Verses 1-28
Chapter 16
16:1-4 The
Pharisees and Sadducees came to him, trying to put him to the test, and
asked him to show them a sign from Heaven. He answered them: "When
evening comes, you say, 'It will be fine weather, because the sky is
red.' And early in the morning you say, 'It will be stormy today,
because the sky is red and threatening.' You know how to discern the
face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. An evil
and apostate generation seeks for a sign. No sign will be given to it
except the sign of Jonah." And he left them and went away.
Hostility, like necessity, makes strange bedfellows. It is an
extraordinary phenomenon to find a combination of the Pharisees and
Sadducees. They stood for both beliefs and policies which were
diametrically opposed. The Pharisees lived life according to the
minutiae of the oral and the scribal law; the Sadducees rejected the
oral and the scribal law completely, and accepted only the written words
of the Bible as their law of life. The Pharisees believed in angels and
in the resurrection of the body and the Sadducees did not, an
opposition which Paul made use of when he was on trial before the
Sanhedrin (Acts 23:6-10 http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Ac+23%3A6-10).
And--in this case most important of all--the Pharisees were not a
political party and were prepared to live under any government which
would allow them to observe their own religious principles; the
Sadducees were the small, wealthy aristocracy, who were the
collaborationist party and were quite prepared to serve and cooperate
with the Roman government, in order to retain their wealth and their
privileges. Further, the Pharisees looked for and longed for the
Messiah; the Sadducees did not. It would have been well-nigh impossible
to find two more different sects and parties; and yet they came together
in their envenomed desire to eliminate Jesus. All error has this in
common--that it is hostile to Christ.
The demand of the Pharisees and the Sadducees was for a sign. As
we have already seen, the Jews had a way of wishing a prophet or a
leader to authenticate his message by some abnormal and extraordinary
sign (Matthew 12:38-40 http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Mt+12%3A38-40).
It is Jesus' reply that the sign was there, if they could only see it.
They were weather-wise. They knew the same weather saying that we
ourselves know:
"A red sky at night is the shepherd's delight;
A red sky in the morning is the shepherd's warning."
They knew very well that a red sky in the evening presaged fine
weather; and that a red sky in the morning was the warning of a storm
to come. But they were blind to the signs of the times.
Jesus told them that the only sign they would receive was the
sign of Jonah. We have already seen what the sign of Jonah was (Matthew 12:38-40).
Jonah was the prophet who converted the people of Nineveh and turned
them from their evil ways towards God. Now the sign which turned the
people of Nineveh to God was not the fact that Jonah was swallowed by
the great sea monster. Of that they knew nothing; and Jonah never used
it as a means of appeal. The sign of Jonah was Jonah himself and his
message from God. It was the emergence of the prophet and the message
which he brought which changed life for the people of Nineveh.
So what Jesus is saying is that God's sign is Jesus himself and
his message. It is as if he said to them: "In me you are confronted with
God and with the truth of God. What more could you possibly need? But
you are so blind that you cannot see it." There is truth and there is
warning here. Jesus Christ is God's last word. Beyond him the revelation
of God cannot go. Here is God plain for all to see. Here is God's
message plain for all to hear. Here is God's sign to man. It is the
warning truth that, if Jesus cannot appeal to men, nothing can. If Jesus
cannot convince men, no one can. If men cannot see God in Jesus, they
cannot see God in anything or anyone. When we are confronted with Jesus
Christ, we are confronted with God's final word and God's ultimate
appeal. If that is so, what can be left for the man who throws away that
last chance, who refuses to listen to that last word, who rejects that
last appeal?
16:5-12 When
the disciples came to the other side, they had forgotten to take loaves
with them. Jesus said to them, "See that you beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and Sadducees." They argued amongst themselves: "He must be
saying this because we did not bring loaves." Jesus knew what they were
thinking. "Why," he said, "are you arguing among yourselves, you of
little faith, because you have no loaves? Do you not yet understand, and
do you not remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many
baskets you took up? And do you not remember the seven loaves of the
four thousand, and how many hampers you took up? How is it that you do
not understand that it was not about loaves that I spoke to you? Beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees!" Then they understood that
he did not tell them to beware of the leaven that is in loaves, but of
the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
We are presented here with a passage of very great difficulty. In fact, we can only guess at its meaning.
Jesus and his disciples had set out for the other side of the
lake and the disciples had forgotten to take any bread with them. For
some reason they were quite disproportionately worried and disturbed by
this omission. Jesus said to them: "See that you beware of the leaven of
the Pharisees and Sadducees." Now the word leaven has two meanings. It
has its physical and literal meaning, a little piece of fermented dough,
without which bread cannot be baked. It was in that sense that the
disciples understood Jesus to speak about leaven. With their minds fixed
on the forgotten loaves, all that they could think of was that he was
warning them against a certain kind of dangerous leaven. They had
forgotten to bring bread which meant that, if they were to obtain any,
they must buy it from the Gentiles on the other side of the lake. Now no
Jew who was strictly orthodox could eat any bread which had been baked
or handled by a Gentile. Therefore the problem of getting bread on the
other side of the lake was insoluble. The disciples may well have
thought that Jesus was saying, "You have forgotten the bread which is
clean; take care when you get to the other side of the lake that you do
not pollute yourselves by buying bread with defiling leaven in it."
The disciples' minds were running on nothing but bread. So Jesus
asked them to remember. "Remember," he said, "the feeding of the five
thousand and of the four thousand; and remember the plenty there was to
eat, and the abundance which was left over. And when you remember these
things, surely you will stop fussing about trifles. You have surely seen
that in my presence these trifling problems have already been solved
and can be solved again. Stop worrying and trust me."
