⁴ “This is what was said through the prophet Joel, “And in the last days,” God says, “I shall pour out some of my spirit upon every sort of flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy and your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams; and even upon my men slaves and upon my women slaves I will pour out some of my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. And I will give portents in heaven above and signs on earth below, blood and fire and smoke mist; the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and illustrious day of Jehovah arrives. And everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.”’”​—Acts 2:16-21.

5. (a) According to Peter, when had those “last days” begun? (b) What can be said as to whether Peter then meant the “last days” of the old world system of things?

⁵ When had God said such a thing? Hundreds of years previously in Joel 2:28-32. In Hebrew the prophecy opens up, saying: “And after that it must occur that I shall pour out my spirit on every sort of flesh,” and so on. Under inspiration of God’s spirit the apostle Peter located where “after that” applied on the stream of time by saying “in the last days.” So about 850 years after Joel’s prophecy had been finished, those “last days” had begun, and Peter was living in them. But we now ask, was Peter living in the “last days” of the whole world system of things? Hardly so, for here we are, living more than 19 centuries after Peter was killed as a Christian martyr. (John 21:18, 19; 2 Pet. 1:14) How can it even Scripturally be reasoned that the “last days” applies to all this process of time from Peter’s days down to and including our troublous times, which are not yet ended? It cannot be, even though during all those past 19 centuries till now God has evidently poured out his spirit upon believers of every fleshly sort, making them spiritual sons and daughters of Jehovah God through Jesus Christ.

When Jesus got baptized and anointed with holy spirit, he became the Mediator of a new covenant that was to be made with spiritual Jews, or Israelites. This spelled the “last days” for the Jewish Law covenant and the Jewish system that revolved around the Herodian temple there at Jerusalem. When Jesus ascended to heaven as Mediator between God and his disciples, the new covenant was sealed with the value of the blood of his perfect human sacrifice. The proof of this was given on that marvelous day of Pentecost with the outpouring of the holy spirit, which produced spiritual Israelites with whom to make the new covenant.