness to you, for you are of another nature from him!' Where, I say, would be the good news of that? It is true, the light of God may be so bright that we see nothing; but that is not darkness, it is infinite hope of light. It is true also that to the wicked 'the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light;' but is that because the conscience of the wicked man judges of good and evil oppositely to the conscience of the good man?

 

[Saint Steven]

'This then is the message,' he says, 'which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.'

That should undo Damnationism right there. "... no darkness at all."
What could be "darker" than hell?

 

[FineLinen]

Christian Universalism

It is so sad that for many years the church had to reduce its message to a heaven or hell theme in order to persuade people into a decision for Christ. The Gospel persuades man what God believes and what God achieved on humanity’s behalf in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If the Gospel has the power to get people to fall head over heels in love with God and to love their neighbor as much as they love themselves, then this Gospel demands our total attention and emphasis. This automatically frees anyone anyway from the dread of hell or any sense of pending punishment. There is no law against the free expression of the fruit of the spirit. No one can exaggerate love, peace, joy, endurance, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self control. Legalism can neither match nor contradict this.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Continued below>>>>>>

Francois du Toit on rejecting a Christless universalism-Divine Embrace

 

[FineLinen]

Elhanan Winchester

Elhanan Winchester | Mercy Upon All

Reconciling Conflicting Convictions on the Sovereignty of God and the Freedom of Human Beings: Three Centuries (16th-18th) of Baptist Universalism | Mercy Upon
All

The Outcasts Comforted by ElhananWinchester

 

[FineLinen]

Is God a Failure?

Now that’s a pretty poignant question. Or is it an insinuation? An inference? Or implication? Or is it truth, as many would have you believe? Have you ever heard a sermon by that title? I doubt if you have. But I’m certain you have heard many a sermon which has been riddled with such implications.

Allow me to rephrase the question: Have you ever heard a sermon stating that if you don’t accept Jesus, you’ll burn forever in hell? Ah, I knew I’d touch a raw nerve. You have, haven’t you? If you heard that God is going to lose so much as one individual to the devil forever, then God is a failure.

If you have heard that the heathen (who have never had an opportunity to hear of Jesus) will be tormented forever for not believing in Him, then you’ve heard that God is a failure. If you’ve heard that man’s puny will can withstand the omnipotent will of God, and that man’s will can paralyze God’s will, then you have heard that God is a failure.

If you’ve heard that the Adversary outsmarted God in the garden of Eden, if you’ve heard that God did not want Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then you’ve heard that God is a failure.

If you’ve ever heard anyone affirm that God will lose 95% of His created beings that He’s placed on planet earth, and will torment them forever, then you’ve clearly heard that God is a failure.

If the Good Shepherd is not willing that any should perish, and yet gets weary and gives up before He finds the last sheep that’s lost, then you know that God is a failure.

If no one can come to Jesus except the Father draws him, and if the Father - eventually - does not draw every single person, then God is a failure.

What is the response of your heart to the poised question: Is God a failure? Ah, my heart says, “Nay, a billion nays.” My heart has fallen in love with a God who does all things perfectly, and one day all will be made plain, and in the end He will become ‘All in All’ and for that day my heart does wait and meanwhile I rejoice and endure because I see Him, the invisible One.

By faith I see a Master Plan for the ages and beyond, and I know I am part of that plan, and for this I whisper, “Thank you, Jesus.” I sing a song to my Beloved, Hallelujah!

In Love with Him

- Eleanor Garrod-

Please welcome Thomas Allin, author of Christ Triumphant & highlighed by our own Saint Steve.

Is God in earnest in telling us that He reconciles the world?

Does it mean what He says, or does He only mean that He will try to reconcile it, but will be baffled? This question often rises unbidden, as we read these statements of the Bible, and compare them with the popular creed, which turns "all" into "some, when salvation is promised to "all, " and turns the "world," when that is said to be saved, into a larger or smaller fraction of men.

 

[FineLinen]

Originally Posted by ShanaBrown

"As a Christian who believes in the eventual restoration of all to God, I always come across other Christians on other discussion forums who always claim that there will be people in the end who will never come to God. They believe that these people will always reject God, even in a hell of eternity, they will always curse Him and hate Him. These Christians, in my opinion, do not understand the power of the sovereignty of God. If what they believe is true..

