Did Pentecost Fulfill Prophecy?

Pentecost provided the Power the church needs to accomplish its mission to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matt 28:19). Jesus had instructed the apostles to abide in Jerusalem until it came. He said, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Ten days after Jesus ascended to his throne, God poured out the Holy Spirit in his name. Luke says, “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:1–2).

The disciples were “filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). Foreigners said, “‘We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.’ So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘Whatever could this mean?’” (Acts 2:11–12).

Peter explained the event. He said, “this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). He then quoted Joel 2:28–32 (Acts 2:17–21).

Most Christians since Pentecost have believed God fulfilled Joel’s prophecy on that day. Charles Spurgeon said, “On that day the ascended Saviour, having obtained gifts for men, fulfilled that ancient promise pronounced by the mouth of the prophet Joel, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.’”¹

This is as it should be. But, the available prophetic views—amillennialism, postmillennialism, historic premillennialism, and dispensational premillennialism—challenge the idea that Pentecost fulfilled Joel’s prophecy.

Pentecost and Current Prophetic Models

Dispensational premillennialism denies Pentecost fulfilled Joel’s prophecy. M. R. DeHaan explains this denial:

Peter quotes to them from the prophecy of Joel 2:28 to 32. Notice a number of things concerning this prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit:

1. It will be in the last days.
2. It will be after the defeat of the armies of Russia (Joel 2:19, 20).
3. The Spirit will be poured upon all flesh (Joel 2:28).
4. It will be accompanied by fire, blood and smoke.
5. The sun will be blackened, and the moon shall be turned to blood.

Now none of these things happened at Pentecost. Yet Peter quotes this prophecy to explain what happened at Pentecost. But he does not say this is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel. He did not use the word “fulfilled” at all. He could not say this prophecy was fulfilled, for the complete fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy will come after the Church is raptured. And so Peter says “this is that” which was spoken by Joel. It was only part of the complete prophecy. Pentecost was only the earnest, the first step, of what will take place when Joel’s prophecy is fulfilled, just before the Second Coming of the King to set up his Kingdom on earth.²

DeHaan says Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 “was addressed to the Jews only. It was the gospel message of the Kingdom exclusively for the nation of Israel.”³ By “the nation of Israel” he means “Israel after the flesh” (cf. 1 Cor 10:18).

According to dispensationalism, God did not design Pentecost to empower the church during the messianic age. Instead, he was offering the kingdom to Israel after the flesh. Peter’s “entire message was addressed to Israel, and … was the offer of the kingdom which they had once refused.”⁴

The other prophetic models—amillennialism, postmillennialism, and historic premillennialism—do not answer DeHaan’s observations. They, like him, separate prophetic events that God has joined. Joel (and Peter) place the following events in “the last days”: (1) the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, (2) the day of the Lord, and (3) a time when “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

These prophetic models assume something about the day of the Lord. They say it will occur with literal physical phenomena. The sun will become dark and the moon will turn into literal blood. Since these things have not happened, they say, the day of the Lord must be in our future.

This assumption forces Peter’s “last days” to encompass the entire age from Pentecost to the future day of the Lord. In this view, the “last days” have already lasted almost 2,000 years.

This assumption also complicates the sequence Joel and Peter describe. The age in which men call on the name of the Lord for salvation follows the day of the Lord. Amillennialism and modern forms of postmillennialism say the day of the Lord will occur at the end of history. How can men call on the name of the Lord for salvation after that end?

Historic premillennialism and older forms of postmillennialism have an advantage here. Both posit an age following the future day of the Lord. The millennial age provides the needed time for men to call on the name of the Lord. However, these frameworks remove this blessing from the age in which we now live.

So, one of the current prophetic models denies that Pentecost fulfilled Joel’s prophecy. The other three do not accommodate the prophecy’s sequence of events.

Pentecost and Inmillennialism

Inmillennialism provides a pleasing alternative. It says the “last days” (Acts 2:17) were the final days of the Mosaic age. That period began with the ministry of John the Baptist and ended when God judged Israel and destroyed her Temple in AD 70 (cf. Matt 24:1–3, 34).

