Sunday School | Last lesson on Christology - The Restoration of All Things

Yes, I think we're gonna finish Christology today, at least that's my intention, but you never know, we'll see what happens. All right, so we've been walking through the life of Jesus and we walked through his incarnation and his teaching and his miracles and his obedient life, all these things, and we came to the very final thing, which is the three R's. What are the three R's at the conclusion of our Christology study, do you remember? Return, resurrection, restore all things—and the resurrection's not his, but ours. The last R is the restoration of all things.

So what we mean by that, and this overlaps with eschatology, so we're gonna get to that down the road, but when Jesus comes back, he's not just coming back to raise the dead and to restore all things, and I do mean all things. When he comes, it is restorative of all of creation. So I'm curious, where in scripture would you go to talk about that, Jesus' restoration of all things? Where do you think we would wanna go to try to get our head around that?

I can see the Rolodex flipping through Dan's mind right now. Where would you go? Jesus comes, he's gonna fix everything. Got any in your brain?

— Revelation.

End of Revelation, you get 21, 22. End of Revelation, what you were saying too? Same thing, Revelation, yeah, Adam?

— I got kind of a fun one, where it's in Isaiah, where like the animals get like the lion and the lamb and the lion again.

Yes, end of Isaiah, he's gonna get into, yeah, and that is interesting, where he describes—there's a number of places, actually, we'll look at some passages in Isaiah—where he depicts this, you know, like, your children will play with snakes, basically, is what he says. Okay, that's weird. We're gonna see the peace brought back, the enmity between us and animals being ended. Very good. Where else? Any of these jump into your brain?

I'll show you one that I think is pretty overarching. Go to Romans, chapter eight. This is a good one. In Romans eight, listen to what he says. We'll start in verse 18:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. — Romans 8:18

That reminds me, I got two emails this week while I was in Yosemite saying, "Hey, you deadbeat, you never sent us the weight of glory," so I will do that today. Glory will be revealed in us. Lewis will talk about that. But then the next line is:

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. The creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it—that by the way is God the Father—in hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. — Romans 8:19-21

Listen to that: creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. What do you think that means? The creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay.

— It's under a curse.

It is under a curse. Genesis three, right?

— It made me how incredibly beautiful it is and that's under—

That's really a good point, Catherine. In this world, I was in Yosemite this week, which is one of the most majestic places in North America. Dan, do you think you beat it?

— Yeah, Yosemite Valley is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

It's spectacular. The grandeur of it. The scale of everything is just—yeah, and Dan has been to every national park, every single national park, so he's in a position to judge, right? And as Catherine says, Yosemite is under a curse. Can you imagine what it's like when it's freed from its bondage to decay? You've lived your whole life in a world where literally everything dies. Everything dies, including you, right? Everything entropy, everything is rolling down. Everything gets worse.

— They're waiting for us to be revealed.

Right. And someday when we are redeemed, the day of Christ—what Dave's talked about in Philippians 1—when the day of Christ comes, not only are we going to be fully redeemed and fully restored, but creation itself. We are waiting. Creation itself was subjected to frustration, right? This is the curse. This is absolutely an allusion to Genesis 3 that the ground will produce thorns, right? Childbearing will be difficult. The day is coming that the curse will be reversed. Do you have any thoughts?

— So is this an argument that entropy itself will vanish?

I think so. However, I don't know what that could possibly mean, right? It's hard to understand.

If creation, to imagine a world in which there is no death is impossible because everything—I mean, the leaves on those trees are going to die, right? So, how does that work? I don't know, but something, whatever it is, there's some bondage, some enslavement that will be ended.

Here's maybe this—I don't know, it probably won't help—but the next thing he says in verse 22:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. — Romans 8:22

And we do know that, right? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that everything's broken, right? Not only so, we ourselves have the first fruits of the spirit. We grown inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. He seems to be drawing some parallels. Something—we have some idea that we are going to be resurrected, he's going to transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body, but the earth too is going to be made new. So, no entropy, I don't know, dude. What do you think?

Audience member: It's been a question posed in my brain on resolve for decades. I thought maybe you could solve that for me.

Tim: I know, I'm disappointing. It's hard.

