On This Rock, Matthew 16:13-21

This is the passage where Jesus makes a statement that has confused people down through the ages, and there are different interpretations—and there have been battles fought over this, people killed over this—where Jesus said that it is “on this rock that I will build my church”. That statement is pregnant with significance. This is a passage I love to go through because of the location where this transpired which gives a certain depth of understanding of what is going on in the passage.

Often when we read through the Gospels and we pay attention to Jesus' teaching we realise that Jesus that Jesus is taking things of the environment, every day things, every day activities, and He uses those to teach some important doctrinal principles to His disciples—agricultural things, meteorological things related to storms on the Sea of Galilee, or like this passage where He is standing with a magnificent backdrop of the huge rock escarpment at a location called Caesarea Philippi. And He uses that; He is not building an analogy off of this background, but like we have so often in Scripture it provides an occasion for teaching something of great significance.

Matthew 16:13 ^NASB “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?'” There are parallels to this passage in Mark 8:27-30; Luke 9:18-21. Matthew's is the longer account. There are also some minor differences, but what we find is that Mark and Luke are summarizing a little more and are not bringing out all of the specific nuances that we find Matthew emphasizing.

The first thing we read is some important information on background: “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi ...” This is important. He has been down in the area around the Sea of Galilee. Previous to this He had an encounter with Herod, and there was some hostility coming possibly from Herod Antipas who reigned over Galilee, so He had avoided pretty His territory and for probably the past six to eight months had crossed over into the territory of Philip the tetrarch near Bethsaida. They had come briefly over to the Galilee side, there was the episode with the disciples in the storm on the Sea of Galilee where there was the emphasis as he was training them that they were to focus upon Him and to trust in Him, and that He is able to surmount any challenges, difficulties and obstacles in life, as represented by the storms and waves of the sea. Then He headed up into Gentile territory to the area of Tyre and Sidon where the Canaanites were, and there He had the encounter with the Canaanite woman. Following that He headed to the area on the east side of the Sea of Galilee known as the Decapolis, also Gentile territory, where He fed the 4000 Gentiles, demonstrating that God's grace is as bountiful for the Gentiles as to the Jews. From there He came back across to a location we are not certain of, and from there they headed back towards Bethsaida. During this time there was the conversation with the disciples about not succumbing to the leaven of the Pharisees, i.e. their false doctrine, which ultimately related to the fact that they had rejected the messianic claims.

All through this section the focus again and again and again is on Jesus as the Messiah, and understanding that. That forms the backdrop to this great conversation that he has with His disciples. So they have left the area of Bethsaida and have headed north to this area of Caesarea Philippi, which was located in the most northern part of Israel right next to Dan, and located on the slopes of Mount Hermon. It is not far from Damascus. The distances between Caesarea Philippi and Damascus is approximately forty miles, and it is twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee.

The background of this is important for understanding some of the things that were said when Jesus was talking to His disciples. It is a lot of fun, I think, when studying Scripture to discover that there are little puns, wordplays that are found; but you only really discover them if you understand some things about the culture, about the geography and the history, otherwise they just go right over our head. But the Lord is using those things because He is talking to people in their day and time, and He is using things that are common knowledge related to their surroundings.

This area of Caesarea Philippi was originally named Paneon after the Greek god Pan. It was then changed to the name Paneas. It was the scene of a major battle between Antiochus III as he was battling to seize more of this territory from the Ptolomies around 200 BC. Herod was later given this city as a gift by Caesar Augustus and in order to honor him Herod built a marble temple to Augustus here. The Herods were the masters of the doctrine of sucking up.

There were a number of places built that were called Caesarea and the rulers did that in order to try to curry favor with the Caesar of that time. (The Caesarea that we often talk about where Cornelius was located in Acts chapter ten is called Caesarea by the Sea or Caesarea Meritema) This grew to quite a significant site, and it is important because of some of the things that are there is the background.

