A newsletter of weekly mediations on biblical theology and curated resources from The Carson Center

January 14, 2026

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit” (Joel 2:28–29).

“For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:15–17).

Joshua 22; Acts 2; Jeremiah 11; Matthew 25

Eschatology (or the study of last things) is a topic that spurs our imaginations to think of cosmic events, the end of the world, and the many amazing things that will unfold on the last day. But what many do not realize is that the last days have already started with the first coming of Christ (Heb. 1:1–4). And one of the latter-day events is the outpouring of the Spirit, something that does not await the return of Christ but rather unfolded on the heels of Christ’s ascension. Pentecost was a regular celebration on Israel’s festival calendar, fifty days after Passover that started with the feast of unleavened bread (Lev. 21:15–21). In the grand plan of redemption, Christ was sacrificed during Passover and following this day, God initially fulfilled his promise to pour out the Spirit. The prophet Joel spoke of a time in the future when he would pour out his Spirit on “all flesh,” upon sons and daughters, young and old, males and females. On the day of Pentecost, people from many nations gathered in Jerusalem: “Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians” (Acts 2:9–11). The nations once divided by different languages because of God’s judgment at Babel (Gen. 11:9) were now being reunited under the banner of the gospel of Christ.

Just as God the Father created through his Son and Spirit, so now God the Father redeems through Christ and the Spirit (Gen. 1; John 1:1–3; Col. 1:15–17; Heb. 1:1–4). Because of Christ’s righteousness, his obedience to the law and suffering the curse of the law, we have life in the Spirit (Rom. 8:10). To put this in the words of John Newton’s famous hymn, Amazing Grace, “I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.” Christ’s outpoured Spirit gives us the ability to see the kingdom of God and believe in Jesus through the gift of faith (John 3:5; Eph. 2:8-9). The events of Pentecost find their roots in the end-time prophecy of Joel and flower in Christ’s outpouring of the Spirit. All Christians throughout the world, “all flesh,” therefore, know of the blessings of Pentecost because of God’s mercy in Christ. The last days are upon us and we can rejoice that Christ has begun to fulfill many long-awaited promises. – John Fesko

Reflect: Think about the blessings of the gospel once being confined to the borders of Israel but because of Christ’s outpouring of the Spirit, the nations now receive the message of salvation. Rejoice in God’s global grace through his glorious gospel.

Final Reckoning: Grace That Glorifies Christ

All people, including believers, will “stand before the judgment seat of God” (Rom. 14:10), and every person will “receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10).

Paul’s claims about judgment have unsettled many people. Some verses, when read in isolation, have led believers to question whether they’re safe in God’s grace or whether they’ll need a certain number of good works to withstand God’s judgment. Our theological imaginations are easily arrested by assumptions that any prospect of divine judgment amounts to a threat or that the purpose of the divine court is merely to scrutinize our behavior and reveal our secrets.

The prospect of judgment is sobering. But if we reform our perspective according to the whole Bible, then instead of being stirred to self-doubt, we can bolster our hope for the future. For Christians, the last judgment will be nothing less than a parade of God’s glory and grace.

Biblical Theology is simply the study of the progressive nature of God’s plan of redemption from Genesis to Revelation. It studies the plotline of Scripture, taking inventory of its themes and watching how these themes intersect with one another eventually culminating in Christ and the new creation. In the last few decades, there has been a great deal of books on biblical theology. While these resources have been an enormous gift to the church, it is less common to come resources that instruct the church on how to “do” biblical theology. This video of Ben Gladd and Nancy Guthrie at the TGC25 conference entitled “Biblical Theology in Action” works to fill this gap.

The Bible includes 66 individual books by numerous authors across thousands of years. How did these books come to be held together as one book? When did this happen? Who made these decisions? Does this increase or decrease our confidence in the Bible as God’s word? These questions are answered in this week’s essay by Michael Kruger.

READ “The Biblical Canon” by Michael Kruger

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