That was put so bluntly and so clearly that the disciples were
bound to understand. Then Jesus repeated his warning: "Beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees!" Leaven has a second meaning
which is metaphorical and not literal and physical. It was the Jewish
metaphorical expression for an evil influence. To the Jewish mind leaven
was always symbolic of evil. It is fermented dough; the Jew identified
fermentation with putrefaction; leaven stood for all that was rotten and
bad. Leaven has the power to permeate any mass of dough into which it
is inserted. Therefore leaven stood for an evil influence liable to
spread through life and to corrupt it.
Now the disciples understood. They knew that Jesus was not
talking about bread at all; but he was warning them against the evil
influence of the teaching and the beliefs of the Pharisees and
Sadducees.
What would be in Jesus' mind when he warned against the evil
influence of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees? That is
something which we can only surmise; but we do know the characteristics
of the minds of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
(i) The Pharisees saw religion in terms of laws and commandments
and rules and regulations. They saw religion in terms of outward ritual
and outward purity. So Jesus is saying, "Take care lest you make your
religion a series of 'thou shalt nots' in the way the Pharisees do. Take
care that you do not identify religion with a series of outward
actions, and forget that what matters is the state of a man's heart."
This is a warning against living in legalism and caning it religion; it
is a warning against a religion which looks on a man's outward actions
and forgets the inner state of his heart.
(ii) The Sadducees had two characteristics, which were closely
connected. They were wealthy and aristocratic, and they were deeply
involved in politics. So Jesus may well have been saying, "Take care
that you never identify the kingdom of heaven with outward goods, and
that you never pin your hopes of bringing it in to political action."
This may well be a warning against giving material things too high a
place in our scheme of values and against thinking that men can be
reformed by political action. Jesus may well have been reminding men
that material prosperity is far from being the highest good, and that
political action is far from producing the most important results. The
true blessings are the blessings of the heart; and the true change is
not the change of outward circumstances but the change of the hearts of
men.
16:13-16 When
Jesus had come into the districts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his
disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of Man is?" They said, "Some say
John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the
prophets." He said to them, "And you--who do you say that I am?" Simon
Peter answered, "You are the Anointed One, the Son of the living God."
Here we have the story of another withdrawal which Jesus made.
The end was coming very near and Jesus needed all the time alone with
his disciples that he could gain. He had so much to say to them and so
much to teach them, although there were many things which then they
could not bear and could not understand.
To that end he withdrew to the districts of Caesarea Philippi.
Caesarea Philippi lies about twenty-five miles north-east of the Sea of
Galilee. It was outside the domain of Herod Antipas, who was the ruler
of Galilee, and within the area of Philip the Tetrarch. The population
was mainly non-Jewish, and there Jesus would have peace to teach the
Twelve.
Confronting Jesus at this time was one clamant and demanding
problem. His time was short; his days in the flesh were numbered. The
problem was--was there anyone who understood him? Was there anyone who
had recognized him for who and what he was? Were there any who, when he
was gone from the flesh, would carry on his work, and labour for his
kingdom? Obviously that was a crucial problem, for it involved the very
survival of the Christian faith. If there were none who had grasped the
truth, or even glimpsed it, then all his work was undone; if there were
some few who realized the truth, his work was safe. So Jesus was
determined to put all to the test and ask his followers who they
believed him to be.
It is of the most dramatic interest to see where Jesus chose to
ask this question. There can have been few districts with more religious
associations than Caesarea Philippi.
(i) The area was scattered with temples of the ancient Syrian
Baal worship. Thomson in The Land and the Book enumerates no fewer than
fourteen such temples in the near neighbourhood. Here was an area where
the breath of ancient religion was in the very atmosphere. Here was a
place beneath the shadow of the ancient gods.
(ii) Not only the Syrian gods had their worship here. Hard by
Caesarea Philippi there rose a great hill, in which was a deep cavern;
and that cavern was said to be the birthplace of the great god Pan, the
god of nature. So much was Caesarea Philippi identified with that god
that its original name was Panias, and to this day the place is known as
Banias. The legends of the gods of Greece gathered around Caesarea
Philippi.
(iii) Further, that cave was said to be the place where the
sources of the Jordan sprang to life. Josephus writes: "This is a very
fine cave in a mountain, under which there is a great cavity in the
earth; and the cavern is abrupt, and prodigiously deep, and full of
still water. Over it hangs a vast mountain, and under the cavern arise
the springs of the River Jordan." The very idea that this was the place
where the River Jordan took its rise would make it redolent of all the
memories of Jewish history. The ancient faith of Judaism would be in the
air for anyone who was a devout and pious Jew.
(iv) But there was something more. In Caesarea Philippi there
was a great temple of white marble built to the godhead of Caesar. It
had been built by Herod the Great. Josephus says: "Herod adorned the
place, which was already a very remarkable one, still further by the
erection of this temple, which he dedicated to Caesar." In another place
Josephus describes the cave and the temple: "And when Caesar had
further bestowed on Herod another country, he built there also a temple
of white marble, hard by the fountains of Jordan. The place is called
Panium, where there is the top of a mountain which is raised to an
immense height, and at its side, beneath, or at its bottom, a dark cave
opens itself; within which there is a horrible precipice that descends
abruptly to a vast depth. It contains a mighty quantity of water, which
is immovable; and when anyone lets down anything to measure the depth of
the earth beneath the water, no length of cord is sufficient to reach
it." Later it was Philip, Herod's son, who further beautified and
enriched the temple, changed the name of Panias to Caesarea--Caesar's
town--and added his own name--Philippi, which means of Philip--to
distinguish it from the Caesarea on the coasts of the Mediterranean.
Still later, Herod Agrippa was to call the place Neroneas in honour of
the Emperor Nero. No one could look at Caesarea Philippi, even from the
distance, without seeing that pile of glistening marble, and thinking of
the might and of the divinity of Rome.
