In this article we look at part of Peter’s great speech recorded by Luke in Acts 2:14-21. This event was the inauguration of the New Covenant which took place in Jerusalem during the Jewish feast of Pentecost when thousands of Jews from many countries joined the locals. The New Covenant means the END of the Old Covenant! Forget Israel. Forget Jerusalem! Luke 2:14-21:
Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, said God, I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit; and they shall prophesy: And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come: And it shall come to pass, that whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved”.
V 16. Joel’s prediction
Peter was referring to the phenomena of supposedly drunken people which was the evidence of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the 120 disciples gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. He affirmed that “this” supernatural phenomena was the fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy (Joel 2:28) in the Old Testament. Fulfilment means fulfilment. Done.
The Book of Acts goes on to this describe how was fulfilled: God certainly poured out his Spirit on all sorts of people–sons and daughters prophesied, young men saw visions and old men had dreams: Even on servants and handmaidens, God poured out His Spirit in those days. Luke describes many stories of miraculous healings and many other astounding gifts of the Holy Spirit.
This was the inauguration of the New Covenant which we enjoy to this day with the continued pouring out of the Holy Spirit. It was the birth of the movement we call Christianity. It marks the change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. And from a focus on the Jews and Israel as a piece of land to the true focus of the Israel of God—the ekklesia, spiritual Israel. This is exactly what Jesus spoke about to the Samaritan woman in John 4:
“. . . it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. . . . . But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.
V 17. the last days. The biblical writers used these expressions “the last days” or “the end” to mean the last days of the Jewish economy and the end of the Mosaic religious era and the time of the second coming of the Son of Man and the day of God’s wrath. They did not mean the end of the world. Not the end of history.
Vs 19-20. Some think that verses 19 and 20 are describing the results of global nuclear war as they believe they are living in the last days. They are sorely mistaken because the New Testament records that Jesus promised his disciples that he would come again before his generation has passed away as recorded in Matthew 16:27-28 and 24:34).
These verses 19-20 describe the signs of the coming of the Son of Man in the familiar terms of judgment using non-literal expressions. This was a common motif we find in the Old Testament prophets —the collapsing of cosmic entities in their judgment prophecies, e.g. Isa 13:10, 19:1,24:18-20, 34;8-15, Ezek 32:7–8; Joel 2:28).
These cosmic signs are not descriptions of the results of global nuclear war or the end of the world. These would take place ‘before the great and notable day of the Lord comes.’ So what great and notable day is this? The answer is found in the next chapter of Acts (3:18-21).
We find Peter addressing another crowd curiously attentive after the healing of the crippled man and the ensuing sensation:
But God was fulfilling what all the prophets had foretold about the Messiah—that he must suffer these things. Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah. For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets.
Fulfilling the prophecies. Because God now at last was fulfilling the prophecies told about Jesus, this was the most significant time in Jewish history and for the whole world as well. All was fulfilled! (also see Luke 21:20-22).
Repent. Their repentance would guarantee the presence of the Lord in their lives. No more squeezing stale refreshment from the Law or the sacrificial system. Now they would experience wonderful refreshment from the presence of the Lord in their lives. Relationship not religion.
God will again send you Jesus. God will again send Jesus to redeem them. Peter addresses them, ‘you’ (not us today). He wil gather his people back to himself and that will be the completion of His atoning sacrifice. See Hebrews 9:11-15 and 27-28: He will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him. His re-appearance means completed salvation—just as the appearance of the Jewish high priest on the Day of Atonement meant the sacrifice was successful.
He must remain in heaven until. So there was still more to come for those believers—God will again send them Jesus for the final restoration (Greek apokatastasis), completion, or filling up of all things, as God promised long ago through his prophets (Deut 18:19).
For us today as we read Luke’s account this apokatastasis is long past. For He did return as He promised His disciples (Mat 10:23, 16:27-28, 24:30-34. This assured His people of a completed atonement.
If you doubt His second coming then you should be pleased that He came 2000 years ago to complete your salvation. Good news!
But if Jesus did not come in the generation of Peter and his listeners, then that’s bad news—you still await the consummation, your completed salvation.
Ian Thomson 