How does Peter see the apocalyptic imagery of Joel in the events of Acts 2?

The first step is to take note of the context of Joel’s prophecy. It is the coming destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. (Joel 2:32)

Even if we identify the context, it may sound to us as if Joel is still looking forward to the first century events at the end of his predictions. The unfortunate chapter break between 2 and 3 stops us reading further, but if we keep reading without a break, the beginning of chapter 3 makes it clear that Joel is still speaking about the restoration from exile. God would judge all the Canaanite nations, including Israel, who had behaved like a Canaanite. But only Israel would resurface from the “flood” of Babylonian control, while all the Canaanite powers remained scattered forever. And Israel would be vindicated across the world, from India to Ethiopia, in the events of the book of Esther (predicted in Ezekiel 38-39).

This means that the particular “day of judgment” had already passed by the time Peter quoted the prophet, so he is not quoting the prophecy to announce its soon fulfillment. He is, however, announcing a similar destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, with all that this entails.

The New Testament writers always quote the Old Testament “covenantally,” that is, the way God redeemed and avenged at such-and-such a time is now being repeated. A similar example is the reference in Hebrews to Jeremiah concerning “a new covenant.” In Jeremiah, the new covenant would re-unite Judah and Israel, north and south. By the first century, this was an event long fulfilled. The author of Hebrews is using the previous national “death-and-resurrection” to illustrate the inter-national one which was occurring in his day, that is, not a reunion of Israelite and Israelite into one natural body, but the reunion of Jew and Gentile into one spiritual body.

The second step is to take note of the meaning of the prophetic language. Blood and fire and smoke are potent images but together they speak of a process of transformation, the sacrificial rite. Blood is the natural body upon the altar. Fire transforms it into something new. Joel—and Peter—as prophets of God, are putting the Israel of their respective days on the altar. How is this possible?

These are things that take place on the “Land” (not the “earth”) because the Land throughout the Old Testament is a flat, four-cornered altar. The obedient offering of the firstfruits (such as Isaac) would allow the will of God to be done on earth as it was in heaven. It was an act of faithful gratitude which would allow God to pour out the rest of the harvest as a blessing to true Israel. For the unbelieving, an abundance of blessing would be a chance to fill up their sins and incur a greater judgment.

We see this on Mount Carmel, where Elijah’s holy sacrificial model of Israel (a twelve stone altar) calls down fire from heaven, and the entire mountain becomes a new Sinai, with the false priests slain and God vindicated. The Tabernacle was a model of Sinai, with the Bronze Altar as the raised earth, and the furnitures in the Holy Place signified the sacrificial blood (the Table), the fire (the Lampstand) and the fragrant savory smoke (the Incense Altar). The fragrant smoke was pleasing to God, a “legal witness” that the Law had been satisfied. Blood, fire and clouds of smoke make all Israel “the holy place.”

In the first century, the death of Christ was the offering of blood. Pentecost was the “holy fire” coming down from heaven, and the testimony of the apostles to an apostate Jerusalem and to the surrounding Gentiles was the savory smoke, after which came God’s blessings and curses upon the Jews for all time in AD70. In the Jewish war, as on Carmel, the liturgical model of Christian worship brought down the “days of vengeance.” Jerusalem herself was laid upon the altar, the entire Land covered in blood “up to the horses’ bridles.” Just as Israel was surrendered by God to Babylon due to her harlotries, idolatries, sorceries and abominations, so she would be left unprotected to be desolated by Rome, whom God would bring against her. At Pentecost, the glory of God did not fill the Temple but the faithful. As the faithful were gradually expelled from the Temple over the following decades, the presence of God was also expelled, which left it unprotected against invasion and plunder by Gentiles. The liturgical blood, fire and smoke of the New Covenant Israel resulted in literal blood, fire and smoke for old Israel.

The book of Revelation is strange to us because it is a sacrificial liturgy. It is the final sacrifice of the Old Testament: Israel herself. The believers ascended as smoke (the ascension offering in Leviticus 1, the true Isaacs, sons of Abraham by faith) and the unbelievers were swallowed by the Land, descending into the earthen Altar, as ashes, Adamic dust, like the false priests, the sons of Korah. The Altar was then split in two (symbolically under the feet of Christ) and the ashes poured out. All these allusions help us to understand what is going on. To refuse to understand the Bible on its own terms (with its constant sacrificial/liturgical models) is to refuse to take it as it was intended.

