The Promise Of Great Spiritual Blessing Yet To Be ‘Poured Out' And Portents Of Judgment To Come (Joel 2:28-32).
And as a result of their restoration to Him through repentance and their turning to Him, He promised that once they had seen the fulfilment of these promises they would at some stage see the fulfilment of greater promises. For at some time in the future He would pour out on them His own Spirit (compare Isaiah 32:15; Isaiah 44:1-5), with the result that all God's people, both young and old, master and servant, male and female, would become prophets. ‘All flesh' does not signify ‘everyone', whether in Israel or the world, but rather signifies people of all classes and levels so that no one will necessarily be excluded on account of status, as the words that follow make clear
And also at some time there will be apocalyptic signs, so that just as the skies and the heavenly lights had been darkened by the locusts (Joel 2:10), so will it then be darkened by God's judgments on the world. The heavens and the earth would both contain portents of what He was about to do. On the earth blood (which it will be noted was singularly lacking from the judgment of the locusts), and fire, and pillars of smoke, a clear indication of warfare, violence and destruction of both earthly property and cities, and in the heavens the sun ‘turning into darkness' (which could be caused by pillars of smoke, volcanic action, or great storm clouds), and the moon turning red like ‘blood', (a phenomenon well known in Palestine when there were eclipses, and which could also be caused by a polluted atmosphere). And these would all be a warning of the coming of the final great and terrible Day of YHWH, of which the plagues of locusts had been a foretaste.
And in that day whoever calls on the Name of YHWH (as one who is a regular true worshipper of YHWH, one Who is called by YHWH) will be saved. Note that those who will be saved are only a remnant of those who face the final judgments, those whom YHWH calls, and this includes some who will escape in mount Zion and in Jerusalem, all this in accordance with the word of YHWH, for it will result from His word bringing about His will (compare Isaiah 55:10-13).
Analysis of Joel 2:28-32.
· And it will come about afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions, and also on the servants and on the handmaids, in those days will I pour out my Spirit (Joel 2:28-29).
· And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke, the sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of YHWH comes (Joel 2:30-31).
· And it will come about that whoever will call on the name of YHWH will be delivered, for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape, as YHWH has said, and among the remnant those whom YHWH calls (Joel 2:32).
Note that in ‘a' it will come about that the Spirit of YHWH will be poured out on all levels of people so that they become prophets and discerners of His ways, and in the parallel it will come about that all who reveal themselves as His by ‘calling on the Name of YHWH' (a phrase signifying offering Him true worship) will be delivered as a result of the call of YHWH. Centrally in ‘b' judgments will come upon the world as portrayed by portents in both earth and heaven.
‘And it will come about afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
And your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions,
And also on the servants and on the handmaids,
In those days will I pour out my Spirit.'
There is probably here a reminder of when YHWH poured out His Spirit (spoken of to Moses as ‘your spirit', that is the spirit of prophecy, wisdom and leadership given to him by YHWH) on the seventy elders in the wilderness (Numbers 11). This expectancy of the pouring out of the Spirit on God's people was clearly current in the 8th century BC. Compare Isaiah 32:15. Both Joel and Isaiah 44:1-5 see it as very much poured out on people in order to make them responsive towards YHWH. The purpose of the promise was as an assurance that one day all YHWH's people would be endued with the Spirit and would experience spiritual gifts, because one thing was finally certain, and that is that YHWH would work among His people in full restoration.
‘Pour out.' The word is regularly used of God pouring out his wrath, and indicates giving in full measure, but in this case of Himself. They are to receive YHWH's own Spirit. It is used in Amos 5:8; Amos 9:10 of the pouring out of the rain, and in view of Isaiah 32:15; Isaiah 44:1-5; Isaiah 55:10-13 must surely also suggest that the coming of the Spirit is to be seen as like spiritual rain falling on His people to cause them to become fruitful.
‘On all flesh.' That this is limited to God's people is emphasised by the reference to YOUR sons and Your daughters, but the point is that within God's people it will not be limited to anyone. All levels and genders of society will receive the Spirit. The idea that fleshly man was to receive the Spirit of YHWH is a breaking down in the difference between man and God. Previously man has enjoyed ‘the breath of God' (Genesis 2:7). Now he is to be imbued with His Spirit. This is God's future intention for His people.
