Jesus and His Church
Matthew 16:13-20
Remsen Bible Fellowship, 08/18/2019
The 20th century pastor and writer, John Stott, made this statement: “Christ is the center of Christianity, all else is circumference.” It seems obvious. That Christianity is, fundamentally, about Christ. It’s about Jesus. And yet, when people think of Christianity, is it not the case that they often think of something else? Of medieval crusades, or giant churches, or sex scandals, or broken promises, or Westboro Baptist-style bigotry.
And while it is true that we live in a time when the public square is increasingly hostile to Christianity, it is often unfair to point the finger for misapprehensions concerning the church at the media, secularism, the sexual revolution, or some other outside force. The problem is often the church. Too often, the church doesn’t understand itself, and the church fails to understand itself because it first fails to understand who Jesus, and what he means to do with his church.
So as we begin a new church here in Remsen, I want to calibrate our spiritual compass, to set our true north, by directing your attention to Matthew 16:13-20. In this passage, we will see wrong ideas of Jesus, meet the real Jesus, hear his promise, and come to understand his plan.
Read: Matthew 16:13-20
Wrong Jesus
As we begin with this passage, some background may be helpful. Jesus and the disciples are at this point pulling away from public ministry. In chapter 15 of Matthew, Jesus has healed many, including the daughter of a Canaanite woman, and he has performed the feeding of the four thousand. As we come into chapter 16, though, we come face to face with the hardness of heart of the religious leaders, as they ask Jesus for some sort of definite sign from heaven. As if bread for a multitude and miraculous healings weren’t quite cutting it. Jesus rebukes their request, and then warns his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. That is, to beware of their teaching.
But after this, they withdraw to this region of Caesarea Philippi. This is in the far north of Palestine, up past Galilee where Jesus was from and performed much of his ministry. It’s as if Jesus is pulling them back and getting ready to clarify their focus. Many commentators note that this chapter marks the transition in Jesus’ ministry, it essentially is the hinge of the book. The focus from here on out shifts toward Jerusalem.
And as they walk through the hill country of the district, Jesus asks his disciples a question: who do people say that the Son of Man is? First note how Jesus asks the question. He asks who people say the Son of Man is. This is Jesus’ favorite self-designation; this passage is one of more than 20 times he refers to himself with this term in Matthew alone. And while many of us associate Son of Man with the idea that Jesus was truly human (and he was truly human), the term certainly carries more weight than that, as it is associated with the messianic figure in Daniel 7 to whom the Ancient of Days hands everlasting dominion and an unending kingdom. Yet despite the clear self-understanding of Jesus, and his miraculous works on top of that, there were many misconceptions of who he was.
Look at verse 14. Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Did the people look at Jesus and consider him a nobody? Absolutely not! They are apparently convinced that Jesus is the miraculously re-incarnate form of some dead prophet. John the Baptist had been killed by Herod (Matthew 14:10-11 recounts the story). Yet even though Herod himself had ordered John beheaded, he wonders whether Jesus might be John come back to life (Matthew 14:2). Others pointed to Elijah, who Malachi 4:5-6 had predicted would come back and make ready the way for the Messiah. “Jeremiah was mentioned because the Jews had a tradition, preserved in 2 Maccabees 2:4–8, that he had hidden the ark of the covenant and altar of incense at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and that he would come again to restore them at the start of the messianic age.” This is all lofty seeming praise. These guys were prophets, men of God! And all of these ideas of Jesus are blasphemously less than who he was, and who he is.
I wonder what ideas of Jesus you have. Do you consider Jesus merely a good moral teacher? An influential historical figure? A tragic movement leader, cut down before his time? These all seem like nice things to say about Jesus. But in the end they are all meaningless. Jesus will not allow us to simply take him as a nice guy, a good teacher, or even a prophet sent from God. He is infinitely more than that.
Real Jesus
Jesus, not satisfied with the answers the disciples give from the masses, turns and asks them what they think. But who do you say that I am? Now, it is important to note at this juncture that Jesus isn’t asking this question because he is in desperate need of information. As God, he already has access to what they think. Nor is he seeking to have his ego stroked. He is not dependant upon their praise or the praise of the crowds for his identity, he knows who he is. And yet these questions are important for helping draw the disciples in to really grapple with this fundamental question: who is Jesus? Who is this guy we’ve been following around Palestine for the past couple of years?