Here indeed is a dramatic picture. Here is a homeless, penniless
Galilaean carpenter, with twelve very ordinary men around him. At the
moment the orthodox are actually plotting and planning to destroy him as
a dangerous heretic. He stands in an area littered with the temples of
the Syrian gods; in a place where the ancient Greek gods looked down; in
a place where the history of Israel crowded in upon the minds of men;
where the white marble splendour of the home of Caesar--worship
dominated the landscape and compelled the eye. And there--of all
places--this amazing carpenter stands and asks men who they believe him
to be, and expects the answer, The Son of God. It is as if Jesus
deliberately set himself against the background of the world's religions
in all their history and their splendour, and demanded to be compared
with them and to have the verdict given in his favour. There are few
scenes where Jesus' consciousness of his own divinity shines out with a
more dazzling light.
So then at Caesarea Philippi Jesus determined to demand a verdict
from his disciples. He must know before he set out from Jerusalem and
the Cross if anyone had even dimly grasped who and what he was. He did
not ask the question directly; he led up to it. He began by asking what
people were saying about him, and who they took him to be.
Some said that he was John the Baptist. Herod Antipas was not
the only man who felt that John the Baptist was so great a figure that
it might well be that he had come back from the dead.
Others said that he was Elijah. In doing so, they were saying
two things about Jesus. They were saying that he was as great as the
greatest of the prophets, for Elijah had always been looked on as the
summit and the prince of the prophetic line. They were also saying that
Jesus was the forerunner of the Messiah. As Malachi had it, the promise
of God was: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great
and terrible day of the Lord comes" (Malachi 4:5).
To this day the Jews expect the return of Elijah before the coming of
the Messiah, and to this day they leave a chair vacant for Elijah when
they celebrate the Passover, for when Elijah comes, the Messiah will not
be far away. So the people looked on Jesus as the herald of the Messiah
and the forerunner of the direct intervention of God.
Some said that Jesus was Jeremiah. Jeremiah had a curious place
in the expectations of the people of Israel. It was believed that,
before the people went into exile, Jeremiah had taken the ark and the
altar of incense out of the Temple, and hidden them away in a lonely
cave on Mount Nebo; and that, before the coming of the Messiah, he would
return and produce them, and the glory of God would come to the people
again (2 Maccabees 2:1-12). In 2 Esdras 2:18 the promise of God is: "For thy help I will send my servants Isaiah and Jeremiah."
There is a strange legend of the days of the Maccabaean wars.
Before the battle with Nicanor, in which the Jewish commander was the
great Judas Maccabaeus, Onias, the good man who had been high priest,
had a vision. He prayed for victory in the battle. "This done, in like
manner there appeared a man with grey hairs, and exceeding glorious, who
was of a wonderful and excellent majesty. Then Onias answered saying:
'This is a lover of the brethren, who prayeth much for the people, and
for the holy city, to wit, Jeremiah, the prophet of God.' Whereupon
Jeremiah, holding forth his right hand, gave to Judas a sword of gold,
and, in giving it to him, spake thus: 'Take this holy sword, a gift from
God, with which thou shalt wound the adversaries of my people Israel'" (2 Maccabees 15:1-14). Jeremiah also was to be the forerunner of the coming of the Messiah, and his country's help in time of trouble.
When the people identified Jesus with Elijah and with Jeremiah
they were, according to their lights, paying him a great compliment and
setting him in a high place, for Jeremiah and Elijah were none other
than the expected forerunners of the Anointed One of God. When they
arrived, the Kingdom would be very near indeed.
When Jesus had heard the verdicts of the crowd, he asked the
all-important question: "And you--who do you say I am?" At that question
there may well have been a moment's silence, while into the minds of
the disciples came thoughts which they were almost afraid to express in
words; and then Peter made his great discovery and his great confession;
and Jesus knew that his work was safe because there was at least
someone who understood.
It is interesting to note that each of the three gospels has its own version of the saying of Peter. Matthew has:
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Mark is briefest of all (Mark 8:29):
You are the Christ.
Luke is clearest of all (Luke 9:20):
You are the Christ of God.
Jesus knew now that there was at least someone who had
recognized him for the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, the Son of the
living God. The word Messiah and the word Christ are the same; the one
is the Hebrew and the other is the Greek for The Anointed One. Kings
were ordained to office by anointing, as they still are. The Messiah,
the Christ, the Anointed One is God's King over men.
Within this passage there are two great truths.
(i) Essentially Peter's discovery was that human categories,
even the highest, are inadequate to describe Jesus Christ. When the
people described Jesus as. Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets
they thought they were setting Jesus in the highest category they could
find. It was the belief of the Jews that for four hundred years the
voice of prophecy had been silent; and they were saying that in Jesus
men heard again the direct and authentic voice of God. These were great
tributes; but they were not great enough; for there are no human
categories which are adequate to describe Jesus Christ.
Once Napoleon gave his verdict on Jesus. "I know men," he said,
"and Jesus Christ is more than a man." Doubtless Peter could not have
given a theological account and a philosophic expression of what he
meant when he said that Jesus was the Son of the living God; the one
thing of which Peter was quite certain was that no merely human
description was adequate to describe him.
(ii) This passage teaches that our discovery of Jesus Christ
must be a personal discovery. Jesus' question is: "You--what do you
think of me?" When Pilate asked him if he was the king of the Jews, his
answer was: "Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to
you about me?" (John 18:33-34).
Our knowledge of Jesus must never be at second hand. A man might
know every verdict ever passed on Jesus; he might know every
Christology that the mind of man had ever thought out; he might be able
to give a competent summary of the teaching about Jesus of every great
thinker and theologian--and still not be a Christian. Christianity never
consists in knowing about Jesus; it always consists in knowing Jesus.