‘And your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.' The idea is to indicate that all will enjoy prophetic gifts (compare Numbers 12:6), not in order to delegate the gifts to some. It was recognised that prophets would have dreams and visions, and the servants and handmaids were not excluded. it is wrong to overemphasise the ecstatic nature of what will happen. God is not promising strange phenomena, but revelation and truth.
‘Afterwards' (after His current restitution of the land) is a vague time reference and gives no indication of when this will take place. The giving of the Spirit would be anticipated after the Babylonian exile (Ezekiel 36:24-27) and was promised in part to Zerubbabel (Zechariah 4:7), and to John the Baptist (Luke 1:15-17). It was fulfilled when the Coming One was ‘drenched with the Holy Spirit' (compare John 3:24) as the One Who was the representative of the true Israel and would then drench others (Matthew 3:11 and parallels; John 1:30-33). There can be no doubt that it was partially fulfilled on the Apostles during Jesus' earthly ministry (inferred from Luke 11:13, and from Matthew 12:38 and the success of the Apostles in doing so), was sealed in the Upper Room (John 20:22), and became a wider gift to the whole church at Pentecost (Acts 2), when ‘all flesh' prophesied, which was thus the true fulfilment of Joel's prophecy as Peter observed. And the Holy Spirit now possesses the true church not ‘as well as Israel', but because they are the true Israel, that is the congregation of the true Israel established by Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:18; Matthew 21:43), the true Vine (John 15:1-6), the ‘Israel of God (Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:11-22; 1 Peter 2:9).
It will be noted that Joel does not directly link this pouring out of the Spirit directly to the portents which he then refers to. They will certainly follow it, but at no stated interval, and it is unquestionable that those portents have themselves been manifested at different times in history as a reminder that the great and terrible day of YHWH is coming. Indeed Peter saw them as partly fulfilled in the darkening of the sun while Jesus was dying, and the reddening of the moon which no doubt accompanied it, due to the strange weather conditions (the moon appears as blood red in Palestine on many occasions).
‘And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth,
Blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke,
The sun will be turned into darkness,
And the moon into blood,
Before the great and terrible day of YHWH comes.'
The loose connection with the previous verse (‘and') gives no indication of time span. The real point that is being made is that the Spirit will be poured out, to be followed at some stage by portents of God's final judgments. In other words God's people will be well prepared before it comes. This promise results from the new renewal of the covenant resulting from the effects of the locus invasion. But there is also a warning here that the people must not think that all would go smoothly from then on. Mankind was such, and even His people were such, that judgments, and then final judgment, were inevitable. Thus the future would hold, both in the short term and the long term, times of blood and violence and destruction. It was in the nature of man. And in the same way the heavens would give their portents, portents which have been observed through the ages (see e.g. Isaiah 9:18; Isaiah 13:10; Isaiah 34:4 etc. We cannot just lump all these into ‘the end times'. They occurred in history). The smoke and explosions of war, or of violent expulsions from volcanoes, or strange weather effects, have all resulted in a darkened sun and a blood coloured moon at different times. And men have always seen in these strange events portents of what is to come. All this would happen time and again as a reminder of the coming terrible Day of YHWH.
The pouring out of the Spirit of YHWH on His people would introduce a new creative situation whereby His people would become God-possessed, patently both flesh and Spirit, thus enhancing the old creation, it is therefore significant that this new act of creation should be seen as followed by portents and signs which are a reminder of God's judgments on Egypt and His subsequent revelation of Himself to Israel (Exodus 7:17; Exodus 9:24; Exodus 10:21-22; compare Exodus 19:18). It was a reminder that in redeeming those whom He has created for Himself God must bring His judgments on the world.
All this will occur ‘before the great and terrible day of YHWH'. Like the plague of locusts that had just devastated Judah, it would all be a reminder of the coming Day of YHWH. But it would not itself be the Day of YHWH. Joel only knew that the world faced tumult before the end. He had no conception of how much tumult. As empire has rolled on after empire, and as the world faced has catastrophic situations, these ‘signs' have been seen again and again. They express the tumult of the world and the catastrophic nature of events that occur, rather than being a specific sign of ‘the end times'.
‘And it will come about that whoever will call on the name of YHWH will be delivered,
For in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape,
As YHWH has said,
And among the remnant those whom YHWH calls.'
