What Joel 2:28-29 Says About the Spirit

Question 4130

What Joel 2:28-29 says about the Spirit in Joel is one of the great prophetic promises of the Old Testament, that God will one day pour out his Spirit on all flesh, so that sons and daughters will prophesy, old men will dream dreams, young men will see visions, and even male and female servants will receive the Spirit. The prophet looks beyond the selective, occasional comings of the Spirit that marked his own age to a coming day when the Spirit will be given lavishly and without distinction, regardless of age, gender or social standing. It is a promise of a new and wider work of God among his people.

The promise of the Spirit in Joel takes on its full meaning when Peter stands up on the day of Pentecost and declares that what the crowd is witnessing is the beginning of its fulfilment. To read Joel rightly, we have to hold together what was inaugurated at Pentecost and what still lies in the future, for the prophecy reaches further than the events of that single day.

What Joel promised about the Spirit

Joel prophesied in the shadow of a devastating locust plague, which he treated as a forewarning of the great and terrible day of the LORD. After calling the nation to repentance, he records Gods promise of restoration, and at the heart of that promise is the outpouring of the Spirit. The striking thing is the universality of it. In the Old Testament the Spirit came upon particular individuals for particular tasks, upon judges and kings and prophets and craftsmen, and could be withdrawn. Joel foresees a day when the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh, on the young and the old, on sons and daughters alike, on servants as well as masters. This is a democratising of the Spirits presence, a gift no longer confined to a chosen few but spread across the whole covenant community. The contrast with the older pattern is drawn out in our answer on the Spirits activity in the Old Testament before Pentecost.

Joel also sets this outpouring within a larger frame, for the same passage speaks of wonders in the heavens and on the earth, the sun turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. The promise of the Spirit and the promise of cosmic upheaval stand side by side, and that pairing turns out to be the key to reading the prophecy correctly.

Peter and the Spirit in Joel at Pentecost

When the Spirit came on the gathered believers at Pentecost and they spoke in other tongues, the crowd was bewildered, and some mocked. Peter stood and explained, this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel, and then quoted the passage in full (Acts 2:16 to 21). He is telling them that the long-promised outpouring has begun. The age Joel foresaw, the age of the Spirit given to all the people of God without distinction, had dawned with the coming of the risen and ascended Lord pouring out his Spirit. What happened at Pentecost is set out further in our answer on what happened at Pentecost.

Yet a careful reader notices that not everything Joel described took place that day. The sun was not turned to darkness, the moon did not become blood, the great and awesome day of the LORD did not arrive. Peter quotes the cosmic signs along with the outpouring, but only the outpouring was visibly fulfilled before the crowd. This is the clue that Pentecost was the inauguration of Joel prophecy and not its exhaustion. The same kind of outpouring that Joel promised had begun, but the fullness of what he saw still lay ahead.

What the Spirit in Joel still awaits

Reading Scripture according to its plain sense, and keeping in view the distinct programmes of God for Israel and for the church, leads to the conclusion that Joel prophecy has an inaugurated fulfilment now and a complete fulfilment still to come. The phrase all flesh awaits its final scope. The cosmic signs Joel describes belong to the future day of the LORD, the time of tribulation and the return of the Lord Jesus in power. The full outpouring on the nation of Israel awaits their turning to their Messiah, when they will look on him whom they have pierced and a fountain will be opened for them (Zechariah 12:10), and all Israel will be saved (Romans 11:26). Beyond that lies the millennial kingdom, when the Spirits presence will rest upon the restored nation and the reign of the King will fill the earth with the knowledge of the LORD. The distinction between Israel and the church that underlies this reading is set out in our answer on the difference between Israel and the Church.

This is why Pentecost can be the fulfilment of Joel without being the whole of it. Peter says this is that, meaning the promised age has begun and the same Spirit is being poured out, while the final and complete fulfilment, including the salvation of Israel and the signs of the day of the LORD, remains future. The role the Spirit will play in that coming kingdom is taken up in our answer on the Spirits role in the millennium and the eternal state.

Living in the age of the outpoured Spirit

For the believer today, the wonder of Joel promise is that we live on this side of its inauguration. The Spirit that the prophet saw coming has been poured out, and every believer, young or old, male or female, of high station or low, receives the same indwelling Spirit at conversion. There is no waiting in the outer court for a special class to mediate the Spirit to us. The promise has been opened to all who belong to the Lord Jesus, and that is a privilege the saints of the old era longed to see.

At the same time the unfulfilled portion of Joel keeps our eyes on the horizon. God is not finished. The same prophecy that has begun to come true in the church points forward to the salvation of Israel and the day of the LORD, and the believer lives between the inauguration and the completion, enjoying the Spirit now and awaiting the fullness still to come.

The outpouring on all flesh

The phrase on all flesh is the heart of what is new in the promise. Under the old order the Spirit was given selectively, resting on particular leaders for particular tasks, and the bulk of the people knew the Spirit only at a distance through those whom he had equipped. Moses had once wished that all the people of the LORD were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit upon them, and Joel foresees the day when that wish would be granted. Sons and daughters, old and young, servant and free, all would share alike in the gift. The barriers of age, gender and station that had limited the experience of the Spirit in the old era would fall.

There is also a sign attached to the inauguration that points to Israel. The tongues spoken at Pentecost were real languages, heard by Jewish pilgrims from every nation under heaven in their own tongues, and they served as a marker to the covenant people that God was doing something new. The outpouring of the Spirit was thus announced first to Israel, in fulfilment of their own prophet, even as it opened the door to a work that would reach the nations. To read the timing rightly we must avoid the twin errors of date-setting and of treating the prophecy as wholly spent, holding instead that the God who began to fulfil Joel will complete what remains in his own appointed season.

So, now what?

Give thanks that you live in the age Joel foresaw. The Spirit has been poured out, and if you are in Christ you have received him, not as a distant influence but as the indwelling gift of God. Do not live as though the promise were still locked up in the Old Testament. The outpouring has come, and you are a partaker of it.

Let the unfulfilled part of the prophecy shape your hope and your reading of the times. God has a future for Israel and a day appointed for the return of the Lord Jesus, and the same faithfulness that has begun to fulfil Joel will complete it. This guards us against both date-setting and despair, for the God who kept the first part of his word will keep the rest.

Walk in the Spirit you have been given, and watch for the day still to come, and you will be reading Joel as Peter read it, with one eye on the gift already poured out and the other on the day of the LORD that is still ahead.

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” Joel 2:28