What is the restitution (KJV) or restoration of all things in Acts 3:21?

Context – Peter speaking in the temple to Jews.

The “time of  restoration of all things that God announced long ago through his holy prophets,” is defined as “…that God announced long ago through his holy prophets” – which concern the restoration of the kingdom of God, as also asked for by the disciples in Acts 1.

¹¹ While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished. ¹² When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “Fellow Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. ¹⁴ But you rejected the holy and righteous one and asked to have a murderer given to you, ¹⁵ and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. ¹⁶ And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. ¹⁷ “And now, brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. ¹⁸ In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. ¹⁹ Repent, therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, ²⁰ so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, ²¹ who must remain in heaven until the time of  restoration of all things that God announced long ago through his holy prophets. ²² Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you. ²³ And it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be utterly rooted out of the people.’ ²⁴ And all the prophets, as many as have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, also predicted these days. ²⁵ You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ ²⁶ When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.” Acts 3:11-26 

Note the connection, Acts 3:21 speaks of standing something up again (apo-kata-stasis, ἀποκατάστασις), which is exactly the noun form of the same verb Acts 1:6 ἀποκαθίστημι apokathistēmi) apo-kata-stasis, to stand something up again. The Greek noun is the action noun of the same verb. In Greek Acts 1:6 and 3:2 “restitution” and “restore” are identical:

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)

Note also the parallel between “restitution” “restoration” in 3:21 and the immediately previous  “time of refreshing” (ἀνάψυξις anapsyxis, Latin refrigerium)  in verse 19, which is not a directly related term, not related to standing up again, but nevertheless a term that relates to God putting back breath into Israel. And this indicates that the time of one and the time of the other are the same event. The term ana-psuxis, is related to psyche, life or breath, with the prefix, ana-, again. Anapsyxis is only found once in the Greek Old Testament in relation to “respite” in Exodus 8:15, and also used in a similar sense by Philo (Concerning Abraham 29), but here in the context of Acts 3 the word points to several parallels in the prophets concerning God reviving the national breath, life, of a parched or dead Israel.

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Footnote – Universalism cuts the sentence end.

Note that universalists take the idea of apokatastasis, or apocatastasis, from the Greek word here – but this is never associated with the ideas of universalism in the Bible. The term “all things” does not mean all things that ever existed, since that would mean that when Christ comes back he would be set to resurrect and give eternal life to the dinosaurs. Nor can “all things” be taken to mean “all homo sapiens that ever existed”, since the Bible does not contain the idea of an immortal soul. And even if it did, then Acts 3:21 would hardly support Christ granting eternal life in the kingdom to the souls of men like Hitler, given that 3:21 speaks of the time of  restoration of all things that God announced long ago through his holy prophets – and no prophet prophesied that God would raise or give eternal life to idol-worshippers and pagans. That is totally beyond and contrary to anything in the Jewish prophets. 

The consistent teaching of the Bible is that the dead are dead, and that only “some” will be resurrected for judgment (see Isaiah 26:14,19, Daniel 12:2). Even Jesus’ “all who are in the graves” is set in the context of Jesus next to Jewish graves talking to a Jewish audience. Jesus is not promising that all men will be raised. Though there is one significant verse, 1 Peter 4:5 which does indicate that pagans who mocked Christ will have to give account – though that verse says no more and no less than it specifically says.

28 Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice 29 and come out—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment (John 5:28-29)

Although Gospel of John was written to strengthen those already Christians, of all nationalities, we have to remember that Jesus said that in a conversation in Jewish context, and it is therefore different from if it had appeared in 1 Peter 4, for example.