Acts 2:17

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh: And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, And your young men shall see visions, And your old men shall dream dreams:

In the last days ... This refers to the Christian dispensation then beginning. The same thought occurs often in the New Testament. Note such passages as Hebrews 1:2,1 Peter 1:20, and 1 John 2:18. The day of Pentecost, therefore, ushered in the "last days"; but the meaning is compound. (1) Those were the last days in the sense of this being the final dispensation of God's grace to men, the same thought appearing in Mark 12:6. (2) Those were the last days in the sense that Israel's day of grace was running short. Their long and repeated rebellions against God were soon to culminate and become final in their rejection of Christ. (3) Those were last days in the sense that Jerusalem, the temple, and the Jewish state would be utterly destroyed before that generation died (in 70 A.D.). (4) Those were the last days in the sense that the prophecies of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-35) and others of a new covenant were fulfilled in the preaching of the gospel.

It is a gross error to suppose that the apostles all thought that the end of the world was at hand. Jesus had plainly told them that some of them were to be killed before Jerusalem fell, and that even the fall of the Holy City was but a type of "the end" that would come long, long afterward. See in my Commentary on Mark, under Mark 14:9.

The passage Peter here quoted from Joel Isaiah 2:28ff.

My Spirit upon all flesh ... The baptism of the Twelve in the Holy Spirit was the enabling act that would propagate the gospel throughout all times and nations, and it was for the benefit of "all flesh" that this endowment of the apostles was given. As De Welt expressed it, "The pouring forth of the Spirit upon all flesh was POTENTIALLY accomplished upon the day of Pentecost."[24]

The other things mentioned here, such as sons and daughters prophesying, young men seeing visions, and old men dreaming dreams, etc., refer to the gifts of miracles which, through the imposition of the apostles' hands, would bless and encourage the church during the apostolic period. Again from De Welt, these things can be "understood as the spiritual gifts imparted by the apostles."[25]

[24] Don DeWelt, op. cit., p. 42.

[25] Ibid.