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CHAPTER FIVE
From Facts to Acts,
From Scene to Scenario
with Joel
FACTS
AND FIGURES
First consider in Ch. 1, imagery based on locust fact
a) of divinely directed devastation, including the agents aggregated ... locusts.
b) eloquence in the application to the heart (v. 12b) ... not only crops, but joy has withered.
c) the surrounding of the issue with spiritual significance (1:14 - elders are gathered).
d) the day of the Lord is coming - v. 15; but He may delay it or hide some in it or from it (cf. Zephaniah 2:13, Ezekiel 20:14,22, Joel 2:14)... "who knows if He will turn and relent and leave a blessing ?" ).
e) the locusts are so innumerable and avaricious that for all the resutls, their equipment is effectually like that of lions (Joel 1:6). You even see a series of different functions or types amid locusts, for a total sequential devastation to the point of ruin. What the one type misses, occupies the next. In Joel 2:4, like swift steeds, they run.
Then, in passing ponder
JOEL'S WORDS AND THE VIRGIN WHO BORE HIM WHO IS GOD WITH US
Amid Joel's vast horror and overwhelming envisaged plague, let us see from one of his words used, a matter relating to the MOST overwhelming thing ever done by God: self-institution on earth as a man, leading to eternal life for many, and all who received Him!
Thus, before proceeding, let us note in Joel 1:8, the "virgin" lamenting for her "husband". It is this usage of the term often used for "virgin" that is featured by Professor E. J. Young in his "Studies in Isaiah." Since as in Joel 1, this term also CAN be used of a married woman, for this possibility to be removed in the highly significant virgin prophecy in Isaiah 7, the different term actually used MEANS a young girl, as in English is the term 'damsel' - without overtones, like a young plant. Any evil significance has to be ADDED by the imagination or the context, if you want that sort of thing, and it is not ruled out, as in the Isaiah 7 case. Translated "virgin", in clear Greek citation from Isaiah 7, in Matthew 1, for this term not only is there no contextual slide towards some evil additive (like arsenic in the salt shaker), but there is a height of wonder, to be expressed through this damsel, the human vehicle for for the very presencing of the God of glory, God with us. Neither is she to be adorned nor defamed.
Moreover, so far from being the offspring of a slut, the Messiah is from the one chosen by God for the manifestation of what man should be, even to the point of using His OWN NATURE translated by His eternal word, into flesh format. No wonder then that the event pronounced in Isaiah 7 is in the realm of what is past all normal human expectation. It is the Messiah Himself who is thus, coming as man indeed without worldly help of any kind (Hebrew 2). Indeed, this coming is an answer to King Ahaz, artful and specious, since he did not dare to ask God what was even divinely offered (rather like those who reject the Gospel, without actually openly severing from the Church). What was the offer first made to King Ahaz ? It was ANYTHING (to meet his national predicament), ask it above into the heights, or low into the depths, but ASK! This was the divine challenge.
Here then is something from the heights above natural procedure, and correlative to the depths of need. Ahaz having failed for his own generation to take the offer, it now became the generic, the absolute, the sine qua non, the ultimate, the everlasting solution: and it is "God with us", via a virgin, thus a human installation as in Genesis 3:15, the Lord of glory, only sure defeat of evil.
WORDS AND DEEDS
Returning to the predicament shown in Joel's inspired word, we find a coming clash. Called the day of the Lord, it holds a coming clash of immense magnitude (2:2).
a) The description deals with the omnivorous, unbreachable, unreachable mass invasion of the insect pests; but Joel 2:11 suggests this is an entomological pest to characterise the military might of man, ravaging recklessly, but ordered in ranks and to their purpose! We see the scene move to the total confrontation with man, to the astronomical, to the Lord giving the word to His army (as in Isaiah 66, Deuteronomy 32), to His agents, with His own fury, declaring this: "His camp is very great, for strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible. Who can endure it!" So we move from the Lord to those directly in line of His wrath, amid the writhing heavens.
