1 Peter 1:10

Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) Now St. Peter brings his doctrine home to the hearts of his readers of the Dispersion, by showing them how scriptural it is. Surely they will not “draw back” (Hebrews 10:39), but believe on to the purchasing of their souls, when they consider that all the prophets looked forward with envy to the prize now in their hands.

(10) Of which salvation.—The “of” stands for “concerning,” “with regard to”; and the salvation which formed the subject of investigation to the prophets was the present deliverance of the believing soul from sin and gloom, as well as the salvation yet future. It is difficult not to believe that the song of Zacharias was in St. Peter’s mind when he thus wrote; the theme of that song is precisely the glory of present salvation through Christ, and the fulfilment of prophecy thereby: “Blessed be the Lord God . . . who hath raised up a horn of salvation for us . . ., as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets,—salvation from our enemies . . ., that we might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days; and thou too, little child, shalt be called a prophet . . . to give knowledge of salvation unto His people.”

Have enquired and searched diligently.—Rather, did inquire; for our present version tends to convey the notion that the prophetic writings which we now possess are the result of the inquiry. This would be wrong. Calvin rightly says: “When he states that the prophets inquired and examined, this refers not to their writings or teaching, but to the private longing with which each was fired.” In fact, St. Peter goes on to say that the writings which the Holy Spirit impelled them to make were actually the text on which their longings were the comment: they endeavoured to understand what they themselves had written. The two Greek words give a much more lively picture than the English, of the intense eagerness of the search, and of the depth to which it penetrated. If these great prophets took such pains to understand our present salvation, we ought to take heed not to “let it slip.” Precisely the same argument is used for precisely the same purpose by our Lord in Matthew 13:16-17.

Who prophesied of the grace.—This is a description of the prophetic scriptures. The whole subject of the Old Testament is the bounty of God under the New; and this was what the prophets tried to realise.

The grace that should come unto you.—Perhaps the words in italics might be with advantage changed into, “the grace in reserve for you:” the word is the same as in 1Peter 1:4. “Grace” here seems to mean little more than “favour” or “bounty,” not the ordinary theological sense. The “favour” consists in our salvation.

MacLaren's Expositions

1 Peter

CHRIST AND HIS CROSS THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE

1 Peter 1:10-12I have detached these three clauses from their surroundings, not because I desire to treat them fragmentarily, but because we thereby throw into stronger relief the writer’s purpose to bring out the identity of the Old and the New Revelation, the fact that Christ and His sufferings are the centre of the world’s history, to which all that went before points, from which all that follows after flows; and that not only thus does He stand in the midst of humanity, but that from Him there ran out influences into other orders of beings, and angels learn from Him mysteries hitherto unknown to them. The prophets prophesy of the grace which comes in the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, and the same Spirit which taught them teaches the preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They that went before had for their deepest message the proclamation, ‘He will come’; they that follow after have for their deepest message, ‘He has come.’ And angels listen to, and echo, the chorus, from all the files that march in front, and all that bring up the rear, ‘Hosanna! Blessed be Him that cometh in the name of the Lord.’

My purpose, then, is just to try to bring before you the magnificent unity into which these texts bind all ages, and all worlds, planting Jesus Christ and His Cross in the centre of them all. There are four aspects here in which the writer teaches us to regard this unity: Jesus and the Cross are the substance of prophecy, the theme of Gospel preaching, the study of angels, and presented to each of us for our individual acceptance. Now, let us look briefly at these four points.

I. First, then, Christ and His Cross is the substance of prophecy.

Now, of course, we have to remember that general statements have to be interpreted widely, and without punctilious adherence to the words; and we have also to remember that great mischief has been done, and great discredit cast, on the whole conception of ancient revelation by the well-meaning, but altogether mistaken, attempts of good people to read the fully developed doctrine of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice into every corner of the ancient revelation. But whilst I admit all that, and would desire to emphasise the fact, I think that in this generation, and to-day, there is a great deal more need to insist upon the truth that the inmost essence and deepest purpose of the whole Old Testament system is to create an attitude of expectance, and to point onwards, with ever-growing distinctness, to one colossal and mysterious figure in which the longings of generations shall be fulfilled, and the promises of God shall be accomplished. The prophet was more than a foreteller, as is being continually insisted upon nowadays. There were prophets who never uttered a single prediction. Their place in Israel was to be the champions of righteousness, and--I was going to say--the knights of God, as against law and ceremonial and externalism. But, beyond that, there underlie the whole system of prophecy, and there come sparkling and flashing up to the surface every now and then, bright anticipations, not only of a future kingdom, but of a personal King, and not only of a King, but a sufferer. All the sacrifices, almost all the institutions, the priesthood and the monarchy included, had this onward-looking aspect, and Israel as a whole, in the proportion in which it was true to the spirit of its calling, stood a-tiptoe, as it were, looking down the ages for the coming of the Hope of the Covenant that had been promised to the fathers. The prophets, I might say, were like an advance-guard sent before some great monarch in his progress towards his capital, who rode through the slumbering villages and called, ‘He comes! He comes! The King cometh meek and having salvation,’ and then passed on.