Then Jesus asked this question of His disciples: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” In the parallels in Mark and Luke the Son of Man is left out. That brings up the question some people ask. There are some differences in the synoptic Gospels when they quote Jesus. Sometimes they will leave something out because it is not necessarily germane to their purpose; they are not trying to give an exhaustive report of everything that Jesus said. They might leave out a sentence or paragraph and then another Gospel writer will include it because it fits their purpose, but what they are recording is accurate. It is significant that Matthew includes the full statement, which includes this title the Son of Man because this is a messianic title. He has just reported about the Syro-Phoenician woman who came to Jesus and addressed Him as the Son of David, a messianic title. He has talked about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees who are rejecting Jesus' claim to be the Messiah, and now He is going to ask this question of His disciples: Who do men say that the Son of Man is? So the inclusion of this phrase by Matthew is showing that Matthew's purpose, which is to demonstrate the qualifications of Jesus as the Messiah, is being reinforced by understanding everything that Jesus said here. The focus is on His messianic credentials.

Jesus is asking this question not to find out what the disciples are going to say. He doesn't ask this question because He doesn't know what people are saying. Jesus is asking this question because He is testing the disciples to see if they had been listening and paying attention. As we find so often in Scripture God asks questions, and Jesus is asking questions to get people to think a little more precisely about what is going on. For example, in Genesis chapter three after Adam and Eve had sinned and God comes to walk in the Garden and they run and hide, God said: “Where are you?” He wants them to think about what they have done in running away and separating themselves from God. He asked: “Who told you that you were naked?” He is asking questions to get them to think about what is going on.

That is a great technique whenever we are talking to somebody who is an unbeliever, or somebody who is a believer who is struggling. It is hard for a lot of us, we know the answer and we want people to understand that we know the answer, and so we want to jump right in there ahead of time. We function out of impatience and certain degrees of arrogance and we want to show what we know, rather than leading people to the answer by asking them questions. It is a great technique to ask people how they came to believe what they just said: What is your evidence that what you said is true? Have you thought about the implications of that? Etc. Sometimes we are too hasty to run to the answer and run to the gospel when they haven't really had the time to set up their own thought process to be prepared for that particular answer.

By asking this question Jesus is getting the disciples to focus on what he wants them to not learn something new but to really and fully understand the implications of His identity as the Son of Man. It is very clear that they have already come to an understanding that he is the Messiah. They have come to the understanding because He has said numerous times ready that He is the Son of Man. Jesus' most common designation of Himself was through this title, the Son of Man.

We read in John chapter one when John the Baptist points out that Jesus is the Messiah, what does Andrew do? He runs to his brother Peter and says: “We have found Him; we have found the Messiah”. What does Peter say? “Well take me to Him”. So from the very beginning of Peter's relationship with Jesus Christ he understands that Jesus is the Messiah. When we get to Matthew chapter sixteen here this is not some new awakening on the part of Peter, that he is just now really coming to grips with the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. This has been clarified to him again and again, just as in our own spiritual life as we grow and understanding of the Word things that we understood at an elementary level when we were young baby believers become more and more clear as we go on. This is not that the disciples didn't understand that Jesus was the Messiah two years earlier but that now it is becoming more and more crystallized in their thinking, and that is what Jesus wants them to focus on—who He is.

One reason Jesus asks this question is, as we have seen, that He has been going through a period of increased rejection by the leaders of Israel, and as these leaders came out with their rejection of Him we learn that Herod Antipas is hostile to Him, other political leaders are hostile to Him, and the people are coming out to Him but they are primarily interested in the meal ticket, and they are still asking the question: Who is this man? He wants the disciples to think about the fact that those who are coming out to hear Him are coming up with different answers than the true answers.

When Jesus asks the question the disciples come up with different answers. Matthew 16:14 ^NASB “And they said, 'Some {say} John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.'” The reason some say John the Baptist? Remember that even Herod Antipas in Matthew 14 thought that Jesus was a reincarnation of John the Baptist. Others thought Elijah, and this shows the influence of a sort of popular Judaism at that time because they understood from Malachi 4:5 that Elijah would appear before the great and terrible day of the Lord. How did Jeremiah get into this? Remember, Jeremiah was not a popular prophet in his time. He was announcing that the Babylonians were about to come and destroy Judah, and that the people needed to turn back to God but even if they did it would not put off the coming judgment though that would enable them perhaps to survive. Even though Jeremiah was rejected by his generation, in the later post-captivity period when the Jews had returned to the land Jeremiah's respect had gone up a notch or two and he was revered by the rabbis. If we look in the non-canonical books in the Apocrypha, in 2 Maccabees 2:4-8 there is the view that Jeremiah in order to protect the Ark of the Covenant and some of the temple furniture had taken them to Mount Nebo and hidden them in a cave. There was also the idea that Jeremiah before the end times would return to the earth and restore the Ark and the altar to the temple in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. These were some of the ideas that were prevalent among the Jews in a sort of popular Judaism. It wasn't based on the Scripture but was based on some of the non-biblical ideas that they had.

