IN the last chapter, which introduces a new part of the subject of Matthew, we saw that the two great pictures introduced were, first, the hypocritical disobedience of those who boasted of the law, completely exposed out of their own prophets, as well as by the touchstone of the Lord Himself; and, secondly, the true nature of grace shown to one whose circumstances demanded nothing but sovereign mercy, if she were to be blessed at all. I need not enter more into a chapter already looked at; but I would recall also the particular manifestation at the close of the Lord’s patient and perfect grace towards Israel, spite of the condition of the Jewish leaders. If He compassionated the Gentiles, His heart still yearned over the people, and He marked it by repeating the great miracle of feeding thousands in the wilderness, though this was not intended to be the figure of His dispensational retirement from earth, which, as we saw (chap. 14,), followed the first miracle of feeding the multitudes — the type of our Lord’s occupation at the right hand of God.
Now we have another picture quite distinct from the last, though akin to it. It is not the flagrant disobedience of the law through human tradition, but the source of all disobedience — unbelief. Hence, in the language employed by the Holy Ghost, there is only a shade of difference between the words Unbelief and disobedience. The former is the root of which the latter is the fruit. Having pointed out the gross systematic violation of God’s law, even by those who were religious leaders in Israel, and having convicted them of it, even about the highest earthly relationships which that law bound, and encouraged, them most of all to honor, a deeper principle is now brought out. All that disobedience to God flowed from unbelief of Himself, and, consequently, misapprehension of their own moral condition. These two things always go together. Ignorance of self flows from ignorance of God; ignorance of both ourselves and God is proved by despising Jesus; and what is true in full of the worldly marl or the unbeliever applies partially to Christians who in any. measure slight the will and person of the Lord. All these are only the workings of that heart of unbelief, of which the apostle warns even believers. The grand provision against this, the operation of the Holy Ghost, in contrast to the working of the natural mind of man, comes out plainly here.
“The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him, that he would show them a sign from heaven.” (vs. 1) They were beginning the same story over again; but now it is higher up the source, and, of course therefore, worse in principle. It is an awful thing to find opposed parties with one only thing that unites them — dislike of Jesus; persons who could have, torn each other to pieces at another time, but this is their gathering point — tempting Jesus. “The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting,” &c. There was nothing in conflict between the scribes and Pharisees, but a wide chasm separated the Sadducees and Pharisees. Those were the free thinkers of the day, these the champions who stood up for ordinances and for the authority of the law. But both joined to tempt Jesus. They desired a sign from heaven. The most significant token that God ever gave man was before them in the person of His Son, who eclipsed all other signs. But such is unbelief, that it can go into the presence of the full manifestation of God, can gaze at a light brighter than the sun at noonday, and there, and then, ask God to give a farthing candle.
But Jesus “answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” (vs. 2, 3.) Their own moral condition was the sign and proof that judgment was imminent. Doubtless, for those who could see, there was the fair weather, the dayspring from on high that had visited them in Jesus. They saw it not; but could they not discern the foul Weather? They were in the presence of the Messiah, and were asking Him who consummated all signs in His person to give them a sign from heaven! The God that made heaven and earth was there, but the darkness comprehended it not. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not,” Nothing could be more awful; they were utterly blind; they could discern physical changes, but they had no perception of moral and spiritual features then actually before them.
How truly “a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.” (vs. 4.). Such was His word to them. Men constantly err as to the character of Jesus. They imagine that He could use no strong language, and feel no anger; but yet there it is in the word, written in the light. It is the same thing now as ever. Unbelief is always blind, and betrays its blindness most against Jesus. The same kind of unbelief that could not then discern who and what Jesus was sees not now Jesus coming, and discerns not the signs of the times nor of their own impending ruin. It is the moral condition of men, no matter where they are, only the more remarkably manifested where the light of God is. If England be now the focus where God’s light is more displayed than in any other place, it is this which makes all the more glaring the unbelief of men, who perhaps are engaged in His work, who are professing to help it on, one way or another, and at the same time are utterly careless as to whether they are walking according to His will as revealed in the Bible. Clearly we have no right merely to follow the word of God in what suits us, but the word of God as a whole, for our own souls first, and for all the children of God next, as far as in us lies. This is what we have gravely to consider. If we cannot act upon people’s consciences, at least let us keep our own unsullied. There is always the question of personal allegiance to the Saviour, and this, above all, is what puts us to the test. Precept is most weighty when commended by our own example.