The prophets used cosmic collapse imagery to describe similar events. They did so when God judged Babylon (Isa 13:1, 6, 10), Edom (Isa 34:5, 4, 8), et al. Jesus used this imagery to describe the Temple’s fall (Matt 24:1–3, 29). So, inmillennialism says we should understand Joel (Joel 2:30–31) and Peter (Acts 2:19–20) the same way. Their cosmic collapse imagery describes God’s judgment of Israel in the apostles’ generation.

The prophets often linked cosmic collapse imagery to the day of the Lord. Joel and Peter did so, too. Their day of the Lord occurred when God judged Israel and destroyed the Temple. It comprised the “great tribulation” Israel experienced in Jesus’s generation (Matt 24:21, 34). That was Israel’s final “day of the Lord.”

This perspective allows for the blessings of Pentecost to follow this day. In the messianic age (i.e., during the church age), “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).

The sequence of Joel’s prophecy remains intact. In “the last days” of the Mosaic age, God poured the Holy Spirit on his church. The day of the Lord—God’s judgment of apostate Israel—followed. Now, in the messianic age, “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

The above discussion answers four of DeHaan’s observations above. Preserving his numbers, we say: (1) The “last days” refers to the end of the Mosaic age, not the end of history; (3) God did pour the Spirit on all flesh in the “last days” as Joel foretold—on Israel (Acts 2:1–4), on the Samaritans (Acts 8:14–17), and on the Gentiles (Acts 10:44–46); and (4–5) fire, blood, smoke, a darkened sun, and a blood moon are standard prophetic images of the day of the Lord.

What about DeHaan’s second objection, that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit would occur “after the defeat of the armies of Russia (Joel 2:19, 20)”? The defeat of a modern Russian army is a key element of dispensationalism. It says that battle has not happened, so Israel’s Pentecost must be in our future.

This is a mistake caused by a faulty prophetic model. In Joel, God said, “I will remove far from you the northern army” (Joel 2:20). Instead of a modern Russian army, this passage refers to an ancient “Assyrian or Babylonian (cf. Jer. 1:14, 15; Zeph. 2:13)”⁵ army.

God used “the northern army” of which Joel wrote to judge Israel in 722 BC and Judah in 586 BC. He then fulfilled his promise to deliver his people when Israel returned from captivity and rebuilt the Temple. “Afterward”—i.e., in the “last days” of the Mosaic age—God also fulfilled his promise to “pour out [His] Spirit on all flesh” (Joel 2:28; cp. Acts 2:17).

Peter was right to say Pentecost was “what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). God had already removed “the northern army” as Joel predicted.

Conclusion

We agree with DeHaan when he says, “Failure to rightly interpret the events on this day of Pentecost will becloud the study of the rest of Acts.”⁶ To understand Pentecost and Acts, the church needs an improved prophetic model.

That model should preserve the following sequence: (1) the defeat of “the northern army” (Joel 2:19–20); (2) the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28–29); (3) the day of the Lord (Joel 2:30–31); and (4) an age in which “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Joel 2:32).

Inmillennialism says the first three items in this list are in our past. Therefore, we can rejoice with Spurgeon: “These gospel times are still the happy days in which ‘whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”⁷

Pentecost fulfilled Joel’s prophecy. Now, we can proceed with our mission to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matt 28:19).

1. C. H. Spurgeon, “The Saint and the Spirit,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 13 (1867; repr., Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim Publications, 1974), 314–15.
2. M. R. DeHaan, Pentecost and After (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1964), 46.
3. DeHaan, Pentecost and After, 47. Emphasis added.
4. DeHaan, Pentecost and After, 47.
5. Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental and Practical on the Old and New Testaments of A commentary, critical, experimental and practical on the old and new testaments, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 2.2:518.
6. DeHaan, Pentecost and After, 26.
7. C. H. Spurgeon, “A Free Grace Promise,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 35 (1889; repr., Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim Publications, 1975), 230. Emphasis added.