Marcus O'Reillius
Active Member
Chapter 12
The Day of the Lord’s Wrath
The Day of the Lord is described as being preceded with the sun/moon/star event, and that event is described to happen at the sixth Seal. The sun/moon/star event in total is not the Day of the Lord if one uses the evening hour for the start of a “day.” Indeed, in Joel 2:31, the sun and moon aspects are said to precede the Day of the Lord. The aspect of stars falling would be more apt to be part of the scrolling of the sky: a celestial fireworks show as the sign of the Son of Man and God’s final thumbprint signature announcing the Return of His Son.
The two-day, as Western man would term it, or the single Hebrew Day of the Lord (going from sundown to sundown) is fulfilled within a rescue/wrath scenario as presented here. Likewise, in the Seal/Scroll account, after the Great Multitude is safe in Heaven; God's Wrath follows with the first Trumpet! This is the aspect of rescue-wrath foretold by the examples Jesus gives of Noah and Lot. The two halves will be replicated in the opposing halves of the Day of the Lord. The second day/half of the Day of the Lord begins that Wrath.
Using the example of the feasts, a premise is made here for a limited time of the Day of the Lord. Some try to expand the Day of the Lord in Post-Trib eschatology to include not only the final victory with the taking up, but then to extend that “Day” to the Millennium in the day-to-a thousand year analogy. However, the specific conditions of the Day of the Lord are not found in the Millennium. Neither the overshadowing of clouds, nor wrath with fire, blood and smoke can literally continue for the entire Sabbath Millennium of peace. Likewise, the aspects of Wrath said to be connected with the Day of the Lord are limited in the Bible. These twin aspects of conditions and desolations that are listed in the Bible can be fulfilled within a limited timeframe for the Day of the Lord which mirrors the two-day Holy Day of Rosh ha-Shannah.
Like the impossibility of extending the Day of the Lord across the Millennium, the rest of the desolations contained in the Seal/Scroll chronology take up too much time to be fulfilled within a two-day Day of the Lord. Fulfilling all that is contained in the Scroll takes time, more time than just a Day, even a Day expanded by example of the Festivals to two days. While the Day of the Lord is limited in the view presented here, the effects of God’s Wrath can extend past this special time as a true desolation. The Day of the Lord is not thought here to encompass God’s entire Wrath. While Paul writes that the end comes with the Day of the Lord, however, the Greek verbiage need not be on that day. Being set as a future condition in 2nd Thessalonians, once the Day of the Lord begins the only certainty is inevitable end of the anti-Christ.
The whole aspect of “end” varies between the New Testament and the Old and between the Greek and the Hebrew. In the New Testament, télos and teléō denote fulfillment. Thus for the Christian, the end fulfills or completes the Church age. This ‘end’ can be seen in the Harvest which is the natural hope for Christians.
But this denotation and the inherent hopeful connotation does not hold true in the Hebrew. “End” as qēs comes from qāsas which means to cut off. qēs is used in a context of judgment (TWOT p.2062). It is used in Genesis 6:13 when God brings an end to corrupt world. It is also used predominantly in Daniel most notably in the end-time section of Daniel 9:26 and throughout that book’s chapter 12. For Israel and the Jews, the Day of the Lord carries with it the ominous aspect of Judgment; indeed, the point made herein is that the Day of the Lord begins Jacob’s trouble.
The difference between the New Testament Greek and the Old Testament Hebrew reflects the actuality between Christians who believe in the Judaic prophecy for the Servant Messiah and the Jews who reject Jesus. The difference is reflected in the hope Christian have versus the dread surrounding the Day of the Lord as it is directed toward Israel. This difference comes to fruition in the person of Jesus, first coming on the clouds to gather the Elect, only to return to trample out His Wrath upon the land. The "long day" of the Day of the Lord are as divergent as the signs which mark the start of this “day” whereby in the brightest part of the day it goes dark, only to have it be light at night when Jesus appears. The interplay between halves of the Day of the Lord, between Rescue and Wrath also mimic the separate halves of the one ‘seven’ with the rise and fall of the anti-Christ.
Concerning God’s Wrath after the Gathering, only the wicked remain as the majority portion. These are the tares which have been collected in the field. For such people, who will include Jews, no chance for Grace could remain and the only recourse is for Judgment. Of those left behind, the clear majority have taken the “mark” or worshipped the talking image of the anti-Christ, or are predisposed to do so eventually, or have utterly rejected the Gospel message, even the one carried by the Angel. Even for a God who so loved the world to send His only Son, the only just disposition of such people is permanent exclusion from Heaven. Indeed, it could not be Heaven with such individuals in it; God desires willful worship, not robotic servitude.
As with the Harvest analogy though, the minor exception to this rule is the remaining number of the crop which was not gathered up in the Harvest. The only viable entry into Heaven for them will be to be martyred. This is the stated fate for Two Witnesses at least and is borne by the witness of the voice from Heaven and the Spirit in the pronouncement written in Revelation 14:13. If any “Christian” who believes and did not take the “mark” nor worshiped the talking image of the anti-Christ is “left behind,” the only hope for their salvation as part of the first Resurrection is to die for their testimony and so be included in the blessing of Revelation 14:13.
