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THE BOOK OF JOEL
Lesson 7, Chapter 3 Continued
We opened our study of Joel chapter 3 last time. As we progressed, it became clear that other Prophets and their prophecies were intertwined with, and in some cases expounded upon, Joel’s prophecy especially as concerns the restoration of Judah and Israel at the same God’s wrath was poured out upon the nations. Biblically, the term “the nations” (goyim in Hebrew) means every nation on planet Earth except for Israel.
We also incorporated Jeremiah as one of those Prophets that helps to explain and flesh-out Joel (and vice versa), and highlights the matter that another and newer covenant would come about at some point, and this would occur in conjunction with the pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit. All of these different elements operate together, like pieces of puzzle that are fitted together, to move God’s plan of redemption forward, to make the overall picture more discernable, and to eventually bring that plan to its ultimate fulfillment. Where are these plans and pieces laid out? Primarily in the Prophets.
This newer covenant that I just spoke of comes from Jeremiah 31, and it speaks of a new covenant that the Constantinian Church (as formed in the 4th century) has somewhat reformulated and spun into a something it calls The New Covenant. That is, this newer covenant of Jeremiah 31 has been given the official name of “The New Covenant” (although the Bible in no way gives it a title). The Church has further interpreted this to mean the establishment of a final and special covenant made with the gentile Constantinian Church, which replaces and abolishes all previous covenants that God made with the Hebrews. This doctrine is the supporting pillar…the weight bearing wall… of Constantinian Christianity even though the Prophet Jeremiah defines this covenant completely differently. To begin, with, this newer covenant is not with gentiles but rather it is exclusively with Israel.
CJB Jeremiah 31:30 "Here, the days are coming," says ADONAI, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Isra'el and with the house of Y'hudah.
We also discussed that God has NO pattern of a newer covenant abolishing a previous covenant; but, rather it is always that a newer covenant adds to the previous ones. All remain in effect, each newer one building upon the older one. No biblical covenant has ever been abolished. Interestingly, Christianity tends to be a bit schizophrenic about this issue because at the same moment it declares steadfastly that new covenants abolish older ones, they also insist that God’s oldest running covenant, The Covenant of Noah, according to which God will never again destroy the earth through a flood, remains in effect. In addition, we also discussed how biblical covenants always operate in a concise pattern due to their very nature of being covenants. Thus, it has become an apologetic that Christianity uses to attempt explain away these inconsistencies by saying that the New Covenant isn’t even really a covenant; instead, it’s a promise. A one-way promise whereby God promises and guarantees salvation to anyone who calls on the name of Christ. Therefore, those who rely on this promise have no duties, obligations or terms requirements other than to claim belief in Jesus. Folks, this is not as complicated as it seems; a promise is not a covenant, and a covenant is not a promise. Here is Webster’s Dictionary’s definition of what a promise is.
a: a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified
b: a legally binding declaration that gives the person to whom it is made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act
c: reason to expect something
especially : ground for expectation of success, improvement, or excellence
A promise requires nothing in return. But, all biblical covenants by definition require an agreement between two or more parties, each side having obligations and duties. A biblical covenant is always conditional based on each party abiding by the terms of the agreement (the covenant). If a party is offered a covenant but does not complete the requirements for the covenant to be made, of if the party breaks the covenant, or leaves or disavows the covenant, there are negative consequences. So, to be intellectually honest, if the Constantinian mainstream Church continues to insist on their interpretation of what Jeremiah prophecies as being more a one-way promise than a covenant that always has conditions, then it ought to be labeled the New Promise and certainly not the New Covenant.
Since the premise of this new covenant being a one-way promise is an erroneous one, as it goes totally against what the Bible has to say about it, then it becomes clear that we do have obligations and those obligations begin with Yeshua’s direct instruction to us in His Sermon on the Mount to continue to obey the Law of Moses and the Prophets. The consequence for NOT obeying this directive ranges from being given the least possible social status as a member of the coming Kingdom of Heaven to not being denied membership into it at all. Only God will make the judgment as to which of those consequences happens to us.
Thus, as we consider our status before God now and especially in these End Times; and as it concerns the foundational backdrop for interpreting all biblical prophecies and understanding all biblical covenants, keep this firmly in mind as we re-read Joel chapter 3.
RE-READ JOEL CHAPTER 3 all
Verse 1 of chapter 3 speaks about three things happening upon the pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit among humans. It was that “their” sons and daughters would prophesy, and “their” old men would receive divine revelations by means of dreaming dreams and young men by seeing visions. This is speaking about God opening the flood-gates of Heaven and giving spiritual gifts of inspiration to regular, everyday Israelites as opposed to just certain appointed people; historically those appointed people were the Prophets. Let me say it this way: The PURPOSE of God giving out His Holy Spirit so widely and generously within Israel (as first happened at Pentecost) is to allow those 3 things to happen outside of the tight circle of designated Prophets as it had been before this moment. The Prophet Ezekiel lends something of importance to add to Joel’s prophecy on this matter.
CJB Ezekiel 39:26-29 26 They will bear their shame and all their [guilt from] breaking faith with me, once they are living securely in their land, with no one to make them afraid. 27 This will be after I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, thereby being consecrated through them in the sight of many nations. 28 Then they will know that I am ADONAI their God, since it was I who caused them to go into exile among the nations, and it was I who regathered them to their own land. I will leave none of them there anymore, 29 and I will no longer hide my face from them, for I have poured out my Spirit on the house of Isra'el,' says Adonai ELOHIM."
The key issue of this passage, and how it closely relates to Joel 3:1 is this: it speaks of pouring out God’s (Holy) Spirit on the house of Israel. In this passage however, it also speaks of the End Times when the final remnants of the 10 Lost Tribes come back to the Land of Israel (and this no doubt includes whatever relatively few Jews…members of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin… remain outside of modern Israel). So, is this saying that the Pentecost event of the Holy Spirit being poured out on Israel is one fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, but that this prophecy in Ezekiel speaks of yet another, different and later fulfillment of that same prophecy? Yes; but perhaps not quite in the way we might typically think of it. That is, it is not necessarily in a perfect serial fashion of one thing happening, and then another, and then another. This is the case because the verb tenses of this passage are such that in Ezekiel the Holy Spirit has already been poured out; or better, it was poured out for the first time as the beginning of a long process of pouring out. Most Bible versions ignore the original Hebrew verb tenses and instead say “when I will pour out” My Spirit; that is, it is an action that is in the future from when the prophecy was spoken. In historical retrospect, clearly this intentional verb change is done in order to validate Christian doctrinal traditions of some sort, yet it is not what the Bible actually says. So, what this passage is saying is that the Spirit being poured on those returning Israelites is not some new event; rather, it is a continuing one BECAUSE God has already begun His pouring out of His Spirit on them (the Israelites present in Jerusalem), and the inaugural event was at Pentecost.
Verse 2 says that pouring out of the Spirit will be so widely given that it will fall even on slaves, male and female. I think this can best be characterized as a kind of God directed social revolution within the people of Israel. That is, in God’s eyes there is no class distinctions and this is to be epitomized for Believers. The Law of Moses set the stage for this social status philosophy by stating that male and female slaves had human rights; they weren’t furniture or beasts of burden. They, too, were to be allowed to participate in the joy and benefits of Israel’s covenant relationship with God if they chose to. So, this is apparently taking this reality of Israel’s covenant benefits to yet another higher and broader level. We see this same prophetic sentiment expressed slightly differently in the New Testament segment of our Bibles.
CJB 1 Corinthians 12:13 For it was by one Spirit that we were all immersed into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free; and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
CJB Galatians 3:27-29 27 because as many of you as were immersed into the Messiah have clothed yourselves with the Messiah, in whom 28 there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor freeman, neither male nor female; for in union with the Messiah Yeshua, you are all one. 29 Also, if you belong to the Messiah, you are seed of Avraham and heirs according to the promise.
Notice what Galatians says about this relationship between Believers and Messiah Yeshua; Believers of every kind and social class are all equally seed of Abraham. Now, as opposed to standard Christian doctrine, if all covenants except for the so-called New Covenant are abolished, how can the Covenant of Abraham’s promise about “the seed” sill be in force? I point this out not so much because of the name of our ministry (which, frankly, was given that name to highlight this reality), but rather as further evidence that new covenants don’t replace older covenants. And, that so many Constantinian Church manmade doctrines are internally conflicting; they are often at odds with one another. The Covenant of Abraham of course remains intact and relevant even after the Covenant of Mt. Sinai was enacted, and later still the New Covenant ratified by Yeshua’s blood came into being. This reality continued to be understood and recognized well into the 1st century by the Jewish and gentile ecclesia of followers of Christ before it was altered in the later 4th or early 5th century by the founding leadership of the gentiles-only Constantinian Church.