Now, all that is to be held fast to-day. I would give all freedom to critical research, and loyally accept the results of it, so far as these are established, and are not mere hypotheses, with regard to the date and the circumstances of the construction of the various elements of that Old Testament. But what I desire especially to mark is that, with the widest freedom, there must be these two things conserved which Peter here emphasises, the real inspiration of the prophetic order, and its function to point onwards to Jesus. And so long as you keep these truths, as long as you believe that God spoke through prophets, as long as you believe that the very heart of their message was the proclamation of Jesus Christ, and that to bear witness to Him was the function, not only of prophet, but of priest and king and nation, then you are at liberty to deal as you like with mere questions of origin and of date. But if, in the eagerness of the chase after the literary facts of the origin of the Old Testament, we forget that it is a unity, that it is a divine unity, that it is a progressive revelation, and that ‘the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’ then I venture to say that the most uncritical, old-fashioned reader of the Old Testament that found Jesus Christ in the Song of Solomon, and in the details of the Tabernacle, and in all the minutiæ of worship and sacrifice, was nearer to the living heart of the thing than the most learned scholar that has been so absorbed in the inquiries as to how and when this, that, and the other bit of the Book was written, that he fails to see the one august figure that shines out, now more and now less dimly, and gives unity to the whole. ‘To Him gave all the prophets witness.’ And when Peter declared, as he did in my text, that ancient Israel, by its spokesmen and its organs, testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, he is but echoing what he had learned from his Master, who turns to some of us with the same rebuke with which He met His disciples after the Resurrection: ‘O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.’ The Old and the New are a unity, and Christ and His Cross are the substance and the centre of both.

II. Note here Christ and His Cross, the theme of Gospel preaching.

If you will glance at your leisure over the whole context from which I have picked these clauses as containing its essence, you will find that the Apostle speaks of the things which the prophets foretold as being the same as ‘those which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.’ I must not take for granted that you are all referring to your Bibles, but I should like to point out, as the basis of one or two things that I wish to say, the remarkable variety of phrase employed in the text to describe the one thing. First, Peter speaks of it as ‘salvation,’ then he speaks of it in the next clause as ‘the grace that should come unto you.’ Then, in the next phrase, he designates it more particularly as ‘the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.’ Now, if we put these designations together--salvation, grace, Christ’s sufferings, the subsequent glory--we come to this, that the facts of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension are the great vehicle which brings to men God’s grace, that that grace has for its purpose and its effect man’s salvation, and that these facts are the Gospel which Christian preachers have to proclaim.

Now notice what follows from such thoughts as these. To begin with, the Gospel is not a speculation, is not a theology, still less a morality, not a declaration of principles, but a history of fact, things that were done on this earth of ours, and that the Apostle’s Creed which is worked into the service of the Anglican Church is far nearer the primitive conception of the Gospel than are any of the more elaborate and doctrinal ones which have followed. For we have to begin with the facts that Christ lived, died, was buried, rose again from the dead ... ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God. Whatever else the Gospel is, that is the kernel and the basis of it all. Out of these facts will come all manner of doctrines, philosophies of religion, theologies, revelations about God and man. Out of them will come all ethics, the teaching of duty, the exhibition of a pattern of conduct, inspiration to follow the model that is set before us. Out of them will come, as I believe, guidance and light for social and economical and political questions and difficulties. But what we have to lay hold of, and what we preachers have to proclaim, is the story of the life, and eminently the story of the death.

Why does Peter put in the very centre here ‘the sufferings of Christ’? That suggests another thought, that amongst these facts which, taken together, make the Gospel, the vital part, the central and the indispensable part, is the story of the Cross. Now what Christ said, not what Christ did, not what Christ was, beautiful and helpful as all that is, but to begin with what Christ bore, is the fact that makes the life of the Gospel. And just as He is the centre of humanity, so the Cross is the centre of His work. Why is that? Because the deepest need of all of us is the need to have our sins dealt with, both as guilt and as power, and because nothing else in the whole story of Christ’s manifestation deals with men’s sins as the fact of His death on the Cross does, therefore the sacrifice and sufferings are the heart of the Gospel.

