Curious Angels

 “It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look” (1 Peter 1:12). The last line, “things into which angels long to look”, isn’t a mysterious aside by Peter. He’s making an allusion to the work of angels as “ministers of salvation” in the Old Covenant (Heb. 1-2). He repeats variations on the word “angel” three times in this verse, something which doesn’t carry over into English. And like with other major doctrines in this chapter, he makes use of these words at one point here and then revisits them later in the chapter (vs. 25, “εὐαγγελισθὲν”). So there is some word play going on in his mentioning of angels. But it isn’t just word play. The whole point is that God gave revelation of the work of Christ yet to come in the Old Testament, but gave no clarity on who this savior would be or when he would arrive. These revelations of the salvation yet to come were themselves acts of salvation by God, as He worked out His redemption of the world. And so this chapter is filled with words of knowing, searching, inquiring, seeking, and looking. Those things that were hidden, which men and angels longed and do long to see, were revealed beginning in the first century and have continued to be revealed in the New Covenant up to this day, with the pulling back of the veil (apokalupsis, apocalypse) so that men and angels might gaze into the Most Holy Place upon the glory of Christ in His person and work. What was once hard to see is now set up before all men to behold, in the proclamation of the Gospel and the good works of believing men. And this is why here and throughout the book Peter exhorts them to lives of holiness, that the fullness of Christ’s work might take hold in their lives, and that others may be saved. Rather than the end of vs. 12 being a confusing aside, or vs. 10-12 as it might seem at first blush, this section is at the core of Peter’s exhortation to them, as its teaching is throughout the New Testament in its message - though it seems to be something we have often failed to make clear in the Church.