I also want to point this out: the day of the pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit (beginning with Pentecost) is yet another occasion of a Day of Yehoveh. It is a momentous day of Yehoveh intervening in the affairs of men, and that’s why we read what we do in the 3rd verse of chapter 3:
CJB Joel 3:3 I will show wonders in the sky and on earth- blood, fire and columns of smoke.
We can absolutely call what happened at Pentecost but a few weeks after Yeshua’s death and resurrection, when the Holy Spirit came like a rushing wind and put tongues of fire about the heads of the devout, a theophany: an appearance of God. Just as we’re told that if we’ve seen the Son we’ve see the Father, so if we’ve witnessed the Holy Spirit we’ve also witnessed the Father because all of these are manifestations of God. Verse 4 confirms this by speaking of another Day of Yehoveh that is associated with it.
CJB Joel 3:4 The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and terrible Day of ADONAI."
In addition to Peter directly quoting Joel chapter 3 when he stood before all those befuddled Jews to explain the meaning of the awesome and mind-bending event of Pentecost that they were personally witnessing, we find very similar words in the Gospel accounts. In order to help to flesh out what all these Prophets are telling us about the coming great and terrible Day of Yehoveh, and how we each are to understand it in the 21st century so that we can apply it to our lives, I am going to take the unusual step of our reading an entire chapter of a Gospel account in order to make it all the more real and impactful on us. I want us all to turn to the Matthew 24, where we read about Christ explaining more about what Joel was saying some 700 or 800 years before Yeshua’s arrival.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 24 all
I hope after reading Joel, and then our incorporating some of what the other Prophets had to say, that what Yeshua said in Matthew is all clearer. And further, just how these events are coming into focus before our very eyes in this the first part of the 21st century. On the other hand, Yeshua… as is the way of all Prophets… conflates near term fulfillments of this prophecy as well as far future fulfillments. The good news is that we, today, are far more equipped to separate and identify each of these fulfillments than the Jews of His day were, and this is because of the passing of much world history.
I’m going to resist commenting on the many critical elements that are exposed by Christ in Matthew 24, and mainly stick to our subject. Notice that in Matthew 24:3 that Jesus’s disciples ask the question of when “all of these things” will happen and when the olam hazeh…the present age… will come to an end. In modern Christian-eze, they are asking about the beginning of the End Times. Clearly, they are not asking only about the comment Yeshua made in verses 1 and 2 concerning the Temple being destroyed because that’s a pretty narrow and concise subject. Rather, it is self-evident from the wording of the question that the Disciples’ inquiry was about many other things He had been instructing them concerning future things that would happen, with the destruction of the Temple but the most recent one. What I want you to notice is how Messiah is describing a series of interconnected, inter-related events that are essentially a continuing action that is the process of rolling out, over time, the fulfillment of many prophecies that had been given in preceding centuries. When a fulfillment of a prophecy happens, most of the time is but sets the stage for a later and even greater fulfillment of that same prophecy. Each time that fulfillment happens, the scale and effect of it gets larger and the segment of people involved becomes broader until the final fulfillment that occurs in the End Times involves every last nation and every single human being on the face of the planet. For instance: in verses 8, 9, and 10 we read of the great persecution of the Jewish Believers in Christ, which in time will become a persecution of all Jews in the Holy Land in general, which in more time will include gentile and Jewish Believers in Yeshua, and later still incorporates all Jews in the world, etc. etc. until in the End Times all Believers in Yeshua…no matter who or where in the world they might live….will be persecuted. Already in most of the world, Believers are being persecuted on one level or another. The West had been sort of a last bastion of protection for Believers. But recently, as we have seen, that protection is dissolving at a tremendous rate. In most of Europe and Cananda Believers have become identified declared as threats to the government and to the public, and so their numbers have dwindled to very few and those left have lost many of their human rights and religious freedoms. This is also well underway in the USA right now as Believers are recently seen as dangerous radicals who are opposed to the amoral, anything-goes new cultural and social order that has erupted. Because Believers usually represent opposition to this new social order and cultural agenda, social media censors our speech, and they view our opposition to things like gender identity confusion and immorality as a form of hate speech that everyone else must be protected from. Our open oppositional views can even bring civil and criminal penalties with it. What Yeshua was prophesying in Matthew 24, then, has in our day taken on that larger and broader scale I spoke about…larger and broader than ever before in history. But, the worst is yet to come.
