1 Peter 1:10-12
Oh, How Blessed We Are
It’s so good to live on this side of the cross, to be living under the new covenant, to be the people “on whom he end of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). We really don’t appreciate this as we should, but what the prophets saw through a glass darkly, we now see in the light of day.
The prophets were truly great men. The Lord spoke to them his word or granted them a vision and they relayed it to the people saying, “Thus says the Lord….” The messages usually called the people to repentance warning dire judgment if they disobeyed, which they generally did and suffered the consequences. They were godly and upright men—not perfect (remember Jonah)—but righteous. But even more than preaching repentance to the people, Peter tells us that there was something greater they desired to understand, for they “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.” In other words, the prophets knew Messiah was coming as the Spirit told them. Isaiah preached both his suffering and resurrection (Isaiah 53). Indeed, the entire Old Testament foreshadows our Lord’s coming through both word and type. And these men inquired diligently about these things but satisfied themselves that they were serving us. This is why Jesus told his disciples, “Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matthew 13:17).
But then Peter tells us something even more marvelous—that even “angels long to look” into the matters of the gospel. But wouldn’t angels understand it better than we? Perhaps they do. And if so, we are then made to understand that matters of the good news, of heaven, of the glories that have been and are yet to be revealed in that gospel, are so deep, so full of wisdom, so utterly beyond human and even angelic comprehension, that much of the blessing of heaven is that we have eternity to ponder and wonder over them. If angels whose minds are unencumbered with sin wonder over the riches of God’s plan of salvation made real in Christ, how deep must those riches be! No wonder the Apostle Paul exclaimed, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!” (Romans 11:33).
How blessed we are now to live in this side of the cross, and how blessed we will be to live on that side of heaven one day.