Audience member: It's being renewing even, like maybe one thing is used and it's gone anew and comes and it's always like more beautiful, more beautiful. I mean, I don't think that it's a death, so.

Tim: Yeah, always more beautiful, more beautiful. Here's the best that we can do to answer this: look at the way the scripture describes it, okay? One of, I think, the most vivid depictions of this is Isaiah 35. This is a different passage than the one that Adam was talking about, but in Isaiah 35, it's all reversal, right? All the stuff that's been bad—this is, you know, Samwise Gamgee's famous speech when he wakes up and he sees that the third finger on Frodo's hand is missing and he realizes, oh my gosh, it was all—you know what I'm talking about? He asks the question: "Are all of the sad things going to come untrue?" Right, the idea of the sad things coming untrue, that is Isaiah 35.

Isaiah 35: The Restoration of All Things

The desert and the parched land will be glad. The wilderness will rejoice and blossom. — Isaiah 35:1

And that's weird because they don't do that, right? The desert's a place of death and wilderness and lifelessness. It's going to erupt in color and life.

Like the crocus that will burst into bloom, it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God. — Isaiah 35:1-2

What he's doing is picking things that are known for their lavishness and their color and their life. And he's saying, all of that will be Death Valley, California, right? Death Valley will become an oasis. That's what he's describing.

He carries on:

Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way, say to those with fearful hearts. — Isaiah 35:3-4

That, by the way, is us. We're weary of living in a broken world under creation that's in a curse.

Say to those with fearful hearts, be strong, do not fear. Your God will come with vengeance with divine retribution. He will come to save you. — Isaiah 35:4

Bear in mind, this restoration coincides with his return. When he comes, this is what's going to happen.

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. — Isaiah 35:5

You know, Emmy was a Blue Ridge fellow this past year. She's still here, teaches at Faith Christian. She's absolutely remarkable. She speaks more languages than you do, and she's brilliant, but she can't see. And just imagine what that is. And her eyes will be opened. And all of the beauty of this world would be hers to behold again.

Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool. The thirsty ground bubbling springs in the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. — Isaiah 35:6-7

And a highway will be there.

It will be called the way of holiness. The unclean will not journey on it. It will be for those who walk in that way and wicked fools will not go about on it. — Isaiah 35:8

You see how much he's phasing it? This is like human things and geographic things. And this is what your life—this would be sin things and this would be physical things. He's painting every part of the world. All the badness, all the sad things come untrue. For us, for creation, for all of it.

Verse nine, no lion will be there. Nor will any ferocious beasts get up on it. They will not be found there. — Isaiah 35:9

And in that, I wouldn't say that means there won't be any lions. I can actually talk about lions and other passages. But what he means is devouring, murdering, killing things. Only the redeemed will walk there. And the ransomed, the Lord will return. They will enter—here's the best part.

They will enter Zion with singing. Everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them. Sorrow and sighing will flee away. — Isaiah 35

I don't know, Dan, but that'll be fine. Amen.

It's like you're fleeing from it, but it's a tidal wave and you can't outrun joy. Sorrow and sighing—are you guys sore? Do you sigh? I sigh all the time. Someday you guys know this is like so stupid. I'm so tired of this. Sorrow and sighing will flee away.

John picks this up. He loves this passage. Let's go to Revelation and then we'll reflect a little bit on it. I've left most of our time this morning for you guys to interact with this.

The New Heaven and New Earth

This is the primary passage in the New Testament. What John does—we've talked about this in the past—John is incredibly unoriginal. All he ever does is draw Old Testament passages and patchwork quilt them into new passages. Over and over, he's going to draw lines from Isaiah 35, but he's drawing from all over the place.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. — Revelation 21:1

We're going to walk through this kind of slow and see if you guys pick this up. How do you envision that, verse one? "I saw a new heaven and a new earth." Do you think—I'll give you three options. Well, I've actually given away too much of the story, but we'll do it this way anyway. In 10,000 years, where are you going to be?

Three options: You're going to be on this planet. You're going to be on a replacement of this planet. You're going to be in heaven and some other dimension of the universe. You'll be right here, Roanoke, if you prefer, on a replacement globe or someplace else. Where are you going to be in 10,000 years?