Here we have our Lord who does not hesitate to touch the evil with unsparing hand. He was the perfect fullness of love: but do men remember He is the one who said, “wicked and adulterous generation,” “generation of vipers,” &c.? It flows from true love, if men would but think so, and bow to the truth that convicts them. To submit, at God’s word, to the truth in this world is to be saved; to be convicted of the truth only in the next world is to be lost forever. Christ was the Faithful Witness; He brought God face to face with men, and caused His perfect light to shine upon them. Why, then, could not He grant them a sign? God, full of love as He is, never does anything to the disparagement of Him who made Himself known. Jesus can meet a soul in its lain; He may eat with publicans to show that He is able to receive sinners, and to forgive sins to the uttermost; but He will never give any sign to satisfy the unbelief which rejects Jesus. These Pharisees and Sadducees did not hear His voice of grace. They listened only with their outward ears; but they were compelled to hear their own sentence from the Judge of all the earth: and shall not He do right? “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.” Had Jesus not been there, to ask for a sign would not have been so wicked; but His presence made it audacious unbelief and frightful hypocrisy. It was flying in the face of what God had already vouchsafed, and asking for something altogether inconsiderable in the presence of His best gift. So now, the death and resurrection. of Christ is preached to a soul that turns away from it He says, salvation is not so easy a thing as all that; I must do something myself. It is asking a sign, and this not even from heaven, but from his own heart. And what is his heart? God declares that from his heart proceeds everything that is wicked. Yet he still clings to the fatal delusion, that some good thing must be got out of that which God pronounces only, and always, evil: and so he turns away from Jesus and God’s righteousness in Him, which has been perfectly brought out, because Jesus is risen and at the right hand of God. When you find very high religious pretensions along with disparagement of Jesus, what can be more offensive to God? “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.” And what was this? The sign of one that disappeared from the earth, that passed into the figure of death away from the Jewish people, and after a while was given back to them. It was the symbol of death and resurrection, and our Lord immediately acted upon it. He “left them, and departed.” He would pass under the power of death. He would rise again, and would carry to the poor Gentiles the message which Israel had despised.
But there are other forms of unbelief; and the next scene (vs. 5) is with His disciples: so true is it that what you find working in its grossest shape in an unconverted man may be traced, in another way perhaps, in believers. “Jesus said unto them. Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” (vs. 6.) They did not understand Him; they reasoned among themselves; and whenever Christians begin so to reason, they never understand anything. “They reasoned among themselves saying, It is because we have taken no bread.” (vs. 7.) There is such a thing, of course, as sound and solid deduction. The difference is that wrong reasoning always starts from man and tries to rise to God, while right reasoning starts from God towards man. The natural mind can only infer from the experience of men what they think or feel, and thus forms a sort of image of what God must be. This is the basis, the aim, and the character of human speculation in diving things; whereas God is the source, strength, and guide of the thoughts of faith.
How do I know God? In the Bible, which is the revelation of Christ from the first of Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse. I see Him there, the keystone of the arch, the center of all scripture of; and unless the connection of Christ with everything is seen, nothing is understood aright. There is the first grand fallacy, the leaving out of God’s revealing Himself in His Son. It is not the light behind the veil as under the Jewish system, but infinite blessing now that God has come to man and man is brought to God. In the lifer of Christ I see God drawing night to man, and in His death man brought night to God. The veil is rent; all is out, on the one hand, and of God on the other, as far as God is pleased to reveal Himself to man in this world. All stands in the boldest relief in the life and of Christ.
But disciples are apt to be very dull about these things, now as ever; and so when He warned them about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, they thought that He was merely speaking of something for daily life―very much like what we see at the present time. But our Lord “said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? (vs. 8.) Why did they not think of Christ? Would they have troubled themselves about loaves if they had thought of Him? Impossible! But what may there not be in a believer’s heart, even before Him in whose hands is the earth and the fullness thereof? They were anxious, or thought Him so, about bread! “Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How is that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” (vss. 9-12.)
