God created all things for His glory when He called into existence this world and the vast system of the universe. His object was that unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, or angelic hosts. He should make known by means of the Church what the Apostle calls "His manifold [all-various] wisdom." (Eph. 3.) In other words, He reserved in His own bosom this master-piece of divine wisdom— this chiefest of all revelations. This Church shows His all-various wisdom which comprises without distinction, poor sinners, associating them with Himself, and attaching them to the Lord Jesus Christ in a living, organic, intimate unity. The saints on the earth become linked up and one with the glorified Christ, the head of the mystic object.
In Matthew's gospel we find the first historical mention of this wonderful truth. It is not given to us in Mark, Luke, or John. I think it appropriate that it should be so, because in Matthew we have the dispensational character of truth.
Dispensational Truth
Christ is presented as the King, as the Son of David and of Abraham. The Evangelist Matthew presents the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to us as the One who was brought before His people Israel in responsibility to be accepted or rejected by them. The culminating point is in the 12Th chapter, and the deliberate choice is made by those who professed to have their eyes opened. They attribute the works of God to the power of Beelzebub in loosing poor souls from the power of Satan. For this character of wickedness, for this blindness, there can be no forgiveness, either in that age or in the age to come.
We find therefore, the 13th chapter marking a new commencement and opening with the parable of the sower. He brings before His disciples what He is pleased to call the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, when the nation openly refuses to receive Him as their King. He brings before them things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world, and tells them what character the kingdom of heaven would assume.
Those beautiful parables—the treasure hid in the field and the merchantman seeking goodly pearls, occur in this 13th chapter of Matthew. In these parables, the Lord is alluding to the blessed truth on which He elaborates in Matt. 16. The previous chapters, from the 13th on, give us His progress in different parts of the Holy Land, until we find Him in the coasts of Tire and Sidon.
Goodly Pearls
There, being still followed by great crowds, He escapes from them to the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi—built by Herod Philip for his own self-glorification. The Lord brings the disciples here in order that they might have more freedom and privacy for their own communion. The Lord wanted to be alone with them. There are times when the Lord works with us in the crowded streets and there are times when He likes to meet us alone. Yet it is always for blessing, and always with a deep sense of His love in our souls.
From the map in the back of your Bible you will see that this city, Caesarea Philippi, is very near the ancient city of Dan. We see from 2 Kings that Dan was the place that Jeroboam chase to be his capital, in which he erected an altar to divert the hearts of the people from that which was the true place where Israel ought to worship. God sets His mark on what it was in His eyes, because He always says in connection with that man. "He made My people to sin." Here the city was in ruins, crumbling into dust a picture of the works of man.
An Object Lesson
The Lord uses this as an object lesson for His disciples, contrasting it to the revelation He was about to make, which should stand forever, and against which the gates of Hades would be powerless. The Lord begins by asking in Matt. 16 verse 13, "Whom do men say that 1, the Son of man, am?" The disciples answer that some said one thing, some another, but all were wrong. You will find no definite certainty in the thoughts of man, only probabilities. It is only God who can present things as they arc, with the truth. He has done so in a Person, in His own beloved Son, the One who could say. "I am the way, the truth, and the life." So much for the vanity of men's opinions. The Lord dismisses them without any comment whatever, and puts this searching question to the disciples.
If you could see Him standing here and from His own lips hear this question, "Whom say ye that I am?" could you answer as Peter did? Can you say, as the Apostle John could: "We know that the Son of God has come, and He has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ"?
A Perfect Library
Your mind may be a perfect library of the opinions of men, and you will still be no nearer the truth than were those wise men among Israel. They were all wrong. "Whom say ye that I am?" In this your salvation rests—not in your acquaintance with the opinions of men.
“Whom say ye that I am?" Peter answers. "Thou art the Christ." We know from the Gospel of John that it was this that first engaged the heart of Peter. Philip says. "We have found Him. of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." John 1:45. He was the fulfiller of 311 God's promises, the anointed One, the Messiah.
John refers to this as being the cardinal point with the soul that knows God when he says. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.”
John 5:1. You may believe many things about Him. but unless you believe Him to be the fulfiller of all God's promises in connection with His people, and the anointed One of the Holy Spirit whom God proclaimed to be His own San, then you are not born of God, however upright and good you may be. The spark is absent from your soul, which makes all the difference between those who are dead in trespasses and sins, and those who are alive in Him.
