1 PETER 1:10–12
THE PROPHETS WANTED TO KNOW
10 Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:
11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.
12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.
— 1 Peter 1:10–12, KJV
Peter has just spoken about:
“the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
Now he says:
This salvation has a history.
It did not suddenly appear when Jesus was born.
God had been preparing for it and speaking about it through the prophets centuries earlier.
But Peter tells us something fascinating.
The prophets themselves did not completely understand everything they were announcing.
They:
“searched and inquired carefully.”
That tells us something important about both prophecy and how we should read the Old Testament.
“CONCERNING THIS SALVATION”
Peter begins:
“Concerning this salvation…”
Which salvation?
The one he has just described.
The salvation connected with:
new birth,
the resurrection of Jesus,
living hope,
an imperishable inheritance,
faith tested through suffering,
and final salvation still to be revealed.
Peter says the prophets had been talking about this salvation.
Christianity therefore does not begin on page one of the New Testament.
Its roots reach deeply into the story of the Old Testament.
“THE PROPHETS WHO PROPHESIED”
Peter does not identify particular prophets.
He speaks collectively:
“the prophets.”
We naturally think of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Zechariah, the Psalms, and the other prophetic writings that the New Testament repeatedly connects with Christ.
But Peter's emphasis is not upon making a list.
His point is that God's saving work in Christ had been anticipated long before Christ came.
WHAT IS A PROPHET?
We sometimes reduce prophecy to:
predicting the future.
Biblical prophets certainly sometimes spoke about future events.
But that was not their only function.
A prophet was fundamentally someone who spoke God's message.
Prophets:
called Israel back to covenant faithfulness,
condemned injustice and idolatry,
warned of judgment,
announced God's mercy,
and spoke of God's future purposes.
Sometimes those future purposes reached far beyond the prophet's own lifetime.
That is the aspect Peter emphasizes here.
“THE GRACE THAT WAS TO BE YOURS”
What did the prophets speak about?
Peter says:
“the grace that was to be yours.”
Think about who “you” are.
Christians scattered through:
Pontus,
Galatia,
Cappadocia,
Asia,
and Bithynia.
Many were apparently Gentiles.
Yet Peter says Israel's prophets had been speaking about grace that would eventually reach them.
That should make us think of promises such as God's word to Abraham:
“In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
— Genesis 12:3
God's purpose was always larger than one nation.
Israel had an indispensable role in that purpose.
But the blessing was ultimately intended to reach:
all nations.
THE PROPHETS “SEARCHED AND INQUIRED CAREFULLY”
This is one of the most fascinating statements in the passage.
The prophets:
“searched and inquired carefully.”
Think about that.
They had spoken God's message.
Then they studied what God had revealed.
Apparently inspiration did not mean that a prophet automatically understood every implication of everything he was inspired to say.
That is enormously important.
INSPIRATION DID NOT MEAN OMNISCIENCE
A prophet could faithfully communicate what God revealed without knowing everything God knew about it.
The message came from God.
But the prophet remained human.
He could ask:
When will this happen?
How will this happen?
Who exactly is being described?
Peter says they actually investigated these questions.
That gives us a fascinating picture:
The prophets became students of their own prophecies.
DANIEL IS A GOOD EXAMPLE
We can actually watch something like this happening in Daniel.
After receiving visions, Daniel sometimes struggled to understand them.
Daniel 8:27 says:
“I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it.”
Daniel 12 records him asking:
“O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?”
And he is told:
“Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.”
Daniel received revelation.
But Daniel did not automatically understand everything the revelation meant.
That fits Peter's description remarkably well.
“WHAT PERSON OR TIME”
What were the prophets trying to determine?
Peter says they were:
“inquiring what person or time…”
Translations differ slightly because the Greek expression can carry the sense of:
what time
or
what kind of circumstances/time.
The basic point is clear.
They wanted to know when and under what circumstances their prophecies would be fulfilled.
They knew something was coming.
They did not necessarily know when.
