1 Peter 1:10

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 ofChrist," 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.