In each instance the people recognize that there is something significant about Jesus, there is something about His ministry that has the stamp of the divine on it; but they are not getting the point that Jesus is the God-Man, the anointed messianic deliverer that God will send to deliver the people. They don't understand that He is the Messiah and the savior.

People down through history have had a lot to say about who they think Jesus is. They think that He is a good man, a good teacher, a moral reformer. People say He is a great religious innovator/teacher. What we hear from most people are very positive statements but what they fall short on is the fact that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity who has entered into human history in order to provide salvation.

There is a classic argument of apologetics or defence of the faith called the Lord, liar or lunatic argument: He was a good man and a religious leader, He clearly taught that He was the only way to God, the only way to heaven; so He is either telling the truth or He is lying. Some people say He never really claimed to be the Son of God, He never really claimed to be the Messiah. But this is just one of a number of passages that show that that is not true; He is clearly making the claim that He is the Messiah, He is the Son of God, He is the son of David, He is the Son of Man; He clearly understood who He was and taught that He was God.

So that first example, where people think that He was a good man: would a good man tell people that if they believed in him they would go to heaven and not go to hell if it wasn't true? He would be deceiving hundreds of millions down through the ages. So the first option would be to say that He was just a boldfaced liar who created one of the greatest hoaxes in history. But the evidence that we have of His life and of His sayings, His followers and those who knew Him personally, and who had the evidence that He had been raised from the dead. They had the boldness and the courage to stand up against Rome, against the Sanhedrin, against everyone even though it coast almost every one of them their lives over the course of the next fifty years. They were scared to death at the crucifixion but after that there was no fear in them. They wouldn't give their lives for a lie.

The options that there are is that He is a liar, but the evidence isn't there; or He is crazy, psychotic; but once again there is no evidence in anything that Jesus was anything but not only sane but wise and gave some of the most brilliant instruction in all of human history. So people say many things, but we need to help them when we witness to think through the implications of what they say. Often they are just repeating what they have heard somebody else say.

Now Jesus has asked this question. Notice the strategy here. “Who do people say?” They think about it and talk about it; their minds are focused on could it be this or could it be that? Matthew 16:15 ^NASB “He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?'” He is asking them: “What are your thoughts? Who do you all say that I am?” He is focusing on them.

Matthew 16:16 ^NASB “Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God'.” We have to remember that the word “Christ” in English is an Anglicized form of the Greek noun CHRISTOS, and CHRISTOS begins with the Greek letter CHI, which looks like our X. When you are taking notes you can just use the letter as an abbreviation, but CHRISTOS is the Greek word for the anointed one, which came from the Hebrew word Mashiach, the word for the anointed one, the Messiah. So what Peter is saying is: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” He recognizes the identity of Christ as not just a human being but the Son of God.

The phrase “son of” can refer to several different things. It can refer to somebody's lineage, to his or her parents, that Peter is the son of John. He is called Simon Bar-jona, i.e. Simon the son of John. But it is also used in Hebrew idiom to describe the characteristics of something. If someone was a fool they would be called the son of a fool, they are manifesting the characteristics of foolishness. If they were destructive, devilish, demonic in their destroying things they would be called the son of Belial. This is what the sons of Eli were called in 1 Samuel chapter two—the sons of Belial, the sons of corruption. It is not talking about Belial being their actual, literal parent but they are manifesting the characteristics of Belial. There are other statements like the son of a murderer. They are a murderer and are manifesting that character.

So when we come to phrases like Son of Man and Son of God in relation to Jesus it is talking about His essential character. He is truly human, so He is called the Son of Man; He is truly God, so He is called the Son of God. The messianic title son of David doesn't refer to a character quality, it refers to His lineage; He is a descendant of David. When Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”, he recognizes that Jesus is not just a man, He is the God-Man who is the promised Messiah in the Old Testament. This is an extremely clear statement that he has made, and Jesus responds to him.