Priests come into it: "Spare your people!" they are to say. It is like Revelation as in Ch. 6, for example, where you can find a foothill of judgment suddenly left behind, as you come in a moment, to the finale, the mountain of judgment itself to end all preparation! It is indeed entirely possible that the locusts in their all but impersonal and all but invulnerable rush forward, are intended to convey some concept of the miniaturised man-made plagues, the insurgent engineering devices to come to our world, that the pests simply symbolise. In no way, does this remove the entomological fact of the plague on Israel; but it brings to the point, its purpose as we continue review of this book of prophecy. Here Joel was used to deploy this natural disaster to point to far greater dangers, which shared with this, the horror of the insuperable, innumerable blastings, as eruptive as sin, and as consuming, but faster.
There is from the contemporary situation of Joel, the air of ultimate events, "the day of the Lord" tending to suggest this - as in Isaiah 11:10-11, 12:1 in context, Amos 9:11, 518-20, Joel 1:14-2:2). So there is a sense of ultimacy at last, with the words to come to pass, at first as at last, from Alpha and Omega: words that work deeds, which so far from being separable from the Maker, in fact mould events, whether for pressure (as in Jeremiah 37:10), or words of repentance (Joel 2:12ff.) for mercy (as in Jonah 4).
Words from the Lord are to launch the day of the Lord, and words from men are asked for so that there be deliverance from it - for some. Words and deeds mix intimately.
MESSIAH AND SPIRIT
But is there any sign of the mercy amid these desolatory dénouements ? Gloriously hidden, like tiny drawers in former Chinese puzzle boxes, set away, but able to be found, is the word to begin this line to the end. It is to be found in 2:23. As Keil points pit in the Old Testament Commentary of Keil and Delitzsch, the word here translated 'former rain' is one which has two possible meanings, one this, and the other, teacher.
In the Bible, never, we learn, is this term used with the meaning of 'early rain', with the article 'the' as translated into English, conjoined. It has it here! With this article, the meaning 'teacher' is available. Moreover, it seems that the only reason discernible why the reference to early rain, when the same Hebrew word is again used (th time without the article), and not the normal term for it, is that it is a pun on the term, to alert to the fact that the Messiah is LIKE the drought-breaking, or soil-blessing rain (cf. Psalm 73). In the second use, when the two types of rain are simply contrasted, there is no article.
Further, this is used in a series where repentance and seeking to find the ultimate presence of the merciful God is in view: hence it is "the teacher for or in accord with righteousness" that is noted. Here is the criterion faithfully promised and now faithfully given; and here is the righteousness as it SHOULD be understood from the teacher for it! (as in Matthew 23:8-10) for there IS something to teach to correct mischievous misconceptions such as those for which the Pharisees became so infamous (cf. Romans 10, Luke 18:10ff.). THIS is the crux of the message of restoration.
It is to the glory of God to hide a thing; but the work of kings to find it out (Proverbs 25:2). It is not so very hard if like Keil, you have the shades of Hebrew at your finger tips, and praise God that such great scholars can bring us these little things, which hide great things.
The teacher ? It is He who is given. It is in "righteousness"; He is the teacher for righteousness. He is surrounded by it. He comes faithfully as promised, and He comes to teach righteousness in a form which it was His mission to show, more than a lecture with his testimony from science: the Saviour with His testimony of vicarious sin-cancellation through bearing justice Himself.
HERE is the teacher for righteousness, and no other on earth is THAT teacher, the criterion, like former rain. The idea of rain being faithfully sent does not connect since it is not rain but teacher who is sent, always the criterion, when a basis for blessing is in view; and that would vitiate the testimony of the actual text. So it is the Messiah who is to come, the Teacher for Righteousness as IN faithfulness coming: it is He who will adorn with grace, GIVING righteousness, not conspiring with the fatal concept of manufacturing one's own to satisfy God (as Paul discloses the matter in Romans 10:1ff.). His teaching will be epochal in grace, since it is He who not only mouths it, but through His own murder, enables its simple and free reception (Romans 5:15-17, 3:23-27).
He is to be followed by the latter rains. Of what in terms of the Messiah, centre of the imagery, do these consist ? That comes next in Joel 2:28, in that famous passage cited by Peter in Acts.
