1 Peter 1:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

He proves both the foreknowledge of the prophets and that those now called to the faith of Christ were known to God before the creation of the world.

By speaking of the foreknowledge of the prophets, he teaches them to receive with faith what the prophets foretold to them. Wise children do not despise the labors of their fathers.

If the prophets, who had no benefit for themselves, searched and investigated, and having found, enclosed it in books and handed it down to us as an inheritance, then we would be unjust to treat their labors with contempt.

Therefore, when we also proclaim this to you, do not despise it, and do not leave our preaching of the Gospel fruitless.

Such is the lesson from the foreknowledge of the prophets. And by saying that believers were foreknown by God, the Apostle instills fear in them.

They must not show themselves unworthy of God’s foreknowledge and of the calling from Him, but must urge one another to become worthy of God’s gift.

Here the whole company of Old Testament prophets is meant. Their common activity is characterized by this: they all foretold the grace appointed for you.

This means the saving grace which, through the becoming man of God the Word, His life, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension, was poured out upon the whole sinful human world for its salvation.

This is the salvation of which the Apostle speaks.

The Apostle characterizes the activity of all the prophets by precisely this trait, in the same general sense in which he once said in one of his speeches to the people that all the prophets foretold the days of Christ (Acts 3:24).

That is, the chief essential subject and purpose of all God’s revelations is Christ and His work of redeeming mankind.

We have heard the Gospel of this mystery through new instruments of the Holy Spirit: angels and apostles.

The angels rejoice even over one sinner who repents. With special love and living expectation they would have wished to hear and see the great mystery of salvation.

Yet it was not revealed to them before the proper time.

The angels first expressed their joy over the salvation of sinners when they announced to the shepherds the birth of Christ in Bethlehem (cf. Heb 1:6).

Afterward the Apostles preached it, moved by the same Holy Spirit who descended upon them from heaven on the day of Pentecost.

Thus all God’s servants ministered to the salvation of Christians: prophets and apostles, angels, and God Himself. How, then, can they be despondent or despair at the sight of any dangers?

By the searches and inquiries of the prophets one must understand those reverent meditations into which they entered when receiving divine revelations about the Messiah.

It also includes their reading of the predictions of other prophets, as they sought to clarify for themselves when and how the Messiah would appear.

But through illumination from the Spirit it was revealed to them that this would not be fulfilled in their time.

The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ because He is consubstantial with the Son and was sent down for revelations concerning the Messiah and Savior.

By the merits of Christ, He was given to the Apostles and to all Christians.

Thus in Christianity everything bears the seal of unity and supernaturalness, the whole depth of which even the angels cannot comprehend.

Therefore the Apostle Paul rightly cried out when contemplating the greatness of our salvation: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out” (Rom 11:33).

This is what is meant by “testifying beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.”

Receiving revelation about these events, the prophets also desired to know precisely when they would occur. They wished not only to contemplate them in the future, but also to live until them and be their witnesses.

How blessed they would have been if their desire had been fulfilled (Mt 13:17), and if with their own eyes they had seen Christ and with their own ears heard from His mouth the word of life and salvation.

But this blessedness was not given to them. It was revealed to them that the events they had foretold would take place in the distant future, to which they would not live.

They learned that what they had foretold as future served not themselves, but us, to whom it has been preached as already accomplished.

Christ the Savior Himself brought this preaching, this good news of salvation, to earth. But from the time of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, it spread throughout the whole earth.

The Apostles, preaching the Gospel by the Holy Spirit sent upon them from heaven, proclaimed Christ everywhere.

For the angels themselves, this Gospel is the object of most intense attention, into which “angels desire to look.”

The depth of the riches, wisdom, and knowledge of God revealed in the salvation of men by the crucified and glorified Christ brings them into reverent wonder.

If our salvation is so dear to the angels, should it not be all the more dear to us who are being saved?

Therefore the Word of God, coming in an intelligible manner to all the saints who lived before and after His coming, sanctifies according to the deeds each one performed.

He sanctifies those whom He Himself duly illumined. Thus those who lived before His coming are not diminished because of the absence of Christ’s sensory presence.

For they could not enjoy this coming not because of vice, but because of the difference of time.

Thus, although the prophets investigated at what time the salvation of souls would be attained, and the sufferings of Christ and the glory that followed would be accomplished, they learned through revelation that this served not themselves.

It served those who would come after His coming. Therefore one must not speak of their holiness as lesser.