The quotation from Joel in Acts ii. 16-21 is sometimes put forward
as a proof that the Second Advent was expected immediately. Concerning this
quotation in Peter’s speech the following points may be noticed:
1. The Parousia of Christ is nowhere mentioned.
2. The quotation is given to show that the promises of God are now
fulfilled; and the point of this passage is the reference to the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit. Joe’s prophecy, it is claimed, is fulfilled in the events of
Pentecost. ‘This is that’ (16). The Day of the Lord (20) is not the main point
of the quotation which is given primarily because of its reference to the
Spirit and to prophecy; it is extended beyond these limits, not with the idea
of giving a ‘representation of great spiritual changes under physical imagery’,
but rather in order to include the final words: ‘And it shall be,t that
whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (21, cf. Romans x.
13).
3. The O.T. quotations are the least reliable
parts of Acts, as Rendel Harris has shown in his second book on the
‘Testimonies’. Many of the O.T. passages quotation as found in Testimony books
which have come down to us, and though some may have been taken from Acts,
Harris thinks that others were in the collection of Testimonies first and that
Luke took them from this source. It is doubtful if such an early state Peter
would have quoted Psalm lxiv. 26 and cix. 8 as applying to Judas (Acts i. 20).
Again, a testimony from Amos is placed upon the lips of James in xv, but the
point of the quotation only occurs in the LXX, which he surely did not use on
this occasion: the Hebrew has Edom, not ‘adam. This quotation is
apparently due to the writer, and the same may apply to other O.T. references
in his pages. (T. Francis Glasson, The Second Advent: The Origin of the New
Testament Doctrine [3d ed.; London: The Epworth Press, 1963], 156-57)