Untitled Sermon (2)
Peter referred to this text first because it was the clearest and most obvious Old Testament prophecy of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Then, with marvelous clarity and urgency, he linked it to what everyone in Jerusalem was noting: namely, the clear, powerful proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone in his or her own tongue. “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel,” was Peter’s contention. What was happening was what Joel prophesied.
Denying that drunkenness is the explanation for the behavior of the disciples, Peter identifies the miraculous speech with “what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (v. 16), an endowment of the Holy Spirit and prophetic utterance. It is evident that Peter understands Joel 2:28–32 to be fulfilled by the Pentecostal phenomenon of prophetic utterance, though some scholars have explained his use of the Old Testament text as merely illustrative (“this is the kind of thing spoken by the prophet Joel”), apparently in an effort to explain why the cosmic phenomena were not also literally fulfilled at Pentecost. Others explain the “wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below” (v. 19) as fulfilled in some spiritual way, or by the cosmic events on the day of Christ’s crucifixion, or as being yet future.