Daily Bible Study 1 December 2007
December 1, 2007
THE MESSAGE OF ACTS.
A Commentary by John Stott.
Acts 2:14-21. Peter’s quotation of Joel.
What Luke has described in verses 1-13 Peter now explains. The extraordinary phenomenon of Spirit-filled believers declaring God’s wonders in foreign languages is the fulfilment of Joel’s prediction that God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh. Peter’s exposition is similar to what in the Dead Sea Scrolls is called a ‘pesher’ or ‘interpretation’ of an Old Testament passage in the light of its fulfilment. So (i) Peter introduces his sermon with the words ‘this is that’ (16,AV), i.e. ‘this’ which his hearers have witnessed is ‘that’ which Joel foretold; (ii) he deliberately changes Joel’s ‘afterwards’ (as the time when the Spirit will be poured out) to ‘in the last days’ in order to emphasize that with the Spirit’s coming the last days have come; and (iii) he applies the passage to Jesus, so that ‘the Lord’ who brings salvation is no longer Yahweh who shelters survivors on Mount Zion, (Joel 2:32), but Jesus who saves from sin and judgement everyone who calls on his name (21).
It is the unanimous conviction of New Testament authors that Jesus inaugurated the last days or the Messianic age, and that the final proof of this was the outpouring of the Spirit, since this was the Old Testament promise of promises for the end-time. This being so, we must be careful not to re-quote Joel’s prophecy as if we are still awaiting its fulfilment, or even as if its fulfilment has only been partial, and we await some future and complete fulfilment. For this is not how Peter understood and applied the text. The whole Messianic era, which stretches between the two comings of Christ, is the age of the Spirit in which his ministry is one of abundance. Is not this the significance of the verb ‘pour out’? The picture is probably of a heavy tropical rainstorm, and seems to illustrate the generosity of God’s gift of the Spirit (neither a drizzle nor even a shower but a downpour), its finality (for what has been poured out cannot be gathered again) and its universality (widely distributed among the different groupings of mankind). Peter goes on to stress this universality. All people (*pasa sarx*, ‘all flesh’,17a) means not everybody irrespective of their inward readiness to receive the gift, but everybody irrespective of their outward status. There are still spiritual conditions for receiving the Spirit, but there are no social distinctions whether of sex (*Your sons and daughters*, 17b), or of age (*your young men…your old men…*,17c) or of rank (*even on my servants, both men and women*, 18 - who are not just ‘servants’, as in the Hebrew, but whom God dignifies as belonging to him).
*And they will prophesy* (18). This seems to be an umbrella-use of the verb ‘to prophesy’. As Luther put it, ‘prophesying, visions and dreams are *all one thing*. That is, the universal gift (the Spirit) will lead to a universal ministry (prophesy). Yet the promise is surprising because elsewhere in Acts - and in the New Testament generally - only some are called to be prophets. How then shall we understand a universal prophetic ministry? If in its essence prophesy is God speaking, God making himself known by his Word, then certainly the Old Testament expectation was that in New Covenant days the knowledge of God would be universal, and the New Testament authors declare that this has been fulfilled through Christ. (Je.31:34, ‘they will all know me’; 1 Thess. 4:9, ‘you yourselves have been taught by God’; 1 Jn.2:27, ‘his anointing teaches you about all things’). In this sense all God’s people are now prophets, just as all are also priests and kings. So Luther understood prophesy here as ‘the knowledge of God through Christ which the Holy Spirit kindles and makes to burn through the word of the gospel’, while Calvin wrote that it ‘signifies simply the rare and excellent gift of understanding’. In fact, it is this universal knowledge of God through Christ by the Spirit which is the foundation of the universal commission to witness (1:8). Because we know him, we must make him known.
Peter continues the quotation from Joel: *I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke (19). The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord* (20). It is possible to understand these predictions either literally as upheavals of nature (which already began on Good Friday (Lk. 23:44-45), and more of which Jesus foretold before the end) (Lk.21:11), or metaphorically as convulsions of history (since this is traditional apocalyptic imagery for the times of social and political revolution). (e.g. Is.13:9ff; 34:1ff; Ezk. 32:7ff; Am. 8:9; Mt. 24:29; Lk.21:25-26; Rev. 6:12ff). Meanwhile between the Day of Pentecost (when the Spirit came, inaugurating the last days) and the day of the Lord (when Jesus will come, concluding them) there stretches a long day of opportunity, during which the gospel of salvation will be preached throughout the world: *And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved* (21).
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Tomorrow: Acts 2:22-32. Peter’s quotation of Joel (continued).
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