Who Do You Say that I Am?

Introduction

The Greatest Question

Caesarea Philippi - a Gentile city founded by Herod and named after Caesar, with Philippi attached to distinguish it from another city of the same name. The confession of Jesus as the Christ is made while in gentile territory.

Jesus asks his disciples the greatest question that could be asked, a question that will redefine their relation with and understanding of who Jesus is and what God’s plan of redemption is shaping out to be. The question is asked in two parts:

Who do people say that the Son of Man is? Here, Matthew uses the title Jesus often referred to himself as, the Son of Man. Mark is more simple with Who do people say that I am? But Matthew continues to push Jesus’ assertion of his own authority given him by the Father.

The answer is simple enough for the disciples, who have heard the many theories circulating around him. That he is a resurrected John the Baptist was King Herod’s theory, which apparently some adopted. Others, who expected the coming of the Messiah to be preceeded by the return of some of Israel’s legendary prophets of the past, opt for Elijah, whose mission was to call Israel to repentance and faithfulness to their covenant with God. Jeremiah was the prophet of doom for Jerusalem, and yet expected God’s redemption to come in latter days. Other prophets were also theorized, all built on the idea that the Christ would return to a people who had fully repented and been made ready for the reign of the eternal king of David’s dynasty.

Missing from this list is any serious belief that Jesus was himself the Christ. Although there were theories about it, and some seemed to hold him to be the Messiah, these were not built on conviction. There was no serious group of people that held Jesus to be the Messiah, the anointed King of God’s people. Doubtless, their expectations of the Messiah’s coming were very different from what they saw in Jesus. They expected grand and glorious presentation, military victory, signs and wonders done on command, and a sense of visible human royalty to accompany this King. To them, Jesus seems much more like the homeless and forsaken prophets of old than the mighty and majestic king whose glory would put David and Solomon to shame.

People want a Messiah, a Christ, a Saviour from the evils of the world, but when they see Jesus, they do not see what they are looking for. Some want an ethical teacher who gives us a universal way to live humanistically, like the Buddha. Others want a military leader who can supplant the evil and establish a Theocratic rule in this world. Others want a spiritual guide who can help us discover the divine inside ourselves. Still others want a prophet who, with great powerful displays, can bring us God’s rules so that we may work our way to God at the head of a powerful religious institution. Still others want a spiritual advisor and friend, who is always there is encourage us and never confronts or opposes our deepest desires, but rather gives us the tools to become our own Saviour. Jesus is none of these things. It’s true, he is a prophet, in fact he is the Prophet, but he serves in a heavenly temple. It’s true he is the King, but his kingdom is not of this world. It’s true he makes us children of God, but only through submissive unity to himself, the only begotten Son of God. Jesus is not what people expect, and yet he is all that we hope for.

As sinners and yet made in the image of God, we naturally know that something is wrong with us and the world, but we are resistant to the real solution. Sinners are very good at pointing out the visible problems, but are blind to the root of those problems and resist the solution to them. We all know that humanity needs a Saviour. The Jews wanted a king to free them, but only from Roman control; not from their own sin. Political activists want a Messiah who fights the injustices they see around them, not the wickedness residing in their own hearts. Humanists want to make the world a better place, but they don’t want to prepare themselves for a better world. In order for us to come to Christ, we must first let go of what we think the problem is and look in faith to the solution God has provided in sending his own Son in a humble, weak human state. Remember back at the end of chapter 13 why the people of Nazareth rejected Jesus. They could not fathom that the carpenter’s son, the child of Mary born in questionable circumstances due to his virgin birth, the brother of James and Joseph and Simon and Judas, how could such a man be the Christ? They knew the wisdom he uttered and the miracles he did were beyond their explanation, still they were offended by him.

Unbelief always exists on the grounds of expectations that we are unwilling to let go of. We are convinced that God’s will must be this or that, or that the Christ must be like this. We have our own ideas, and when God’s revelation doesn’t conform to those presuppositions we immediately question God rather than ourselves.