And this is what disciples even now often misapprehend. They do not understand the hatefulness of unsound doctrine. They are alive to moral evil. If a person gets drunk, or falls into any other gross scandal, they know, of course, it is very wicked; but if the leaven of evil doctrine works, they do not feel it. Why is it that disciples are more careful of that which mere natural conscience can judge, than of doctrine which destroys the foundation of everything both for this world and for that which is to come? What a serious thing that disciples should need to be warned of this by the Lord, and even then not understand! He had to explain it to them. There was the working of unbelief among the disciples, making the body the great aim, and not seeing the all-importance of these corrupt doctrines which menaced souls in so many insidious forms around them.
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.” (vss. 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. “He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?” (vs. 15.) This was for the purpose of bringing out what is the pivot of man’s blessing and God’s glory, and it 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 indeed he was 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 been relating the various opinions of men: one said He was Elias; another, John the Baptist. “But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (vs. 16.)
Most glorious confession! In the Psalms He is spoken of as the Son of God, but very differently. There it is as One dealing with the kings of the earth, who are called upon to take care how they behave themselves. But the Son of the living God! 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 His enemies. “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. And I also say unto thee,” &c.
First, there is the Father revealing; and the moment Christ hears Himself confessed as the Son of the living God, He also sets His own seal and honors the confessor. It is the assertion of One who at once rises up to His own intrinsic dignity. “And I also say 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.” He gives Simon a new name. As God had given to Abraham, Sarah, &c., because of some fresh manifestation of Himself, so does the Son of God. It had been prophetically announced before; but now comes out for the first time the reason why it was affixed to him. “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” What rock? The confession Peter had made that Jesus was the Son of God. On this the Church is built. Israel was governed by a law; the Church is raised on a solid, and imperishable, and divine foundation — on the person of the Son of the living God. And when this fuller confession breaks from the lips of Peter, the answer comes, Thou art Peter — thou art a stone — a man that derivest thy name from this rock on which the Church is built.
In the early chapters of the Acts, Peter always speaks of Jesus as the holy child (or servant) Jesus, He speaks of Him as a man who went about doing good; as the Messiah slain by the wicked hands of men, whom God raised up from the dead, Whatever Peter might know Jesus to be, yet when preaching to the Jews, he presents Him to them simply as the Christ, as the predicted Son of David, who had walked here below, whom they had crucified and God had raised again. Then, at Stephen’s martyrdom, a new term is used about the Lord. That blessed witness looks up and says, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” It is not now merely Jesus as the Messiah, but “the Son of man,” which implies His rejection. When He was refused as the Messiah, Stephen, finding that this testimony was rejected, is led of God to testify of Jesus as the exalted Son of man at God’s right hand. When Paul is converted, which is given in the very next chapter but one, he goes straightway and preaches “Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.” He did not merely confess Him, but preached Him as such. And to Paul was entrusted the great work of bringing out the truth about “the church of God.”
So here, when the Lord hears Peter’s confession, He says, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” You understand the glory of My person; I tell you of the work I am going to accomplish. Mark the expression. It is not, I have been building; but I will build My Church. He had not built it yet, nor begun to build it: it was altogether new. I do not mean by this that there had not before been souls believing in Him and born of the Spirit; but the aggregate of the individual saints, that were born of God from the beginning to the end of time, it is an error to call “the Church.” It is a common notion which, I am bold to say, has not got one word of scripture to give even the appearance of truth to it. The expression in Acts 7:38,38This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: (Acts 7:38) “The church in the wilderness” means the whole congregation — the mass of Israel — the greater part of whose carcasses fell in the wilderness. Can you call that “the church of God?” There were only a few believers among them. People are deceived in this by the sound. The word, “Church in the wilderness,” merely means the congregation there. The very same word is applied to the confused assembly in Acts 19, which would have torn Paul to pieces. If it were translated like Acts 7, it would be the “Church in the theater,” and the blunder is obvious. The word that is translated “church” simply means “assembly.” To find out what is the nature of the assembly, we must examine the scriptural usage and the object of the Holy Ghost. For you might have a good or bad assembly: an assembly of Jews, or of Gentiles: or God’s assembly, distinct from either and contrasted with both, as can be readily and undeniably seen in 1 Cor. 10:3232Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: (1 Corinthians 10:32). Now it is this last alone which we mean (i.e., God’s assembly) when we speak of “the church.”