Here, then, we come to what FOLLOWS the advent of the Messiah (as in Joel 2:23
in the midst of declarations of divine mercy for the nation), namely the outpouring of the Spirit, just as in Isaiah 32:1-4 and 15ff..
The word comes and the work follows, the virgin born Son, and the celestially sent Spirit! (as in John 14:15-17, 16:7). It is this which follows the Messiah, the Teacher who will show that for righteousness you come to Him and receive HIS grant of it, alone capable of satisfying the Lord, for whom nothing without the crucial mercy can stand (Micah 7:18ff., Psalm 32), so that all the symbolic sacrifices as in Leviticus were multiplied! It is to the Lord that they must return (Joel 12). As in Nahum 1:1-3,15, with Isaiah 52:7ff., it is of Him that the feet are made beautiful by conveying the tidings about Him. As ub Nahum, He is never far from proceedings at the central command post for history, ever since Genesis 3:15. Testimony of the Messiah can thus come into the Bible like the sudden issuance of a mountain stream from behind a craggy hilltop.
As to the next step, the outpouring of the Spirit, which follows in Joel 2, there is an explicit word from Jesus Christ. It is expedient for you that I go, Christ Jesus declared, for if I do not go, the Spirit will not come. Thus His location in heaven til His personal return (John 14:1ff, Acts 1:7, 3:19ff.) was made manifest and effulgent till His return, and but His work was continued in the Spirit according to His word (John 17), in any anywhere who were redeemed in faith in Him alone, sin-bearer, bodily raised and to come, Saviour without help from flesh, graciously giving all, even eternal life (Romans 6:23, John 5:24).. As in the Joel sequence, so was it in history, a criterion of prophecy, as also seen in Isaiah 32:1-17.
Praise God that He came, went and is to return; and let us meanwhile nestle in His abiding presence, as birds in a nest, mariners on a rock, fearless because He only is to be feared, jubilant now in Joel, the further expressions of whose wonder of miniaturisation from the Lord, is follows on, below. There more from his little book of inspired prophecy is found to invite the mind, stir the heart and bless the spirit of the Christian, and so we continue to hear and focus the very word of God..
From Facts to Acts,
From Scene to Scenario
with Joel
We have looked at Joel in terms of FACTS AND FIGURES, WORDS AND DEEDS, MESSIAH AND SPIRIT, where now we are lodged, and have before us the last part,
RETRIBUTION AND RESOLUTION AMID SCENES OF REDEMPTION
REVIEWING
It is now as if we were on a conveyor belt to the end. Joel 2:28-32, cited by Peter as in Acts 2, brings us from THE AGE OF THE MESSIAH, one of which we were so deftly reminded by the pun in Joel 2:23, which speaks of what might be called a FAITHFUL thing to come as necessary and as basis for all blessing as in Isaiah 28:16, the foundation for all faith and spiritual stability and security.
Let us look at this rendering in Joel 2:23, "a teacher in faithfulness", meaning that God would send Him in fulfilment of what He had in prophecies before, undertaken to do.
This provides an added item in the meaning, and as such is to be welcomed, though with some care.
When possible translations arise, and there is no way of removing a possibility, in the Bible, where dexterity and evidence is without limit for truth, then unless other scripture forbids, both are taken. While the teacher for righteousness is the best fit in all contexts parallel, nevertheless, a teacher given in faithfulness to the Lord's undertakings, is a conceivable rendering, if maladroit if taken alone. Incidentally, note that it is THE TEACHER (cf. Isaiah 11:1-4), just a in Isaiah 7 the one through whom He would become man was THE VIRGIN, and not a virgin. These are fundamentals.
The phrase giving the sense of a faithful sending, a teacher (sent) for righteousness' sake, or in the domain of righteousness, or better to fulfil righteousness, is comparatively forced. It is so in this, that the snug sequential and thematic fit of the generic teacher-for-righteousness, is so great, characterising it, while the teacher (sent) in faithfulness adds a little to the concept of 'sent', held partly implicit. Surely it was faithful to send Him, but what is it that was sent! The phrase supplies that, succinctly but deeply: for righteousness.
