Prophets Are Not Just God’s Gramophone (Old Record Players)

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated, when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory.

The work was done by the prophets.  Peter is not preaching something new or different.  He is not diverting from the faith of their fathers and mothers.  That is the argument he is making for the Diaspora Jews.  What is this careful search and inquiry?

My mind jumps to the prophet Isaiah about this.  A lot of the prophetic passages tying into the life of Jesus are drawn from there.  I think of Christmas, Jesus as Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  I think of the passage of the Suffering Servant “by his stripes (whipped stripes) we are healed.”

This goes to the nature of prophesy.  The Old Testament prophets were not simply the mouth-pieces of God, serving as divine gramophones of whatever God wanted the people to hear.  No, their role was to interpret and present God’s message to the people at the various times of their faith.  Sometimes they presented tragedy (Lamentations of Jeremiah), sometimes judgment (Nathan to King David), sometimes they presented their own stories of mistrust and avoidance of God (Jonah). 

One thing they had in common was a concern for the Hebrews, God’s Chosen People, and what was needed for their continued blessing and grace from their God.  Such is the reason behind the New Testament as well.  We don’t simply call them prophets because they were not carrying God’s message, but rather they demonstrating God’s greatest message, Jesus, to the world, interpreting Jesus and his ministry for the needs of the world.

And each one, in their own time and circumstances, carried God's message to the people in the language and culture of their time and place.  It is from there, that Peter looks back on their work that points to the Risen Lord.

Of Prophets Predicting Grace to be Ours

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated, when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory.

It isn’t new.  Salvation is not new.  The prophets prophesied of the grace that was to come to the Jews of the Diaspora.  Note specifically what has been prophesied, “grace”.  Something to consider in personal bible study, the use of words by the biblical authors.  This grace for Peter’s audience has been prophesied about. 

What does Peter mean by grace?

“Grace” has only occurred one other time in Peter’s letter to date, at the very opening, “May grace and peace be yours in abundance.”  Go back over that last paragraph, the laying out of salvation and the gifts of God, and you will see the grace to which Peter refers.  So ‘grace’ is not something isolated in the prophets.  It is a whole package, “concerning salvation”.  It is all grace, grace from God, given, not earned, a gift from the Creator of the Universe.

Now, there isn’t the time in this blog to lay out the proofs of the Old Testament of the work, nature, and power of Jesus.  And this is not something Peter went and looked up for himself.  Searching out the prophets is a lesson from Jesus himself, before he went to heaven. 

From Luke 24: 44 Then he (Jesus) said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah^* is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses^* of these things.

And this is the thing that Peter is passing along in turn to the Jews of the Diaspora.

Answering Those Who Would Cut Jesus off from the Jewish Faith

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated, when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory.

“Concerning this salvation…”  In the last paragraph, Peter laid out the triumphant gifts of God, given through His mercy for the salvation of His people.  He spoke of the Jesus he knew, now gone up to heaven, but returning in triumph once again.  His argument is that the difficulties that the Diaspora Jews have endured by faith in Jesus will be well worth the reward of faithfulness in the time to come.

But now Peter is moving forward in his letter, unfolding the next logical step in his discussions of salvation.  What he has presented as ‘salvation’ is not a new teaching, according to Peter.  Rather, it can be tied back into the faith that the Jews come out of, the faith of what Christians label ‘the Old Testament’.  We will develop that in the coming days.

One very interesting thing about reading the epistles, the personal letters of faith, mostly by Paul, but also by Peter, James, John, and Jude, is to consider who each is replying to.  What do I mean?  This is a personal piece of correspondence.  It is a personal letter.  It is written for a purpose, to exhort and lift the spirits of the Jews in the regions that are mentioned at the beginning.  This presupposes that their spirits need lifting, that something is going on that is threatening to undermine their faith.

First, Peter goes through again the gifts of God for the people of God embodied in Jesus, grace, love, and salvation, among others.  So it is fair to assume opponents of the faith were questioning that Jesus was indeed sent by God.  But a second challenge here seems to be that Peter is not connected to the Jewish faith, but is, in fact, bringing something new, something different, changing what the Jews have from God.  If they can cut the roots of Peter’s teachings from the Jewish faith, these unnamed opponents could force this faith in Jesus to wither and die.

But Peter is going to deal with that.

 

Jesus is the Apex of God’s Plan

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated, when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory.

1 Peter 1: 10-11

Peter has laid out for the faithful what happened to Jesus.  He has placed it into the grand plan of God for our salvation.  He has set down its value, giving the Jews of the Diaspora the hope of the salvation which was preached to them.  Now, he is turning a corner, building on the foundation of God’s great plan of mercy and salvation by appealing to the “Bible”, the Holy Scriptures that the Jews have, as the proof that Jesus has always been the intended apex of God’s work.

