From that time Jesus began to shew to his disciples that he must go away to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised.
From the moment Peter confessed who He was, the Lord's message to His disciples changed. He told them to stop calling Him Israel's promised King. From now on He spoke of Jerusalem, suffering, death, and rising on the third day. Why the change? And why the word "must"?
Verse 20 tells the disciples to stop announcing Him as the Christ. One commentator reads that command as the Lord's acceptance of a settled fact. He also marks the difference between two of the Lord's titles.
A remarkable change comes here. Peter had confessed Him to be the Christ, the Son of the living God: now the Lord charges them to tell no one that He was the Christ. It was as good as saying: It is too late; I am rejected as the Christ — the Messiah, the Anointed of Jehovah. Israel refuses Him, and He accepts the fact… There is a great difference between "the Christ" and "the Son of Man." The second is His title as rejected, and then as exalted in heaven.
The change is not only in what the disciples say. It is in what the nation is about to do.
The disciples must no longer testify of Him as the Messiah. In that character the nation had rejected Him. For Him there was to be at this time no national recognition of His just rights and divine authority. Instead of a Crown, the nation was about to give Him a Cross. Instead of a palace, a grave… Only death and resurrection could open the way to any blessing at all: earthly blessing for the Jew, heavenly blessing for the Christian.
He does not say He will suffer, but that He must. One writer asks what the alternative would have been.
The Lord, who knew everything, said to His disciples over and over again, The Son of Man must suffer… How was a race of ruined sinners to be saved? … It was an absolute necessity that He should die. Without His death the Kingdom could not be set up, and we could not be saved or have all the blessing of eternal life with the Father. He had to die, and blessed be His name, He went to that Cross and suffered for us. He never turned back.
The verse names who would make Him suffer: elders, chief priests, scribes. One commentator reads the list as a picture of everything people trust in.
He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders (man's authority), the chief priests (man's religion), and the scribes (man's wisdom), and be killed. But He does not leave matters there. He adds, "and on the third day be raised."
The disciples heard the words for the first time. He did not.
When this solemn announcement came from His blessed lips, He knew the full meaning of "suffer many things and be killed." He knew before He came into the world what work He was to do… He knew the suffering, for His own Spirit was in the prophets long ago, testifying in advance to the sufferings that belong to Christ (1 Pet. 1:11). He began then to speak of these sufferings to His disciples, but He alone knew what it all meant.
Every time the Lord announced His death, the third day came with it.
How blessed that in what speaks of death, of sacrifice, there should be also in the height of the altar the pledge of resurrection. So, in speaking of His death, our Lord did not stop there, but foretold also His resurrection.
Verse 18 had just promised, "I will build my church." Commentators connect the two statements directly.
The words "from that time" are used because the Church could only be founded on His death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit came down and formed it, after God exalted Him to His own right hand.
A right confession about Christ and a heart ready for the cross are not the same thing.
Simon Peter was not yet prepared for the profound mystery of the cross. He loved Christ, and God had taught him to acknowledge Him in a very full and blessed way. But he still had much to learn. He was not ready for the truth that subdues the soul: this blessed Son of the living God must die.
- Must, because rejected — His order to stop announcing Him as the Christ accepted Israel's refusal. The nation would give Him a cross, not a crown.
- Must, because necessary — He said "must," not "will." Without His death no sinner could be saved and no kingdom could be set up.
- Must, because foreknown — He alone knew what "suffer many things and be killed" held. He knew His work before He came into the world.
- Must, because fruitful — He did not stop at death; He added the third day. Only death and resurrection could give the church its foundation.
- Must, and still hard to hear — Peter's confession was true and taught by God, yet he was not ready for the cross. Loving Christ and accepting His path are two lessons, not one.
And Peter taking him to [him] began to rebuke him, saying, [God] be favourable to thee, Lord; this shall in no wise be unto thee.
Moments earlier Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ, and Jesus called him blessed. Now the Lord announces His coming death, and Peter pulls Him aside to tell Him it must never happen.
The words carry more than a polite protest. One writer sets out how the phrase has been rendered, and what lay under Peter's good intentions:
The Revised Version goes too far in its margin, where it renders the apostle's first words "God have mercy upon You." Darby gives it literally: "Be favourable to Yourself, Lord." Peter certainly meant well. He could not bear to think of suffering and shame for his beloved Master and Lord. But Satan often uses a kind nature to turn God's witnesses aside from the path of faithfulness.
Read that way, his request turns back on itself. He asks God to spare the One who came to be the propitiation — the one through whom God's favour reaches others:
Satan too would gladly have spared Him the cross that He foresaw, for all the counsels of God hung on it. Peter is praying God to be favourable to the One who was Himself to be the one propitiation for others. He is asking God to spare Him the very thing by which propitiation could alone be made. So human wisdom may mistake its way, and human affection set itself against the path of divine love.
Peter's expectations left no room for this announcement. It tore up the hopes he had carried:
Here the solemn truth begins to break through the clouds. But Simon Peter is not prepared for it. It withered up all his Jewish hopes and earthly expectations. What! The Son of the living God must die! How could it be? The glorious Messiah nailed to a cross!
Peter clearly cared for Jesus. That is what makes the moment so unsettling. Warm feeling on its own steered him wrong:
Peter had real affection for the Lord; but this affection could not preserve him from the gravest of falls. He lacked what he could not do without — knowledge... When he said, "Far be it from You, Lord! This shall never happen to You," it was his affection which spoke. Yet at that very moment Peter was a Satan. Because he did not know the heart of Christ, he dared to think that the God of love would agree to save Himself.
Notice the posture, not just the sentence. Peter takes Jesus aside, uninvited, and begins to correct Him:
The Lord had not asked him what he thought of His statement. He speaks on impulse, out of the flesh, as a natural man... He acts with astonishing forwardness. He takes his Lord aside and then began to rebuke Him. The Lord, who rebuked the winds and the sea, rebuked by His creature! What ignorance of the person of the Lord, and what failure, this action of Peter reveals.
How can the same man confess the Son of the living God and then oppose His cross? The gap lies between what a person believes and what shapes his daily life:
You can be convinced of the highest truths, and even enjoy them sincerely as truths. That is still not the same as having your heart shaped to the feelings, and to the daily walk here, that match those truths. What is missing is not sincere enjoyment of the truth. What is missing is the flesh, self, put to death — being dead to the world.
The Lord reacted strongly, because Peter's instinct is everyone's instinct:
What was it that so roused our Lord? The very snare to which we are all so exposed — the desire of saving self, the preference of an easy path to the cross. Is it not true that we naturally want to escape trial, shame, and rejection? We shrink from the suffering that doing God's will must always bring in a world like this.
The same choice stands before anyone who follows Him:
If we are going to follow Christ, we must accept His pathway of shame and sorrow here. If we refuse the cross, we shall not have the crown.
- Words — Peter's plea means "be favourable to Yourself, Lord." He asks God to spare the One who came to make propitiation. Sparing Him would remove the one thing that could bring God's favour to others.
- Motive — his affection was genuine. What he lacked was knowledge of Christ's heart, so love spoke and got it wrong.
- Root — his hopes for a reigning Messiah left no place for a dying one, and the announcement withered them.
- Diagnosis — sincerely believing a great truth is not the same as having self put to death. That is why blessing and rebuke followed each other so fast.
- Warning — we feel the same pull Peter felt, to spare ourselves shame and suffering. Refuse the cross, and we lose the crown.
But turning round, he said to Peter, Get away behind me, Satan; thou art an offence to me, for thy mind is not on the things that are of God, but on the things that are of men.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.