Read Matthew 16:13–17
Questions from the Scripture text: To what region does Jesus come in Matthew 16:13? What does He ask His disciples? What four answers do they offer (Matthew 16:14)? What follow-up question does He ask in Matthew 16:15? Who answers (Matthew 16:16)? What two-part answer does he give? Who answers Simon Peter in Matthew 16:17? What does He say about him? Whose son (“Bar-“) does He say Simon is? Whom does He say has not revealed this to him? Whom does He say has revealed it?
How does one come to rest upon Jesus as Christ and God? Matthew 16:13–17 prepares us for the sermon in the morning public worship on the coming Lord’s Day. In these five verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that sovereign grace is what gives to people to rest upon Jesus as Christ and God.
Jesus is building His church. He is the One Who instigates this reaction (Matthew 16:13). By asking the question, He prompts them to catalog some of the opinions they have heard. They conveniently leave out “Beelzebul” (cf. Matthew 12:24).
But the point is made: although there happen to be many opinions about Christ, His identity is not, in fact, a matter of opinion. Jesus now presses this truth upon them by asking, “But y’all—who do y’all say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15, more literally translated).
When Simon answers the plurally asked question, he does so as representative of the 12. But Jesus’s response to him is very individual. Although the twelve know, corporately, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus’s response in Matthew 16:17 makes it clear that this is something that each individual comes to be convinced of only by sovereign grace.
Jesus’s identity is a fact, a reality, that it takes sovereign grace to reveal to someone. The language of “revealed” here is very important. Jesus has testified to Himself many times, and Simon has believed that testimony. Jesus’s works have testified to Him many times, and Simon has believed those works. But, this belief has come not by the operation of his human faculties (“flesh and blood”) but by the operation upon him of divine grace (“My Father Who is in heaven.”)
Although Jesus is speaking to Simon in the singular in Matthew 16:18-19, he continues to represent the twelve, as evidenced by Matthew 16:19, especially. Nowhere in the rest of the New Testament does Peter act with independent authority from, or above, the other apostles. In the frightening case of Acts 5:1–11, the other apostles are with him (cf. end of Acts 5:2).
And in the most obvious, deliberate, exercise of the keys, it actually seems to be James (cf. Acts 15:13), the brother of Jesus, who is moderating the assembly of apostles and elders (cf. Acts 15:6). There, the exercise of the keys expresses what the Holy Spirit has previously determined (cf. Acts 15:28), just as Matthew 16:19 says here. The most literal translation of the two verbs is “will have been loosed,” indicated something that will have already been completed before the future event in question.
So, when we come to the nicknaming of Simon as “Peter” (i.e., “Rock”), and the reference to building the church, we must remember that his response to Christ represents the apostles as a whole and that Jesus’s response to him is one that is true of every believer: people only come to faith when the Father reveals it to them. Jesus is the Christ, the promised Prophet, Priest, and King. And He is the Son of the Living God: not merely “a son of God” as is sometimes said of men and angels and Adam, but the Son of the Living God, the One Whose sonship was and is and is to come. For a sinner to hope in Jesus as this Christ and this Son can only be a work of sovereign grace in his heart.
Whom do you believe Christ to be? How does your interaction with Him show that you believe this?
Sample prayer: Father, thank You for convincing us that Jesus is the Christ, Your eternal Son. Give us to listen to Him as Prophet, to come near to You through Him as Priest, and to follow Him and trust Him as King. And grant that we would trust in Him as our God and Savior, together with You and with Your Spirit, we ask in His Name, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP110B “The LORD Has Spoken to My Lord” or TPH332 “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise”
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