And so, brethren, we have to mark that the presentation of Christian truth which slurs over that fact of the Sacrifice and Atonement of Jesus Christ, has parted with the vital power which makes the story into a gospel. It is no gospel to tell a man that Jesus Christ died, unless you go on to say He ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures.’ And it is no gospel to talk about the beauty of His life, and the perfectness of His example, and the sweetness of His nature, and the depth, the wisdom, and the tenderness of His words, unless you can say this is ‘the Lamb of God,’ ‘the Word made flesh,’ ‘who bare our sins, and carried our sicknesses and our sorrows.’ Strike out from the gospel that you preach ‘the sufferings of Christ,’ and you have struck out the one thing that will draw men’s hearts, that will satisfy men’s needs, that will bind men to Him with cords of love. ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.’ So, wherever you get what they call an ethical gospel which deals with moralities, and does not impart the power that will vitalise moralities, and make them into thankful service and sacrifices, in return for the great Sacrifice; wherever you get a gospel that falters in its enunciation of the sufferings of Christ, and wherever you get a gospel that secularises the Christian service of the Sabbath, and will rather discuss the things that the newspapers discuss, and the new books that the reviewers are talking about, and odds and ends of that sort that are thought to be popular and attractive, you get a gospel minus the thing that, in the Old Testament and in the New alike, stands forth in the centre of all. ‘We preach Christ crucified’; it is not enough to preach Christ. Many a man does that, and might as well hold his tongue. ‘We preach Christ crucified.’ And the same august Figure which loomed before the vision of prophets, and shines through many a weary age, stands before us of this generation; ay! and will stand till the end of the world, as the centre, the pivot of human history, the Christ who has died for men. The Christ that will stand in the centre of the development of humanity is the Christ that died on the Cross. If your gospel is not that, you have yet to learn the deepest secret of His power.

III. Once more, here we have Christ and His Cross as the study of angels.

‘Which things the angels desire to look into.’ Now, the word that Peter employs there is an unusual one in Scripture. Its force may, perhaps, be best conveyed by referring to one of the few instances in which it is employed. It is used to describe the attitude of Peter and John when they stooped down and looked into the sepulchre. Perhaps there may be a reference in Peter’s mind to that incident, when he saw the ‘two angels ... sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.’ Perhaps, also, there floats in his mind some kind of reference to the outspread wings and bended heads of the brooding cherubim who sat above the Mercy-seat, gazing down upon the miracle of love that was manifested beneath them there. But be that as it may, the idea conveyed is that of eager desire and fixed attention.

Now I am not going to enlarge at all upon the thought that is here conveyed, except just to make the one remark that people have often said, ‘Why should a race of insignificant creatures on this little globe of ours be so dignified in the divine procedure as that there should be the stupendous mystery of the Incarnation, and the Death for their sakes?’ Not for their sakes only, for the New Testament commits itself to the thought that whilst sinful men are the only subjects of the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ, other orders of creatures do benefit thereby, and do learn from it what else they would not have known, of the mystery and the miracle and the majesty of the Divine love. ‘To the principalities and the powers in heavenly places He hath made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God.’ And we can understand how these other orders--what we call higher orders, which they may be or they may not--of being, learn to know God as we learn to know Him, by the manifestation of Himself in His acts, and how the crown of all manifestations consists in this, that He visits the sinful sons of men, and by His own dear Son brings them back again. The elder brethren in the Father’s house do not grudge the ring and the robe given to the prodigals; rather they learn therein more than they knew before of the loving-kindness of God.

Now all that is nowadays ignored, and it is not fashionable to speak about the interest of angels in the success of Redemption, and a good many ‘advanced’ Christians do not believe in angels at all, because they ‘cannot verify’ the doctrine. I, for my part, accept the teaching, which seems to me to be a great deal more reasonable than to suppose that the rest of the universe is void of creatures that can praise and love and know God. I accept the teaching, and think that Peter was, perhaps, not a dreamer when he said, ‘The angels desire to look into these things.’ They do not share in the blessings of redemption, but they can behold what they do not themselves experience. The Seer in the Revelation was not mistaken, when he believed that he heard redeemed men leading the chorus to Him that had redeemed them by His blood out of all nations, and then heard the thunderous echo from an innumerable host of angels who could not say ‘Thou hast redeemed us,’ but who could bring praise and glory to Him because He had redeemed men.

IV. And now my last point is that Christ and His Cross is, by the Gospel, offered to each of us.

Notice how emphatically in this context the Apostle gathers together his wider thoughts, and focusses them into a point. ‘The prophets have inquired and searched diligently ... of the grace that should come to you.... To them it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you.’ And so he would take his wide thoughts, as it were, and gather all together, to a point, and press the point against each man’s heart.