This means the evil and sin will always exist in the creation of God. This view contradicts the scriptures which teach of the final ultimate victory of Jesus Christ over sin and death. Sin, evil, and death will exist forever in the creation of God according to the scriptures.

This view means that God who has all power is unable to penetrate even the most hardened and darkened of hearts. If this is the case, then sin and the power of sin and evil are greater than the power of God to reach all of His creatures. But the scriptures tell us that one day all people will return to God and worship Him."

"I use to have many sleepless nights when I did not understand the magnitude and depth of God's love for us. Now, I don't worry about the future, no matter what happens, because I know that He has all things in control and I know that His intentions are good. I know that all things begin and end in Him. He is going to make all things right in His own time and I fully trust Him. God bless."

 

[FineLinen]

 

[FineLinen]

Death & destruction are not eternal.

"Jesus knew that John 3:16 was not the end of the story…that’s why He continued to John 3:17 and talked about the salvation of all mankind.

Jesus makes no attempt to use verse 16 to negate or qualify verse 17. He simply makes both statements side by side as if both are completely true. The reason He does this is that both are completely true.

We see this over and over in Scripture, especially in the writings of Paul – a statement about people who have faith now (maybe a warning or exhortation or encouragement about the benefits of taking part in the kingdom of God a.k.a. the next two ages of life on earth right next to a statement about how Christ accomplished the justification of all men. See Romans 3:23-24 and 5:18 and their contexts for example. This is no big deal; none of these statements negate, qualify (change), or contradict each other, because both concepts are 100% true. Some will be saved from death early and take part in the kingdom of God, and everyone else will be saved from death later.

To attempt to use some statements (about those who get saved early) to negate the others statements (about the eventual salvation of all) is to butcher the common sense rules of language and communication. We would never do this to each other in everyday communication; the only reason people try to do it to Jesus and Paul is because they cannot bring themselves to believe the plain statements about the eventual salvation of all mankind.

If I said to my kids, “Those of you who help me clean the yard today will get to go to a movie with me tomorrow, and next week I will take the rest of you to a movie,” I have made it very clear that all the kids will eventually go to the movies. My two statements do not contradict each other or negate each other in any way. This is the exact same thing Jesus does in John 3:16 and 17 – He makes two equally true statements. Yet “hell mindset” Christians try to make one statement negate the other in order to fit their preconceived inherited ideas." -Kenneth Larsen-

What about how the Bible says that those who do not believe will perish or be destroyed?

What Does it Mean to "Perish?"

 

[FineLinen]

"He is the atonement for our sins, and not our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world."

Dear friends do you know what atonement means?

Jesus Christ is the atonement for each and every one of us, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Atonement = katallage

In Romans 5:11 katallage in the A.V. is translated as such.

HOWEVER

Katallage signifies not atonement but reconcilation, linked firmly with katallasso & to reconcile.

He is the reconciliation for us & the whole world.

 

[FineLinen]

Abba's Child

https://files.tyndale.com/thpdata/FirstChapters/978-1-63146-395-2.pdf

 

[FineLinen]

“…Nothing can be lost that is not first owned. Just as a parent is compelled by civil law to be responsible for his family and his property, so the Creator --by His own divine law–in compelled to take care of the children He has created. And that means not only caring for the good children, but for the bad ones and lost ones as well… If a person is a ‘lost sinner’ it only means that he is temporarily separated from the Good Shepherd who owns him. The Shepherd is bound by all duties of ownership to go after all those who are lost until they are found.” -Catherine Marshall-

kingdomandglory.com
art51.pdf
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Reconciliation means “to make friendly again or win over to a friendly attitude; to bring two parties into harmony or peace with each other.” By definition, reconciliation means that a peace deal has been struck on the part of all that were once at odds or at war with each other. However, reconciliation requires a process by which all parties come to terms of peace, and generally, this process must start with one of the parties making the first move. In other words, one party must be willing to raise the white flag of peace in order for the other party to respond, whether favorably or unfavorably. Obviously, if one rejects the deal and keeps shooting, so to speak, there is no peace. However, this peace deal does not start with reconciliation per se, but with a less known word that is seldom heard in modern-day conversation. The first step of reconciliation is called conciliation, which is exactly what Paul explains in relation to God, the world, and His ambassadors.