Jesus Christ demands a personal verdict. He did not ask only Peter, he
asks every man: "You--what do you think of me?"
16:17-19 Jesus
answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and
blood has not revealed this unto you, but my Father who is in Heaven.
And I tell you, that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my
Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give
you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatever you bind on earth
will remain bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth will remain
loosed in heaven."
This passage is one of the storm-centres of New Testament
interpretation. It has always been difficult to approach it calmly and
without prejudice, for it is the Roman Catholic foundation of the
position of the Pope and of the Church. It is taken by the Roman
Catholic Church to mean that to Peter were given the keys which admit or
exclude a man from heaven, and that to Peter was given the power to
absolve or not to absolve a man from his sins. It is further argued by
the Roman Catholic Church that Peter, with these tremendous rights,
became the bishop of Rome; and that this power descended to all the
bishops of Rome; and that it exists today in the Pope, who is the head
of the Church and the Bishop of Rome.
It is easy to see how impossible any such doctrine is for a
Protestant believer; and it is also easy to see how Protestant and Roman
Catholic alike may approach this passage, not with the single-hearted
desire to discover its meaning, but with the determination to yield
nothing of his own position, and, if possible, to destroy the position
of the other. Let us then try to find its true meaning.
There is a play on words. In Greek Peter is Petros (Greek #4074) and a rock is petra (Greek #4073). Peter's Aramaic name was Kephas (Hebrew #3710),
and that also is the Aramaic for a rock. In either language there is
here a play upon words. Immediately Peter had made his great discovery
and confession, Jesus said to him: "You are petros (Greek #4074), and on this petra (Greek #4073) I will build my Church."
Whatever else this is, it is a word of tremendous praise. It is a
metaphor which is by no means strange or unusual to Jewish thought.
The Rabbis applied the word rock to Abraham. They had a saying:
"When the Holy One saw Abraham who was going to arise, he said, 'Lo, I
have discovered a rock (petra, Greek #4073) to found the world upon.' Therefore he called Abraham rock (tsuwr, Hebrew #6697),
as it is said: 'Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn.'" Abraham was
the rock on which the nation and the purpose of God were founded.
Even more the word rock (tsuwr, Hebrew #6697) is again and again applied to God himself. "He is the Rock; his work is perfect" (Deuteronomy 32:4). "For their rock is not as our Rock" (Deuteronomy 32:31). "There is no rock like our God" (1 Samuel 2:2). "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer" (2 Samuel 22:2). The same phrase occurs in Psalms 18:2. "Who is a rock, except our God?" (Psalms 18:31). The same phrase is in 2 Samuel 22:32.
One thing is clear. To call anyone a rock was the greatest of
compliments; and no Jew who knew his Old Testament could ever use the
phrase without his thoughts turning to God, who alone was the true rock
of his defence and salvation. What then did Jesus mean when in this
passage he used the word rock? To that question at least four answers
have been given.
(i) Augustine took the rock to mean Jesus himself. It is as if
Jesus said: "You are Peter; and on myself as rock I will found my
Church; and the day will come when, as the reward of your faith, you
will be great in the Church."
(ii) The second explanation is that the rock is the truth that
Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. To Peter that great truth had
been divinely revealed. The fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is
indeed the foundation stone of the Church's faith and belief, but it
hardly seems to bring out the play on words which is here.
(iii) The third explanation is that the rock is Peter's faith.
On the faith of Peter the Church is founded. That faith was the spark
which was to kindle the faith of the world-wide Church. It was the
initial impetus which was one day to bring the universal Church into
being.
(iv) The last interpretation is still the best. It is that Peter
himself is the rock, but in a special sense. He is not the rock on
which the Church is founded; that rock is God. He is the first stone of
the whole Church. Peter was the first man on earth to discover who Jesus
was; he was the first man to make the leap of faith and see in him the
Son of the living God. In other words, Peter was the first member of the
Church, and, in that sense, the whole Church is built on him. It is as
if Jesus said to Peter: "Peter, you are the first man to grasp who I am;
you are therefore the first stone, the foundation stone, the very
beginning of the Church which I am founding." And in ages to come,
everyone who makes the same discovery as Peter is another stone added
into the edifice of the Church of Christ.
Two things help to make this clear.
(i) Often the Bible uses pictures for the sake of one definite
point. The details of the picture are not to be stressed; it is one
point which is being made. In connection with the Church the New
Testament repeatedly uses the picture of building, but it uses that
picture for many purposes and from many points of view. Here Peter is
the foundation, in the sense that he is the one person on whom the whole
Church is built, for he was the first man to discover who Jesus was. In
Ephesians 2:20
the prophets and the apostles are said to be the foundation of the
Church. It is on their work and on their witness and on their fidelity
that the Church on earth, humanly speaking, depends. In the same
passage, Jesus Christ is the chief corner-stone; he is the force who
holds the Church together. Without him the whole edifice would
disintegrate and collapse. In 1 Peter 2:4-8 all Christians are living stones who are to be built into the fabric of the Church. In 1 Corinthians 3:11
Jesus is the only foundation, and no man can lay any other. It is clear
to see that the New Testament writers took the picture of building and
used it in many ways. But at the back of it all is always the idea that
Jesus Christ is the real foundation of the Church, and the only power
who holds the Church together. When Jesus said to Peter that on him he
would found his Church, he did not mean that the Church depended on
Peter, as it depended on himself and on God the Rock. He did mean that
the Church began with Peter; in that sense Peter is the foundation of
the Church; and that is an honour that no man can take from him.
(ii) The second point is that the very word Church (ekklesia, Greek #1577)
in this passage conveys something of a wrong impression. We are apt to
think of the Church as an institution and an organization with buildings
and offices, and services and meetings, and organizations and all kinds
of activities. The word that Jesus almost certainly used was qahal (Hebrew #6951),
which is the word the Old Testament uses for the congregation of
Israel, the gathering of the people of the Lord. What Jesus said to
Peter was: "Peter, you are the beginning of the new Israel, the new
people of the Lord, the new fellowship of those who believe in my name."
