Joel 2:28 -32

The Promise of the Spirit

²⁸ “It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will have dreams,
Your young men will see visions.
²⁹ And even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

The Day of the Lord

³⁰ I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth,
Blood, fire, and columns of smoke.
³¹ The sun will be turned into darkness,
And the moon into blood,
Before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.
³² And it will come about that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord
Will be saved;
For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
There will be those who escape,
Just as the Lord has said,
Even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.”

We know when this prophecy was fulfilled. In Acts 2 apostles begin speaking in tongues, i.e. the languages of the many nations represented by the Jews who were present in Jerusalem at the time to keep the feast of Pentecost. Some said that they were drunk, but Peter said that the tongue speaking was the beginning of the fulfillment of Joel 2:28-32, and quoted those verses verbatim. “In the Old Testament under the old covenant, the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit was active and present in various figures, including leaders like Moses (and the 70 elders who were given the Spirit), Samson, Saul and David, artisans like Bezalel, and prophets like Joshua, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The Spirit empowered them for specific tasks, such as leading the people, creating the Tabernacle, or prophesying.” (From AI) The receiving of the Spirit would be different in the new covenant. The miraculous power (dreams, visions, prophesying) of the Spirit would be poured out on all mankind. We know that means men, women, and people of all races and professions who were baptized believers in Jesus. Every baptized believer in the book of Acts could receive the miraculous outpouring of the Spirit, i.e. the “indwelling of the Spirit”, by the laying on of the apostles’ hands.

In Acts 2:38 Peter told the Jews on that day of Pentecost that they too could receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, i.e. the same miraculous power of the Spirit that Joel predicted and that they had seen manifested in the apostles speaking in tongues. Acts 2:38 says that they would receive the gift of the Spirit after they repented and were baptized, but it doesn’t say exactly how they received the Spirit. Did the Spirit just come on them as they arose from immersion in water? Acts 8 tells us how they received the Spirit. In Acts 8:4-24 Peter and John (both apostles) came to Samaria to lay their hands on those baptized by Philip to give them the Spirit. Acts 8:¹⁶ (For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) ¹⁷ Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸ Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, ¹⁹ saying, “Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

In Acts 19 Paul came to Ephesus and found some baptized disciples of Jesus. Acts 19:² He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “On the contrary, we have not even heard if there is a Holy Spirit.” ³ And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.” ⁴ Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” ⁵ When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ⁶ And when Paul had laid hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying. ⁷ There were about twelve men in all.” Just as in Acts 8, they received the miraculous power of the Spirit by the laying on of hands of an apostle, Paul.

In Acts 10 there is an exception. Peter had been sent to the house of Cornelius to preach the gospel to him. Acts 10:⁴⁴ While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. ⁴⁵ All the Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had also been poured out on the Gentiles. ⁴⁶ For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. Then Peter responded, ⁴⁷ “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?” ⁴⁸ And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days.” The Spirit fell on Cornelius without the laying on of an apostle’s hands. God skipped that step and gave the miraculous power of the Spirit, as evidenced by them speaking in tongues, directly to Cornelius even before he was baptized. This is clearly an exception to the normal order of receiving the Spirit as found in Acts 2,8,19. God did this to show the Jewish Christians that Gentile believers could receive salvation through Jesus and become members of Christ’s church just as they did. They did not skip the baptism part, and were baptized in the name of Jesus. These verses also show that the “gift of the Holy Spirit” and the “receiving of the Spirit” refer to the same thing, i.e. the miraculous power of the Spirit given to baptized believers. This helps us understand what the “gift of the Spirit” is in Acts 2:38, i.e. the miraculous power given to baptized believers by the laying on of the apostles’ hands. We can safely assume that in Acts 2 that the baptized believers received the miraculous power of the Spirit as they arose from immersion in water, the apostles’ hands already being laid on them as the apostles baptized them. This refutes the idea that the gift of the Spirit in Acts 2:38 is some non-miraculous indwelling of the Spirit received after baptism. Think about it this way. They saw the miraculous speaking in tongues of the apostles, they were told that was the fulfillment of the pouring out of miraculous power of the Spirit as predicted by Joel, and they they were told they they too could receive the gift of the Spirit. What do you think they would expect to received after baptism? Some non-miraculous indwelling of the Spirit? No way. They would have expected to receive the miraculous power of the Spirit just as Joel predicted.

