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.
Whom [the] heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, х achri (G891) chronoon (G5550) apokatastaseoos (G605) pantoon (G3956)]. This far-reaching expression is probably meant to comprehend the rectification of all the disorders of the fall, and the interval " until" that consummation embraces (as Bengel remarks) the whole period between the Ascension of Christ and His Second Coming in glory which х hoon (G3739), by attr. for hous (G3739), sc. chronous (G5550)]
God hath spoken by the mouth of [all] his holy prophets since the world began - a loose expression for a chain of harmonious prophetic testimony from the earliest period (as in Luke 1:70). The word "all," enclosed in brackets, is evidently an addition to the genuine text. Here arises a question of some importance: Does the apostle intend thus to intimate that both those two events-the 'seasons of refreshing' to come upon the Jewish nation on its 'repentance and conversions,' and the 'sending of Jesus Christ when "the times of restitution of all things" shall arrive-are to be contemporaneous? or are they to be regarded as marking two successive periods? Undoubtedly both are here presented at one view, and both are alike suspended upon the nation's repentance and conversion, with the view of shutting them up to that saving change as the one hope of national recovery and the proper preparative for both events. But as that will hold equally true whether those events are to be contemporaneous or successive, it seems clear that the question cannot be decided out of this passage; and interpreters will probably incline to the one view of it or the other, according to their views of the predicted events themselves, and their general conception of the future of Christ's kingdom. To us it appears that the apostle's design in referring here to these 'seasons' and "times" at all was to meet the difficulty which his Jewish hearers would have in understanding why Jesus, if He was indeed the promised Messiah, should, instead of staying on earth to set up His kingdom, have gone away into heaven. His absence, the apostle tells them, is a necessary part of the divine purpose; but that fully accomplished, He will as certainly come again from heaven as He has gone to it - "Heaven must receive Him;" but only "until the times of restitution of all things," etc.