Acts 2:19-20

Acts 2:19-20. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, fire, and vapour of smoke... before that great and notable day of the Lord come. The Messianic dispensation, however, has two aspects the one characterized by grace and mercy, the other by judgment and punishment. Now Acts 2:17-18 dwelt, as we have seen, on the glorious blessings which should be poured on

those who should acknowledge Christ; Acts 2:19-20 in plain terms tell of the awful punishment which awaits those who should deliberately reject Him. Pentecost and its great miracle the signal outpouring of grace and power on the early Christian Church was a partial fulfilment of Acts 2:17-18 the prophecy of the blessing; while the fall of the city, the unsurpassed misery and horror which attended the siege of Jerusalem, and the concluding period of the last Jewish war with Rome, and its crushing result, was equally a partial fulfilment of Acts 2:19-20 the prophecy of the curse .

But neither Pentecost and the miraculous powers bestowed on the early Church on the one hand, nor the fetal siege and deadly war on the other hand, has exhausted the great prophecy of Joel which St. Peter took up and repeated. The fulfilment began surely on the Pentecost morning. It was strangely carried out during those years of the Church's early powers. Its words, which tell of suffering and of woe, were lit up with the lurid light of the burning city and temple. But though both the blessing and the curse have received each of them a marked fulfilment, they were but partial ones; the full accomplishment still tarries and will assuredly precede that awful day of the Lord, the time of which is known to the Father only.