1 Peter 1:10-12
The prophets of the Old Testament prophesied of the coming Savior and is the anxious anticipation of the overarching story of the Old Testament. The Old Testament Scriptures are so directly connected to the New Testament Scriptures in that together they are the whole of God’s ultimate plan of salvation. God spoke through the prophets of the Old Testament and gave hope that God’s grace would come through the, “sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” as Peter tells us in verse 11. The Old Testament prophets were speaking to the people of Israel, but Peter tells us they knew that their prophecies were to minister to the people of later generations for the time in which these prophecies would be fulfilled. Peter says that the things that he and the other apostles have been teaching about Jesus is the fulfillment of these prophecies as is given through God’s, “Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things which angels desire to look into” (1 Peter 1:12).
This is an example that the Old Testament and the New Testament work together in the unfolding of God’s ultimate plan of salvation for all people.
This is an example that the prophets of the Old Testament (whom God spoke through) knew of the grace that God would show through a coming Savior who would bring glory through His sufferings.
Jesus is not just a character in the New Testament of the Bible; “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:2-3, NKJV). He was the [Lamb] whose blood was shed to provide clothing for Adam and Eve to cover their sin in the garden, and then, when sent from heaven in the flesh, became the [Lamb] whose blood was shed for the sins of all man. The sacrifices of the Old Testament that man made to God for their sins was symbolic of the ultimate sacrifice that God would make for us all that no man could make for himself. The blood that Christ Jesus shed on the cross for the sins of all man is representative of the blood God shed of the [Lamb] in the garden. The first blood shed was due to man’s willful sin, and the requirement of blood to be shed in the sacrifices from man to God in the Old Testament was intended so man would feel the pain in sacrifice that God first felt when Adam and Eve sinned – that it would be a reminder of how horrible sin is, and that it would cause a pain in one’s soul that would steer one away from ever wanting to commit sin again. But the sinful nature is more powerful than man, and after the many years of man proving over and over throughout the Old Testament that he cannot redeem himself, God stepped in and provided a Savior; One who would redeem all man from the power of Satan as He defeated Satan once for all when He died on the cross, innocent of sin, yet for your salvation and mine, He took our punishment to the cross and as Paul says in Romans 6:3-4, 7-11, “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life…For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Dear LORD,
The Apostle Peter ties together for us the Old Testament and the New Testament Scriptures in showing us a glimpse of Your ultimate plan of salvation for all of man, that we would put our trust in Jesus as our Savior – but more than that – the Savior of the world, that we all might be saved through Him and become redeemed as Your children and receive the, “inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” as Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:4-5. In Jesus name I pray, amen.