NOTHING NEEDS TO BE RESTORED
There is a certain idea that floats through the minds of sincere believers — the notion that if we could only “get back” to something, recover something, rebuild or restore something, then the church would finally be what it ought to be. But the more I meditate on Christ, the more I realize the gentle truth that silences all such striving: nothing needs to be restored. Not in the sense some imagine. Not as if Jesus left anything unfinished, or as though the church somehow slipped from His hands and needed rescuing by us.
Jesus Himself is the restoration. He did the only restoring work heaven required — and He did it perfectly, eternally, magnificently. He reconciled us to God by His blood (Colossians 1:20). He made us alive when we were dead (Ephesians 2:5). He built His church upon Himself, the Rock that cannot be shaken (Matthew 16:18). What Christ finishes never needs redoing. What Christ builds never needs rebuilding. What Christ restores never needs restoration.
Some point to Moses and say, “But didn’t God tell him to build according to the pattern?” Yes — but Moses was a type of Christ, not a type of us. Moses was a shadow pointing forward; Jesus is the substance. Moses built a tent; Jesus builds a kingdom. Moses followed the pattern shown to him on the mountain; Jesus is the pattern, descended from heaven, the image of the invisible God (Hebrews 8:5; Colossians 1:15).
And the tabernacle Moses raised? It was a type of Christ’s people — the church, the dwelling place of God through the Spirit (Ephesians 2:22). The gospel does not command us to build the church; it invites us to enter the one Christ already built. The apostles did not restore something lost; they announced Someone present. They did not recover a blueprint; they proclaimed a risen Lord.
Christ built the church according to the pattern — perfectly, completely, gloriously. And because He built it, it is already here. It has always been here. It will never not be here. Human traditions rise and fall; movements come and go; cultures shift and seasons change. But the church — the real church, the blood-bought, Spirit-indwelt, Christ-anchored church — stands in the unbroken continuity of His life.
There is nothing for us to restore because nothing was ever lost in Him. The truth may be forgotten by men, but it is never forgotten by God. The gospel may be obscured by the noise of the age, but it is never dimmed in the throne room of heaven. Christ never misplaces His bride. He never drops what He carries. He never asks us to repair what He has already rendered eternal.
Our calling is not restoration but faithfulness — not rebuilding but rejoicing — not recovering a vanished ideal but resting in a finished reality. We do not look backward for something missing; we look upward to Someone reigning.
And in that simple truth, the heart finds peace. The church is here because Christ is here. The pattern is fulfilled because the Son is enthroned. And the restoration the world longed for has already happened at Calvary.
Nothing needs to be restored — because Jesus restored everything that ever mattered, once for all, forever.
BDD
