Joel 3:15-17, “The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. YHWH roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake. But YHWH is a refuge to His people, a stronghold to the people of Israel. So you shall know that I am YHWH your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain.”
An entry from last week’s journal:
This is absolutely amazing to see….As I’ve said before in this journal, the Day of the Lord—for the Christian, at least—happens on Calvary.
It is there that the skies are darkened (Matthew 27:45), it is there that the heavens and earth quake (Matthew 27:51), it is there that YHWH incarnate roars with a loud voice from Zion (Matthew 27:46,50), and it is there that the Lord God becomes a refuge to His people, bearing their sin, their punishment, their great day of wrath in His own body in their place.
And—as all of scripture bears witness—Joel is clear that it is there, it is there that the world will know who YHWH is,
SO you shall KNOW that I am YHWH your God…
The One True God will definitively declare His unique and all-surpassing identity through His act of Judgment and Salvation on the great day of YHWH, and what is that great day? It is the cross, it is “Good Friday,” it is the day that the Son of God is lifted up on the cross to receive in Himself the Day of the Lord…the day that the steadfast love and faithfulness of YHWH bears in His own flesh and blood the dismantling of creation, the end of the world, the outpouring of eschatological wrath, it is the day that Love Outpoured embraces, absorbs, and exhausts Love at War for the sake of enemies, that they might be made friends.
Yes, when the Son of man has been lifted up on the cross (Joel 3:15-16), then the world will know YHWH (Joel 3:17), John 8:28. THEN they will know the One True God Because THEN they will know the Son who does nothing from Himself but only, wholly, infinitely, eternally and perfectly what He sees from the Father, such that—in the climactic obedience of the cross which manifests in fallen space and time the Son’s existence of obedience from all eternity—He is the only, infinite, eternal and perfect image and exegesis of the Father to humanity.
And, a final piece that must be noted….it is this YHWH upon whose Name we must call if we are to be saved (Joel 2:32, Romans 10:9-13). The Name of YHWH upon which His people call, in which His people seek refuge (Zephaniah 3:12, etc.) is the Name, the character, the identity that is manifest in that great act of revelatory redemption, the crucifixion of the Son of God. The culmination of redemptive history comes when the universe recognizes that the slain and risen Son has received the “name above every name,” that the crucified and risen Jesus is YHWH (Philippians 2:6-11). And the risen Christ is recognized to be YHWH incarnate because, in His self-outpouring unto death in order to secure a people for Himself, He has perfectly manifest the name of YHWH to creation (John 1:14,18; 12:45; 14:6; 17:1,26).
All who call on the name of the LORD will be saved, and to call on that Name means to call on, to cast oneself upon, to receive as one’s only good and life and satisfaction and hope, the person of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