Peter was the first of the fellowship of believers in Christ. It was
not a Church in the human sense, still less a Church in a denominational
sense, that began with Peter. What began with Peter was the fellowship
of all believers in Jesus Christ, not identified with any Church and not
limited to any Church, but embracing all who love the Lord.
So then we may say that the first part of this controversial
passage means that Peter is the foundation stone of the Church in the
sense that he was the first of that great fellowship who joyfully
declare their own discovery that Jesus Christ is Lord; but that, in the
ultimate sense, it is God himself who is the rock on which the Church is
built.
Jesus goes on to say that the gates of Hades shall not prevail
against his Church. What does that mean? The idea of gates prevailing is
not by any means a natural or an easily understood picture. Again there
is more than one explanation.
(i) It may be that the picture is the picture of a fortress.
This suggestion may find support in the fact that on the top of the
mountain overlooking Caesarea Philippi there stand today the ruins of a
great castle which may well have stood there in all its glory in the
time of Jesus. It may be that Jesus is thinking of his Church as a
fortress, and the forces of evil as an opposing fortress; and is saying
that the embattled might of evil will never prevail against the Church.
(ii) Richard Glover has an interesting explanation. In the
ancient east the Gate was always the place, especially in the little
towns and villages, where the elders and the rulers met and dispensed
counsel and justice. For instance, the law is laid down that, if a man
has a rebellious and disobedient son, he must bring him "to the elders
of his city at the gate of the place where he lives" (Deuteronomy 21:19), and there judgment will be given and justice done. In Deuteronomy 25:7
the man with a certain problem is told to "go up to the gate to the
elders." The gate was the scene of simple justice where the elders met.
So the gate may have come to mean the place of government. For long, for
instance, the government of Turkey was called the Sublime Porte (porte
being the French for gate). So then the phrase would mean: The powers,
the government of Hades will never prevail against the Church.
(iii) There is a third possibility. Suppose we go back to the
idea that the rock on which the Church is founded is the conviction that
Jesus is none other than the Son of the living God. Now Hades was not
the place of punishment, but the place where, in primitive Jewish
belief, all the dead went. Obviously, the function of gates is to keep
things in, to confine them, shut them up, control them. There was one
person whom the gates of Hades could not shut in; and that was Jesus
Christ. He burst the bonds of death. As the writer of Acts has it, "It
was not possible for him to be held by death.... Thou wilt not abandon
my soul to Hades, nor let thy Holy One see corruption" (Acts 2:24; Acts 2:27).
So then this may be a triumphant reference to nothing less than the
coming Resurrection. Jesus may be saying: "You have discovered that I am
the Son of the living God. The time will soon come when I will be
crucified, and the gates of Hades will close behind me. But they are
powerless to shut me in. The gates of Hades have no power against me the
Son of the living God."
However we take it, this phrase triumphantly expresses the indestructibility of Christ and his Church.
We now come to two phrases in which Jesus describes certain
privileges which were given to and certain duties which were laid on
Peter.
(i) He says that he will give to Peter the keys of the Kingdom.
This is an obviously difficult phrase; and we will do well to begin by
setting down the things about it of which we can be sure.
(a) The phrase always signified some kind of very special power.
For instance, the Rabbis had a saying: "The keys of birth, of the rain,
and of the resurrection of the dead belong to God." That is to say,
only God has the power to create life, to send the rain, and to raise
the dead to life again. The phrase always indicates a special power.
(b) In the New Testament this phrase is regularly attached to
Jesus. It is in his hands, and no one else's, that the keys are. In Revelation 1:18
the risen Christ says: "I am the living one; I died, and behold I am
alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades." Again in Revelation 3:7
the Risen Christ is described as, "The holy one, the true one, who has
the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one
opens." This phrase must be interpreted as indicating a certain divine
right, and whatever the promise made to Peter, it cannot be taken as
annulling, or infringing, a right which belongs alone to God and to the
Son of God.
(c) All these New Testament pictures and usages go back to a picture in Isaiah (Isaiah 22:22).
Isaiah describes Eliakim, who will have the key of the house of David
on his shoulder, and who alone will open and shut. Now the duty of
Eliakim was to be the faithful steward of the house. It is the steward
who carries the keys of the house, who in the morning opens the door,
and in the evening shuts it, and through whom visitors gain access to
the royal presence. So then what Jesus is saying to Peter is that in the
days to come, he wit be the steward of the Kingdom. And in the case of
Peter the whole idea is that of opening, not shutting, the door of the
Kingdom.
That came abundantly true. At Pentecost, Peter opened the door to three thousand souls (Acts 2:41).
He opened the door to the Gentile centurion Cornelius, so that it was
swinging on its hinges to admit the great Gentile world (Acts 10:1-48 ). Acts 15:1-41
tells how the Council of Jerusalem opened wide the door for the
Gentiles, and how it was Peter's witness which made that possible (Acts 15:14;
Simeon is Peter). The promise that Peter would have the keys to the
Kingdom was the promise that Peter would be the means of opening the
door to God for thousands upon thousands of people in the days to come.
But it is not only Peter who has the keys of the Kingdom; every
Christian has; for it is open to every one of us to open the door of the
Kingdom to some other and so to enter into the great promise of Christ.
(ii) Jesus further promised Peter that what he bound would
remain bound, and what he loosed would remain loosed. Richard Glover
takes this to mean that Peter would lay men's sins, bind them, to men's
consciences, and that he would then loose them from their sins by
telling them of the love and the forgiveness of God. That is a lovely
thought, and no doubt true, for such is the duty of every Christian
preacher and teacher, but there is more to it than that.
