The Prophets Didn't Understand

I Peter 1: 10-11 – The Prophets Didn't Understand

This salvation was something the prophets wanted to know more about. They prophesied about this gracious salvation prepared for you, even though they had many questions as to what it all could mean. They wondered what the Spirit of Christ within them was talking about when he told them in advance about Christ's suffering and his great glory afterward. They wondered when and to whom all this would happen. (NLT)

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 the Messiah and the glories that would follow. (NIV)

Even the prophets who foretold of God's salvation didn't understand what it meant. They wanted to know more...they spoke as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit, but they didn't have all the answers. They foretold of the great sorrow and suffering the Son of God would go through...and His victory over sin and death...but they didn't know when it would happen, how it would happen, and to whom it would happen. (CDC)

The prophets of the Old Testament were inspired by the same Spirit of Christ that Peter refers to in these verses. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead who was also present at creation. He prompted the prophets to write of the sufferings that Jesus would go through, and the ultimate glory that Christ would receive. They didn't understand all that they predicted, but they were faithful to deliver God's message. God spoke through His Spirit in their day, but it wasn't until the death of Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit would actually dwell within man...the Gift that Jesus sent on the day of Pentecost...the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

Although the prophets spoke about the salvation of Christ, it was not for them to witness the life and death of Jesus. This is sometimes too mysterious for us to understand, even though we live on this side of the cross, and the prophets lived before the cross. Isaiah wrote “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Isaiah 53:3-5 predicts the suffering of Jesus Christ:

He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. (NLT)

The prophets were very diligent in their search to understand the message of the grace of God. However, they lived in the day of predictions, not the day of fulfillment. The sufferings of Christ which Isaiah foretold climaxed at the cross, but His glories climaxed at His resurrection. What seems to be true is that neither Jesus, nor His followers, receive a crown of glory without first wearing the crown of thorns.

What the prophets foretold in the Old Testament became the message of the Gospels in the New Testament. The preachers of the New Testament had the power of the Holy Spirit within them...the same Spirit who inspired the prophets of the Old Testament. Therefore the preachers of the New Testament understood the Old Testament teachings of Jesus Christ, such as Isaiah 53, because of the witness of the same Spirit dwelling in them. No doubt the prophets would have aspired to be the apostles if they had understood everything clearly. How they would have loved to have walked with God's Son and seen the miracles that He performed. However, God had a time and a place and a purpose for the prophets; and He had a time and a place and a purpose for the apostles...the preachers of the New Testament.

God also has a reason for our existence and the times we are living in. We have been born for such a time as this. We must be like the prophets of old, having faith in God, even when we don't understand the outcome. All He asks is that we trust Him. I plan to do just that...how about you? There are a lot of things I don't understand...why evil seems to prevail, why the saints of God have to suffer, and innocent children are abused. We are living in vile times...but we are not out of God's control. He is sovereign, and one day He will reveal Himself to the whole world, and He will reign forever and ever. I plan to join Him...so I am content to allow Him to be in charge. I wait on Him, and trust Him all the while. Join me.