Prophesied, Predicted, and Preached

We are continuing the series we just began this morning in 1 Peter.  Blair took us through the first nine verses.  Our text tonight is just three verses, verse 10, 11, and 12 and my title.  I preached two weeks ago, I had several Ps in the title and tonight I have Prophesied, Predicted and Preached.  We’re just continuing with the Ps.  My kids said I should add Presbyterian to that list.  Our theme is that the Holy Spirit has prophesied, predicted, and preached Christ in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and still does so today.  If you would, please join me in prayer once again before we look to the text.

Father, we do ask that you would illumen your Word by your Holy Spirit.  This is what you have promised to do, and we ask that you would do it tonight as we look into these three short verses.  Would you open it to us, would you convict where needed, encourage as needed, and set our eyes upon Jesus.  I pray in Christ’s name.  Amen.

A short introduction before we read this passage.  After describing our salvation in fairly glowing terms, it’s strong, it’s pure, it stands the testing of trials, it’s a living hope that we heard this morning, well Peter wants us to consider all this and see even more about it in that it should continue to build our confidence in our salvation.  He has already highlighted God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and now more specifically he turns our attention to the Holy Spirits activity.  We’ve just sung about those things, we’ve read several things that point to aspects of our text, but Christians confess belief in The Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  One in substance, equal in power and glory, and yet also three persons.  Well, some Jewish scholars assert that we Christians insert the idea of The Trinity into the Old Testament from the New Testament.  Likewise in antiquity Marcion in the second century thought that the God of the Old Testament was a tyrant, and the God of the New Testament was the God of Love.  Some critical scholars have claimed that the ascendance of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament shows that we’re dealing with a different God, or at least a changing God, a mutable God instead of what we confess, an immutable God.  Now we generally don’t give much credence to what’s called higher criticism, but some Christians have inadvertently fallen prey a little bit to this idea and generally think of the God of the Old Testament as, He was a little more angry than the God in the New Testament.  He was full of wrath then and now he is full of love. 

A more moderate form of discontinuity is found in what’s called dispensationalism.  They don’t necessarily take that view of the God of Wrath and the God of Love, but there’s the general discontinuity between Old Testament dispensations and New Testament dispensations.  A still more accepted form although to just one particular form of theology would be baptistic theology.  There might be seen a discontinuity from old to new on that particular subject, however, the vast majority of the Christian witness has seen a continuity between the two covenants, or the two testaments.  The older predicted the newer.  The older was more narrow in its application, i.e., the Nation of Israe, while the newer expands into all nations.  This approach to redemptive history of course finds it fullest expression in the reformation, but seeing a continuity from old to new predates the reformation by a good 1500 years.  Of course, Jesus and the disciples made sure of that.  For example, why do we see that the Lord’s table is the continuation and an expansion of the passover meal.  Well, because Christ made that connection in the institution of The Last Supper.  Why is the meaning of baptism both a continuation and an expansion of the meaning of circumcision?  Well, because Paul makes that exact connection in Galatians 2, or for example, why does the moral law find its fullest application in the heart of man rather than just the outward actions of man.  Because that’s what Christ preached in the Sermon on the Mount, so He makes that connection. 

Of course our focus here that we’ll see in just a moment is specifically on the spirit and on Christ and like these other important doctrines we find that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, we find them there, but then more fully expand it especially with the Holy Spirit and Christ in the New Testament.  Peter does this in our text and specifically he claims that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit were active in the Old Testament.  I think we generally accept that around here and one of the main points of this passage and this sermon is to remind us of a salvation that’s rooted in that fact.  Our living hope was long prepared.  There is a continuity, so our salvation then is not cheap, but valuable.  It’s not like fruit that rots on your table, you know you think the peach is hard and then the next morning it’s just rotten.  What happens, why is that?  It’s not like that, it’s not like topsoil that washes away in the rain, it’s not like our trails that last a lifetime, but instead it’s been planned from all eternity, it’s a rock, a refuge, it’s secure, it’s forever, it outlasts everything.  That’s the nature of our salvation.  With that let’s read 1 Peter chapter 1, just three verses, verses 10-12.

“Concerning this salvation the profits who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.  It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.”  Wonderful little passage.  My outline is as follows.  First we’re going to look very briefly at the context so just thinking back to this morning very briefly and looking ahead, then we’ll walk through the text, and then sort of one point that I’ll make it three kind of, the Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and the Holy Spirit is active today.  So first just a little context before we continue.

