Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - What Is the Bible?

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 10, 1993. Series: Splendor in the Furnace: 1 Peter, Part 1. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:10-12. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Each year, Gospel in Life offers a daily devotional during the season of Lent, the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday. You can sign up to receive these daily devotionals by email at gospelonlife.com slash lent. That's gospelonlife.com slash Lent. Now here's Dr. Keller with today's teaching. We're just doing a consecutive exposition of the gospel according to Peter, 1st Peter, and I'm going to read to you the same passage we read last week and just open up what it says. It's 1st Peter. It's printed in your bulletin, chapter 1, and we're going to look at verses 10 to 12, 10, 11, and 12. Three verses. Let's read it. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you

searched intently with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and the circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but serving you. When they spoke of the things that have now been told to you by those who have preached the gospel to you, by the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven, even angels long to look into these things. Into which things, even angels, long to look. This is God's word. Now, actually, we started looking at this last week, and this week we're going to conclude our look at these three little verses, which I'm pretty certain are a kind of a tangent, an addendum, as we said last week, good pastors and good communicators anticipate people's questions.

And the first few verses of Peter, which we looked at in the last couple of weeks, say, in the first few verses of Peter, Peter says that if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, you're, you have received salvation, which means deliverance, if you have received this deliverance from your sin, from your brokenness, if you've received this salvation, then when you go into times of trouble, suffering, instead of that suffering breaking you, it'll refine you, just like putting metal through a furnace just refines and purifies it. So if you have this great salvation, Peter says, you will find as you move on through these sufferings, it'll just make you better. We talked about this in the morning services when I was preparing people for worship. It's intriguing.

You can see this so many ways, so many places in the Bible. In the book of Mark, chapter 1, we see Jesus Christ has an experience at his baptism of the Holy Spirit comes down from above. and as he receives the Holy Spirit, he gets this assurance that he belongs to the Father. He hears the voice of the Father saying, this is my son, whom I love, in whom I am well pleased. Something people forget. Some people miss. It's so clear right there. The fullness of the Spirit is always linked to an assurance of your adoption. The fullness of the Spirit isn't a kind of naked power. it's not kind of electricity, here it comes, and now I'm able to do more things. No, it's the power that

comes from the realization and the assurance that the great king of heaven is my father, who loves me and is completely pleased with me because Jesus Christ is my righteousness and my goodness and my record. He's my advocate. He's my priest. Now, in other words, the power is not a an artificial power. It's not a mechanical power. It's a personal power that comes just from the excitement and the thrill and the freedom from knowing God's your father. Now, the minute he experiences that, and by the way, that's a small tangent, but never forget that. What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? It means to know your father loves you, to act out of that, to be able to cut that father love like a knife. It lays so thick on your spirit. That's what it

means to be filled with a spirit. It's the same thing. Now, when Jesus experiences that, what are we told? He's driven out into the wilderness by the spirit, and he's with the wild beasts. But as soon as he goes through that terrible experience of temptation in the wilderness, he is prepared for preaching. He then begins to preach in a powerful way. Look, an experience of your salvation, an experience of being adopted, an experience of God's love, plus an experience of trouble in the wilderness and wild beasts equals power to serve other people. Same thing as Peter's saying. If you understand, you receive your salvation and going into the furnace actually doesn't turn you into a cinder, it turns you into pure gold. Same thing. Now, we get to verse 10, and suddenly

Peter does a little bit of a digression, and I think this is the reason why, because I think he anticipates somebody saying, okay, I'm a Christian, think, at least I believe in all this salvation and I believe in Jesus and he died for me and all that, but I'm not rejoicing in my trials. I'm not moving on through my suffering, feeling like I'm being purified by like pure gold, not at all. I'm not rejoicing in my sufferings. What's the wrong with me? So what Peter actually does is he says, well, concerning the salvation. And in this little three verses, he basically says the reason a lot of us who do believe in the good news, we do believe in the gospel, still are not able to handle our troubles, is we do not know how to look into the gospel.

Let me start with this, and then I'll conclude with this. At the very end, it says, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you when they spoke of the things that have been told you by those who preached the gospel to you, into which things even angels long to look. We referred to this last week, but now let me just show you what this means. When it says, into which things, even angels long to look. First of all, the word long is an extremely strong word. It's a Greek word that means passion. It means obsession, and not Calvin Klein's.

