NOTES for Joe 3:12-21

When the prophet Joel speaks in the closing part of his book of the nearness of the Day of the Lord, his words are spoken at least four centuries before the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and even longer before His second coming. Yet the prophet senses this Day to be very near, above all because people's very deeds cry out to God. The foundations of the world tremble, for the world, damaged by our malice, is defenceless before the fire of God's holiness.

In our own time, by contrast, we prefer to think that the time of God's Judgment is still far off, and people who share the prophet's sense of things seem to us somewhat irrational. It is hard to say whether this is good or bad… Most likely, it shows that we simply do not share the horror at what we ourselves are.

Yet it is not the coming calamities and devastation of Judgment Day that bear witness to God for us: this is the main thought of the book's concluding verses. The prophet says that people will know the Lord precisely through God's blessing, through the salvation of the people of the Covenant, through the Creator's purifying action. Everything filled with malice will cease in the world, while the saved people of the Covenant will live for ever: this is how we come to know God's goodness. In this witness, the prophet sees the whole meaning of His coming.