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.