Most people, most Christians don't know that. Most Christians think you're going to be in heaven. And that's not true—heaven's temporary. I'm saying in 10,000 years, on the bet that Jesus will come back in the next 10,000 years. Hopefully it'll be sooner than that. A lot of people think we just go—this is a disposable launching pad and we're going somewhere else. Not true. You're coming here. He's returning. This is the world he made.

The next group of Christians would say, "Well, yeah, but it's a new one." So we get rid of the old one, boom, and we replace it. And I think those are both errors. You are—think about it this way. In 2 Corinthians 5, it says you are a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. But you're still made out of the same bone and muscle that you used to be, yes? When you became a Christian, you became a new creation. In a similar way, this world is going to be made new. We're not destroying your body and making you a new one, right? You are, present tense, a new creation. This world will be made new. We will be right here.

What does that line mean—"and there was no longer any sea"? Verse 21:1. John, what do you think?

In Jewish thinking of the time, the sea represented discord. That's exactly right. Earlier in Revelation, when John was talking about the sea, the sea is where the monsters come from. The sea is where the beasts come from.

You will sometimes hear a more literal hermeneutic applied to this, and they kind of treat it like when the new heaven and new earth come—this replacement earth that we're going to get, which we're not getting a replacement earth, we're getting a renewal—but that this replacement is just going to be this land mass. It's like no water, no ocean, no sea. The Bible says so and I believe it. And it's like, it does say that the Bible says so, but you don't understand it, okay? It doesn't mean there's not going to be any oceans. It means there's not going to be any more monsters. It means the land, the place from which the beasts have come, will be no more.

I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. — Revelation 21:2

Now what John is doing here on purpose is he's trying to force you to understand that we're not supposed to take him literally. It's a city—it's Manhattan coming down—but it's dressed like a bride. Do you see the way he's mixing his metaphors?

So you're like, are we supposed to envision Manhattan wrapped in lace? No, we're not. We're supposed to recognize that he's saying something else—the bride, right? All this splendor, all this beauty, all this wonder, he's defying literalism. But then he says this in verse three:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God." — Revelation 21:3

Go back three, four months when we were talking about the attributes of God. Remember, we did this in this room and we talked about his nature through the lens of a creator and a judge and a redeemer, right? He's omniscient, he's omnipotent. He is holy and he's just and he's merciful and he's compassionate. Does anybody recall the final attribute of God that we talked about? And it's the only one that's kind of a bummer.

The hiddenness of God—that God is fundamentally invisible, silent, formless. This is difficult. The hiddenness of God is an enormous problem. It is the problem beneath every problem. Where are you? Why are you hiding? Why are you silent for so long? Why can't I see you? This is the problem, whatever else troubles you. This is what actually troubles you. Whatever distractions you give to yourself, however much time you waste on worthless, fruitless things, probably at this root is you trying to distract yourself from the misery of the hiddenness of God. That may feel strong to you, but I think it's all true.

He will not remain hidden forever. You will see him face to face. You will see him as clearly as he sees you. Here's the language: Now, finally, at last, the dwelling of God is with men. He walked in the garden, but we have not seen him quite some time. He will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. It is massive transformation. The deepest longing finally fulfilled when Jesus comes back.

I was thinking about these passages earlier when you asked about the restoration. They're two of my favorite passages—Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. The language in Revelation is used for those passages, and they're often not about redemption, but I think of them about restoration. God says:

"I will give you a new heart and a new spirit within you. I'll remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I'll put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees. Be careful to follow my laws. I will be your God, you will be my people." — Ezekiel 36

The idea of it—you can't share Jesus with anyone because everyone, every neighbor will know him already. There's gonna come a day when we won't be able to sin anymore because he is among us. He will move us to obey his decrees in ways that he's not moving me now.

Not yet. Not yet. I'm not cooperating with him maybe.

So to recap, Kelly is citing two of the three great passages on the New Covenant in the Old Testament—Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. The other one is Deuteronomy 30. But Deuteronomy 30, Jeremiah 31, and Ezekiel 36 depict the New Covenant. They're anticipating, around 600-700 BC, when Jesus comes and changes everything. But they use language to describe the New Covenant that even today we're like, I mean, we're not receiving all of it yet, right? There were promises made in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 about what will happen not only when the Messiah comes, but if we're being honest more fully when the Spirit comes. Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 are as much about the Spirit coming as it is about the Son coming. But even still, we're not presently—there's this great line in The Last Battle where Aslan says to the children, "You are not yet as happy as I mean you to be," right? There are things in Ezekiel 36 that we're like, "We're not yet in the full enjoyment of this." But when he comes, we get it all. All of it will be finally ours.

