Introduction
“Probius
was whipped until the blood flowed, then laden with chains and thrown into
prison. A few days later, he was brought out and commanded to sacrifice to the
heathen gods. He knew that he would be tortured and killed if he refused. Still
he courageously said:
“‘I
come better prepared than before, for what I have suffered has only
strengthened me in my resolution. Employ your whole power upon me, and you
shall find that neither you, nor the Emperor, nor the gods you serve, nor even
the devil, who is your father, shall compel me to worship idols.’
“Probius
was sent back to further tortures and eventual death by the sword. – Probius,
Roman Empire, circa 250 AD”
Persecution
of Christians has been part of the faith from the very beginning when Stephen
was martyred within the first year (maybe the first few months) after Christ
ascended to heaven. And Paul, before his conversion, made it his personal mission
to stamp out Christianity. Of course we know that his efforts would prove to be
futile (see
On The Road To Damascus at:
http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2013/11/on-road-to-damascus.html).
Nevertheless, the best efforts of countless religious leaders, rulers and
various religious zealots over the two millennia since the Church began have
failed to stop the advancement of God’s Kingdom purpose revealed in Jesus
Christ.
Over
the last few months, I have read a number of stories sounding an alarm that the
Church is in decline in the West because of spiritual apathy and Christianity
in general is in danger of extinction in predominantly Muslim and Communist
regions due to persecution. Further exacerbating the sense of Christianity’s
demise is the palpable decline in cultural morality and the growing demand by
atheists that their belief in nothing be equally recognized as valid (I’m not
sure why being recognized as believing in nothing is so important that it
should be celebrated). However, what these alarmists fail to recognize is that
just because the Church in the West has created a vacuum because of spiritual
apathy, sloth or ignorance that atheism is attempting to fill, and the
population of Christians in some regions are reduced through persecution or
migration to avoid persecution, the Church universal continues to grow in
places where it has historically been unwelcome like China or weak like South
America and Africa. The Church is not like a club that can be eradicated or
disbanded. The Church is a living organism having countless branches with the
ability to weave their way into unwelcome and unseen places. No matter how many
branches are cut off or die for whatever reason, the vine from which the
branches grow can never be eradicated because that vine is Jesus Christ. The
Vine is eternal and therefore it is impossible to entirely eliminate the growth
of its branches. Even the power of Satan, who motivates those who oppose
Christianity, even if they are unaware of his influence, cannot stop the
advancement of God’s Kingdom in Jesus Christ. This is why Jesus told us that
not even The Gates Of Hell have the
power to thwart His plan of salvation. Let’s take a closer look at why Jesus
said this and how we can be encouraged by this understanding.
Subject Text
Matthew 16:13-20
13When Jesus came to the region of
Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of
Man is?” 14They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still
others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16Simon Peter answered, “You are
the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son
of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my
Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are
Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be
loosed in heaven.” 20Then he warned his disciples not
to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
Context
Our
Subject Text has been variously interpreted and a point of contention within
the Church. However, a look at the context might alleviate some of the
confusion created by Jesus’ teaching. The chapter begins, not surprisingly,
with an altercation between Jesus and the religious leaders who want Jesus to
perform a miracle for them to prove he is who he claims to be. However, their
demand comes on the heels of Jesus feeding five thousand people with five
loaves of bread and two fish (Mt 14:13-21), walking on water (Mt 14:22-33),
healing all those who touched him (Mt 14:34-36), exorcizing a demon-possessed
girl (Mt 15:21-28), healing the lame, blind, crippled and mute (Mt 15:29-31),
and feeding four thousand people with seven loaves of bread and a few small
fish (Mt 15:32-39). You might claim that none of the religious leaders were eye
witnesses to any of Jesus’ miracles but they would have to have been willfully
ignorant not to have known they occurred—particularly in the case of miraculous
healings. It might be possible to refute feeding someone but it is not possible
to refute the healing of someone who was lame or cripple when they are standing
before you completely whole. Jesus recognizes willful unbelief in the religious
leaders at the beginning of chapter sixteen and as he did previously when the
religious leaders wanted a miraculous sign (Mt 12:38-45), Jesus tells them that
the only sign they will receive is the sign illustrated by Jonah’s experience
of emerging from the belly of the fish after three days. Jesus was, of course,
referring to his being in the tomb after his crucifixion and death only to
emerge alive after three days.