Dear brethren, these wide views are of no avail to us unless we realise the individual relation which Christ bears to each one of us. He bears a relation, as I have been saying, to all humanity. All the ages belong to Him. ‘He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.’ From His Cross there flash up rays of light into the heavens above, and out over the whole rolling series of the centuries, from the beginning to the end. Yes; but from His Cross there comes a beam straight to your heart, and the Christ whom angels desire to look into, of whom prophets prophesy and Apostles proclaim His advent, who is the Lord of all the ages, and the Lover of mankind, comes to thee and says ‘I am thy Saviour,’ and to thee this wide message is brought. Every eye has the whole sunshine, and each soul may have the whole Christ. His universal relations in time and space matter little to you, unless He has a particular relation to yourself.

And He will never have that in its atoning power, unless you do for yourself and by yourself the most individual and solitary act that a human soul can do, and that is, lay your hand on the head of ‘the Lamb ... that takes away the sin of the world,’ and put your sins there. You must begin with ‘my Christ,’ which you can do only by personal faith. And then afterwards you can come to ‘our Christ,’ the Christ of all the worlds, the Christ of all the ages. Go to Him by yourself. You must do it as if there were not any other beings in the whole universe but you two, Jesus and you. And when you have so gone, then you will find that you have ‘come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly, and Church of the first born.’ Christ and His Cross are the substance of prophecy, the theme of the Gospel, the study of the angels. What are they to me?

Benson Commentary

1 Peter 1:10-11. Of which salvation — That is, concerning the nature and extent of it, and the way and means of attaining it, namely, by believing and obeying the gospel, to be preached among all nations: (see the margin:) the prophets have inquired — Εξεζητησαν, sought with accuracy, or were earnestly inquisitive about; and searched diligently — (Like miners searching for precious ore,) after the meaning of the prophecies which they delivered; who prophesied — Long ago; of the grace of God toward you — Of his abundant overflowing grace to be bestowed on believers under the dispensation of the Messiah: searching what, or what time — What particular period; and what manner of time — By what marks to be distinguished; or in what age of the world, and what events should then take place. From this it appears that in many instances the prophets did not understand the meaning of their own prophecies, but studied them, as others did, with great care, in order to find it out. See Daniel 7:28; Daniel 12:8. This care they used more especially in examining the prophecies which they uttered concerning Christ. The Spirit of Christ which was in them — The Holy Spirit, as a Spirit of prophecy communicated to them by Christ, who therefore then existed, and that not as a creature, for no creature can give the Holy Ghost but a person properly divine. Here then we learn that the inspiration of the Jewish prophets was derived from Christ; it was his Spirit (see Galatians 4:6) which spoke in them. The same Spirit he promised to the apostles, John 16:7; John 16:13. Wherefore, the prophets and apostles being inspired by one and the same Spirit, their doctrine must be, as in fact it is, the same. When it testified beforehand — Moved them to foretel and show; the sufferings of Christ, (see the margin,) and the glory that should follow — Τας μετα ταυτα δοξας, the glories that should succeed these sufferings; namely, the glory of his resurrection, ascension, exaltation, and the effusion of his Spirit; the glory of the last judgment, and of his eternal kingdom; and also the glories of his grace in the hearts and lives of true believers.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:10-12 Jesus Christ was the main subject of the prophets' studies. Their inquiry into the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow, would lead to a view of the whole gospel, the sum whereof is, That Christ Jesus was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. God is pleased to answer our necessities rather than our requests. The doctrine of the prophets, and that of the apostles, exactly agree, as coming from the same Spirit of God. The gospel is the ministration of the Spirit; its success depends upon his operation and blessing. Let us then search diligently those Scriptures which contain the doctrines of salvation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Of which salvation - Of the certainty that this system of religion, securing the salvation of the soul, would be revealed. The object of this reference to the prophets seems to be to lead them to value the religion which they professed more highly, and to encourage them to bear their trials with patience. They were in a condition, in many respects, far superior to that of the prophets. They had the full light of the gospel. The prophets saw it only at a distance and but dimly, and were obliged to search anxiously that they might understand the nature of that system of which they were appointed to furnish the comparatively obscure prophetic intimations.

The prophets - This language would imply that this had been a common and prevalent wish of the prophets.

Have enquired - This word is intensive. It means that they sought out, or scrutinized with care the revelations made to them, that they might understand exactly what was implied in that which they were appointed to record in respect to the salvation which was to be made known through the Messiah. See the following places where the same word is used which occurs here: Luke 11:50-51; Acts 15:17; Romans 3:11; Hebrews 11:6; Hebrews 12:17.

And searched diligently - ἐξερευνάω exereunaō. Compare Daniel 9:2-3. The word used here means to search out, to trace out, to explore. It is not elsewhere used in the New Testament, though one of the words from which this is compounded (ἐρευνάω ereunaō) occurs. See John 5:39, (Notes) John 7:52; Romans 8:27; 1 Corinthians 2:10; Revelation 2:23. The idea is, that they perceived that in their communications there were some great and glorious truths which they did not fully comprehend, and that they diligently employed their natural faculties to understand that which they were appointed to impart to succeeding generations. They thus became students and interpreters for themselves of their own predictions. They were not only prophets, but men. They had souls to be saved in the same way as others. They had hearts to be sanctified by the truth; and it was needful, in order to this, that truth should be applied to their own hearts in the same way as to others. The mere fact that they were the channels or organs for imparting truth to others would not save them, any more than the fact that a man now preaches truth to others will save himself, or than the fact that a sutler delivers bread to an army will nourish and support his own body.

