He says to them, But *ye*, who do ye say that I am?
The Lord first asked His disciples what people were saying about Him, and they reported a spread of guesses. Then He aimed the question straight at the men in front of Him. Everything in the chapter turns on how they answer.
The first question surveyed what people thought. One writer sees that range of answers as a sign of not caring, not of honest searching.
Afterwards He asks His disciples what people in general said about Him. It was all a matter of opinion, not of faith. Such uncertainty belongs to moral indifference. It belongs to people who feel no need in their soul — the need that can only rest in the truth, in the Saviour one has found.
People often use that spread of opinions to argue that nobody can know for sure. One writer answers that argument.
There are so many opinions among men, unbelief argues, that certainty is impossible. Some say one thing and some another; you talk of truth and Scripture, yet after all it is only your view. But what does faith say? Certainty from God is ours the moment we see who Jesus is. He is the only remedy that banishes difficulty and doubt from the mind of man. "But who do you say that I am?" This question was meant to bring out the pivot of man's blessing and God's glory. It becomes the turning point of the chapter.
The Lord stops asking for a report about other people. He puts the matter to the men closest to Him.
He leaves the outside circle. He brings the question into a much closer circle, much nearer to ourselves: "Who do you say that I am?" How beautiful this is! The man who is taught of God answers at once. There is no hesitation, no uncertainty, no fear, but a distinct utterance.
The question asks a person what he holds about a Person.
The Lord now put the question to them. He wanted them to confess with their mouths what was in their hearts about Him. "Who do you say that I am?" It was a personal challenge. The word of the Lord Jesus Christ came direct to their hearts, bringing them face to face with Himself. "What do you think of Me?"
This question sorts out true faith from opinion. One writer calls it the decisive question of the whole exchange.
A searching and decisive question, all-important in its bearing and results! His disciples had told Him what "men" in general thought, and those opinions varied a great deal, as they still do today. But now He put that testing, searching question to them — the touchstone of genuine faith!
The Lord had just rebuked Peter for weak faith. That did not spoil his answer.
Peter's faith may indeed have been weak, for the Lord had just said, "O you of little faith." But it was a living faith. It saw the glory of the Person of Christ, and it confessed Him with complete certainty.
If human opinion produced only guesses, the true answer must come from somewhere else. One writer names the source.
This confession was not a deduction of logic. It did not spring from Peter's own mind or his own feelings. It was a word that was completely true, and right for that moment, because the Father in heaven had made it known to the apostle.
Peter's confession does not stay a private opinion. It becomes the ground of what the Lord announces next.
This truth is the special foundation on which the church is built. It gives the church stability, so that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. The Messiah must be the Mighty God, or He has no Messianic glory. It is just as necessary that Jehovah should be Jesus, or there is no calling and forming of the assembly of God. There could be no church, no restoration for Israel without Him.
- Opinion. The crowd's answers were guesses. Such uncertainty comes from not caring who He is.
- Question. The Lord moves from the outer circle to the inner one. The question becomes a personal challenge: what do you think of Me?
- Touchstone. This is the testing question that shows whether faith is genuine — and Peter's weak but living faith passed it.
- Revelation. No one reasons his way to the right answer. The Father in heaven makes the Son known.
- Foundation. Peter's confession is the ground the church is built on, and hell cannot break it. The same question still waits for your answer.
And Simon Peter answering said, *Thou* art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Just before the cross comes into view, Jesus takes His disciples aside and asks who people say He is. The answers vary. Then one man answers for them all, and everything after that turns on his reply.
The disciples report only guesses. One writer says the Lord asked because human uncertainty draws out the faith of His own.
There was the usual answer of men, the uncertainty of human opinion. "He said to them, But who do you say that I am?" He asked because the very uncertainty of men brings out the faith of God's elect. So there is no time at all that God does not turn for good to the believer.
Peter's first title, "the Christ," names Jesus as Israel's promised King. Yet in the same chapter He tells the disciples to stop announcing it. The whole direction of His ministry changes.
The public preaching of the kingdom to the Jews was now to stop. He no longer offered Himself to the nation as their Messiah or Christ. Instead He told His disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ. Instead of pointing to national acceptance and an earthly crown, He speaks of national rejection and an earthly cross. Instead of the old hope of the prophetic kingdom, He mentions a new thing which He was about to establish: the assembly or Church. He had set aside the name Messiah, which linked Him with the throne of David. In its place, for the Church, He takes up a title just made known and infinitely higher: the "Son of the living God."
Peter does not stop at "Son of God." He says "the living God," and one writer shows how much rests on that one word.
He owns Him to be the Son of the One in whom is life and life-giving power. The life of God cannot be destroyed, and the Son of the living God cannot be overcome. In Him is that power of life which nothing can defeat. Satan had the power of death; the Son of God has the power of life. The unchangeable power of life, even though He goes into death, cannot be overcome by death. It is the very reverse. He annuls death. Every other man was overcome by death; the Son of the living God could not be. It is worth noticing the force of "living" here, because He goes on to speak of death, and of "the gates of hell," which mean Satan's kingdom. The Assembly is founded on the unchanging power of life in the Son of God. So the kingdom of death cannot touch it.
That power was not merely claimed; it was demonstrated when the tomb could not hold Him.