Right
before we get to our Subject Text,
Jesus warns the disciples about the false teachings of the religious leaders.
Specifically, it was important for them to understand who he was and what he
was about. The religious leaders had a preconceived notion that the Messiah
would be a military figure sent to liberate them from their Roman oppressors
and re-establish their national prominence. Their Messiah was a conqueror of
men and nations that did not involve suffering, sacrifice or death on the part
of the Messiah. However, surrendering himself to be put to death was precisely
Jesus’ mission and he makes that clear in the verses that follow our Subject Text. In order to establish the
full meaning of what he was destined to accomplish, it was important that they
understood exactly who he was, which is the purpose of our Subject Text.
Text Analysis
Earlier
in chapter 16 we learned that Jesus and the disciples were coming from the west
side of the Sea of Galilee and had now, according to v. 13, travelled about
twenty miles north to the region of Caesarea Philippi. On the way, Jesus asks
his disciples a question that draws a line in the sand that creates a boundary
line between Christianity and every other faith system. It’s not an
insignificant question. How a person answers that question places them squarely
on one side of that boundary line or the other. “The question shows that Jesus
had been thinking of His past ministry and its results, and it may be taken for
granted that He had formed His own estimate, and did not need to learn from the
Twelve how He stood…How the influential classes, the Pharisees, and the priests
and political men=Sadducees, were affected was apparent. Nothing but hostility
was to be looked for there. With the common people on the other hand He had to
the last been popular. They liked His preaching, and they took eager advantage
of His healing ministry. But had they got a definite faith about Him, as well
as a kindly feeling towards Him; an idea well-rooted, likely to be lasting,
epoch-making, the starting-point of a new religious movement? He did not
believe they had, and He expected to have that impression confirmed by the answer
of the Twelve, as indeed it was.”
No
doubt the disciples heard the gossip in the local communities. It’s not like
they were strangers in the land. The places they visited with Jesus and the
surrounding regions were home to them. This was the place where they grew up,
lived, and worked. This was the place where their family, friends and peers
lived. It would be incorrect to assume that once they became disciples that
they no longer interacted outside their small circle. They had to eat, drink
and sleep somewhere. They may not have gone home all the time but they didn’t
spend all their time in seclusion either. Instead, they were usually in the
company of many people who either followed them from town to town or who
surrounded them when they came to town. In any event, it is safe to say that
they were in a position to hear people talk and Jesus wanted to know what
people were saying about him. But what made people think, in v. 14, that Jesus
was really John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or some other prophet returned
from the dead? Why was it easier to believe that than it was to believe that
Jesus may have been the long awaited Messiah? “Some people, like Herod
(14:1-2), thought Jesus was John the Baptizer reincarnated. Others saw Jesus’
miracles, especially the resurrection of the dead (9:18-26), and they thought
of Elijah the miracle worker (1 Kgs 17-2 Kgs 2; esp. 17:17-24). Also, since
John was ‘Elijah who was to come’ (11:12; 17:12; Mal 4:5), this could explain
why these two names were next to each other, both in this conversation and in
the people’s minds. Elijah was seen as a forerunner of the Messiah, as was
John. Still others thought Jesus was Jeremiah, the prophet of doom who
prophesied during the final decades before Judah was exiled to Babylon. The
list included several of the other prophets, including Isaiah, whose prophecies
Jesus fulfilled in Matthew and from whom Jesus quoted quite often.”
Unlike
the Jews who relied on their Jewish heritage for their place in life and their
eventual salvation, Jesus makes clear that our salvation is a personal matter.