THIS SHOULD MAKE US HUMBLE ABOUT PROPHECY
If inspired prophets themselves had to search and inquire about the meaning and timing of prophecy, perhaps we should be cautious when someone today announces:
“I have calculated exactly what every prophetic number means and exactly when everything will happen.”
Peter's description encourages humility.
Prophecy may be completely true without every detail being immediately obvious to the person reading it before fulfillment.
Sometimes fulfillment provides the clarity.
“THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN THEM”
Now Peter makes an extraordinary statement.
The prophets were investigating what:
“the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating…”
Peter attributes their prophetic message to the Spirit of Christ.
That means Christ's relationship to the Old Testament did not begin at Bethlehem.
The Spirit associated with Christ was already at work through the prophets.
This fits Peter's larger picture.
The Old Testament and the gospel are not two unrelated stories.
The same divine purpose runs through both.
WHAT DOES “THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST” MEAN?
Peter could simply have said:
“the Spirit.”
Instead he says:
“the Spirit of Christ.”
Elsewhere the New Testament uses closely related expressions:
“the Spirit of God”
and
“the Spirit of Christ.”
Romans 8:9 even uses both expressions in the same verse.
Peter is not stopping to explain the theological relationship among Father, Son, and Spirit.
But once again we find very early Christian language placing Christ in an extraordinarily high divine context.
THE PROPHETS SPOKE BEFORE CHRIST CAME
Notice the timeline.
The prophets lived before Jesus' earthly ministry.
Yet Peter says:
“the Spirit of Christ in them…”
That is difficult to reconcile with the idea that Jesus first came into existence when He was born in Bethlehem.
Peter assumes Christ's existence and activity before the incarnation.
He does not explain it here.
He simply speaks that way.
“THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST”
What did the Spirit predict?
First:
“the sufferings of Christ.”
This is particularly important because suffering was one of the things Peter himself once could not understand.
At Caesarea Philippi Peter confessed:
“You are the Christ.”
Then Jesus began teaching that He would suffer and die.
Peter objected.
Peter believed in a Messiah.
But he had difficulty accepting a suffering Messiah.
Now the older Peter says:
The prophets had been pointing toward this all along.
WHERE DID THE PROPHETS SPEAK OF A SUFFERING CHRIST?
Peter does not give us a list here.
But the New Testament repeatedly sees Christ's suffering anticipated in passages such as:
Psalm 22
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Isaiah 53
“He was pierced for our transgressions…”
Zechariah 12:10
“when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced…”
And other passages are applied to Jesus' rejection, suffering, and death.
But we need an important rule here.
WE SHOULD READ THOSE PASSAGES IN THEIR OWN CONTEXT FIRST
Because the New Testament applies an Old Testament passage to Christ does not give us permission to ignore what that passage meant within its original setting.
Good Bible study asks two questions:
What did this text communicate in its original context?
Then:
How does the New Testament show its fulfillment or fuller significance in Christ?
Skipping the first question often leads to careless interpretation.
Stopping after the first question can cause us to miss what the apostles saw fulfilled in Jesus.
We need both.
“AND THE SUBSEQUENT GLORIES”
The prophets did not speak only about suffering.
Peter says they predicted:
“the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.”
Notice the order:
suffering first
then
glory.
That pattern is central to Peter's letter.
Jesus suffered before entering glory.
Peter's readers are suffering now and will share glory later.
Christ's story becomes the pattern by which Christians understand their own story.
SUFFERING BEFORE GLORY
Jesus repeatedly tried to teach His disciples this.
After His resurrection, Jesus told the disciples on the road to Emmaus:
“Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
— Luke 24:26
That is almost exactly Peter's sequence:
“the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.”
Peter had finally learned the lesson he resisted when Jesus first announced His death.
WHAT ARE “THE GLORIES”?
Peter uses the plural:
“glories.”
He does not list them here.
They could naturally include Christ's:
resurrection,
exaltation,
enthronement,
present authority,
and future revelation.
