"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit" (Joel. 2. 28-29).

"Afterward" - after what? Plainly this pouring out of the Spirit on all flesh follows the deliverance of Israel and their wholehearted acceptance of God; it is, therefore, the Millennial outpouring that is referred to. Then why did Peter, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, claim the fulfilment of this prophecy in his own day? "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel" he said (Acts 2. 16-21). The answer is that Peter believed the time of the Kingdom to be immediately at hand; and, what is of importance, none could justly say it was not at hand at that moment. If Israel had accepted the message of the High Calling as a nation, and so entered into that for which their two thousand years of training had been preparing them, the work of the Gospel would have been ended in one generation and Christ's Kingdom would have begun. God in His foreknowledge knew that Israel would reject the Gospel but it was necessary for them to have an opportunity. Only a remnant would believe and the call therefore would go to the Gentiles, with all the long extension of time that entailed. So Peter was right in applying the prophecy to his own day - until Israel had rejected the call. From then on, the prophecy was deferred, and is still, waiting for the full end of this Age to come.

Does any part of this passage refer to the Gospel Age? It would hardly seem so. It used to be thought that the "servants and hand-maidens" upon whom the spirit is to be poured "in those days" represented the Church of this Age. There is a difficulty in referring to the Church as 'servants' in the same breath in which others are spoken of as 'sons'. Peter's quotation from Joel is not word perfect. He says "it shall come to pass in the last days" whereas the Hebrew of Joel has "it shall come to pass afterward" and the Septuagint has meta tauta "after these same things". The promise is two-fold. The Spirit is to be poured out upon "all flesh"; that is a universal outpouring that can only be true in the Millennial Kingdom. As an additional glory the "sons and daughters" shall prophesy, the young men shall dream dreams, the old men see visions, and the servants and handmaidens, lower in status than the free born people of the land, are to share in the out-pouring - even to the extent of prophesying also, according to Peter in Acts 2. 18. The reference is undoubtedly to the regathered "Holy Nation", restored Israel, converted and purified, taking their place in the work of the Kingdom. It may be that the "sons and daughters" are the lineal children of Jacob in that nation, and the "servants and handmaidens", the Gentile "strangers" who have joined them in that day. Isaiah 44. 5 speaks of these. They are men and women from other nations, who after the completion of the Church have joined themselves to the earthly nation. They become by adoption, members of the earthly descendants of Abraham. Their faith and devotion will be rewarded with a part in the work of those earthly descendants, under the direction of the glorified Church. Isaiah 56 and Ezekiel 47:22-23 probably refer to the same thing.

Isaiah 32 is helpful here. Verses 9-14 describe Israel's period of disfavour, cast off from the purposes of God, until (v 15) "the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and. . .. the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever". Zechariah 12.10 also speaks of the spirit of grace and supplication being poured upon the house of David at the time of the End. There are quite a number of such references, all showing that this universal outpouring takes place at and after the time of Israel's conversion and not before. The prophecy therefore must find its fulfilment after the Time of Trouble and after the Kingdom has been established.

"Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,' your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions." This is a glowing picture of a nation completely and unreservedly devoted to the service of God. It is free at last to take up that service in its fulness. That nation is the newly constituted people in the Holy Land and will have fulfilled all the prophecies concerning the restoration of Israel. Their God has come forth out of His place to defend them. Their enemies have been turned back and will never again have power to afflict or distress them. The time for world-wide proclamation of the Gospel has come and the Holy Spirit, coming in the ministrations of the glorified Church, is through that regathered nation, to be poured out upon all flesh. This association between the work of the Church and the giving of the Holy Spirit is shown in the words of Revelation 22.17, "And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come…and whosoever will may come. . . . and take of the fountain of the water of life freely". In the joy and exultation of this knowledge, and the zeal of this service, the whole of that "holy nation" will respond and manifest all the characteristics of God - given revival and evangelical fervour. The Sons and daughters will prophesy of the future; the old men will dream dreams of the future; the young men will see visions of the future. All those prophecies, dreams and visions will be conveyed to the ears of all men the world over that they might know what are the laws and standards of the new Kingdom. They will learn of the glories that await the willing and obedient, both during the Millennial Age and at its end. Prophecies, dreams and visions are all associated in the Bible with the emotional stress and the more than usually sharpened spiritual insight that accompanies the end of an Age and the beginning of the next. This verse refers to the tremendous wave of evangelical fervour that will possess the delivered nation when the Kingdom is established in power. Then they commence, at long last, to fulfil their historic destiny of being a people to give light to the Gentiles, to declare God's salvation to the ends of the earth.

