Note as to the Church, where, as often remarked, we get the new ways of God introduced on the entire failure of man (proved definitely in Israel) the Church and the Kingdom of heaven are both introduced distinctly, but it is as to their administration and forming that they are spoken of. The first point is the Person of Christ. Everyone had his opinion as to Him. Peter had certainty (faith) by divine teaching-the revealing of the Father, not of flesh and blood. This was, that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. This is the introduction of divine life in the Person of the Son. It was proved in resurrection; the Son was given to have life in Himself, but it was as Son of the Living God. On this rock Christ builds His Church; but the faith of Peter made him of the nature of which the rock was, Christ being the Son of the Living God. The revelation of this to him by the Father, made him partaker of the nature of that which he believed in. He had share and part in this, but no authority or place in the building work, as such. It is not the point here at all. He is a stone, not a builder. Christ is the builder, and here it is a matter of building-" I will build my Church upon this rock," viz., the truth that Christ was the Son of the Living God- on Him. The revelation of it made Simon a stone, a living one-it may be the first that was laid, though in point of time there was no difference. The Father had revealed this immense fact, that nothing is like the new thing-a Man that is the Son of God, the Son of the Living God. This was to be the foundation of the new thing, not merely salvation but an assembly. Christ also ("and I also say" is the right reading) had a right to give names. It is the place of authority, as God named Abraham, Adam named the animals. So Christ named Peter-He had authority to do it, and to call things what they were-God made him such. Adam named them rightly as they were made. Christ constituted Simon Barjona this, gave him this place. The Father had made him for it by revealing who Christ was to him.
Note further, Christ here builds the Assembly. Hence it is real; however man may outwardly spoil it, still Christ builds, and secures the building. If it be in the power of the Son of the Living God as life (which was shown in resurrection) what power could the gates of Hades (Satan as having the power of death), the whole power of the adversary, have against it? He had done his utmost, when permitted, in Christ's death (though, in reality, as to Him he did nothing, and had nothing in Him) but the life of resurrection was beyond all of it. Adam could be prevailed against-the Assembly not; one stood in created life, responsible-the other in divine life,..victorious over the power that was hostile to it. Hence Peter, in speaking of the Church, as far as he does, speaks of living stones being built up on a Living Stone, a holy temple, a holy priesthood. Hence, though built together, and the priests a company, all are individual stones. It is not a body, nor is the dwelling of the Holy Ghost there spoken of. The divinely-living individuals are brought together. Christ builds-He has not a body here-He is a Builder-He is not a Head.
Remark now, for it is with this view that I have particularly referred to it, that here the House (Assembly) to be built, is connected with individual life. It is not the Body, or union, nor the dwelling place of the Holy Ghost-that is Paul's revelation. Individual life by individual faith, the Father revealing the truth to the soul. This constitutes the quality fit for building with, and Christ makes an assembly with these stones. This is the nature of what it is built of when Christ builds, in contrast with flesh, or flesh and blood's thoughts. It is divine life and revelation.
Before I pass on to Eph., I add here another system in which Peter is given a place of authority on earth-not the Church at all, but the Kingdom of heaven. The keys not of heaven, not of the Church-there are no keys of the Church, there is a Builder, Christ. Nor are there any persons bound here at all. Anything formally enacted by Peter was warranted and sanctioned by heaven. He had the administration of the Kingdom confided to him. "The key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder," is said of Hilkiah. A housekeeper, or intendant has the keys, and administers, as a trust, the household affairs. Peter did so in the kingdom and with full authority. Though in fact he did let in the Jews, he did let in the Gentiles, a most immensely important act, for it was changing the whole divinely constituted order-an uncircumcised man was received into the Kingdom. Chapter 13 shows us prophetically this would be spoiled, but that was prophecy, this administration. Simon Magus did not escape Peter though he did Philip. Philip admitted him, but he was soon detected when Peter and John came. This was not solely Peter, but the admission of Jews and Gentiles was the full power of the keys. It was not the Body, nor the revelation of the Body. The giving of the Holy Ghost was no way Peter's act. He was anticipated by a witness of God. I do not mean that admission was the power of the keys, but Peter was administering the Kingdom-I should apprehend when Ananias and Sapphira fell dead also-thus, in one sense, binding and loosing would refer to sins, but in judicial administration as on earth. Binding in heaven is the divine sanction.