Jesus is not concerned with our past; with where we come from, but our future
and where we’re going. Jesus isn’t asking you what your parents think of Him;
He isn’t asking what your pastor or your youth leader thinks of Him; He’s not
asking what your friends think of Him. Jesus is asking you, just like he asked the disciples in v. 15—“Who do you think I
am?” In all our lives, we will not be faced with a more important question. How
we answer that question will shape who we are and what we will become. “It is
not enough simply to connect the Son of Man with the prophetic expectation
generally. Through the instruction that Jesus has given his disciples about his
identity and mission by using the title, they must now give account for whom
they understand him to be.”
Peter,
who appears to be the default spokesman for the disciples in v. 16, steps up
and confesses their collective belief that Jesus is the “Christ” or “Messiah,”
which means he is God’s anointed or chosen one. Yet this part of the confession
is incomplete without the rest of the confession that Jesus was “the Son of the
living God.” Here is the first very clear indication that the disciples, at the
very least, believed Jesus to be divine. This is no small matter considering
the disciples where all Jewish and well aware of the gravity of their
confession. Nevertheless, they were witnesses to all the teachings, miracles
and Old Testament prophecies that found their fulfillment in Jesus. The
evidence was before them and it demanded a verdict. Anything short of a
confession that Messiah Jesus was the divine Son of God was incorrect. (For a
detailed lesson about the significance of The Son of God as a title, see the four-part
series titled,
The Son of God at:
http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2011/10/son-of-god-pt-1.html,
http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2011/10/son-of-god-pt-2.html,
http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2011/11/son-of-god-pt-3.html,
http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2011/11/son-of-god-pt-4-conclusion.html.)
“It is not sufficient to call Jesus Messiah, if by that one means merely that
he is the Son of David (cf. 15:22). For Jesus is the Son of God not merely by
virtue of his messianic office, but also, and primarily, by virtue of his
being. Anticipated in 14:33, Peter’s confession affirms Messiah’s deity.”
How many people, who are
not still so ignorant to insist that Jesus was an invented character, are
prepared to concede that Jesus is just about anything that can be imagined
except the divine Son of God. The great
C. S. Lewis once wrote, “I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the
really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept
Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That
is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort
of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a
lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would
be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is,
the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a
fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet
and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense
about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did
not intend to.”
Jesus
does not deny Peter’s confession in v. 17 but encourages Peter and the others
that the revelation of who Jesus was wasn’t an understanding they developed
through their own strength of reasoning. Instead, Jesus’ divine identity was
revealed to them by God the Father. John records a time prior to this event
when Jesus teaches the disciples that no one can come to Jesus; no one can know
Jesus unless the Father calls them to do so (Jn 6:44). When someone comes to a
saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, it is only in response to God’s urging. “The
severe limitations of human knowledge are bound up with man’s incapacity due to
sin. Only God has infinite power of knowledge and revelation. Hence true
knowledge of God is possible only by God’s own self-revelation…For the NT this
means the final abandonment of all effort to base the divine revelation on
human authority.”
We
reach one of the most confusing texts in Scripture in v. 18a when Jesus
identifies Simon son of Jonah as “Peter.” The text leads us to believe that
this is Peter’s new name even though it is revealed at the very beginning of
Matthew’s gospel. Nevertheless, confusion arises when we understand that
Peter’s name is translated as “rock,” God is referred to as “the Rock eternal
(Isa 26:4), Jesus is referred to as “the rock that makes them fall” (Rom 9:33).
