Concerning which salvation prophets, who have prophesied of the grace towards you, sought out and searched out;
Peter has just spoken about a salvation that comes through faith. Now he looks back at the prophets of Israel: they wrote about that same salvation, then had to search their own words to find it.
The salvation the prophets announced was not a vague hope. It was tied to one person, and it was never a reward for works.
"Salvation" was identified with the coming and work of the Messiah. Believers understood little, if anything, of how it would happen. But they had no doubt about the saving grace that would then be shown. They looked forward to the coming day as the goal of their hopes, when the Messiah would establish salvation fully and for ever. How clearly it is "grace," and not of works that human nature could boast in. Salvation is not a matter of birthright, nor of personal merit, but of grace.
God spoke through the prophets, but they still did not grasp all they had said. Their searching shows where the words came from.
Their prophesying did not remove the need or the value of careful research; it stimulated it. The honour of prophesying did not spare the men who held it. They still had to seek and search earnestly to understand what they were given to predict out of the fullness that is in God... No incidental fact proves more clearly that prophecy was not of man's will, nor a clever human guess, but of God. He spoke or wrote by His servant in the Spirit. The prophet still had to sift it carefully to understand what he had spoken from God. Salvation was a rich blessing from God. It went beyond all they already held in privilege, and it was bound up with the Messiah's day, which God alone let prophets foresee. But they still had to weigh and examine what they prophesied deeply, to make it truly their own.
Two pictures of the Messiah sat side by side in their own writings. God did not clear up the puzzle. He told them something else instead.
The prophets sought and searched into these writings — into the very writings, it seems, that they had themselves written under the control of the Spirit of God... They wanted to reconcile the apparently contradictory pictures of a Messiah whose path to the glory ran through suffering... God, in His wisdom, kept the true meaning of these things from them; but in His goodness He told them that they had been privileged to minister to a generation still to come.
The wording marks a real gap. The prophets wrote before the cross, and so before this salvation.
As to the salvation of souls, not even the prophets in the Old Testament could say they were saved. By the power of the Spirit of God they wrote in advance about such a salvation. But they enquired and searched hard into the full meaning of their own writings, and into the salvation still to be revealed — the grace that was to come to believers in the present age. They too will be in heaven, by grace through faith and on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ. Yet they did not then know the salvation of their souls, because Christ had not yet died to bring that salvation about. This is a truth that could not have been taught before His death.
The gap also shows in how the Spirit worked in each age.
Believers today all share this deliverance of the soul. For the prophets of the past age it was still a matter of enquiry. It is called "the grace that should come to you" — that is, it had not come in the previous age... Then predicted by the Spirit; now reported by the Spirit.
The ESV reads that phrase as "the grace that was to be yours."
Their limited grasp of their own words leaves the reader with a reason for thanks.
How little, it seems, the Old Testament prophets understood their own prophecies! How much we are indebted to the Spirit who now reveals a Christ already come!
The salvation named here spans three moments. Only the last is still future.
The prophets foretold this coming glory in days past. The Holy Spirit preaches it in the present day. It will be fully accomplished in the day of glory yet to come.
- Searched — the prophets studied their own inspired words. That need to search proves the words came from God, not from themselves.
- Grace — the salvation they wrote of was tied to the Messiah's coming and work. It never rested on works.
- Delayed — Peter calls it grace still to come. The prophets could not call their souls saved before Christ died.
- For you — God hid the meaning from them, but told them they served a later generation. Readers now hold what the prophets only reached for.
- Three stages — foretold by the prophets, preached now by the Holy Spirit, and fully given at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which [was] in them pointed out, testifying before of the sufferings which [belonged] to Christ, and the glories after these.
The prophets who wrote Israel's Scriptures did not fully understand their own writing. Peter says a Spirit was at work in them who knew what they did not. That Spirit marked out two things in a fixed order: suffering first, then glory.
Peter's title for the Spirit is surprising. When the prophets wrote, the Son had not yet come as the Christ.
A mind was at work far beyond that of prophets, yet at work intimately in them; "the Spirit of Christ." The phrase is even more striking because the Son did not become the Christ until long afterwards. But what He was revealing pointed forward to that wonderful fact, and testified of Him beforehand in that character.
One writer draws a further conclusion about who spoke through the prophets.
Christ had not yet been revealed in the age gone by. Even so, the Spirit in the prophets, speaking through them, could be called "the Spirit of Christ." So Christ was the Speaker by His Spirit even in Old Testament days.
Prophecy did not start with the men who spoke it. They had to study their own writing.
The prophets served, but the source of their prophecies, spoken or written, was the Spirit. The Spirit in them testified through them. He was so truly the source of their words that they had to search their own sentences with care and ask what they meant. They found that the full meaning was beyond the grasp of the age they lived in.
Their ignorance, one writer argues, shows who the real author was.
No prophet knew the full extent or depth of his own inspired messages. This proved that God wrote through them far better than if they had known everything. Jeremiah or Isaiah, Daniel or Habakkuk may not have understood; the Holy Spirit knew it all from the beginning. So what they wrote went far beyond their own understanding, and made plain the mind of the One who used them.
