18. Since the holy spirit has been in process of being poured out during the whole “Christian Era” despite the great apostasy, what is argued regarding the expression the “last days”?

¹⁸ However, the argument may be raised in a question of objection, Was it not during the “last days” that holy spirit was to be poured out, and has it not been poured out without a break, despite the great apostasy, since Pentecost of 33 C.E. till now? In recent years are there not those who claim to have been anointed with holy spirit, so that they feel obliged to partake of the emblems of the Lord’s Supper, or Evening Meal? Logically, then, does this not make the “last days” of Acts 2:16-21 coincide with the whole Christian Era, with this long, unbroken period for pouring out the spirit of anointing?

19. To whom was Joel 2:28-32 first directed, and was it before the “last days” of their system of things in Palestine began or during those days that the prophecy was fulfilled?

¹⁹ Still, we must face the fact that the period of God’s spiritual favor to the circumcised Jews ended in 36 C.E., when uncircumcised non-Jews, Gentiles, began to be admitted into the spirit-anointed congregation of Christ’s disciples. Also, the days of the Jewish system of things with their temple at Jerusalem lasted still farther, till 70 C.E. The prophecy of Joel 2:28-32, quoted by the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost, was directed first to the circumcised Jews, and Bible history proves that there was an outpouring of the spirit of anointing during the “last days” of the Jewish system of things in their Promised Land, and not before those “days.”

21. Was no like period of “last days,” no duplicate, allowed for with regard to Joel’s prophecy about holy spirit?

²¹ Basing himself on factual developments, the apostle Peter applied Joel’s prophecy to the tail end of the Jewish system of things in the Middle East. But Peter was not saying, and Joel 2:28, 29 does not say, that there would be no like period of “last days,” no duplicate, during which holy spirit would markedly be poured out, correspondingly.

22. (a) Were all the features of the prophecy of Joel 2:28-32 fulfilled during the “last days” of the ancient Jewish system? (b) Were all parts of the compound question that the disciples asked Jesus fulfilled back there, or what yet had to be proved?

²² Furthermore, what Joel foretold in connection with the outpouring of the holy spirit, namely, heavenly portents, earthly signs, blood, fire, smoke mist, the darkening of the sun, the turning of the moon into blood, all that was not carried out in the “last days” in which the apostle Peter lived. Consequently, for Jehovah, the Inspirer of the prophecy, to be proved true in all that he predicted, there has to be another period of time called the “last days” for all parts of his prophecy to be realized.