In Matthew 16:16, Peter makes the fundamental confession of faith in Christ, the truth on which Christianity is built: “16 Simon Peter answered (Jesus), ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’”
By claiming that Jesus is the Messiah, Peter identifies Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, the One Who will rule the world in truth and righteousness and bring God’s glorious vision for humanity to its perfect and final state.
By claiming that Jesus is the Son of God, Peter states that Jesus fully reveals the character of God in tangible, human form. As the Son of God, Jesus represents God, speaks for God, and gives humanity the opportunity to interact with God.
If Jesus is the Messiah, we can stop wishing for a Messiah or looking for someone else to save the world. If Jesus is the Son of God, the physical manifestation of God and how He works in this world, we can stop wishing for a different sort of “god”, who would act in a different sort of way!
But as we have pointed out at other times, the work of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, had to include His death on the cross – and His resurrection… because the world which had only heard teaching and seen miracles was the very much lost world that crucified Him. Even the disciples, who had heard all the teaching and seen all the miracles, had no response apart from helpless terror and utter defeat.
The cross is critically important, and from this point on in Jesus’ ministry, He focuses on preparing His disciples for this event they simply can’t comprehend!
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(Matthew 16: 21-28 can be read online at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16&version=HCSB. We are using the Holman Standard Christian version in this post.)
1) (V. 21) Jesus is the Messiah and He rules the world. He is the Son of God, the sovereign Ruler of all reality… But what He tells His disciples next is completely incompatible with everything they understand about either the Messiah or God Himself!
“21 From then on Jesus began to point out to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.”
— Whenever we consider Jesus’ life, and especially, His final days of ministry in Jerusalem and the Crucifixion which followed, we must remember that this is the Son of God, the Savior of the world.
— While throughout the ages, many people have suffered unfair treatment and wrongful death, we must remember that Jesus was no victim! He chose to allow the people of this world to do exactly as they pleased and express exactly what was in their hearts.
— Matthew recounts that Jesus was specific about who would persecute Him: the elders, the chief priests and the scribes – the very people one would expect to be enlightened and aware of God!
— When we consider Jesus’ ministry up to this point, however, this is not a surprise – we never see a favorable response to Jesus’ teaching or reasoning from the religious community.
…And this despite the fact that He affirmed and never discounted the teaching of Old Testament Scripture. Jesus did not teach anything apart from the sovereign God and His holy and righteous character, and the need to live lives consistent with this truth.
— Continued opposition by religionists who were blind to Jesus’ miracles, impervious to reason, and completely prejudiced against Jesus and anything He might do or say, should not have been a surprise to the disciples – but the news that He would be killed shook them up.
— And the statement that He would be raised the third day seems to have completely eluded them!
2) (Vv. 22-23) Jesus accepted that the death and resurrection of the Son of God is what it would take to save the world. As a completely human man, however, He certainly knew how awful this suffering would be.
And His disciple Peter absolutely couldn’t understand why this should happen!
“22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, ‘Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to You!’”
23 But He turned and told Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns, but man’s.’”
— In our fairy worlds, where evil fails and right prevails after a skirmish or two, the hero always wins, avoiding death and living happily forever after!
So, in Peter’s mind, death is ultimate and he cannot fathom a story of triumph which involved Jesus the Messiah dying!
— Jesus seems to affirm that, according to man’s concerns, Peter was right! As the Son of God and the Savior and Ruler of the world, Jesus certainly had the power and the right to command respect, to enjoy prosperity and pleasures of this world – and to allow His disciples to share in these with Him!
— But the very suggestion that these things would be the objective of His life or the focus of His ministry offended Him – and did not represent the purposes of a holy and righteous God.
— Jesus always lived to serve the concerns of God, His Heavenly Father. And the concern of God is that people know the truth about His sovereignty over all creation and His great love for them, human children made in His image created to have friendship and fellowship with Him!
— It was to serve God’s purposes that Jesus lived and died as He did, so what are some purposes Jesus’ life achieves?
* As the Son of God, Jesus demonstrated the perfect and holy character of God.
* He demonstrated the sovereignty of God over all circumstances and natural phenomena.
* He separated the holy God from the unholy institutions of our society and revealed wickedness, oppression and falsehood for what they are. Jesus is the definition of holiness, and to do other than what Jesus did is to be other than holy!
* He demonstrated life after death – and life beyond the goals of a materialistic world. To crucify the idea that this world is all there is, Jesus Himself was crucified – and then was resurrected to a new and more glorious life.
* He demonstrated a life of submission, obedience, faith and peace with God.
* But most of all, by His willingness to come and be our Friend, and to personally suffer death so we could understand truth that gives life shows how deep the love of Jesus the Son and God the Father is for us!
3) (Vv. 24-26) Jesus did not come to the world to pursue the concerns of man, but the concerns of God, His heavenly Father, and the Creator of all. To follow Jesus is to choose the concerns of God over the concerns of man:
“24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it. 26 What will it benefit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?”
— If we are “with” Jesus, it means that we have the same priorities and goals He has.
— And these goals do not involve personal comfort, personal achievement, or personal prestige in this world! As much as we may appreciate these things if God chooses to grant them, pursuing them cannot be the point of our lives, nor should we assess our lives in these terms!
— Our “cross” is the challenge to demonstrate God’s holy character in whatever circumstances He places us.
— When we live to please God by demonstrating faith and obedience to Him, our former priorities become peripheral, and we will indeed stop focusing on those temporary things which once seemed so important.
— We will lose our old way of thinking and acting, but gain the wonderful peace and joy of being the good and righteous people God created us to be, trusting in His power to make our lives better than we could ever imagine.
— Indeed, what good is anything in this world if we have no joy or peace?
4) (Vv. 27-28) There is a reality beyond the world we have been born into, that realm we have perceived through our senses from the moment of birth… And Jesus assures His disciples of that reality:
“27 For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will reward each according to what he has done. 28 I assure you: There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.’”
— Jesus promises that He will “come”, that there will be a time when we perceive Him and the glory of His Father in a more complete way than we do right now.
— Jesus promises to reward us. Each of us makes many private and often unrecognized decisions each day, but God Who knows all will certainly acknowledge our every act of obedience and love.
— Jesus promises that we will see His kingdom, His righteous and holy work to transform this world – and that some of us will see this work before “tasting death”.
— And all who believe are promised eternal life, life where all is finally as a holy, righteous, loving God created it to be!
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How fitting that this passage of God’s promise and Jesus’ sacrificial love leads us into Easter!
May we be encouraged as we remember Jesus’ willingness to suffer death, God’s glorious power which raised Him from the dead, and the love and concern for our souls that led our God to die for us!
Peace
“Deus regit – God rules!”
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adaffodil 