But who do you say that I am?

“You are the Christ”

(Matthew 16:13-28, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, Nov. 25, 2007)

Matthew 16:13-28 ¹³ Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" ¹⁴ And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." ¹⁵ He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" ¹⁶ Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 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. 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." ²⁰ Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. ²¹ 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 on the third day be raised. ²² And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you." ²³ But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." ²⁴ Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ²⁶ For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. ²⁸ Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

Introduction – Knowing Your Enemy, Knowing Your Friend

In December of 1944, one of the deadliest battles of World War II occurred in the engagement commonly known as The Battle of the Bulge. With some Allied troops almost entirely surrounded by German forces and facing extremely overcast weather conditions, it was of the utmost importance that our troops be able to distinguish friend from foe. At one point a party of four German soldiers carrying a white flag delivered a message to the American command demanding their surrender within two hours. Appealing as almost a friend of American values, the German Commander wrote these words: “All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well known American humanity.” The official reply of the American command came in one word from the acting commander of the 101st Airborne. He wrote on the paper delivered to the Germans: “NUTS!” That reply had to be explained, both to the Germans and to non-American Allies.

Our Lord in His earthly ministry faced the greatest spiritual battle of all time. He understood that there would be times when enemies would pose as friends, and when friends might unwittingly speak words from the plan of the enemy. The passage before us contains two statements from the same man, the apostle Peter. One was a great statement of faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The other was a strange rebuke concerning the coming horror of the cross. It is part of our Lord’s great wisdom that He knew just the right response to give in each situation.

Who do people say that the Son of Man is? (13-14)

Jesus and His disciples are traveling in the district of Caesarea Philippi, a pagan city named in honor of Augustus Caesar. It is there at the place dedicated to the Caesar of the empire that Jesus chooses to address His disciples concerning His own identity as the Messiah. The knowledge of who Jesus really is will be of the greatest importance in the spiritual battle that lay ahead of the disciples. Christ is surely moving toward the cross, and His disciples need to be prepared for this in such a way that they can later consider what He said about the battle of the cross before it every happened. To speak of these things prior to this time would have been too early, but to not speak of these things at all would be to leave his disciples inadequately prepared for the future.

Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man” a title connected in Daniel 7 to the hoped-for Messiah, but what do the mass of people think of Jesus? They knew that He was a man of spiritual power, and they thought that He might be from the recent or more distant heritage of God’s dealings with Israel. Was He somehow John the Baptist risen from the dead, or even the promised Old Testament prophet Elijah who was supposed to return before the Day of the Lord? This is what people generally wondered.

Who do you say that I am? (15-16)

Then Jesus directly asked His disciples one of the great questions of history. “But who do you say that I am?” The issue is not really what the crowds think of Jesus, then or now. What do His disciples think of the One who calls Himself by the title “Son of Man?” Peter has the place of honor in giving the answer. “You are the Christ.” This word “Christ” means “The Anointed One.” The Hebrew for this is actually where the word “Messiah” comes from. This title “Christ” is used in Psalm 2 where it is said that the rulers of the earth rage against the Lord and against His Anointed. In the same psalm, God calls the Christ both “My King” and “My Son.” It is not surprising then that when Peter says that Jesus is the Christ, he goes on to say that Jesus is “The Son of the living God.” In Psalm 2 these titles were both used for the King of Israel. God had promised that He would put a descendant of David on the throne, and that He would reign forever and ever. Peter is saying here that Jesus is not John the Baptist or even Elijah; He is the long-expected coming King of Israel.

I will build my church (17-23)

Jesus emphatically affirms Peter’s answer, calling Peter “blessed.” Jesus says that this answer could only have come from God in heaven. When anyone sees Jesus as Messiah truly from the heart he does a heavenly thing. There was so much about this coming King and His Kingdom in the Old Testament, yet this was not widely understood by the people of Jesus’ day; even by His disciples who had been with Him and had seen miracles and heard His words. It is now time for Jesus to begin to teach His closest followers and friends what it means that He is the Messiah King.