Concerning this salvation,:  Peter is looking now to build on the concept of “salvation”, just outlined in the previous sentences.

the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours:  Now he looks back, to what we call the Old Testament, connecting what is happening now with what came before

made careful search and inquiry,: This is a citation of their care and authority in carrying out the work they wrote of.

inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated,: The Spirit has come upon this new generation at Pentecost.  Peter is looking to the Spirit that was on previous generations of faith.

when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ: Peter is placing a historic context for the suffering of Jesus, placing it in the Plan of God as revealed  in God’s work.

and the subsequent glory.: But the suffering of Jesus is not where the story ends.  The glory of Christ is part of the same prophetic story.

 

Take the Beat Down But Still Come Out Victorious

“Although you have not seen^* him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”  Vss. 8-9

God’s got a plan.  Peter has laid out that plan.  We might very well take a beat-down for believing in that plan.  But that is okay, Peter focuses us on understanding that the beat-down is proof to the genuineness of our faith.  Because, when we really believe, we have something magnificent, something even beyond words.

And it is so kicking that we love Jesus, we believe in Jesus, we rejoice in Jesus, even though we’ve never seen him, nor shall we see him in this life (unless he is to come back, God hear my prayer!)  There is a future being cast in this letter, one where we shall receive the full outcome of our faith, the complete salvation of our souls. 

But it is an outcome that starts now.  The joy is already something we can aspire to, something we can touch, something we can experience.  Maybe if the Seahawks had run the football in those last plays of the Super Bowl, they would have achieved the joy of the victory that they were touching all the way through the game.  Jesus would have run the football. 

So here we are.  Peter has completed his introduction to his audience, recapped the history of salvation, celebrated the results of salvation, and reminded his audience of the joy of salvation.  From here, Peter goes on to tell us why we can latch on with such certainty to the promise of salvation.

Salvation: That’s The Word For This Whole Faith Thing!

“Although you have not seen^* him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”  Vss. 8-9

So, this is what we call it.  The outcome of our faith, loving Jesus, believing in Jesus, the whole plan that God set into motion, the plan that Peter’s audience have undertaken trials on behalf of, it is all ‘the salvation of our souls.’  I say ‘our’ souls where Peter says ‘your’ souls, because this letter speaks to the Jews of the Diaspora but it also speaks to us.  If that were its purpose, it wouldn’t be in the Bible.

To the Jews in Peter’s audience, salvation of their souls is the fulfillment of the Messianic expectations.  There are so many perspectives to this.  The Messiah is the Second Adam and Eve, restoring the relationship with God that was messed up in Genesis 2 and 3.  The Messiah is the Son of David, Israel’s greatest king, coming to establish a perfect kingship.  The Messiah is Isaiah’s “Suffering Servant”,

⁴ Surely he has borne our infirmities
   and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
   struck down by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions,
   crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
   and by his bruises we are healed. (Is. 53:4-5)

So we spin back to the beginning of Peter’s words, giving us a new birth into a living hope, an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.  It is a salvation to be revealed in the last time, but one that begins in our lives now.

Pretty cool if you think about it.

Already Transcending the Fetid Swamp of Existence, but Not Yet Done

“Although you have not seen^* him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”  Vss. 8-9

“Jesus, the reason for the season”.  It irritates me that we have to go back to such basics to define Christmas.  There is desperation in this expression as Christmas gets taken up by the popular culture. 

We have not seen Jesus, we won’t see him now, but we will love him, we will believe in him and rejoice.  Such is the basic expression of our emotional connection to Jesus.  Rejoicing with indescribable and glorious joy, that comes from someplace.  We ‘are receiving’ the outcome of our faith.

We receive the full outcome of our faith at the end of time.  This is the ‘past, present, and implicit future’ in this sentence.  We have not seen Jesus, Jesus is not with us now, but still we love, still we believe, still we rejoice, all of which is the outcome of our faith that shall be brought upon us in the future. 

Peter has just spoken of surviving, and even thriving, in the trials that come upon us because of our faith.  The genuineness of our faith is revealed, the precious gold, which comes in full measure “in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

There is a great shorthand for this, the “already-not yet” of Jesus.  It is already here but it is not yet fully realized.  The joy is so powerful, we can taste it.  But, in this sinful world, we will get pulled back into the fetid swamp of humdrum existence.  Except the outcome of our faith can power us up to overcome the current sinful world for our Lord and for our community.