Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - June/79

Contributor - Henry Van Essen

Title - Pentecost and the Day of the Lord

Topic - Pentecost

"..this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!"' (Acts 2:17 - 21 NIV.)

The above words spoken by Peter on the day of Pentecost were originally spoken by the Lord God through the prophet Joel, probably some 870 years earlier. Anyone can see how the prophecy concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit forms one unit with the prophecy about the great and glorious day of the Lord. But what happens usually is that on Pentecost we spend all our time on the outpouring and very little, if any, on the coming day of the Lord. Are we somewhat embarrassed by the verses 19 and 20 about "blood and fire and billows of smoke", about the sun turning to darkness? Yet at the same time we love to quote verse 21, "And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." But you really cannot cut out two whole sentences spoken by the Lord and paste verse 21 onto verse 18, can you?

Connection?

What then is the connection between Pentecost and the Day of the Lord? For the answer we will have to go back to the book of Joel and the Old Testament. We are told in chapter 1 how a most terrible locust plague has hit the land of Judah; the locusts eat crops and tree bark, and leave nothing in field and orchard. To make matters worse, the country also suffers great lack of water: trees and vines dry up (1: 11, 12, 17, 20). The prophet Joel sees this as from the hand of the Lord: this also is a day which the Lord has made.

The Day of the Lord

Today, when people talk about the Day of the Lord" the thought is usually about the final judgement when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to judge the living and the dead, together with all the universe-shocking happenings foretold in the Scriptures. But in the O.T. we read that the people Of Israel also looked back and remembered various days on which the Lord gave deliverance or caused judgement (Isaiah 9:4; Judges 7; Is. 28: 21 = II Samuel 5:20,25; many Psalms). A day of the Lord is always a day of judgement and of deliverance. Thus Joel sees in the locust plague and in the drought clearly the hand of the Lord, of judgement upon God's people, and he hears the Lord call for repentance and return, to rend their hearts and not their garments (2: 12, 13).

At the same time there had grown, under the guidance of the Lord, among God's people the conviction that all these days of the Lord would finally lead to one great and glorious Day of the Lord in which the final battle between the Lord and the rebellious, godless, nations would take place; in which His own people would finally, completely, and once for all be delivered; and in which all disobedient and unrepentant people would eternally be condemned with everlasting judgement.

When Joel, therefore, saw the drought and the sky-darkening clouds of locusts, the total destruction of the country, and the godless reign of Queen Athalia, he cried, "Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty." (1: 15 NASB)

The Day not yet

But the Lord had yet pity on His people and took away the locust and gave all the necessary rain (2: 18 - 27); He proved once again "You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I, the Lord, am your Lord, and there is none else" (2: 27 RSV). This period of great trouble was not yet the Day of the Lord.

As a matter of fact, the Day will not come, says the Lord, until He has poured out His Spirit on "all people". First the outpouring of His Spirit, then the Day of the Lord. Now please note that the outpouring of His Spirit is to be on "all flesh" (RSV); but this "all flesh" means all Israel, vs. 28: your sons, your daughters, your old men, your young men, your menservants, your maidservants, all Israel, all ages, both sexes, and every social standing. There is no sign that Joel ever thought for one moment of an outpouring of God's Spirit on people of all races and nations, on masses of converted heathens. "All flesh" here means for Joel "all Israel".

"All flesh" by Peter

Then, what does Peter mean when he speaks of the outpouring of God's Spirit upon all flesh, Acts 2: 17? Peter also thinks practically only of Israel: vs. 22 "Men of Israel", vs. 29 "Brothers", vs. 36 "all Israel", and finally vs. 38, 39 "Repent, and be baptized every one of you (= Israel), in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the Holy Spirit. For the promise (of the Holy Spirit in Joel) is to you and to your children (= all Israel gathered from over the whole world, Acts 2: 5 I 1), and to all that are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Him." Only here at the very end, is the door left open for non-Jews. Yet Peter himself did not even understand this, nor did the other apostles, as Acts 10, 11: 1 - 18 clearly show.

