Let me begin with a bit of Bible trivia. This is the only place in the Bible where angels and prophets are mentioned together. That’s fascinating because the Bible says a lot about angels and a lot about prophets, but only here do we have them in the same text. If you study what Peter wrote, you realize that he has a lot to say about prophets, and only one tantalizing detail about the angels. So this is 95% about the prophets, and 5% about the angels. “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” (I Peter 1:10-12). What the prophets predicted came true in Jesus Christ. The apostles then took the truth about Jesus and proclaimed it to everyone who would listen. Thus did the church spread across the Roman Empire, and 2,000 years later, to the ends of the earth. Today if you add up all the people who are associated with Christianity in some way, the number totals over two billion. How did it happen? The only explanation is the one given in verse 12. They preached the message the prophets first announced. In this we learn that preaching is nothing less than declaring what God has already said. . God entrusted to the church the sacred responsibility of taking his Word and proclaiming it to the world. This is an obligation we must not take lightly. Their preaching focused on the Gospel, the Good News of God’s offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. You don’t come to church to hear four ways to improve your marriage or five steps to financial freedom or three keys to raising happy children. As good as that might be, we need to hear all biblical truth in the context of the gospel message. True preaching is Christ-centered and gospel-saturated. Otherwise instead of giving Good News, we are just offering good advice. Note that they preached in the power of the Holy Spirit. Peter mentions the Holy Spirit twice in these three verses. He says it was the “Spirit of Christ” who animated the Old Testament prophets and gave them the prophecies they uttered, and he says that the early Christians proclaimed the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit. If you want to know the “secret” of the early church, here it is. Without any of the tools we consider essential, they reached their world for Jesus. And they did it without buildings or pianos, without air conditioning, planes, trains or automobiles, without radio or TV, and even without the Internet—the Internet! How did they survive without all the high-tech marvels we take for granted? If they had a “secret,” here it is: They believed the Word of God, they preached the Gospel of God, they did it in the Power of God. Angels long to look into the things relating to our salvation. The angels are so eager to understand God’s grace that they stand on tiptoe and bend down from the battlements of heaven to marvel at the unfolding plan of salvation. This is exactly the reverse of the way we think of it. If I told you that I had a special door that let me look into the realm of the angels, all of you would crowd around to get a glimpse of “the other side.” But the Bible never encourages us to peek into the angelic realm. We are told the angels long to look at and understand our salvation. During the Renaissance a painter named Tintoretto created a beautiful version of the Last Supper. Though Da Vinci’s version is far more popular, Tintoretto’s comes closer to capturing what really happened. He painted the scene from an elevated angle so we see Jesus and his disciples gathered around the table. It appears that Jesus has just said, “This is my body” and “This is my blood.” There is a sense of drama and tension in the painting as the disciples struggle to understand. Above the table, an oil lamp gives off clouds of smoke. Tintoretto painted angels in the smoke, watching from above, their faces strangely curious, as they too marvel at what God the Son is about to do. That’s exactly the idea Peter is driving at. Why would the angels marvel at our salvation? The answer is clear. There are no “saved” angels because salvation is not for them, but for us. Jesus died to redeem fallen men and women, not the angels. There are elect and non-elect angels; there are good angels and bad angels; there are obedient and disobedient angels, but there are no “saved” angels. Only humans can be saved. Only humans can be redeemed. We alone of all the creatures in the universe can experience the wonders of God’s saving grace. This fascinates the angels, and causes them to study and ponder the mysteries of a salvation they do not share. Here is Peter’s message made plain: God loves you so much, the angels are amazed. They know nothing about grace and mercy and forgiveness. They’ve never experienced new life, the new birth, regeneration, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or the wonder of deliverance from sin. That which we have experienced in Jesus Christ, the angels never knew and will never know. We are far more privileged than they. Think of what we have seen and experienced: A drug dealer who becomes a missionary. A blasphemer who becomes a worshiper of God. A criminal who becomes a law-abiding citizen. A reprobate who becomes a child of God. Here is our greatest sin—taking for granted what God has done for us. Those things that cause the angels to rejoice (even one sinner who comes to repentance—Luke 15:10), makes us bored stiff. But when you are bored with God, even heaven doesn’t have a better alternative. If we stand back, we can see the whole passage clearly: What the prophets predicted but could not understand. What the angels wonder at but never experience. We understand and experience every single day. We are thus more blessed and more privileged than the prophets or the angels! We live in the time of prophetic fulfillment. We have privileges even the angels don’t have. We are privileged beyond our dreams. Jesus is the meaning of history. History truly is His Story. History is not about men and nations, the movement of armies, and the rise and fall of empires. It’s not about building or buying or getting. History is not the story of who’s winning and who’s losing. History is about Jesus Christ! How do I know this? Because when he was born, he split history in two—into BC and AD! Every time unbelievers say 2013, they unknowingly confess the supremacy of our Lord. History is all about Jesus, and apart from him, history has no meaning. Salvation is the purpose of history. I don’t just mean salvation in the limited sense of you coming to Christ. I mean salvation in the larger sense of all that God intends to do to bring deliverance to this sin-cursed planet. Salvation is the story of the greatest rescue mission in the history of the universe. It’s about God sending his Son to redeem a rebel race, at the cost of his own Son, and then offering forgiveness and freedom to all who will believe in him. And it’s about God’s plan to establish the church around the world as a means of bringing the light into the darkness. That great drama of salvation will come to its appointed culmination when Jesus returns to the earth, establishes his throne in Jerusalem, reigns for 1000 years, and then gives his kingdom up to the Father and reigns with him forever and ever. And he shall reign forever and ever. We are therefore the most blessed people in history. We know things the prophets never knew. We experience salvation the angels never experience. We know Jesus Christ, and therefore we understand history in a way that is lost to the people of the world. If these things are true, then you will never understand the universe or your place in it, until you take Jesus and plant him squarely at the center of your existence. As long as you ignore the Lord, or keep him at the edges of your life, nothing will make sense. You won’t understand who you are, or why you are here, or who God is, or why the world is the way it is. Until Jesus takes his rightful place at the center of your life, everything else will be out of whack for you. Nothing will work right because you’ve missed the central truth of the universe. When you stand before the Lord, he will ask you, “Did you tell people what I said?” It won’t work in that day to reply, “But Lord, I was afraid of offending people” or “They didn’t want to hear what you had to say.” We aren’t responsible for how people respond to God’s Word, but we are responsible to make sure that they hear it in the first place. If we fail to tell this generation what God says, we will have failed in our central obligation.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 23:59:31 +0000
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