Peter's Confession

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 Have you ever been in an area where you had no good reason, but you were just creeped out? When Emily and I went looking for a house we didn’t have a real need to find ourselves in the perfect neighborhood. We drove through a lot of neighborhoods in the area. But when we got to one area in particular, the houses seemed nice enough. The scenery was beautiful. But there was something else going on there and we looked at each other and just drove on. I’m not trying to tell ghost stories, but if I was, there probably wouldn’t be a better place in the world than Caesarea Philippi.
In the ancient world, Caesarea Philippi was a special place, but not in a good way, at least for Matthew’s Jewish audience. It was largely pagan territory. It’s at the northern edge of Joshua’s conquest. It’s the entrance and exit from the territory of Israel, the gate, if you will, to the unclean places of the world. There are scholars who have studied extensively on the background and geography of the Bible. In my study of this passage, I’ve found one of those scholars, Leon Morris, to be especially helpful. When we’e looking at Caeserea Philippi, there’s a particular place that has captured the imagination of those who study the background and geography of the Bible. It’s a cave by Mt. Hermon that serves as one of the sources of the Jordan River. There was an ancient shrine in that cave that predated the Greeks. And when Greeks arrived in the area, they dedicated the shrine to the god “Pan and the Nymphs.” Remembering Matthew’s Jewish audience, this place is a very unholy place. It was even creepier because this shrine in this cave is at the base of the foothills of Mt. Hermon. And early readers of Matthew’s account would be familiar with legends describing Mt. Hermon as the place where fallen angels descended to sleep with human women, giving some extra detail to events described in Genesis 6, making the place for Matthew’s audience just extra spiritual in the worst way. (This description is found in the apocryphal book of Enoch.) So they are not only at the gate leading out of the Promised land, and in that way at a gate to the unholy, but also at a place known to be associated with fallen angels entering the world and a shrine to the demonic. And it’s this cave at the base of a mountain, looking like a doorway to the underworld. I’m telling you that if any place on earth could have been called the Gates of Hell, that would have to be it. And so it’s there in the vicinity of this cave that, seemingly out of nowhere, Jesus asks his question, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
Here are a couple of the things that would have gone through the minds of the disciples as they try to answer Jesus’ question. Since our passage last week, where the Canaanite woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter from demonic oppression, Jesus has gone and performed many miracles of healing, and he’s fed the 4,000 in addition to feeding the 5000 much earlier. He’s stood up to religious authorities making claims outside the law. The question, “Who do you think Jesus is?” was growing more and more common. And so it’s almost a surprising moment when Jesus himself asks the question. When he does, he puts it this way: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Jesus often referred to himself as the Son of Man. It has a couple of meanings. In one sense, son of man, just meant, “A guy.” To call somebody a son of some trait is a way to describe them. If I want to say that Albert Einstein was a brilliant man, the idiom would be to call him a son of brilliance. He’s a brilliant guy. So “son of man” was a pretty humble self-designation meaning an ordinary man. But it also carried this weight of Daniel 7:13-14:
Daniel 7:13–14 ESV
13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
So in one sense, “Son of man” is common. In another sense, it’s a very special designation, a description that feeds people’s expectation of the Messiah. And so as Jesus’ messianic secret continues to unfold, he asks them, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” The answers are interesting: “Some say John the Baptist.” Well, John the Baptist had already been put to death. So if Jesus is John the Baptist, he’s John the Baptist who was miraculously healed from beheading, or a resurrected John the Baptist. Another answer is put forward: “Some say Elijah.” This lined up with the last book of the Old Testament: Malachi. In chapter 4, verse 5, we’re told:
Malachi 4:5 ESV
5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.
So people are rightly identifying Jesus with the day of the Lord.
Another answer comes, “Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” There were a couple of things in the air those ays about Jeremiah. 2 Esdras would have been familiar to Matthew’s audience and it teaches that Jeremiah and Isaiah will come again before the end of time. It might be that “Jeremiah” is mentioned before that phrase, “or one of the prophets” because Jeremiah was considered the quintessential prophet. But all of the guesses offered by the disciples have something to do with prophets. Even John the Baptist dressed like a prophet, acted like a prophet, and is considered the last of the Old Testament prophets, even though he is written about in the New Testament. So their answers so far show that the people see Jesus doing things prophets do. They see him doing actual miracles. And only prophets do miracles, right?
Well, there is another explanation.