Who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you - Of the favor that should be shown to you in the gospel. Though the predictions which they uttered appeared to the people of their own times, and perhaps to themselves, obscure, yet they were in fact prophecies of what was to come, and of the favors which, under another dispensation, would be bestowed upon the people of God. The apostle does not mean to say that they prophesied particularly of those persons to whom he was then writing, but that their prophecies were in fact for their benefit, for the things which they predicted had actually terminated on them. The benefit was as real as though the predictions had been solely on their account.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. The magnitude of this "salvation" is proved by the earnestness with which "prophets" and even "angels" searched into it. Even from the beginning of the world this salvation has been testified to by the Holy Spirit.

prophets—Though there is no Greek article, yet English Version is right, "the prophets" generally (including all the Old Testament inspired authors), as "the angels" similarly refer to them in general.

inquired—perseveringly: so the Greek. Much more is manifested to us than by diligent inquiry and search the prophets attained. Still it is not said, they searched after it, but concerning (so the Greek for "of") it. They were already certain of the redemption being about to come. They did not like us fully see, but they desired to see the one and the same Christ whom we fully see in spirit. "As Simeon was anxiously desiring previously, and tranquil in peace only when he had seen Christ, so all the Old Testament saints saw Christ only hidden, and as it were absent—absent not in power and grace, but inasmuch as He was not yet manifested in the flesh" [Calvin]. The prophets, as private individuals, had to reflect on the hidden and far-reaching sense of their own prophecies; because their words, as prophets, in their public function, were not so much their own as the Spirit's, speaking by and in them: thus Caiaphas. A striking testimony to verbal inspiration; the words which the inspired authors wrote are God's words expressing the mind of the Spirit, which the writers themselves searched into, to fathom the deep and precious meaning, even as the believing readers did. "Searched" implies that they had determinate marks to go by in their search.

the grace that should come unto you—namely, the grace of the New Testament: an earnest of "the grace" of perfected "salvation … to be brought at the (second) revelation of Christ." Old Testament believers also possessed the grace of God; they were children of God, but it was as children in their nonage, so as to be like servants; whereas we enjoy the full privileges of adult sons.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Of which salvation; either:

1. The more full and clear manifestation of salvation promised to be at the coming of Christ, when life and immortality should be brought to light through the gospel, 2 Timothy 1:10; and then this place is parallel to Luke 10:24: or:

2. The salvation of the dispersed Jews, i.e. their public conversion by the gospel, and eternal life following upon it; which (as well as the calling of the Gentiles) was reserved for the times and glory of the Messiah.

The prophets; viz. those under the Old Testament, out of whose writings the faith of New Testament believers is to be confirmed, John 5:39 Acts 17:11; and whom this apostle therefore mentions, that he might strengthen the faith of the Christian Jews, by assuring them that the doctrine he had delivered to them was no new invention, but the very truth of God revealed of old to the prophets.

Have inquired and searched diligently; the words imply their vehement desire of knowing, as well as great diligence in seeking.

Who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: what he called salvation before, he calls grace here, to intimate their salvation to be merely of grace.

This grace revealed under the gospel, the prophets foretold, but in a more dark way; the Sun of righteousness not being yet risen, the shadows were not gone, and the light was but obscure.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Of which salvation the prophets have inquired,.... They greatly desired the coming of the Saviour, and to see him; they longed after the salvation to be accomplished by him, and expressed their wishes for him, and that; and inquired into the nature of it, and gave an account thereof, according to the measure of light and knowledge communicated to them; they pointed out Christ as a Redeemer of his people, and his salvation as spiritual and eternal:

and searched diligently; in the use of means; by prayer and supplication; by reading the prophecies that went before; by observing the types, shadows, and sacrifices of the law; and by waiting upon the Lord for the inspiration of his Spirit. This last clause is omitted in the Syriac version, but rightly retained in all others:

who prophesied of the grace; that should come unto you; Jews, and also the Gentiles. They prophesied both of Christ, who is the unspeakable gift of God's free grace, who is full of grace, and by whom it comes; and also of the several blessings of grace through Christ, as of redeeming grace from sin, Satan, death, and the grave; of justifying grace, through his righteousness, he being the Lord our righteousness, in whom all the seed of Israel shall be justified, and glory; for though his righteousness is revealed without the law, yet it is witnessed to by law and prophets; of pardoning grace, as with God, and as a blessing of the new covenant, and as received through faith in Christ, to which give all the prophets witness; of adopting grace, both to Jews and Gentiles, signifying, that where they were not called the people of God, they should be called the sons of God; of regenerating and sanctifying grace, in giving a new heart and Spirit, in sprinkling with clean water, in writing the laws of God in the inward parts, and pouring out the Spirit in a plenteous manner on all sorts of men; of persevering grace, intimating that they that fear the Lord shall not depart from him, and that his loving kindness shall never depart from them; and of eternal life and glory, as God's free gift, which is that everlasting salvation, they say, Israel shall be saved in the Lord with.