Matthew 16:17 ^NASB “And Jesus said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Barjona ...” The nuances here are really interesting because He is going to say, “because flesh and blood did not reveal {this} to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” We ought to ask the question: Why does He call him Simon Bar-jona? Simon was his birth name; he is the son of a man named John. Bar is the Aramaic for son of. In the Hebrew it would be Simon Ben jona. Jesus is saying you are blessed because you understood this. This is a rich spiritual blessing; you have come to understand truth. Ultimately he has come to understand this, as we all do, because of the illumination of God the Holy Spirit and our response to that, that we accept that truth. God reveals and illuminates many people to the truth of the gospel but they reject it because of their negative volition. But He calls him Simon Bar-jona because He is emphasizing his descent in the flesh, who his fleshly father is. He is saying, you are Simon the son of John but it is not the flesh that has revealed this to you, it is your heavenly Father who has revealed this to you. He is drawing that contrast between who Peter is in the flesh as a human being and the fact that his heavenly Father is the one who reveals this to him.

Matthew 16:18 ^NASB “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” Behind the temple of Pan opened up into quite a large chasm. Pan was said to reside in the underworld, or in Hades. So this was seen as one of the gates or openings into the netherworld, into Hades. When one worshipped Pan they would bring in some kind of animal sacrifice which would be thrown into the abyss. If blood came out through the spring then it wasn't accepted, but if there was no blood it was accepted. This was known as the Gates of Hades.

The other things that we see here is the enormous rock escarpment that is in the background. Jesus is not teaching that this has some sort of allegorical meaning. What he says is playing off of the geographical location where He is teaching.

There is another play on words here, and that is between the name of Peter and the use of the term rock. Some scholars say He said this is Aramaic so the pun doesn't work. The Word of God has been preserved in Greek and no one can say for sure that Jesus was speaking Greek or Aramaic. This is a critical verse that has been abused throughout much of church history. There are three views as to what the rock is on which Christ will build His church. The first is that this is the apostle Peter himself and that he is the foundation for the church, that all of Christianity is built on the foundation of Peter. You have the doctrine of the primacy of Peter, which is the idea that this is announcing that Peter is the first of all of the apostles. That would have been news to most of them because they never treated Peter as having any more authority than anybody else amongst themselves. The Roman Catholic Church built a doctrine upon that called the primacy of the bishop Rome as the head of the church, that all of the popes could be traced all the way back to Peter, and that the pope has the authority of Peter that Jesus talks about here in the next couple of verses.

According to the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church “Christ the living stone thus assures his church built on Peter of victory over powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakeable rock of the church, his mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it.”

Another Roman Catholic commentary says that “our Lord chose him and fitted him to be the rock of His church, His vicar [representative] on earth, the head and prince of His apostles, the center and very principle of the church's oneness, the source of all powers, and the unerring teacher of His truth.”

That is the Roman Catholic view. There are a number of problems with this that we should note. First, it appears in the English that that is what is being said here, but we have to understand the Greek and some other passages of Scripture. In Ephesians 2:20 Paul says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. That would indicate that it is Christ who is the Rock, not Peter; but also that it is all of the apostles and prophets that are the foundation of the church.

The second thing to be noted is that there is no other verse in Scripture that refers to Peter as the foundation of the church. The other apostles don't treat him as the foundation of the church. Paul claims equal authority with Peter in Galatians 2:7-8, so the text of the New Testament doesn't validate that.

Lastly, we see that the words themselves don't support that. The word for Peter is PETROS, which is a masculine noun. PETROS usually means a stone and it can refer to even a pebble, a rock, whereas when we read “On this rock I will build my church” this is the second word, PETRA, which is the feminine form and often refers to a large rock or even a massive rocky escarpment. This word is used in Matthew 27:60 when it talks about tombs being carved out of the rock and is referring to some sort of massive rock.

The way we should understand this: It reads, You are Peter and on this rock ...” The word “and” is often thought of simply to be a connective between two equal things and we use it that way most of the time, but the Greek word KAI can often have other meanings. It can means “and yet”, a sort of contrasted meaning; it is used that way in passages like John 7:19; 16:32. It can have the idea of indeed or in fact. The best way to translate this would be: “And I also say to you that you are Peter [a little rock], and yet, I will build my church on this foundation rock.” Then we have to decide who is the foundation rock.

