Will the sun really be turned to darkness and the moon to blood (Joel 2:31)?

Of course this is not to be literally taken. Such a convulsion would be the total destruction of the universe, whereas the world exists long after these events. It is then a figurative description, borrowed from the magnificent prophecy of Joel concerning the events preceding the day of the Lord "I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come." (Joel 2:30-31.) A portion of the imagery is taken also from the words of Isaiah, describing "the indignation of the Lord upon all the nations" [or Gentiles], where he says, "All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll and all their hosts shall fall down, as the leaf falls from off the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig-tree." (Isa. 34:2, 4.) These passages show not only the time and circumstances, but the proper interpretation of the figures used in the Revelation. The time is before the coming of "the great and terrible day of the Lord." The circumstances are God's judgment of the nations. The interpretation of the figures is the overthrow of the powers of the earth by great social and political convulsions. This is the meaning to be attached here to the "great earthquake." The sun, the supreme authority, is obscured, and the lesser powers, the moon and stars, are either disturbed or utterly overthrown. Places of strength and security, the mountains and islands, are removed; and a general shaking of all the kingdoms follows the wars that have raged, and the wretchedness and anarchy they have brought in their train.

The tribulation will come to its end in final convulsions that will affect even the heavens, as verses 24 and 25 show. Sun, moon and stars are sometimes used in Scripture as symbols of supreme power, derived power and subordinate power respectively; and "powers that are in heaven" are in view, as the latter part of verse 25 shows. Still this discourse of the Lord is not marked by a large use of symbols, as the book of Revelation is, so we think that literal convulsions affecting the heavenly bodies must not be excluded, especially as we know there was a literal darkening of the sun when Jesus died. The darkening of that day will serve to throw into greater relief the brightness of His shining forth, when He comes in the clouds with great power and glory.

There is also this marked difference between our seal and the passages in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, with which some would connect it, that in the latter the Son of man is expressly said to be seen coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, in the former, as has been remarked, there is not a trace of it. It is represented under the seal, that all men in their terror say to the mountains and rocks, (is this literal, after they had been moved out of their places?) "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his* wrath is come; and who is able to stand?" But it is a revelation, not of that which God declares about the time or circumstances, but of men's alarm and its effect on their consciences. To take what John saw in the vision as so many physical realities, to be then verified in the literal sun, moon, stars, and heaven, is, I think, an opinion adopted without due consideration. Would there, could there, be need for any to invoke the fall of the mountains and rocks, if the stars really fell unto the earth? Could men or the globe survive such a shock? Besides, it is plain that the description alludes at any rate to passages in the Old Testament, such as Isa. 13, 34; Ezek. 32:7-8, and Joel 2. Now the last distinctly states that the signs therein predicted are before the great and terrible day of the Lord come, and the first had its accomplishment in the past fall of Babylon, though there be also types of a more solemn and universal catastrophe at the close.

The external signs here named will precede the day which is still unfulfilled. It is vain to apply verses 30, 31 to the first advent. "I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth" is evidently another character of things. "And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of Jehovah come." There will be a remarkable outward manifestation of divine power before the judgment is executed. God always sends a testimony before the thing itself. He does not strike before He warns. It is so in His dealings with us every day. What Christian has a chastening upon him before he is admonished of the Spirit of God? There is always a sense of wrong, and a lack of communion sensible to the spirit before the Lord inflicts the blow which tells of His watchful love over our careless ways. He gives the opportunity, if one may say so, of setting ourselves morally right; and if we do not heed the teaching, then comes the sorrow. And so it is here. These wonders cannot but attract the mind and attention of men, but they will not really be heeded. Infatuated and under judicial hardness, they will turn a deaf ear to all, and so the great and terrible day of Jehovah will overtake them like a thief. But God at least will not fail. He had foretold that so it should be, and His people will take heed. There will be a remnant enabled to see, and pre-eminently, as we know, from among the Jews, though by no means limited to them, as we learn from the second half of Rev. 7 and the end of Matt. 25. There will be still the witness of "all flesh" prepared for the glory of Jehovah about to be revealed.

