And it shall come to pass afterward - After the punishment of the Jews through the Pagan, and their deliverance; after the Coming of the Teacher of righteousness, was to follow the outpouring of the Spirit of God.
I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh - o: “This which He says, “on all flesh,” admits of no exception of nations or persons. For before Jesus was glorified, He had poured His Spirit only on the sons of Zion, and out of that nation only were there prophets and wise men. But after He was glorified by His Resurrection and Ascension, He made no difference of Jews and Gentiles, but willed that remission of sins should be preached to all alike.”
All flesh - is the name of all mankind. So in the time of the flood, it is said “all flesh had corrupted his way: the end of all flesh is come before Me.” Moses asks, “who of all flesh hath heard the voice of the Lord God, as we have, and lived?” So in Job; “in whose Hand is the breath of all flesh of man.” If He set His heart upon man, if He gather to Himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together. And David; “Thou that hearest prayer, to Thee shall all flesh come; let all flesh bless His Holy Name forever and ever” Genesis 6:12-13; Deuteronomy 5:26; Job 12:10; Job 34:14-15; Psalms 65:2; Psalms 145:21. In like way speak Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah Isaiah 40:5-6; Isaiah 49:26; Isaiah 66:16, Isaiah 66:23-24; Jeremiah 25:31; Jeremiah 32:27; Jeremiah 45:5; Ezekiel 20:48; Ezekiel 21:4-5; Zechariah 2:13. The words “all flesh” are in the Pentateuch, and in one place in Daniel, used, in a yet wider sense, of everything which has life (Genesis 6:17, Genesis 6:19; Genesis 7:15-16, Genesis 7:21; Genesis 8:17; Genesis 9:11, Genesis 9:15-17; Leviticus 17:14; Numbers 18:15; Daniel 4:12; probably Psalms 136:25); but, in no one case, in any narrower sense.
It does not include every individual in the race, but it includes the whole race, and individuals throughout it, in every nation, sex, condition, “Jew or Gentile, Greek or Barbarian,” i. e., educated or uneducated, rich or poor, bond or free, male or female. As “all” were to be “one in Christ Jesus” Galatians 3:28, so on all was to be poured the Holy Spirit, the Bond who was to bind all in one. He names our nature from that which is the lowest in it, “the flesh,” with the same condescension with which it is said, “The Word was made flesh” , from where we speak of the “Incarnation” of our Blessed Lord, i. e., “His taking on Him our Flesh.” He humbled Himself to take our flesh; He came, as our Physician, to heal our flesh, the seat of our concupisceuce. So also God the Holy Spirit vouchsafes to dwell in our flesh, to sanctify it and to heal it. He, whom God saith He will pour out on all flesh, is the Spirit of God, and God. He does not say that He will pour out graces, or gifts, ordinary or extraordinary, influences, communications, or the like.
He says, “I will pour out My Spirit;” as Paul says, “know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16. “Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” Romans 8:9-10. It is said indeed, “on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit,” but the gift of the Holy Spirit was the Holy Spirit Himself, as it had been just said, “the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word” Acts 10:44-45. It is said, “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given us” Romans 5:5; but the “Holy Spirit” is first “given,” and He poureth out into the soul “the love of God.” As God the Word, when He took human nature, came into it personally, so that “the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in it” Colossians 2:9; so, really, although not personally, “doth the Holy Spirit, and so the whole Trinity, enter into our mind by sanctification, and dwelleth in it as in His throne.”
No created being, no Angel, nor Archangel could dwell in the soul. : “God Alone can be poured out into the soul, so as to possess it, enlighten it, teach, kindle, bend, move it as He wills,” sanctify, satiate, fill it. And “as God is really present with the blessed, when He sheweth to them His Essence by the beatific vision and light of glory, and communicates it to them, to enjoy and possess; so He, the Same, is also in the holy soul, and thus diffuseth it in His grace, love, and other divine gifts.” At the moment of justification, “the Holy Spirit and so the whole Holy Trinity entereth the soul at His temple, sanctifying and as it were dedicating and consecrating it to Himself, and at the same moment of time, although in the order of nature subsequently, He communicates to it His love and grace. Such is the meaning of, “We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.” This is the highest union of God with the holy soul; and greater than this can none be given to any creature, for by it we become “partakers of the divine Nature,” as Peter saith 2 Peter 1:4. See here, O Christian, the dignity of the holiness whereunto thou art called and with all zeal follow after, preserve, enlarge it.
