The Gospel of The Restoration of All Things

By Tim Hodge

This book is written out of a deep desire to share with people a magnificent truth that has been lost in mainstream Christianity for about 1,800 years.

It is called ‘The Gospel of the Restoration of All Things’ or ‘Christian Universalism', which is the belief that every person who has ever lived, is living or will live in the future will ultimately be saved and reunited with God through the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.

In this book, Tim Hodge gives a thorough Biblical discourse to show that not only was this the original gospel as taught by the church but that the Bible itself teaches this, even while being taken literally – and shows that God has a good plan for every person no matter where they stand with God, anywhere on Earth or at any time in History.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M-Y Books
• Release date: Nov 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781912875405

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

This book is written out of a deep desire to share with people a magnificent truth which I believe has been lost in mainstream Christianity for about 1,800 years. It is called ‘the Gospel of the Restoration of all Things’, and I will be sharing what I’ve discovered over the last 20 years as a follower of Jesus and a student of the Bible.

My first introduction to Christianity was as a child when I attended an Anglican Sunday school. My parents were steeped in Anglican culture and we attended church regularly and learnt about God through Bible stories and the singing of traditional hymns.

The teaching was basically that we should try really hard to be good and to think of others before ourselves, and we thought of Jesus as a good kind teacher who unfortunately was killed but overcame death by rising from the dead. This was my sum understanding of Christianity for many years.

It was as a young adult at the age of 21 that I heard the ‘Evangelical’ version of the Gospel: that God loved me personally and had sent Jesus to die for my sins on the cross and would come to live within me if I asked him in. I immediately believed this was the truth and I knelt down in my room and asked the living Jesus into my life to be my saviour and Lord. Three things followed from this:

1.I knew God was real.

2.I knew I was born again.

3.I knew the Bible was the word of God.

I don’t know how I knew, but I just knew.

In those days I was given a copy of the Bible by those who were mentoring me, and this was a ‘Good News Bible’. I began reading it, but really didn’t understand it, and quickly realised that most Christians I knew didn’t understand it either. Yes, there were certain verses and passages that they would quote and maybe even preach on, but also whole swathes of scripture ignored by most Christians. However, I persevered with it and began attending Evangelical meetings and house groups and listening to as much teaching as I could.

The teaching was basically that God had created this world and given us all a free will, but we had used that free will against God and become guilty sinners. This made God angry with us, and, as sinners, we deserved to be separated from him in hell forever, but God had sent Jesus to die for us, so that if we repented of our sins and trusted Jesus as saviour, God would forgive us and give us eternal life in heaven. This was the Gospel I presumed was true for many years.

I studied many Christian books, listened to endless sermons and Bible studies and quickly realised that within Evangelicalism there were many different versions of the Gospel: Calvinism, Arminianism, Charismatic, Reformed, Pentecostal, and so on.

Some believed in ‘once saved, always saved’; others denied it and taught that the believer was in danger of losing their salvation. There were different baptisms, and some believed in the gifts of the Spirit, while others believed the gifts ended with the Apostles. But the one thing they all had in common was that not everyone would be saved and that most people would end up in the eternal conscious torment of hell!

I began thinking ‘how could this be a Gospel at all?’ After all, the word ‘Gospel’ means ‘good news’ and it seemed really bad news that most people would be lost and end up in hell.

When I asked my Evangelical friends why God created people knowing that they would reject him and end up in hell, I got many trite answers but most just said ‘we can’t know all about God and we have to just leave these things with him.’ But this didn’t satisfy me, and gradually I started to realise that this Gospel (in its various forms) was fundamentally flawed and was a perversion of the original Gospel as revealed in the Bible.

Firstly, I began researching the word ‘hell’, and quickly came to realise that it didn’t mean what traditionalists had said it meant. I also discovered, from the Bible, that hell was not eternal.

It then dawned on me that not only was the fall of man universal but that every person had become a sinner not by his own choice but by being physically descended from Adam.