As we learned this morning, Peter’s intent in the opening nine verses, or at least a major intent is to prepare the elect exiles for trials, for testing their fate to see if it’s genuine.  And I believe these three verses that we just read serve to bolster that goal, that’s their purpose.  John Stott writes in his commentary, “Sufferings now, glories later.”  Peter encouraged Christians who face the first to look to the second.  So, Peter has emphasized having the hope of an imperishable inheritance, trials and testings by fire will arise, but all those in Christ will obtain the outcome of their faith, that is eternal salvation and inexpressible joy.  That was this morning, then jumping ahead beyond our verses in verse 13 we learn that he wants his hearers to be prepared, ready for action, ready to press on towards greater heights of sanctification.  All things are perishable, even the life of man, but you have the Lord and a salvation which is not perishable.  He keeps that theme just rolling right along.  Christ and the efficacy of our salvation is not like that piece of fruit, it does not rot, instead it is a rock, it’s secure.  As we will see here, I think, I hope, in these three verses Peter is simply in the process of piling on more evidences that you should rest in your salvation.  That’s the context surrounding these three verses.  He wants us to have an unshakable confidence. 

So, let’s walk through the text.  We begin with concerning this salvation or in a different phrase, in light of this salvation.  The one we’ve just been talking about in the first nine verses.  With that in mind, we should concern ourselves with or remember what kind of salvation we have.  Peter is attempting to drive home the idea that this salvation is valuable, it’s secure.  As Gordon Clark wrote, “Persecution may be eminent, but a salvation not merely long foretold, but long prepared outweighs present tribulation.”  And that’s of course a main point that Peter makes.  He wants us to understand that this is not a sort of a Johnny come lately upstart faith or a fanciful story that we’re believing, it’s not a cheap or faddish salvation.  It’s not the new thing on the block.  No, preparations have been made for thousands of years and in comparison our tribulations then are very temporary even though they can feel very long in this life.  It’s not to make light of hardships, but this salvation was long prophesied, long spoken of, long awaited.  This redemption story then, this living hope that’s been birthed in the elect has been prepared since before the foundations of the world and it’s finally come to fruition in the person of Jesus Christ.  When you think of the prophets, or I’ll just, I won’t ask you a question, but when we think of the prophets we often think or generally, we think they’re out there just spelling doom and gloom.  Here comes more doom and gloom, more destruction right, that’s sort of the sense we have of the prophets.  However, we learn here that they spoke of grace that was to be yours, mercy and grace, and we find out that the prophets themselves searched these words and inquired carefully.  They tried to figure out what person the messiah would be.  They received these prophesies from the Holy Spirit and then they started searching the texts, they were wondering.  Not only does Peter tell us this, but we know this from the Christmas story, don’t we?  The wise men were watching and waiting, the teachers had figured out where he was going to show up.  Well, that’s pretty obvious in the Old Testament, in Bethlehem.  They were watching and waiting, they knew some things and they told Herod about it.  We know all that from the Christmas story.  They waited, they looked, they wanted to know when, what events would be taking place.  Also recall Simeon in Luke chapter 2, says this, now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and the man was righteous and devout, waiting for the constellation of Israel.  See, there you go, a priest waiting and watching, and the Holy Spirit was upon him, and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, note this was before Pentecost, that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.  Now not even Isaiah got that prediction, and he came in the spirit, into the temple and when the parents brought the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation that you’ve prepared in the presence of all people the light for revelation to the gentiles and a glory to your people Israel.  The Lord’s glory had arrived, and Simeon got to see it.  This is what so many prophets had scoured the scrolls for, they wanted to see it.  The prophets of old wished to see this day, that they were told it was for a future time, but Simeon is now at peace because he got to see it.  It would be amazing.

Can we use our sanctified imaginations just for a moment.  Think about Isaiah, he’s just penned the words of Isaiah 52, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 54 or maybe even back in Isaiah 40, and I can just imagine him just pouring over this like it’s a big treasure hunt.  He goes, when, who is it, how is this gonna work.  Oh, well he’s not gonna be handsome, it says it right there, he’s gonna be despised.  Lord, why do we always despise your ways.  Oh my, look at this, he’s gonna be pierced, crushed, really, for my transgressions.  Lord no, why that?  But wait, look, he’s gonna bear our griefs and sorrows.  What sort of man can carry the weight of the world?  But it says here, I must believe it, that it was the Lord’s will to crush him, but that he will be satisfied to account many as righteous.  Maybe he just kept studying and said, oh look here’s some signs that let us know who he will be.  He’s not gonna commit violence, okay, check, we’ll write that on the chalkboard, no violence, he’s a man of thieves, he is gonna have no deceit, okay he’s not a liar, we’ve got that down.  He’s not gonna resist slaughter, a man willing to die.  They’re going to divide his soil, this is not looking pretty.  I can just imagine Isaiah sitting back against his wall and thinking, is this really the plan, the promised one to suffer and make us righteous, Lord when is this gonna happen.  We can imagine similar scenes I think with Jeremiah.  Jeremiah might have penned Jeremiah 31 and said, “Yes, that’s what we need, we need the law written on our hearts, we just keep wandering, Lord when is that gonna happen?” 