It is also commonly understood that the salvation efficacy of a confession in
Jesus Christ is rock solid. Consequently, “the rock” upon which Jesus would
build his church could be interpreted to mean, 1) Jesus himself and his work on
the cross; 2) Peter, the first leader of the church in Jerusalem; or 3) The
confession of faith in who Jesus was and is. A strong argument can be made that
the “this rock” Jesus refers to is Peter and that Jesus will build the church
on the leadership of Peter. The Roman Catholic Church certainly believes that
because they have built their entire ecclesiology around the belief that Peter
was the first Pope of the church and that each successive Pope perpetuates
Peter’s authority over the church. However, Paul did far more to build the
church then Peter apparently did. Furthermore, Paul, at one point had to
correct Peter’s theology and behavior (Gal 2:11-21). Hardly a solid foundation
on which to build something as important as Christ’s church. Finally, Peter is
known as the apostle to the Jews while Paul is known as the apostle to the
Gentiles. There are currently estimated to be nearly 2.2 billion Christians
around the world and of those Christians only an estimated one million are
Jewish. I’ll do the math for you—Jews represent .04% of the total Christian
population. If Peter was the rock upon which Jesus would build his church and
Peter was the apostle to the Jews then wouldn’t the Jews be the foundation of
the church? I don’t know about you but something doesn’t make sense to me.
Peter was the rock upon which Jesus would build his church yet thirteen of the
27 books of the New Testament were penned by Paul and Peter wrote three. It is
more likely that Jesus is making a play on words with reference to Peter’s name
meaning “rock.” “Although Peter’s foundational role was later taken to an
extreme by the Roman Catholic church to invest Peter with an authority and a
succession of leadership, we should not go to the opposite extreme and deny the
natural reading of the wordplay…Even though Peter appears to be the antecedent
to ‘this rock,’ the reference should not be understood too narrowly. ‘Peter’
denotes more than just the person. It is the characteristics that make Simon a
‘rocky ledge’ that comprise the wordplay…This
rock is everything that Peter is at this very moment. It refers to him as the
courageous confessor who steps forward, as the representative spokesman for the
disciples, as the blessed recipient of revelation, as the first individual to
make a public confession of Christ, and the one who leads the disciples forward
into the realms of expression of faith. Upon this Peter Jesus will
build his church. If Simon functions in that way, he is the rock; if he does
not, he can become a stumbling block (Mt 16:23). At the same time, Jesus’
pronouncement is not a conferral of unique, individual supremacy. Peter is
given special recognition for all he is and is to be, but he is never placed
above or apart from the disciples…Peter is crucial for his role in the
foundation of the church, but he is not the only part of the foundation (cf.
Eph 2:19; Rev 21:14).”
Jesus
is so confident about the strength of the church in v. 18b that he makes the
definitive proclamation that not even The
Gates Of Hell would be able to overcome Christ’s church. The truth of
Jesus’ statement would be tested through some of the fiercest fires of trials
and tribulations imaginable. The writer of Hebrews says that Christians were
put to death by the sword, stoned or sawed in half. And as gruesome as that
seems, things didn’t get much better under the Neronian persecutions where Christians
were tied to long poles and lit on fire to illuminate the palace gardens and
roadways. In the millennia since then, tomes have been written recording the
martyrdom of Christians around the world. Yet Christianity, contrary to what
some people seem to think, continues to survive and thrive around the world
even though it seems that Hell itself has been loosed upon the believing
community. “The Gates of Hades [Hell] is a Semitic expression for the threshold
of the realm of death. The words used here suggest that death itself assaults
Christ’s church, but death cannot crush us. The church will endure until
Christ’s return, and no opposition, even widespread martyrdom of Christians or
the oppression of the final antichrist can prevent the ultimate triumph of
God’s purposes in history.”
We’re
not finished with interpretive difficulties within our
Subject Text when we get
to v. 19. What does it mean when Jesus says that he will give Peter the “keys”
to the kingdom of heaven so that what is accomplished on earth will likewise be
accomplished in heaven. Some believe the text implies that Peter will have the
authority to forgive sins or withhold forgiveness of sins. Others believe that
the “keys” being referred to by Jesus is the Gospel message which is the means
for forgiveness and rejection of that message means the lack of forgiveness.