I then realised that, just as the work of Adam was universal, so the work of Christ was universal and that Jesus had died not just for Christians but for the sins of the whole world, and Paul in his letters seemed to compare the two, showing that the work of Christ undoes the work of Adam.

‘Consequently just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.’

(Rom 5 v 18 – NIV)

My Evangelical friends said ‘yes, Jesus did die for the sins of the whole world, but it needs personal faith to appropriate that salvation and most will never believe.’

Then I read:

‘At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those in heaven, of those on earth and those under the earth. And that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father.’

(Phil 2 v 10-11 NASV)

They then told me that ‘Yes, they will bow and confess, but it will be too late to be saved, there is no chance for people after they die.’ This seemed to be contradicted by Paul who said in Romans that death does not separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8 v 38-39) and Peter tells us that the Gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that although their bodies were punished with death they could still live in the spirit as God lives (1 Peter 4 v 6 Living Bible).

I then realised that the words ‘eternal’ and ‘forever’, and the phrase ‘forever and ever’, were in many instances mistranslations from the Greek word ‘aion’, meaning ‘age’, ‘aions’ meaning ‘ages’ and ‘the aions of the aions’ meaning ‘the ages of the ages’. I found that even in English the words ‘eternal’ and ‘forever’ were used in the Bible for things that clearly come to an end. Why not judgement?

I then realised that the word ‘things’ in scripture is used of people or ‘beings’ both human and angelic and not just of inanimate objects, and that ultimately ‘all things’ would be reconciled to God through the work of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.

I also discovered that:

‘In the dispensation of the fullness of time he would gather together in one all things in Christ. Whether it be things in heaven or things on earth even in him.’

(Eph 1 v 10)

There are many other areas and doctrines within Christianity that I’ve come to realise are false as the Lord has been opening up the scriptures to me, and that God’s love is much more universal than traditional Christianity would have us believe.

In the chapters that follow, I outline what I’ve discovered and commend to you the Gospel that was once delivered to the Saints - ‘The Gospel of the Restoration of all Things!’

Sometimes in this book I will use the word ‘Universalism’ instead of ‘the Restoration of all Things’. The word Universalism is not in the Bible, but nevertheless it perfectly conveys the same meaning, so I will be using the words interchangeably.

I firmly believe that the Gospel of the Restoration of All Things, the teaching that ultimately every human being that has ever lived, is living or will live in the future will be saved and re-united with God, is the original Gospel (or Good News) taught in the Bible.

We have to understand that there are different versions of Universalism out there, with many liberal Christians saying that all people will obviously be saved because God is love and would not judge anyone, but in this book I base the teaching on a literal interpretation of scripture.

I have also used many Bible quotes because I want the scriptures to speak for themselves on these issues.

My aim in writing this book is to persuade Evangelical Christians, who are firm Bible believers, that the Bible doesn’t teach everything they have been taught about the destiny of unbelievers and to see that the work of Christ is much more universal than they’ve realised and to encourage them to question traditional orthodox teaching.

I also want to appeal to liberal Christians, many of whom have rejected much of the Bible because of the Orthodox teachings on hell and judgement, and non-Christians to show them that the Bible reveals a God who loves the world so much that he sent his only begotten Son to be the saviour of the entire world and that God’s judgement and his love work together in a beautiful harmony.

Many Christians will disagree with what I’ve written and many will call it ‘heresy’ but no matter.

‘What I have written, I have written.’

(John 19 v 22)

I hope that readers will be like the Bereans in Acts 17 who searched the scriptures to see if what I’ve written conforms with the Bible.

I hope and pray that this book will encourage Evangelical Christians, inspire liberal Christians to return to the Bible and bring non-Christians to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the saviour of all men (especially those who believe) and has a good plan for them and his whole creation.

CHAPTER 1

THE GOSPEL OF THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS

As we saw at the beginning of the book, this Gospel was preached by the apostle Peter in the book of Acts Ch 3 v 19-21.

‘Repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ who was preached to you before whom heaven must receive and retain until the time comes of the restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.’