Peter had heard of the Father's own message concerning His Son at the waters of Jordan.
The Spokesman
Now, becoming the spokesman of the other disciples, he makes the confession "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Then the Lord says to Him, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona." How one admires the perfect wisdom of the blessed One in so addressing His own servant. He takes Peter back into his past; he was Simon Bar-jona. And you and I, who know our sins forgiven for His name's sake, what are we? Each one of us knows that in himself he is nothing but Simon Bar-jona still, It is only the Lord Jesus who can change our name. "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven." Those people were wise in their guesses about who He was, hut we have divine certainty. It is the word of the Father to draw to the Lord, and when we are drawn, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to make that work effective in our hearts.
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church." We all know how, from an error in translation, an entirely false impression has been given here. The Lord's meaning was to put a pointed contrast between His servant and that which He speaks of as being the foundation. "Thou art Peter," the stone. The Lord contrasts our old name with this new name He has given us.
Contrast of Names
We are "Peters"—each a stone in this wonderful edifice, mid built upon a rock or foundation of the same material. Now what is this rock? It is primarily Christ Himself. He becomes the foundation of a new thing. He says, "I will build." Not a single stone had been laid in position at that moment. The saints in the Old Testament, glorious us they are, do not form a part of this. The Lord does not say, "I have built," but "upon this rock [Himself! I will build.”
In Eph. 2:20 it says, "and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone." While the Lord is the foundation of all blessing, yet in responsibility and in administration of this wonderful thing, it is built practically on the confession by man of the Person of Christ.
It is unfortunate that the word "church" has, by usage, become associated with a material thing. a building erected by man. The word "assembly" conveys the thought here more accurately. The Lord was going to erect a spiritual building. "And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." While Dan was in ruins and Caesarea Philippi destined for a similar fate, yet nothing could prevail against this wonderful thing connected with the source of eternal fife and the Son of the living God.
In connection with the 19th verse of Matthew chapter 16, we know that there has been most unhappy confusion between the Lord's words "My Church" and His words here "the kingdom of heaven."
Revisit His People
John the Baptist preached the immediate coming of "the kingdom of the heavens" revealed in the person of Christ. God had always maintained His kingly claims, and was about to revisit His people. The kingdom of the heavens had drawn near. This is very different from the Church. You don't build with keys. Yet such is man's ignorance, and it is commonly thought that Peter is given a couple of keys to do it with. Peter does not have the keys of the Church, but the Lord has given him the keys of the kingdom. The "kingdom" includes professing Christians: the Church is composed of living stones only. Christ builds His living stones on a living foundation, and no man has any power to undo Christ's work. But Christ has given Peter the keys of the kingdom of the heavens. In the Acts we see him use them in administering blessing to Jew and Gentile.
It is very precious to note how God has so controlled His servants, that each of them presents to us different aspects of the same truths. Peter speaks of newborn babes who desire the sincere milk of the Word. (1 Peter 2:2-5.) The Prophet Jeremiah could say. "Thy words were found, and I did eat them." We want to receive God's Word in our hearts just as little children take unquestioningly of the milk which is their natural food.
In 1 Peter 2, Peter goes on: "To whom coming, as unto a living stone. disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house." How precious that God should plan and prepare all these living stones in the past eternity for His glory. Like the stones that Solomon prepared for the temple, there was no noise of ax or hammer when that great edifice was erected.
No Noise
Every stone was prepared by the workmen, ready to be put in its allotted place when brought to the Lord's house.
We come to Christ, who is the foundation, and are joined with Him in this wonderful spiritual house.
In one sense we are the house, and in another sense we minister in the house. "A holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices." What precious words to apply practically to our hearts, contemplating the Lord's overflowing mercy, grace and loving-kindness! He has brought us to Himself. He has built us on Himself as living stones, with the same material, spiritually, as the foundation itself. We have a life hid in Christ with God, and we have a holy priesthood and are to offer up spiritual sacrifices. This alone is acceptable to God, because it is presented in that same name He delights in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord enable us to know how to take our places as living stones on this glorious foundation, to know what it is, as holy priests, to worship God in spirit and in truth, as He desires that His saints should worship Him. F. Lavington