Finally, there are those who believe that the apocalyptic language in Peter’s quotation is still unfulfilled. They state that because Israel rejected the Spirit the full pouring out was postponed until “the last days” of Israel which are still future. Incredibly, these teachers overlook the destruction of Jerusalem as an important event in Covenant history. Not only this, but they fail to see that this is another death-and-resurrection of Israel, who emerges from the flames once again renewed, but this time as the Christian Church. There is no Israel besides the Church. So, how should we then understand the phrase “the last days” in Peter’s quotation? The New Testament documents are legal documents written by legal witnesses, giving testimony about a coming judgment. Following the pattern of the Old Testament prophets, they are preaching to cause a moral response in the audience of their day. So although we can apply their warnings in certain ways today, their warnings are obviously concerning the last days of the Old Covenant, not the last days of the New. The failure of most of evangelicalism to notice this is why the New Testament has little grip on reality in the lives of modern believers. The fulfillment of the warnings in the judgment of God, in Christ, is either overlooked or erased entirely from our understanding of the birth of the Church.

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ART: St Peter Preaching at Pentecost, sculpture by Christopher Slatoff.

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“Rend your heart, and not your garments.”

Doug Wilson writes:

True repentance is frequently expressed in a state of consternation. Repentance is not just a state of turning away from sin. It is what happens when someone is given a glimpse of what that sin is actually like. Repentance is not technically turning away from something that was technically wrong. Repentance is actually turning away, with revulsion, from something that is now seen in its true colors. This is why repentance is expressed in consternation.

This is what it means in Scripture to rend your hearts, and not just your garments. This is what heartfelt repentance looks like. If the inside of the cup is cleansed, then the outside will be also. But if we reserve to ourselves the right to our central hypocrisies, then our public worship will simply be the very careful activity of daubing around the outside of the cup.

But repentance does not just see the sin. Repentance sees, at that same moment, that God sees the sin also, and that He sees it in the same way—without Himself being guilty of any of it. His hatred of it is holy, while ours is filled with revulsion and self-loathing. Now self-loathing may seem like an odd thing for us to address in this great age of preening, but self-loathing is part of this. It should not be a permanent state for those who have come to forgiveness, and who have been declared justified by a sovereign God. But it is a very necessary part of the process for those who are being called out of their twistedness—seeing just how twisted they have been. This too is grace.

Joel 2: 1-11

Into Joel again, and he knows nothing of our chapter divisions. At least the chapter break occurs at the end of an obvious stanza. We are still within Ethics 3, so this is the Trumpets stanza of a Trumpets cycle (aren’t fractals fantastic?) It’s a bit like that movie Inception — as the prophecy moves forward, each step is expanded to further level of structure, a dream within a dream. In this case, it is a multi-level nightmare, a brewing, billowing thundercloud. [1]

Jerusalem had become a new Babel, so God raised up a real Babel in order to overrun the Land and swallow her up. Joel uses the Creation, Dominion and Feasts structures but applies them to the invading Babylonians in ironies that would go over our head — if we weren’t familiar with these literary devices!

This Trumpets cycle begins with a five-fold Covenant cycle, but one in which each point of the THEOS (Transcendence, Hierarchy, Ethics, Oath, Succession) must have a “Trumpets” theme. Each line is a Covenant point amplified into a warning. The Deuteronomic words of Moses sound in the shofar. Beyond that, each stanza must also carry a successive matrix theme (Creation, Division, etc.)

Creation – The warning Word
Blow the trumpet in Zion, (Initiation)
…..And sound an alarm in My holy mountain! (Delegation)
……….Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; (Purification)
…..Surely the day of the LORD is coming, (Vindication)
Surely it is at hand: (Ironic Restoration – not future but present!)

Division – A delegation of might men
…..A day of darkness and gloominess, (Light)
……….A day of clouds and thick darkness, (Firmament)
……………Like the dawn is spread over the mountains. (Land)
………………..A people great and mighty, (Rulers)
……………The like of whom has never been; (Multitudes)
……….Nor will there ever be any [such] after them, (Mediators)
…..Even for many successive generations. (Future)

Notice the Sanctions divide the past from the future. Judgment time is always an historical watershed.

