The Great and the Terrible Day

God’s waiting is long, but it is not endless. The same prophets who said “slow to anger” also said that a day is coming, and they gave it a name that has not softened with time.

Joel’s Day

Joel, who called the people to rend their hearts, also saw what lies at the end of the waiting.

Joel 3:4-5 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the day of the LORD, the great and the terrible. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be delivered; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

(YLV verse numbers, Masoretic order)

Before that day comes, the sun is turned to darkness and the moon to blood, and Joel names the day with two words, gadol and nora (גָּדוֹל וְנוֹרָא), great and terrible. Joel does not describe it as a passing trouble. He describes it as the day of the LORD Himself.

And yet in the very next verse, before the day has come, the door is still open: “everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be delivered.” On the day of Pentecost, Peter quoted these same verses in Jerusalem and ended them with the same promise: “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Even the prophecy of the terrible day carries the invitation inside it.

The Last Words of the Prophets

The book of Malachi closes the prophets, and its last verses speak of the same day.

Malachi 3:23-24 Behold, I send to you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the day of the LORD, the great and the dreadful. And he shall turn the heart of fathers to children, and the heart of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with utter destruction.

Malachi names the day with the same two Hebrew words, gadol and nora, which the YLV gives here as “great” and “dreadful.” And again, before the day arrives, God sends someone: Elijah the prophet, whose work is to turn, for “he shall turn the heart of fathers to children, and the heart of children to their fathers.” The verb is heshiv, from shuv שׁוּב shoob, the same turning that Ezekiel called for when he cried, “Turn, turn.”

The last words of the prophets are a warning given in love. They tell what will happen if no one turns: “lest I come and strike the land with utter destruction.” But they are spoken before the day, not after it, and they send a messenger ahead to turn hearts while there is still time. The patience and the warning are one act of God.

A Day Fixed

When Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus in Athens, in a city full of idols, he told them the same thing in words they could understand.

Acts 17:30-31 Therefore having overlooked the chronos χρόνος khron'-os(chronological-time)s of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should metanoein(repent, spiritual domain), because He has fixed a day in which He will krino κρίνω kree'-no(judge) the world in dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness) through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."

For a long time God had overlooked the times of ignorance and let the nations walk in their own ways; that was the waiting. But now He calls all people everywhere to metanoein, to repent, and the reason is the day on which He “will krino(judge) the world in dikaiosyne(righteousness).”

“He has fixed a day.” The day is not a vague possibility. It is set, and the One who will judge has been appointed, and God has given proof of it by raising Him from the dead. God’s patience is not an open-ended delay: His love holds back the day in order to save as many as possible, but the day itself is fixed.

The Souls Under the Altar

The book of Revelation shows this tension from an unexpected side: from the side of those who have suffered.

Revelation 6:9-11 And when He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the psychai(souls) of those slaughtered on account of the logos λόγος log'-os(word, message) of God and on account of the testimony of the Lamb which they held. And they cried out with a great voice, saying, "How long, O Master, the Holy and alethinos ἀληθινός al-ay-thee-nos'(True, Genuine), will You not krino(judge, pronounce judgment) and avenge our blood from those dwelling on the earth?" And a white robe was given to each of them, and they were told to rest yet a chronos(chronological-time) until both their fellow servants and their brothers — those about to be killed as they were — should be complete.

The souls of the slain are under the altar, where the blood of the offerings was poured out at its base, and they cry out to the Master, “the Holy and alethinos(True, Genuine),” asking how long it will be before He judges and avenges their blood.

This is not the cry of the wicked asking for more time. It is the cry of the righteous asking for justice. They know that God is holy and true, and that a holy and true God must judge. They are not wrong to ask.

And still the answer is to wait. Each of them is given a white robe and told to rest a while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers, those about to be killed as they were, is complete. Even here, even for the martyrs, the day waits until the number is full.

Then, at the opening of the next seal, John sees what Joel saw:

Revelation 6:12 And I saw when He opened the sixth seal, and a great earthquake occurred, and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood,

The sun becomes black as sackcloth and the whole moon like blood, as Joel foretold. The great and terrible day of Joel stands at the end of the waiting of the fifth seal. The delay and the day come one after the other.

The patience that Peter said was waiting for more to reach repentance is the same patience the martyrs are asked to share. They are not told that their blood does not matter, and they are not told that the judgment will not come. They are told that it is not yet, because the number is not yet complete.

One God

It would be easy to read the last few chapters as if there were two Gods: one who is patient, who weeps, who swears He takes no delight in death, and another who fixes a day and strikes the land. Scripture will not allow that reading. The name proclaimed to Moses held both together: “long of nostrils, and abundant in lovingkindness,” and “clearing he will not clear.” The Son who wept over Jerusalem foretold its fall in the same breath.

The love that waits and the justice that comes belong to one God. The waiting does not soften His justice. And the day is not a failure of His love; it is the moment when a holy and true God does what holiness and truth require. A reader who feels both at once, and is troubled by it, is reading Scripture rightly.

That leaves the deepest question of all. If God is righteous and “will not clear” the guilty, and if the day is fixed, how can any guilty person be saved? Scripture does not leave this unanswered. The answer lies in a soul poured out, and in blood.