The answer involves an
understanding of the meaning of the expression “the day of the
Lord”. It comes from the OT as “the day of Jehovah” and is found
only in the prophets from Is. 2: 12 to Mal. 4: 5.
The prophets often prophesied of events that
would take place within their lifetime or just beyond it. When these
had identical features to events belonging to the “end of times” (1
Pet. 1: 20), the Holy Spirit guided the prophet to move seamlessly
from the one to the other. The prophetic expression “the day of
Jehovah” is used in the OT for events in both the near and the
distant future. For example, Isaiah 13 is “The burden of Babylon”
(v1), the kingdom that was eventually overrun by the Medes (see v17)
where the word is “Howl, for the day of Jehovah is at hand” (v6).
But in v9, where the expression “the day of Jehovah” is repeated, we
are taken beyond the immediate future to a time when the physical
heavens will be disrupted (see v10, and compare with Matt. 24: 29
and Rev. 6: 12, 13) and God says “I will punish the world for evil
…” (v11).
Throughout the OT “the day of Jehovah” is
always used to describe God’s direct intervention in governmental
judgement, both in the immediate and the distant future. It is a day
of divine wrath and destruction. This is clear from its first
occurrence in Is. 2: 12, the beginning of a section in which the
detail of v19 is virtually repeated in Rev. 6: 15 and ends with the
words “In that day men shall …go into the clefts of the rocks … from
before the terror of Jehovah, and from the glory of his majesty,
when he shall arise to terrify the earth” (v20, 21). In keeping with
this dual nature of prophecy, God’s future direct judgment on earth
also often involves the shaking of the heavens (see Is. 13: 10, 13;
Joel 2: 10, 11; 3: 14, 15; Hag. 2: 6; Rev. 6: 12, 13) being a
prophetic foretaste of God’s final judicial act in government when
the present heavens and earth will be destroyed. Indeed, Isaiah was
taken on to that time for we read “And all the host of the heavens
shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a
scroll; and all their host shall fade away, as a leaf fadeth from
off the vine, and as the withered [fruit] from the fig tree. … For
it is the day of Jehovah’s vengeance” (Is. 34: 4, 8; see also Is.
51: 6). Thus the phrase “the day of Jehovah” is not limited to a
particular period of time but is
expressive of those occasions
when God exerts His authority in direct governmental judgement.
Turning to the NT, “the day of the Lord” is
first used by Peter quoting Joel 2: 28–32 in Acts 2: 17–21 on the
day of Pentecost. This occasion was
not the fulfilment of
the prophecy but the conditions then present fell within the
description of the prophecy for Israel had just crucified her
Messiah warranting divine judgement. In 1 Cor. 1: 8 Paul speaks of
“the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” and in 1 Cor. 5: 5 and 2 Cor. 1:
14 of “the day of the Lord Jesus”. These similar, but not identical
expressions, are
not the equivalent of “the day of Jehovah” in the OT, for in
each case the context is clearly the millennial reign of Christ—a
time that “the day of Jehovah” is never used to describe.
The day of the Lord does not belong to the
present time (see 2 Thess 2: 2) for the Church has nothing to do
with “the times and the seasons” (1 Thess. 5: 1) for these belong to
Israel, the earth
and men in general. But when the Church
has gone, the heavens will no longer be silent and God’s judgements
on earth will resume, culminating in the return of the Lord in glory
(see 2 Thess 2: 8). It is to this time that Paul applies “the day of
the Lord” (v2).
Finally, to Peter, whose epistles have as
background the governmental ways of God. There were mockers then, as
now, who challenged the return of the Lord, failed to see any past
divine intervention in judgement and claimed that “all things remain
thus from [the] beginning of [the] creation” (2 Pet. 3: 4). This
leads the apostle
to go on to the very end of this
creation, bypassing the pre–millennial judgements and the reign of
Christ, and to speak of the dissolution of the physical universe by
fire. In doing so, he uses virtually the same words as Paul: “the
day of [the] Lord will come as a thief” (2 Pet. 3: 10; see 1 Thess.
5: 2)—for while the event is different, it is the final act of the
‘day’ of judgment. In keeping with this setting, Peter exhorts the
believers to wait for “the coming of the day of God” (v12), when
there will be “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells
righteousness” (v13). This is the day when “the Son also himself
shall be placed in subjection to him who shall put all things in
subjection to him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15: 28).
