God’s Great Restoration Project

Massive Misrepresentation

Imagine sending someone with a message and discovering that what got communicated was the exact opposite of what you intended convey.  Has that ever happened to you?  Well, it happened to God.  God created mankind to be his representative in the earth and man ended up through his actions completely misrepresenting God’s intentions.

God is dealing with the fallout of a massive misrepresentation of His nature.  According to Genesis God created man “in His own image”.  Literally, God was replicating His likeness in the flesh of man, complete with an extraordinary degree of authority and power to do the job.  God, magnificent and glorious in splendor, released his own image into finite man.  If the angels were around to watch, it must have been a stunning and sobering twist in the grand saga of creation, a culmination no one could have anticipated or foreseen.  And with His image he commissioned man with a stewardship to govern His beautiful creation and to bring it all into submission to will and purpose of God.  God imagined a world filled with mankind, all in their own unique ways, governing the earth and displaying the glory and infinite genius of God.  This was the dream in God’s heart.

God’s Great Risk

There was only one risk.  With this grand project, mankind was also given the power to deviate.  Man could choose to do as God willed or he could decide to do something else.  God gave sufficient warning against deviating from His plan.  But there was no way God could have sufficiently explained all the implications to Adam.  They were too vast to fully consider.  But the warning was given nonetheless.  Man, however, decided not to follow the will of God and with that threshold decision “the law of sin and death” entered the world.  In so doing, God’s reputation was tarnished!  The one created by God to bear His image had now grossly misrepresented it. 

The Great Restoration

Peter declared, ‘Heaven must receive [Jesus Christ] until the times of the restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”  The great restoration of all things begins with the restoration of man, not with the fixing of creation.  God’s great end time project is the restoration of mankind to His original design and purpose.  God is not going to just come down and fix everything that man messed up.  God is coming to redeem man and then release him again to set all of creation free. 

Unlike many Christians today, God is not distracted with causes that are mere symptoms of the problem.  God is focused on the root cause of all that is wrong.  God has his sights set on the heart of man.  God’s purpose is not simply to forgive man for His rebellion but to completely redeem man and restore him to the original design and purpose. 

God’s plan of Redemption

The prophets of old saw glimpses of how this was all going to be done.  Indeed, the entire Old Testament is the foreshadowing of man’s redemption through a new representative man, a man in whom the entire destiny of mankind would rest.  They saw God moving towards a remedy that would come through the line of Abraham and David but would eclipse what He accomplished through those key men.  They saw the history moving towards a climax of God glorious intention and that the climax would be centered in a single man in whom would dwell the spirit of God without measure. 

This great restoration project came to rest on the shoulders of Jesus of Nazareth.  His life on earth consistently paralleled prophetic images of the Old Testament culminating in His death on the cross, His resurrection from the grave and His ascension to God’s right hand.  All of these events were prophesied but what was not fully understood was how deeply penetrating the life, death and resurrection of Christ would be in relation to the heart of man.  In Christ, through His life of obedience and sacrifice, the image of God was restored in mankind itself. 

When God raised Jesus from the dead, not only Jesus but the image of God itself was reborn a new representative of mankind because Jesus was himself a man.  With the resurrection, Jesus himself was reborn, not just as a resurrected man but as the new head of the new humanity and a life giving spirit.  Jesus became the Last Adam, the first born from the dead, the new man, the first among many brothers.  All who put their faith in Him begin a process of transformation.  

Taking Refuge in the New Man

In order to take refuge and find vital connection with the new humanity, one must "die" to the old self, which is essentially about self preservation, and embrace the new self in Christ which is about is about self sacrificial love.  The Bible calls this repentance, turning from one to the other.  This renouncing of the old is symbolized in the act of baptism.  A person who believes in Christ is buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of Christ's resurrection life.   Thus one dies to his old identity and embraces a new identity which is made in the likeness of Jesus.  All who believe in Jesus are now ushered into a new humanity.  This is what it means to be “born again.” 

Jesus, who was perfected through his suffering, was empowered to lead many (whosoever will) to glory.  As new disciples gather around their new corporate head, they are invited to draw on His life, to live by His Spirit which now indwells every believer.  All who look to him as their life and light are drawn into a daily process of transformation and are predestined to be conformed to His image.  The followers of Jesus literally become the “new humanity” and God’s redeemed representatives in the earth.

The Two Humanities

But this “restoration of the image of God” to those who follow Jesus leads to an interesting situation.  Now there are two humanities existing in the earth together side by side.  One is under “Adam” and one is under “Christ”, the “Last Adam.”  One takes refuge in its own life, its own morality, its own selfish pursuits.  The other leans on Christ, is submitted to His lordship, follows his example, draws on His life and seeks to grow into His likeness. 

The Cry of Creation

Jesus said that the meek would inherit the earth.  This is because creation itself is crying out for the true sons of God to arise and deliver the earth from its bondage to corruption.  

The creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.  Romans 8:21

The creation will begin to resist the efforts of those who are not truly born of the Spirit of God but will yield to the true sons.  Literally, the treasures hidden in the earth, the secrets of creation will be revealed to those who are ordained and anointed to set the creation free.

In the end, God will fill the earth with His glory through the people who are filled with his Spirit.  They will unlock the doors that lead to the unveiling of secrets and remedies that are found in creation itself.  Already this is manifesting in the earth.  The time will come when the "earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

This is the great plan of restoration of all things.  God will redeem the heart of man through his Son Jesus Christ.  Redeemed man will grow and mature into the likeness of Jesus and begin to fulfill the original call of man which was to fill the earth and subdue it.  It is coming.  It is only a matter of time.