To loose and to bind were very common Jewish phrases. They were
used especially of the decisions of the great teachers and the great
Rabbis. Their regular sense, which any Jew would recognize was to allow
and to forbid. To bind something was to declare it forbidden; to loose
was to declare it allowed. These were the regular phrases for taking
decisions in regard to the law. That is in fact the only thing these
phrases in such a context would mean. So what Jesus is saying to Peter
is: "Peter, you are going to have grave and heavy responsibilities laid
upon you. You are going to have to take decisions which wig affect the
welfare of the whole Church. You will be the guide and the director of
the infant Church. And the decisions you give will be so important, that
they will affect the souls of men in time and in eternity."
The privilege of the keys meant that Peter would be the steward
of the household of God, opening the door for men to enter into the
Kingdom. The duty of binding and loosing meant that Peter would have to
take decisions about the Church's life and practice which would have the
most far-reaching consequences. And indeed, when we read the early
chapters of Acts, we see that in Jerusalem that is precisely what Peter
did.
When we paraphrase this passage which has caused so much
argument and controversy, we see that it deals, not with ecclesiastical
forms but with the things of salvation. Jesus said to Peter: "Peter,
your name means a rock, and your destiny is to be a rock. You are the
first man to recognize me for what I am, and therefore you are the first
stone in the edifice of the fellowship of those who are mine. Against
that fellowship the embattled powers of evil will no more prevail than
they will be able to hold me captive in death. And in the days to come,
you must be the steward who will unlock the doors of the Kingdom that
Jew and Gentile may come in; and you must be the wise administrator and
guide who will solve the problems and direct the work of the infant and
growing fellowship."
Peter had made the great discovery; and Peter was given the
great privilege and the great responsibility. It is a discovery which
everyone must make for himself; and, when he has made it, the same
privilege and the same responsibility are laid upon him.
16:20-23 He
gave orders to his disciples to tell no one that he was God's Anointed
One. From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to
Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed and be raised on the third day. Peter caught
hold of him, and began to urge upon him: "God forbid that this should
happen to you! This must never come to you!" He turned and said to
Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are putting a stumbling-block in my
way. Your ideas are not God's but men's."
Although the disciples had grasped the fact that Jesus was
God's Messiah, they still had not grasped what that great fact meant. To
them it meant something totally different from what it meant to Jesus.
They were still thinking in terms of a conquering Messiah, a warrior
king, who would sweep the Romans from Palestine and lead Israel to
power. That is why Jesus commanded them to silence. If they had gone out
to the people and preached their own ideas, all they would have
succeeded in doing would have been to raise a tragic rebellion; they
could have produced only another outbreak of violence doomed to
disaster. Before they could preach that Jesus was the Messiah, they had
to learn what that meant. In point of fact, Peter's reaction shows just
how far the disciples were from realizing just what Jesus meant when he
claimed to be the Messiah and the Son of God.
So Jesus began to seek to open their eyes to the fact that for
him there was no way but the way of the Cross. He said that he must go
to Jerusalem and suffer at the hands of the "elders and chief priests
and scribes." These three groups of men were in fact the three groups of
which the Sanhedrin was composed. The elders were the respected men of
the people; the chief priests were predominantly Sadducees; and the
scribes were Pharisees. In effect, Jesus is saying that he must suffer
at the hands of the orthodox religious leaders of the country.
No sooner had Jesus said that than Peter reacted with violence.
Peter had been brought up on the idea of a Messiah of power and glory
and conquest. To him the idea of a suffering Messiah, the connection of a
cross with the work of the Messiah, was incredible. He "caught hold" of
Jesus. Almost certainly the meaning is that he flung a protecting arm
round Jesus, as if to hold him back from a suicidal course. "This," said
Peter, "must not and cannot happen to you." And then came the great
rebuke which makes us catch our breath--"Get behind me, Satan!" There
are certain things which we must grasp in order to understand this
tragic and dramatic scene.
We must try to catch the tone of voice in which Jesus spoke. He
certainly did not say it with a snarl of anger in his voice and a blaze
of indignant passion in his eyes. He said it like a man wounded to the
heart, with poignant grief and a kind of shuddering horror. Why should
he react like that?
He did so because in that moment there came back to him with
cruel force the temptations which he had faced in the wilderness at the
beginning of his ministry. There he had been tempted to take the way of
power. "Give them bread, give them material things," said the tempter,
"and they will follow you." "Give them sensations," said the tempter,
"give them wonders, and they will follow you ... .. Compromise with the
world," said the tempter. "Reduce your standards, and they will follow
you." It was precisely the same temptations with which Peter was
confronting Jesus an over again.
Nor were these temptations ever wholly absent from the mind of
Jesus. Luke sees far into the heart of the Master. At the end of the
temptation story, Luke writes: "And when the devil had ended every
temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13).
Again and again the tempter launched this attack. No one wants a cross;
no one wants to die in agony; even in the Garden that same temptation
came to Jesus, the temptation to take another way.
And here Peter is offering it to him now. The sharpness and the
poignancy of Jesus' answer are due to the fact that Peter was urging
upon him the very things which the tempter was always whispering to him,
the very things against which he had to steel himself. Peter was
confronting Jesus with that way of escape from the Cross which to the
end beckoned to him.
That is why Peter was Satan. Satan literally means the
Adversary. That is why Peter's ideas were not God's but men's. Satan is
any force which seeks to deflect us from the way of God; Satan is any
influence which seeks to make us turn back from the hard way that God
has set before us; Satan is any power which seeks to make human desires
take the place of the divine imperative.
