📖 Biblical Definition
The Restoration of All Things (Greek apokatastasis pantôn) is Peter's phrase in Acts 3:21 for the cosmic renewal at Christ's return: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. Not the salvation of every individual (universalism); the restoration of the created order from its bondage to corruption (Rom 8:19-22) into the new heavens and new earth.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
(Acts 3:21.) Peter's phrase for cosmic renewal at Christ's return; the new heavens and new earth.
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Greek apokatastasis appears once in the New Testament (Acts 3:21). Its meaning is cosmic restoration, not soteriological universalism (despite Origen's third-century proposal that argued the latter from this verse).
Pairs with Romans 8:19-22 (creation groaning until the manifestation of the sons of God), 2 Peter 3:13 (new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness), Revelation 21:5 (Behold, I make all things new).
📖 Key Scripture
Acts 3:21 — "Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began."
Romans 8:21 — "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
2 Peter 3:13 — "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."
Revelation 21:5 — "And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Two errors: collapsing the restoration into universal individual salvation (Origen, modern universalism), or limiting it to disembodied heaven (popular evangelicalism). Scripture means cosmic renewal of everything that was ever good.
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Origen's argument from Acts 3:21 that all rational beings will ultimately be saved (apokatastasis as universalism) was condemned in the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553). The phrase means cosmic restoration, not individual universalism.
Modern American evangelicalism often slides the other way: heaven as escape from a doomed earth. 2 Peter 3:13 and Revelation 21 forbid the slide. The new heavens and new earth are real, physical, located, the proper dwelling of resurrected bodies. Restoration is bodily; resurrection is cosmic; the household's hope is a place, not a vague state.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Greek apokatastasis — restoration to original condition.
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Greek apokatastasis — restoration, restitution; medical term in classical Greek for setting a dislocated joint.
Note: same root as the verb in Mark 8:25 (was restored, of the blind man's sight).
Usage
"Cosmic renewal, not universal individual salvation."
"The new heavens and new earth are real, physical, located."
"Restoration is bodily; resurrection is cosmic."