We will have him fully. Right now we enjoy him at some level of remove. For the days coming, we will have all of him for sure.

So we're talking about all the joy, no longer sighing. A couple of weeks ago, I think we also talked about how we will look around and be surprised at who's in heaven with us and who's not. Square love one, not being in heaven with us, with the fullness of joy that you're talking about.

Caitlin's question is: when we're talking about everything being amazing, how will this be so if there are people that we know and love that are not ultimately saved? What do we do? That's a lot.

Many of you know my oldest son is not a believer, and this is by a wide, wide margin, the greatest source of pain in my life and concern and anxiety and all the things. So I have no academic answer for you. It's deeply meaningful and personal.

Paul, who speaks so frequently of joy, would agree with us in this, Caitlin. If you go to Romans, people think of Romans perhaps as a very logical treatise, very legal, and it is. But Paul's deeply, deeply grieved, right?

I speak the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. — Romans 9

He's so grieved about their lostness, right? He says the same thing in chapter 10:

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. — Romans 10

He's grindingly desiring this. He gives his whole life to this. In 11:1, he asks:

Did God reject his people? — Romans 11:1

And the reason he asks that is because it seems like he did, right? And his answer is:

By no means. I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people. — Romans 11:1-2

And he walks through, and you can see, all of Romans is ultimately Paul working out his deep and abiding grief over the fact that he is not a universalist. He doesn't believe that all people will be saved. Some people hold the view that everyone will ultimately be redeemed. It's lovely. I don't see it. If I'm wrong, that would be fine, but I don't see it in Scripture.

So your question is: with all that, how will we ultimately experience joy if the things that we long for most of all—namely the salvation of people we love—doesn't come to pass? I don't know.

Think about this. I wonder, I hope that the God of love and mercy will ultimately save the people that I love most of all. It troubles me that it doesn't trouble me about a whole bunch of other people that might not be in his grace. I'm like, what do I care, right? And that's horrific, but it's accurate. Can you live with that?

But there are a handful of people for whom, when Paul says "if I could be a curse and cut off for them, I would do it"—there are not many people for whom I would say that, but the number's not zero.

And so I don't know. But it does say this, right here in this passage: "he will wipe every tear from their eyes." Which if you think about it, it does presume the presence of tears to wipe, right? I don't think that when we are translated into this new world, we become imbeciles who forgot everything. I think there will be sorrow and there will be comfort.

But my hope is that I will never know the answer to that question because God, in his mercy—who is the God of all compassion—will save Benjamin.

I don't know. Where I find my hope for that is in 1 John:

If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if he hears us, we know that we have what we've asked of him. — 1 John 5:14-15

There are references to it being his will that everyone be saved. And so I find hope in that for people that I love that I am praying for.

I just wonder what you think about that. If Benjamin obviously is one of them, if people who have others praying for their salvation—if we can't count on them, do we have good reason to hope?

I appreciate that very much. And I've had all these imaginary conversations in my own mind where I'm like, I can imagine at some point Jesus saying, "Well, you're so worried about this. Did you read what I told you?" And I do wonder that. And that would be wonderful.

But I'm not a universalist. I don't think that all will be saved. And so I kind of drive myself completely insane bouncing off the walls of this exact question. Like there's good reason to hope. But I don't particularly like hope. I want the money in the bank. I like to know. And I'm sure that's part of God's purpose in our lives, right?

Because I don't think any of you like hope either, right? We want to be—I don't like truth. Faith is exhausting, right? Like, just give it to me. So for sure.

You have insight on that?

The second beatitude is "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." So there will be mourning because of the kingdom of God, but there will also be comfort.

Yes. And so what form of comfort would we find comforting at that moment? It's hard. I mean, there is no super great "here's a lollipop, feel better about it." You know, this is an incredibly difficult question. That's the best I can do. I don't know the answer.

Yeah, one more.