(Acts 3 v 19-21)

It is important to realise that the word ‘restoration’ has the prefix ‘re’ at the beginning, meaning a ‘restoring back’ to an original condition that we had before we were separated from God, before we were lost and needed saving. But it is the last section of this passage I want to concentrate on in this chapter, that this Gospel of the restoration of all things was spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. I will be doing an overview, going right back to the book of Genesis, through the old testament, through the new testament, and showing that this Gospel has always been taught and believed despite the Jews and the Church trying to shut it down.

It is important to begin with, for us to understand the little word ‘things’ as it is used in scripture, Peter talks about the restoration of all ‘things’.

The word ‘things’ in scripture means ‘beings’, human and angelic. We in modern English tend to use the word ‘things’ to mean inanimate objects such as rocks and trees, and feel it’s somehow insulting to call people ‘things’, but that is what the Bible does. For example, Jesus is called a ‘thing’ in Luke 1 v 35 when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and tells her of her impending pregnancy by the Holy Spirit:

‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you, therefore that ‘holy thing’ who is to be born will be called the son of God.’

(Luke 1 v 35 KJV)

The Apostles are called ‘things’ in 1 Cor 3 v 21-22

‘For all things are yours whether Paul, Apollos or Cephas’

(1 Cor 3 v 21-22)

All human beings are called ‘things’ in Philippians chapter 2:

‘At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, of things on earth and things under the earth and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.’

(Phil 2 v 10-11 KJV)

Can we see that ‘things’ in this passage have knees and tongues and a will to confess Jesus is Lord, so are clearly ‘beings’.

Angels are called ‘things’ in Colossians chapter 1:

‘For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers’.

The phrase ‘principalities and powers’ is also used in Ephesians 6 when speaking of evil angels.

So the word ‘things’ clearly means ‘beings’, human and angelic, and Peter says that there will come a time when ‘all things’ will be restored to God.

All humans and all angels will be restored to their original place in God because of the work of Jesus Christ, the saviour of the world.

Jesus said:

‘All things have been delivered to me by the Father.’

(Math 11 v 27)

And ‘the Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands.’

(John 3 v 35)

All humans and all angels have been given to Jesus Christ by God the Father. Jesus promises that:

‘All that the Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of the Father who sent me that all he has given me I should lose nothing no-thing) but raise it up at the last day.’

(John 6 v 37-39)

Jesus says ‘all have been given, all will come to him, none will be cast out and all will be raised up on the last day.’ His job is not to lose any that the Father has given him.

St Paul tells us that

‘All things will be reconciled to God.’

(Col 1 v 20 )

‘All things will be gathered into Christ.’

(Eph 1 v 10)

‘All things will consummate in God and end in him.’

(Rom 11 v 36)

And the apostle John tells us that:

‘All things will be made new.’

(Rev 21 v 5)

Now we have an understanding of the word ‘things’ and what Peter meant by ‘the restoration of all things’, let us see how God has spoken this Gospel through all his holy prophets since the world began.

In the early chapters of Genesis, we have the creation of man and woman, their fall through the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and their hiding from God among the trees of the garden of Eden, and the Lord God comes to them in the cool of the day. This is the pre-incarnate Jesus appearing to Adam and Eve and he speaks with them, after pronouncing curses (firstly on the serpent, then on the woman, then on the man) he does an amazing thing - it says he made coats of skin and clothed them! We know that there was no death on earth until Adam and Eve sinned, so it could be that the Lord took an innocent animal and killed it, pre-figuring his own death four thousand years later on the cross, but what we do know is that the Lord took these coats of skin and put them on Adam and Eve, representing the robes of righteousness or garments of salvation. Adam is described in scripture as the representative head of all of fallen humanity; in other words, all of us in our fallen state are described as being ‘in Adam’. Eve, here, is called the mother of all the living, so Adam and Eve represent the whole of the human race which come from them, and Jesus clothing them is picturing the salvation of the whole human race and his death that will atone for all. But it is in Genesis chapter 12 that we get a fuller description of the Gospel of the restoration of all things when the Lord appears to Abraham and says to him:

‘In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’

(Gen 12 v 3)

In other words, Abraham, one coming from you will be the source of all blessing for every family on earth and we know that the one coming from Abraham was Jesus Christ, the messiah who would bless all mankind.

