On Puzzled Prophets, Part 2

Part 1 

I’ve given one example of an OT prophet who didn’t understand the message he was given to deliver, and I’ve suggested a couple more possible examples. I don’t know whether you noticed or not, but none of those examples involved a prophet who was puzzled over the specific idea that Peter says puzzled multiple OT prophets. 

And what’s that? It was a twofold question: “searching what, or what manner of time” (1P 1.11)—that is, what’s going to happen, and when is it going to happen? And the “it,” in this case, is a very specific event: 

• The Christ (Messiah, “Anointed One”) will suffer, 

• And then he will reign in glory. 

How can that happen? 

I suspect that their understanding was clouded by a related issue. It appears to me that the Jews—both before and during Jesus’ day—were expecting four different “coming ones”: 

• The prophet like Moses (Dt 18.15); 

• David’s eternally reigning Son, the Messiah (2Sa 7.16); 

• The Servant of the Lord (Is 42, 49, 50, 52, 53); 

• And Elijah (Mal 4.5-6). 

They didn’t seem to understand that three of these four are the same person, as evidenced by the people’s questions of John the Baptist (Jn 1.20-21). 

The prophecies are very clear that the Servant of the Lord will suffer (esp. Is 52.13-53.12) and that David’s greater son will rule forever (2Sa 7.16). But those two are the same person, and apparently the prophets themselves didn’t understand that. 

• This coming one would be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief (Is 53.3);  

• He will bear our griefs, and carry our sorrows (4); 

• He will be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities—and with his stripes we will be healed (5); 

• The Lord will lay on him the iniquity of us all (6); 

• He will be brought as a lamb to the slaughter (7);  

• He will be cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgressions of Isaiah’s people (8).  

• And yes, he will make his grave with both the wicked and the rich (9); 

• The Lord will make his soul an offering for sin (10); 

• He will pour out his soul unto death, and make intercession for the transgressors, and bear the sin of many. 

And then, and only then, he will see his seed, and prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 

Why Peter Says It 

Now. 

Why does Peter bring this up? What’s his point, in this context? What does this have to do with our suffering? 

I can’t read Peter’s mind, but let me hazard a suggestion. 

Peter’s writing about the confident hope we have in suffering. But how can we have a confident hope when we just don’t understand why stuff happens to us the way that it does?  

First, we have the example of the prophets, who didn’t understand—for the rest of their lives—and they believed anyway.  

• Doesn’t it make sense that an infinite, ineffable God would occasionally do some things that are beyond our intellectual reach? What kind of a God would it be who did only things that our finite minds can understand?  

• Doesn’t our confidence increase when we realize that our failure to understand isn’t evidence that anything is wrong with God’s plan?  

Further, we have the historical example. Unlike the prophets, we have the benefit of hindsight: we have seen their prophecies fulfilled, even though they sometimes didn’t have the foggiest notion of what they were talking about. We know how the Servant could make his grave with both the wicked and the rich.  

What about those prophecies yet unfulfilled—the ones we still don’t understand?  

Do you think this God will fulfill those promises too?  

I do.  

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash