Matthew 16:13-20

Read Matthew 16:13-20

 

This passage starts with Jesus and His disciples entering yet another new area. Jesus had just been dealing with the challenges of the Pharisees and Sadducees last week, He had left once again onto the sea with His disciples, they made it to the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee and traveled about another 25 miles north to land is this area called Caesarea Philippi. They very well might have taken this trip to get away from the crowds for a time and all the problems that these people were trying to cause. Last time Jesus went into gentile territory in chapter 15, there wasn’t crowds, there was just one woman seeking His help. Maybe this trip was purposed as an opportunity to have more of a heart-to-heart discussion with His closest followers and friends.

 

This Caesarea Philippi area is interesting though. It was kind of a hot bed for paganism and the worship of other gods and even political leaders. There were many temples to Baal, the Syrian God, this place was said to be the birthplace of the pagan god of nature named “Pan”, there was even at least one temple here for Caesar. And now with no crowds, surrounded by all this paganism, this carpenter from Galilee stops His disciples and asks them a question.

 

Read Matthew 16:13

 

It’s almost like Jesus picked this particular backdrop, and maybe He did, to say like, compared to everything else that people believe, what do they have to say about me?

 

“Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”

 

And some of the disciples answered in verse 14:

 

Read Matthew 16:14

 

Apparently, some people hadn’t seen John and Jesus together, because they have been together, and so how in the world could He be John, but that’s some of the speculation that is flying around. And not to mention the fact that John was killed a little while before this. And not just John, but some have claimed that maybe He is Elijah, and others said maybe Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. And all of this is noteworthy, because none of it seems to be a purposeful slight against Jesus. These were all great men.

 

John was the proclaimer of the Kingdom and repentance, He helped lead the way forward for Jesus. Elijah was used by God to be an incredible worker of miracles with probably the best remembered one being the standoff against the prophets of Baal and God raining fire down from heaven. Jeremiah was a prophet of God, who God spoke through to relay His incredible words to His people. Again, these were all great men of God.

 

But they were still all just men. By relating Jesus to these men, it showed that they had quite high praise in how they viewed Him, because these guys were all a really big deal, but it also shows us that they still very clearly misunderstood Who He actually was.

 

And so, Jesus then turns the question away from other people’s opinions and asks His disciples directly in verse 15:

 

Read Matthew 16:15

 

Please don’t take this verse lightly. This question probably carries more weight than any other question that could ever be asked. At this moment it was Jesus standing in front of His disciples asking for an answer, but it’s a question that every single one of us need to deal with. We absolutely need to be able to give a clear answer to this question. Literally everything hinges on the right answer to this question. I think it would be impossible for me to overstate the importance of this. This question is out there now in this passage, Jesus had spoken, the disciples had heard, they are considering their answer, maybe some still haven’t come completely to the right answer to this question yet. But Peter, often being the first guy to jump in, gives an answer in verse 16.

 

Read Matthew 16:16

 

Understand that when Peter says this, when a Jewish person used the phrase, Son of the Living God, that they were fully identifying His deity. Peter was absolutely calling Jesus, God, in this moment. Peter told Jesus “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Which essentially means, YOU ARE GOD AND YOU HAVE COME TO SAVE. This is a perfect answer. It’s simple, it’s concise, it’s accurate, that is Who Jesus is and Peter was the first one to vocalize it.

 

And Jesus answers Him, and He’s like your blessed Peter, you get it, My Father has revealed this truth to you, and you understood it. That’s the faith that we have talked about previously, it’s a God given gift that opens our eyes to see the spiritual truth. That’s what happened with Peter here in verse 17. God opened his eyes to see and understand the magnitude of the truth of Who Jesus is and Jesus tells Him that, Peter you are blessed to have this understanding. We don’t know if every one of the disciples was at that place yet, but Peter was, and he didn’t shy away from putting it out there. It’s a wonderful response to a massively important question.

 

So, Jesus told him that he was blessed, but then he shares a few more things in 18 and 19. Let’s look at these.

 

Read Matthew 16:18-19

 

What we see in these verses is a really simple outline for the building of Jesus’ church. Jesus says that it will be built, He says that the gates of Hades will not win against it, He says that I will give the keys of the Kingdom or the Gospel of Jesus Christ which opens the doors to the Kingdom, and then He will give some responsibility to men to help lead this new community of people following Jesus. That is the basic framework of what Jesus is saying here.

 

But I want to take a moment to deal with something, because these two verses have been debated over for centuries. These two verses are really used as the framework for the Catholic church and its leadership and unfortunately I believe that stems from an incorrect view of them. Some would believe that in these verses that Jesus is essentially appointing Peter as the first Pope in this moment and giving him the right to forgive or not forgive sin and to allow or stop someone from entering the Kingdom of God. But you have to jump through hoops to try to get to that conclusion, and you have to ignore a lot of other parts of scripture to try to make it work at all. Some say that Peter is being given this hyper elevated special position here, essentially the office of the pope, and that the church is going to be built upon him, but why would the church of God need to be built upon a man?

 

That just wouldn’t make any sense. Last week we talked about needing to be careful about jumping to conclusions and I think that is the case for this one. We can’t just jump to a huge conclusion like that without it being supported by the rest of scripture. And scripture doesn’t back that up. Scripture never explains some special office like the Pope, and it doesn’t put the responsibility or even ability onto people to determine the forgiveness of sin and who gets into the Kingdom or not. We can share, even confess our sin problems to each other, but God’s the one who forgives. The fact of the matter is that Peter Himself must have understood this conversation differently than all of that. Look at 1 Peter 2:

 

Read 1 Peter 2:4-10

 

This is the guy that Jesus was responding to and if you pay attention to what he is saying. He completely puts Jesus and Jesus only as the cornerstone or the main stone, but then everyone else are these living stones being built upon the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. It’s the picture of the church being built not on the back of a man or men but being built on Christ.

 

And that’s not to say that these guys didn’t have a special role to play, that’s not to say that they weren’t part of the foundations, they absolutely were. Jesus prepared them to help build. Ephesians 2:19-21 says:

 

¹⁹ Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, ²⁰ having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, ²¹ in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.