Acts 2:14-21 A sign of the beginning of the end

Acts 2:14-21 Peter begins his sermon, quoting Joel to explain the phenomena to the Jews. Peter begins by denying that he and his compatriots were drunk, on the grounds that it was too early in the day to have drunk enough wine to be drunk. He then goes on to quote Joel 2:28-32. In this eschatological prophecy, Joel enumerates several things that God says will happen. The very first is the pouring out of His Spirit upon all mankind.  The result of His Spirit being poured out would be children prophesying, young men seeing visions, old men dreaming. Then there would be signs in the physical universe before the great and glorious day of The Lord. And finally, Joel says that everyone who calls on the name of The Lord will be saved.

          The context of this passage in Joel is a much longer end-times prophecy, speaking of the immanence of the day of The Lord. Joel 2:11 speaks of the coming of a great and mighty people, with a description of just how they will terrify those in rebellion against God. Joel 2:12-17 calls for repentance. Joel 2:18-27 promises deliverance and restoration for the Jews. Joel 3:1-17 describes God's judgment of the nations who have preyed on His people.

          In the milieu of the first century, with the Jews under Roman domination, there was a recurrent expectation among the Jews that the glorious victories of the Maccabees would be repeated, and that The Lord would send a deliverer to bring military victory and free the Jews from foreign domination. And Jewish prophets testified of this deliverance, besides this passage in Joel. So Peter is saying that the end times have begun and this Spirit outpouring is evidence of that; the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the behavior of God's people marks the beginning of the end times. Note that Peter did not cite all of the rest of Joel's prophecy, regarding nations being judged by God. In so doing, Peter implicitly says that the whole of the end time prophecy is not yet being fulfilled; but the end is already begun. Neither he nor we know when the end times will be consummated. But Peter's statement about prophecy is repeated in that after he quotes Joes 2:29, he repeats the clause about prophecy from the previous verse. The pouring forth of the Spirit has resulted in prophetic words in this rather unprecedented way - God's glory is being spoken of by people in languages that they do not know, and evidently in a manner that is highly excited.

          So Peter's opening remarks in this sermon are an appeal to his listeners to recognize that what they are seeing is the fulfillment of a promise from one of the Old Testament prophets, and what this event signifies.