Overall, the most reticent and yet careful rendering seems as is not unusual, a matter of examining the actuality of the major thrust, seeing its nature, post in contextual sequence, characterisation grant, resolution of any problems, thematic post and so on, these and others confirming it further, so examining all the meanings that this permits; and then allowing for filigree work.
The unchallengeable meaning, foremost, is teacher-for-righteousness, a bound imprint of purpose and function. The resonating optional extra, is this, that even as He IS teacher for righteousness, in coming as foretold, He exemplifies that very thing.
First then is the snug fit without addition, in the focus FOR the One sent ON righteousness: He is given explanation in two words: for righteousness, not left as a cypher but with the normal vast impact. He comes, a gift from God, the central Messiah, before the outpouring of the Spirit (John 2:23 being before 2:28, as in Isaiah 32:1-4 before 32:15ff.), and we are in this 2:23 told what He is about, for example, how this contrasts with befouled teachers (as in Ezekiel 34, an application). It shows in this that mercy is not another name for maundering or indulgence of the fluctuations of selfish desire (Isaiah 11:3-5). It is foundational as in Psalm 89. Love is pre-eminent in character; righteousness in indispensable. In Christ, both rejoice.
It is only then, as an extra, that there comes what you could regard as filigree work, the sense that NOT ONLY is He the teacher for righteousness, but in SO coming, He is fulfilling predicted divine enterprise; for ALL is righteousness with God, which Psalm 89 tells us is the foundation of His throne.
EXTENDING
Yes, in the basic meaning there is much meat. In so coming, not only is righteousness a cardinal object of His teaching. Indeed, as found from the other Messianic prophecies in the Bible, His special offering in teaching righteousness is this, that the more stringent is the wonder of perfection and the way to it, for perfect righteousness in fallen man, the more stringent is HIS personal contribution in our meeting this requirement, not as pedant, or as purveyor in word only, but in a laboratory grace for all to see. Here He is not the experimental victim as in some biological research, but the self-given and sure and certain sacrifice to enable entry to a life of such wonder, and sheer cleanness, quietness and confidence.
Glorious in heaven, the eternal word of God (John 17:1-3, Philippians 2, John 8:58), He discloses to all His incorruptibility to the uttermost even in our most vulnerable place as man, and His illimitable love, which before rendering rebellion its doom, takes it upon Himself, ready to give it liberally where the heart receives Him AS HE IS (Romans 10:9, 3:23-27, Titus 2-3, John 8).
Not as a tyrant but as a Substitute He comes, as a mandated man of mercy, whose OWN righteousness is to be smitten just as our unrighteousness is borne by Him (II Corinthians 5:17ff.), so that we might be borne aloft, sitting in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6), covered, pardoned, changed, not paraded, not deleted in spiritual life, and left lamentable, but borne by our Saviour, the Lord each of His children to the place prepared (John 14, II Corinthians 5:1ff.). What a teacher for righteousness is He, what coverage does He give in His lesson. Does He not say it (Matthew 20:28),
"And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant;
even as the Son of man came not to be ministered to,
but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."
There is, then, depth in this phrase, but whichever way we turn, after the chief and most slim-line rendering, there is only more depth. So it is with the Bible, which has this beauty, that if you LOOK you will find the word of God has quality incomparable, whether it deals with spiritual matters in a masterful manner which is thrilling, deep and diversified, or with other elements of our world and universe, divinely selected for basis, background instruction, education, perspective, indications of power so that trust might hang exultant upon it, or whatever else the Lord conceives and transports. So, transmitting through His own Word, and words (Isaiah 34:16, Matthew 5:17ff., I Cor. 2:9ff.), He speaks to believers and to unbelief as well, the latter stirring in the hearts of rebellion, and sometimes implanted there.
As with the beautiful rain of Ezekiel 34:26, where these showers of blessing are part of the gift of the Lord when He comes in Person as Messiah, so here is a rain of the same duality of function: it refreshes the ground and the heart alike, when each is receptive! (cf. Acts 3:19ff.). being intimately linked with a display of the blessings accompanying salvation. It is as in Ezekiel 34, where, likewise, God is indicating that He personally will come to the earth for redemption, salvation, deliverance of His people: a massif of the work of the Messiah. The pastors of pollution who ever dirty the water with their aggressive footwork and hypocritical self-seeking, are exposed for all time, an evil heritage and a gross failure. God is to replace them with HIMSELF (Ezekiel 34:11-17), and with showers of blessing.