There are certain important things in these verses that should not be of controversy: 1) Christ is going to build something which He calls “My church.” 2) This church is on the offense against the stronghold of the world. 3) The world’s gates will not be able to withstand this Kingdom of the Messiah’s assembly. In any age it may appear that the church is surrounded by foes who may even insist that we surrender, but we know that Christ will prevail.

There is one matter of controversy that has proven difficult over the centuries. What is the rock on which Christ is going to build His church? There are three answers that are worth your consideration: 1) Peter is the rock (and perhaps by extension the other apostles). [Yes, in some sense, but only as God uses people as His way of bringing about His plans, just as Peter and the apostles fed thousands of people with just a few loaves.] 2) The profession of faith in Jesus as “The Christ, the Son of the Living God” is the rock. [Yes, in some sense, but only as God would give anyone the gift of a Messiah to believe in and the gift of faith in that Messiah.] 3) Jesus is the rock based on the broader teaching of the Bible. If only we had men like the Peter and Paul to sort this out for us. But we do! In Ephesians 2:20 Paul, speaking of the church, says that while the apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church, it is only Christ who is the cornerstone of His church. The foundation must be in line with the cornerstone. It is fitting that Peter himself should settle any confusion here. He says in I Peter 2:4-9 that we need to come to Christ as the cornerstone upon which we are being built up as living stones. Very importantly, he quotes from Isaiah 28:16 and Psalm 118:22. It seems clear from these verses that Peter would certainly not want us to settle on Peter as the rock and then stumble over Christ as a stumbling-stone that we had somehow ignored or minimized.

But regardless of how you understand the challenging matter of the identity of the rock of the church, do not forget the significance of the points of wide agreement here. Whatever we say about any of this cannot take us away from the reality that this is Christ’s church, and He is building it through a kingdom of heaven assault into a fallen world. He is doing this through what He calls here the keys of the kingdom which have been given to this first group of church officers. (For proof that this is not just Peter, see Matthew 18:18 and John 20:23.) The meaning of the keys is very difficult to establish here. They are something that the officers of the church use to call people into the kingdom and to identify those who they believe to be in or out of the Kingdom. The rest of the New Testament teaches us that this is done through the preaching of the gospel and the use of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as signs and seals of inclusion in the church. These must be the keys that Christ refers to here. What we do see here is that Christ announces that God in heaven will take the church’s use of these keys very seriously in this age.

The disciples now know things about Jesus that He did not want others to know. Many would have misunderstood what the Messiah would do. They were expecting a Jewish Caesar ruling from Jerusalem. The Old Testament makes it clear that for Jesus to simply be a Caesar of an earthly empire would have been too small a thing. He is the leader of a far more glorious kingdom, but he accomplished His greatest victory through the pathway of His own death. This is what Jesus begins to teach them, and Peter is not happy about this. Christ now identifies Peter correctly as the worst enemy of the Lord if He insists on trying to move the Messiah away from the path that would lead to the cross. The Lord’s travel to Jerusalem, His sufferings, His death, His resurrection; these things were absolutely necessary. To try to make Jesus surrender to another plan was more than “nuts.” It was Satanic.

The Son of Man is going to come (24-28)

The rest of this passage teaches us that if we embrace the One who becomes far greater than Caesar by the way of the cross, then we must be willing to follow Him in God’s good plan of suffering in our own lives – a theme that we will investigate more fully in future passages. For now we want to rejoice in the Christ in whom we believe. He is building His church. The gates of Hell cannot withstand His assault of sacrificial love through His church. Peter, of course, did turn out to be a friend and not a foe. And he was right. Jesus is the cornerstone of the Kingdom. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, who is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What do you make of the crowd’s assessment of who Jesus is?

2. Discuss the conflict between Peter’s statement of faith with his concern over the Lord’s future suffering.

3. What does this passage tell us about God’s plan for the church?

4. How do you connect verses 24-28 with the earlier events that transpired here?