NOTES for Joe 2:12-18
Prophets are often regarded as predictors of the future, sometimes joyful, but more often sorrowful and terrifying. But is that really so? Can the future be predicted at all? The answer would seem simple: God has His own plan, which He will certainly carry out, for He is God and we are human. Therefore the future can be predicted if God reveals it to a prophet, because God must already have planned everything.
Yet here is something interesting: the language of the Bible has no words that could be translated as “doom,” “fate,” or “destiny.” God does, of course, have a design for every person and every nation, but there is also freedom of choice, whether we are speaking of an individual or a people. A prophet may speak of an imminent and inevitable disaster, but it is almost never the case that he speaks of that disaster as something unavoidable.
This lack of predetermination in future events can sometimes even look like a prophet’s mistake. Take Isaiah of Jerusalem, for example, predicting the imminent destruction of his country at the hands of the Assyrians. Was that an error? Judah held out then, after all. Yet Isaiah himself, already during the siege, also predicted that the Assyrians would leave the walls of Jerusalem empty-handed. That is exactly what happened in the end.
Does this mean that God’s plans can change? Apparently they can. And this depends not on God but on people, on their choice and resolve. God does not need people to die because of their sins; He does not want this and never has. If people perish because of their sins, it is only because sin very truly separates a person from God, preventing Him from intervening.
God is, of course, stronger than any human being, but He respects human freedom too much to enter the life of one who neither wants nor awaits Him. A catastrophe, personal or national, then results from God’s inability to intervene. But if people do call upon Him, He is ready to intervene at any moment, even when it may seem too late. He desires no one’s death and is ready to use every opportunity to save as many people as possible, regardless of the fact that many of them, before turning to Him, did everything they could to make their salvation as difficult as possible.