In verse 21, Christ elaborates about the future time when the fulfillment of prophecy will involve even more terrible things.
CJB Matthew 24:21 21 For there will be trouble then worse than there has ever been from the beginning of the world until now, and there will be nothing like it again!
Yeshua goes on in verse 24 to warn of false prophets. Understand: this is speaking of prophets claiming Yeshua as Lord and Savior. It is people arising among the body of Believers who renounce God-breathed commandments and patterns, and then come up with new ones that they teach and demand to be followed. Almost always this will involve a co-operation with the direction society and government wants to go. This sort of thing has been going on for centuries, but never before our time has it been this prevalent. These false prophets will put a dishonest “spin” of Bible prophecies, and convince thousands and millions of Believers to seek NOT what the Bible literally says, but rather to accept their convoluted explanations and interpretations instead. Going so far as to label those who resist, and instead determine to believe what the Bible actually says, as heretics and malcontents.
As bad as it is going to get (and we’re still not there yet), Jesus says this:
CJB Matthew 24:29 29 "But immediately following the trouble of those times, the sun will grow dark, the moon will stop shining, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in heaven will be shaken.
So, after tribulation (troubles) rises and rises, then suddenly the cosmos will become involved. Just as chaos is reigning on earth, so now it becomes the same in the sky above us. The objects and luminaries in the sky will react as they do (the sun grows dark, the moon stops it shine, and stars fall from the sky, etc.) BECAUSE these are all portents of a theophany….an appearance of God. Christ isn’t making this prediction up from whole cloth, but rather He is paraphrasing Joel’s words. The timing is important. So, I’ll say it again: it is only after incredible and terrible troubles and wickedness on earth, when all hope of peace, liberty and life is gone, that this portent of an appearance of God will happen in the skies above. So, since this is the prerequisite signs for a theophany, then what we read next ought not to surprise us.
CJB Matthew 24:30 30 "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, all the tribes of the Land will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with tremendous power and glory.
Because in the most mysterious way Yeshua is God, then we see that the form of God that is the portended theophany is of Christ returning. As Yeshua continues to explain what is going to happen, He says that these cosmic events and His return will happen just like it was in Noah’s day. That is, despite all the signs and portents of this apocalyptic disaster coming, people paid no attention. They were oblivious and went right on with their regular lives taking no note of what Noah was doing and no doubt telling them, with their wickedness only increasing by the day. So, when the flood did come, it was as a total surprise….except to Noah and his family. That’s how it will be when Messiah returns.
Since the Prophets and Yeshua agree on what the End Times fulfillment of the Day of Yehoveh will look like, then we have something to go on as to where in a sequence of events it falls. The Book of Revelation helps us by introducing 3 sets of judgments, each set consisting of 7 separate events and each set of 7 given a name. Those names in order are the Seal, Trumpet, then finally the Bowl judgments. If we were to read all of Revelation chapter 6 we’d find that that first 5 events of the Seal judgments involved symbolic representations of man’s horrendous acts of evil against other man, as well as some natural occurrences of disease and pestilence (that is the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse). It changes, however, upon the 6th of the 7 events when we read this:
CJB Revelation 6:12-17 12 Then I watched as he broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, the sun turned black as sackcloth worn in mourning, and the full moon became blood-red. 13 The stars fell from heaven to earth just as a fig tree drops its figs when shaken by a strong wind. 14 The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place. 15 Then the earth's kings, the rulers, the generals, the rich and the mighty- indeed, everyone, slave and free- hid himself in caves and among the rocks in the mountains, 16 and said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the One sitting on the throne and from the fury of the Lamb! 17 For the Great Day of their fury has come, and who can stand?"
Here at this point in the sequence of events begins the rolling out of supernatural cosmic chaos starting to happen. The switch from natural to supernatural events upon the 6th seal continue through the 7th Seal judgment, then through all the Trumpet judgments, and finally through all the Bowl judgments. In other words, something changes most dramatically upon the opening of the 6th seal. Here is my take on what is happening. What Jesus has described, and what the first 5 seal judgments describe, is NOT God’s wrath. Rather, it is human evil on steroids that has overtaken our planet. Biblically and practically speaking, there is a huge difference between tribulation and God’s wrath. Tribulation is all the atrocities that men perpetrate on one another. Rampant and uncontrollable evil. God’s wrath on the other hand is divinely and supernaturally orchestrated and sourced. It is not about anything humans do to one another; it is about what God is doing to humans. Therefore, it seems to me that upon the 6th seal being opened, this is when the out pouring of God’s wrath upon the entire earth begins.