Jesus has asked this question to the group, the “you” in verse 15 is plural. If we were in the south, we could translate it “y’all”. But notice in verse 16 that one person speaks up. And it’s everyone’s favorite loudmouth, Simon Peter. And his reply to Jesus’ question is the central confession of this gospel, and of all history. Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Peter’s confession knocks it out of the park. Peter tells us who Jesus really is. Let’s look at the two pieces of his confession, and then examine one thing he does not yet see, though he unwittingly has confessed it.
First he calls Jesus the Christ. Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term Messiah; which means anointed one. The Jews have been waiting for this promised Messiah, this Christ, a descendant of David to restore the kingdom, for nearly a thousand years at this point. And though Jesus has been giving evidence of his power, his authority, and his right to claim such a title, the people (especially the religious leaders) have been incredibly hardened to this truth. Which explains why Jesus tells Peter in verse 17, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Even though Jesus has given ample evidence of who he is, the sinful hearts of the people are hardened against the obvious truth that this is the Messiah they have been waiting for. John 3:19-20 tells us that all of our hearts are naturally like this, loving the darkness rather than the light, because our deeds are evil. There was ample evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, but the crowds didn’t believe it. Peter and the other apostles did, but not by their own genius. It was because of the grace of the Father opening their eyes to see.
The second piece of this is Peter calling Jesus the Son of the living God. This is an interesting statement just given the historical context of where they are. Caesarea Philippi is named after Caesar Augustus, who took to himself the title of Son of the Deified one, in reference to his being the adopted son of Julius Caesar. It is in this place named for a “son of god” where Peter identifies Jesus as the true Son of God. And not a God, like Julius Caesar, who had died some 75 years previous, but the Son of the living God.
But there’s a piece of this confession that Peter himself does not yet understand. And it is how Jesus is going to accomplish his Messianic work. Peter, like all Jews, was waiting for a climatic Messianic victory where all the enemies of God’s people were vanquished, they were given a kingdom and a land, and the Messiah, the Christ, reigned as king. But the New Testament pictures that as a reality tied to Jesus’ second coming. In first coming to earth, Jesus was coming to make people fit for entry into that kingdom. If he were to vanquish all of God’s enemies at his first coming, he would have had to destroy the whole world, because we are all sinners. There is something that needed to take place for sin to be paid for, so that there might be men and women fit to live with Christ in his perfect kingdom. Verse 21 tells us what had to happen. 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.
Jesus comes as a dying Messiah. He is the Christ who conquers not in the first instance by bloody conquest, but by bloody sacrifice. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and he is therefore the only one capable of paying for the sins of all who would trust in him. And for all who do trust in him, who forsake their own claims to lordship over their lives and submit to him, he offers free forgiveness and the right to be a member of God’s family. But what does that look like?
What Jesus Promised
Jesus makes Peter a promise: And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Jesus promises Peter that he, the Son of the living God, is going to build something Peter hadn’t yet imagined. Peter and company are waiting for the kingdom, but that won’t be fully realized until Jesus comes again. But in the meantime, Jesus is building something else out of the people he is saving: his church. In the four gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, the word church (ekklesia) is only found here and in Matthew 18. Jesus is promising to create a people who are called out of and distinct from the world. A people who are centered upon the belief that he is the Christ. A people radically dependant not upon their own ability to do good works and be right with God, but instead upon God’s grace poured out through the blood of Jesus. A people concerned not with the traditions of men, but with the truth as revealed through Jesus.
Further, Jesus promises that this church, this group of called out ones, will be invincible. Note the end of verse 18. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. There are quite a few interpretations of that verse, but I’ll give you what I think it the most likely. The Greek word translated “hell” in many of our Bibles is the the word hades. While Hades can refer to a place of torment and suffering, it often is used simply to refer to the place of the dead, similar to the Hebrew word Sheol, which can simply mean grave. So what I think Jesus is saying in this verse is simply that the grave, that is, death, will not stop the church. Which is super important for these apostles to know, because outside of Judas, who is a traitor, nearly all of these men will be killed for their faith. And yet, does the church die with them? No, it continues to spread through the empire, and now here we sit almost 2000 years later on the opposite side of the globe, reading these same words of Jesus. Sitting here, many of us, as those who have trusted in Jesus and become a part of his church. The gates of Hades have not prevailed. O grave, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory?
Jesus promised to build an invincible church, and for nearly 2,000 years he has been keeping that promise.
What’s Jesus’ Method?
