What Does Acts 3:21 Mean in the King James?
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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse’s “restitution” carries the image of all things being set back into place.
THE MEANING
The promise spoken through the prophets stands over your present: this period has a horizon, and heaven receives Jesus until the appointed times of restoration come. What appears disordered is not given the last word; the verse names the restoration’s scope as all things.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that present disorder is permanent loses its footing: the verse places all things within a promised restoration.
THE ROOT
ἀποκαταστάσεως
apokatastaseōs
GROWS FROM
ἀποκαθίστημι
apokathistēmi
Restore, re-establish, or bring back into place.
The word translated “restitution” belongs to a verb family that describes restoring something to its place. The same family appears as an action in the promise to restore all things, giving this verse’s “all things” the sense of a restoration reaching its full scope.
ALSO GROWS
apokathistēmi: Restore or bring back to a former condition.
ἀποκαθίστημι
This verb names restoration as an action in Mark 9:12 and Acts 1:6.
kathistēmi: Set, appoint, or establish.
καθίστημι
As part of the compound word family, it adds the image of things being set into place.
αἰῶνος
aiōnos
GROWS FROM
αἰών
aiōn
An age, era, or span of time.
The wording rendered “since the world began” uses the word for an age, with the sense “from of old” or “from the age.” It places the prophetic promise across a long span of time, while the restoration itself has appointed times.
ALSO GROWS
aiōnios: Age-related; belonging to or pertaining to an age.
αἰώνιος
This related form carries the age-language into descriptions of what belongs to an age.
aiōnes: Ages or spans of time.
αἰῶνες
The plural form makes the age-language visible as a sequence of time-spans.
THE PATTERN
God’s restoration reaches into what has been lost or disordered and brings it back toward wholeness.
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought.But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.THE THREAD
When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?The same Greek verb family names the action in Acts 1:6 that this verse names as “restitution”: restoration is a setting back into place. Acts 1:6 makes the horizon concrete by asking what will be restored and when.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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