Geneva Study Bible

{3} Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:

(3) He makes a difference between true faith, that is to say, that faith which only has an eye to the doctrine of the prophets and apostles, and false faith. Afterward he makes two degrees of one and the same faith, according to the manner of the various revelations, when as in deed it is but one only faith. Thirdly, he says that the preaching of the apostles is the fulfilling of the preaching of the prophets, although the latter end of it be as yet looked for by the very angels.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

1 Peter 1:10. περὶ ἧς σωτηρίας ἐξεζήτησαν καὶ ἐξηρεύνησαν προφῆται] The σωτηρία, to which the search of the prophets was directed, is, as the connection: περὶ ἧς σωτ., shows, the previously mentioned σωτηρία ψυχῶν, which is the τέλος of faith. Wiesinger and Schott extend the idea so as to include within it the present salvation. This is correct thus far, that the future salvation is only the completion of the present; but it is precisely to the completion that the apostle’s glance is directed. De Wette is wrong in understanding by σωτηρία “the work of salvation.”

Both verbs express the earnest search. ἐξερευνᾷν is in the N. T. ἅπ. λεγ. (LXX. 1 Samuel 23:23 : חָפַשׂ; 1 Chronicles 19:3 : תָקַר). The prefixed ἐκ serves to intensify the idea, without hinting that the prophets selected the right time from among different periods (Steiger); see the other passages in the N. T. where the verb ἐκζητεῖν occurs. The aim of their search is more precisely defined in 1 Peter 1:11. Luther’s translation is inexact: “after which salvation;” περί means rather: in respect to, with regard to.

Calvin justly remarks: quum dicit prophetas sciscitatos esse et sedulo inquisivisse, hoc ad eorum scripta aut doctrinam non pertinet, sed ad privatum desiderium quo quisque aestuavit. A distinction is here drawn between the individual activity put forth on the basis of the revelation of which they had been made partakers, and that revelation itself (Wiesinger, Schott, Hofmann).[69] To προφῆται is subjoined the nearer definition: οἱ περὶ τῆς εἰς ὑμᾶς χάριτος προφητεύσαντες] by which some prophets are not distinguished from others, as Hofmann thinks, but all are characterized according to their function. Bengel: Articulus hic praeter-missus grandem facit orationem, nam auditorem a determinata individuorum consideratione ad ipsum genus spectandum traducit; sic 1 Peter 1:12 : angeli.

ἡ εἰς ὑμᾶς χάρις] either from the prophets’ standpoint: “destined for you” (de Wette, Brückner), or from that of the apostles: “the grace of which ye have been made partakers” (Wiesinger, Schott). The first is the preferable view. χάρις is not to be taken as identical with σωτηρία (as opposed to Wiesinger), but the difference in expression points to a distinction in idea. χάρις denotes both the present and the future, σωτηρία only the future. Hofmann attaches particular importance to the fact that ὑμᾶς and not ἡμᾶς is here used; assuming that by ὑμᾶς the readers must be understood to be heathen-Christians. This is, however, incorrect, since Peter nowhere in his epistle makes a distinction between heathen and Jewish-Christians; by ὑμᾶς the readers are addressed not as heathen-Christians, but as Christians in general; cf. also 1 Peter 1:3-4 : ἀναγεννήσας ἡμᾶς … τετηρημένους εἰς ὑμᾶς.

[69] Steinmeyer denies this distinction, and says, interpreting τίνα ἢ ποῖν καιρόν, ver. 11, by de sola inde indole temporis: neminem latebit, eos saepenumero de crescente piorum hominum desiderio nec non de aucta improborum protervitate verba fecisse; … ecce τὰ σημεῖα τοῦ μέλλοντος καιροῦ, quae indagata praedicarunt. According to this, ἐκζητεῖν and ἐξερευνᾷν would be indagata praedicare(!).