Ascension – The Land overrun
A fire devours before them,
…..And behind them a flame burns;
……….The land [is] like the Garden of Eden before them,
……….And behind them a desolate wilderness;
……………Surely nothing shall escape them.
……….Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
……….And like swift steeds, so they run.
…..With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap,
…..Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble,
Like a strong people set in battle array.

Notice the double “before/behind” at the start. The fire of judgment is a flaming two-edged Covenant sword, and the Land is an Eden vomiting out the failed priesthood (Ascension is Levitical).

Also, Maturity often carries the symbols of donkeys (peacemakers) and horses (warmongers). Conquest here is also double-barreled. It has the smoking firepot (Body) and the blazing torch (Head). This is Israel’s invasion of Canaan replayed in a horrible parody.

Testing – Israel de-formed, and filled with soldiers
Before them (Light of exposure)
…..the people writhe in pain; (Veil of death)
……….All faces are drained of color. (Facebread)
……………They run like mighty men, (Ironic Pentecost)
……….They climb the wall like men of war; (Smoky swarms)
…..Every one marches in formation, (Conquest)
And they do not break ranks.
They do not push one another; (A Corporate Mediator!)

Maturity – The invaders are united in spirit as they enter and plunder
Every one marches in his own column.
…..Though they lunge between the weapons,
……….They are not cut down.
……………They run to and fro in the city,
……….They run on the wall;
……….They climb into the houses,
…..They enter at the windows like a thief.
Before them quakes the Land

It is interesting that “windows” appear in this stanza at Conquest. This ties the idea not only to the “windows of heaven” and window of Rahab, but also the “dark glass” of the crystal sea, and even the window of Eutychus. The open veil is a window into heaven.

Conquest – (Atonement) Israel is torn in two in the dark
The heavens tremble; (No Transcendence)
…..The sun and moon grow dark, (No Hierarchy)
……….And the stars lose their brightness. (Ethics 1)
……………The LORD gives voice before His army, (Ethics 2)
……….For His camp is very great; (Ethics 3)
…..For strong [is the One] who executes His word. (Sanctions/Oath)
For the day of the LORD [is] great and very terrible;
Who can endure it? (No Succession)

This ends the expanded Trumpets cycle. There is no final stanza, no rest, no glory. What follows is the beginning of a call to a true “Day of the Lord,” a day of coverings, a day of torn garments and a torn veil.

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[1] It is interesting that so-called random shapes like clouds can now be mapped and predicted with fractal technology, the same software that is used to create such random shapes as clouds and water splashes in CGI. Joel might sound like a formless storm, but there is nothing random about it whatsoever.

Art: Sunset on Babylon by Raphael Lacoste.

The prophets were God’s “Covenant sheriffs,” hammering on the door with the broken contract like repo men from hell. They don’t want your car. They want your blood.

It should not surprise us when their words follow the Covenant structure. The first chapter of Joel is, once you know what you are looking at, a beauty and a terror. The prophet uses the Annual Feasts as a theme. It turns out that the Lord’s rebellious people will be the meat on the table.

T R A N C E N D E N C E – SABBATH disturbed
The word of the LORD (Transcendence)
…..that came to Joel ["The Lord is God"] (Delegation)
……….the son of Pethuel ["mouth of God"]. (Covenant Head)
……………Hear this, you elders, (Un-ethic-al Rulers)
……….And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! (Covenant Body)
…..Has [anything like] this happened in your days, (Day of Coverings)
Or even in the days of your fathers? (Succession)

Notice that the Word-baton is passed from the Lord to Joel to the people in stanza one. Then, we take one step out in the fractal, and it is the same Word being passed from these people to their children, children who will not be passed over, children who will suffer the plagues as the offspring of Pharaoh.

H I E R A R C H Y – PASSOVER removed
Tell your children about it,
…..[Let] your children [tell] their children,
……….And their children another generation.
……………What the chewing locust left,
……………the swarming locust has eaten;
……….What the swarming locust left,
……….the crawling locust has eaten;
…..And what the crawling locust left,
…..the consuming locust has eaten.
[No Rest, no Glorification, no Day 7]

The second half of this stanza is an ironic Covenant body, a glorious swarm united by an unholy spirit that brings de-Creation.

