February 13, 2023: 1 Peter 1:12 - We See that Which the Prophets Revealed to Us
“To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven - things which angels desire to look into.” - 1 Peter 1:12
God spoke His word through human men He chose to reveal to the world His plan of redemption for humanity - belief in His only begotten Son Jesus the Christ. Because God is omniscient, all knowing, He knows what will happen before it happens. He knows the outcome of things before they even begin. He knows our thoughts before we even think them. God knew that even when He created a perfect paradise and created man and woman to enjoy it and live in it forever in perfect peace, that they would fall into temptation and sin, and yet, He still created them. He knew that we, too, would sin, and yet, He still created us.
God chose Abram, a 75-year old Gentile, and spoke His covenant to Abram:
“Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)
Abram was married to Sarai, who was approximately 65-years old when God had made His covenant with Abram. After some time had passed, God officially made His covenant with Abram, that we know as the “Abrahamic Covenant,” which was an unconditional covenant in which God bound Himself to the covenant while He had caused Abram to go in a deep sleep, thus Abram would not be responsible for keeping the covenant; only God Himself.
Many years went by and Abram and Sarai had doubted what God said since they didn’t have any children yet, They took matters into their own hands and had Abraham go into [had sexual intercourse] with Sarai’s maidservant, Hagar, who conceived and bore a child named Ishmael. When Abram was 99-years old, God told him:
“‘I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.’ Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying:
‘As for Me, behold, My covenant is with your, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.’”
God then told Abraham that as a specific sign of the covenant they are to keep, all male children of Abraham and his ancestors shall be circumcised when they are eight days old. God also told Abraham that he is to call his wife “Sarah” from that point on, and that He would bless her by giving her a son and that she would be a mother to many nations. Abraham then once again doubted what God said, even falling to his face and laughing, because that meant that he would be 100-years old and Sarah would be 90-years old when she bore a child - how could this be? Like Abraham, how many times have we ourselves doubted the power of Almighty God?
God then told them that Abraham’s son Ishmael from Sarah’s maidservant Hagar was not the one with whom He would establish His everlasting covenant:
“Then God said: ‘No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.” (Genesis 17:19)
Exactly as God had told Abraham, he and Sarah did conceive a child, she gave birth to him, and they called his name Isaac. Exactly as God had told Abraham, he did make Abraham a great nation and the twelve tribes of Israel were established through him, from Isaac’s son Jacob, whom God would rename to “Israel.” When God renamed Jacob, He said: “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel [which means “Prince with God]; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” (Genesis 32:28) Oh, how have we seen Israel struggle with both God and men, and yet it has prevailed!
One of the twelves tribes of Israel was the tribe of Judah, from which we get the name “Jew,” meaning from the kingdom of Judah. Long before Jesus was born, the prophets foretold of His coming, and that He would be born of the tribe of Judah. On his deathbed, with his twelve sons gathered to him, Jacob (Israel) told each of them of “what shall befall you in the last days.” (Genesis 49:1). To his son, Judah, Jacob said:
“Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; and as a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter [a symbol of kingship] shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people. Binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood for grapes. His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.” (Genesis 49:8-12)
This passage of Scripture is filled with both prophecies that have been fulfilled and are yet to be fulfilled! I have touched on a few below.
Judah is the tribe that would be the leader of the other eleven tribes and the tribe of Judah would produce a line of kings, including David and the King of kings - Jesus Christ. The prophet Micah prophesied that Jesus would come through the line of Judah and He would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting.” (Micah 5:2)
“Shiloh” is a messianic prophecy, referring to Jesus. See the article from gotquestions.org for more information: https://www.gotquestions.org/shiloh.html.
Judah is represented as a lion here and also in a prophecy of Isaiah in Isaiah 31:4: “As a lion roars, and a young lion over his prey (When a multitude of shepherds is summoned against him, He will not be afraid of their voice nor be disturbed by their noise), so the LORD of hosts will come down to fight for Mount Zion and for its hill. Like birds flying about, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem. Defending, He will also deliver it; passing over, He will preserve it. Return to Him against whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted.”
