Lord’s Supper · 1 Peter 1:10–12 · ASV
What the Prophets Longed to See
What the prophets searched for and angels desire to look into, God has given to us at His table: the sufferings of Christ, proclaimed till He comes.
Read aloud
In 1 Peter 1:10–12, Peter says the prophets “sought and searched diligently” about the grace that would come to us. The Spirit of Christ in them “testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them.” But it was revealed to them “that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things.” These are things, Peter says, “angels desire to look into.”
Daniel was one of those searching prophets. After receiving visions that reached to the end of history, he confessed: “I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my lord, what shall be the issue of these things?” (Daniel 12:8). He was told the words were “shut up and sealed till the time of the end” (Daniel 12:9).
Daniel was writing a letter he would never get to read. We are the ones holding it.
What Daniel strained to see, we hold in our hands this morning. The bread and the cup are the sufferings of Christ, His body given and His blood shed for us. And every time we take them, we proclaim His death “till he come,” looking ahead to the glories that should follow.
Prophets searched for this. Angels lean in to see it. God has given it to us.
The passage · ASV
1 Peter 1:10–12
10Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:
11searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them.
12To whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things, which now have been announced unto you through them that preached the gospel unto you by the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven; which things angels desire to look into.