E T H I C S  1 – Firstfruits fail
Awake, you drunkards, and weep; (Creation)
…..And wail, all you drinkers of wine, (Division – Mourning)
……….Because of the new wine, (Ascension – Firstfruits)
……………For it has been cut off
……………from your mouth. (Testing – Wilderness)
……….For a nation has come up against My land,
……….Strong, and without number; (Maturity – Gentile Hosts)
…..His teeth [are] the teeth of a lion, (Conquest – Atonement)
…..And he has the fangs of a fierce lion.
[Again, failure to abide, dwell, in God's rest.]

The next stanza had me confused for a minute. The vine and fig tree looked to be the “Tabernacles” of stanza 3. But stanza four is a de-Creation. The prophets runs the matrix backwards, winds the days of the Creation week back to nihil.

E T H I C S  2 – Pentecost (harvest) fails
(Booths destroyed – no Shekinah fire)
He has laid waste My vine,
And ruined My fig tree;
…..(Day of un-Coverings, un-Atonement)
…..He has stripped it bare and thrown [it] away;
…..Its branches are made white.
……….(un-Trumpets – no bridal fanfare)
……….Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth
……….For the husband of her youth.

(un-Pentecost covers all the feasts but as a single failed harvest):
……………un-Sabbath
……………The grain offering and the drink offering
……………Have been cut off from the house of the LORD;
………………..un-Passover
………………..The priests mourn, who minister to the LORD.
…………………….un-Firstfruits
…………………….The field is wasted, The land mourns;
…………………………un-Pentecost (Spirit taken away)
…………………………For the grain is ruined,
…………………………The new wine is dried up,
…………………………The oil fails.
…………………….un-Trumpets (brothers ashamed)
…………………….Be ashamed, you farmers,
…………………….Wail, you vinedressers,
………………..un-Coverings
………………..For the wheat and the barley;
………………..Because the harvest of the field has perished.

……………un-Booths (no Ingathering)
……………The vine has dried up, (No King)
………………..And the fig tree has withered; (No Covering Veil)
…………………….The pomegranate tree, (No Tabernacle)
…………………………The palm tree also, (No Wilderness Oasis)
…………………….And the apple tree — (No Fruits – Maturity)
………………..All the trees of the field
……………are withered; (No Succession)

How amazing was that!
Ethics 3 is the Incense Altar, the fragrant smoke from the sacrifice, the Elders with bowls of Incense.

E T H I C S 3 – Trumpets warnings to the elders
Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men. (Ark – Genesis)
…..Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; (Veil – Exodus)
……….Wail, you who minister before the altar; (Altar – Leviticus)
……………Come, lie all night in sackcloth,
……………You who minister to my God; (Table – Scarlet cloth)
………………..For the grain offering and the drink offering
………………..Are withheld from the house of your God. (Lampstand – Numbers)

……………(Incense Altar – Deuteronomy – Law repeated)
……………Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly; (Genesis)
……………….. Gather the elders, all the inhabitants of the land (Exodus)
…………………………[Into] the house of the LORD your God, (Leviticus)
……………………………..And cry out to the LORD. (Numbers)

Looks like their bodies would be scattered in the wilderness. How subtle.

……….(Mediators – Joshua – Day of Atonement)
……….Alas for the day!
……….For the day of the LORD [is] at hand; (Ironic Light!)
………….It shall come as destruction from the Almighty...
………….(Firmament ripped, rolled up – Judge at the door)

The “Pentecost” of this stanza ends with no rest. Notice that there is a three-level de-forming (the “seed” Bridegroom’s House), then the Pentecostal grain, then a three-level de-filling (the bridal “herds” who need shelter). The first triplet works from the ground up, and the second works from the top down to the ground. Then follow the sacrificial animals, the sheep who “suffer punishment.” This is some sublime poetry.

…………………….(Return to a Landless—cropless—wilderness)
…………………….Is not the food cut off before our eyes,
………………………..Joy and gladness from the house of our God?
…………………………….The seed shrivels under the clods,
…………………………….Storehouses are in shambles;
…………………………….Barns are broken down,
…………………………………For the grain has withered.
…………………………….How the animals groan!
…………………………….The herds of cattle are restless,
…………………………….Because they have no pasture;
………………………..Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment.

Finally, the chapter ends with Israel on the Land as a sacrifice on the four-cornered altar. The holy fire descends and she is consumed. What is interesting is that the symbols in this cycle point largely to the Temple, the Edenic spring, which would be devoured by fire. It even has the trees at the centre of the garden (as many cycles do).