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Day of the Lord
Past: or Future?
These are key verses to the second half of the Day of the Lord:
JOEL 2:30 I will show wonders in the heavens
and on the earth,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
JOEL 2:31 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
Any assignment of this passage to the future should not even begin until a criticism leveled by some that this has already been fulfilled is addressed. This verse is quoted by Peter in part at the Festival of Firstfruits in Acts 2:16. Does this mean that this aspect of the Day of the Lord has already come to pass?
Peter’s claim of fulfillment may have more to do with the previous verse relating exactly to what he and others had just experienced rather than saying that the Pentecost was the Day of the Lord. In fact, what had transpired raised such a ruckus that the faithful who had assembled in Jerusalem were asking questions as to hearing their own language meant. Peter tells them that it is a fulfillment of prophecy.
AC 2:17 " `In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
AC 2:18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
AC 2:19 I will show wonders in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
AC 2:20 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
AC 2:21 And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.'
But what Peter does not recite is the following sentence:
JOEL 2:32b for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be deliverance,
as the LORD has said,
among the survivors
whom the LORD calls.
While there is a great eschatological meaning to Joel 2, Peter proclaims fulfillment. Peter has been washed with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, imbued with the Holy Spirit, he understands the significance of the Gospel message of Jesus in the last line that he does quote from Joel 2:32.
When Peter says “this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel” from his perspective, he is explaining within the context of everyone hearing their own language from a group of Galileans who were not scholarly: that something new has taken place. The seminal event is the extraordinary aspect of tongues displayed by the first instance of the Church in Jerusalem. To that, Peter attaches Joel to explain the source for the Jews amazement.
Peter pronounced the passage in Joel as being fulfilled in of the context of what is happening in Acts on the Festival of Firstfruits: the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit upon the Church, men and women. Peter is not giving a detailed exegesis of the entire passage. Peter is not speaking of Christ’s return as Joel does.
The literal parts Peter is referring to are the outpouring of God’s Spirit and the good news of Salvation through Jesus. The portion of prophecy between those two relevant verses has not been accomplished, but to that culture, what did apply was still true. The difference in applicability illustrates the difference between Peter’s culture and post-Renaissance thinking. What Peter is explaining is a new phenomenon: the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. As the Expositor’s Bible Commentary writes:
His use of the Joel passage is in line with what since the discovery of the DSS we have learned to call a "pesher" (from Heb. peser, "interpretation"). It lays all emphasis on fulfillment without attempting to exegete the details of the biblical prophecy it "interprets."
Some scholars would relegate the broader aspects of the Day of the Lord which Peter is not specifically addressing to the past. Two facts of Bible prophecy contradict the Amillennial or Post-Millennial notion of taking these events; the blood, fire and smoke on the one hand, and the Sun/moon/star event on the other as a “spiritual” condition which happen in the first century A.D.
The first fact is that Jesus pegs the Sun/moon/star event which is associated with the Day of the Lord throughout the Old Testament (the Scripture in His time) to the very time when He would return. Jesus had not returned at that instant when Peter made his pronouncement of fulfillment pertaining to Joel 2, but had fulfilled the specific promise He made to the Disciples in John 16. This then was the start of the last age: the Church age, and it was significant because something new had begun.
Secondly, in differentiating the spiritual Israel from the natural Israel in Chapter One, some of the Old Testament prophecy which indicated another people of God who would come to Him is joined by another Old Testament prophecy which actually spells out a time period for the Church age.
HOS 6:1 "Come, let us return to the LORD.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds.
HOS 6:2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.
Not only does this passage in Hosea allow for a two thousand year (two days) for the Church before God again turns His attention towards natural Israel, but it also predicts the purpose of the Millennium.
In this aspect of the Spiritual Israel, the Festival of Firstfruits begins the Church. This is an extremely important event in the unfolding of God’s Plan of Salvation. Peter and others are the very first of the Church. Going to the other end of the two days as Hosea called them, Paul says the end will come with the Last Trumpet. That specific trumpet is associated with Rosh ha-Shanah in the fall. These two similar Festivals act as bookends to the summer growing season. In figurative fashion from an eschatological view, they act as bookends to the two thousand year growing season of the Church.
So in introduction, having quoted a section of Joel which includes more than one event, Peter is not saying the Day of the Lord with its seminal sun/moon/star event has taken place. He is proclaiming the beginning of a new age though: the Church age. It is within this passage in Joel which does have a near-term fulfillment on the Day of Pentecost on the Festival of Firstfruits. Prophecy can have a near-term and a far-term aspect to it. This does not preclude a similar pouring out of God’s Spirit in the end-times; indeed, it even points to it as a far-term condition coincidental with the Day of the Lord. After all, God’s signature of miracles marks His influence in events and God does speak through His Church. Christians should expect His influence in the Church as the end-times unfolds.