When Jesus Said ‘All’
an exploration of his words about restoration
What did Jesus actually mean when he said, “I will draw all to Myself”? Was he promising a possibility — or announcing a reality?
That question sounds technical. But for anyone who reads the Gospels with fresh eyes, it is also deeply personal: is this an invitation that can be refused, or a promise that holds? And what would it mean if Jesus’ words were truly as wide as they sound?
In this article we explore several sayings of Jesus that restoration theologians consider the heart of what the apostle Peter called the apokatastasis of all things — the restoration that God had promised “by the mouth of all His holy prophets from ancient time” (Acts 3:21).
What Does Restoration Theology Teach Us About Jesus’ Words?
Restoration theology reads Jesus’ sayings differently from traditional exegesis. Not as figures of speech to be softened, but as announcements with a precise scope.
Central to this is John 12:32:
And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.
Stephen Jones, whose work is extensively discussed in the apokatastasis.wiki sources, points out that the verb here — the Greek helkuo — in the New Testament always signals something forceful: not drawing like a magnet that can easily be resisted, but dragging as a net drags water (cf. John 21:6). His commentary on the text is direct:
Was Jesus ‘lifted up’ on the cross? Of course He was. Then He will indeed draw ALL MEN unto Himself. He died for the salvation of the whole world, not just a few, and His blood has never lost its power. — Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, Ch. 5
Alongside John 12:32 stands Colossians 1:19-20:
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross — whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Jones observes that Paul first defines “all things” precisely — the created universe, visible and invisible — and then states that it was the Father’s good pleasure to reconcile all of this through Christ. Not a wish, not a possibility: a divine good pleasure.
And then 1 Timothy 4:10-11, a text that carries heavy weight in restoration theology:
we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.
Tradition reads “especially” as exclusion: believers are saved, others are not. But Jones reads it as sequence: believers are saved first, others later. The word malista marks rank, not scope. Believers are the firstfruits of a harvest that is not yet complete.
Two Voices, One Movement
The apokatastasis.wiki sources contain two authors who both draw this line, but with their own emphasis.
Stephen Jones approaches Jesus’ sayings through the Jubilee law. In his christology he explains that the incarnation was a legal necessity: Christ had to take on flesh and blood to acquire the lawful right of the go’el — the kinsman-redeemer — (Heb. 2:14-17). Without that right, Christ was merely a friend; with it, he was legally obligated to redeem what was lost (cf. Lev. 25). See also Jones, Christology b1.
This transforms the incarnation from a pious choice into a law that holds. The law commands the nearest kinsman to redeem if he has the power to do so. And Jones concludes: “The law was fully satisfied.”
His most well-known distinction concerns the nature of Adam’s legacy:
We are not mortal because we sin. We sin because we are mortal. — Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, Ch. 9
Adam’s inheritance is mortality, not an irresistible sin-nature. That makes Christ’s redemption reachable: he does not need to heal an irreparably corrupt soul, but to remove the imputation of Adam’s transgression and overcome mortality. That is precisely what the resurrection announced.
The Adam-Christ parallel in Jones, Soteriology b1 formulates it as follows, citing Romans 5:18:
So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
Jones’s reasoning: if Adam’s transgression affected all men — without exception — then Christ’s righteousness reaches all men. Otherwise Adam’s power would be greater than Christ’s. And that is unthinkable.
Cees Noordzij, also represented in the apokatastasis glossary entry of this apokatastasis.wiki, places the same restoration in a cosmological frame. Pointing to Romans 8:18-25 he describes how all creation groaned under futility and reaches toward its definitive liberation. It is not the individual soul that is rescued from a burning universe — it is creation itself that reaches its original goal.
Both accents strengthen each other. Jones shows why Christ could redeem; Noordzij shows how far that redemption reaches.
The Apokatastasis Reflection: What Changes?
If restoration theology is right — even partially — then something changes in the way we read Jesus’ words.
The Greek σωτηρία (soteria), the New Testament’s principal word for salvation, encompasses “liberation from sin and death, restoration of the relationship with God, and eschatological completion.” Not a snapshot, but a movement through time. Not one decision-moment, but a path along which humanity is led — sometimes gently, sometimes through judgments that correct rather than destroy.
Jones formulates it precisely: “The God of the Bible has merely predestinated certain ones to be saved FIRST. The others are predestinated to be saved LATER.” This is not a weak compromise, but a theologically coherent position: strong predestination and universal salvation are both true, because predestination concerns sequence, not scope.
What does that mean for Jesus’ sayings? They become larger, not smaller. “I will draw all to Myself” is then not a pious hope but an announcement of what the cross has set in motion. A movement that — perhaps long, perhaps by paths we cannot yet see — draws all things within its reach.
As 1 Corinthians 15:28 puts it: “that God may be all in all.” Not a part. Not the fortunate few. All in all.
An Invitation, Not a Conclusion
This article concludes nothing. No confident theological claim, no definitive reading of Greek verbs.
But the question remains: what if Jesus’ words were truly meant that broadly? What if the Father who had the good pleasure to reconcile all things really intends that — and there is a way we cannot yet fully see?
The universalism that Jones and Noordzij defend is not a cheap universalism that trivializes judgment. It is a restoration theology that takes God seriously as judge and as Father — and believes these two do not need to stand in tension. Judgment in their framework is not an end in itself, but a means God employs in service of the ultimate reconciliation.
The invitation is simple: read the texts. Look at what Jesus said. And ask yourself whether it is larger than you thought.