1 Peter 1:10-12

1 Peter 1:10-12  Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.  It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.  Even angels long to look into these things (NIV).

    Yesterday I did something I have not done in quite awhile; I attended a wedding.  My friend from Colorado Christian University, Jamie, was married, and the wedding ceremony was beautiful!
    I normally do not get nervous about such events, yet yesterday I was a little nervous about the event because I knew how much it all meant to my dear young sister-in-Christ.  As I was getting ready, my hair looked good, but I noticed that since my last haircut, some hair had grown over my ear, so I decided to trim the hair so I looked prime.  In doing so, I cut my ear.  It hurt!  Yet it was only a small cut.
    All four of the "Gospels" tell of the event of a disciple cutting off the ear of a servant of the High Priest at the time when people had come to arrest Jesus.  Only John identifies the disciple who cut off the ear as Peter, the author of the epistle we are examining.  In two descriptions it is told that it was the right ear, but in the other two descriptions the specific ear is not specified.  The details all make me wonder if the ear was what Peter was aiming for.  If he was aiming to kill the servant of the high priest, doing so would have caused an all out brawl.  If he was aiming to simply scare the mob by cutting only an ear, he sure had good swordsmanship.  I do not know his aim.
    Then there is the curious fact that in only in the book of Luke is it told that Jesus healed the ear of the high priest.  If such a small cut on my ear yesterday hurt, I imagine how horrible it would be to have my entire ear cut off.  And if in the midst of such horror, Jesus of Nazareth placed my ear back on my head and miraculously healed it, I would be ever grateful.  I would be telling people about how special Jesus was even though He was considered by my people to be a vagabond.
    The irrational intent of the mob to arrest Jesus is affirmed right there during the arrest.  Here Jesus performs a healing miracle before the mob, yet they still arrest Him.  There was nothing He could do or say to thwart their intent on arresting Him.  One thing Jesus did say: "But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" (Matthew 26:54 NIV).  So Jesus said Scriptures told of His physical tragedy, and that is what Peter is saying here in this verse!  Peter is saying that the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ, informed prophets of the suffering of Jesus years before it happened.  But where?
    Isaiah 53:5 states: "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him..." (NIV).  This "servant" was the Messiah.
    Whoa Nealy.  People in churches are so quick to read this during the time of the Lord's Supper, however I learned in my first year at CCU that many Bible scholars are quick to say that these uneducated or miseducated pastors are taking things out of context, and that the prophets were mainly talking about stuff going on at the present time, and not actually predicting what was to come with the Messiah.  (A minority of them might go on to say that God does use it now as a double entendre, which is a dangerous practice since people can start interpreting things to mean whatever they want.)  So which is it?
    Many Bible scholars say Isaiah is all about the state of Israel at the current time, and the authors (many scholars think three people wrote Isaiah; I disagree) are discussing kings of Israel and Judah solely, and are only talking about the near future rather than the distant future.  The reason that a vast majority of Bible scholars think that most of the Old Testament is "forthtelling" rather than "foretelling" is because they are failing to understand the unusual writing style of the Hebrews.  It was an incredible light of revelation for me when I figured out in my Interpreting the Bible class that the reason that Hebrew prophets sometimes seem to switch gears so abruptly is because they were following a set pattern common in Hebrew writing.
    My textbook for Interpreting the Bible was Michael Gorman's Elements of Biblical Exegesis, a superb book.  He explains these Hebrew writing methods, and I recommend reading about this topic.(1)  One pattern of structure is called the concentric pattern.  It takes a form such as ABCBA.  This is often applied to Hebrew poetry, but it was even done in long writing by the prophets.  For example, the prophet may start with what I will label "A," talking about the state of Israel and Judah as a whole, then he will move to "B," talking about a specific king of Israel.  And then he moves to "C," giving a prophecy of what is going to happen in the distant future involving a Savior, and then he goes back to "B," and then concludes with "A."  So what on the surface seems like muddled writing suddenly makes sense if you understand the structure.  And rather than the prophet being a bad writer, or having a bad editor, as many Bible scholars think, the prophet is actually inserting hope into the midst of his writing during hopeless situations.  Often a prophet is preaching to people, not because everything is peachy keen, but rather because things are a mess.  So the author is telling of the problems with Israel, and the author moves to giving specifics going on with kings, and then just when you think those Hebrews are done for, the author, someone who knows of something of the future because God has told him, tells of the blessing of a Messiah that God is going to give in the future.  Beautiful.
    The Thursday after Ash Wednesday in 2004, I went with a number of people from my church to see the movie, The Passion of the Christ.  It was one of the few times I have cried in a movie theater, and I cried much.  The movie is so violent, it is a movie I could only see once.  In our passage here, Peter speaks of the Spirit of Christ working in prophets.  I can tell you that the Spirit of Christ hit me with a wave of conviction when the Scripture verse from Isaiah came up on the screen at the beginning of the movie.  I have never felt such power in a movie theater.  I think the conviction was even greater since I was a guy who saw a few "R" rated movies before I was a Christian, and even in the immediate wake of my conversion, which had evil violence and lustful stuff.
    Now Peter said prophets in the plural, and there are other example of prophets telling of the suffering of the Messiah.  Zechariah tells of the one who was "pierced," in Zechariah 12:10, and how the result is mourning.  The one that was pierced was Jesus.
    Then there is the incredible time specification by Daniel.  "After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing" (Daniel 9:26).  If you ever want to do further reading on this, I recommend what I think is one of the greatest books in the world, Betrayed, by Stan Telchin.
    Now I have been talking about the suffering of Christ that Peter mentioned, but Peter also mentioned the glories that the Christ brought as told by the prophets.  Yes, there is a glorious part.  For example: "Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.  I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David" (Isaiah 55:3 NIV).  Out of the suffering, love is available!
    And from Zechariah: "On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity" (Zechariah 13:1 NIV).  Cleansing from sin is available!
    In order for salvation to be available to human beings, the Messiah (the Christ) had to suffer!  Jesus Christ died on the Cross for the forgiveness of all people.  Yet now the glory is that any person has the opportunity to receive what Christ's gift of forgiveness, and by believing, which is receiving, Jesus Christ, the person is saved from eternal spiritual death.  May we the saved continue in gratitude to Jesus for the suffering He carried out for us, may we relish the glory of salvation we have in the present, and may we preach the Gospel to folks, in ways that fit our particular gifts, relying on the Holy Spirit, just as disciples of Christ were telling the Gospel in manners that fit their particular gifts back at the time that Peter wrote this letter.
Hunter Irvine

(1) Michael J. Gorman, Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2001), 78-87.