So you're not thinking that what John says—that Scripture that I just quoted—applies to the salvation of people that we're praying for?

Well, it's not that. Okay, so to answer that specifically: when John says we have anything we ask according to his will, what is his will? Is it his will that any particular individual would be saved? I do not know that it is. It may be, but God has within God's will a clearly a range of things, right? So Paul says in First Thessalonians four, "Paul says it's God's will that you would avoid sexual immorality." Did God get his will? Okay, you feel that? So it's God's will that we would avoid sexual immorality. Do we? Did we? Have we? Quite obviously not, yes?

So there is God's perfect will and there is God's permissive will. Ezekiel says that God is not willing that any should perish, right? Peter is going to say the same thing, but it doesn't follow necessarily that that is the will that he determines to bring to pass. And so it is certainly the case that when he comes, some will be destroyed.

This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed with blazing fire and his powerful angels. He will destroy those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord. — 2 Thessalonians 1

There will be people that are lost. Absolutely, there will be. And the question is who? And I don't know who. So that's my understanding of God's will: that there are things that he decrees. When God says "let there be light," there is light and nothing argues with it. He has determined that it would be so. But not everything is exactly like that. He allows a range of things to happen. That's how I would understand it.

Okay, all right. So let's go back to Revelation 21.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. — Revelation 21:4

What entropy is the third? I don't know, maybe. Okay, and then he says this, and here's the line:

He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new." — Revelation 21:5

That's what we're longing for. The restoration of all things. He's making everything new.

"Write these down, these words are trustworthy and true." — Revelation 21:5

Now, there's a whole bunch of stuff here, but let me skip down. I'm going to show you a couple of other things that I want you to see. Go to verse 10.

He carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and he showed me the Holy City Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God, and listen to it. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like Jasper, the clearest crystal. — Revelation 21:10-11

It describes it as this majesty and beauty. By the way, do you know why it's a cube? Do you know why when he comes down and he measures everything—verse 16—"it's 12,000 stadia in length and width and height"? That's about 2,500 miles wide, 2,500 miles deep, 2,500 miles high. Do you know why it's that size? Why it's that shape? It's a cube. Everything that John says in Revelation, he's drawing from the Old Testament. Do you know John?

Oh, the Holy of Holies.

Bingo. Yeah. The Holy of Holies is the only cube, the only other cube in the Bible. And what is the Holy of Holies? It's where God literally—he's in the box. This is his room, he's in the cube. That's where the ark is, it's where he is. What John sees is a cube, to which we should be trained to think "that's where God is"—except it's huge. It's 2,500 miles wide and 2,500 miles deep and 2,500 miles high. What is he saying? Everywhere we go, he's there. What is the new creation going to be like? It's going to be like the very presence of God. He will be with us. He will be hidden no more. We'll see him. We'll be with him. And everything is sparkling crystal and jewels and gold and amazingness.

And look at this, verse 22:

I did not see a temple in the city. — Revelation 21:22

Of course he doesn't see a temple in the city because the city is a temple, right?

I didn't see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city doesn't need the sun or the moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives it light and the Lamb is its lamp.

And the nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut for there will be no night there. The glory and the honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. — Revelation 21:22-27

Now here's the closing. Verse one:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. — Revelation 22:1

Two questions. What is that river? Do you know where he's drawing that from? It's Ezekiel 47. Go back and read Ezekiel 47—John is drawing from Ezekiel 47. Here's a more important question: Who is that river? That is the Holy Spirit. This is a Trinitarian passage. The angel showed me the river of the water of life clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. All three persons of the Godhead are represented there.

Down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing 12 crops of fruit yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him. They will see his face. He's hidden no more. And his name will be on their forehead. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun for the Lord God will give them light. And he will reign forever and ever. — Revelation 22:2-5

The Restoration of All Things

Behold, I am coming soon. — Revelation 22:7

This is the great hope. When he comes, he will not only raise us from the dead to live forever, but he will restore all things. He will be with us.

What does Jesus do? He's interceding for us. He's atoned for us. All these things that he's done—what he's gonna do is make everything new. And for those of us that are hidden in him, all of it becomes ours.

We're gonna start talking with the Holy Spirit next week. Thank you for coming. We'll see you then.