It means obsession. That's an amazing word. The word look is usually, it usually means to gaze. So, for example, in James chapter one, it talks about there's an illustration used where it says if a man sees, beholds his face in a mirror. Now, how do you behold your face in the mirror? You know, the word behold is a good English word. It's a better word even in this word gaze. The behold means you're not just look at it. Oh yeah, I saw her. I saw him. Behold means that it holds your gaze, it holds your attention, or that you hold on to it.

and you look at it, and you study it, and you examine it, you see. And so what this is saying is the angels are obsessed with the gospel. Some people say, well, wait a minute, what does that mean? Angels want to look. It's a present tense. It's not saying, back then, when the prophets were speaking, the angels were intrigued because they wanted to know, too. When was the Messiah coming?

No, this is a present tense. And what it's saying is, the angels are obsessed with the gospel. they continually look into it. They long to look into it. They gaze into it. The way you'd look into a fire, a beautiful fire, the way you'd look at a beautiful person, the way you'd look into a kaleidoscope,

look at the fireworks, you gaze at them, you can't get enough of them. They're obsessed with the gospel. They look into it all the time. And really what Peter's actually saying is, you better too, or else you will not be able to handle your troubles. And that's the reason why you can't.

That's the gist of the passage. But now having told you the gist of the passage, he gives you a few how-toes in here. What does it mean to gaze into the gospel the way the angels do? Think about this. The angels are not idiots. The angels are pretty smart people.

And therefore, here, let's get at this. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. They're probably smarter and overall, more disciplined people than us. And therefore, the gospel cannot simply, be a body of information. Isn't that right? I mean, you can only look into a body of information so long. So, you get a book and you have to study it. You have to master it. So you read it and you master it and you master it and you master it. And let's say finally you memorize it. Well, at a certain point, you know it. And if the gospel was nothing

but information, kind of a set of information, well, then the angels, you've got to figure that their mental prowess and capacity is much greater than ours, they'd say, I know the gospel. Is there anybody out there that feels like they know the gospel? They know it. I want to talk about something else. I want to go beyond it. I want to talk about deeper teaching. You know, one of the things that you, one of the giveaways of what a childish attitude that is, is if you ever watch children, you know, you try, we baptize our children, we try to raise them in church, we try to teach some things. But it's so typical. If you try to teach a child a Bible story, try to, you know, you go into a sixth grade class, maybe some of you've tried this to teach Sunday school and so on, and you start to tell them about the parable of the sower, you tell them

about the, you know, this story, or Jesus healing the blind man. And it's very typical. The kids have been in church for a while, they say, I already know that. I know Jesus died for my sins. What are you telling me about that for? Everybody knows that. But isn't it true of us? We think we know it. If you know it, why are you living the way you are? if you know it why are your troubles overthrowing you if you know it why do you still as we were saying earlier today why do you still take your identity from what people say about you take your identity from what's happening your accomplishments take your identity from your dress size why if you really know the gospel you don't know it it's not just a it is not just a body of

information but it's truly a kaleidoscope of insights, endless insights into how it applies to you. Endless insights into the multi-dimensional richness of it. Endless insights into what God has done. The angels are not dummies. If they are always obsessed with looking at it, this must be, or I should put it this way,

do you know the bottomlessness of the gospel? They do. Now, if you want to learn how to gaze in the gospel, let's just take a look at this. There's really, in a sense, three things that it teaches us. First of all, you better understand what the gospel is. Inside the Bible, what is the gospel? Notice it says, well, let me just kind of give you an overview here.

Concerning the salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and the circumstances to which the spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would find. follow. This is telling us that the Old Testament prophets knew about Christ coming. They knew that someone would come to save us. You know, God's, pardon me, Jesus said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. Christ was saying that Abraham knew I was coming, but had no idea about when or where. And the important word here is the circumstances. The first thing, and I'll try to be brief because we've mentioned

this before, but it's very, very important. The gospel is a report. of a historic event. The gospel is not simply wise sayings. The gospel, if you're going to gaze into the gospel, you have to realize where it is and what it is. The gospel is not just simply wise sayings. It's not just simply depictions of virtue. You know, the myths of the Greeks and the Romans depicted virtue. Here's Hercules, and he tells us something about virtue, and we listen to the story and we say, ah, that's how we should all be. Is that the gospel? Absolutely not. In fact, it says that the prophets knew that there would be circumstances. There would be a historical moment in which this great salvation happened.

