About this sermon
Much of the Old Testament can seem confusing or dull, but all of it points to Christ. The prophets searched and inquired about the salvation they foretold, and the Spirit of Christ in them predicted his sufferings and the glories to follow. They served a later generation, and the gospel now proclaims what they announced. The Old Testament is full of grace and gospel, and sinners receive that grace by receiving God’s Son.
Sermon transcript
of God’s Word. We continue this afternoon, we continue in our investigation of 1 Peter, and my sermon text for this afternoon is 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 10 through 12. We’ll be focusing especially on verse 12 as we focused on verses 10 and 11 on the last Lord’s Day. To give the fuller context in this opening section of Peter’s first epistle, I’m going to begin reading at verse 8 and read through verse 12. So let us hear God’s holy word. Speaking of the Lord Jesus, Peter writes, Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. things into which angels long to look. Dear ones, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God’s blessing upon the proclamation of his word. Once again, Heavenly Father, we ask that you would open our minds and our hearts to your Word. We ask, Lord, that by your Spirit you would cause this portion of Scripture to come alive to us, to help us to see the relevance of it, for all of your Word is relevant. And we ask, Heavenly Father, that you would help us, Lord, to take this Word to heart, and we pray that by your Spirit you would illuminate us and cause your Word to find a lodging place in our souls.
We ask these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this afternoon is The Spirit of Christ in the Old Covenant Prophets. It’s the second part. Well, dear friends, I don’t know about you, but I love the Old Testament. Of course, I also love the New Testament scriptures as well. But over the years of my Christian life, as I’ve had the privilege of reading and studying the scriptures, I’ve come over the years to a growing appreciation for that first and lengthiest part of the Bible that we know today as the Old Testament. But brothers and sisters in Christ, I must admit to you that I didn’t always feel this way about the Old Testament in particular, especially as a young believer who was new to reading the Bible.
I was converted to Christ as a 15 year old, and I remember my later years of high school venturing forth to read the Bible in its entirety. And I remember Genesis was cool, I liked Genesis, that was interesting. The first part of Exodus was good, engaging. Then towards the end of Exodus, you get into all those details about the tabernacle and its furnishings, but when I got to Leviticus, wow. That was tough to slog through, Leviticus, and then numbers and so forth. You know, apart from sections of the Old Testament like the book of Psalms and the Proverbs and some isolated passages containing clear predictions about the coming of Jesus the Messiah, in my earlier days of Bible reading, I must admit that I found much of the Old Testament writings to be either confusing, enigmatic, puzzling, and quite honestly, boring and dry as dust.
Now perhaps some of you, I’m not going to ask you to raise your hands, Perhaps some of you, if you were to be completely honest, have felt or maybe still even feel that way today about your attempts at reading the Old Testament Scriptures. But dear ones, let me suggest to you that if you find that to be the case, don’t give up. Keep pushing through. Keep reading. You see, beloved, let me suggest that as we come to understand that all of the Old Testament is ultimately about Jesus, it’s ultimately about the Lord Jesus Christ, as we come to understand that, and as we come to see that not just the New Testament, but even the Old Testament as well, is God’s word for the church today. As we come to understand these things, by the grace of God, our love for the entirety of the Holy Scriptures, including the Old Testament, will grow.
In fact, we would do well to remember that the only Bible that the earliest apostolic church had before the apostles and the apostolic writers had finished composing the new covenant writings known as the New Testament, before the writing of the New Testament, the only Bible the earliest church had was the Old Testament. Our passage for this Lord’s Day afternoon underscores the truth that the early apostolic church looked to the Old Testament writings penned by the prophets of old as their scriptures. In our passage for this afternoon, the Apostle Peter assumes this posture towards the Old Testament, even as he, as an inspired writer, is penning a portion of the New Testament. Peter assumes this attitude towards the Old Testament and the prophets who composed the Old Testament. As Peter points out to the persecuted Christians in Asia Minor to whom he was writing, that it was revealed to the old covenant prophets that they were serving not themselves but later generations, the generations of God’s people such as their own and also such as our own. the generations that would be living in these messianic new covenant times in which we are privileged to live.
Again, as Peter writes in verse 12, as he speaks of the old covenant prophets, meaning not only the prophets of the Old Testament as such, but those who wrote the Old Testament scriptures in the spirit of prophecy, he says, it was revealed to them, these prophets of old, that they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Even the angels in glory are fascinated. by and long to look into the things that have been revealed to us in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, all of this highlights the truth that God’s old covenant prophets minister to us as God’s new covenant people, which implies that their writings, the Old Testament scriptures, continue to be relevant to us as the New Covenant Church of Christ today.