What made the temptation more acute was the fact that it came
from one who loved him. Peter spoke as he did only because he loved
Jesus so much that he could not bear to think of him treading that
dreadful path and dying that awful death. The hardest temptation of all
is the one which comes from protecting love. There are times when fond
love seeks to deflect us from the perils of the path of God; but the
real love is not the love which holds the knight at home, but the love
which sends him out to obey the commandments of the chivalry which is
given, not to make life easy, but to make life great. It is quite
possible for love to be so protecting that it seeks to protect those it
loves from the adventure of the warfare of the soldier of Christ, and
from the strenuousness of the pathway of the pilgrim of God. What really
wounded Jesus' heart and what really made him speak as he did, was that
the tempter spoke to him that day through the fond but mistaken love of
Peter's hot heart.
Before we leave this passage, it is interesting to look at two very
early interpretations of the phrase: "Get behind me, Satan!" Origen
suggested that, Jesus was saying to Peter: "Peter, your place is behind
me, not in front of me. It is your place to follow me in the way I
choose, not to try to lead me in the way you would like me to go." If
the phrase can be interpreted in that way, something at least of its
sting is removed, for it does not banish Peter from Christ's presence;
rather it recalls him to his proper place, as a follower walking in the
footsteps of Jesus. It is true for all of us that we must ever take the
way of Christ and never seek to compel him to take our way.
A further development comes when we closely examine this saying
of Jesus in the light of his saying to Satan at the end of the
temptations as Matthew records it in Matthew 4:10. Although in the English translations the two passages sound different they are almost, but not quite, the same. In Matthew 4:10 the Revised Standard Version translates: "Begone, Satan!" and the Greek is: "Hupage (Greek #5217) Satana (Greek #4566)." In the Revised Standard Version translation of Matthew 16:23, Jesus says to Peter: "Get behind me, Satan," and the Greek is: "Hupage (Greek #5217) opiso (Greek #3694) mou (Greek #3450), Satana (Greek #4566)."
The point is that Jesus' command to Satan is simply: "Begone!"
while his command to Peter is: "Begone behind me!" that is to say,
"Become my follower again." Satan is banished from the presence of
Christ; Peter is recalled to be Christ's follower. The one thing that
Satan could never become is a follower of Christ; in his diabolical
pride he could never submit to that; that is why he is Satan. On the
other hand, Peter might be mistaken and might fail and might sin, but
for him there was always the challenge and the chance to become a
follower again. It is as if Jesus said to Peter: "At the moment you have
spoken as Satan would. But that is not the real Peter speaking. You can
redeem yourself. Come behind me, and be my follower again, and even
yet, all will be well." The basic difference between Peter and Satan is
precisely the fact that Satan would never get behind Jesus. So long as a
man is prepared to try to follow, even after he has fallen, there is
still for him the hope of glory here and hereafter.
16:24-26 Then
Jesus said to his disciples: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross, and let him follow me. For whoever
wishes to keep his life safe, will lose it; and whoever loses his life
for my sake, will find it. For what shall a man be profited if he shall
gain the whole world at the penalty of the price of his life? Or what
will a man give in exchange for his life?"
Here we have one of the dominant and ever-recurring themes of
Jesus' teaching. These are things which Jesus said to men again and
again (Matthew 10:37-39; Mark 8:34-37; Luke 9:23-27; Luke 14:25-27; Luke 17:33; John 12:25).
Again and again he confronted them with the challenge of the Christian
life. There are three things which a man must be prepared to do, if he
is to live the Christian life.
(i) He must deny himself. Ordinarily we use the word self-denial
in a restricted sense. We use it to mean giving up something. For
instance, a week of self-denial may be a week when we do without certain
pleasures or luxuries in order to contribute to some good cause. But
that is only a very small part of what Jesus meant by self-denial. To
deny oneself means in every moment of life to say no to self and yes to
God. To deny oneself means once, finally and for all to dethrone self
and to enthrone God. To deny oneself means to obliterate self as the
dominant principle of life, and to make God the ruling principle, more,
the ruling passion, of life. The life of constant self-denial is the
life of constant assent to God.
(ii) He must take up his cross. That is to say, he must take up
the burden of sacrifice. The Christian life is the life of sacrificial
service. The Christian may have to abandon personal ambition to serve
Christ; it may be that he will discover that the place where he can
render the greatest service to Jesus Christ is somewhere where the
reward will be small and the prestige non-existent. He will certainly
have to sacrifice time and leisure and pleasure in order to serve God
through the service of his fellow-men.
To put it quite simply, the comfort of the fireside, the
pleasure of a visit to a place of entertainment, may well have to be
sacrificed for the duties of the eldership, the calls of the youth club,
the visit to the home of some sad or lonely soul. He may well have to
sacrifice certain things he could well afford to possess in order to
give more away. The Christian life is the sacrificial life.
Luke, with a flash of sheer insight, adds one word to this
command of Jesus: "Let him take up his cross daily." The really
important thing is not the great moments of sacrifice, but a life lived
in the constant hourly awareness of the demands of God and the need of
others. The Christian life is a life which is always concerned with
others more than it is concerned with itself.
(iii) He must follow Jesus Christ. That is to say, he must
render to Jesus Christ a perfect obedience. When we were young we used
to play a game called "Follow my Leader." Everything the leader did,
however difficult, and, in the case of the game, however ridiculous, we
had to copy. The Christian life is a constant following of our leader, a
constant obedience in thought and word and action to Jesus Christ. The
Christian walks in the footsteps of Christ, wherever he may lead.
There is all the difference in the world between existing and living.
To exist is simply to have the lungs breathing and the heart beating;
to live is to be alive in a world where everything is worth while, where
there is peace in the soul, joy in the heart, and a thrill in every
moment. Jesus here gives us the recipe for life as distinct from
existence.
