Reading Matthew chapter 16 verses 13 to 23

Who is The Lord Jesus Christ?

The Lord Jesus suffered much from the religious groups in the land during His ministry on earth. The Scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders hated Him. They reckoned that all He did was by the power of Satan. They often tried to catch Him out so they could accuse Him. The Lord Jesus was always too wise for them. He always had the right words to answer their trick questions. He pointed out their evil ways on several occasions to them so they would know the truth. He also warned the ordinary people about them. The Lord Jesus loves His disciples and has a great care for them. He warned them about the ways of these religious men - a lot of their teachings, which they claimed were God's word, were, in reality, only ideas developed over the years and added to Gods word. At other times they taught things that removed parts of Gods word. Often, what they taught was actually the opposite of Gods word.

We read in Matthew 16 of one of the many occasions when The Lord Jesus took the opportunity to talk to the people who followed Him. We read that He was alone in prayer but then turned to His disciples, starting His conversation with a question. "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" He refers to Himself as The Son of Man. The people might have viewed Him only as He seemed on the surface - just a man. He was born as a baby at Bethlehem and grew up as each of us has grown up through the years. He was a real man. He got hungry and thirsty, sad and alone. He felt pain and suffering as we do - The Lord Jesus was genuinely a real man - this is why He refers to Himself as The Son of Man. We must remember, though, that He was also God.

The Lord Jesus asked what His disciples had heard people say about Him. This is not because He did not know. He had another purpose in asking the question. The Lord Jesus was and is wholly God as well as wholly a man. He knows everything there is to know all the time; He always has and always will.

The disciples told Him the rumours and ideas that were being talked about by the people. There were several ideas about who The Lord Jesus was. Matthew 16v14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.They knew there were at least four different ideas about Who The Lord Jesus really was, the Scribes and Pharisees' ideas make it five - and they were all wrong! The people had all observed the same Person. They had all seen, or at least heard, about the same events involving Him but they had all come to different conclusions. Many, many people were wrong about The Lord Jesus. They had not taken the trouble to find out the truth but were content with their own opinions and ideas about Him and they were all wrong. If we are wrong about The Lord Jesus we are wrong, whether we're only a little bit wrong or a lot wrong - we are still wrong.

What a solemn thing! The Lord Jesus was traveling around teaching and preaching and doing all sorts of wondrous things yet people were not taking the trouble to find out Who He really was. At best they just relied on their own ideas and left it at that. At worst they accused Him of awful things and hated and rejected Him. We have the written history of these events that we can refer to at any time. How many of us take the trouble to read our Bibles so we can find out about The Lord Jesus?

The Lord Jesus then asked His disciples who they thought He was. The disciples had observed all the same things as everyone else. They'd heard the teaching and seen the miracles. There were times when The Lord Jesus had explained things to His disciples that He had not explained to the crowds but everyone had been able to see or hear about many tremendous events and much teaching from The Lord Jesus. Matthew 16v15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? He expected a different answer from them. Peter answered on behalf of the disciples. Matthew 16v16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. How did Peter know this? Was Peter a special person with greater powers than everyone else? Peter took the lead and spoke up for the rest of the disciples - was he especially gifted and better qualified to serve The Lord Jesus than the rest?

What was Jesus' response? Did He say, "Well said Peter, you must be a very capable person so I will put you in charge of all my disciples and, in future, you will be my representative on earth?" Is that what The Lord Jesus said? We read His response inMatthew 16v17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. Blessed means happy. Barjona means son of Jona and reminds him that he is just a man like other men. Peter was to consider himself a happy man because God, in His great mercy and grace, had enabled Peter to understand something of the truth about The Lord Jesus - but at this point he did not fully understand about Jesus.

The Lord Jesus went on to say, as we read in Matt 16 vs 18-19 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. When The Lord Jesus first met Peter he told him he would one day be called Cephas which means a stone. John 1v42 And he (Andrew) brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone. Peter or Petros in the Greek means a stone. Some have claimed for centuries that the foundation rock on which The Lord Jesus said He was going to build His church - the whole company of Christians in every age, not a brick or concrete building - was Peter. Was Peter the foundation of the church? We need to be careful about this. It is important that we take the trouble to find out what The Lord Jesus was saying here or we might be deceived and our eternal souls are at stake if we follow the wrong way.

Cephas and Petros both mean a stone. The word for the rock that was to be the foundation of the church is Petra in the Greek, something different and bigger than a stone. The rock upon which the church was to be built is a rock, a cliff or ledge, a projecting rock, crag, rocky ground, a rock or a large stone - something huge, strong and substantial that will not fail.

So what was The Lord Jesus referring to as the foundation of His church? It was what Simon Peter had just said upon which The Lord Jesus would build His church, not Peter himself. Peter had just announced the fact that The Lord Jesus is The Christ The Son of God. He is The One chosen by God to be The Saviour of Sinners - that is what the title Christ means. He alone and all that He has done is what the church is based on. Without what The Lord Jesus has done there would be no Christians, no way to peace with God and no hope of anyone ever getting to heaven. The keys to the kingdom given to Peter are the truths of the gospel that were given to all the apostles. Binding and loosing refer to all the apostles' authority as inspired by God to declare Gods truth about issues that arose during their ministries.

Peter was an ordinary man who made mistakes and had no power of his own. What he had come to understand about The Lord Jesus he only understood because God had graciously revealed it to him. He was totally dependent on God's grace just as we all are.

When The Lord Jesus, a short while after this, began to tell the disciples how He must suffer and die Peter rebuked Him - not understanding His purpose of Salvation for sinners and actually tried to stop Him doing what He came to do to save sinners. Matt 16v23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. When The Lord Jesus was arrested and taken to trial Peter first ran away then denied even knowing Him. What sort of a foundation was Peter for the church - other than as an example of someone saved by Gods mercy and grace to sinners?

So what of each of us? Will we take the trouble and the time to find out about The Lord Jesus or will we just accept what other people say - even if it might be wrong? I would be so happy to hear that you all went home tonight and got out your Bibles and checked every word I have said tonight.

There are those, sadly, who make great claims for themselves as religious leaders in these days but they really only teach things that men have thought up over the centuries. There is a small element of truth in what they teach but they miss out or change the most important truths of The Bible. Such men are no different to The Scribes and Pharisees all those years ago - The men The Lord Jesus rebuked for their wickedness.

The important thing is to be right in what we believe about The Lord Jesus. We need to understand that He is the only One who saves sinners. We need to see that only through Who He is - both God and man, through His perfect life, His death on the cross in the place of sinners and the fact that He rose again and is now in heaven can we ever hope to go to heaven. We need to stop doing things that break Gods law - that is repentance. We need to ask that our sins might be forgiven and that we might have peace with God so we can escape His anger at our sin. Acts 16v31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

We must ask God to show us His truth and to keep us from being deceived. The people who teach that Peter and men who follow on from him are the head of the church and Christ's representative on earth might seem good and kind men. If they teach you anything at all that is more than, or less than, the truth of God then, very solemnly the Bible calls them accursed for altering Gods word.

May we all come to know The Lord Jesus as our own Lord and Saviour.