And later on, it actually says here in verse 12, it says who preached, when they, the things that the prophets spoke about are predicted, the apostles spoke of those things that have now been told you by those who preached the gospel. And the word told there in the Old King James Bible is the word report. The gospel is a report. reporter do? Well, some reporters do philosophize and some reporters do interpret, but the main job of reporters is to tell you what happened. And the essence of the gospel is it's not a teaching, it's not a lot of wise sayings, it's not ethical, you know, how to live. Oh, the gospel leads to ethics. The gospel leads to

wisdom. The gospel leads to wise teachings, but the gospel primarily is a report of an event. Let me explain. You know, the word gospel comes from the word that meant good news. And news, which means the heralds would come into town and say, good news, something has happened. Heralds did not come into town and say, good news, a penny saved is a penny earned. The herald did not rock in and say, good news, crime does not pay. The herald did not come in with wise sayings. The herald came in and says, something has happened in history that changes everything and you must respond to it. The herald might come in and say,

crime does not pay because the king has triumphed, because he's landed. You see, but the difference is the wise sayings are based on the gospel, on a fact, on a report. Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us, but could actually make us stronger, wiser, and more hopeful? All month long on gospel in life, Tim Keller is teaching from the book of first Peter, and looking at how Peter encouraged early believers who were facing intense suffering in pain. In his book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Dr. Keller takes a deeper look at how,

with God's help, we can face life's most intense challenges and confront the hard questions on suffering. Through deep pastoral insight and real-life stories, Dr. Keller explores how we can face pain and suffering in our own lives. This month, Walking with God through pain and suffering is our thank you for your gift to help gospel in life share the message of Christ's love and compassion with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, if you happen to believe that gazing at

the gospel means looking at all, looking at the sermon on the mount and looking at the way we're supposed to live and love thy neighbor as thyself, if you're the kind of person who says, I want to be a Christian, I want to experience all these great things, but I don't know what. whether I believe that Jesus was God. I don't know whether I believe that he died on a cross for my sins. I don't know whether I believe the accounts of the gospel. I'm not sure about that. But all that matters to me is that Jesus is a wonderful model of compassionate living, and I want to follow that model. Think. You think that Jesus Christ's model is good news? My friends, Jesus Christ is so wonderful. his example is so great, his wisdom is so wonderful, that he dams us with every word. He's nothing but

depressing. If he didn't come to die for your sins and to do something in history, if he's simply a model, if he just comes with wise sayings, live like this, obey the golden rule, if that's the good news, we're lost, we're lost. Think about it. There's nothing encouraging about Jesus Christ if he comes as a teacher, if he comes as a wise person, as he comes as a philosopher, no. You don't have to believe that Jesus is God come in the flesh. You don't have to believe that he died on the cross for our sins, that change us forever. You don't have to believe that he rose physically from the grave and now stands at the right hand of the Father, and he represents us before the Father. You don't have to believe that.

But if you want philosophy instead of that, go to other religions. They're all about that. Don't you see? if you just want a teacher, if you just want an example, go to them because that's what they're about. But Christianity never has been about that. The gospel is he has done something for you. Your sins are forgiven. Death has been broken. He died in your place and he rose triumphant over the grave. That's the gospel. Oh, listen, the Bible is full of how to win over worry. It helps you. How to deal with guilt feelings. How to raise a happy family, you see. How to overcome bitterness. How to face grief. Of course, but only because there's a gospel.

Otherwise, everything, all the other things that the Bible says, everything else about the Bible, is Babel. It's nonsense. There's no help for your worry.

There's no way to deal with grief unless these things actually happened. Don't you see? And that's very, very important to realize. All the great things you see in the Bible, the philosophy, all the wisdom, all that stuff, all the how to handle worry

and how to deal with grief, And how to ever, don't you dare think that that is the gospel. That's a consequence of the gospel. The gospel is that Jesus Christ, at a certain moment in circumstances of time, suffered, died for us. It's the first thing. That's the gospel. That's what you have to look at. What he's done for you.

If you just gaze, if you think what it means to gaze into the gospel and be obsessed with the gospel, is just to look at what he says, turn the other cheek. be generous give and don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing forgive everybody 70 times 7 read all that stuff if you think that's what it means to gaze into the gospel all that stuff is wonderful to read if you first understand that he's actually done something what you're gazing into is what he's done for you secondly the second thing you the second thing you have to do is the way to gaze into the gospel is read the bible now maybe that's pretty obvious but i guess we better lay it out here peter is saying

that the place you find, this wonderful gospel that the angels are obsessed with, is to read the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament. See, in verse 10, it says, the prophets foretold it in a kind of shadowy way. And they yearned to see when it was going to happen, but they never were really able to tell all the details. However, the same spirit that told the prophets that Jesus was coming. Now it says in verse 12, it guides the apostles who preach the gospel to you. Now here's what this teaches us. Secondly, you have to read the Bible. You have to gaze into the Bible. One of the things that's wonderful here is this is telling us, this is giving us a doctrine of the scripture. You know what it is? The doctrine of the scripture is that the things that the prophets

