Our Salvation (1 Peter 1:10-12)

This sermon was preached on 27/3/2011

Peter, as he writes to the Christian exiles, reminds them that their salvation is not a new message. They had become exiles through responding to the gospel, and perhaps they faced the suggestion that their problems were connected to the claim that the message of Christianity was a novel one. It is certain that Jews opposed to the gospel would have made that accusation. We can imagine the content: ‘God’s Word says nothing about the message you hear and believe. You are followers of another faith and the prophetic promises have noting for you.’ In response to such an accusation, Peter explains what had been the response of the Old Testament contributors (vv. 10-12).

Peter’s words in our text deal with several issues that we can consider. The first is distortions of the message of the Old Testament, the second is how the three groups of God’s servants mentioned by Peter responded to the message, and the third is the central themes of the Old Testament, summarised as the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Distortions of the message of the Old Testament

I suppose if we were to take a sample poll and ask the question, ‘What is the Old Testament about?’, several answers could be given. For example, some might say that the Old Testament describes the past and future of the Israelites, and that answer would be a common view today. What would Peter have made of that answer? Of course, he would have accepted that the Old Testament mentions important historical details of Israel’s past, but I suspect he would have disagreed that the Old Testament, in its prophetic passages, is mainly concerned with the future of the Israelites. We can read his disagreement in verses 10-12 – he makes it very clear that the prophecies of the Old Testament are concerned with Peter’s readers. Imagine how his readers would have responded when they heard his words. I think they would have searched the Old Testament with great desire.

Another answer that is sometimes given with regard to the Old Testament is that it is about law whereas the New Testament is about grace. Would Peter have accepted such a distinction? He would have accepted that some parts of the Old Testament were concerned with legal matters, such as various details of the Mosaic ceremonial and civil laws. But he would not have accepted that the Old Testament had a legalistic message, and he states very clearly in verse 10 that its message was concerned with the grace that was going to come to his readers.

What is grace? It is God’s merciful attitude to the undeserving. Peter’s readers would have agreed that they were unworthy of the salvation they had received. They knew that only a few years prior to Peter sending them his letter they were living in pagan darkness, worshipping the non-existent deities in the temples connected to their names. They would indeed confess, ‘We are so unworthy. We know that we had not heard the gospel. Still we could look up to the heavens and recognise the handiwork of a great Creator. But instead of worshipping him as the Creator we chose to give the credit to an image that we created. In doing so, we demeaned in our estimation the greatness of God and revealed that we were so unworthy of his blessings. Nevertheless, the great Creator sent the gospel to us. That is real grace.’

A third answer as to what is the message of the Old Testament is that it is about a God of judgement as against the claim that the New Testament is about the God of love. Often those who argue this suggestion depict the prophets as fierce ranters who delighted in describing a God determined to punish. Of course, such a summary is a gross distortion. We only have to read some of the plaintive words spoken by God through these prophets to realise that their message was marked by compassion.

Peter would have also said that the message of the Old Testament is not only about judgement. He would have admitted that divine judgement was part of its message, but he would have also pointed out that there was much more, and he summarises that much more in verse 11 when he says that the message was about ‘the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories’. We will return and look at these phrases later, but we can easily see from them that there is more to the Old Testament than judgement.

A fourth answer that is sometimes given is that there was little of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Now it is true that a great change occurred in the church’s experience when the Day of Pentecost occurred. The Spirit came in a manner that was unknown previously. But his coming in that way should not make us conclude that he was not present with the messengers of the Old Testament. Peter reminds us that the Spirit was in the Old Testament prophets and that he spoke through them about Jesus.

What effect did the presence of the Spirit have on these Old Testament prophets? It had the same effect as it had on the New Testament apostles, which was that they wanted to know more about Jesus. Look at how Peter describes the response of these prophets: they ‘searched and inquired carefully’ about the promised Saviour. I suppose the searching refers to how they used the Old Testament portions they had, and inquiring refers to the way they prayed for understanding. True, they did not discover as much as can be known through the apostles, but the inability was not in their messages. The messages of the Old Testament prophets were full of Christ.

So the Old Testament is far from being unsuitable for Peter’s readers. Instead he makes it obvious that the Old Testament is actually God’s provision for his people, prepared for them long before they were born. How thankful they would have been to God for thinking so kindly about them when their forefathers were living in spiritual darkness. Peter tells his readers that Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles join hands in providing God’s people with the gospel.

Prophets, Apostles and Angels

Peter says that three distinct groups of the Lord’s servants are interested in the salvation that we have received. We have already noticed how the prophets ‘inquired and searched diligently’ into the meaning of their own predictions. Although they were guided by the Spirit as they spoke, they did not automatically understand what they were saying about the future Messiah. This is not surprising because their prophecies seemed contradictory – on the one hand he would suffer, and on the other hand he would reign for ever. Yet when they discovered that their prophecies were mainly for the benefit of others (Christians), they persevered in finding out more. And in that response they are a challenge to us to know about Christ’s sufferings and the glories that will follow.

The apostles are the ones Christ commissioned to spread the gospel. They did so with the help of the Holy Spirit. The astonishing aspect is that without the illumination of the Spirit the apostles did not fully understand the gospel. We can see this easily from the Gospels themselves. Yet when the Spirit came at Pentecost, we can see a marvellous development in their understanding of the Old Testament and they begin to apply its passages to Jesus. They encourage us to search the Bible, including the Old Testament, because it will be common to discover Jesus walking on its pages, and we will find out about his sufferings and the glories that follow.