The next two verses (30-31) are retrospective. Joel has gone back a little to look at the signs that will herald this long - awaited day of the Spirit's outpouring. "I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible Day of the Lord come." These words take on new significance when we find that our Lord used the same symbols to describe the signs of his Second Advent. Evidently the same events are referred to and the signs of Christ's imminent reign are the same as the signs of our Lord's return. "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call."

This verse touches some important truths. There are at least three momentous words in it - 'whosoever', 'deliverance', and 'remnant'. But to understand their significance we must take them backwards. Before asking the identity of the 'whosoever' who are to be delivered it is necessary to know what is the deliverance promised. Before understanding the nature of the deliverance we must enquire into the identity of the 'remnant' through whom that deliverance is to come. And so we are brought face to face with one of the most intriguing doctrines of the Old Testament, the doctrine of the 'remnant'.

It was Joel who first introduced this theme. In later years the Holy Spirit used Isaiah to dwell upon it and show how God would preserve a 'remnant' to keep alive His work and carry it on as one world merged into the next; and others of the prophets, notably Micah, caught something of the same idea. But the seed of it all is here in this word of the earlier prophet. 'Deliverance' for "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord" is to be in, and come by means of, the "remnant whom the Lord shall call". And this remnant is closely associated with Mount Zion and Jerusalem.

Isaiah and Micah, both living later than Joel, between them can explain this word. "It shall come to pass in that day" says Isaiah "that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob.....shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return..., unto the Mighty God …..the consumption (consummation) decreed shall overflow with righteousness" (Isa. 10. 20-22). This is the first point to observe. The 'remnant', those that escape, both from the corrupting influence of the Gentile world and the evil hosts of Gog and Magog, will be a purified people, trusting wholly in the Lord. This is therefore a converted people, dwelling in the land and ready to God's hand as an instrument for His purposes. This is confirmed by Micah, who says (4.6-7) "In that day, says the Lord, will I assemble her that halts and I will gather her that is driven out.....and I will make her that halts a remnant, and her that was cast off a strong nation, and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion even for ever". The glorious destiny of the purified nation is clearly shown in these words, and their beneficent mission to all the people of the earth is equally clearly shown in the next chapter. "The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass." (Micah 5. 7). It is true that in the next verse the same remnant is said also to be among the nations as a lion among the beasts of the forest, an evident reference both to the position of leadership assigned to that nation in that day, and also to the fact that it will be a nation that tears down and destroys all opposition to its rule.

It is interesting to notice that quite a number of reputable translators give a personal meaning to the deliverance that is said in this verse to reside in Zion and Jerusalem. Thus Rotherham says "In Mount Zion and Jerusalem shall be a delivered remnant" and Leeser, Revised Version and Variorum "in Mount Zion and Jerusalem there shall be those that escape". Here again there is clear evidence of a wonderful deliverance of God's ancient people taking place at the time when God is about to pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Isaiah crowns this particular theme by declaring "I will send those that escape of them unto the nations. . . and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles" (Isa. 66. 19). This is the great mission of regathered Israel, and this is the work to which they are called when the Millennial Age has begun. In a literal sense they will be Divine missionaries to all the earth, and their rulers, the resurrected "Ancient Worthies", princes, in all the earth, requiring and receiving the obedience of all men.

So the vision of Israel's triumph closes, and gives place in Chapter 3 to another and parallel vision of the Time of the End. This time the prophet is looking, not on his own people and the effect of the Time of Trouble upon them, but upon the Gentile nations and the manner in which the Time of Trouble affects them. Instead of seeing a restored and renovated homeland in which the sons of Jacob praise and serve the God who has delivered them, he sees the marshalling of angry hosts determined to fight God. But the end is the same, and chapter 3 closes, as does chapter 2, in the "afterward of peace" of the Millennial Kingdom.

(To be continued)

AOH