NOTES for Joe 3:18

Sometimes in prophetic preaching it is not easy to draw the line between preaching proper and prophetic vision. In many respects this is explained by the fact that in such visions the reality of our world often stands next to the reality of the spiritual world. There is nothing surprising here: God created the world so that there would be no sharp boundary in it between the spiritual and the natural, despite all their difference. Such a boundary is the consequence of serious damage to creation, the cause of which, among other things, was also the fall. But to the prophets in their visions the world is often opened as God conceived it originally and as, apparently, it will become again after complete transformation. This is how Joel sees Judea. On the one hand, before us is the same familiar land, with its mountains down which streams of meltwater flow in spring, olive groves, vineyards, and flocks grazing in the valleys. And on the other hand, there is the river of living water flowing from under the foundation of the Jerusalem Temple: already in the pre-exilic period it became a symbol of the messianic Kingdom and of the new life that everyone who shares in this Kingdom will receive. So what is this: still earth, or already heaven? Perhaps both. And on the other hand, not entirely one and not entirely the other. Both heaven and earth are no longer quite as they were before. Perhaps this is the very new heaven and new earth of which the Book of Revelation tells us. The Kingdom opened slightly to the prophet, to which he bears witness to us. The very one into which the Messiah sent by God for our salvation opens the entrance for us.