Tim Hodge - The Gospel of The Restoration of All Things

1.Paul says that the work of Christ is as universal as the work of Adam. (Evangelicals say that the work of Adam is universal but Christ will only save a small portion of mankind.)

2.Paul says the creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption and brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Evangelicals say that most of creation will not be delivered from the bondage of corruption but will be separated from God forever.)

3.Paul says that physical death does not cut man off from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Evangelicals say that physical death does cut man off from the love of God.)

4.Paul says that ‘all Israel will be saved’ and the fullness of the Gentiles will come in too. (Evangelicals say not all Israel will be saved neither will all Gentiles come into salvation.)

5.Paul says that if people do not continue in unbelief God can graft them back into his tree of salvation. (Evangelicals teach that if a person is cut off from God by death they can never be grafted back into the tree of salvation.)

6.Paul teaches that although at the present moment there is a remnant according to election of grace he has committed all to disobedience that he might have mercy on all. (Evangelicals teach that as there is at this moment only a remnant according to the election of grace that’s all there will ever be, and that although God has committed all to disobedience he will only have mercy on some.)

7.Paul teaches that ultimately all will end in Christ. (Evangelicals teach that most will never end in Christ.)

8.Paul teaches that all will hear the gospel and will understand it. (Evangelicals teach that many will never hear and will remain in ignorance and be lost forever.)

9.Paul says that God will be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (Evangelicals teach that God will never be the Lord of the dead, only the living.)

10.Paul says that people who are not yet God’s people will one day be called God’s people and all will one day be called sons of the living God. (Evangelicals say that not everyone will one day be part of God’s people and not everyone will be called sons of the living God.)

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul gives probably his most unequivocal statement about the restoration of all things when he says:

‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive but everyman in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christs at his coming.’

(1 Cor 15 v 22-24)

In a later chapter, I will look at the fact that in the Bible there are two types of resurrection, the resurrection of life and the resurrection of judgement, and I will be going into those two resurrections in detail.

But here in 1 Cor 15, Paul is speaking about the resurrection of life (which of course is the resurrection unto salvation) because here he says that they will be made alive ‘in Christ’. Whenever we read in scripture that a person is ‘in Christ’, it means they are saved.

You cannot be ‘in Christ’ and not be saved, and here it clearly teaches that all who die in Adam will one day be made alive ‘in Christ’. It doesn’t say ‘made alive by Christ’ but ‘made alive in Christ’, and it applies to all who die ‘in Adam’, which, of course, is the whole human race.

The very fact that Paul uses the phrase ‘made alive’ indicates that it means all will be saved because in the books of Ephesians and Colossians he uses the phrase ‘made alive’ to indicate salvation.

‘Even when we were dead in trespasses ‘made us alive’ together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).’

(Eph 2 v 5)

‘And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh he has ‘made alive’ together with him having forgiven you all trespasses.’

(Col 2 v 13)

So being ‘made alive’ means being saved and being forgiven and being ‘in Christ’ also means being saved.

He then adds ‘ but everyman in his own order.’ Everyman means ‘every man’ and he says that every man will be made alive in Christ in two groups of people.

1.Christ the firstfruits

2.Those who belong to him (Those who are Christ’s at his coming)

‘Christ the firstfruits’ does not mean Jesus Christ, because Jesus doesn’t need to be made alive in Christ, he is Christ. ‘Christ the firstfruits’ means the Church of Jesus Christ because we do need to be made alive in Christ.

The phrase ‘the firstfruits’ is used of the Church in the book of James:

‘Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.’

(James 1 v 18)

In the Old Testament, the festival of firstfruits was a wonderful testimony of this truth. In those days when the harvest was ready the high priest would go into the field and throw a ring into the crops and they would cut down the crops inside the ring and raise them up to God, it was called ‘a wave offering’ and these crops were the firstfruits of the harvest, a sure sign that just as the firstfruits were gathered in, so the rest of the harvest would be brought in also.

We the church are those firstfruits, and just as we’ve been saved, so the rest of the harvest of humanity will come in also (remember the first will be last and the last will be first, but all will go in). The reason we are called ‘Christ the firstfruits’ is because we are fully identified with our saviour: he is the head, we are his body and we are the first to be made alive ‘in Christ’.

The passage then goes on, that the next group to be made alive in Christ is ‘those who belong to him’, so who is meant by those who belong to him? The answer again is found in Psalm 24 v 1:

‘The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.’

(Psalm 24 v1)

So ‘those who belong to him’ means all the world and all who dwell therein except those who are part of the firstfruits company – the church of Jesus Christ!

We do not now belong to God because our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. We are ‘in him.’ But the rest do belong to him and they will be made alive ‘in Christ’ when he comes. Which, of course, is the second advent of Christ when he comes to rule on earth for a thousand years (Rev 20).

Now Paul goes on in this passage to say that:

‘The last enemy to be destroyed is death.’

(1 Cor 15 v 26)

And the Bible says:

‘The wages of sin is death.’

(Rom 6 v 23)

So the last enemy to be destroyed is ‘the wages of sin’ because Christ died for the sins of the whole world, not only the sins of the firstfruits company but also the sins of the world and those who dwell therein.

When it says here in 1 Cor 15 that:

‘As in Adam all die’

We have to understand what the Bible means by death. According to scripture, just as there are two resurrections, there are also two deaths.

The first death is not physical death, it is spiritual death, our death ‘in Adam’.

So when did Adam first die? The answer is that Adam died when he first entered into a physical body, so each one of us died spiritually when we first entered into his physical body.

When God breathed Adam as a spirit into a physical body, his mind became set on ‘the flesh’.

‘To set the mind on the flesh is death.’

(Romans 8 v 6a)

‘The body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness.’

(Romans 8 v 10)

The power of death was in Adam’s body and as a dead man walking he was already cut off from God because God is a spirit (John 4 v 24).

So why does God say to Adam that on the day he eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he will die? Because on that day the process of physical death began in his body with the result that 930 years later his death was complete and he returned back to being a spirit again.