Joel 2:1-32
Here I must turn aside for a moment, and observe that the gift of the Spirit in the day of Acts 2, according to this prophecy, was not followed by those judgments on which the darkened sun and moon and the falling stars are solemnly to wait and to give witness. Such was not the history in the Acts after the gift of the Spirit there. Why? Israel was not then obedient. These judgments will be in favor of Israel. They will light upon the head of the oppressor, and close the day of Israel’s tribulation. But they did not follow the gift of the Spirit in Acts 2, as they are spoken of in Joel 2, and again I say, because Israel was not then repentant and obedient. “If ye will not believe, neither shall ye be established” is a standing oracle in the case of the nations (Isa. 7:9). And being then unbelieving, refusing (even to the slaying of Stephen) the testimony of the then given Spirit, the nation was not to be delivered nor established.
The Spirit, therefore, given at that Pentecost, led on in a very different direction. He became the baptizer of an elect people, Jewish or Gentile, into a body destined to heaven, and to be the bride of the Lamb in the day of the glory, when again the Spirit will be given. The remnant in Israel, under that gift, will be so led in faith, repentance, and obedience, as to let the full amount of this prophecy of Joel spend itself in the behalf of the nations.
But I must say a little more on Joel 2 and Acts 2.
In what a profound and interesting manner the Spirit in an apostle fills out the word of the Spirit in a prophet! Many an instance of this might be given, as we generally know. But I am now looking only at Peter’s commentary on Joel, that is, at Peter’s word in Acts 2 on Joel’s word in Joel 2.
Joel tells us of the Spirit, the river of God, as we will call it. He traces it, in its course or current, through the sons and daughters, the old men and young men, the servants and handmaids, of Israel; he speaks of it in its rich and abundant flowing, and the fruitfulness it imparts.
Peter admits all this. In the day of Pentecost, as he was preaching at Jerusalem, he looks at that same river of God, charmed, as it were, at the wealth and fruitfulness of it, as it was, at that moment, under his eye, taking its course through God’s assembly. But then, he does more than this and more than Joel had done. He traces this river backward and forward—backward to its source and forward to its mouth.
He traces it to its source, and does so very carefully. This occupies him in his discourse on this great occasion. He tells us of Jesus—ministering, crucified, risen, and ascended; how He had served in grace and power here on earth; how men with wicked hands had crucified Him; how God had raised Him from the dead; and how He was now exalted at the right hand of God in the heavens. These things he proves diligently and carefully from Scripture. And then, having thus followed the Lord Jesus through life and death, and His resurrection up to heaven, there, in Him—the ascended and glorified Man—he discovers the source of this mighty river.
He traces it, likewise, onward to the end or issue of its course. He tells us that it is to reach to the children of that generation, and also to all that are afar off, even to as many as the Lord shall call.
What a commentary by an apostle on a prophet is this! What enlargement of heart and understanding in the ways of God is given to us by it! In what an affecting, and yet in what a wondrous and glorious way, is Jesus brought in as having connection with the river of God! He becomes the source of it as soon as He, who had once been the serving, crucified, rejected One, became the ascended One. (Just as we learn from John 7. This same river is there tracked in its course through the bellies of the saints (John 7:38). But it is declared that it could not then begin to flow, for Jesus was not then glorified. Here, in Acts 2, it has begun to take its course, because Jesus has now been glorified.)