Even those seemingly, at least on the surface, those seemingly dry as dust, quote, boring parts, they’re there for a reason. The Holy Spirit inspired those portions of scripture as well for our instruction and edification. We often hear the statement, we hear our brothers and sisters in Christ in the broader Christian world sometimes saying, well, I’m a New Testament Christian. Well, good. How about let’s be whole Bible Christians? We are not merely to be New Testament Christians. We are to be whole Bible Christians because the whole Bible is God’s inspired, God-breathed, authoritative, infallible, and inerrant word. That is Peter’s position, that should be our position today because it is the truth. Now by way of review from what we covered on the last Lord’s Day evening, on the last Lord’s Day evening, we considered from verses 10 and 11 of our passage, the identification and the functions of biblical prophets.
I sought to lay the groundwork of who the prophets were and what their calling and significance was. We saw last week that the prophets who prophesied mentioned by Peter refers specifically to those whom God had chosen, called, and inspired to be the bearers of new divine revelation. They did have, if you will, a direct pipeline to God. God gave them his word and they spoke an authoritative word from God, thus saith the Lord, because God gave them the message to communicate to his people. So they were the bearers of direct divine revelation. We also saw that biblical prophets engaged in two closely related activities. First of all, the activity of what has been described as foretelling. The prophets spoke forth the word of the Lord to their contemporaries. But they also engaged in foretelling. They foretold future events in God’s unfolding plan of salvation, especially as the Spirit revealed those events to them.
And they did so especially as that plan would culminate with the coming of Christ. And we also considered what Peter meant when he spoke of the searching and the inquiring of these old covenant prophets in verses 10 and 11. He talks about how the prophets inquired carefully, inquiring, verse 11, what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. The Old Testament prophets, when they predicted the coming of Jesus the Messiah, They didn’t always fully understand. In fact, they didn’t fully understand that which the Lord had revealed to them. They faithfully proclaimed it and recorded it, but it is only in hindsight as we go back and say, ah, that’s how that scripture was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And so they had searched and inquired to know what the Lord was revealing to them.
Well, friends, this afternoon we consider what we learn in verse 12 about the ministry of old covenant prophets to us as God’s new covenant people. And when I speak of ministry, that word ministry simply means service. to speak of a minister of the gospel is not to speak of someone who, you know, bow down and kiss my ring, who lords it over the flock. A minister is a servant, a servant of the Word, a servant of God’s people, a minister of the church, a minister of the gospel. The word minister means to serve. Well, the Old Testament prophets serve us today even in this new covenant age inaugurated by Christ through his life, death, and resurrection. How do the Old Testament prophets minister to us? Well, that brings me to our passage for this afternoon.
First of all, the Old Testament prophets minister to us in their writings by strengthening and confirming our faith. Again, Peter says, it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you. in the things that have now been announced to you. And these things, these things having to do with the gospel strengthen our faith, build us up in our faith. Norman Hillier, the Bible commentator, has this to say about this particular verse. He writes, But, quote, but it was revealed to the prophets of old that what God had made known to them concerning Messiah referred to a later generation, not to their own. That later generation has turned out to be that of Peter’s readers. So the ministry of those ancient prophets, however much of it applied to their contemporaries, has its fulfillment in Peter’s day.
The prophets, Peter tells his readers, were not serving themselves in the deepest sense, but you, when they spoke about God’s program. But friends, not only did the Old Testament prophets serve those believers living in the first century, living in Peter’s day, those original recipients of 1 Peter, but they still serve all believers, including you, including me. Well, pastor, I don’t get it. How do the Old Testament prophets serve me today? How do they serve the church today in the 21st century? Well, in many ways, of course, but one of the most powerful ways that they serve us is by strengthening and confirming us in our Christian faith. And so, for example, to give you an example of what I’m talking about, As we compare with the eyes of faith, the New Testament to the Old Testament, we see how perfectly and how clearly our Lord Jesus Christ fulfills Old Testament prophecies about the promised Messiah.
I like to tell the children, when you read the Old Testament, you always gotta put your Jesus glasses on. Now, you know, the Old Testament proclaims Christ by way of shadow, type, anticipation, as well as direct prophecy, so you’re not always gonna see a direct link between what you’re reading in the Old Testament and Jesus, but when you look at the overall picture, and when you read the Old Testament scriptures, the Old Covenant scriptures, from the lens of this Messianic New Covenant age in which we live, you’ll see how it shows, how it prepares God’s people for the coming of Christ. And so, for example, to offer just a few well-known examples of direct prophecies of the coming of Jesus, we read, for example, in Micah chapter five, verse two, we read in that passage that Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
And then if you compare that to Matthew 2 verse 1, Matthew 2 verse 1 tells us that Jesus was in fact born in Bethlehem. Another example, in Isaiah 7, verse 14, we learn that the Messiah would be born of a virgin and that he would be identified as Immanuel, which means God with us. And of course, Jesus is God with us in the ultimate sense. He isn’t just the Shekinah glory of God dwelling in the tabernacle or in the temple. He is God the Son come in the flesh, the God-man. conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, the Word made flesh who came to pitch his tent and make his dwelling in our midst. And in Matthew 1, verse 18, we learn that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
In other words, that Jesus was indeed virgin born and is thus a fulfillment of that prophecy in Isaiah. And then of course that famous passage, the suffering servant passage of Isaiah chapter 53. And let me just tell you a little story about that passage. There was in the previous presbytery that I was privileged to serve in, there was a particular minister in that presbytery who was a convert to Christ from Judaism. He had been raised in the Jewish faith, and as he tells it, if I’m recalling correctly, he said that someone once challenged him. In fact, someone said to him, a Christian said to him, well, let me read you a passage from the Bible, and you tell me who this is talking about. And the Christian proceeded to read Isaiah 53 without telling this gentleman what he was reading from.
