Stephen Jones — Doctrine of God
b2 — The Restoration of All Things
Sovereignty of God — Ultimate Goal: Restoration of All Things
Passage 1 — Sin as temporary, restoration as the goal:
“In my view, sin is temporary. Because it had a beginning, it also will have an end. The whole idea of ‘restoration’ implies that history is the process by which God is showing us the results of sin before finally restoring all things under His feet as it was at the beginning. Through this process, we will gain more at our maturity than we had in our naive beginnings.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.6 (“All Things Under His Feet”).
Interpretation: Jones links the temporality of sin directly to God’s sovereign intention: the ultimate goal is not eternal separation but universal restoration. The phrase “we will gain more at our maturity” implies God’s plan exceeds even the original creation.
Passage 2 — Dualistic theology rejected:
“This dualistic theology presumed that good and evil were eternal kingdoms that would always coexist. The final goal of history was to separate men into heaven or hell, and all the evil and darkness would continue forever as one dark blot in God’s creation. By the fifth century A.D. the Church had drunk deeply from this non-biblical theology and had begun to adopt it officially in its own teaching and persecute those who denied it. This was one of the greatest tragedies of all time in the history of Christian thought.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.6.
Interpretation: Jones characterizes the dualistic God-model (eternal heaven versus hell) as non-biblical and historically conditioned, with direct criticism of the fifth-century ecclesial consensus.
Passage 3 — All things subjected to Christ (Heb. 2:7-9):
“For in subjecting all things to Him, He left NOTHING that is NOT subject to Him. But now we do not YET see all things subjected to Him. […] this does not mean that they will be lost in the end, for that would indicate that in fact they were not really subjected to Him in the first place. But yet the FACT of universal reconciliation has already been established at the cross. It is only a matter of time before this is manifested in the earth.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.6 (Heb. 2:7-9 cited).
Interpretation: Jones distinguishes between the legal reality of reconciliation (already accomplished at the cross) and its historical manifestation (still unfolding).
Passage 4 — 1 Corinthians 15:22-28 as programmatic statement:
“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. […] Christ ‘must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet’ […] ‘The last enemy that will be abolished is death.‘”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.6 (1 Cor. 15:22-28 cited).
[TENSION with prior source] In b1 (Creation’s Jubilee, ch.5), Jones cites the same text with identical conclusion: “all” in Adam = “all” in Christ, without exception. The argument in b2 is more fully worked out through the law of redemption and the Jubilee.
God as Owner and Kinsman Redeemer — Ownership as Ground for Redemption
Passage 5 — Ownership through creation:
“‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,’ the Bible begins. This verse establishes God’s ownership and certain rights that come with ownership. He owns it by right of creation. As another song goes, ‘This is My Father’s world.’ Yet all was sold at the Cosmic Pawn Shop in order to make payment for Adam’s sin.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.7 (“The Laws of Redemption”).
Interpretation: Jones grounds God’s redemptive right not in election but in ownership: God as Creator has the legal right of repurchase.
Passage 6 — Kinsman Redeemer:
“You can purchase anything, but you can redeem only that which you once owned. […] Jesus came to redeem that which He had owned but which later had been sold according to the divine law.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.7.
Passage 7 — The kinsman’s right supersedes the slave-master’s will:
“The slave-master has no obligation to sell his slave to a non-kinsman—at any price. But if a kinsman comes with a sufficient amount of money to pay the remaining portion of the debt note, the slave-master has no choice in the matter. The kinsman’s redemption right takes precedence over the slave-master’s desire to keep the slave in his possession.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.7 (Lev. 25:47-49 cited).
Interpretation: Jones applies the OT Jubilee law to the cosmos: the devil has no claim over what God as rightful Redeemer reclaims.
Passage 8 — The Jubilee as the law of grace:
“The time of bondage is the time of potential redemption. But these years of redemption end when the redemption laws are swallowed up by the law of Jubilee. Under the law of Jubilee, all debtors are to be set free from bondage at the end of each 49-year cycle. […] ‘Even if he is not redeemed by those means, he shall still go out in the year of Jubilee.‘”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.7 (Lev. 25:8-10, 25:54 cited).
Interpretation: The Jubilee functions for Jones as the definitive moment of grace: independent of human response, God will claim his property through eminent domain.