As to the sun being darkened, and the moon, the author, as we have seen in the previous examination of the book, makes them one single event introducing the Lord. Here they are accompanying signs of the day. In Joel the sun is darkened, and the moon turned to blood, before the day comes; and I suppose, if the sea in the appointed sphere becomes literally as the blood of a dead man, the moon is literally turned into blood too. But then that is before the great and terrible day of the Lord in Joel. I quite agree that the judgment of the day of the Lord has not yet come on the world. Though any signal judgment on a locality is called, anticipatively, the day of the Lord on that place in Scripture.

Not so prominently, but still clearly there, the Spirit of God had brought home to them the reality of judgment: "I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come" (Acts 2:19-20). All nature would quake in the presence of its Judge, and this judgment was imminent.

Joel 2. The day of Jehovah is nigh at hand, and the trumpet is to sound an alarm of war: cf. Num. 10:9. The army of insects is still alluded to, but it looks forward to the future, when God will bring His judgements upon the land. The army is His, and the camp is His: the day of Jehovah. is great and very terrible. The people are called to repentance, to rend their hearts and not their garments, for God is merciful and gracious. The trumpet was to be blown in Zion for a solemn assembly: cf. Num. 10:7. Priests and all are called to weep and pray. God will hear, and will destroy their enemies, especially the northern army (Joel 2:20, elsewhere alluded to as Assyria) and He will bring His people into great blessing. When they repent, the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon them and upon all flesh. This was quoted by Peter in Acts 2:16-21, but the nation did not then repent, it was only a remnant that turned to the Lord and entered into the blessing that God was bestowing — not outward and visible benefits as it will be in the future. There will also be signs in the heavens and in the earth before the great and terrible day of the Lord. There were some such omens, according to the historians, before the destruction of Jerusalem, so this passage, quoted in Acts 2, may have had a partial fulfilment then, though it remains to be fully verified in a future day.

The day of Jehovah is nigh at hand, and the trumpet is to sound an alarm of war: cf. Num. 10: 9. The army of insects is still alluded to, but it looks forward to the future, when God will bring His judgements upon the land. The army is His, and the camp is His: the day of Jehovah is great and very terrible. The people are called to repentance, to rend their hearts and not their garments, for God is merciful and gracious. The trumpet was to be blown in Zion for a solemn assembly: cf. Num. 10: 7. Priests and all are called to weep and pray. God will hear, and will destroy their enemies, especially the northern army (Joel 2: 20, elsewhere alluded to as Assyria) and He will bring His people into great blessing. When they repent, the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon them and upon all flesh. This was quoted by Peter in Acts 2: 16-21, but the nation did not then repent, it was only a remnant that turned to the Lord and entered into the blessing that God was bestowing - not outward and visible benefits as it will be in the future. There will also be signs in the heavens and in the earth before the great and terrible day of the Lord. There were some such omens, according to the historians, before the destruction of Jerusalem, so this passage, quoted in Acts 2, may have had a partial fulfilment then, though it remains to be fully verified in a future day.

And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.

Let the Christian reader, then, have it settled in his heart, on the clear authority of holy Scripture, that the grand and specific hope for him ever to cherish is the coming of Christ for His people. This hope may be realized this very night. There is nothing whatever to wait for — no events to transpire amongst the nations — nothing to occur in the history of Israel — nothing in God's government of the world — nothing, in short, in any shape or form whatsoever, to intervene between the heart of the true believer and his heavenly hope. Christ may come for His people tonight. There is actually nothing to hinder. No one can tell when He will come; but we can joyfully say that, at any moment, He may come. And, blessed be His name, when He does come for us, it will not be with the accompanying circumstances of terror, wrath, and judgment. It will not be with blackness and darkness and tempest. These things will accompany "the day of the Lord," as the Apostle Peter plainly tells the Jews in his first great sermon, on the day of Pentecost, in which he quotes the following words from the solemn prophecy of Joel, "And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath: blood and fire and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before" — what? the coming of the Lord for His people? Nay; but before "that great and notable day of the Lord come."