…………………………O LORD, (Ark)
……………………………..to You I cry out; (Veiled face)
………………………………….For fire has devoured
………………………………….the open pastures, (Altar)
………………………………………And a flame has burned
………………………………………all the trees of the field. (Lampstand)
…………………….……………The beasts of the field
………………………………….also cry out to You, (Incense)
…………………….……….For the water brooks are dried up, (Laver)
………………….     … And fire has devoured the open pastures. (Shekinah)

Notice that the final line is not missing from this stanza. Rest for the Land will be achieved because the incineration will be complete.

Now, we are still within the “Day of Atonement” cycle, (the prophet likes to expand some points into their own cycles!) Trumpets should follow, and we find that chapter two begins: “Blow the trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm in My holy mountain!” At this stage of the game, I’d say the book of Joel is a single, fractal, de-Creational chiasm.

This might all seem too much for some Bible commentators, but it does work like clockwork. There are those who still dispute this method, and this amazes me. Yes, one needs to be something of a poet, but if I were a Bible scholar who had no poetic sense, I might be tempted to go home and find something more useful to do, like set myself alight.

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!
So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:15-16)

In the book of Revelation, many sentences contain multiple Old Testament allusions knotted together. Sometimes these are more obvious (the Judaisers as Babylonian locusts from Joel with long hair added to make them ‘bad Nazirites’, for example), but sometimes they only become apparent from their position within the structure of the passage in question.

Feasts

First of all, Laodicea is the seventh church. This puts it at the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths), to which the Gentiles were invited. It also makes it the great feasting Table of Solomon, the Sabbath king who had rest from all his enemies – the glorified Bridegroom. Here, Christ is greater Solomon, but he’s not happy with the food.

History
The seven letters also recapitulate Israel’s history. Sardis is the remnant during the great apostasy that ended up in Babylon. Philadelphia is the new pillar in Ezra-Nehemiah’s restoration. That makes Laodicea the period of compromise during which the Messiah was born. Laodicea represents the end of priestly Adam’s corrupted week—apostate Judaism. In this seventh letter, a new, faithful Adam offered them a new booth (Tabernacle) as shelter.

Geography
Burial in the Land carried the promise of resurrection for the faithful. Unlike jaded Naomi, Ruth the Moabitess used the Lord’s Covenant name (Yahweh), and wished to be buried in the Land like Sarah was.

As the church is a new Jerusalem, Jesus is the new Land. To be consumed by Him, baptized (immersed) into Him now carries this sure promise of resurrection. But for the unfaithful, just like the old Promised Land, it carries the threat of being vomited out, like the Jews in both the captivity and the first century.

The Law
Like the other letters, this final one follows the Feasts structure even in its internal pattern. The division between ‘hot and cold’ comes at Passover/Exodus. Jesus desires His new people to be fire and water, coming out of Egypt. The reference to food comes at Firstfruits/Leviticus. Food is a sacrifice eaten by God. We are to draw near to God as holy sacrifices. James Jordan writes:

“Eating represents taking something into yourself and being united with it. In the Lord’s supper we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus Christ. In that way, we are united to Him. In Revelation 3, Jesus says “because you are lukewarm I will spit you out of my mouth,” which means that He is also eating us, and we are incorporated into the body of Christ.”1

Added to this is the warning to Peter in Acts, which he obeyed. “Rise Peter; kill and eat.” Peter at first refused to eat unclean animals:

“Unclean animals represented unconverted Gentiles. Clean, non-sacrificial animals like gazelle, deer, chicken and fish represented Gentile God-fearers. The sacrificial animals—goat, sheep, pigeon, dove and bull—represented Israelites. This system represented the different nations of the world, and Peter sees them all inside this vessel. The Lord says, “What God has cleansed, you shall not defile.” Peter is the source of uncleanness, and Peter has the potential to defile Cornelius… If Peter’s attitude of hostility towards Gentiles continued, based on the artificial barriers the Jews had added to the Law, he would defile them.”2

So, Jesus desired the water and fire of sound judgment from His people. Compromisers and Judaisers were defiling animals. The letter ends with the faithful dining with Jesus in His new Tabernacle (Booth) at the marriage feast of the Lamb.

 
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1 James B. Jordan, Select Studies in Acts lectures. Available from www.wordmp3.com 
2 Ibid.