The New Testament · Hebrews and the Catholic Letters · Book 67 of 73
Prophecy in 1 Peter
A letter to Christians who were strangers in their own towns, slandered and suffering. Peter gives them no timetable. He gives them a “living hope,” an inheritance kept in heaven, and a new identity: living stones, a royal priesthood, the people of God, waiting for “the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
In progress: 8 passages so far
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The book at a glance
The letter is sent in the name of “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ” to Christians scattered through five provinces of Asia Minor (1:1), written “through Silvanus” (5:12) from “Babylon,” the early Christian code name for Rome (5:13). Tradition holds that Peter wrote it from Rome before his martyrdom. Many modern scholars think it was written later by a disciple in his name; others defend Peter's authorship, with Silvanus as his secretary. The Church receives it as inspired Scripture either way.
Its prophecy is above all promise: salvation “ready to be revealed in the final time,” glory after suffering, the crown for faithful shepherds. It also holds two great types, the cornerstone and the flood, and one striking claim about prophecy itself: that the prophets of old were serving not themselves but the Church.
Key to the labels
How a passage stands
Fulfilled Accomplished in history, above all in Christ.
Unfolding Being worked out now in the life of the Church.
Future Clearly still to come at Christ's return.
Mystery Its meaning or moment is not yet settled.
What kind of passage it is
Prophecy God's word through a prophet, or Christ, about what will come.
Promise A pledge God makes, kept over generations.
Type A person or event that foreshadows Christ or the Church.
Image A picture Scripture returns to and completes at the end.
Apocalypse A vision unveiling history from heaven's side, in symbols.
More on the labels
| Passage | Subject | Standing |
|---|
| 1:3–5 | An inheritance kept in heaven | Fulfilled Future |
| 1:10–12 | The prophets searched and investigated | Fulfilled |
| 2:4–9 | Living stones and a royal priesthood | Fulfilled Unfolding |
| 3:18–22 | The spirits in prison; the flood and Baptism | Fulfilled Mystery |
| 4:7 | The end of all things is at hand | Future |
| 4:12–13 | The trial by fire | Unfolding Future |
| 5:8–9 | The devil like a roaring lion | Unfolding |
| 5:13 | The chosen one at Babylon | Fulfilled |
The passages
“…to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you…”
- Reading
- The letter opens with a blessing of God, “who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1:3). The hope is living because the one it rests on is alive. Those who hold it “are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time” (1:5). The Catechism cites this passage among those on the new life that Christ's Resurrection opens to us (CCC 654).
- Why two labels
- The new birth has happened, in Christ's rising and in Baptism. The inheritance is kept, not yet handed over: it is “ready to be revealed,” and will be at “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:7).
- For now
- “In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials” (1:6). The joy comes first, and the trials are “for a little while.”
“It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you…”
- Reading
- Here the New Testament says what Old Testament prophecy was. The prophets “searched and investigated” the salvation to come, “investigating the time and circumstances that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the glories to follow them” (1:10–11). The Spirit who spoke in them was already the Spirit of Christ, and the pattern he showed them was suffering first, then glory. Even angels “longed to look” into what the Church now hears preached (1:12).
- Note
- The prophets themselves searched for “the time,” and were not given it. What they were given was the shape of the mystery. That is a good model for reading prophecy today. This is also why this site reads the Old Testament forward to Christ (CCC 128–130).
- See also
- Luke 24:25–27; Isaiah 52:13–53:12, on the Isaiah page.
“…and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood…”
- Reading
- Peter gathers three stone texts around Christ, “a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God” (2:4). From Isaiah 28:16: “Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion, a cornerstone, chosen and precious” (2:6). From Psalm 118:22: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (2:7). From Isaiah 8:14: a stone that makes people stumble (2:8). Peter quotes Isaiah in the Greek form the early Church used, so the wording differs from the NABRE's translation of the Hebrew, “See, I am laying a stone in Zion, a stone that has been tested.”
- Then he gives the Church the titles of Israel at Sinai: “But you are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own’” (2:9). God had told Israel, “You will be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Revelation sings the same: Christ “has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father” (Revelation 1:6).
