Why did Jesus ask the disciples, "Who do you say that I am?"

Now when the Lord was in a private place praying, as Luke tells us, bearing the burden of men's obduracy of heart upon His spirit in His Father's presence, He asked His disciples, "Who do men say that I am?" He Himself knew the answer, as He necessarily knew all things, but for their sakes He asked this question. It would be good for them not only to think vaguely in their hearts, but to say definitely with their lips that the world was against their Master's claims, that the best of men's judgments was short of the truth, and was therefore detrimental to the Lord's person and damaging to His glory and kingdom. The priests and the Pharisees, the professedly and zealously religious parties, were undoubtedly His strong opponents, but were the taught as well as the teachers antagonistic to the Lord? "Who do men say that I am?" was His question.

The Lord then turned to His own disciples, His apostles, those who had companied with Him in the days of His ministry, who had learned, but so slowly and dully, that He was being rejected. Now the Lord put the question to them that they might confess with their mouths what was in their hearts concerning Him. "Who say ye 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?" And Peter answered. Peter was often the foremost with his tongue, but here he speaks, not because he was an impulsive man, not because his affections, as it were, were so near his mouth and so ready to be expressed in words; but he speaks because of a constraining power within him. He has received a revelation from the Father in heaven concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, his Teacher and Lord.

But there is another way and scene in which unbelief works. This chapter is the dissection of the root of many a form of unbelief. "By faith we understand," says the apostle to the Hebrews. The worldly man tries to understand first and then to believe; the Christian begins with the feeblest understanding, perhaps, but he believes God: his confidence is in One above himself; and thus, out of the stone there is raised up a child unto Abraham. The Lord now questions the disciples as to the real gist of all the matter, whether among Pharisees, Sadducees, or disciples themselves. "He asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" It is now Christ's person which comes out; and this, I need hardly say, is deeper than all other doctrine. "Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say that Thou art John the Baptist; some Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets" (vers. 13, 14). 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 says faith? Certainty, from God, is our portion, the moment that we see who Jesus is. He is the only remedy that banishes difficulty and doubt from the mind of man. "Whom say ye that I am?" (ver. 15). This was for the purpose of bringing out now what is the pivot of man's blessing and God's glory, and becomes the turning point of the chapter. Among these very disciples we are to have a blessed confession from one of them — the power of God working in a man who had been rebuked for his want of faith before, as he was indeed just after. When we are really broken down before God about our little faith, the Lord can reveal some deeper higher view of Himself than we ever had before. The disciples had mentioned the various opinions of men: one said He was Elias; another, John the Baptist, etc. "But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Glorious confession! In the Psalms He is spoken of as the Son of God, but very differently. There He is dealing with the kings of the earth, who are called upon to take care how they behave themselves. But the Holy Ghost now lifts up the veil to show that the "Son of the living God" involves depths far beyond an earthly dominion, howsoever glorious. He is the Son of that living God who can communicate life even to those dead in sin. "Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven."

Afterwards He questions His disciples as to what men in general said of Him. It was all matter of opinion, not of faith; that is, the uncertainty that belongs to moral indifference, to the absence of that conscious need of soul which can rest only in the truth, in the Saviour one has found. He then inquires what they themselves said of Him. Peter, to whom the Father had deigned to reveal Him, declares his faith, saying, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." No uncertainty, no mere opinion is here, but the powerful effect of the revelation, made by the Father Himself, of the Person of Christ, to the disciple whom He had elected for this privilege.

The Lord Jesus has taken His disciples away from the hustle and bustle of Galilee, He had taken them far away from the religious hypocrisy of Jerusalem and Judea; they had gone to Caesarea Philippi. This town was at the very northern extremity of Israel . At Caesarea Philippi, an area of peace and solitude, He talks to the disciples about serious issues. This one is fundamental. Who is He?

He probes his disciples, He wants them to express their understanding of who He is, but first He asks them what others say about Him.

Perhaps the reserve the Lord had hitherto maintained as to His Messiahship, and for which we may find reason in the carnal views held by the people as to it, may have, at least, prompted the desire that He would explicitly declare Himself. This seems the simplest account of the question put through his disciples. It was from the Lord Himself he sought the answer: and if he could not put this and that together, the Lord would know how to help him, and to have compassion on him.

The Lord's service on earth was now nearing its end. He had done great works among the people, and spoken gracious words to them, and the time had come for a response if there was to be any. So the Lord asked His disciples what men were saying about Him, as recorded in Matthew 16. They were saying many things, but none of them right. These disciples of His, they too had to be tested and so the challenge comes to them, "But whom say ye that I am?" And Simon Peter — the Peter in him was beginning to show itself — "And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Certainly Simon had advanced in true knowledge, but it was not his own intelligence, nor was it by sitting at the feet of the doctors of the law. The Father in heaven had taken him in hand and had revealed the truth as to His beloved Son to him. What wonderful grace is this; and it is just as true of everyone of us, who has believed and owned the truth as to the Lord Jesus, that the Father has enlightened us: it is His work.

"When Jesus was come into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am? And they said, Some say thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets."

There was endless speculation, simply because there was no real heart-work respecting the blessed One. Some said this, some said that; and, in result, no one cared who or what He was; and hence He turns away from all this heartless speculation, and puts the pointed question to His own, "But whom say ye that I am?" He desired to know what they thought about Him — what estimate their hearts had formed of Him. "And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Going on His way towards the mount of transfiguration — as the goal of His journey — He entered the villages of Caesarea Philippi, situated under the shadow of Mount Hermon. As was usual, many followed — not disciples only (8:34). From the Twelve, the Lord asks what are the thoughts of men about Him. None really understood who He was. It brings in evidence that man, unaided by revelation, could have no right thoughts about the Lord's person. Then He drew forth from Peter what the disciples held Him to be. As taught of God, Peter confesses Him to be "the Christ," or Anointed One of God.

First, however, the Lord brings out the position of the nation and that of the disciples, not resting here in contrast, as in Matthew, on the subject matter of the faith as changing the dispensation and founding the Church, but on the contrast of their and the nation's state as to their faith in what was proper to themselves as actually presented unto them. It was not a question of the enmity of chief priests, but the current notion among the multitude to whom full evidence had been afforded. But among them were merely the speculations which wonder had created. But Peter, ever the spokesman of the disciples, expresses in the certainty, the instruction of faith - the Christ of God - He was the Anointed of God. This man therefore was born of God, as we know from John. But this glory of Judaism, and truth of God, this appropriate, divine, and Jewish dignity, this office to the nation they were now no longer to tell. Having been refused on the merits of His glory and truth, He was not to be presented for the excitement and satisfaction of their passions. They were to tell no man that He was the Christ. He had presented Himself as the Fulfilment of the Prophets to them, and now as Son of man, a larger more humble Name but with glory reaching much farther, He was to suffer. He was to be owned by no fascinating and locally honoured title, but to accomplish a much larger and more important work by means of this very rejection. This was the counsel now to be fulfilled. He was to suffer, and all that was respectable by age, office, and learning was to be arrayed against Him, death to be the consequence, and He to rise again. This was opening quite a new and another scene, but the entire rejection and suffering here was to be His portion, and this would be in principle true of them.