(Matthew16:18) “Upon this Rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (NASB)
Today if you asked people in the street what they thought about the Lord Jesus you would get different responses. Some might say he was a good man and a humanitarian because of what He did for others. Some might see him as the leader of a religious sect that ended after He had died. Others may see him as a revolutionary who gained followers to his cause. Some might say that He made claims to divinity which cannot be substantiated. Some might even say He was a prophet.
Now in the gospel of Matthew at one time we see the Lord Jesus ask his disciples the question; “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They in turn answered Him back regarding what others had been saying about Him. Some had been saying He was John the Baptist while others said He was Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets because of the supernatural signs He had been doing among them. (Matthew 16:13-14)
As always the Lord Jesus always ‘cut to the chase’ and asked them this question; “Who do you all say I am?” (Matthew 16:15) Peter, who was somewhat impetuous and quick off the mark with his response, said to the Lord; “You are the Anointed Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16:16) In response to this the Lord Jesus said some very crucial things concerning Himself. Now let’s look at this passage of scripture from Matthew 15:16-19.
“He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” (Vs.15-16) “
The Lord Jesus was not concerned about what others had been saying about Him but His immediate concern was for His disciples to know who He was. Now Peter was the outspoken one who immediately responded almost spontaneously to the question and I think this rather delighted the Lord Jesus because of what Peter said about Him. He recognised that the Lord Jesus was not only the Anointed Messiah of Israel but that He was the Son of the Living God.
So many surrounding the Lord Jesus, including the Pharisees, were saying many things about Him and people in the streets were enamoured and fascinated by the works the Lord Jesus was doing and all of the healings and exorcisms He had been doing yet they did not comprehend who He really was. However, the opinions of men or the adulation of those who were seeking miracles, signs and wonders, did not impress the Lord Jesus at all because He knew what was in men (John 2:24-25). He knew the propensity within people to always look for the miracles, signs and wonders but not for the deeper spiritual matters that really counted.
Now Peter had confessed a truth that most people at that time in Israel did not comprehend about the Lord Jesus. Peter’s confession may have been spontaneous and without much pre-thought but it was a clear confession of whom the Lord Jesus really was. Let’s now look at how the Lord Jesus responded to Peter’s confession about Him and what it means for us as His followers.
1) God must supernaturally reveal to people who the Lord Jesus is.
(Vs.17 “And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”
It is the work of the Holy Spirit to reveal to the unsaved people in this world who the Lord Jesus really is and why He came into this world. Peter’s revelation did not come from what he saw, felt, or heard or by any of his physical sense gates. Neither was it something he had arrived at by his own powers of deduction. It was a supernatural revelation given to Him directly from God through the Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus was God and equal with God and God’s one and only begotten Son.
Peter was acknowledging the deity of the Lord Jesus, having received from above revelation knowledge about Him. When witnessing to the unsaved we can give them internal evidence from the Bible and external evidence from archaeology concerning the reliability and trustworthiness of the Bible and God can and does use these truths, but these in themselves will not bring salvation unless the blessed Holy Spirit imparts revelation knowledge concerning who the Lord Jesus really is.
We should always give the unsaved the Word of God because “faith comes from hearing and hearing with the heart by the Word of God.” (Romans 10:17) but unless that Word is accompanied by the convicting and converting power of the Holy Spirit it will not produce faith. The Word of God must always be accompanied by the Spirit’s power. (John 16:8-11) The seed is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit the water that causes the seed of the Word to germinate in the soil of the human heart producing spiritual fruit for God. (Luke 8:11) (Galatians 5:22-25)
2) God will always build His Church on the rock of revelation knowledge concerning His Son the Lord Jesus.
(Vs.18) “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”
Now the rock Jesus was speaking bout was not Peter himself. In the Greek text Peter is referred to as a rock or a stone or possibly even a pebble or a little rock (Greek- Petros) but not as the rock itself. Peter had a “rocky” and rough personality that still need work to be done on it to make is a smooth stone spiritually speaking. However, the Rock that the Lord Jesus would provide as a foundation upon which to build His Church, the Body of the Messiah, was the revelation knowledge concerning Himself. He was the Living Word of God made flesh (John 1:1-5, 14) The Greek word used for the Rock itself is the Greek word “Petra” which describes “a projecting rock or Craig or a large rock or stone.”
This rock was the Lord Jesus Himself of course but also referring to the truth that Peter had stated in his confession and that this truth would be the foundation of the Body of the Messiah for all ages. Added to this Peter had also confessed Him to be the Anointed Messiah. Satan will have a human Jesus, a good Jesus and ecumenical Jesus and a Jesus who was a prophet or even a good man or a great humanitarian but he will have nothing to do with the real Lord Jesus whom Satan knows is indeed the Son of God and “the one who through the Spirit of Holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead; Jesus the anointed Messiah our Lord.” (Romans 1:4)
Against this great foundational truth Satan and the hordes from Hades (Hell) cannot prevail against this great rock of revelation knowledge concerning our Lord Jesus. The idea of “not prevailing against the Church” does not imply a defensive action on the part of the body of the Messiah but an assault on hell itself with the message of the rock of salvation centred in the Lord Jesus. He who has defeated Satan and his hordes for all time, so that these demonic forces will never prevail against the assault made on them by the Spirit empowered, blood washed, Body of the Messiah demolishing spiritual strongholds in people’s lives in captivity to Satan and to sin. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
Paul summed up the gospel message in this way when he wrote; “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that the Anointed Messiah died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) Finally we need to see what else the Lord Jesus said…
3) God will have His Word as the foundation rock or boulder upon which our faith stands and develops.
(Vs.19) “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever * you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
The keys of the kingdom of heaven were the designated authority the Lord Jesus gave to His apostles to preach, to declare and to write doctrine. It was not centred in Peter as taught in Roman Catholicism. It was to be the apostolic doctrine upon which the wider Body of the Messiah would have as its foundation for Christian faith and living. We read in the Book of Acts that the believers firstly “devoted themselves to the apostle’s doctrine.” (Acts 2:42) Today we have apostolic doctrine in the New Testament and nothing needs to be added to the Word of God!
The idea of spiritual binding and releasing in the context of these verses is to do with doctrine not with binding and casting out evil spirits. Binding “the strong man” is used in a different context and does apply to binding Satan’s activities in the earth and in the lives of others by evil spirits. (Matthew 12:28-29) So then here the binding and releasing used in Matthew chapter 16:19 applies to the apostles doctrine. The apostles only had authority to declare the whole counsel of God and nothing more.
As Paul later writes concerning the scriptures; “we must not go beyond what is written.” (1 Corinthians 4:6) Our faith and Christian living and work within the wider Body of the Messiah must always be founded and grounded and perpetrated on the rock of the Word of God, and, if it is, then the very gates and powers of Hades will not be able to prevail against this great rock of revelation knowledge concerning the Lord Jesus, the Anointed Messiah, and the only begotten eternally existing Son of the Living God! And we have this great truth established on this Great Rock of revelation knowledge, the rock upon which God builds and sustains the Body of the Messiah and against which the gates of hell will never prevail!
