Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 2:32

"And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as Jehovah hath said, and among the remnant those whom Jehovah doth call." — Joel 2:32 (ASV)

Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord – To call upon the name of the Lord is to worship Him as He is, depending upon Him. The name of the Lord expresses His True Being, what He is. Hence, so often in Holy Scripture, people are said to call on the Name of the Lord, to bless the Name of the Lord, to praise the Name of the Lord, to sing praises to His Name, to make mention of His Name, to tell of His Name, to know His Name.

However, it is very rarely said, I will praise the Name of God (Psalms 69:31; Hebrew), for the Name rendered “the Lord” expresses that He is, and that He Alone is, the Self-Same, the Unchangeable; the name rendered “God” is not the special Name of God.

Hence, as soon as people were multiplied and the corrupt race of Cain increased, people began, after the birth of Enos, the son of Seth, to call upon the Name of the Lord (Genesis 4:26), that is, in public worship.

Abraham’s worship, in the presence of the idolatries of Canaan, is spoken of under the same words: he called upon the Name of the Lord (Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:4; Genesis 21:33; Genesis 26:25). Elijah says to the prophets of Baal, call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the Name of the Lord (1 Kings 18:24). Naaman the pagan says of Elisha, I thought that he would come out to me, and stand and call on the Name of the Lord his God (2 Kings 5:11).

Asaph and Jeremiah pray to God: Pour out Thy wrath upon the pagan that have not known Thee, and upon the kingdom (families Jerome) which have not called upon Thy Name (Psalms 79:6; Jeremiah 10:25). And Zephaniah foretells the conversion of the pagans, that they may all call upon the Name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent (Zephaniah 3:9).

To call then upon the Name of the Lord implies right faith: to call upon Him as He is. It implies right trust in Him, leaning upon Him; right devotion, calling upon Him as He has appointed; and right life, as we who call upon Him are, or become by His Grace, what He wills.

They do not call upon the Lord, but upon some idol of their own imagining, who call upon Him as other than He has revealed Himself, or who remain themselves other than those whom He has declared that He will hear. For such people deny the very primary attribute of God: His truth. Their God is not a God of truth.

But whoever shall in true faith, hope, and charity have worshiped God in this life shall be delivered, that is, out of the midst of all the horrors of that Day, and the horrible damnation of the ungodly.

The deliverance is by way of escape (for such is the meaning of the word: he shall be made to escape, to slip through, as it were, perils as imminent as they will be terrible). Our Lord uses a similar word concerning the same Day: Watch ye therefore and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man (Luke 21:36).

Those who so call upon Him in truth shall be heard in that day, as He says, Ask and it shall be given you; Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it you (Matthew 7:7; John 16:23).

: “That calling on God on which salvation depends is not in words only, but in heart and in deed. For what the heart believes, the mouth confesses, the hand in deed fulfills.

The Apostle says, No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3); yet this very saying must be weighed not by words, but by the afflictions. Thus, we read of Samuel, And Samuel among those who call upon His Name, and of Moses and Aaron, These called upon the Lord, and He heard them (Psalms 99:6).

For in Mount Zion ... shall be deliverance – Repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in the Name of Jesus, in all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). There, under the Old Testament, was the center of the worship of God; there the Church was founded; from there it spread over the whole world.

The place, whither the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord (Psalms 122:4)—where God had set His Name, where alone sacrifice could lawfully be offered—stands, as elsewhere, for the whole Church.

Of that Church, we are all in Baptism made members: members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of heaven. All remain members of that Church who do not, by wickedness of life or by rejecting the truth of God, cast themselves out of it.

They then are members of the soul of the Church who, though not members of the visible communion and society, do not know that in not becoming members of it, they are rejecting the command of Christ, to whom by faith, love, and obedience they cleave. And those who, being members of the body or visible communion of the Church, are not members of the soul of the Church are those who, amid outward profession of the faith, do in heart or deeds deny Him whom in words they confess.

The deliverance promised in that Day is to those who, being in the body of the Church, shall by true faith in Christ and fervent love to Him belong also to the soul of the Church; or who, although not in the body of the Church, shall not through their own fault have ceased to be in the body, and shall belong to its soul, in that through faith and love they cleave to Christ its Head.

As the Lord has said – By the prophet Joel himself. What he had said is not man’s word, but God’s; and what God had said shall certainly be. They then who have feared and loved God in this their day shall not need to fear Him in that Day, for He is the Unchangeable God, as our Blessed Savior says: heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away (Mark 13:31).

God had said of both Jews and Gentiles, united in one: Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His adversaries, and will be merciful to His land and unto His people (Deuteronomy 32:43).

And in the remnant – While foretelling His mercies in Christ, God also foretells that few they be that find them (Matthew 7:14). It is evermore a remnant, a residue, a body which escapes; and so here, the mercies should be fulfilled, literally, in the fugitives—in those who flee from the wrath to come.

All prophecy echoes the words of Joel; all history exemplifies them. Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, all foretell with one voice that a remnant, and a remnant only, shall be left.

In those earlier dispensations of God—in the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; in His dealings with Israel himself at the entrance into the promised land, the return from the captivity, the first preaching of the Gospel, the destruction of Jerusalem—a remnant only was saved.

It is said in tones of compassion and mercy that a remnant should be saved. The remnant should return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God (Isaiah 10:20; Isaiah 6:9–13, etc.). Isaiah also says, The Lord of hosts shall be for a crown of glory to the residue of His people (Isaiah 28:5), and, The Lord shall set His Hand to recover the remnant of His people which shall be left (Isaiah 11:11; see also verse 16).

Jeremiah proclaims, I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries whither I have driven them (Jeremiah 23:3), and urges, Publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save Thy people, the remnant of Israel (Jeremiah 31:7). Ezekiel similarly records God’s promise: Yet I will leave a remnant, that ye may have some that escape the sword among the nations (Ezekiel 6:8), and, Therein shall be left a remnant which shall be brought forth (Ezekiel 14:22).

Micah declares, I will surely gather the remnant of Israel (Micah 2:12; Micah 5:3, 7-8), and asks, Who is a God like Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? (Micah 7:18). Zephaniah affirms, The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity (Zephaniah 3:13). And Zechariah states, The residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city (Zechariah 14:2).

It is then a summary of the declarations of the prophets when Paul says, Even so, at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (Romans 11:5, 7).

And so the prophet says here:

Whom the Lord shall call – He had said before, whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be delivered. Here he says that they who should so call on God shall themselves have been first called by God.

So Paul writes, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Corinthians 1:2). It is all of grace.

God must first call by His grace; then we obey His call and call upon Him. And He has said, call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me (Psalms 50:15). God accounts our salvation His own glory.