NOTES for Joe 3:18
Sometimes in prophetic preaching it is not easy to draw a boundary between preaching proper and prophetic vision. In many ways this is explained by the fact that in such visions the reality of our world often stands beside the reality of the spiritual world. There is nothing surprising here: God created the world so that there would be no sharp boundary between the spiritual and the natural, despite all their difference. Such a boundary is the consequence of serious damage to the universe, whose cause, among other things, was also the fall. But in their visions the prophets often see the world as God conceived it originally and as, apparently, it will become again after complete transfiguration. 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 run in spring, its olive groves, vineyards, and flocks grazing in the valleys. On the other hand, there is the river of living water flowing from beneath 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 quite one and not quite the other. Both heaven and earth are already not quite as they were before. Perhaps this is the very new heaven and new earth of which Revelation tells us. The Kingdom, slightly opened to the prophet, about which he bears witness to us. The very Kingdom whose entrance is opened to us by the Messiah sent by God for our salvation.