And of course, this fella said, well, of course that’s talking about Jesus. And then the Christian pointed out to him, well, actually, that’s from the book of Isaiah, which was written hundreds of years before the coming of Christ. And that was one of the things that was instrumental in bringing this brother into the faith and ultimately into the ministry. In Isaiah 53 verse 12, one of the things we learn about the promised Messiah is that the Messiah would be numbered with the transgressors. And then if you compare that to Matthew 27 verse 38, we learn in that passage that Jesus was crucified along with two robbers. He was indeed crucified with transgressors. He numbered among the transgressors. in Psalm 16 verse 10, which I believe is the most quoted messianic prophecy of the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament.
In that passage we learn that the Holy One would not see decay, and of course the united testimony of the New Testament is that Jesus our Lord did not see decay. He did not rot in the grave, but in fact was gloriously raised from the dead. And I could multiply examples of the many Old Testament foreshadowings and types along with additional examples of direct prophecies about the coming Messiah that were fulfilled in the person and the saving work of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. In this way, as we read the Old Testament It confirms and strengthens our faith in Jesus Christ because God revealed the old covenant scriptures to prepare his people and indeed to prepare the world for the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. And now that Messiah has come, now that Jesus has come, as we go back and read our Old Testaments from a New Testament perspective, as we put our Jesus glasses on and read the Old Testament, we see, wow, this does point to Christ.
How could I have missed it before? and that has the effect of strengthening under the blessing of God, strengthening our faith. Dear listener, let me ask you, are you diligent in reading and studying your Bible, including the Old Testament, so that your faith in Christ might be strengthened and confirmed? I wanna encourage you and urge you to do that. And I know I recently made a plug for this, but we do have Bible reading plans, In the back, I believe there’s a plan that can take you through the Bible in a year, if that’s too much to bite off. I think there’s another plan, isn’t there, that will take you through the Bible in two years, if you prefer a two-year plan. You don’t have to use those plans, of course. We’re not going to bind your conscience.
You might choose to follow a plan of your own. But I would strongly commend to you Make it your goal to read through the entirety of the Bible on a regular basis. Don’t lose the forest for the trees. It’s so easy for us to gravitate towards those portions of Scripture that most resonate with us. And I think I’ve shared with you before, I love Paul’s writings, I love the Gospels, I love the Psalms, but there’s other parts of the Bible too. And I’ve grown in my love for those more difficult parts of the Bible, even Leviticus. And even the phone book of the Old Testament, the First Chronicles, all those genealogies, so and so begets so and so, that’s there for a reason too, my friends. I wanna encourage you, press through, keep it up, and over time, you’ll see the connections.
Over time, it’s worth it in the end. So don’t give up. Read and study your Bibles carefully so that your faith in Christ might be strengthened and confirmed. Secondly, the Old Testament prophets minister to us by deepening our understanding of the person and saving work of Jesus the Messiah. The underlying subject of the Old Testament was the good news about the Christ to come. This is implied by Peter’s statement where he says, almost in Pauline run-on fashion, he says, it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached, what? the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Many folks say, well, wait a minute. Isn’t the Old Testament’s about the law of God, the New Testament’s about the gospel?
Well, it’s not an either or thing. The Old Testament is saturated with grace, saturated with gospel, even as the New Testament contains law and commands. You get law and gospel in Old and New Testament. and both are important in understanding the whole counsel of God. And the good news about Jesus Christ is there in the scriptures. Yes, it’s there in shadow and type, but the good news was proclaimed, for example, in the ceremonial law and the sacrificial law given to the Israelites. where there were laws about sacrifices for sin and the need for atonement and so forth. All of that points forward to the saving work of Christ and it was sufficient for the people of God at that time to edify them and build them up in their faith. As we read the Old Testament prophets and the Old Testament writings through New Testament lenses, our knowledge of who Jesus is and of what he came to do will be deepened and strengthened under the blessing of God.