It’s understandable that the crowds would say those things about Jesus. But in his continual testing of the disciples’ understanding, he asks them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter just goes for it. There’s no thoughtful pause. There aren’t any other kinds of guesses. Peter has been thinking about this a lot. Probably when he was getting out of the boat to come to Jesus on the water. And now he gets the chance to say it in front of everyone there and to Jesus’ face. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It’s as if the truth demanded to be voiced. “Open our lips, and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.” It was right there. Faced with the Truth incarnate, the moment demands that Peter speaks the truth about the Truth to the Truth. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. What a setting to declare Jesus to be God’s Son! Right there at the gates of Hell, the Son of God is declared. That is a moment of real spiritual power and weight. It’s as if those words of Peter’s echoed down the halls of hell itself. If the evil beings of the spiritual realm were paying attention anywhere, they would have been paying attention there. And so Peter’s words take a stand. He speaks the truth to the spiritual principalities and powers about the one who would conquer them.
The coming of Jesus, the Son of God, to earth was an event that demanded, required, existentially involved a human being voicing that truth. And that person was Peter. Jesus replies, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” The Father involves Peter in his revelation of his Son in the world, for all people and spiritual beings to hear. They aren’t the only ones who can whisper in a human ear and get the response they want to hear. The source of all truth has revealed the truth to Peter and he speaks the truth about the Truth to the Truth and to everyone else. Jesus continues:
Matthew 16:18 ESV
18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Jesus joins in with what has been revealed to Peter. At the gates of hell, Jesus proclaims that he will build his church and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Apart from the significance of the location of Caesarea Philippi, city gates in general were made to show the strength of cities in the ancient world. Gates are strong and they have the power to grant or deny entry. But no matter what the will of hell is, it cannot stand up to Jesus Christ and his church. What a place to declare that truth!
So in Jesus’ powerful statement we have this element: the gates of hell, but it’s not only about them. Jesus is talking about Peter. Peter’s name is very similar to the Greek word for “rock.” In Greek, it’s almost like Peter’s name is Rocky. You are Rocky and upon this rock, I will build my church. So what is the rock upon which Christ will build his church? The Roman Catholic argument is that Peter himself and his spiritual successors are the rock that Christ will build his church on. Peter was the first bishop of Rome and the papacy is definitely built upon Peter. The Reformers say that, no, it’s not Peter, it’s Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. That’s the rock upon which Jesus will build his church. I think this is closer to what Jesus is getting at. I think there’s a sense that because Peter was there, and his name is similar to the word for rock, and because Jesus refers to THIS rock, that there’s something about the moment. That Jesus is saying Peter, Peter’s confession, Peter’s confession being revealed from God the Father, Peter’s confession being revealed from God the Father to all the spiritual powers and principalities, that this moment of Peter’s confession is the rock on which Christ will build his church, all of it. And there’s more significance in that moment. When Jesus declares that he will build his church, something existentially effective happens. Thus saith the Lord Jesus Christ: I will build my church. That declaration is part of this moment. So the core of the rock on which Christ will build his church is Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. The moment is built on the strength of that declaration, but it includes Peter the person; it includes the Father giving the gift of divine revelation; it includes Jesus making it so by declaring it; and it includes defiance of spiritual powers and authorities. Jesus continues:
Matthew 16:19 ESV
19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Peter’s existence will be wrapped up in the kingdom. He will be about the work of ministry: of enabling hearts and minds to open to the reality of God’s rule and reign. And when there is unrepentant sin, there may be a point when access to the mysteries of God found in the church will be made unavailable and the minister, such as Peter, will have to make that call. Binding and loosing was used in Judaism in a few ways, but can be summed up by saying Peter and the ministers of the gospel everywhere that he represents will generally lead and also guard right interpretation of God’s word. For faithful ministers, who Peter is here the representative, there will be a correlation, a connection between what happens in the church and what happens in heaven.
So Jesus builds categories, in the heart and mind of Peter, and in the world, and in the spiritual realm, for this new reality that is coming: the church, beginning with the Father revealing to Peter who Jesus is: the Christ, the Son of the living God. In all that the church does, we can’t let something else be our foundation. It always has to go back to that moment when we tell the truth about who Jesus is: to ourselves, to those around us, to Jesus Himself in worship, and to say it for all of reality, good and evil to hear. That is the purpose of the church. Every time you sing the truth about Jesus out loud or remember him at his table or recount the truth of his word, you are speaking God’s truth. Every time you show love or kindness to your neighbor, whether passing the peace or meeting a need, you proclaim the truth of Christ in your actions. This, what we’re doing here, isn’t a sing-along and a lecture and a dramatic reading. This is Christ building his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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