As to the Church, we have then Paul's revelation, Eph. 1. Christ is glorified-not merely has and is Life-and the Church is united to Him as His Body. This is not building. No doubt it is in the power of life, but it is more-the Assembly has this character, when being baptized with the Holy Ghost it thereby becomes one Body. It is, even for the individual as for the whole, union by the Holy Ghost, so that he is a member of His Body. Now Christ, on being glorified, could then send down the Holy Ghost as received in righteousness on the right hand of God, and we made God's righteousness in Him. This He did on the day of Pentecost, and the Lord added the Remnant of Jews daily to the Assembly, but the doctrine involved in it was never taught till Paul was called by the revelation-after the Holy Ghost was finally resisted in Israel, and Stephen taken up-that all saints were Jesus Himself. He then, sent to the Gentiles from a glorified Christ, when the Jews had nationally rejected the Gospel, and from heaven, and by the Holy Ghost to every creature under heaven, becomes thereupon a minister of the Church (Assembly) to complete the Word of God. Here it is not divine life contrasted with flesh upon earth, but union with Christ-the Church is heavenly, the Body of Christ sitting in heavenly places in Him. In Eph. 2 we have another character-the same unity, but Jews and Gentiles builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. This is upon earth, founded on the Cross, but characterized by the presence of the Spirit dwelling in it as a house on earth-as God had been in the tabernacle or temple. He dwelt in this house by the Spirit. Chapter 5 gives us a supplementary instruction on this point-the special and blessed care that Christ takes of the Church on earth as His own Body, and here the true members of His body, known of Him, are spoken of-it is as man's own flesh to himself.
In this chapter, the generation is formally rejected, and the Kingdom, and the Church brought in, but the Church, I judge, on earth, only in the power of life against which he who had the gates of death would not prevail. After this revelation, the Lord begins to relate historically to His disciples what, as Son of man, was going to happen to Him, and the portion of suffering and glory with Him, developed in the Transfiguration. The close of the chapter shows another and more intimate reason for leaving not merely the evil of the nation, but the incapacity of the disciples to use the power that was there to surmount the evil, under which they were lying, by faith in Him. The close of the chapter shows the true relationship on the earth of Himself and the disciples with Jehovah, but His acquiescence in condescension with the Jewish nation yet.
-22. Matthew has here the Son of man coming in His Kingdom, to contrast the Transfiguration of chapter 17, or future actual Kingdom of heaven, with the Church mentioned in chapter 16.
-25, 26. Note how very distinctly life and soul are, as to the reality, contrasted here, making the annihilation theory of its being only life, a nephesh chay-yah (soul of life) mere folly.
From this chapter on to chap. 20: 28, we have the substitution of the Kingdom of heaven and the Church (as well as the Son of man) to the terms and evidences of Christ's relationship with Israel, as a present thing proposed. After that, verse 29, commences His own final royal and Jehovah testimony to Jerusalem herself.
27, 28. These verses make it evident that it cannot be taken simply as one final judgment of men as raised, for " The Son of man shall come," and some standing there should not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in His Kingdom. Now, be it as alleged, the destruction of Jerusalem, which I do not believe, important as that was, but the Transfiguration; but be it so, the passage refers to it-that is not the final judgment. 2 Peter: 16-18, shows it was the Transfiguration as a momentary presentation of the Kingdom as seen on earth. This leads to the sense of "ashamed " in Mark 8:3838Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:38), for it is the parallel passage. But this makes it to run over the whole period of the glory of the Son of man, for He rewards every man. Yet it includes His coming in His Kingdom (they say, the destruction of Jerusalem). It is to be remembered the Transfiguration follows in each Gospel. Luke adds nothing more to the passage, save that his language is simpler as to the Kingdom. Matt. 10:32, 3332Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 10:32‑33), is thus very simple. The only difficulty is John 12:4848He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. (John 12:48), where judgment is spoken of as in the last day, at which, it is said, He will raise up those that believe. John only has this expression, as in Martha also, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." It is a peculiarity of John, that, while he speaks of eternal life far more than others, it is his subject, and in his Gospel treats the Jews always as reprobate, yet he lives in a Jewish sphere of thought more than all, never, till once or twice at the end, speaking of ascension or heaven.