Last week we saw the faith of Abraham exemplified as Abraham went to sacrifice his own son, the child of promise. In doing so, the Father of Faith had to let go of every expectation and presupposition he had and rely completely on God’s work. Faith always includes self-surrender. We go through life asking questions that we get very attached to, and we look for the answers to those specific questions because we are convinced that those are the questions that matter. We can easily read the Bible in this way; forcing it to answer our questions when it often is not interested in them.

I’m fully convinced the faithful study of the Scriptures begins by letting go of what I think is important and letting the Bible tell me what is really worth knowing. The Bible doesn’t tell us how God’s sovereignty and our freedom and responsibility to choose go together, it simply presents both. The Bible doesn’t bother to give us details about many things we’d like to know, and maybe that means that what we’d like to know is not really important and is actually getting in the way of us seeing what is truly significant. The Jews saw Jesus according to what they expected and interpreted his ministry in a way that conformed to their own questions and expectations. As a result, they were unable to see what is obvious to spiritually discerning eyes.

But now Jesus makes the question personal. Ever since the calling of the disciples, Jesus has been guiding his disciples to this moment. We already saw how the disciples faith had developed over time. The first storm that Jesus calmed had them asking “who is this man?” But the second storm in chapter 14 had them worshiping him as the “Son of God”. However, we get the sense that these words were said in the excitement of the moment, and not as the result of serious contemplation. Someone may call Jesus “Lord” in an exciting evangelism meeting and then reconsider it later on when things have calmed down. Here, Jesus’ wants an answer that doesn’t come from them in the excitement of seeing him and Peter walk on water and calm a storm, he wants to see the fruit of their contemplation and meditation on all they have experienced as his disciples.

The Answer Revealed

Throughout the Gospels, Peter is often the voice of the disciples as a whole. Here he speaks up and makes the famous confession: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. While Mark has a shorter version of this confession, Matthew gives us more to enforce the meaning of this. He is not just the anointed one of David’s line, which is what Christ meant, he is the Son of the Living God. The Prophets had spoken of the Christ as the one who brought God’s presence to be among men. While Peter at this point may not understand the true significance of the title Son of God, he is committed to this identity. For Peter, Jesus is not a Rabbit, nor teacher, nor prophet, nor even a king. He is the greatest revelation of the eternal and living God. While it is clear that Peter’s knowledge of who the Christ, the divinity of Christ, and what Jesus would accomplish on the cross was lacking, he knew enough to commit himself to this statement by conviction. He had considered it and been given the faith to see that this was the identity of Jesus and he can now freely, and without restraint, confess.

Faith is something that always grows as our knowledge of God grows, but there is a threshold of what constitutes saving faith. While a young Christian may not understand all that comes along with such a confession, they know enough to know that it is true and they are committed to accepting it regardless of the implications they may have to wrestle with in the future.

What we have here is perhaps what we could call the conversion of the first Christian and, in a sense, the beginning of the NT Church. Peter, with revelation from God (as we will unpack in a minute) is the first to thoughtfully and with full conviction make this assertion, and so one could argue that Peter is the first Christian. This will be important for us to return to later.

The Result of This Revelation

Jesus response to Peter’s confession is both glorious and confusing. Verses 18-19 are some of the most debated and misunderstood verses in the NT, and yet at this climactic moment in the story of Jesus’ ministry on earth they are so vitally crucial.

First, Jesus emphatically blesses Peter. He calls him by his full name, including that he is the son of Jonah. This seems to highlight that, while Peter may be the son of a man, it is not his earthly father or any earthly teacher who brought him to this conclusion. Rather, it was by the power of God who gives sight to those who are spiritually blind. Jesus explains this truth in John 6:44

John 6:44 ESV

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

This is why Jesus notes that Peter’s faith is not due to anything humanly possible. It isn’t the miracles, the signs, the teachings, although these are all necessary in order to make Jesus’ identity known. Nevertheless, spiritual blindness stops people from seeing what should be obvious. Instead, they demand signs that suit their own expectations, they question the source of the miracles, and are offended at the humble and ordinary appearance. Only with a clarity that is given by the grace of God as a free gift to his elect can someone see what was plain to see all along. Believing in election is simply acknowledging that our ability to see Christ for who he truly is cannot come from our own reason, intellect, experience, or spirituality. It must come from God, or we will remain blind in unbelief. If we see Christ, then, we must praise the Father for what we see.