What then, to return, does our Lord intimate when He says, “Upon this rock I will build my church”? Clearly something that He was going to erect upon the confession that He was the Son of the living God, whom death could not conquer, but only give occasion to the shining forth of His glory by resurrection. “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hades” — the power of death — “shall not prevail against it.” This last does not mean the place of the lost, but the condition of separate spirits. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens,” The church and the kingdom of the heavens are not the same thing. It is never said that Christ gave the keys of the church to Peter. Had the keys of the church, or of the heavens, been given to him, I do not wonder that the people should have imagined a pope. But “the kingdom of the heavens,” means the new dispensation now taking place on earth. God was going to open a new economy, free to Jews and Gentiles, the keys of which He committed to Peter. One of these keys was used, if I may so say, at Pentecost, when he preached to the Jews, and the other when he preached to the Gentiles. It was the opening of the kingdom to people, whether Jews or Gentiles. “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (vs. 19.)
The eternal forgiveness of sins has to do with God only, though there is a sense in which forgiving was committed to Peter and the other apostles, which remains true now. Whenever the church acts in the name of the Lord and really does His will, the stamp of God is upon their deeds. “My church,” built upon this rock, is His body — the temple of believers built upon Himself. But “the kingdom of the heavens” embraces every one that confesses the name of Christ. This was begun by preaching and baptizing. When a man is baptized, he enters “the kingdom of the heavens,” even if he should turn out a hypocrite. He will never be in heaven, of course, if he is an unbeliever; but he is in “the kingdom of the heavens.” He may either be a tare in the kingdom of heaven, or he may be real wheat; an evil or a faithful servant; a foolish virgin or a wise one. The kingdom of heaven takes in the whole scene of Christian profession.
But we have seen, when Christ speaks of “My church,” it is another thing. It is what is built upon the recognition and confession of His person, and we know that he that believes “that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” And again, “He that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God” overcometh the world. He has got the first workings of life in him if he acknowledges Jesus as Christ; but there is a deeper power of the Holy Ghost in acknowledging Him as Son; and the higher the acknowledgment of Christ, the more spiritual energy in going through this world and overcoming it. If one believer is more spiritual than another, it is because he understands the person of Christ better. All power depends upon the appreciation of Christ. Mark our Lord’s words “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood path not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Christ must be found outside the church and before it; Christ must be discerned first and foremost by the individual soul; Christ and what He is must, before and above all, be revealed to the heart by the Father. He may employ persons who belong to the church as instruments, or may directly use His own word. But, whatever the means employed, it is the Father revealing the glory of the Son to a poor sinful man; and when this is settled with the individual, Christ says, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” Faith in Christ is essentially God’s order and way before the question of the church comes in. This is one great controversy between God and the mystery of iniquity which is now working in this world. The aim of the Holy Ghost is to glorify Christ; whereas that of the other is to glorify self. The Holy Ghost is carrying on this blessed revelation that the Father has made of the Son; and when the individual question is settled, then comes the corporate privilege and responsibility — the church.