Most likely, it refers to the latter of the two. “More immediate parallels
suggest that one should pursue the imagery of keys that close and open, lock
and unlock (based on Isa 22:22) and take the binding and loosing as referring
to Christians’ making entrance to God’s kingdom available or unavailable to
people through their witness, preaching, and ministry.”
Part of the difficulty in
this verse centers around the perfect passive verbs contained therein. Grammar
time! In Classical Greek, the verbs translated as “will be bound” and “will be
loosed” would be translated as “will have been bound” and “will have been
loosed.” This would demonstrate how God’s initiative is worked out in the
church. However, in Hellenistic Greek (aka Koine Greek), which was the language
of the New Testament, the text is consistent as translated by the NIV in our
Subject Text. In this case, Jesus is teaching that the church has the
authority to bring people into God’s Kingdom which Jesus then ratifies. “A
mediating solution, supported by recent linguistic research, may be best with
the translation,
will be in a state of
boundedness/loosedness. Jesus’ point, then, will simply be that God
promises that all who enter the kingdom do so in accordance with God’s
sovereign will, without specifying one way or the other whose action caused
whose response.”
End of grammar time!
Our
Subject Text ends in v. 20 with a familiar instruction from Jesus to his
disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Christ. Remember what I explained
earlier in the Context section of
the lesson. The religious leaders and by extension the people had a
preconceived notion of what the Messiah would be like—a powerful, conquering,
military hero that would crush Israel’s enemies and lead her back to prominence
and power in the ancient world. But Christ, the true Messiah, was powerful not
because he was able to conquer some earthly opposition but because he would
conquer the ultimate enemy of all humanity—death. However, in order to do so,
he had to first offer himself as a sacrifice to pay for humanity’s sins as we
will learn in the closing verses of chapter 16. “Here the reason for the
secrecy is about to become particularly clear. Jesus is not the kind of Messiah
that the masses have in mind. Far from overpowering the evil powers of the
world there and then and establishing a national-political kingdom, Jesus is
now to talk of another, dramatically different path upon which his messianic
calling will take him.”
Application
I
try not to use sports analogies very often because I know that not everyone
plays sports. But it seems particularly applicable in this case. Let me ask you
a question: How would you play a sport, any sport, if you knew in advance that
you were going to win; Regardless of the score at any point during the event,
in the end you would win? You could play the game for the joy of the game
without concern over the outcome. In some ways, Christianity is like this
personally and corporately. Upon accepting Christ, we received the seal that is
the Holy Spirit that is the promise of salvation that can never be taken from
us. Remember Paul’s words when he said,
“I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38-39).” In the
same way, our Subject Text is the promise that nothing will
succeed in conquering the Kingdom force that is the Church. I’ll let you in on
a secret—the Church does not consist of a building that can be burned to the ground,
a religious system that can be outlawed, beautiful music that can be silenced, brilliant
lights that can be turned off, or a holy book that can simply be discarded. The
Church consists of all believers united under the banner that they have been
saved by the Christ, the Son of the living God. And because nothing can
separate us from the love of God through Christ, we can live a life of faithful
obedience with joy, knowing that we cannot be defeated. I know it doesn’t
always look like it or feel like it because I know some of you are experiencing
severe oppression and persecution. Some of you are even facing death because of
your faith, so I don’t say these words casually. We are on the winning team! Let’s
live like winners! Live a life obedience to Christ even if people think you’re
a kook; share your faith with anyone and everyone, inviting them to be on the
winning team; care for your fellow believers; care for family, friends, and strangers;
forgive each other quickly and easily; and cherish your relationship with
Christ and others because love is the one thing that binds the Church together
in all places and at all times. That sounds like a winning team; an unstoppable
force that can withstand the threat of oppression, persecution, hatred, spiritual
laziness, and even death. In fact, this picture of the Church is a force that
has been, is and will be able to stand firm and persevere against anything,
even The Gates Of Hell until Christ
returns.
