The New Wine of the Kingdom Text: Joel 2:28-29
Introduction: The Great Reversal
The prophet Joel begins his book with a picture of utter devastation. A locust plague, likely a literal one, has stripped the land bare. It was a judgment from God, a foretaste of a greater judgment to come, what Joel calls "the day of the Lord." The land was mourning, the priests were weeping, and the wine was cut off. This was a picture of covenant curse. But right in the middle of this grim prophecy, God pivots. He calls His people to rend their hearts and not their garments, to return to Him. And He promises a restoration that doesn't just fix the damage, but far surpasses the original glory.
The passage before us is the heart of that promised restoration. It is a promise of a great deluge, but not of water for judgment. This is a flood of the Holy Spirit. This is not a patch-up job; it is a total renovation of humanity. What we are reading here is the divine blueprint for the New Covenant age, the age of the Church. The Apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost, stands up before a bewildered crowd and tells them plainly that what they are seeing, the tongues of fire, the speaking in other languages, the sheer spiritual power, is "this which was spoken by the prophet Joel." (Acts 2:16).
So we must understand that this is not some far-off, future event for us. This is the air we breathe. We are living in the "afterwards" that Joel speaks of. The modern church, particularly in the West, is often anemic and timid precisely because we have forgotten the magnitude of what was unleashed at Pentecost. We think of the Holy Spirit as a polite, optional upgrade to the Christian life. Joel, and Peter after him, present the outpouring of the Spirit as a world-altering, history-defining, revolutionary event. It is the inauguration of the kingdom of God in power. It is the great reversal of Babel. At Babel, God confused the tongues to scatter men in their pride. At Pentecost, God gave new tongues to gather men in Christ. This prophecy tells us the nature of the age we are in, an age of global gospel expansion, fueled by the direct, personal, and powerful presence of God's Spirit in all of His people.
The Text
"And it will be afterwards
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy;
Your old men will dream dreams;
Your young men will see visions.
Even on the male slaves and female slaves
I will in those days pour out My Spirit."
(Joel 2:28-29 LSB)
Afterwards: The New Era (v. 28a)
The prophecy begins with a crucial time marker.
"And it will be afterwards..." (Joel 2:28a)
After what? After the locusts, after the judgment, after the call to repentance, and after the initial restoration of the land described in the preceding verses. But Peter, under the inspiration of this very Spirit, translates this for us in Acts 2 as "in the last days." This tells us something crucial about biblical eschatology. The "last days" are not a short period of tribulation right before the end of the world. The last days began at the first coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. We have been living in the last days for two thousand years. This is the era of the Messiah, the age of the Spirit, the time between the resurrection and the final consummation.
This is a postmillennial understanding of history. The kingdom of God was inaugurated at Christ's ascension, and He is reigning now from the right hand of the Father, putting all His enemies under His feet through the advance of the gospel (Psalm 110:1). The outpouring of the Spirit is the fuel for this global conquest. This "afterwards" is not a postscript; it is the main event. It is the age in which God's people are equipped and empowered to take the good news of Christ's victory to the ends of the earth.
A Deluge of the Spirit (v. 28b)
Next, God describes the nature of this new era.
"That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind..." (Joel 2:28b)
The language here is dramatic. God does not say He will "sprinkle" or "drip" His Spirit. He will "pour" it out. This is the language of abundance, of a deluge, a flood. In the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit was given to specific individuals for specific tasks, prophets, priests, and kings. Think of Moses, David, or Elijah. The Spirit "came upon" them. But now, the promise is for a universal outpouring.
"On all mankind" is, in the Hebrew, "on all flesh." This does not mean that every single individual on the planet will be saved or filled with the Spirit. The context and the New Testament application make it clear that this means the Spirit will no longer be restricted to the nation of Israel. It will be poured out on people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. The barrier between Jew and Gentile is torn down. This is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that in him, all the families of the earth would be blessed.
This is a radical democratization of the Spirit's presence. The Holy of Holies is no longer a physical room in a temple, accessible only once a year by one man. Through Christ, every believer has become a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). The presence of God is no longer centralized; it is decentralized, global, and personal. This is the engine of the Great Commission.
The Prophetic Community (v. 28c)
Joel then describes the effects of this outpouring.
"And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; Your old men will dream dreams; Your young men will see visions." (Genesis 2:28c)
This is not primarily about predicting the future in some sort of crystal ball fashion. To "prophesy" in the biblical sense is to speak forth the Word of God with boldness and clarity. It is to declare the mighty works of God. This is exactly what the disciples did at Pentecost: "we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God" (Acts 2:11). This promise means that the entire community of God's people, the Church, will become a prophetic community.
Notice the radical inclusivity. It's not just the religious professionals. It is your sons and your daughters. The Spirit erases the distinctions of gender in terms of spiritual significance and gifting. Women are full participants in this new prophetic community. It erases the distinctions of age. The old, who might be tempted to think their useful days are behind them, will dream dreams. The young, who might be dismissed for their inexperience, will see visions. God is saying that in the New Covenant, He will speak through everyone.
This is the foundation for the priesthood of all believers. Every Christian is called to be a prophet in their own sphere, to their family, their neighbors, their coworkers. We are all called to speak the truth of the gospel into the world. The new wine of the Spirit is poured into all the new wineskins, not just a select few.
The Lowest are Lifted High (v. 29)
As if to drive the point home with a sledgehammer, God extends the promise to the lowest rung of the social ladder.
"Even on the male slaves and female slaves I will in those days pour out My Spirit." (Joel 2:29)
In the ancient world, a slave was property. They had no rights, no voice, no standing. They were socially and legally invisible. And God says, "Even on them. Especially on them." This is the radical, upside-down nature of the kingdom of God. The gospel does not just trickle down from the top; it erupts from the bottom.
This single verse contains the seeds of the abolition of slavery and the foundation for the dignity of all labor. If God's own Spirit will inhabit a slave, making him or her a prophet, then the entire worldly system of status and honor is rendered obsolete. The apostle Paul would later flesh this out: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
This is a direct assault on all forms of human pride and elitism. The world builds its hierarchies based on power, wealth, education, and pedigree. God builds His church with the foolish, the weak, and the despised of the world to shame the wise and the strong (1 Cor. 1:27). The Spirit is poured out on the anonymous, the forgotten, the ones the world discards. And from their mouths, He brings forth praise and prophecy.
Conclusion: Living in the Flood
So what does this mean for us? It means we must stop acting like we are living in a spiritual drought. The dam broke at Pentecost. The floodgates of heaven were opened, and the Spirit has been poured out. We are not waiting for some future event to get the power we need. The power is here. The Spirit is here.
The reason the church often feels powerless is not because the Spirit has been withdrawn, but because we have grieved Him, quenched Him, and ignored Him. We have built our own little levees of respectability, pragmatism, and unbelief to hold back the floodwaters of God's power. We have traded the prophetic boldness promised by Joel for a comfortable, therapeutic, and ultimately impotent form of religious consumerism.
The call of this text is to repent of our low expectations. It is a call to believe the promise of God. It is a call to open our mouths. The Spirit was poured out so that sons and daughters, old and young, slave and free, would prophesy. This means we are to speak of Christ everywhere, all the time, with boldness. We are to declare His mighty works in our homes, in our schools, in the marketplace, and in the public square.
The age of the Spirit is the age of the victorious, advancing gospel. It is the age where the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. That is the promise. The Spirit has been poured out to accomplish it. Our task is simply to get our feet wet, to wade out into the current, and to be carried along by the irresistible flood of God's grace, declaring the mighty works of God to a world dying of thirst.