The prophets searched for the person and the time the Spirit pointed to. The same writer notes what their visions did not show.
Apart from special revelations, the vision of coming deliverance given to them did not separate the time between the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. Perhaps we may safely say that none of them seems to have known beforehand that a long gap would come between the two events. Yet now that the gap has come, we can bring passages from the prophets to prove it.
The wording is exact. One writer builds a point on the difference between two small words.
Notice that the language used is unusually precise. The sufferings are said to be not merely "of" Christ, but "for" Him. They did not just happen to Him as a fact; they were appointed to Him. Just as the grace was towards you, so the sufferings were towards Christ.
The order is not accidental. One writer ties it to the state of the world Christ came into.
The moral order is completely according to God: first He must suffer. So we read in 1 Peter 1:11 of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. It must be so in a sinful world, for one who seeks not his own glory but God's, and the real and eternal good of man. It would be impossible to take the Kingdom while man is in a state of sin and rebellion.
Peter writes "glories" in the plural. That raises the question of where believers stand now.
The saints addressed, like all other Christians, stand between the sufferings that came to Christ and the glories that should follow. If not the whole glory, certainly the greater part of those revealed "glories" is still to come. The magnificent scenes of the last days plainly wait for His coming from the heavens. Then He will take the earth and the whole universe under His direct and visible rule.
That gap is not empty, and Peter's next verse names what fills it.
There are three steps here. First, the Spirit of Christ in the prophets testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and of the glories that should follow. Next, these things are now reported to us by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, that is, after Christ was glorified. Then we are to be ready for action. We are to hope to the end for the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. We stand between the sufferings and the glories.
- Between. The verse sets two fixed points: sufferings, then glories. Believers today live in the space between them.
- Speaker. Peter calls the Spirit who moved the prophets the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit spoke of the Son under a name He would bear only long afterwards.
- Searching. The prophets studied their own words and found the meaning ran past them. That is the strongest proof that God, not they, was the author.
- Appointed. Christ did not merely undergo the sufferings. They were appointed to Him.
- Order. Glory could not come first in a sinful world. Suffering had to come before the Kingdom, and the greater part of the glories still waits for His coming.
To whom it was revealed, that not to themselves but to you they ministered those things, which have now been announced to you by those who have declared to you the glad tidings by [the] Holy Spirit, sent from heaven, which angels desire to look into.
Peter has just described prophets searching their own writings. Here is what they found: the message pointed past their own day to us, and three groups now stand around it — prophets who searched, preachers who announced, and angels who long to look in.
The prophets did not simply write and move on. They studied their own words, and God gave them a further answer.
The ancient prophets studied their own prophecies. The Holy Spirit then acted again, to make them understand what those prophecies meant. They then found that it was not for themselves, but for us, that they ministered these things.
Daniel is a plain example. God sealed his message until a later day:
They searched out what was in their own writings. What they wrote was not measured by their own understanding. The Spirit of Christ carried them far beyond anything that may have prompted their prophecies. The answer they got to their searching was simply this: they were speaking of things that belonged to others, not to themselves. Daniel is a plain example. What God gave to him was "shut up and sealed until the time of the end."
If the meaning was always there, why did God not explain it at the time?
1 Peter 1:12 is in principle the inspired answer. Christ came and died for us, and then gave the Spirit when He ascended. That was the right time, and the right way, to teach plainly everything the pictures had wrapped up. They were wrapped up, but never uncertain. God declares it after 1500 years, and we can see it was His intention all along. The truth then comes out with all the more force as coming from God.
The same Spirit works in both eras, but not in the same way.
The apostles and others preached the Gospel to us by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. What they now report to us is what was only prophesied before. Then predicted by the Spirit; now reported by the Spirit. Then the Spirit was in the prophets for the purpose of inspiration, but now the Spirit is sent down from heaven.
What the Spirit now does for the believer goes beyond carrying a message forward to a future date.
The Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven at Pentecost is not giving a prophetic testimony to Jesus as then. Given to the Christian, He is a Spirit of present communion. That was not possible, and could not be, until Christ had come and accomplished redemption.
Israel's tabernacle had two golden angel figures, the cherubim, bending over the lid of the ark. One writer sees the same posture in this verse, and asks what held their gaze.
Their posture reminds us of 1 Peter 1:12: "things into which angels long to look." It is as though they were gazing in wonder and worship at the cover of the ark, the mercy-seat. That cover lay over the tablets of the law, so the cherubim were not gazing at the law... It is the blood on the mercy-seat that fixes the gaze of these ministers of justice and judgment.
Angels are not all-knowing, and that is part of why they watch.
Their intelligence is finite. So when God reveals what has been hidden for ages in His mind, it gives them something to think about. They watch His plans unveiled step by step before their eyes... There they learn God's will for them, and the service He wants them to give to the heirs of salvation. They also learn God's mind and purpose about His Son.
Angels wonder at the sacrifice of Christ from the outside. Someone else is brought inside it.
We know that they desire to look into these things (1 Peter 1:12)... But this is not given to angels. It is given to men — prodigals brought back to God in righteousness through that sacrifice. They enter into its meaning and have communion with God about it. They can do so because God has given the Holy Spirit to men who believe.