"If I will that he tarry till I come," says the Lord. "The last day," I apprehend, was the close of the Jewish " this world," and the bringing in of the " world to come," or state consequent on the manifestation of Messiah. The Church never appears, nor is hinted at in John. Hence, "the last day," goes over from the then time closing providentially with the destruction of Jerusalem, but really when the Lord comes, Antichrist being the sign of the last days of the present time, for the present time on earth does not dose, nor Daniel's weeks, till the Lord comes. Hence the word judging is Christ's word made good against Israel as rejecting Him, when the Lord comes. But, in fact, it will be made good, morally speaking, on every disobedient soul, but the direct application of "the last day " is not made there as it introduces the whole thought and condition of judgment.
"The last day" is the last day of something, and what was it to a Jew? Clearly not the end of the world, but the close of the present age. We see in Martha's word that it was a well understood Jewish term-not that I take their thoughts without divine light upon them, but when the Lord uses their language, I take the consideration of their language in with His light by the Holy Ghost upon it. No doubt it is enlarged into more general thoughts, but who can doubt for a moment that the form of Lazarus and the rich man is from Jewish habits of thought? The introduction of the Church opens out, and modifies the use of the language, but does not destroy its first intention. Eternal judgment and resurrection came in rightly, but they were additions to the dealing with men in the world proper to Judaism. " The last day " then is that great change which would take place when the probatory condition of things, and the life of faith would be dosed by the incoming of the power of God, and the manifestation of His glory in Messiah. Nor do I believe there is anything more precise in it. Just as the testimony of Messiah (Heb. 1) was in the close of those days, the coming in of the Church has postponed the clearing up of all till that is over. But this parenthetical introduction does not change the reality of the judgment, but explains what seems difficult in fulfillment and expression. So for the Jew, all this time is the time of the High Priest being within the veil on the great day of atonement. They cannot tell the acceptance of the sacrifice till He comes out. We know it by the Holy Ghost being come out thence.
In this chapter we have, then, very definitely, the passing away, and non-recognition, warning against what the old had become, and the substitution of the new thing. They could not discern the time, they are distributed into two classes- ritualists and nationalists-the death and resurrection of Christ in result, meanwhile His preaching (both are spoken of, though not here) and He leaves them and warns His disciples against them. Their teaching was leaven. Then comes the confession of His Person, on a new ground. He is Son of man, " I, the Son of man." He takes this place Himself, not Son of Abraham and David, as given at the beginning. Vain opinions disappear before faith, by the revelation of the Father. Simon owns Him not only Son of God-that He was by the second Psalm, as King of Zion-but as born in this world, though divinely, and divinely owned, but He who was Son of man, as of man, and, in the title of Psa. 8, was the true Son having life in Himself, the Son of the living God, the Eternal Son, personally the Son, though Son of man, and as Son of man here. This, though ever true, and nothing else could have been true without it, had never been revealed before. There is one Son, as the ancients said (yet doubly Son) and on this rock He could build His Church, in the power of a life proved in resurrection beyond the power of Satan, which had been wholly destroyed through His death. This was a new ground thus confessed, His Person, and the gates of hell (Hades), the power of Satan, should not prevail against it. Christ would build His Church. This is not Pauline work. Christ builds, and it is not built yet. That is connected with " Son of the living God." Then there was the Kingdom of heaven; this is connected with the Son of man, "His Kingdom." This is administered on earth, and the management of it committed to Peter, and the authority of it confided to him, and what he should establish sanctioned in heaven. Here were the present substitutes for the place He held on earth as Messiah, Heir of promise, and Son of God, as here to be set on God's hill. And hereon He charges them strictly not to say that He was the Christ any more; that was over. From that time he began to tell them plainly of the Cross; it was the only way into the new thing, and they must follow Him in it. Peter stuck to the old, the flesh, not being dead up to the point of the revelation he had really received from the Father, but that was only Satan now, not the things of God but of men, for God had now no more place in this world, known only in the Cross. The world and nature were over. The soul therefore comes in, and what this world is, compared with it. But more: the Son of man, now taking up His Cross, would come in the glory of the Father (Son of the living God, both names being thus taken up) and some standing there would see it before they should taste of death, the Son of man coming in His Kingdom—the actual revelation of the then displayed glory, still as Son of God. And both these are given in the next chapter.