1 Peter 1:10-12. The design of this paragraph is not to prove the truth of the apostolic doctrine by its agreement with that of the prophets (Gerhard), but to bring prominently forward the glory of the σωτηρία before spoken of, by presenting it as the object of prophetic search. Calvin: “salutis hujus pretium inde commendat, quod in eam toto studio intente fuerunt prophetae.” Wiesinger also; in such a way, however, that he holds the real tendency to be this, that the readers should recognise themselves as “those favoured ones who, by the preaching of the gospel, had been made partakers of the salvation foretold in the O. T.” Schott thinks that here the position of the Christians is compared very favourably with that of the prophets, since the latter had to cling to a bare word referring to an indefinite time; the former, on the other hand, have in their possession of salvation the pledge of a blessed future—indeed, in a certain sense even possess it.

But how much is here introduced!

Expositor's Greek Testament

1 Peter 1:10-12.—The ancient prophets prophesied concerning the grace which was destined for you and enquired diligently about this salvation. They were the unconscious instruments of the revelation of God and their first duty done continued to pore over the inspired descriptions of the sufferings and subsequent glories of the Messiah. They asked themselves to whom does this refer and when shall these things be. And to them the revelation was made that they were only the administrators of an estate which others—you in fact should enjoy. The subjects of their prophecies have now been proclaimed to you by your Christian teachers who, like the prophets, were inspired by the Holy Spirit—with this difference that now the Spirit has been sent from heaven whereas of old He dwelt only in minds of a few. And these are the mysteries into which angels long to peep.

St. Peter has utilised a saying of Jesus to explain the great problem of unfulfilled prophecy and expounded it. Among the prophets he includes the so-called apocalyptic writers like Daniel and his successors. Gradually the coming of the Messiah and the dawn of the new age had been pushed further and further back until the inspired prophets realised that—as the Christians held—he Messiah would only come just before the end of all. The Messiah was not Hezekiah despite the Rabbis, nor yet the best of the Hasmonean house as Enoch hoped. ἀπεκαλύφθη. Such was the revelation or Apocalypse from which the latest of the prophets derive their common name; and St. Peter credits all the line with the curiosity which characterised the last of them and his own contemporaries; cf. Acts 2. and Hebrews 11:13 ff. The saying in question on which St. Peter builds is reported differently: According to Matthew 13:17, Jesus said, πολλοὶ προφῆται καὶ δίκαιοι ἐπεθύμησαν … according to Luke 10:24, προφῆται καὶ βασιλεῖς ἠθέλησαν … according to St. Peter προφῆται (10) καὶ ἄγγελοι. The mention of the righteous derives support from Hebrews 11:13-16, and John 8:56, and an original ישרים “the righteous” would easily be altered in the course of transmission into שרים = princes earthly or heavenly (cf. Daniel 10:21; LXX, Μιχαὴλ ὁ ἄγγελος). The motive which prompted the interpretation ἄγγελοι is due to the influence of the Book of Enoch (see note below) which explains the writer’s conception of the prophets.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently] The words require a slight correction before we proceed to explain them. The noun “prophets” is without the article and the verbs are in the aorist and not the perfect. We translate accordingly, of which salvation prophets enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied. The words have commonly been taken as referring exclusively to the Old Testament prophets, and it is at least right to set before the reader the interpretation of the passage in detail based upon that assumption. Those prophets, it is said, saw the future sufferings of Christ and the after glory but not the time of their accomplishment. The Spirit which taught them was, though they knew it not, the Spirit of Christ, one with that which proceeds from Him and which He bestows on His people. The sufferings appointed for Christ (this, rather than “sufferings of Christ,” is the true rendering) were such as those indicated prophetically in Isaiah 53, typically in Psalms 22. The glories were those of His Eternal Kingdom. It was revealed to the prophets that they were ministering these things (the verb is in the tense that implies continuous action) not for themselves (comp. the parallel language of Hebrews 11:13; Hebrews 11:39) but for “you” (some MSS. giving “us”), i.e. for the whole body of future believers in Christ. And these things, the sufferings of Christ and the glories of the future kingdom, were now, St Peter adds, “reported” by the preachers of the Gospel, those preachers being themselves also inspired by the Holy Ghost sent down, as on the day of Pentecost, to fit them for their work; the Gospel which was so preached including, on the one hand, the sufferings of Christ, as they are recorded in the written Gospels, and embodying all that had been revealed to the writers, of the future glory. And these things, he adds, “angels (the word is again without the article, as emphasizing the contrast between them as a class and prophets as a class) ‘desire to look into,’ yet do not see them with the clearness with which the true believer in Christ contemplates them.”