With His people, there is to be a "covenant of peace" (34:25) and He will make "My hill a blessing, and I will cause showers to come down in their season: there shall be showers of blessing." In that day, which in its prelude is now, the day before "the great and awesome day of the LORD," (Joel 2:31), "whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." It is not to be novel; it is still based on what God symbolised through Mt Zion, and activated by personally coming there (Joel 2:32).
THE FINAL OPERATIONS
From this in Ezekiel, we now pour into the scenes of confrontation and final judicial desolation on the earth, . where they are, as Joel 3:10 caustically sets it, to "beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears." This imagery of zeal for battle, and zest, is however saddened by the utter irony within it. It is, as for salvation, so for ultimate deliverance, useless to do such things, make such self-based efforts, since if God is not for you, what is NOT against your outcome! Persecutors of the past, for Israel, are given recognition and punishment is appointed (Joel 3:7-11), but in this finale of clash, "multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!" is the clouded confrontation. Astronomical disturbance is clear, the sun dark. God, as in Isaiah 66, Deuteronomy 32, will act with overwhelming might and "roar from Zion" precisely as in Micah 7.
He will however "be a shelter for His people," Joel 3:17, now as in Zechariah 12, turned in the nation to and for Him. The "valley of decision" is one of decisive battle, where the hopes of the afflicting bulls stampeding are met by the act of God at length, with superior power in judicially meeting their actual weakness, after such a return to saving faith in Israel, so that there is indeed a decision! When the LORD shall "utter His voice from Jerusalem: the heavens and earth will shake," but even then, He is for HIS people "a shelter". Take-over plans from hell aborted, there will be a millenial time of blessedness (as in Isaiah 59), and Egypt with its delusive power earlier against Israel, and later in hopes of diplomacy, will not escape (Joel 3:19 cf. Daniel 11:42).
Such coming confrontation moves to its ultimate in Revelation 19, and as elsewhere in this topic, so often touched in the Bible, so we learn in a parallel passage in Habakkuk, 3:13, "You went forth for the salvation of Your people, for salvation with your Messiah, You struck the head from the house of the wicked, by laying bare from foundation to neck."
What then is the position ? Just as Joel 2:28-32 takes us spiritually to the climax at the end, so Joel 3:9-17 brings to international confrontation, Israel at that predicted time being moved to faith, with the Lord. In this, as in Zechariah 12-13, comes a final showdown with what becomes a simple clash: aspirant and marauding unbelievers against the God of creation-redemption. The result is not in any doubt, as all breathe by His designs and continued maintenance; but to conjure out of this as do some Pentecostal people, some spiritual experience of submission to the Lord before His people, it is such a misconfiguration of both the sequence and the situation in Joel, as to become like a new hair arrangement for a woman whose home is being destroyed by the nerve gas sarin, alas, the sad latter part, all too literal in Syria of today!
So is the Jerusalem contest, one beckoning to many powers and thoughts, resolved categorically (Joel 3:13,16), the spiritual realities of Zechariah 12:10ff. becoming as there, intimately related to the battle raging. This appears as a background; but no dream, no vision, is the battle itself!
As to the Jerusalem context, here in Joel, it is neither to be dismissed figuratively in this history lesson, nor is it to be given locational pre-eminence totally: it brings neither pre-eminence to the nation Israel (Isaiah 19), nor dismissal of the covenantal provisions of the Lord (Genesis 17:7-8, Micah 7:18ff.) to it. It is highly specifically in Jerusalem, scene of Calvary (Zechariah12:6), that His power again plays. Then as all is fulfilled on earth, so in heaven. The Jerusalem which is above becomes gloriously featured in Revelation 20-22, as the earth at last disappears together with the heavens, leaving the incandescent splendour of the scene where spirituality is mingled with a new body and a new heaven and earth; for then, the former things have passed away.
In our next Chapter, we shall be looking at things coming to be, and both their due judgment and the one way of escape (Hebrews 2:1-3, 6:19), for man.