Peter has already spoken of Christ's resurrection.
Later he will say Jesus:
“has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”
— 1 Peter 3:22
The cross was not Christ's defeat.
It was followed by vindication and glory.
THIS PATTERN HELPS EXPLAIN 1 PETER
Why should suffering Christians keep trusting God?
Because they follow a suffering-and-glorified Messiah.
The pattern is:
suffering → glory
not:
faith → immediate comfort.
That difference is crucial.
Peter never promises that following Jesus will make life easy.
He promises something much greater.
The road through suffering does not end with suffering.
“IT WAS REVEALED TO THEM”
The prophets searched.
God answered.
But the answer was surprising.
Peter says:
“It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you…”
The prophets' messages reached beyond their own generation.
They certainly spoke to people in their own day.
But some dimensions of their message pointed toward events they would never live to see.
“THEY WERE SERVING…YOU”
Imagine being one of Peter's readers.
You are a Christian living somewhere in Asia Minor.
Your neighbors think your faith is strange.
Perhaps they mock you.
Perhaps your family does not understand you.
Perhaps you feel insignificant.
Then Peter says:
Isaiah was serving you.
The prophets were serving you.
They were announcing beforehand the grace that has now reached you.
That gives Peter's readers an astonishing place in God's story.
THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS NOT WRITTEN ONLY FOR ANCIENT ISRAEL
This does not mean its original audience did not matter.
It did.
The prophets addressed real people facing real situations in their own time.
But Peter says their message also reached forward.
Paul makes a similar point:
“For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction…”
— Romans 15:4
The Old Testament belongs in the Christian Bible because the story it tells leads forward into God's work in Christ.
“THE THINGS THAT HAVE NOW BEEN ANNOUNCED TO YOU”
Notice the contrast:
The prophets looked forward.
Peter's readers could look backward.
What the prophets anticipated had now been:
“announced to you.”
Something decisive had happened in history.
Jesus had come.
Jesus had suffered.
Jesus had risen.
The gospel was now being preached.
The age of anticipation had become the age of announcement.
“THROUGH THOSE WHO PREACHED THE GOOD NEWS TO YOU”
How did these Christians learn about Christ?
Someone told them.
Peter says the message came:
“through those who preached the good news to you.”
The Greek verb comes from the same word family from which we get evangelize and gospel.
The gospel is good news.
It is first an announcement about what God has done.
CHRISTIANITY SPREAD THROUGH TESTIMONY
Most of Peter's readers never saw Jesus.
Yet they loved Him.
How?
Someone carried the message to them.
That person had heard it from someone else.
Behind that chain stood the apostolic witnesses.
Christianity spread because people told other people:
Jesus is the Christ.
He died.
God raised Him from the dead.
He is Lord.
And that message reached Asia Minor.
Eventually it reached us.
“BY THE HOLY SPIRIT SENT FROM HEAVEN”
Peter now mentions the Spirit again.
Earlier:
“the Spirit of Christ” was in the prophets.
Now:
“the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” empowered the proclamation of the gospel.
Notice the continuity.
The Spirit who worked through the prophets also worked through those announcing Christ.
This is one story.
One God.
One saving purpose.
THE PROPHETS AND THE PREACHERS
Peter gives us a remarkable sequence:
The prophets predicted.
Christ suffered and was glorified.
The gospel preachers announced what happened.
Peter's readers believed.
The prophets looked forward.
The apostles looked back at what Christ had accomplished.
And Christians now live because that message reached them.
“THINGS INTO WHICH ANGELS LONG TO LOOK”
Then Peter ends with one of the most intriguing statements in the paragraph:
“things into which angels long to look.”
Even angels are interested in God's saving work.
The Greek verb translated look can suggest bending or stooping to look carefully into something.
It is used in John 20 when someone stoops to look into Jesus' tomb.
The picture is almost of angels leaning over to examine what God is doing.
DO ANGELS KNOW EVERYTHING?
Apparently not.
Peter says they:
“long to look.”
