Core Restoration
By John Gavazzoni

When Jesus...yes, emphatically, Jesus...underwent the process of incarnation, living, dying, being buried, resurrected, ascended, enthroned, and glorified, he did so as a Man, or even more accurately as THE Man in whose humanity all humanity was summarized, both ontologically, and experientially. He was incarnated, as SENT by the Father. He lived by that life which the Father has within Himself, and GAVE, and continues to GIVE, the Son to have life in Himself. He was crucified according to the pre-determinative counsel and will of God, and was "RAISED from the dead by the glory of the Father," and RESTORED to the glory which He had with the Father before the world began.

Note, that while it is true to say that Jesus rose again from the dead, He was (in the passive mode) RAISED..., as in, "...the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead." In the whole of the extended Christ event described above, what Jesus did was by that action of the Father's doing in Him, for Him. Yes, indeed, He "ascended on high," but He ascended on high because He, "was caught up..." He, "sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high," because God, "seated us together WITH Him..." "He who descended is the same also that ascended up far above all the heavens..." and we all were joined to Him in that descent and ascent, for we, "were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world."

Strange as it may seem to us, we, in Christ, descended that we might ascend with something quite beyond explanation being added to us by the whole of our experience between descending and ascending. A special factor of radiance, of effulgence, hidden deep within God's eternal glory comes forth through eonian experience, and goes on to be integral to eternal experience. Otherwise, why bother to descend? Why not just stay where we were?

Having descended, "The Word was made flesh (human) and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory..." And when He ascended He ascended as a Man, as God's all-inclusive Man, so that there is now "one mediator between God and man, the Man, Christ Jesus," mediating to us, and for us, the whole of His sacred human experience. It might be well to memorize this dictum: When God became Man, He did not cease to be God, and when He died and rose again, He did not cease to be Man. Do you realize that, as a hymn says, "there's a Man in the heavens for us." Jesus is kin to us in His Deity AND His Humanity. A careful study of where God's glory is to be found, and in what form it is found, reveals that it is found quite specifically within Humanness... for, "the man is the image and glory of God." When creaturehood was added to our being, we became souls: "So the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." But our souls trace back to a special dimension within our spirit-being. There is within God, inclusive of us, a dimension and quality which we know of as soulical, within time.

Soul is simply the individuation of spirit. Deity is eternally individuated, for instance as the Father and as the Son. Our individuation in God within time is rooted in that individuation which is ours in union with Christ... FROM all eternity. When we speak of the factor of restoration intrinsic to universal salvation in Christ, such is the nature, the breadth, length, height, and depth of that restoration. Within the restoration there is reconstitution, from glory to dust and dust reconstituted back to glory. In all that God does, there is gain, and that gain comes through loss, through self-emptying, to be re-filled.

Therein is "joy unspeakable (inexpressible) and full of glory." And, "the half has never yet been told."