The book of Revelation refers to Jesus as the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” as the only One worthy to loose the seven seals on the scroll that will unleash God’s righteous judgment on a wicked and evil world that has rejected God and embraced Satan: “But one of the elders said to me [the apostle John], ‘Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.’” (Revelation 5:5)
The donkey would be bound to the vine and the donkey’s colt to the choice vine. At His triumphal entry, Jesus, who referred to Himself as “the true vine” (John 15:1, 5), rode in on a donkey’s colt (Mark 11:1-10). Jacob’s prophecy also seems to correlate to the prophecy by Zechariah of the coming King: “Rejoice, greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9)
The prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 49 that in Jesus alone is salvation found. Jesus would not only redeem Israel, but He would also come as a light to the Gentiles.
“Indeed He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the end of the earth.’ Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, to Him whom man despises, to Him whom the nation abhors, to the Servant of rulers: ‘Kings shall see and arise, Princes also shall worship, because of the LORD who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel; and He has chosen You.’” (Isaiah 49:6-7)
God even said in the passage above, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel” and that, “You should be My salvation to the end of the earth.” That is an amazing prophecy that God gave to Isaiah! Upon Jesus’ birth and presentation to the Lord at the temple in Jerusalem, a devout man named Simeon was brought to the temple by the Spirit. He had previously been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. When Simeon saw Joseph and Mary bringing in the Child Jesus, Simeon took Him in his arms, blessed God, and proclaimed:
“Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.” (Luke 2:25-32)
Jesus Himself confirmed that God had sent Him as the way of salvation - the only way - and salvation that wasn’t only for the Jews but also for the Gentiles, when He said the following statements: [I have added bold text for emphasis.]
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe in condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:16-17)
As Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:12, the prophets prophesied of things that would not be revealed to themselves but to people of a future time. When Jesus came to earth the first time, people alive at that time saw prophecy fulfilled with their own eyes. Jesus’ twelve apostles and His disciples would write the gospels, documenting the words of Jesus, and the books that comprise the New Testament so that we would know that Jesus Christ - in whom salvation is found - came to earth and fulfilled all the prophecies written about His first coming.
We who are alive now also have the benefit of having both the Old and New Testaments, which contain prophecies of the rapture of His church when, “in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet,” Jesus will call up all who have ever believed in Him, both the dead and those still alive at the time the rapture occurs, and we will receive our glorified bodies - our salvation will be complete! (1 Corinthians 15:50-58, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) We also read about the prophecies of a 7-year time of tribulation on the entire unbelieving world, known as the time of Jacob’s trouble, that will only end at the time of Jesus’ second coming; His righteous judgment on Satan, the coming final Antichrist, the False Prophet, and all people who chose darkness over light and rejected God’s plan of salvation through His son Jesus; His 1,000-year reign on earth, known as the Millennial Kingdom; and when He will destroy the earth by fire and create a new heavens, a new earth, and a New Jerusalem, where all believers in Christ will spend our eternity, free from sin and sorrow, a world as God intended it to be.
There are hundreds of prophecies yet to be fulfilled, and many have said we are living at a time that is the most exciting time in history to be alive as a Christian. Yes, as Peter said, the prophets wrote of “things which angels desire to look into.” We can choose whether or not to read and believe the prophecies and that they will be fulfilled. The choice is up to us to make. But I can say one thing, with all the evidence that exists that God is real, Jesus is real, and the Bible is real, not only through fulfilled prophecy but also through archaeological evidence, I know that every single word written in the Bible is true, it is written through people chosen by God, including His prophets, and it is for our benefit to understand His plan for humanity, and His plan of redemption for us through belief in His Son Jesus Christ as our Redeemer, our salvation, the only One who can set us free. ✝️