Commentary - Joel 2:28-29

Bird's-eye view

In this magnificent promise, the prophet Joel pivots from the immediate historical disaster of the locust plague and the call to repentance to the glorious restoration that God will accomplish for His people. This is not just a promise of agricultural renewal; it is a promise of spiritual deluge. The Lord declares that "afterwards", after the judgment and repentance, He will do something unprecedented. He will pour out His Spirit not upon a select few, like prophets, priests, and kings, but upon "all mankind," meaning every kind of person within the covenant community. This is the promise of the New Covenant, the dawning of the democratic age of the Spirit.

The Apostle Peter, standing up on the day of Pentecost with the fire of Heaven still settling on his head, quotes this very passage and declares, "this is that" (Acts 2:16). Joel's prophecy, therefore, is the definitive Old Testament explanation for what happened when the Church was born. The result of this outpouring is a radical leveling of the spiritual landscape. Sons and daughters, old and young, male slaves and female slaves, all will receive the Spirit and participate directly in the prophetic life of God's people. This passage is the divine charter for Pentecost and the spiritual reality of the Church for the entire age that was inaugurated then, an age that would see the final end of the old temple order.

Outline

Context In Joel

The prophecy of Joel is occasioned by a devastating locust swarm, which the prophet interprets as a foretaste of the coming "Day of the Lord," a day of covenantal judgment. The first two chapters are a ringing call for national repentance in the face of this terrifying prospect. The people are to rend their hearts and not their garments (Joel 2:13). Following this call, God promises restoration. He will drive away the northern army, restore the years the locust has eaten, and remove their shame (Joel 2:20-27). It is immediately after this promise of physical and covenantal restoration that our text appears. The outpouring of the Spirit is thus the capstone of God's restorative work. It is the internal, spiritual reality that corresponds to the external, agricultural, and national blessings. This demonstrates that God's ultimate salvation is not merely about full barns, but about hearts filled with His own Spirit.

Key Issues

This is That

When the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost, and the disciples began to speak in other tongues, the gathered crowd was bewildered. Some were amazed, and others, in their cynical unbelief, sneered that the men were drunk. Peter stands up to preach the first sermon of the Christian Church, and his central interpretive key is this passage from Joel. He says, "For these are not drunken, as ye suppose... But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel" (Acts 2:15-16). This is an inspired, apostolic declaration. What was happening in Jerusalem that morning was the direct and unambiguous fulfillment of what Joel had prophesied centuries before.

This means we are not at liberty to look for some other, future fulfillment. Pentecost was it. This event kicked off what the New Testament calls "the last days" (Acts 2:17), not the last days of the planet, but the last days of the old covenant order, which would run for another forty years until its complete dissolution in the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. The outpouring of the Spirit was the inauguration of the kingdom, and the signs and wonders that Joel speaks of next, the blood, fire, and vapor of smoke, were the covenantal judgments that would bring that old world to its cataclysmic end. The promise of the Spirit and the warning of judgment are two sides of the same coin, all part of the one "great and notable day of the Lord" (Acts 2:20).

Verse by Verse Commentary

28 “And it will be afterwards That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;

The word afterwards links this supreme spiritual blessing to the physical and covenantal restoration God has just promised. Once God has dealt with His people in judgment and brought them to repentance, He will then grant them this gift. Peter, under inspiration, renders this as "in the last days" (Acts 2:17). This identifies the entire era between Christ's ascension and the destruction of Jerusalem as the terminal period of the old covenant. The promise is that God will pour out His Spirit. This is not a sprinkle or a drip. This is the language of abundance, of deluge. In the Old Covenant, the Spirit's work was real but, by comparison, surgical and limited. He would come upon certain individuals for specific tasks. But in the New Covenant, His operation is torrential. He is poured out on all mankind. The Hebrew is "all flesh." This does not mean every single individual on the planet, but rather all kinds of people without the previous distinctions. Jew and Gentile, male and female, rich and poor, the Spirit is given to every class of person within the new covenant community, the Church.

And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; Your old men will dream dreams; Your young men will see visions.

Here Joel describes the result of this spiritual inundation. The community of God's people will become a prophetic community. Notice the radical inclusivity. It is not just the sons, but the daughters who will prophesy. The prophetic gift is not restricted by gender. It is not restricted by age either. The old men, who might be tempted to think their useful days are behind them, will receive divine revelation in dreams. The young men, full of vigor, will see visions. This is a picture of a body alive with the communication of God. Prophecy, dreams, visions, these are all forms of receiving and speaking the word of the Lord. In the New Covenant, every believer is a prophet in principle, because every believer is indwelt by the Spirit of prophecy. We all have direct access to God and are called to speak His truth to one another and to the world. This doesn't mean everyone holds the formal office of a prophet, but it does mean the life of the Spirit is the inheritance of all.

29 Even on the male slaves and female slaves I will in those days pour out My Spirit.

As if to hammer the point home, Joel includes the lowest rung of the social ladder. In the ancient world, a slave was property. They had no standing, no voice. But God says that even on the male slaves and female slaves He will pour out His Spirit. This is a profound social revolution accomplished by spiritual means. The Gospel does not obliterate social distinctions overnight through political upheaval, but it renders them spiritually irrelevant. In Christ, there is neither slave nor free (Gal. 3:28). A slave girl with the Holy Spirit has more dignity and a more significant voice than a Christless king on his throne. The Spirit is no respecter of persons. He goes where the Father sends Him, and He fills whom He will. This was a radical promise, and at Pentecost, it became a living reality. The Church became the one place on earth where a slave and his master could kneel side-by-side as equal brothers, sharing in the same Spirit.

Application

The promise of Joel and the fulfillment at Pentecost are not just historical curiosities; they define the reality we live in as the Church. We are a Pentecostal people. This means, first, that the Holy Spirit has been given to us not as a luxury item for the spiritual elite, but as the basic equipment for every single Christian. The same Spirit who empowered Peter to preach and the martyrs to stand firm is the Spirit who indwells you, if you are in Christ. We often live far below our privileges, thinking of the Spirit as a distant force, when He has in fact been poured into our hearts.

Second, this passage demolishes all our fleshly hierarchies. The Spirit is given to men and women, to the old and the young, to the rich and the poor, to every tribe and tongue. Any church culture that silences the contribution of women, that dismisses the wisdom of the old or the zeal of the young, or that values people based on their social standing is quenching the Spirit and acting as though Pentecost never happened. We are to be a community where every member is honored and encouraged to use their Spirit-given gifts for the building up of the body.

Finally, we must remember that the purpose of the Spirit's outpouring is to create a prophetic people who bear witness to Jesus Christ. The disciples were filled with the Spirit and immediately began to declare the mighty works of God. The Spirit does not draw attention to Himself; He points to Christ. To be a Spirit-filled people is to be a Christ-exalting people. Our lives, our words, our worship, our work, all of it is to be a prophetic testimony to the world that Jesus Christ, whom men crucified, has been made both Lord and Christ by God the Father. This is the reality Joel saw from afar, and it is the reality we are called to live in today.