Verse 18 is where it gets tricky. Jesus reaffirms the new name he had given Simon, which is Peter. In Greek, the name Peter sounds like the word petra, which means rock. Jesus uses this wordplay with Peter’s name to say that on this rock (petra) I will build my church.

This is often used by Papists, Roman Catholics, to affirm their belief that the pope is the head of the church on earth. In their view, Peter was here appointed the first pope, and the office of pope supposedly exists as an unbroken lineage from pope to pope as the formal and infallible head of the church on earth. There are many problems with this view:

This rock refers primarily to the Spirit-inspired confession of Peter. As the first person to make this confession in faith, he is blessed because it is on the truth he has uttered that Christ will build his church. Jesus could have very easily clarified if he wanted to communicate that Peter himself is the rock. However, this rock refers to the same thing as revealed this to you in verse 17. Both pronouns refer to the same thing, which is Peter’s confession of Christ. This is what the Father revealed and this is what I will build my church on. Now it is true that we cannot separate the confession from the man, and in that way this rock does refer to Peter. However, to say that this gives Peter a papal office is to take it far beyond its natural meaning. Peter is the rock, as his name suggests, insofar as his confession of Christ here will become the basis of the church. His role is pivotal, and will remain important in the first years of the Church. He is the first stone to be laid alongside the cornerstone, Christ himself, after whom will come all the Apostles who lay a foundation for the church to be built. Eph 2:20-21 says that the church is

Ephesians 2:20–21 ESV

built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

So is Peter the rock here? Yes, since by his confession he has been laid down as the first stone for the foundation of the church. Does this mean he is the first pope? No, and nothing in this text could possible give us that idea. Instead, we can here call Peter the first among equals in the building of Christ’s Church.

Jesus giving the keys of the Kingdom in verse 19 is parallel to the authority Jesus gives all the Apostles in 18:18. Although Jesus’ words here are addressed specifically to Peter, it is because of the confession and is a blessing open to all who believe, as it was given to the Apostles later when they all believed. It is both personal and universal to the church. Peter is the first among equals in Christ’s Kingdom.

Although Peter was one of the most influential Apostles, nowhere in the NT are we given the idea that he occupied a higher office than the rest of the disciples, and he was certainly not beyond criticism as we see in Paul’s rebuke of his behaviour in Galatians 2.

Finally, even if we were convinced that Peter is given a specific office here, no where in the NT are we given the idea that this office would continue beyond Peter’s death and would be inherited through succession. This would mean that Clement of Rome had more authority than the Apostle John after Peter’s death. The claim that Peter was the Bishop of Rome is also very unstable as Peter clearly did most of his ministry in Jerusalem. He was martyred in Rome, according to church tradition, but that gives us no reason to believe that he was Bishop there.

What we see here is not the establishment of a papal office, but rather the establishment of the church on the basis of God-given faith that Jesus is the Son of God. Peter is the first to have this faith, and thus becomes a rock on which the church will be built.

The image of a rock is significant. Up to this point, the disciples would expect Jesus to set up his eternal and visible Kingdom sometime soon. In Acts 1, as Jesus went back into heaven after the resurrection, they still expected that Jesus was going to establish that visible Kingdom immediately. And yet Jesus has other plans. He tells Peter that the Gospel, the solid faith in Jesus Christ, will be the rock on which the church will weather many attacks from the evil one.

John Calvin:

Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke Matthew 16:13–19; Mark 8:27–29; Luke 9:18–20

Yet this passage also instructs us, that so long as the Church shall continue to be a pilgrim on the earth, she will never enjoy rest, but will be exposed to many attacks; for, when it is declared that Satan will not conquer, this implies that he will be her constant enemy.

