Acts 3:21

21. Heaven must receive The Jews held but one coming of Christ, and Peter, in order to correct their view, declares that he must remain in heaven until a second advent. There was a great debate among expositors whether, according to the Greek, Jesus was to take possession of heaven or heaven was to receive him. The former is the loftier expression; but the latter, as impartial scholars generally agree, is the better Greek.

Times of restitution of all things Great differences of opinion have existed in regard to the nature of this restitution, and consequently in regard to the meaning of this entire verse.

1 . The millenarian view of a renovation of the earth at Christ’s second coming, and the resurrection of the righteous dead gloriously to reign with Christ a thousand years before the resurrection and judgment of the wicked. To all this an obvious objection is, that this could be no restoration of all things, since the vast majority of the dead are not restored to life, and ultimate justice is not done in the earth.

2 . A better view, well elucidated by Limborch and, lately, by Dr. Fairbairn, relieves this difficulty. It supposes the resurrection of all the dead and the general judgment, in which all things are restored to the absolute reign of God. Thereby the very first prophecy that Satan’s head should be bruised by the seed of the woman is completely fulfilled, and all the prophetic announcements of God’s judgment in righteousness revolve their final consummation.

3 . But to both these interpretations of the word restitution there are serious objections. First, by way of Greek criticism, we may say that in the phrase παντων ων , all things which, it is perfectly inadmissible that a writer or speaker should not see that the reader or hearer would naturally, from the very sound, unite them (“by attraction,” as grammarians say) as antecedent and relative. Which, therefore, cannot refer to times, but to all things. Second, such a phrase as times… which God hath spoken (making times the antecedent of which) is neither Greek nor English. What can be meant by times… spoken? Spoken must require for its object some sort of utterance. We cannot speak times, but only words. Third, we are forced hereby to a meaning of the Greek αποκαταστασις , given by Hesychius, namely, fulfilment, or consummation, or, rather, as the noun is a verbal one, fulfilling or consummating. And then we have the clear meaning: until (or rather during) the times of the fulfilling of all things… spoken… by his prophets. Fourth, this translation alone renders the connection with the following verse immediate and natural. By either of the former constructions the thought has landed us at the close of Acts 3:21 beyond the second advent; whereas, as will be shown in our next notes, the real stand-point of Acts 3:22-24 is, in these days. Until Until, αχρι , an event may be until its beginning or until its close. Thus in Acts 20:6, we have in the Greek until five days, that is, during or until the end of five days. And Acts 12:11 until (the end of) a season. And so we here render it until (the end of) or during the fulfilling of all things spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets. Christ shall come at the closing up of the great Messianic ages to which all prophecy points since the world began.

The word restoration, that is, recovery from a depreciated state to a former better, very easily verges into the sense of fulfilment or verification. When a promise or prediction is made, the author of it commits his veracity or fidelity to the accomplishment of the result, and the fulfilment, as we say, makes it good, restores the committed veracity to its unquestioned state. So the fulfillment of all the prophecies is the making good, the restoration of their pledged veracity to its uncommitted state. This interpretation is imperatively required: 1. By the correspondence with Acts 3:18. There Christ’s sufferings are declared to be a fulfilment required by all prophecy, and here his stay in heaven is in fulfilment of all prophecy, which furnishes a solution of the difficulty why the Messiah is gone to heaven, and tells how long he is to be absent. 2. By Christ’s prediction of the earth-wide spread of the preached Gospel, Acts 1:8; by the universality of the pentecostal symbols, (Note on Acts 2:4;) and by Peter’s intimation in his former speech Acts 2:39. And all these points are in conclusive disproof of what Renan claims, and even Pressense too forwardly admits the positive apostolic belief of the immediateness of the second advent. (See supplementary note to Matthew 25:0.) Since the world began A very unsuitable rendering of the Greek απ αιωνος , from of old. (See note on Luke 1:70.) Same Greek phrase at Acts 15:18.