Finally, let’s look at Jesus’ method. This might be the trickiest part of the text to handle. In verse 18, Jesus says to Peter, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. There are basically three different options for what Jesus could be referring to when he says on the rock I will build my church. Either he is building on 1) Peter, 2) Christ himself, or 3) Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ. Many evangelicals and other Protestant have opted for saying the rock is Christ or the confession to avoid the Roman Catholic idea of a papacy. But without going into detail, I think both of those understandings are pretty hard to fit into the text. It seems simplest to read the text just the way it appears. Jesus call Simon by the name Peter, which means rock, and then says, on this rock I will build my church. The question then becomes, in what sense does Jesus build the church upon Peter?
I think the first thing to recognize is that Jesus isn’t setting up a papacy here, or anything like it. In the words of D.A. Carson, “The text says nothing about Peter’s successors, infallibility, or exclusive authority.” We can see this further in a couple of places. If you simply continue reading in chapter 16 of Matthew, after Jesus explains that he must suffer and die before being raised, Peter rebukes him and says Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you. Jesus, less than impressed with these comments, turns and says to him, 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. It would seem strange for Jesus to appoint someone pope and then turn around and call the same guy Satan. Further, in Peter’s own writings, we see him referring to all believers as stones, which God uses to build a spiritual house, founded on Christ the Cornerstone. He doesn’t set himself apart in any fashion. So at a fundamental level, Peter is a mere man receiving and and being received by the same grace and mercy that is available to any one of us through Jesus. When he denies Jesus three times, I guarantee you he wasn’t counting on some special ecclesiastical office. He was begging God for forgiveness.
But the text says what it says. On Peter the church is built. How so? The apostle Paul talks in Ephesians 2:20 of the church being built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. The apostles as a whole form a group of eyewitnesses, and messengers handpicked by the Lord Jesus himself to take the good news of the gospel out into the world. In this sense they are functioning as a foundation primarily based on their time-point in redemptive history. They were in on the ground floor of this salvation through Jesus business, as it were. Jesus himself is the cornerstone around which everything else is built, and these were the men entrusted to be the first layer of stone. I don’t know if you’ve ever done any building, I haven’t been involved in much. But I have helped build a few retaining walls, and the one thing I learned was that it didn’t matter how long it took to get that first layer perfect, it was totally worth the effort, because otherwise those mistakes magnified all the way up. Jesus hand-picked twelve foundation stones, and built the rest of his work on them. He commissioned them specifically, he gave them the unique power we see in the book of Acts to do miraculous works like casting out demons and healing the sick, and he lays a solid groundwork upon which the church can continue to be built.
And Peter does seem to be something of a first-among equals. We note in this passage, that even though Jesus speaks to the disciples as a whole, Peter is the one who pipes up. In Acts 2, Peter is the one who gets up to preach after Holy Spirit falls on them. There is a time in which Peter functions as the clear leader. But not an unquestioned leader. Paul records in Galatians 2:11 that he found it necessary to oppose Peter to his face. Peter still has failings and sins. But God uses him.
And that should be encouraging for us. Because although we are not Peter, or any of the apostles, we do know what it is to sin. And yet, God is not hindered by our sin. He still has every ability to use us and work through us. Even if the edges of this living stone are rough, I can be useful to God if I am willing to submit myself to him.
Does Peter take his position as “rock” of the church and cultivate some special office for himself to be passed down? No, he uses what God has given him to spread the glory of Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Jesus glorifies the wisdom and grace of God by taking a simple fisherman like Peter, and building his glorious church upon him. Furthermore, he does so with the building material of beat up, weather worn, inconsequential stones like you and me. Jesus isn’t looking for the super stars. He’s looking for people who will proclaim him as Lord and trust in him alone for their salvation.
Conclusion
Briefly, verse 19. What does Jesus mean by loosing and binding? This is another complex question, and we’ll look at it more during the communion meditation the first Sunday of September. But for now, I’d say put down Matthew 18:15-20 in yours notes, as the same language is used in the context of dealing with conflict in the church. No mere human, or group of humans, can give or withhold salvation. However, the church is given a responsibility to help people understand whether or not they are in the faith.
Finally, why does this passage end with Jesus warning the disciples to keep quiet, and does this apply to us today? In his commentary, D.A Carson argues that Jesus wasn’t hiding his Messiahship, but he also wasn’t making the statement out in the open, because “It was his purpose to set before Israel symbol-charged acts and words implying a persistent question: Who do you say that I am?”
And this is the same question that confronts each of us this morning: who do you say that Jesus is?
If you agree with Peter, that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, then living on this side of the Resurrection, we don’t keep silent. Instead, we labor to see his church built by making known the truth about our king: that he died for our sins, and offers a place in his kingdom to all who trust in him.