Friends, the belief that the Old Testament scriptures can instruct us Christians about the person and work of Christ is clearly the perspective that was held by the inspired author of the epistle to the Hebrews. In Hebrews, we are shown, for example, throughout that letter, how the Old Covenant both foreshadows and is surpassed by the greatness of the New Covenant. In that book, that portion of the New Testament, the book of Hebrews, we learn about that Christ is greater than Moses. We learn that Christ’s priesthood is greater than the Old Testament Levitical priesthood. We learn that Christ’s sacrifice is greater than and a fulfillment of the old covenant animal sacrifices and so forth. Indeed though, friends, Without a basic knowledge of the history, the institutions, the persons, and the rituals of the Old Testament, a portion of scripture like the epistle to the Hebrews would be shrouded in mystery and almost impossible to understand.
I mean, if you’re familiar, if you’ve read the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, ask yourself this. If you’ve never read the Bible before, you’ve never read the Old Testament before, and you decide one day to sit down and open up your Bible, and you open it up to the book of Hebrews, and you start reading, do you think you’re going to understand what you’re reading? No, because Hebrews, of course, it was written to a group of Jewish Christians who were kind of unstable in their faith and tempted to go back to their former Judaism, but without having a basic understanding of who Moses was and about Melchizedek and about the Old Testament sacrifices and priesthood, without a basic understanding of these Old Testament realities, Hebrews would make no sense whatsoever. Much of the Old Testament assumes a basic knowledge, much of the New Testament rather, assumes a basic knowledge of the Old Testament.
Now, you can certainly pick up some things from the New Testament if you’ve never read the Old Testament or unfamiliar with it, but nevertheless, if you want to benefit from the New Testament and its richness and its depth. If you want to get into the Word, into the meat of the Word, you have to have at least a basic understanding of the Old Testament background to the New Testament writings because the Old Testament serves us by pointing us to Jesus, giving us insight into the person and work of Christ. Again, all of this serves to show that the writings of the Old Testament prophets, and indeed of all the Old Testament scriptures, can minister to us today by deepening our understanding of the person and the work of Jesus, our Lord and Messiah. But finally, beloved, the Old Testament prophets minister to us by glorifying the grace of God which we have received through Jesus Christ.
The Old Testament prophets minister to us by glorifying the grace of God, which we have received through Jesus Christ. In verse 10, you will recall, Peter says that these prophets, these old covenant prophets, prophesied about the grace that was to be yours. They prophesied about the grace. They didn’t just give law, law is there, law is important, but they prophesied about the grace that was to be yours. My dear listeners, God’s grace has come to us in the person of his son, Jesus the Messiah. And God’s grace is the undergirding theme of the entirety of Scripture, including the Old Testament. God’s amazing grace, God, the infinitely holy God, how amazing that he would show grace and mercy and kindness to a sinful, rebellious people. And one of the things that’s very common if you’re an Old Testament reader, you know that the people of God in Old Covenant times, were they faithful most of the time?
Were they faithful in keeping the covenant and avoiding idolatry and walking in step with the Lord’s commands? No. Most of the time they were wayward and wandering and backsliding and even guilty of apostasy. But God persevered with his people. He did not abandon them. He disciplined them. He brought the covenant curses upon them. He sent them into exile. but he did not abandon his people. Indeed, he has always preserved a remnant. So God’s grace, God’s grace is the message of the entire Bible, including the Old Testament. And the Old Testament prophets minister to us by glorifying the grace of God, which we have received through the coming and the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear listener, have you personally experienced God’s grace in your life? Has God’s grace in Jesus Christ truly come to you?
You say, well, how do I know that His grace has come to me? Well, His grace and forgiveness is declared to you, presented to you in the gospel, the good news about His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate who was predicted and anticipated by the old covenant prophets God incarnate who has come into the world to die on the cross to pay the penalty for sin and who was raised victorious from the dead so that whoever trusts in him alone for salvation may not perish but have everlasting life. Have you received his grace offered to you in the gospel? Or to ask the question in a different way, have you received his son? God’s grace comes to us in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, I leave you, brothers and sisters and listeners, I leave you with what we are told in John 1, verses 12 and 13.
Speaking of how the eternal living word, the Lord Jesus Christ, how he became flesh and dwelt among us, it says in verse 11, he came to his own, that would be to the Jews. He came to his own, to his own people. His own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, meaning Jew or Gentile, to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. May God give you the grace to receive his Son, and in receiving his Son, you will receive the fullness of his grace. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we are thankful for your word.
It is rich, it is deep, it’s also It is all so deep, and sometimes it’s so deep that we feel like we’re drowning in its depths, but Lord, we pray that you would give us wisdom, illuminate us, and give us a desire for your word, a desire to grow in our knowledge and understanding of the whole of Scripture. Give us grace, Lord, to be whole Bible Christians. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen.
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