But in the face of all this the true people of YHWH would have nothing to fear. All who truly ‘call on the Name of YHWH' will be saved. To ‘call on the Name of YHWH' is to truly worship Him (see Genesis 4:26; Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:4;, compare 1 Kings 18:24; 1 Chronicles 16:8; Psalms 105:1; Psalms 116:13; Psalms 116:17; Zephaniah 3:9; Acts 2:21; Romans 10:13), and this is speaking of true believers who respond to Him and intend to continually walk with Him. They will enjoy final deliverance.
But however bad things become YHWH will ensure the survival of His people. This is expressed in terms of survival in mount Zion and in Jerusalem, for they were in those days the centre of the worship of YHWH. And among them will be those whom God will call, the holy seed (Isaiah 6:13). The early believers and the new Israel were themselves first established in mount Zion and Jerusalem (Acts 1-12), where the pouring out of the Holy Spirit took place (Acts 2), resulting in the believing remnant of Israel, who were called by God and thus ‘called on the Lord' (Acts 2:21). Then as a result of the coming of Jesus and His resurrection mount Zion and Jerusalem were seen as transferred to Heaven (Galatians 4:22-31; Hebrews 12:22-23; Revelation 14:1; Revelation 21:2; Revelation 21:10).
‘As YHWH has said.' What YHWH says will inevitably come about, for His word goes forth to accomplish it (Isaiah 55:10-13).
Note On Joel 2:28-31 And Acts 2:16-21.
That Peter saw a level of fulfilment of Joel 2:28 ff. in what happened at Pentecost is undeniable, simply because he himself defined it in those terms. But it is often questioned whether Peter saw Joel 2:28 as actually speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. In other words the question is, when he said, ‘this is that --', did he mean precisely that.
Of course, regardless of what Peter did mean what is described here in Joel cannot be limited to Pentecost. At the least it also required for its fulfilment the continuing work of the Spirit that followed Pentecost. But the argument is that all that was simply a reflection of Joel 2:28 which awaits its fulfilment in the future. Now to those who insist on applying the whole of Joel to ‘the end days' for dogmatic reasons the answer is cut and dried. Joel was talking about something that would happen to the Jews in the end days, and all that Peter was doing was say something like, ‘this is the kind of thing that Joel was talking about'.
One main argument advanced is that Peter gave the whole quotation, and it is claimed that he himself would have recognised that the so-called apocalyptic signs were not fulfilled. But that must be open to question. For Peter himself was aware that the sun had been darkened when Jesus was being crucified, and he lived in a time when blood and fire and pillars of smoke had regularly been experienced in Palestine. The Roman occupation was not always a happy one, and people like Theudas and Judas the Galilean (Acts 5:36-37) were just two of those who had felt the full force of their might, resulting in blood, and fire and pillars of smoke as people died and houses were burned, something that was thrown into new light by the crucifixion of Jesus. Thus Peter might well have felt that Joel's words had been fulfilled.
Acts 2:16 ff. is also cited by Peter as connecting with ‘the last days'. This may have been because he was citing a different text from the MT, or was himself quoting loosely. But what this certainly shows is that Peter did consider that what had happened had happened in ‘the last days'. And that is not too surprising for the early Christians did see what was happening as occurring within the last days, for they saw the last days as having begun with Christ's resurrection and exaltation as the Lord of glory. This is apparent from a number of New Testament citations. Peter himself in his letters declared that what the prophets had revealed had been for his own day (1 Peter 1:12), and that Jesus ‘was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake' (1 Peter 1:20), and he claimed that ‘ the end of all things is at hand ' (1 Peter 4:7). Paul also spoke of something being ‘for our admonition, on whom the end of the ages has come' (1 Corinthians 10:11). Whilst the writer to the Hebrews declared that God had ‘ in these last days spoken to us by the Son' (Hebrews 1:2), and that Jesus Christ ‘has once for all appeared at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself' (Hebrews 9:26). It is quite clear from this that the early church saw themselves as being in ‘the last days' and ‘at the end of the age'. They were not to know that those last days would last for over two thousand years. This being so it is difficult to believe that Peter was expecting a further outpouring of the Holy Spirit which would be unique. In our view it is clear that Peter did see Joel's prophecy being fulfilled in his day.
This is not to deny that the Holy Spirit has continued to be manifest in special ways at certain times, and that it may well be that at some stage such a work of the Holy Spirit will take place in Jerusalem turning many Jews to their true Messiah, but it is to deny that that is required by what Joel says. What we must insist on is that Joel's words were fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and, through Him, of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and in what followed.
End of note.