Having thus stated with, it is believed, adequate fulness what may be called the received interpretation of the words, it remains to give that which seems, on the whole, to be truer to the meaning of the words, and which presents a solution of phenomena which the other leaves unsolved. The basis of this other explanation lies in the belief that St Peter is speaking mainly, though perhaps not exclusively, of the prophets of the Apostolic Church. The position of those prophets was, we must remember, as prominent as that of the Apostles (Ephesians 2:20; Ephesians 3:5; Ephesians 4:11; 2 Peter 3:2). Among those with whom St Peter had been brought into personal contact were Barnabas, the “son of consolation,” or, as the Hebrew might be interpreted, the “son of prophecy” (Acts 4:36), Agabus (Acts 11:28; Acts 21:10), Judas, and Silas or Silvanus (Acts 15:32). In 2 Peter 1:19 we have sufficient proof of the importance attached to the “prophetic word” as a light giving guidance amidst the darkness and perplexities of the time. In 2 Peter 3:1-13 we see that they spoke of the glories of the new heaven and the new earth after a time of darkness and distress In 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 we read how the things which “eye had not seen nor ear heard” had been revealed to prophets by the Spirit, and in Romans 16:25-26, in like manner, that “the mystery which had been kept secret since the world began was now made manifest in prophetic writings,” just as in Ephesians 3:5 St Paul speaks of the same mystery as now “revealed unto the Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit.” All this is enough, it is believed, to warrant, if only at first, tentatively, the assumption that the prophets of the New Testament are those of whom St Peter speaks. It will be seen how far the detailed examination of what follows falls in with the hypothesis.

Bengel's Gnomen

1 Peter 1:10. Περὶ ἧς σωτηρίας, of which salvation) A great argument for the truth arises from the prophecies and eagerness of the prophets.—ἐξεζήτησαν καὶ ἐξηρεύνησαν, inquired and searched diligently) There is great emphasis in the two compound words, ἐκζητεῖν, to seek out, to attain to by seeking: ἐξερευνᾶν, to search through, to attain to by searching. The simple word ἐρευνῶντες, searching, occurs in 1 Peter 1:11. What they attained to by inquiring and searching, is expressed and defined in 1 Peter 1:12. Ἐρευνῶντες, searching, refers to the first and principal searching respecting Christ Himself: ἐξεζήτησαν καὶ ἐξηρεύνησαν, they inquired and searched diligently, to a further and more advanced searching respecting Christians.—προφῆται, prophets) with the other righteous men: Matthew 13:17; John 8:56. The omission of the article gives weight to the sentence, as is often the case with the Germans: for it has the effect of calling away the attention of the hearer from the particular consideration of individuals to the genus itself. So 1 Peter 1:12, angels. A gradual rise of subject.—εἰς ὑμᾶς, unto you) who live in this age.—χάριτος, grace) The grace of the New Testament, 1 Peter 1:13. True grace, ch. 1 Peter 5:12. Comp. John 1:17.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently; rather, prophets inquired and searched. There is no article, and the verbs are aorist. St. Peter illustrates the glory and greatness of our salvation (mark how he loves to repeat the word) by showing that it was the subject of the searching study of prophets and of the contemplation of angels. St. Peter was a diligent student of the prophetic books, and constantly quotes them, both in his Epistles and in his speeches recorded in the Acts. Here he gives us a very remarkable glimpse into the conditions of the prophetic consciousness. The scheme of our salvation was in some way revealed to the prophets; the mode of the revelation, whether by vision or otherwise, is not made known to us. Every point of contact between the infinite and the finite is enveloped in mystery; we can only know the fact - there was such a revelation. That salvation was so magnificent a prospect that it concentrated upon itself the rapt attention and deepest interest of those to whom the promise was revealed. Prophets inquired and searched diligently. The revelation was real, but it was not complete, not distinct in its details. God revealed so much of the coming salvation as was sufficient to support his servants in their trials, and to quicken their faith in the Messiah. Prophets searched diligently, as miners seeking treasure; they prayed, and thought, and meditated, and exercised all their intellectual energies in the effort to comprehend the revelation which had been vouchsafed to them. Daniel was a remarkable example of this searching (Daniel 7:16; Daniel 9:2, 3). The revelation came to the prophet from God; the prophet received it, but could not comprehend it in all its depth and height - he searched diligently.

"Thoughts beyond their thoughts
To those high bards were given."

(Christian Year.') (Compare the song of Zacharias, Luke 1:68-79.) Who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you? He defines the prophets, of whom he speaks as those who prophesied of the favor of God manifested in the redemption of mankind through his blessed Son. "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). St. Paul loved to dwell on the grace of God; so did St. Peter. 1 Peter 1:10

Vincent's Word Studies

Have inquired and searched diligently (ἐξεζήτησαν - ἐξηρεύνησαν)

Rev., properly, renders the aorists sought and searched diligently. The ἐξ in composition has the force of out, searched out, and is rendered by diligently.

Sought

Used of Esau's seeking carefully for a place of repentance, in Hebrews 12:17.

Searched

Used nowhere else in the New Testament. Compare Septuagint, 1 Samuel 23:23, of Saul's searching out David.