This His Spirit, God says, “I will pour,” i. e., give largely, as though He would empty out Him who is Infinite, so that there should be no measure of His giving, save our capacity of receiving. So He says of converted Israel, “I have poured out My Spirit upon the house of Israel” Ezekiel 39:29, and, “I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication” Zechariah 12:10.
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy - This cannot limit what he has said, that God would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. He gives instances of that out-pouring, in those miraculous gifts, which were at the first to be the tokens and evidence of His inward presence. These gifts were at the first bestowed on the Jews only. The highest were reserved altogether for them. Jews only were employed as Apostles and Evangelists; Jews only wrote, by inspiration of God, the “oracles of God,” as the source of the faith of the whole world. : “The Apostles were sons of Israel; the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the other women who abode at the same time and prayed with the Apostles, were daughters. Luke mentions, “All these were persevering with one accord in prayer with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and His brethren.” These sons and daughters of the Sons of Zion, having received the Spirit, prophesied, i. e., in divers tongues they spoke of the heavenly mysteries.”
In the narrower sense of “foretelling the future, the Apostles, the Blessed Virgin Luke 1:48, Zacharias (Luke 1:67 ff), and Anna Luke 2:36, Luke 2:38, Elizabeth Luke 1:42-45, the virgin daughters of Philip Acts 21:9, Agabus Acts 11:28; Acts 21:10-11, John in the Apocalypse,” Simeon Luke 2:27-35, and Paul also oftentimes Acts 20:29-30; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12; 2 Timothy 3:1, 2 Timothy 3:4; 1 Timothy 4:1 prophesied. At Antioch, there were certain “prophets” Acts 13:1; and “the Holy Spirit in every city witnessed, saying, that bonds and afflictions awaited him in Jerusalem” Acts 20:23. “But it is superfluous,” adds Theodoret after giving some instances, “to set myself to prove the truth of the prophecy. For down to our times also hath this gift been preserved, and there are among the saints, people who have the eye of the mind clear, who foreknow and foretell many of the things which are about to be.” So the death of Julian the Apostate, who fell, as it seemed, by a chance wound in war with the Persians was foreseen and foretold ; and Cyprian foretold the day of his own martyrdom and the close of Decian persecution, which ended through the death of the Emperor in a rash advance over a morass, when victory was gained . The stream of prophecy has been traced down through more than four centuries from the Birth of the Redeemer. One of the Bishops of the Council of Nice was gifted with a prophetic spirit .
Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions - “God often attempers Himself and His oracles to the condition of people, and appears to each, as suits his state” Acts 11:28; Acts 21:10-11. It may then be, that to old men while sleeping by reason of age, He appeared most commonly in dreams; to young men, while watching, in visions. But it is so common in Hebrew, that each part of the verse should be filled up from the other, that perhaps the prophet only means, that their old and young should have dreams and see visions, and both from God. Nor are these the highest of God’s revelations; as He says, that to the prophet He would “make” Himself known in a vision and would “speak in a dream,” but to Moses “mouth to mouth; even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold Numbers 12:6, Numbers 12:8.
The Apostles also saw waking visions, as Peter at Joppa (Acts 10:10 ff; Acts 11:5 ff); (and that so frequently, that when the Angel delivered him, he thought that it was one of his accustomed visions Acts 12:9,) and Paul after his conversion, and calling him to Macedonia; and the Lord appeared unto him in vision at Corinth, revealing to him the conversions which should be worked there, and at Jerusalem foretelling to him the witness he should bear to Him at Rome. In the ship, the Angel of the Lord foretold to him his own safety, and that God had given him all who sailed with him Acts 9:12; Acts 16:6-7, Acts 16:9; Acts 18:9; Acts 19:21; Acts 23:11; Acts 27:24. Ananias Acts 9:10 and Cornelius Acts 10:3 also received revelations through visions. But all these were only revelations of single truths or facts. Of a higher sort seems to be that revelation, whereby our Lord revealed to Paul Himself and His Gospel which Paul was to preach, and “the wisdom of God,” and the glories of the world to come, and the conversion of the Gentiles; and when he was “caught up to the third heaven, and abundance of revelations were vouchsafed to him” Galatians 1:12, Galatians 1:16; 1 Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 3:3; 2 Corinthians 12:1-7.