Daniel sought to understand his visions of the rock filling the earth.  Zachariah heard another clue, the messiah would ride on a cult, an event, let’s put that puzzle piece into the long list of predictions about the messiah and of course just before 400 years of silence Malachi ends with this predictive prophecy, another piece of the puzzle, says, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.”  Malachi may have sat back and said, eww, I wonder if this is metaphorical, is there gonna be a resurrection?  I think I heard R.C. Sproul, I think it was him, ask on one of his videos who was the last Old Testament prophet. And of course, we’re all thinking Malachi, John the Baptist, and I can imagine Simeon getting downright giddy.  Certainly, he knew of John, the air was stirring, it was electric like just before lightning strikes.  The breeze was beginning to shake up like just before a storm.  His Spidey sense was going off.  Why? Because the spirit was moving, the spirit was speaking, he’s been silent for 400 years and he was speaking to him.  Amazingly Peter indicates here in this text that all this prophecy, all this anticipation from Adam to Abraham, to Moses, to Isaiah, and the rest were for the benefit of the elect.  And haven’t we benefitted from those prophecies.  We get to see the amazing beauty and continuity, the thread that is woven throughout the scriptures.  We get to see it even more clearly than Peter did and this is part of his point.  We learned this morning that he is writing to people who did not get to see Jesus.  Though you have not seen Him, you love Him.  Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with the inexpressible joy. 

If you’re anything like me you’ve probably thought, man I wish I could have been there when he took five loaves and fishes and fed a multitude, it would have been so cool to see an epileptic healed, ah, if I could have just been there to see Him after resurrection.  Now I suspect you would not want to use their dentist, but you wanna see Jesus.  But Peter’s point is that the Holy Spirit guided all of history and spoke to the prophets of old in such a way as to bring the beautiful old continuous message of living hope to the elect.  Peter doubles down in his second epistle, he says we have a prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention.  As to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but mean spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

So back in 1 Peter chapter 1:11 we read that the spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit gave Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zachariah, Malachi, so many more the predictions of Christ’s sufferings and His subsequent glories.  His humiliation and His exaltation.  Shouldn’t we then stare and study and meditate and pour over the Word until the day dawns and the morning star arises in our hearts.  I’m not gonna put them on the spot, but I was speaking with someone who had chosen a Bible plan that had them reading 10 chapters a day from all over the scripture, a chapter here, a chapter there, it was just move through the scriptures very, very quickly and after reading it for sometime they became very excited because they were seeing all these connections they had never seen before.  You read this and oh it shows up in the New Testament.  You read this, it shows up over here.  Oh, how he’s referencing this.  That’s really cool.  They were just excited to see these things.  I understand that sometimes our Bible reading plans can just keep us moving and that’s really good, we need the discipline and yet once in a while you can just be sort of reading along.  That was happening to me this spring in our Bible reading plan with the whole church.  I was just trying to get through it and I got through it and I found myself just getting through it and as I hit the psalms I thought, nope, I’m gonna quit for now and I’m just gonna slow down so I’m way behind you all and I’m taking my time through the psalms and all of the sudden once again, sometimes I just need a change, I need discipline too, sometimes I just need a change and all of the sudden I was just so happy to be reading Psalm 110 four, five, six times before I came to worship.  I needed that and the word was no longer dry.  It’s not a problem with the plan, it’s a problem with me, but I need that, you need it, the Word of God is for you, you have the whole council of God preserved in all its beauty and continuity.  You can study it and never exhaust it.  You can meditate on it and it will carry you through trial after trial.  Your pastors will disappoint you, but you can lean upon the Word of God and it will never fail.  Peter is trying to build up his readers, letting them know that this salvation is considered infinitely valuable by both prophets and angels and then by extension the apostles.  The prophets long to see it, the angels long to look into it, but it is the elects who know the inexpressible joy and the hope of glory in a way the angels could never know for our sufferings give way to future glories.  The angels rejoice when a sinner is snatched from the fire and they long to see the Gospel’s success and they long to look into the mysteries of the good news.  The redemption of a sinner is a miracle they can watch and I just sort of think they must stand back in amazement and think, look at how the Lord has defeated the enemy’s plan again and again and again.