Israel and the Church

Joel and Peter stand here shoulder to shoulder: great unity between O.T. and N.T. Many people today believe that the Holy Spirit is only poured out on the Church, not on the nation Israel. They believe that one day the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, including Christian Jews, will secretly and silently disappear to be with the Lord Jesus in heaven for a number of years, and that therefore the Holy Spirit will also be taken away from the earth, since He is poured out on the N.T. Church only (see for instance the Scofield Reference Bible p. 1272 note 1, and the Ryrie Study Bible note botl?, on II Thessalonians 2: 7). After that "rapture" the nation Israel will once again be the people through whom the Lord works on the earth, so they say. But Joel and Peter through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit show clearly that it was God's purpose to pour His Spirit on all Israel - and that the converted , Gentiles are added as the Lord our God calls them to Himself.

Many people are quick to understand "all flesh" this way: Reformed flesh, United flesh, Roman Catholic flesh, or Canadian flesh, Russian flesh, etc. But the Scriptures are clear: God pours His Spirit out on His people, Israel, and He extends this promise to all whom He will call to Himself from far off.

A people of His own

Thus the Lord continues to gather a people of His own, beginning with Abraham and Israel and grafting all those from far off into the olive tree Israel (Romans 8: 17 - 27). This outpouring of His Spirit and this formation of His people is all in preparation for the final Day of the Lord, when there will not just be a temporary material blessing as in Joel 2, but when there will be a new creation, foreshadowed in Joel 3. For that new creation the Lord is gathering a new Israel, a new people for His Kingdom.

Pentecost - purpose 1

Now only those who are born from above, of water and the Spirit, can see and enter this Kingdom of God, John 3:1-15. Therefore, the first preparation for the Day of the Lord is the spiritual renewal of His own people, which is the first result of Pentecost. Jeremiah already longed for and prophesied that day, together with Ezekiel, Jeremiah 31:31 - 34, Ezekiel 36: 26, 27, and now it happens. This is the first purpose of Pentecost. But again, this is not limited to Israel, but reaches to all far off, as many as the Lord our God calls.

Pentecost - purpose 2

The second purpose of Pentecost is that His people may also understand what the future plans of the Lord are. We have a beautiful commentary of Paul on what the prophecies and dreams and visions of Acts 2: 17 are about. Paul, taught by Isaiah, says in I Corinthians 2: 9, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit" (NIV). Through the Holy Spirit the born-again Christian is to receive insight and wisdom in the plans of God, plans for this present world society, happenings towards the end Of or this age, and in the promises for the new age. (Compare John 14: 26; 15: 14,15.)

Pentecost - purpose 3

The third purpose of Pentecost is that His people may be equipped to live in this present age and fulfill His commands. That is not easy, as Christians in Russia, Albania, Uganda, and all over the world can tell you. In "the world ou will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" John 16: 33. To be equipped we may ask the Lord Jesus for all He is and does; the gifts of the Holy Spirit are to help us become mature men and women in Christ. Not each on his own, but as one body, " . . in all things to grow up into Him, who is the Head, that is, Christ" (Ephesians 4:15, also 4: 1 - 16), The- gifts of the Spirit are in preparation for the day of the Lord, to fight the good fight, to run the race with perseverance so that each one may finally say "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" even though "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the Heavenly realms". (II Timothy 4: 7 and Ephesians 6:12, NIV).

Pentecost - purpose 4

The fourth purpose of Pentecost is to witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and to His coming. As Kingdom people who are waiting to receive the promised inheritance of the new creation Christians live and speak, as strangers and exiles in this age, of all that is to come. To speak like this they are empowered by the Holy Spirit, as the Lord Jesus promised (Acts 1: 8). They are to hold before the whole world the absolute certainty of the coming of the Day of the Lord, the day of final judgement and of final salvation. They are to present the only choice: repentance and trust in the Lord through the Lord Jesus Christ which will mean everlasting joy and peace; or rejection of Jesus as King and everlasting condemnation in utter God-forsakeness. How stubborn people can be in refusing to repent is pictured in Revelation, chapters 7 - 9.

THE CONNECTION

Pentecost then is clearly connected to the Day of the Lord. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit s not a happening all by itself to make things more pleasant for the Christians. It speaks in all it purposes to do of that great and glorious Day of the Lord when He comes again. And every born again Christian does not have to be afraid or in the dark about that Day, because through Pentecost all can be "sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled ... putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For-God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Thessalonians 5: 5 - 9).

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