The angels are said by Peter as ‘longing to look’ into this salvation. That translation could indicate that they are not allowed to look or that they will at some stage in the future be allowed to look. I don’t think Peter has either of these meanings in mind. Instead I suspect he says that they long to understand more about salvation but even they, with their exalted intelligences, still need divine instruction before they can understand the wonder of divine mercy. Their interest is all the more startling given that they themselves will not experience God’s grace in salvation.

Why do the angels look into salvation? Various answers can be given. Through observing the salvation of sinners, they discover wonderful things about God, especially his love and his mercy. They rejoice at seeing God worshipped in a way in which they cannot fully participate (we can see from Revelation 4 and 5 how they praise God alongside the redeemed, listening gladly to the songs of salvation). They love the people of God and they take care of them through their journey through life, waiting to take them across the river into the Father’s house, and delight to see them worshipping God throughout that journey. And they will come with the church when Jesus returns to judge the world (1. Thess. 4:13ff.).

The angels will be the companions of believers throughout eternity and will still delight to look into the significance of our salvation. I much enjoyed imagining the scene described by Spurgeon when preaching on this text: ‘Further, these dear attendants of our wandering footsteps here below, these patient guardians of our nightly hours, these angel guides, who shall be our companions in death when wife and child and friend can go no farther with us, these glorious beings shall learn, from our lips in heaven the manifold wisdom of God. They will cluster around us amazed and gladdened as, one by one, we stand upon the sea of glass; and they will ask us to rehearse again and again the wonders of redeeming love, and to tell them what conversion meant, and what sanctification meant, and how the power and wisdom and grace and patience of God were seen in the experience of each one of us; and we shall be their joyful teachers, world without end.’

So prophets, apostles and angels tell us that the most important things to study are the sufferings of Jesus and the glories that will follow.

The Central Theme of the Old Testament

Hundreds of themes can be discovered in the Old Testament. Many will come to your minds. Among them are what the Old Testament says about creation, what the Old Testament says about the origin of human languages, what the Old Testament says about the histories of the ancient empires of the world, what the Old Testament says about features and traits of important individuals who served God, and many more such topics. They are interesting, but they are not the central message of the Old Testament and we do it an injustice when we fail to see that its primary message is about the sufferings of Christ and the glories that will follow.

The sufferings of Christ were prophesied in detail. We only have to read passages such as Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 to see that is the case (they are examples of many passages in the Old Testament). Peter tells us how such detail was provided – it was given by the Holy Spirit. Isaiah and David did not spend a few years seeking for a suitable message, which they then passed on to others. Their words were not expressions of their own discoveries. Instead they were divinely inspired in what they said about Jesus and his sufferings and were able to go into detail about them.

The sufferings of Christ were substitutionary in nature. It is evident from passages such as Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 that Jesus suffered on behalf of others (it is also taught in the worship rituals of Israel which were pictures of his future sacrifice). The pain he endured was instead of others having to endure them. His sufferings were not only an example to others regarding how to persevered through them. Nor were they only the sufferings of one who has to perform heroic acts in order to bring benefits to others (similar to how a soldier endures suffering in order to defeat an enemy on behalf of his country). Instead the Old Testament prophets make it very clear that Jesus suffered peculiarly in a penal manner, that his sufferings were actually punishment for the sins of others. And the Old Testament makes it clear that the One who punished him instead of punishing others was his heavenly Father.

The benefits of the sufferings of Christ are for peoples of all nations. This was promised in the first prediction recorded in the Bible when God himself said that the great Deliverer’s heel would be bruised (Gen. 3:15). Psalm 22, which gives a marvellous entrance into the Messiah’s sufferings, tells us that the beneficiaries of it will come from ‘all the ends of the earth’ as they ‘turn to the Lord’ (Ps. 22:27). Through his death, they will receive pardon for their sins because he will have paid the penalty that God required of them.

The other part of the central theme of the Old Testament is the glories that will follow for Jesus. We know what they are because the New Testament reveals what was hidden in the Old Testament, although each of them can be found in the Old Testament: his resurrection, his ascension, his exaltation, his giving of the Spirit at Pentecost, his blessing the nations with the gospel, his return at the end of human history when he will raise from the dead those of his people who have died, the gathering of his people in his presence, his formation of the new heavens and new earth, and countless glories to follow. In fact, it will always be the case that there will be glories to come. They will be endless in number and experience.

Throughout the experiences of these glories, the capabilities of his followers to understand their significances will be expanded. Although we know more than the Old Testament believers did, the development is not the equivalent of going from primary one to secondary school. In a sense we are now in primary two, and ahead of us are endless experiences in which we will be enabled to understand more and more about Jesus. When we die, we will go to the next level; when the resurrection comes, we will go to the next level again; and we will continue to grow in our understanding of Jesus and his glories.

This is what the exiles from the homeland should be doing during their exile. We belong to the same diaspora as Peter’s readers, yet we have more than they had because we now have the complete Bible. I wonder what they would say to us if they could send us a message. Perhaps it would be a reminder how privileged we are, and how we can learn about Jesus from a whole Bible. Let us as exiles read the book that has been sent to us from the homeland and discover more of what it says about Jesus and his glories.