Okay, hopefully that gets you at least a little acquainted with I hope the spirit of this text.  Peter is just bullish on this salvation that should be warm in our hearts.  So now I’d like to make three very brief points, which is really just one point broken up.  The Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was active in the New Testament, and the Holy Spirit is active today.  We probably take this for granted, especially since you most likely have heard this before and yet let’s remind ourselves, the Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament, he prophesied and he predicted we learn in these verses, he predicted and prophesied Christ.  Obviously, we’ve said this and Peter claims it, but so far, I have largely skipped over one little phrase.  Verse 11 we read this, “The Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ.”  So, who predicted, we’ve already said it, it was the Holy Spirit.  He was indicating, he was predicting the sufferings of Christ.  Peter teaches that it was the spirit who did this.  He gives the spirit credit instead of Isaiah.  Paul says a similar thing in Acts 3:18, “But what God foretold by the mouth of the prophets”, so Paul is crediting God for everything that the prophet said and so a very quick survey of the Old Testament, “The spirit of God moved on the face of the waters”, Genesis 1.  Pharoh observed the spirit in Joseph.

Exodus 31, the Lord filled Bezalel with the spirit of God, Moses prayed that all the people would be filled with the spirit of God in numbers, 11, 29, and it seems that that prayer was answered at Pentecost.  David prays that the spirit would not be taken from him in psalm 51.  Isaiah refers to the prayer of Moses that we just referenced and specifically refers to the Holy Spirit.  In psalm 139 verse 7 we learn that there is no place we can flee from the presence of the spirit.  And of course we’ve already considered Simeon, who by the way was still operating under the old covenant and so we see the Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament.  Next, the Holy Spirit was active in the New Testament.  This is obvious, but in our text noticed that the announcement which came through those who preached was done by the spirit sent from heaven.  This is actually an important doctrine very much related to how the Lord uses the preaching of the Word.  Yes, men preach, but it is the Holy Spirit who announces the truth to the heart of faith.  The Holy Spirit just explodes on the pages of the New Testament as you know, and there would be maybe hundreds of proof texts, but the important thing to note for now is that the prophets and the apostles were used in the same way throughout redemptive history.  They were as Peter says, carried along by the Holy Spirit.  This is most often applied to the written word and yet our text clearly adds the preached word, which means that the Holy Spirit is active today whenever the word is faithfully preached.  Now this does not mean that every word of my sermon tonight is infallible or carries the authority of the Holy Spirit, and yet it does mean that I believe through the preaching of the word the spirit works, announces and reveals Christ.  He saves, He sanctifies, he strengthens, He illumines his Word.  Thank the Lord that it does not depend upon my intellectual prowess or even my level of holiness.  Although I want to achieve a level of holiness it does not depend on that or a lack thereof.  Peter teaches us that the spirit announces or speaks, he speaks in the prophetic word, he speaks in the written word, he speaks in the preached word.  It is the spirit doing the announcing and the accomplishing.

So, in conclusion, three very brief remarks.  One, there is a strong continuity from old to new and this teaches us that our salvation is not a Johhny come lately salvation, but it was long planned for and perfectly fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, therefore it is solid and secure.  Peter wants his readers to know all this, especially as they will face hardships.  We know that salvation will outlast it all.  That’s good news.  Number two, the prophecies and predictions are worth searching and inquiring carefully because they lead us to Christ.  So, two quick subpoints under this.  I think our diligent searching of the word should do for us two things.  Number one, it should develop in us a deeper level of gratefulness and excitement when we see connections we’ve never seen before.  I think we could probably use a little bit of Simeon’s gratefulness and peace every time we see Jesus on the pages of scripture.  And then number two, we should perhaps search the word with a little more anticipation of Christ’s ultimate return.  This is what the prophets did in the Old Testament, scouring and searching and inquiring carefully, looking for the messiah’s advent.  Maybe we should do the same or is the parable of the 10 versions just sort of lost on you because who knows, it’s just sometime down the road.  Maybe anticipation should fill our hearts, maybe we need that eternal perspective that Blair mentioned this morning, especially in the face of hardships.  It may even possibly protect us from grumbling and instead develop in us a gratefulness, a thankfulness for the beauty of the Word.  Okay, and then number three, the Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament, New Testament, and today, we’ve said that, and I’ll close with just a few questions.  Is He active in your mind, in your heart?  Do we listen to the preached Word by faith?  Are we listening with a desire to see Christ or listening with a desire to be prepared for when hard times come?  And, concerning this salvation, does it secure you and carry you through your pain?  Do you search it out and has your salvation become sweeter to you?  Do you long to see Christ both in the Word now and in glory?  Those perhaps are good questions for us each time we come to the Word.  Let’s go to Him now and close in prayer.

Father, we are thankful that you have preserved your Word.  We’re thankful that you have long planned and long prepared and revealed to us salvation in Jesus Christ.  We’re grateful for the work of your Holy Spirit and ask that you would prepare us to lean upon Christ in hardships, fit us for heaven, give us eternal eyes that we might look to our future joy, our inexpressible joy because of all that Christ has done for us.  Father, I pray that you would open your Word to us from week to week, that we might be prepared and lean upon Christ in greater measure and so and thereby be transformed into His image.  In Christ’s name we pray.  Amen.