and the apostles said are actually the words of the Spirit of God. You have a one. You have a wonderful doctrine of the scripture, and I can only mention it very briefly. On the one hand, you've got a kind of stenographer approach to the inspiration of the scripture. Many people seem to think that God just sort of sent in some kind of, some kind of, they zapped, you might say, the prophets and the apostles, and the prophets and the apostles in a kind of stenographic way just sort of wrote things down. When actually you see here that they were involved, they searched out. They were looking. They said, gosh, look, God's showing us something that the Messiah is going to come, but they searched intently to know when it was going to come. Do you see what an interesting statement this is?

It means that they were human beings. They didn't lose their cognition. They didn't lose control. And yet, what was coming to them, they knew was not a product of their own wisdom. Their words were God's words. If you want a perfect example of this, in Acts chapter 425, Peter says, The Lord God, who by the mouth of David did say by the Holy Spirit. And then he quotes Psalm 2. Listen, the Lord God who by the mouth of David did say by the Holy Spirit, that's how the biblical writers understand what else is happening in the Bible.

They know that David wrote Psalm 2, but they know that the Holy Spirit so moved David, that whatever David says, God says, and that's how you have to read the Bible. You have to look at it that way. Oh, somebody says, well, how can you have that kind of view of the Bible? How can you have a view of its authority? There's really only two ways to read the Bible. You can either accept what Jesus said about it, because this was Jesus view too, and I don't have time to go into it. You can accept what Peter and Jesus and all those folks said about it, and you can let the Bible have authority over your thinking, or you can decide that you're the authority and you know best how to go through it and sort out what's right and wrong and you can let yourself be the authority over what the Bible says you can either let your own reason be ascendant over the Bible or you can let the Bible be ascended over your own reason those are the only two possibilities

and as a result if you are unwilling if you're unwilling to take this view of the scripture it's very hard to gaze into the gospel I'm not saying that in order to be a Christian, you have to believe every word of the Bible. I'm saying that if you want to be a consistent Christian, you do. Because it's really silly to say, I believe what Jesus says, I believe he died for me, he's my Lord, but I don't believe what he taught about the scripture. What Peter says is the same thing that Jesus said. Peter was Jesus' apostle. He looks at the scripture and says, it's the work of the Spirit of God. You've got to trust the Bible, or else you'll never be able to see it as what it is.

a letter from God to you about the gospel. Last of all, it says, the only way you're going to ever find the Bible making sense to you is if you see it's all about the sufferings and glory of Christ. Everything is about the sufferings and glory of Christ. According to Peter, all of the Old Testament is about the sufferings and glory of Christ. Well, somebody says, that's not right. Well, sure, look at the prophecies. The prophecies are all about Christ. We're told in Genesis 3 that the Redeemer will be human. We're told in Isaiah 9, you know, he's a mighty God, he's a manual in Isaiah 7, that he'll be God. We're told that he'll suffer and be killed, like in Isaiah 53. We're told that he'll rise again, Psalm 16.

You will not let your Holy One seek corruption. And so you go through and you see the prophecies are about Jesus. Well, somebody says, well, what about Leviticus? What about all that stuff that's so hard to read about the sacrifices and about the tabernacle and all the... That's all about Jesus. Jesus was the sacrifice that the Old Testament was pointing to. Jesus was the bread on the altar. Jesus was the lampstand in the holy place. Jesus was the temple itself. He's the place where you meet God. Well, somebody says, what about the law? Oh, look it. The law is all about Jesus. When you read the Ten Commandments, when you read the Proverbs, when you read any part of the Old Testament, you know what you're looking at?

Yes, somebody says, sure, it's about what I'm saying, sure, it's about what I'm saying, supposed to do. Not first of all. If you learn how to read the Bible through the sufferings and glory of Christ, you will see that first of all, the law is telling you about the moral excellence of Jesus and what he has done for you. Read that stuff. He did this for me. He fulfilled this for me. All of the moral perfection of Jesus, because he's the only one who ever loved the Lord has gone with all his heart, soul, strength of mind. He's the only one that ever loved his neighbor as himself perfectly. He fulfilled the law. And the law is all about the righteousness that has been imputed to you when you receive him as Savior. Do you read the law like that? It sure makes you feel

good if you do it that way. Oh, that's not all. One last thing. Even the history of Israel is all about the sufferings and glory of Jesus. Jesus was the true prophet. Jesus was the true priest. Jesus was the true king. And so all the history of all the other prophets, priests, and kings just point to Jesus. But more than that, you know what Israel was. God, out of all the nations of the earth, chose one nation and says, I want you to be faithful to me and keep my commandments, but a lot of them didn't. And so out of, you remember the ten tribes, they eventually were pushed away and they were punished and they were lost. So then you're down to one tribe, Judah. Will you keep the covenant? But a lot of them didn't, and they were sent away in exile.

