Matt.16:13,14 records a question from Jesus concerning Himself. Who is Jesus? is indeed a crucial question – THE crucial question, for if He is the Lord from Heaven (1 Cor. 15:47) then that changes everything. The world has no shortage of religion or of gurus. As in His lifetime, the world today is filled with all sorts of ideas about Christ. C.S. Lewis said of some of these prevailing ideas about Christ: I am trying to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher , but I don’t accept His claim to be God”. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Jesus asked “Who do men say that I, The son of man, am?” They knew Him as a man but was He more than just a man? I suppose in some ways this might be something of a crisis point in the ministry of Jesus. If the disciples had missed His true identity, where would that place His ministry, both immediate and long-term? In vs. 13,14 He asks about popular opinion first, perhaps to get rid of any hedge the disciples might try to hide behind. You know how politicians are sometimes – “I see some of my friends are for the proposal and some of my friends are against the proposal – I want you to know I am with my friends”. Some Bible teachers do the same thing:- “This commentator says this and that Commentator says that” – but what do you say? Remember Jesus’ question about the authority behind the baptism of John to which the Jews gave answer “We cannot tell”!
So having taken care of opinions and views He puts it to them in v. 15 – “What do you say?’ This question is a crisis point in our lives too. In v.16 we have the great confession uttered by Peter “You are the Christ, the son of the living God”.
In v.17 we have the blessedness ascribed to Peter in coming to this truth and how true it is of any person who comes to the conclusion that Jesus is the Son of God. I part company with many commentators here for I do not believe Peter spoke this by inspiration – where is the blessedness in simply repeating what the Spirit told you to say? Balaam’s ass could do that! No, I believe Peter, in full awareness of the popular opinions of the day, had weighed the evidence given by the Father of His Son in His deeds and words and had come to the honest conclusion that Christ was divine. We are faced with the same challenge to weigh the record that the Father has given us against the popular opinions of our day. Hopefully we come to the same position as did Peter.
And what will we do with that belief? Conversely, what will Christ do with that belief in us? It is the belief that changes everything for it means: God has visited; sin matters; death has been conquered.
Now in v.18 Christ is going to do something that no Caesar, No King, no Despot, no President, no Emperor, or no Prime Minister has ever done. He would start an organisation that would never be destroyed. Remember the prophecy of the vision in Daniel 2? Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome would pass away but the Kingdom of Christ would never. Why? Because it would be built upon divine genius and power – not on human wisdom and smarts. An organisation founded on fallible man will be fallible. An organisation founded upon mortal man will be mortal itself. The testimony of history declares this with one voice. Sometimes the bigger the boast the shorter the dynasty – the fabled 1000 year Reich lasted but 12 years!
About this point we should mention that Jesus was not intending to build His church upon Peter, but rather on the truth that Peter had just confessed. 1 Cor. 3:11 testifies that Jesus is the foundation, and the rock upon which Jesus was to build the church is petra (feminine – meaning bedrock) while Peter is petros (masculine – meaning a rock or gibber). But this is not our focus here.
And yet, right in the midst of this passage which declares the divine nature of Christ and our need for faith in Him, the divine foundation of the church, we have Jesus declaring that this indestructible organisation would have a very human side to it as well. Remember Dan.7 and the four world empires represented as beasts coming out of the earth whilst the kingdom from Heaven represented as a man coming in the clouds? The first four were earthy in origin and bestial in nature, whereas the fifth kingdom would be contrasted as heavenly in origin and humane in nature.
We stress our need to have faith in Christ and how important that is – Heb. 11:6. But God has faith in us too! (cf. Gen. 18:18,19 – as an expression of that faith and confidence in Abram, God changed his name to Abraham (Gen. 17:5 – father of many nations). And this was after he had not done so well in trying to produce the son of promise through Sarah’s handmaid, Hagar!) At the same time God changes Sarai’s name to Sarah (Gen. 17:15 – Princess) and this was just before she laughed behind the tent flap about her becoming a mother. You remember He changed Jacob’s name to Israel (Gen. 32:28 – Prince of God), and recall also that Joses’ name was changed to Barnabus (Acts 4:36).
Jesus does the same for Peter here. You might recall He signaled this the first time He met Peter (John 1:42). Jesus used both names during the course of His ministry and he called him another name too in v.23 of this chapter – Satan! He was still very human; still poor in understanding.
When Peter confesses the identity of Christ, Christ reciprocates. Peter owned Jesus and so Jesus owned Peter. Note in v.17 He calls him Simon bar Jonah (son of Jonah), but in v.18 He confesses him and calls him Peter (Petros – the rock). It’s as if Jesus was saying, Your parents called you Simon but let me tell you who I think you are. We might say he had a way to go to exemplify in life and habit what Jesus confessed him to be , but Jesus was prepared to work with him to the fulfillment of that prophecy.
And I believe Christ gives no supremacy to Peter here and the promise of v.19 is given to all the apostles (cf. Matt.19:27,28: also note Matt.16:20 – all were commanded to not tell Jesus was the Christ). So when Peter piped up he spoke for all the apostles and Christ’s confidence in Peter was indicative of a confidence in all His people.
But look at the promise of v.19. Men are given keys – indicating authority, responsibility and entrance! This is a worry when we are speaking about an eternal kingdom. Of course there was a special role fulfilled only by the apostles (cf. Eph. 2:19,20). But we enter into their labours and our relationship to Christ is fundamentally the same as theirs (cf. 1 John 1:1-3). And when Jesus called them friends (John 15:15) He was declaring something about the nature of this kingdom. It was to be a mutual fellowship and what understandings he gave to them were given to us as well (Eph. 3:1-4). So it is a kingdom of brothers and sisters, joint-heirs, friends – a family of God. We have faith in Him and He has a faith in us and a commitment to work in us that good work for which we were called. We might well ponder what Jesus would change our name to if we picked up His challenge.
The Great Commission given to the apostles in Mk.16:15,16 is also our commission as the commission given to Adam and Eve in Gen. 1:28 is ours as well. When Paul said he was an ambassador for Christ beseeching people to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20), then so are we commissioned; as he was entrusted with the gospel then so are we (Gal. 1:15,16). He asked the question as to who was sufficient to be so entrusted (2 Cor. 1:15,16), but as people in the first century were enabled (Phil. 4:13) then so are people in the twenty first century.
The story is told that upon returning to Heaven Jesus was met by the archangel Michael who enquired as to how His ministry on earth had fared. Jesus informed him that it had gone to plan – He had paid the price for the sins of the world and that all who obeyed His gospel would be saved. Michael asked how people would hear the gospel and Jesus said He had left twelve men to propogate the gospel. Michael looked worried and said, “But what if Peter, James and John go back to fishing, Matthew goes back to the more-lucrative-than-preaching tax collecting, Simon goes back to his political activities and so on?”
Jesus replied, “I have no other plan”.
