<p>2:21<i>And it shall be that whoever</i><i>- </i>It seems that the early brethren chose to understand the Lord&rsquo;s universal commission as meaning going out to preach to Jews of all nations, and they saw the response of Acts 2 as proof of this. And yet &ldquo;all nations&rdquo; is used about the Gentiles in all its other occurrences in Matthew (4:15; 6:32; 10:5,18; 12:18,21; 20:19,25). Such intellectual failure had a moral basis- they subconsciously couldn&rsquo;t hack the idea of converting Gentiles into the Hope of Israel. They allowed themselves to assume they understood what the Lord meant, to assume they had their interpretation confirmed by the events of Acts 2&hellip; instead of baring themselves to the immense and personal import of the Lord&rsquo;s commission to take Him to literally all. We too can read Scripture and assume we understand it, and thereby skip over massive implications for us.</p><p><i>Shall call on the name of the Lord- </i>Joel 2:32 seems to prophesy of multitudes calling upon the name of the Lord in the &lsquo;last days&rsquo;. The preliminary fulfilment of this in Acts 2:21 must surely be repeated in the ultimate &lsquo;last days&rsquo;. And it may be that it is multitudes of Diaspora Jews who respond, as it was in Acts 2&hellip; The description of &quot;the remnant&quot; being saved out of Jerusalem and mount Zion, the temple mount, may mean that they go into the temple area in the last days to seek safety as the Jews did in AD70, and this is where they are at the moment of the Lord's intervention.&nbsp;Joel 2:32 must have had its primary fulfilment in the redemption of this remnant, and it therefore has an application to the salvation of the latter-day Jewish remnant out of Arab-occupied Jerusalem:&nbsp; &quot;Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord (i.e. truly pray for deliverance in faith, perhaps through calling upon themselves the Lord's name through baptism into Christ) shall be delivered:&nbsp; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem (cp. 2 Kings 19:30,31 for the&nbsp; mention of those two terms) shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said (through Isaiah and his prophets), and in the remnant...&quot;.&nbsp;This passage is quoted in a different context in Acts 2:21 and Rom. 10:13, but this does not preclude its application to the faithful remnant in Jerusalem in the last days.&nbsp;This New Testament usage is regarding how a convert should eagerly call upon himself the Lord's salvation/deliverance from sin in Christ. This should therefore be done with the same sense of urgency and desperate intensity as the persecuted remnant of the last days will do, like their counterparts within Jerusalem in Hezekiah's time.</p><p><i>Shall be saved</i>- The quotation from Joel has spoken of an outpouring of Spirit gifts, followed by a time of trouble in the land, and then the coming of the great day of the Lord. The immediate context of this offer of salvation was therefore regarding saving from the destruction which was to come upon Israel and Jerusalem specifically. Peter later appealed for people to believe in the Lord Jesus in order to save themselves from the judgment to come upon that wicked generation (:40).</p><p>When Peter was sinking, he was living out the picture we have of condemnation at the last day. When we read that he began to &ldquo;sink&rdquo; into the sea of Galilee, this is exactly the image we find in Mt. 18:6, where the Lord says, in response to the question &lsquo;Who will be the greatest?&rsquo;, that he who offends one of the little ones will be drowned s.w. &ldquo;sink&rdquo; in the midst of the sea, His audience would have immediately associated this with the midst of the sea of Galilee, just where the storm had occurred. Peter seems to have realized that this warning was pertinent to him, for it is he who then interrupts the Lord to ask how often he should forgive his brother (Mt. 18:21). Peter sinking into Galilee, giving up swimming but desperately throwing up his hand to the Lord you don&rsquo;t swim with a hand outstretched, is the position of each person who truly comes to Christ. This is the extent of our desperation; baptism, conversion to Him, is most definitely not a painless living out of parental expectations. Note how they were &ldquo;tossed&rdquo; or &lsquo;tormented&rsquo; (Gk.) by the raging waves (Mt. 14:24)- the very same word is used about how the rejected will be &ldquo;tormented&rdquo; in condemnation (Rev. 14:10; 20:10). Peter&rsquo;s salvation by the hand of the Lord was representative of us all. As he drowned there in the lake, he was effectively living out the condemnation of the last day. But he appealed urgently to the Lord: &ldquo;Save me&rdquo;. Later, Peter was to use the same words in his preaching, when he appealed to his nation to &ldquo;save themselves&rdquo; by calling on the name of the Lord, just as he had done on the lake (Acts 2:40). He saw that those people were in just the position which he had been in on the lake.&nbsp;</p>