That nearness comes with a rebuke.
These angels bend down to look into the very things we have been brought into close contact with. How they rebuke us for how little hold those things have on us, even at our best!
- Searched. The prophets studied their own writings. God's answer was clear: the message belonged to a later generation, not to them.
- Timed. The long wait was not God holding back. The death of Christ, and then the gift of the Spirit, were the right moment to explain 1500 years of pictures.
- Sent. The Spirit once predicted these things from inside the prophets. Now He reports them as finished facts, sent down from heaven.
- Watched. Angels bend over this as the golden figures bent over the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat. Their knowledge is limited, and here they learn God's mind about His Son.
- Received. Angels look in from the outside. Forgiven people are brought inside. They understand the sacrifice and talk with God about it, because He has given them His Spirit.
Wherefore, having girded up the loins of your mind, [be] sober [and] hope with perfect stedfastness in the grace [which will be] brought to you at [the] revelation of Jesus Christ;
Peter has just described a great salvation. Now he turns from what God has revealed to how it should shape a life. The verse gives three commands: a ready mind, a sober judgment, and a hope fixed on the grace still to come.
The word "therefore" ties everything before it to how we live:
The apostle now insists on the effect all this is to have on practical life. The loins of the mind are to be girt up by the truth — the common figure for the activity called for from us, the result of a mind set on things unseen. The result is sobriety about the present. The rosy colour drains from the things around us, as it must when the glory is revealed and enjoyed.
The same point is put as a two-way pull: the Christian is shaped by where he came from and where he is going.
The practical life of the Christian is to be affected by what lies ahead, as also by what he has already been brought into by the present grace of God.
The ESV says "preparing your minds for action." An older wording is sharper: "gird up the loins of your mind." Kelly takes that picture back to the night Israel left Egypt.
The opening clause clearly points back to their forefathers at the first passover. "Thus shall you eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand." Could any words or actions give a more living picture? Here is a people sheltered from God's judgment, leaving the house of slavery in haste for a land flowing with milk and honey. … When people worked hard, they tucked up their garments instead of letting them hang loose, so the job could be done without anything in the way. So He would now have our hearts engaged, without wandering affections or distraction of mind.
William Kelly (ESV renders Exodus 12:11 "with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand.")
Peter girds the mind, not the body. One writer explains why that order matters:
Just as the pilgrim, the runner, has to gird up the loins of his body, so we must gird up the loins of our mind. And I would like to say that the thing for a pilgrim to be clear about is not first of all his walk, but his heart. It is the pilgrim heart that makes the pilgrim walk. If my heart and mind are girded up, then my feet will be in the right path, no question.
The word "sober" carries a picture with it.
"Being sober" is our continuous duty. The picture, as everyone admits, comes from keeping clear of all drunkenness. For the Christian that means avoiding everything likely to excite the flesh or the spirit… The call in verse 13 rests on redemption we know as our own portion. We travel through a wilderness world, and our expectation should match what God has already given us in Christ.
Sobriety also decides how a Christian reads the world's promise of a golden age:
The Christian is also to be sober in his judgment about all that is going on in this world, not taken in by people's efforts to bring in a millennium without Christ.
Kelly says the older wording "hope to the end" is too weak for Peter's word.
"To the end," as older translations put it and as many still take it, falls short of what the adverb means… Translators probably shrank from linking perfection with a hope that so often wavers, and may also be vague and weak.
That confidence rests on what "hope" means in the New Testament:
Notice that the New Testament sense of hope is never uncertainty. It is certainty that is unripe or delayed. So confidence marks it as much as expectation… The world has its hopes, but they are so soaked in uncertainty that the word hope now means almost the same as doubt.
Peter calls what is still ahead grace — the same grace already known in Christ:
The grace to come is so blessed in itself, and so good even now for the soul, that he tells the saints to "hope perfectly"… The Spirit's aim seems to be to show that grace in its power, grandeur and blessedness. Then we see the coming glory as part of the grace we have known in Christ's death and resurrection for our souls, with the rest we await for our bodies… Perhaps none of Peter's readers hoped as surely for the grace still to come as for the grace already shown. But this scripture invites that hope, and urges it. Let us treat every shortfall in hope as a wrong done to His grace and truth.
Which coming does Peter mean?
Peter is not speaking here of Christ's coming for His saints. He means His later revelation in glory, when His grace will shine out marvellously in His own.
- Grace behind. The command starts with "therefore." Our daily life rests on what God has already given us in Christ.
- Grace girding. Truth tucks up the mind as a traveller tucks up a robe. The pilgrim heart makes the pilgrim walk.
- Grace sobering. Keep clear of whatever excites flesh or spirit — and of any hope for a world put right without Christ.
- Grace ahead. Bible hope is not a wish. It is certainty not yet ripe, so Peter asks for it "perfectly" — and we should treat every waver as a wrong done to His grace and truth.
- Grace revealed. The coming glory is itself grace. It arrives when Christ appears in glory, and His favour shines out in His own.