But this promise is expanded and repeated throughout the book of Genesis:

‘And all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.’

(Gen 18 v 8)

Now we not only have all families but ‘all nations’ being blessed in him. In whom? In the one coming from Abraham, the messiah Jesus Christ.

In Genesis 28 v 14 it says:

‘And in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

Paul tells us in Galatians 3 v 16 that the seed of Abraham is Christ, so we not only have ‘all families’ and ‘all nations’ but we now know that they will be blessed ‘in Christ’. Now to be ‘in Christ’ is to be saved! Here it clearly teaches that all families and all nations will be blessed in Christ - in other words, ‘saved’!

Eph 1 v 7 says:

‘In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.’

So part of being blessed in him is having redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.

But the passage is expanded again, the NIV says:

‘All people on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.’

(Gen 28 v 14)

We not only now have ‘all nations’ and ‘all families’ but we also have ‘all people’ being blessed in Christ. In other words, every individual who has ever lived will one day be blessed (in other words saved) in the seed of Abraham, who is Christ.

This Gospel went out into the ancient world but was quickly thwarted, firstly by the Jews, who said that not all nations, families and people would be saved, only Jewish people, just as the Church says only Christians will be saved! This message of universal salvation was repeated in the New Testament when quoting these verses:

‘And the entire world will be blessed because of you.’

(Acts 3 v 25 Living Bible)

‘As God said to Abraham, through your descendants I will bless all people on Earth.’

(Acts 3 v 25 Good News Bible)

And so the scripture announced the good news to Abraham:

‘Through you God will bless all mankind.’

(Gal 3 v 8 Good News Bible)

This was the original Gospel preached to Abraham and through Abraham to the people.

Now of course Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, including Genesis, and understood fully that one day God would bless all mankind in Christ. He also gave the children of Israel the law, but as Paul says in Galatians 3 v 17 that the law covenant cannot annul the universal promise made to Abraham, that one day ‘In Christ’ all the families, nations and people of the world would be blessed.

For Moses says in Numbers:

‘The Lord said ‘I have pardoned them according to your word, but indeed as I live, all the earth will be filled with the Glory of the Lord.’

(Num 14 v 20)

‘All the earth’ means everyone who has ever lived on earth will one day be filled with the glory of the Lord’.

The prophet Samuel understood God’s universal gospel when he said:

‘God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the banished ones may not be cast out from him.’

(2 Sam 14 v 14)

God has a plan so that anyone who has been banished from him, either ‘on earth’ or ‘under the earth’, can be saved, and this plan is called ‘the Gospel of the Restoration of all Things’.

But King David is probably the Old Testament’s biggest exponent of universal salvation and was a man after God’s own heart, for he said in Psalm 22:

‘All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you for the kingdom is the Lords and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship. All those who go down to the dust shall bow before him, even he who cannot keep himself alive.’

(Psalm 22 v 27-29)

The phrase ‘all the ends of the earth’ means ‘all mankind’ (from both ends of history), again echoing the gospel spoken to Abraham. We have ‘all families’ and ‘all nations’ and this also applies to all those who have died ‘all those who go down to the dust’, will what? Will ‘remember and turn to the Lord’ and will ‘bow before him’!

In Psalm 65 David makes this simple declaration:

‘Oh you who hear prayer to you all flesh will come.’

(Psalm 65 v 2)

‘You who hear prayer’ is God himself, and ‘all flesh’ is all mankind. Many in the church today believe that when every knee bows to God and confesses ‘Jesus is Lord’, God is somehow forcing his enemies to submit to him and it will be too late to be saved, but David says this:

‘Through the greatness of your power your enemies shall submit themselves to you. All the earth shall worship you and sing praises to you. They shall sing praises to your name.’

(Psalm 66 v 3-4)

So rather than being forced to submit they shall submit themselves to God. Not only that, but ‘all the