Further, it is the biblical pattern that God does NOT usually deliver His worshippers from their troubles (their tribulations and their persecution), but He does deliver His faithful worshippers from His wrath. Therefore, whatever the Rapture of Believers amounts to, it happens before the 6th seal is broken indicating the beginning of a period of God’s wrath. When, exactly, does that happen? I don’t know. In any case, I don’t hold the illusion that Believers will somehow be saved from tribulation. Rather, we will go through it and this is why I urge all of my brothers and sisters in the Lord to prepare! Prepare spiritually, and prepare tangibly. All the way back in time to the era of Abraham, a God-principle was given to us that we need to pay attention to and be thankful for. When Abraham was pleading for Lot and any other righteous people of Sodom to be removed before God destroyed the city, he said this:
CJB Genesis 18:25 Far be it from you to do such a thing- to kill the righteous along with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike! Far be it from you! Shouldn't the judge of all the earth do what is just?"
God validated this principle and waited for any righteous persons left in Sodom to be removed from the city, if they would but heed the warning. Lot suffered tribulation; but he didn’t suffer God’s wrath. Therefore, although I can’t put a definite mark on a timeline as to when Believers will in some miraculous way be taken out of harm’s way before God’s wrath is rained down on earth, I do know that it will happen sometime before His wrath commences; it will be before the 6th seal is broken. It will be before the terrifying cosmic events begin. It will be before the sun turns dark, the moon stops shining, the stars in the sky start to fall. It will be just before Joel’s prophecy of Joel 3:3 and 4 is fulfilled for the final time. Can I 100% promise this? No. But, with the data currently at hand this has to be the conclusion without much speculation or without putting a Christian spin of one kind or another on the various prophecies concerning this time period.
Now; for those who think that simply professing belief in Christ is good enough to be saved from God’s wrath consider the final verses of Matthew 24 that gives us the answer to the question of who will be saved by means of an illustration.
CJB Matthew 24:44-51 44 Therefore you too must always be ready, for the Son of Man will come when you are not expecting him. 45 "Who is the faithful and sensible servant whose master puts him in charge of the household staff, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 It will go well with that servant if he is found doing his job when his master comes. 47 Yes, I tell you that he will put him in charge of all he owns. 48 But if that servant is wicked and says to himself, 'My master is taking his time'; 49 and he starts beating up his fellow servants and spends his time eating and drinking with drunkards; 50 then his master will come on a day the servant does not expect, at a time he doesn't know; 51 and he will cut him in two and put him with the hypocrites, where people will wail and grind their teeth!
To be ready for Messiah to come is to wait patiently as Believers while maintaining obedience to God. We are to continue to serve God, and to treat one’s fellow Believers with respect (that is, to love God and to love our neighbor). A Believer must not start acting like the world; we must not fall prey to the false prophets that are arising within the Constantinian Church thinking these are different issues than professing belief in Yeshua. The Believers who think that, and act that out, are in for a very unpleasant surprise; they will NOT be saved… in fact, they will be destroyed.
Moving back to Joel. Joel 3:5 says:
CJB Joel 3:5 At that time, whoever calls on the name of ADONAI will be saved. For in Mount Tziyon and Yerushalayim there will be those who escape, as ADONAI has promised; among the survivors will be those whom ADONAI has called.
In Acts 2, Peter also quotes this thought from Joel. What does it mean to call on the name of Adonai (or in the Hebrew original, in the name of Yehoveh)? So, to be clear: to call on the name of Yeshua is not what the Bible actually says; it says we are to call the name of His Father, Yehoveh. To call on the name of Yehoveh does NOT mean only to pray to Him. And since Christ says that we are to pray to His Father (we find this command in the Lord’ Prayer), then I think the identity of the person of God that is intended in the phrase “the name of Yehoveh” becomes self-evident. It encompasses the idea of consistently and faithfully worshiping God at all times. This further clarifies Matthew 24:44 – 51. That is, when the end comes and the sky is literally falling, to “call on the name of Yehoveh” isn’t referring to those who suddenly profess belief when they finally realize the end is at hand. It is calling upon those who have stayed consistent and steadfast in their faith right up to that day, patiently waiting for this time to arrive. As for those who turn to God when the moment of the end comes, I really don’t know what God will decide…it is kind of a biblical gray area. The best solution for humans is, by far, for it not to come down to that. Trust Christ NOW and don’t put yourself in jeopardy even one hour longer. Things are happening at light speed in this present world, and the Lord says His coming will be sudden.