When would this miraculous outpouring of the Spirit be made available to baptized believers? Joel 2:29 I will pour out My Spirit in those days.” “Those days” would be defined by Joel 2:30-32 as the days “before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes”. What is that day of the Lord? It must be the coming of the Lord in judgment on the Jews in 70 AD when Jesus sent the Romans to destroy the temple and the city of Jerusalem, killing one million Jews according to Josephus. That fits the context of Acts 2 that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” from judgment on that day. Joel even says they will “escape” and will be “survivors” on that judgment. Jewish believers did escape when they left Jerusalem to go to Pella when they had the opportunity before the final 5 month siege of the city during which no one escaped. Peter told them in Acts 2:⁴⁰ And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on urging them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” That comment shows that he is urging them to be saved from the fate that their evil generation of Jews would find in 70 AD. Josephus said that generation of Jews before 70 AD must have been the most evil that had ever lived up to that time. Jesus would often speak of the pending judgment on that “evil generation” of Jews living before 70 AD (Matthew 12:38-42; 16:4).

So “those days” in which the miraculous power of the Spirit would be poured out on baptized believers would be the “last days of the Jewish age”, i.e. from Acts 2 the day of Pentecost in 30 AD to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. This was a 40 years period of an outpouring of the miraculous power of the Spirit in the early church. Everything was done by the miraculous power of the Spirit. The Spirit gave miraculous gifts to baptized believers and the assemblies were dominated by the exercise of those miraculous gifts (1 Corinthians 12-14). The church was taught and matured by the miraculous leadership gifts of “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11).

The miraculous speaking in tongues and prophesying after the laying on of hands by the apostles on baptized believers was confirmation that they were indeed the true sons of God and the saved. We can know that we are saved when we believe, repent, and are baptized b/c the book of Acts tells us so. The early believers did not have the written word to confirm their salvation. They needed miraculous proof and they received it. Paul spoke of this miraculous confirmation in Galatians 3:1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? ² This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? ³ Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? ⁴ Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? ⁵ So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?” Some in the Galatian churches were turning being led back to trusting in the keeping of the Law of Moses. Paul challenges them: did you “receive the Spirit” by keeping the Law or by the hearing of faith (we assume that would mean becoming a baptized believer)? This “receiving of the Spirit” must have been something visible, tangible or it would not be a persuasive argument by Paul. He must be referring to the miraculous gift of the Spirit they received when he laid his hands on them.

Does all this mean that baptized believers after 70 AD don’t receive the gift of the Holy Spirit as promised in Acts 2:38? It should be obvious from studying Acts 2,8,10, and 19 that the gift of the Spirit was a miraculous “indwelling of the Spirit”. So, if we do get that gift of the Spirit they they received in those chapters, then we should get the same thing they got, i.e. the miraculous indwelling. That’s what the Pentecostals and charismatics have been trying to tell us all along. But most of our scholars said that we get a non-miraculous indwelling of the Spirit immediately after baptism since our tradition doesn’t believe that we have the miraculous gifts today. But that is not the context of those chapters in Acts. We can’t ignore Acts 8,10, and 19 and just make Acts 2:38 mean what we want it to mean. We must follow those other chapters to help us define terms. The miraculous receiving of the gift of the Spirit between AD 30 and AD 70 was a special gift for that period in the early growth and development of the church. It was a scaffold to help build the church. Once a building is finished, the scaffold is no longer needed.

So do we receive the Spirit today if we don’t receive the miraculous gift of the Spirit of Acts 2:38? We actually have something better. Several times the Bible says that once the church in fully established as of 70 AD that God would make his abode in His people, the church. He would dwell in His people. Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. ² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.” This “new Jerusalem” is the church that replaced the old Jerusalem. . The “new heavens and earth” is the new Messianic system and covenant that replaced the old heavens and earth the Jewish old covenant. The prophets predicted this. Ezekiel 37:²⁶ And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them, and set My sanctuary in their midst forever. ²⁷ My dwelling place also will be among them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. ²⁸ And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever.”’” That “sanctuary” is the church where God dwells. God dwells spiritually by faith in every baptized believer. Jesus dwells in us spiritually by faith. Ephesians 3:¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” This is a spiritual presence in us by faith. So if the Father and Son swell in us by faith, then the Spirit must dwell in us also. The believers in the book of Acts received a miraculous indwelling that we do not receive, but we do receive the presence of the Spirit when we receive the indwelling of God the Father and Jesus. I don’t believe that the Spirit does the miraculous as he did in the book of Acts, but I do believe that he leads us providentially.

I first remember 50 years ago someone taking me through a study of Acts just as I have done in this article. I remember thinking, “this is the context of these chapters in Acts that can’t be refuted”. Franklin Camp’s book on the Holy Spirit just made it so simple. Some interpret the Spirit in Acts based on how they want it to mean instead of simply accepting the clear context.