The resurrection of the Son of God, according to the power of life which was in Him, is the foundation and measure of the life and security of the church, and it was sheltered, and the church by it, from all the attacks of him who had the power of death. In vain the tomb wrapped itself in darkness — out of the middle of it came life more powerful than ever.
The Lord does not trace this confession to Peter's own thinking. He points to another source, and the Father still opens hearts the same way today.
"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah," said the Lord, "for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." We all come to this same blessedness if we know our Lord as "the Christ, the Son of the living God." It is the Father's work to reveal Him to us this way. How wonderful it is! We have not only tasted that the Lord is gracious, equal to all our deep need. The Father in His grace has also opened our hearts to a new position, a new calling, a new place of favour, by revealing to us who His Son is.
Mark and Luke record only the first half of Peter's answer — and in neither place does the Lord speak of building. That difference is not accidental.
If He had been only the Christ, the Messiah of Israel, that would not have been a firm enough basis for the Church. His Messianic dignity might have been rock enough for Israel, since it was their faith and hope. Psalm 2 also speaks of Him in that dignity as Son of God. But "the Son of the living God" was a revelation of His glory that went far beyond it. Once you know and confess the Lord in this His highest glory, He begins for the first time to announce His building of His Church.
Commentators differ on how to name the rock. Some point to the confession, others to the Person confessed in it.
That confession was the rock on which Christ would build His Church — not poor Peter, who so soon denied his Lord and Master. Peter was a stone — a living stone — built into the rock, but the foundation is the confession of Christ Himself.
- Question — Human opinion about Jesus ran out in uncertainty. The Lord's question brought out the faith of His own.
- Gift — Peter did not work this out. The Father revealed it, and the same blessedness belongs to everyone who knows Him this way.
- Word — "Living" is the key word. He is Son of the One in whom is life and life-giving power, and He annuls death.
- Reach — The Lord lays "the Christ" aside as a public title. The higher name takes its place, and He announces a new thing: the Church.
- Result — The Church rests on that unchanging power of life. The kingdom of death cannot touch it; the gates of hell will not prevail.
And Jesus answering said to him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed [it] to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens.
Peter has just confessed who Jesus is, and Jesus points straight to the source of that confession. The verse shows how anyone comes to know who Jesus is.
Jesus calls Peter blessed. But the confession behind that blessing was not Peter's own achievement:
Jesus Himself declares that the soul who knows Him as the Son of the living God is blessed of the Father. No doubt Peter had learned much from the Lord, as he had followed that lovely and blessed life of devotion and self-sacrifice. But the Father took hold of that uneducated, unlettered Galilean fisherman and taught him the truth. The blessed Man he was following was the Son of the living God. The Father Himself alone can teach you this blessed truth, my friend. No university course and no human teaching can give your soul this knowledge of the Son. But the Father loves to teach the willing soul that seeks Christ.
So what does "flesh and blood" mean here?
Here "flesh and blood" means everything that belongs to man as he now is. It means man in his present condition: a poor, weak, miserable creature... So here the Lord says, "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you ... but My Father who is in heaven." You have no power to discover this by man's wisdom.
This settles what argument can and cannot do:
So we have no hope of convincing the natural man that the Son is God. Argument will not do it, and no proof of any kind will do it, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said to an apostle, "flesh and blood has not revealed this to you." And we are also told that the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
Jesus does not say God, or the Almighty, but My Father. That choice of name is itself part of the gift:
We have tasted that the Lord is gracious and equal to all our deep need. But the Father in His grace has done more. By revealing to us who His Son is, He has opened our hearts to a new position, a new calling, a new place of favour. The revelation is from heaven, and God has made it not as the Almighty or as Jehovah, but as Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord calls him Simon, son of Jonah, not Peter. Commentators see a deliberate contrast:
Was not this to emphasise his lowly position as a man? Apart from divine grace, was he not merely Simon, son of Jonah?... Here, at Caesarea Philippi, the contrast is between two things. On one side is what man is by nature, weak at the core. On the other is the high privilege given to the apostle: to declare the divine glory of his Master more fully than ever before. So we see there is a very pointed contrast between Simon Bar-jona and Peter.
What Peter confessed reached past the title Israel was waiting for:
A confession so remarkably rich drew out the Saviour's recognition of His Father's grace to Simon Barjona... He was the Son of the living God. If He had been only the Christ, the Messiah of Israel, that would not have been a strong enough basis for the Church. His dignity as Messiah might have been rock enough for Israel, since it was their faith and hope. But "the Son of the living God" was a revelation of His glory that went far beyond it.
Receiving a revelation and living up to it are two different things:
Though he had just made the blessed confession of Christ which the Father had revealed to him... when the Lord spoke of His path of humiliation, as Son of Man, Peter could not bear it... Peter's flesh was not broken down enough to walk in the power of the truth he had received and rejoiced in. So it is with us.
- Source — Peter did not reach this himself. The Father in heaven revealed it, and so Jesus calls him blessed.
- Limit — "flesh and blood" is man as he now is, and no amount of human wisdom or argument reaches this truth.
- Name — God gives it as Father, not as Almighty, so the revelation brings a new place of favour along with it.
- Contrast — Jesus names him Simon, son of Jonah — the weak man by nature — and hands him this high privilege.
- Foundation — the Father showed more than "Messiah." He showed the "Son of the living God," the one basis of the Church.