OK. In order to tell you what I want to explain next, I will begin by reminding you that for Peter, he interpreted his witnessing of the Pentecost event that occurred around the year 33 A.D. as the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy of Joel chapter 3. He plainly said so, and then quoted Joel to make it explicit. Was he correct in this assumption? From his viewpoint, at his time in history, he was correct and we should continue to understand that he was most certainly correct. And yet, as we are now living 2000 years later we also know that what Peter experienced could not have been the sum total of all that Joel prophesied. Other things happened after Peter’s lifetime (or shortly after) that also were fulfillment events of this prophecy ( such as the sacking of Jerusalem and Temple in 70 A.D., and the complete expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land around 65 years later after yet another Jewish rebellion). And most certainly, from the completely literal standpoint, God’s Spirit has never been poured out upon “all humanity”. That is, the Holy Spirit most certainly does not live within every living human being on the planet… then or now.
With that said, what I want to continue to explain is most challenging to put into words. I need you to pay close attention, and to stay focused. As hard as it was to write it, I think it may be equally or even harder for you to grab hold of what I’m attempting to say not because of any lacking of intelligence or education on your part, but because my words are inadequate to fully capture the mysterious nature of prophecy.
So, then, who are these survivors of the last half of verse 5 that are saved? First, the term “saved” itself must be understood in the context of what it meant to people in Joel’s day, versus what it meant to Jewish Believers (at least some of them) after the advent of Yeshua, and what it means to us, today. Who these survivors are is a difficult question to deal with because it depends on whether one is looking at it from the prophetic view of the nearer future or from the prophetic view of the farthest future, relative to Joel’s day. That is, like so much else of Joel’s prophecy, and like as similar prophecies from other Prophets or even those prophecies pronounced by Yeshua, certain elements of the prophecy are conflated in the vision of their fulfillment since they usually refer to more than merely one grand fulfillment event. So, at one time in a prophecy’s most immediate fulfillment it happens in a geographically local and narrow scope, but then later it happens again but in a pretty much planet-wide, and therefore humanity-wide, scope. Just as it was only in a narrow and quite localized scope (Jerusalem) at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was initially poured out ONLY upon certain Jews who had gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot, and then later when it would extend to gentiles who (spiritually speaking) were grafted into Israel’s covenants by means of their trust in Yeshua, so it is that we should understand the idea of who the survivors are that are spoken of in the last part of verse 5. In its narrowest scope (which happened with an event that occurred within no more than a couple of hundred years after Joel prophesied it), it meant those certain Jews who lived in Jerusalem that somehow escaped the onslaught of Babylon. Later, it would mean Holy Land Jews in general who escaped the Roman destruction of the Temple and the consequences of the 2nd Jewish rebellion. In still later times the scope of the fulfillment likely expands at least to all living Israelites (to all the remnant tribes of Jacob) everywhere on earth who in one way or another still identify with Jerusalem and the God of Israel, and then at the finale of the End Times it probably extends its scope to its widest scope and therefore means all those Israelites that trust in Yeshua for salvation and all gentiles who believe as well because by then the issue for determining who a survivor is means those who are members of the true and ideal Israel (those who are saved through Yeshua) as opposed to those who are merely biologically descended from Jacob (called Israel). I’ll say that in a different way: the prophetic fulfillment of Joel is, at first, not about delivery from sins and a pathway into a Heavenly eternity (in the spiritual sense), but rather it is literally about the descendants of Jacob being saved from death and slavery at the hand of enemy invaders in the fully physical/earthly sense. Once we arrive at the End Times, however, it progresses and expands to become ONLY and exclusively about delivery from sins for all humans who accept God’s Messiah, and then be allowed into Heavenly eternity, and has little if anything to do with physical death (which affects all humans).
Not only is this generally how prophecy works, it also embodies both the concepts of progressive revelation and of progressive fulfillment of prophecy.
I think that’s enough for today. We’ll begin Joel chapter 4 next time.