And so only a remnant came back after the exile to Babylon. Will you do it? Down, down, down. in the end, how big is Israel, according to the New Testament? How big is Israel? How many people have been faithful to the covenant? How many people have been faithful? How small is the remnant? I'll tell you who Israel is. There's only one person left, according to the Bible. One person left. You know, in the book of Hosea, it talks about the fact that when the Israelites were called out of Egypt, when God led them out under Moses. And Josea says out of Egypt I called my son, and yet in the gospel of Matthew,

Matthew is able to apply that to Jesus himself because Jesus is the true Israel. He's the only one that fulfilled the covenant. And that means that all of the blessings promised to the children of Abraham belong to Jesus alone. He alone inherits the promises. He alone inherits the blessings. He is the true Israel.

all of the history of Israel is about him. All the ceremonial law is about him. All of the law and the wisdom is about him. All of the prophecy is about him. All the ceremonial, all, it's all about him. Do you know how to read the Bible? That it's all about the sufferings and glory of Jesus? If you don't, the Bible is going to be to you like it was to Mark Twain.

Mark Twain used to have nightmares at night about the Bible. He used to dream about this huge Bible put on his chest. chest, crushing him, breaking his bones, suffocating him. He couldn't breathe. If you read the law, except as the sufferings, about the sufferings and glory of Christ, if you read the ceremony, if you read the history of Israel, it'll crush you. That's not how you gaze at the gospel. You have to read everything as if it's about the sufferings and glory of Jesus. Let me conclude this way. until you learn how to read the whole Bible through the gospel so that you see actually the gospel is enshrined in the Bible in a thousand different ways. So it's like a glorious kaleidoscope.

There's a never-ending different number of ways in which the gospel is laid out there for you so that you get it, you get the richness of it, you get it over and over again. So it permeates you and saturates you and changes the way you do everything. But it only happens if you read everything in the Old and New Testament through this one. It's all about the sufferings and glory. of Christ. In Luke 24, on the road to Amas, Jesus, after his resurrection, meets these two downcast disciples. And of course, they don't recognize Jesus. And he says, what's the problem? And they say to him, get this. Basically, they say, you know, we thought that Jesus Christ would redeem Israel. We thought he would redeem us, and yet he died on a cross. We thought he'd redeem us,

He died on a cross. And Jesus looked at them and he said, O foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets has spoken. And then, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all scripture concerning himself. And he said, did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter into his glory? You see, what Jesus said was, if you don't understand what's going on, in life. It's because you haven't learned to see everything through the sufferings and glory of the Messiah. He proves that every part of the scripture, every part of the scripture is about his

sufferings and his glory. Have you learned to read the scripture that way? There's some people out here who don't believe the scripture is a coherent body. I challenge you. I charge you. I dare you to start reading the Bible carefully, to start reading the Bible systematically and comprehensively and say, is it all about Jesus? If you begin to read the Bible like that, I'm sorry, you'll never gaze into the gospel simply by reading John 316 every morning. You'll never gaze into the gospel and get obsessed with the gospel and have your life changed by the gospel unless you start to actually look into the words of the prophets and the apostles, read the scripture all through the suffering and glory of Christ. Do you understand the bottomlessness of the gospel? Oh, he can make your joys to

weep and your griefs to sing. The hymn writer says. And your own sufferings, you'll begin to see why, they are there. You won't be confused like the people on the road to Amas. We thought he was going to redeem us, but instead he died on the cross. Oh, foolish of heart, don't be like them. Don't be like them. Gaze into the gospel. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that you now help us to be disciplined enough to read the scripture, to be smart enough to trust the scripture, to to trust it, to be obedient enough, to come to it and seek to read it through the sufferings and glory of your son. We ask that you'd help us to look into it just the way the angels do until we become as full of Christ as they are. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Tim Keller here at Gospel and Life. For the 40 Days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel and Life would like to email you a daily Lent devotional. You can sign up to receive these daily emails at gospelonlife.com slash lent. That's gospelonlife.com slash lent. Today's sermon was recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.