(i) The man who plays for safety loses life. Matthew was writing
somewhere between A.D. 80 and 90. He was therefore writing in some of
the bitterest days of persecution. He was saying: "The time may well
come when you can save your life by abandoning your faith; but if you
do, so far from saving life, in the real sense of the term you are
losing life." The man who is faithful may die but he dies to live; the
man who abandons his faith for safety may live, but he lives to die.
In our day and generation it is not likely to be a question of
martyrdom, but it still remains a fact that, if we meet life in the
constant search for safety, security, ease and comfort, if every
decision is taken from worldly-wise and prudential motives, we are
losing all that makes life worth while. Life becomes a soft and flabby
thing, when it might have been an adventure. Life becomes a selfish
thing, when it might have been radiant with service. Life becomes an
earthbound thing when it might have been reaching for the stars. Someone
once wrote a bitter epitaph on a man: "He was born a man and died a
grocer." Any trade or profession might be substituted for the word
grocer. The man who plays for safety ceases to be a man, for man is made
in the image of God.
(ii) The man who risks all--and maybe looks as if he had lost
all--for Christ, finds life. It is the simple lesson of history that it
has always been the adventurous souls, bidding farewell to security and
safety, who wrote their names on history and greatly helped the world of
men. Unless there had been those prepared to take risks, many a medical
cure would not exist. Unless there had been those prepared to take
risks, many of the machines which make life easier would never have been
invented. Unless there were mothers prepared to take risks, no child
would ever be born. It is the man who is prepared "to bet his life that
there is a God" who in the end finds life.
(iii) Then Jesus speaks with warning: "Suppose a man plays for
safety; suppose he gains the whole world; then suppose that he finds
that life is not worth living, what can he give to get life back again?"
And the grim truth is that he cannot get life back again. In every
decision of life we are doing something to ourselves; we are making
ourselves a certain kind of person; we are building up steadily and
inevitably a certain kind of character; we are making ourselves able to
do certain things and quite unable to do others. It is perfectly
possible for a man to gain all the things he set his heart upon, and
then to awaken one morning to find that he has missed the most important
things of all.
The world stands for material things as opposed to God; and of
all material things there are three things to be said. (a) No one can
take them with him at the end; he can take only himself; and if he
degraded himself in order to get them, his regret will be bitter. (b)
They cannot help a man in the shattering days of life. Material things
will never mend a broken heart or cheer a lonely soul. (c) If by any
chance a man gained his material possessions in a way that is
dishonourable, there will come a day when conscience will speak, and he
will know hell on this side of the grave.
The world is full of voices crying out that he is a fool who sells real life for material things.
(iv) Finally Jesus asks: "What will a man give in exchange for his soul?" The Greek is, "What antallagma (Greek #465) will a man give for his soul?" Antallagma (Greek #465) is an interesting word. In the book of Ecclesiasticus we read: "There is no antallagma (Greek #465) for a faithful friend," and, "There is no antallagma (Greek #465) for a disciplined soul" (Ecc 6:15; Ecc 26:14).
It means that there is no price which will buy a faithful friend or a
disciplined soul. So then this final saying of Jesus can mean two
things.
(a) It can mean: Once a man has lost his real life, because of
his desire for security and for material things, there is no price that
he can pay to get it back again. He has done something to himself which
cannot ever be fully obliterated.
(b) It can mean: A man owes himself and everything else to Jesus
Christ; and there is nothing that a man can give to Christ in place of
his life. It is quite possible for a man to try to give his money to
Christ and to withhold his life. It is still more possible for a man to
give lip-service to Christ and to withhold his life. Many a person gives
his weekly freewill offering to the Church, but does not attend;
obviously that does not satisfy the demands of church membership. The
only possible gift to the Church is ourselves; and the only possible
gift to Christ is our whole life. There is no substitute for it. Nothing
less will do.
16:27-28 "For
the Son of Man will come with the glory of his Father, with his angels,
and then he will render to each man in accordance with his way of
action. This is the truth I tell you--there are some of those who are
standing here who will not taste death, until they see the Son of Man
coming in his Kingdom."
There are two quite distinct sayings here.
(i) The first is a warning, the warning of inevitable judgment.
Life is going somewhere--and life is going to judgment. In any sphere of
life there inevitably comes the day of reckoning. There is no escape
from the fact that Christianity teaches that after life there comes the
judgment; and when we take this passage in conjunction with the passage
which goes before, we see at once what the standard of judgment is. The
man who selfishly hugs life to himself, the man whose first concern is
his own safety, his own security and his own comfort, is in heaven's
eyes the failure, however rich and successful and prosperous he may seem
to be. The man who spends himself for others, and who lives life as a
gallant adventure, is the man who receives heaven's praise and God's
reward.
(ii) The second is a promise. As Matthew records this phrase, it
reads as if Jesus spoke as if he expected his own visible return in the
lifetime of some of those who were listening to him. If Jesus said that
he was mistaken. But we see the real meaning of what Jesus said when we
turn to Mark's record of it. Mark has: And he said to them, "Truly, I
say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before
they see the Kingdom of God come with power" (Mark 9:1).
It is of the mighty working of his Kingdom that Jesus is
speaking; and what he said came most divinely true. There were those
standing there who saw the coming of Jesus in the coming, of the Spirit
at the day of Pentecost. There were those who were to see Gentile and
Jew swept into the Kingdom; they were to see the tide of the Christian
message sweep across Asia Minor and cover Europe until it reached Rome.
Well within the life-time of those who heard Jesus speak, the Kingdom
came with power.
Again, this is to be taken closely with what goes before. Jesus
warned his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, and that there he
must suffer many things and die. That was the shame; but the shame was
not the end. After the Cross there came the Resurrection. The Cross was
not to be the end; it was to be the beginning of the unleashing of that
power which was to surge throughout the whole world. This is a promise
to the disciples of Jesus Christ that nothing men can do can hinder the
expansion of the Kingdom of God.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)