What is the Day of the Lord?

The Day of the Lord is a phrase that comes up throughout the Bible typically when prophets are talking about the end of the world.

So let’s start with a simple definition of what we’re talking about: The Day of the Lord is a time when God reveals his sovereignty and brings His justice over human power and human existence.

Now to fully understand this definition of the Day of the Lord, we first have to go back to the book of Genesis and begin to see where the story begins.

In the Beginning

The story of the Bible begins with God creating this amazing world, culminating in Him creating man and woman. As the crown of His creation, God gives this man and this woman power to have dominion or to rule over it on God’s behalf.

Consider Genesis 1:26: And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and every living thing that moves on the earth.”

The theological term for humanities job position is “vice-regents.” How regal does that sound?

However, as so happens with every royal family it seems, scandal ensues….

A mysterious creature called the serpent shows up in Genesis 3 and offers the man and the woman a promise to be like God if only they would disobey God. Questionable logic aside, in Genesis 3:5 the serpent says, “For God knows that when you eat of this fruit, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Essentially, what he tells the man and the woman is that you can define good and evil on your own terms and actually put your yourself in God’s place.

Which, of course is what they do.

In fact, the rest of the book of Genesis is about the resulting aftermath of this decision. Genesis is continuing cycles of broken relationships and violence that came from that one sinful act. The peace and harmony that God created has been shattered.

Everyone has to protect themselves and fight for survival.

Because whether its Cain killing Abel, whether it’s a guy named Lamech boasting that he murdered someone in Genesis 4, death entered into the world and people are using death as a weapon to gain power.

The Looming Tower

All of this violence and power leads to Genesis 11 and the building of a tower called Babel. Perhaps you remember this story from Sunday School? Everyone comes together to build a tower to try to elevate themselves to the place of God.

And here’s the sinister thing — history is now repeating itself. Because is happening is a repeat of the first sin in Eden but on a scale of incredibly larger size. At Babel, it isn’t two people but an entire culture redefining good and evil as if they were God.

So, God confuses their language and scatters them.

And this is something to remember — from this point on in the Bible, Babel or Babylon becomes a metaphor that represents humanities corporate rebellion against God.

The Exodus

The next time we see this redefinition of good and evil in the story of the Bible is in the book of Exodus. In terms of location in the Bible, Exodus is of course right after Genesis. Not much time passes before this problem pops again so its safe to say that this is going to be a recurring theme until it is dealt with.

Well, what happens is that Pharaoh feels threatened by the Israelites and he starts killing the baby boys and enslaving the Israelite people.

This is truly evil stuff.

Now notice what is happening. History is repeating itself again. Egypt is taking care of themselves at the expense of others by redefining evil as good.

Like before at Babel and Eden however, God is not going to stand by while this happens. God rises up against Egypt and Pharaoh’s evil. He brings justice to His people and liberates them from their oppressors. So after the plagues and the Red Sea crossing, the Israelites are free and they begin to sing a song about how God is their warrior.

This is Exodus 15:3: The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name.

In the next verses, they proceed to recount how God saved them from evil Egypt as they crossed the Red Sea. Now, this is really an important moment in the story because they started to refer to this moment when God rescued them from Egypt as “the day.”

They begin to call this “the Day of the Lord.”

The day when God saved them from a corrupt, evil oppressor.

So now, after that day at the Red Sea, the Israelites commemorated and celebrated what God did for them with a symbolic meal with a sacrificial lamb that’s called Passover.

New Enemies and New Threats

Eventually, Israel comes into its own land with its own judges and kings and begins to face new enemies. Being a relatively small nation situated at the crossroads of the rise and fall of many great world empires always brought danger. There was always the threat of raiding, pillaging and invasion.

Because of this danger, the past Day of the Lord at the Red Sea began to generate hope that God will bring the Day of the Lord again and that He will save Israel from these new enemies and new threats.

A Confusing Turn

Meanwhile, as Israel was settling into its new land, out in the hills was a shepherd named Amos. Amos wrote a book of the Bible called…wait for it…Amos.

Amos was appointed by God as a prophet to announce some rather shocking news — God was bringing the Day of the Lord again against His enemies…but this time the Day of the Lord was coming against Israel.

What? Let me explain.

What happened was that as Israel settled into their new land, just like Adam, Eve, Babel, and Egypt before them, Israel’s leaders had also redefined good and evil for themselves resulting in corruption and violence.

As sin always does, it twists and corrupts and in a sick irony the oppressed became oppressors.

Now Babel seems like a trap that no one can escapes.

So the Day of the Lord does indeed come upon Israel. They are conquered, taken captive and exiled to, ironically of all places, Babylon. And from that point forward, even after their exile ends, Israel suffers under the continual rule of oppressors and foreign empires.

Enter: The Second Adam

This reality of oppression and foreign empire was the world that Jesus was born into.

When Jesus came to earth, the oppressive empire over Israel was Rome.

So the question now is what is going to happen? Is God going to save His people by freeing them from Rome as He freed them from Egypt? Just take them out? Is that what the Day of the Lord will finally look like.

No.

Because, Jesus knew the real enemy was that mysterious serpent that started this whole thing in the Garden. The same evil that lured Babel, Egypt, Israel, Rome, and all of humanity that has given into evil’s promise of power.

The vision behind the nightmares. The source of all evil in the world

This is what Jesus resisted alone in the wilderness when He was tempted to exploit His power for His own self-interest. Consider Matthew 4:8 when Jesus is being tempted: “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms fo the world and their glory. And he said to him,, “All these I will give you , if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone Satan.”

So Jesus did what the first Adam could not — Jesus unmasks Satan for who he really is.

And during His ministry, He began to confront the affects of this evil on others. He also said that He was going to Jerusalem for Passover for a final showdown, to confront this ancient evil by dying.

Jesus was going to let evil exhaust all of its power on Himself using its only real weapon — death. Jesus overcame evil by becoming the Passover Lamb and giving His life for us.

And then something changed.

When Jesus defeated evil, He opened up a new way for anyone to escape from Babel or Babylon and discover this new way of forgiveness and being human.

The Present Future

Now of course the power of evil is still alive and well. we keep building new versions of Babel or Babylon. That’s why throughout the New Testament, writers like Paul, Peter and John still talk about a coming Day of the Lord when God finally reveals His sovereignty over human power and human existence.

Revelation is the book of the Bible that points to the future and the final Day of the Lord, when God’s Kingdom comes to confront Babylon the Great, this image of all the corrupt nations of the earth.

This is what we call Armageddon, final judgment — the final Day of the Lord where God reveals His sovereignty over human power and human existence.

And in the book of Revelation, how is Jesus going to finish off evil?

Well its not what you would expect.

Throughout most of Revelation, the victorious Jesus isn’t present but rather is symbolized by a sacrificial, bloody Lamb. And when Jesus does arrive at the end in Revelation 19 to confront evil, He’s bloody before the battle even starts.

Why?

The reason for this is because Jesus isn’t out for our blood. Rather, He overcame with His blood when He died for us, His enemies, in our place. He’s riding on a white horse and He’s got a sword in His mouth which is a symbol for Jesus’ power to define good and evil and hold us accountable when He brings final justice once and for all.

Cool Story. So What?

To put it all together, the Day of the Lord means two things

• One, it means justice: God’s justice will have the final word. Evil and oppressors will be held accountable and they will be judged.

• Two, it’s a promise: God will one day free us and our world from violence and corruption and hurt and pain and bring about the new world that He has in store. Justice is coming. Peace and harmony will be restored. And God will once again reveal His sovereignty over human power and human existence.

That is the story that we are living in and it is what we are looking forward to.