The second view often asserted here is that this rock refers to his statement, the confession that Jesus is the Messiah--“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”--and that that is the foundation for the church. But the church really isn't grounded on a confessional statement, and even that statement as the foundation of the church is quite ambiguous and there is no other evidence from Scripture to support the fact that the foundation of the church is the belief that Jesus is the Son of the living God. It is true that that statement reflects a foundational truth but there is no scriptural support for that.

The best view is that Jesus Himself is the foundation of the church. This is supported through a number of other passages in Scripture. For example, Matthew 7:24 ^NASB “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock [PETRA].” So it refers to the teachings of Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-6 ^NASB “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house [built on top of that major foundation] for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For {this} is contained in Scripture: “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER {stone,} AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” That refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 7 He is the stone which the builders rejected and He has become the chief cornerstone.

1 Corinthians 10:4 in reference to the Old Testament wilderness wanderings of Israel says that they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. We could go back to a number of passages in the Old Testament that refer to God as the rock. Psalm 18:31 ^NASB “For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God.”

Matthew 16:19 ^NASB “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven ...” A lot of people think a key is something important, because it opens a door, and that what Jesus is talking about is that Peter is going to give access or deny access into heaven. But that doesn't fit the context. First of all, we have seen that the phrase kingdom of heaven always refers to the literal future millennial reign of Christ, not heaven. All believers are going to be in the kingdom whether they are Old Testament saints or church age believers. They are all resurrected; they are all going to be in the kingdom. So that really doesn't fit.

There is another option and that is that the keys represent authority. They are a symbol for authority, and for the Jews the key was the symbol of the authority of the scribe. The scribes were the ones who handled the Word of God and had the authority of interpretation. So the Lord is promising Peter and exalted position of great authority in the future earthly kingdom. This is supported by other passages, like Matthew 19:28 which promises a throne for each of the disciples from which they will judge the twelve tribes of Israel. The saints are said to judge the world in 1 Corinthians 6:2. So this fits better, it says that Peter is going to have a future about authority in the kingdom. Not now. He is not determining who gets to heaven and who doesn't; this is a kingdom authority in the future.

“... and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” The first thing we have to understand is that this binding and loosing terminology is common in rabbinical literature, and it meant to have the authority to make a decision, to approve something or to disapprove something. The other thing to understand here is that the NASB translates the perfect participle here as a future tense—whatever you bind will be bound in heaven. It is not a future tense. The perfect tense means a completed action in the past, and so the best way to translate this is “whatever you bind on earth will already have been bound in heaven.” In other words, the decision you make now reflects a decision that heaven has already established. Whatever you loose on earth will already have been loosed in heaven. To paraphrase this so that it is a little bit more understandable we could translate it this way: “Whatever you forbid on earth [in terms of interpreting Scripture] must be what is already forbidden in heaven.” In other words, the decisions that you make in your authority as a leader in the church reflect the absolutes of Scripture; you are not making this up as you go along, you are not going to be giving contradicting information or new ideas, and that what you forbid reflects what has already been forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on the earth is what has already been permitted in heaven. You are under the authority of God and not giving out a lot of new information. This becomes the foundation to understand the beginning of the church.

One other point. This is announced: “Jesus said, I will build my church”. There are only two times in all of the Gospels where the word EKKLESIA for church is mentioned. Matthew 16:18 and chapter eighteen. The church hasn't begun yet; it is future: I will build my church. The church does not begin until the beginning of Acts. So Jesus for the first time indicates that something new is coming—a new entity, a new organism that is going to be known as the body of Christ, the church.

Matthew 16:20 ^NASB “Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.” Why? Because He doesn't want to create a situation that stirs up the opposition from the authorities so that they will move against Him precipitously because now He is almost six months from the crucifixion and things have to operate to a specific timetable. Up to this point the message has been going out; now we are not going to stir up things because we are going to go according to the timetable. He is finishing up His northern ministry in the Galilee and will be heading south and to Jerusalem in preparation for His final week on the earth.

Matthew 16:21 ^NASB “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 up on the third day.”

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