What Jesus wants Peter to anticipate is a time of testing in which the church will go through many attacks. Persecution, heresy, scandal, slander, temptation, and any other weapon the devil may use to destroy the church. Those who build their faith and their churches on this foundation, on the committed conviction that Jesus is Lord and God, will endure these storms and will not be destroyed. Those who compromise this foundation will not prevail. The end of the trials the people of God must endure has not ended, it is just beginning. However, there is safety if God’s people cling firmly to this rock.

Finally, there is the keys of the Kingdom. Jesus gives those who faithfully confess him as Lord in faith the keys of the Kingdom. As Peter is the first to believe, he receives these keys first, followed by the other disciples and the church at large. These keys are the authority to allow the faithful into the church and to keep out the wicked. I don’t speak of buildings, but of the church fellowship and body. The Kingdom of God is not the same as the Church, but rather it is through the Church that the reign of Christ in his Kingdom is displayed and realized. The Church, then, is given the keys to this Kingdom. We are the doormen of the Kingdom. While the Pharisees are later faulted for taken the keys of knowledge away from people so that they cannot enter God’s Kingdom, the keys are given to Peter here to open the doors so that all may enter through the preaching of this very confession.

While a very complex debate exists on what binding and loosing mean here, the essence has to do with these keys. Peter, in accordance with his testimony, is given the authority to declare what God has deemed necessary for entering his Kingdom. That is the confession. While the pope uses the keys of the Kingdom to close its doors on everyone who doesn’t agree with him on Mary, icons, and many other things, much like the Pharisees did, Peter and the Church which will be founded on his confession is given the authority to bind people to the truth of who Jesus is and loose them from the oppression of the law so that all who believe what Peter has here confessed will enter in freely.

Conclusion

In this text, we see the basic nature of the Church and her authority founded on her God-revealed answer to that most important question, who do you say that I am? As Christians, founded upon Christ the cornerstone and the rock-hard foundation of Peter and the Apostles in the Gospel they preached, together we have been given this task to keep the doors of Christ’s Kingdom. We are to bind all who come to these doors to the Gospel which they must believe in order to be saved, and afterwards publicly let in through Baptism. We are to loose the bonds of law and works righteousness, as well as secondary issues which have no bearing on the simple Gospel of grace. We are to close the doors to those who would get in without a confirmed faith in the true Gospel, no matter how hard they press to enter.

Church membership exists for this very purpose. As a member, you have public acceptance into the Kingdom of God manifested in the Church. You submit to her authority and humbly follow her teaching, which is founded on this rock. When you were voted into membership, the church said, we see that you have confessed the truth of Christ, and we see the evidence that this confession was made in full conviction and submission to Jesus as Lord. You may enter. You can say you are a Christian outside church membership, and you very well may be, but Christ gave his church these keys for a reason. If you withhold yourself from her authority in this manner, you are rejecting the accountability and assurance which Christ means to give you for your good in his people.

But that authority only exists, and all churches only operate with these supernatural keys, if they are built on the foundation of Christ which his Apostles preached to us and which we read of in our NT. It must be more than simply a statement of faith on our website, but much more the centre of all that we are, do, and think as a community of the Kingdom

Have you, with full conviction in your heart and a readiness to submit and follow, come to make this confession? Many will say on the final day Lord Lord and will not enter. The confession is a binding covenant in the blood of Christ in which you must walk and live to the end. If you have, you in the collection of the saints have the fearful responsibility to use these keys of the Kingdom faithfully. We use these keys when we preach the Gospel, when we baptize, when we allow some into membership, and when we cast the unrepentant out of membership. Let us fear and be sober-minded as we handle them.

If you have not, consider carefully the Gospel we preach and ask the Lord for grace and illumination. Come to Christ and plead for mercy, for we have this great and everlasting promise from Christ: John 6:37

John 6:37 ESV

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.