Love of God — Universal Care as the Theological Question
Passage 9 — The central question:
“The only serious question remaining is this: Did Jesus actually WANT to redeem all of creation, or, as Calvinism teaches, is he content to redeem only a few items which He purchased by His blood? This is really a question about the extent of the love of God. Does He love everything that He created?”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.7.
Interpretation: Jones explicitly frames the question of universal salvation as a doctrine-of-God question: the issue is not primarily soteriology but who God is and what his love encompasses.
Passage 10 — Three objections refuted:
“It comes down to three primary objections. The first is to say some people are such huge sinners that their debt to the law exceeds the value of the blood of Christ. […] The second objection says that Christ paid for the sin of the whole world, but that most of it was undeliverable, due to the will of man. […] The third objection says that God does not love the world enough to actually purchase all of creation by His blood. This is the idea of limited atonement.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.6.
Interpretation: Jones systematizes the three main positions opposing universal salvation and rejects all three as contrary to biblical doctrine of God — respectively: underestimation of Christ’s blood, overestimation of human will, and limitation of God’s love.
Passage 11 — John 3:16 as refutation of limited atonement:
“But Jesus said in John 3:16, ‘For God so loved the world.’ Those who do not want to see all mankind saved are those who do not yet have the mind of Christ.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.6.
God as God of the Whole Earth — Universal Covenant
Passage 12 — God as God of the whole earth (Isa. 54:5):
“Isaiah 54:5 says that the Redeemer of Israel is ‘the God of the whole earth.‘”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.8 (“The Covenant with the Four Beasts”).
Passage 13 — The Noahic covenant as universal covenant (Gen. 9:9-10):
“Now behold, I Myself do establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you; and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.8 (Gen. 9:9-10 cited).
Interpretation: Jones emphasizes that this is the first covenant in Scripture and that it has universal scope: not only humanity, but all living creatures. The repeated formulation of universal scope in Gen. 9:9-17 is explained by Jones as God’s emphasis on the cosmic extent of his plan.
Passage 14 — Five progressive covenants:
“The Bible speaks of five specific covenants in progressive order that establish the great plan to bring all things under the feet of Christ. […] The covenant with Noah is the first in the Bible, and it establishes the scope of God’s plan for the whole earth. It is the covenant of the Restoration of All Things, for it is the covenant with every living creature of all flesh.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.8.
Interpretation: Jones reads the five covenants (Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, New Covenant) as a progressive revelation of God’s universal redemptive plan, with the Noahic covenant establishing the maximum scope.
Passage 15 — Revelation 5:13-14 as cosmic confirmation:
“And every thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, ‘To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.’ And the four living creatures kept saying, ‘Amen.‘”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.8 (Rev. 5:13-14 cited).
Jones cites commentator William Milligan (The Expositor’s Bible, Vol. 6, p. 854): “The whole universe, from its remotest star to the things around us, and beneath our feet, is one—one in feeling, in emotion, in expression; one in heart and voice.”
Justice of God — God as Righteous Judge over All Nations
Passage 16 — All peoples will praise God (Ps. 66:4; 67):
“Psalm 66:4 says, ‘All the earth will worship Thee, and will sing praises to Thee.’ […] Psalm 67:4: ‘Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for Thou wilt judge the peoples with uprightness, and guide the nations on the earth.‘”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.9 (“David’s Prophecies”).
Interpretation: Jones highlights that the nations rejoice when God judges — in contrast to the common portrayal of God’s judgment as producing only fear and condemnation.
Passage 17 — God as heir of all nations (Ps. 82:8):
“Psalm 82:8 says, ‘Arise, O God, judge the earth! For it is Thou who dost possess [inherit] all the nations.’ All the nations are God’s inheritance—not merely Israel or Judah.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.9.
Passage 18 — Revelation 15:3-4 as eschatological confirmation:
“‘Great and marvelous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the nations. Who will NOT fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou alone art holy; for all the nations will come and worship before Thee, for Thy righteous acts have been revealed.‘”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.9 (Rev. 15:3-4 cited).
Interpretation: Jones reads the rhetorical question “Who will NOT fear?” as evidence that no nation ultimately falls outside God’s redemptive plan.
Passage 19 — God brings joy through righteous judgment:
“So we see David himself understanding that all nations belong to God and form His inheritance. He does not intend to destroy His inheritance, but to bring joy to it through righteous judgment.”
Source: Jones, The Restoration of All Things, Ch.9.