It is not therefore enough to say, I have got Christ, infinitely blessed as that is. If I know that He is the Son of God, I ought to believe also that He is building His church. Do I know my place there? Am I found walking in the light of Christ — a living stone ever in my place in that which He is building — in healthy action as a member of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones? The building of the church is going on here. It was here that salvation was wrought, and here it is that the church is being built upon this rock; and the gates of hades, the invisible state or separate condition, shall not prevail against it. Death may come in, but the gates of hades shall not prevail against it. The Lord says in the Revelation that He has the keys of death and of hades. The death of the believer, the Christian, is in the hands of Christ; all is changed now. And He is the Lord both of the dead and of the living; death is not our Lord, but Christ. “Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.” The Lord has absolute command over us; and therefore death is robbed of all that makes it so terrible even to the believer who is looking at it with unbelieving eyes. The Lord here says that the gates of hades shall not prevail against His church. The book of the Revelation at the close brings us its blessed light. That book, which people commonly talk about as the most obscure in the Bible, is the very one to which we are most deeply indebted for light upon this and other parts. There you have the Lord with the keys of death and hades. He gave the keys of the kingdom of the heavens to Peter, because he it was who was to preach to Jews and Gentiles. The keys did their office; the door was flung open on the day of Pentecost first, and afterward yet more widely when the Gentiles were brought in.
But, further, we have internal administration committed to Peter, both binding and loosing, authority vested in him by Christ to act publicly here below, with the promise of ratification above. “Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” That is first said to Peter; and I presume, from what we have in Matt. 18:1818Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18:18) (“Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”) that the binding and the loosing belong to the other disciples: not, unless I am mistaken, to the apostles only, but to the disciples as such. Compare also the charge in John 20:19-2319Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 20And when he had so said, he showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. 21Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 22And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: 23Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. (John 20:19‑23). On that principle people are received into the Christian Church, and on that principle wicked people are put away till restored on the acceptance of their repentance. The church does not forgive sins as a matter of eternal judgment, of course, which God alone has the power to do. But it is called of God to judge a person’s state for reception into, or exclusion from, the circle which confesses the name of Christ here below.
In Acts 5, Peter bound their sin on Ananias and Sapphira. This does not necessarily prove that they were lost; but the sin was bound upon them and brought present judgment. Peter was not, nor was Paul, at Corinth; and there the Lord acts Himself, laying His hand upon the guilty: some were weak and sickly, and some falling asleep. Their sins were indeed retained; but this does not decide against their final salvation — rather, indeed, the contrary. When they were judged of the Lord, they were chastened, that they should not be condemned with the world (that is, that they should not be lost). They might be taken away by death, and yet be saved in the day of the Lord. The church puts away a wicked person. The man at Corinth, whom they were told to excommunicate, was guilty of appalling sin; but he was not lost. He was delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might “be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” In the next epistle we find this person so overwhelmed with sorrow on account of his fall, that they were charged to confirm their love to him.
Nothing is more simple than the binding and loosing which people often make so mysterious. The only sins that the church ought to judge are those that come out so palpably as to demand public repudiation according to the word of God. The church is not to be a petty tribunal of judgment for everything. We ought never to claim the assembly’s intervention except about the evil that is so plain as to be entitled to carry the consciences of all along with it. This I take to be the meaning of binding and loosing. The former is applied when a soul comes under public discipline before the church, and the latter when he humbles himself and is formally restored. Eternal forgiveness of sins is another thing altogether. Therein popery has shown its wickedness — confounding remission in this world with the absolute and eternal forgiveness which God reserves in His own power. Protestantism has thrown away the other truth — the church’s bounden duty to judge sins in this present life.
“Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Christ.” What a remarkable change is here! Peter had confessed Him to be the Christ, the Son of the living God: now time Lord charges them that they were not to tell any man that He was the Christ — not that He was “the Son of the living God.” What is the meaning of this? It was as good as saying, It is too late; I am rejected as the Christ, or the Messiah, the Anointed of Jehovah. He is refused by Israel, and He accepts the fact. But mark another thing: “From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” (vs. 21.)
If you compare this with Luke, it comes out more distinctly. There we are told (chap. 9:20), “He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God.” Is not this striking? “The Christ of God.” “The Son of the living God” is not mentioned in Luke: consequently, nothing is said about the building of the church. How perfect is scripture! The two things go together. But in Luke it is said, “He straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing (i.e., to tell no man that He was the Christ of God); saying, The Son of man must suffer many things,” &c. He does not forbid them to tell this. There is a great distinction between “the Christ” and the “Son of man.” The latter is the title of Christ, first as rejected, and then as exalted in heaven. This is the turning point in Christ’s ministry — where He forbids the disciples to tell that He was the Christ.
