| Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. | ||
| 1 Peter 1:9-11 | ||
| ‘What you’re experiencing,’ Peter says, ‘is something which the prophets were intrigued by, interested in, but couldn’t get a handle on.’ You see, the prophets wrote about things they just couldn’t figure out, for they saw the glory of Psalm 2; but they also saw the suffering of Isaiah 53. They saw the triumph on the Mount of Olives where the returning Messiah will stand; but they also saw the blood on Mt. Calvary upon which Messiah died. ‘How can it be,’ they must have wondered, ‘that He will be despised and rejected, smitten and suffering, yet also ruling and reigning? This doesn’t make sense.’ They saw Mt. Calvary. They saw the Mount of Olives. But what they didn’t see was the valley between the two — a valley of about 2,000 years. They didn’t understand that they were writing of two comings — that Messiah would come as a Suffering Savior before returning as a Conquering King. So too, some today might say, ‘I hear all of the promises — but I don’t see any glory.’ That’s because there’s a valley between them which might last a week, a month, a decade, a lifetime. But God’s plan is being unfolded nonetheless, for glory always follows suffering. Always. | ||