- Why two labels
- The cornerstone is laid in Christ's death and Resurrection. The house is still being built, one baptized person at a time. The Catechism draws on these verses to teach that Baptism gives a share in the common priesthood of all believers (CCC 1268).
- See also
- Ephesians 2:19–22; Matthew 21:42; The Temple of His Body.
“In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah…”
- Reading
- Christ, put to death in the flesh and brought to life in the spirit, went to “the spirits in prison.” The Catechism cites these verses when it teaches that Christ truly died and went down to the realm of the dead (CCC 632), and it adds the later verse, “the gospel was preached even to the dead” (4:6; CCC 634). The Creed says it in four words: he descended into hell.
- Then Peter turns to the flood, “in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now” (3:20–21). The flood is a type, and Baptism is what it pointed to. The Church has seen in Noah's ark a prefiguring of salvation by Baptism (CCC 1219). See the flood on the Genesis page. The passage ends with the risen Christ gone into heaven, at God's right hand, with every angelic power subject to him (3:22).
- Why mystery
- The NABRE note says frankly that “it is not clear just who these spirits are.” They may be the souls of those who died in the flood, or hostile angelic powers whom Christ, in his victory, proclaims overcome (compare Genesis 6:1–4). The Church teaches the descent itself; the identity of the spirits is left open.
- For now
- The descent means there is no place so dark that Christ has not gone into it.
“The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be serious and sober for prayers.”
- Reading
- The conclusion Peter draws from the nearness of the end is not alarm but prayer, and then love: “Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins” (4:8). The Catechism cites this verse together with 1 John 2:18 when it teaches that since the Ascension “we are already at ‘the last hour’” and the final age of the world is with us (CCC 670).
- Note
- “At hand” describes the age, not a date. The end is near in the sense that nothing else stands between us and it; Christ has done all that was needed. Its hour remains the Father's (Matthew 24:36).
“Beloved, do not be surprised that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as if something strange were happening to you.”
- Reading
- Suffering for Christ is not a sign that something has gone wrong. It is the pattern the prophets saw, suffering then glory (1:11), lived now by his members: “But rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly” (4:13). Peter adds that “it is time for the judgment to begin with the household of God” (4:17), a verse the Catechism cites for the present time as one of witness and trial (CCC 672).
- Why two labels
- The trial is happening in every age of the Church. The exultant joy belongs to the day his glory is revealed.
“Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour.”
- Reading
- The enemy is real, but Peter's instruction is short and calm: “Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings” (5:9). No one fights alone. The Church prays these words at Night Prayer on Tuesdays, at the hour when fear comes most easily.
- Why unfolding
- The prowling continues until the end, when “the ancient serpent” is thrown down for good (Revelation 12:9; 20:10). Meanwhile Christ is “the lion of the tribe of Judah” who has already triumphed (Revelation 5:5).
- For now
- The next verse is the real last word: “The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory through Christ [Jesus] will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you have suffered a little” (5:10).
“The chosen one at Babylon sends you greeting, as does Mark, my son.”
- Reading
- “The chosen one” is the church, and Babylon, as the NABRE note explains, is “the code name for Rome,” as in Revelation 14:8; 17:5; 18:2. Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem and carried God's people into exile; to call Rome Babylon was to say that Christians were again exiles, “sojourners” in the world's capital (2:11). The note adds that Mark is traditionally Peter's disciple and co-worker in Rome.
- Why fulfilled
- The image is drawn from what had already happened, and it shows how early Christians read their own world through prophecy. Revelation develops it fully in the great harlot, “Babylon the great” (Revelation 17:5), seated on seven hills, which the NABRE note identifies as “of Rome” (Revelation 17:9).
- Note
- Babylon in these texts names the proud city of this world in every age, beginning with the empire that persecuted the first Christians. It is not a name to be pinned on any church or nation today.
Still to come on this pageFurther passages to add: the Lamb “known before the foundation of the world but revealed in the final time” (1:18–21), the day of visitation (2:12), Christ the shepherd and guardian of souls (2:25), and the unfading crown of glory when the chief Shepherd is revealed (5:4).
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