The meaning is that Christ drops His Jewish title. He speaks of His church. Before the fact, He says, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” From that time He begins to show unto them how that He must “go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” Luke adds that He must first suffer. All this is connected with the building of the church, which began to be built after Christ rose from the dead, and took His place in heaven. In Ephesians the church is not even named till after Christ’s resurrection and His taking a new place in heaven have been brought out. We had God choosing the saints in Christ Jesus, but not the church. Election is an individual thing. He chose us — you and me, and all the other saints of God, wherever they are. He chose us that “we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” But when Paul has introduced Christ’s death and resurrection, he says that God “gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”
Christ was not so given till He was at the right hand of God. There His headship commences. His Sonship was from everlasting; He was a man in this world; and He was made Head of the church, after having accomplished redemption. The word of God is wiser than men: what men call foolishness is really the wisdom of God. It is our duty to give up our own theories, as much as the notions of other men. We must always bring ourselves up to the standard of God’s word — not be always correcting other people, but ourselves. The word of God is what He has written for this purpose: it is, no doubt, very useful for others, but we must honestly use it for our hearts first. When the children of Israel were going to make war with the Canaanites, the Lord appears and lets them know that they must take the knife to themselves before they take the sword against others.
But mark the solemn fact that is here recorded. Immediately after Simon had made this glorious confession of the Lord Jesus, he is called, not Peter, but Satan! How could this be? Because he savored not the things that were of God, but those that were of men. He had not said one improper word according to human judgment. He had not even indulged in haste, as was often his wont. The Lord never called mere excitement “Satan”; but He so called Peter because he sought to turn Him away from suffering and death. The secret was this: that he neither fully felt what sin was, nor what the grace of God was. He stood in the way of the Lord’s going to the cross. Was it not for Peter that He was going there? Had Peter thought of this, would he have said “Be it far from thee, Lord?” (vs. 22.) It was man; and when it is man thwarting Christ, He pronounces it Satan. “He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offense unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (vs. 23.) Peter thus feeling and acting is the true foundation of the mystery of iniquity! Yet was it the same Peter who had just confessed what was taught not by flesh and blood but by God. Truly all flesh is but grass!
Our Lord turns to the disciples, and puts before them that not merely is He going to the cross, but they must be prepared to follow Him there. If I am to be in the true path of Jesus, I must deny myself, and take up the cross, and follow not the disciples — not this church or that church, but — Jesus Himself. I must go in the very teeth of what is pleasing to my heart naturally. I must be found compassed by shame and rejection in this present evil world. If not, depend upon it, I am not following Jesus: and, remember, it is a dangerous thing to believe in Jesus without following Him. The Lord states that it must be a man losing his life as it were. At the present time much confession of Christ is comparatively an easy matter. There is little opposition, or persecution. How it proves what the heart is! People imagine that the world is changed, and they talk of progress and enlightenment. The truth is, Christians are changed; the world is but restrained in the display of its evil. “He who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.”
When that day comes, it will not be merely the usual spirit of hatred that animates the world, but God sending men a strong delusion that they should believe falsehood, and should thus be ready to receive the antichrist, the man after their own hearts. I am not foreboding woes and troubles of my own imagination, but what we find in the word of God. There is a great calm before an earthquake. The cry is of peace and safety, but there approaches fast this time of dissolution of all that men count settled and secure. That we, Christians, shall be taken up to be with our Saviour before that day comes, need not be doubted. We must look at the bright side — the coming of Jesus to take us to be in the Father’s house. But for the little while that we are here, the important thing to remember is, that, as Jesus must needs go to the cross for our deliverance, each Christian has got his cross too. Do we desire to be faithful in this? If so, we shall be sure to find it out. Let us ask ourselves whether we are found shirking our cross and not following Jesus. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take, up his cross, and follow me, For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (vs. 25.)
What lessons for our souls! The flesh easily arrogates superiority over the Spirit; and indulgence in the path of ease comes in (though of Satan) under the specious plea of love and kindness. Is the cross of Christ our glory? Are we willing to suffer in doing His will? What a delusion for His follower is present honor and enjoyment!