Angels are heavenly beings.
But they are not omniscient.
God is.
Angels themselves observe God's saving purpose unfolding.
Paul says something similarly remarkable in Ephesians 3:10: through the church God's manifold wisdom is being made known to:
“the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
God's work of salvation is so extraordinary that heavenly beings themselves observe it.
ANGELS ARE SPECTATORS OF A SALVATION THEY DO NOT EXPERIENCE AS WE DO
There is another possible implication.
Christ did not become an angel to redeem angels.
Hebrews says:
“Surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.”
— Hebrews 2:16
Angels observe something remarkable happening to humanity.
God's Son becomes human.
He suffers.
He dies.
He rises.
Human beings who rebelled against God are forgiven and brought into God's family.
No wonder angels:
“long to look.”
THINK ABOUT THE PRIVILEGE PETER IS DESCRIBING
The prophets wanted to know more about what was coming.
The angels want to look into what God is doing.
And Peter's readers are living inside the fulfillment.
People whom the Roman world might regard as insignificant possess something prophets searched for and angels contemplate.
That completely changes the way Peter wants them to see themselves.
PROPHECY LOOKS DIFFERENT FROM THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS
There is an important lesson here for studying prophecy.
We sometimes approach prophecy primarily asking:
What hasn't happened yet?
Peter reminds us to ask another question:
What has already been fulfilled in Christ?
The prophets searched for the time when:
the sufferings of Christ and the glories afterward
would occur.
Peter says those things had now been announced in the gospel.
A large part of biblical prophecy therefore points not first to our future, but to Christ's coming, suffering, resurrection, and glory.
That needs to shape the way we read prophetic Scripture.
DON'T MOVE CHRIST OUT OF THE CENTER
Prophecy can become a playground for speculation.
People can become fascinated with:
dates,
numbers,
wars,
political leaders,
maps,
charts,
and predictions.
Yet Peter summarizes the prophetic expectation around:
“the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.”
Christ is the center.
If our study of prophecy leaves us fascinated with everything except Jesus, something has gone wrong.
TEXT BEFORE TRADITION
Peter tells us something important about how revelation works.
The prophets spoke by the Spirit.
Yet they still:
“searched and inquired carefully.”
That means receiving revelation did not make them all-knowing.
Their words could carry implications larger than they completely understood.
But that does not give us permission to make prophecy mean anything we want.
Peter identifies the center toward which the prophetic message was moving:
Christ.
His sufferings.
His glory.
The gospel.
The salvation now announced.
That is where the apostles tell us to look.
QUESTIONS WORTH THINKING ABOUT
If the prophets themselves “searched and inquired carefully,” what should that teach us about humility when studying difficult prophecy?
Do we sometimes expect prophecy to function mainly as a timetable when Peter presents it primarily as pointing toward Christ's sufferings and glory?
When we read an Old Testament prophecy, do we first ask what it meant in its original setting before asking how it points forward?
What does “the Spirit of Christ in them” tell us about Christ's relationship to the Old Testament?
Why did Peter emphasize suffering before glory to Christians who were themselves suffering?
If angels “long to look” into God's saving work, have we become too familiar with the gospel to recognize how extraordinary it is?
And perhaps the biggest question:
When I read biblical prophecy, am I looking primarily for Jesus—or primarily for something that satisfies my curiosity about the future?
THE HEART OF 1 PETER 1:10–12
Peter's readers might have felt like insignificant outsiders scattered across the Roman world.
Peter tells them something astonishing:
The prophets were looking forward to the salvation you now possess.
The Spirit of Christ was pointing toward the suffering and glory of the Messiah you now follow.
The gospel has announced that fulfillment to you.
And even angels want to look more deeply into what God has done.
These Christians were not standing at the edge of God's plan.
They were living in the fulfillment of something God had been announcing for centuries.
And that brings us to Peter's first great “therefore” in verse 13.
After twelve verses telling Christians what God has done, Peter begins telling them how people who have received such grace should live.
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