Peters Confession And Christs Church (Matthew 16:13-20)

We now come to a very significant section of the book in which the disciples faith seems to be much
stronger and Jesus program made much clearer. This is the famous passage in which Peter makes his great
confession of faith, and Jesus responds with the revelation of how He will build His church.
Reading the Text
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, Who do people say that
the Son of Man is?
14 They replied, Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the
prophets.
15 But what about you, He asked; Who do you say I am?
16 Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
17 Jesus replied, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my
Father in Heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates
of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on
earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
20 Then He warned His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ.
The Context and the Setting
We last studied the account of Jesus and the Canaanite woman in the region of Tyre and Sidon. When He
came back towards Galilee, He still was in predominantly Gentile territory towards the northeast of the sea.
There He fed the four thousand (15:32-39), showing that He was fully able to meet the needs of the
Gentiles, just as He had demonstrated that He could meet Israels needs when He fed the five thousand.
But when He returned to Jewish territory He was met with a challenging demand for a sign from heaven
(16:1-4). Jesus refused to give the Pharisees and Sadducees the kind of sign they wanted, calling them a
wicked and adulterous generation, a description of a covenant nation that was unfaithful to its covenant
Lord (drawing on the imagery of Hosea). The only sign He would give was already there in Scripture, the
sign of Jonah. But it was a different kind of sign, not one to convince people that He was the Messiah, but
one that would come afterward to confirm that He was. It was the sign of the resurrection. But by then these
enemies would have already opposed Jesus and condemned Him to death.
This challenge prompted Jesus to warn His disciples about the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees
(16:5-12). He called it yeast, because of its effects on the people. The disciples had trouble understanding
this at first, thinking that Jesus was referring to actual bread. But soon they came to see He was warning
them about their teaching. The false teaching of these religious leaders seemed to be taking a toll on wouldbe disciples, for the time of popularity in the Galilean region was now turning to opposition. Jesus and His
disciples then left the synagogue and the town for the region of Caesarea Philippi; and many of the people
were left confused between the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of the Jewish leaders. And so Jesus would
want to know what His own disciples thought of Him.
For those who have had the good pleasure to visit the land of Israel, and for those who want to and are
hopeful they will someday be able to do it, the region of Caesarea Philippi is one of the most moving spots
to visit in the light of this chapter. The city has not been worked very much by the archaeologists, but we
know where it is and where the basic structures were. But across from it at the base of mountains there is
this enormous mountain side of rock, like a solid wall stretching straight up to the heavens. At its base there
is a cave, which used to be a source for water for the Jordan River. An earthquake stopped it, and the water
now seeps up from underground and flows into rivulets and streams to become the headwaters of the
Jordan. At the entrance to this cave Philip the tetrarch over the region had built a temple to Caesar (hence,
the name was Caesarea Philippi to distinguish it from Caesarea Maritima, Caesarea by the Sea) and to the
god Pan (so it is called Banias in Arabic). There were niches carved in the wall of the rock for statues of
gods, and the temple was firmly built on the rocky plateau by the entrance of the cave.

What a setting for Matthew 16! Jesus and His disciples had left the city where there was a lot of false
teaching about Jesus, and as they came to this region, near Mount Hermon, they saw this temple with all the
statues of gods. And Jesus asked His disciples who people said He was, and who they, His disciples, think
He was. Then Jesus said that He would build His church upon a rock, but it would survive the gates of Hell.
There is evidence of some association with this cave and its temple and the underworld. And then Jesus and
His disciples continued up Mount Hermon where He was transfigured before three of them (Matthew 17).
Synoptic Passages
The account is also found in Mark 8:27-30 and Luke 9:18-22. The passage is treated similarly by all three
Gospels. They all immediately follow the event with Jesus prediction of His death. But the teaching is
found only in Matthew.
The Structure of the Passage
The structure of the passage is straight forward. In verse 13 Jesus asked the question of His identity; in
verse 14 the disciples reported. Then Jesus asked them the same question (v. 15), and Peter responded (v.
16). The rest of the passage is Jesus teaching about His program and the powerful authority given the
apostles.
The Analysis of the Text
I. The Question of Jesus Identity (13-16).
First, the narrative begins with Jesus question: Who do people say the Son of Man is? (13). Jesus asked
this question when He and His disciples came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, a city built by Herod
Philip the tetrarch on a plane about 1100 feet above sea level at the foot of Mount Hermon. The location is
25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. Here Jesus wanted to know who people thought He was. The reason
for the question was probably the changing of opinions about Jesus under the teaching of the Pharisees and
Sadducees. And, this place with its temple to Pan provided the perfect backdrop for the revelation to come.
Mark and Luke do not include Son of Man in their report. Some have suggested that the wording in
Matthew gives the answer away, Who do they say the Son of Man is? But Matthews report is probably the
original since Jesus uses this title for Himself in the Gospels, and since the title can have a somewhat
ambiguous Messianic meaning, making the question significant. The title Son of Man was clearly
Messianic in Daniel; but it could be used of the prophets as well (as in Ezekiel). Mark and Luke shortened
the question for their audiences.
Second, the answer the disciples give is: Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others
Jeremiah, or one of the prophets (14). Some thought He was John come back from the dead. Some thought
He was the forerunner of the Messiah and so Elijah. Only Matthew includes Jeremiah, the first of the latter
prophets in the canon. Perhaps some people had been struck by the authority of Jesus and His suffering as
well at the hands of the leaders. Or, He was considered a prophet of doom like Jeremiah.
No group was openly confessing Jesus as the Messiah.
There were individuals who had addressed Jesus with Messianic titles before this (9:27 and 15:22), but we
do not know how strongly they believed what they said, how much they understood, or how influential they
were. People might have thought Jesus was the Messiah, but still had misgivings about it.
Third, Jesus wanted to know if the disciples knew: Who do you say I am? (v. 15). The you is emphatic
and plural in the line; Jesus was asking all the disciples. Therefore, Peter was speaking on behalf of the
disciples when he answered.
Fourth, Peters confession was clear and direct: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Mark has:
You are the Christ. Luke has You are the Christ of God. A lot of scholars say Son of the Living God
was added by some editor. But there is no reason to take that view. The inclusion of the description provides

a better explanation of the other Gospels forms; and besides, Son of God probably indicated kingship to
Peter (based on the Davidic covenant), even though in time it came to mean divinity. The Gospels
frequently use Son of God to describe Jesus, and so it is not out of place here.
We have already noted that the Christ is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew the Messiah, meaning, the
anointed one. And since in the Old Testament the Davidic King was to be called Gods Son (Ps. 2; 2 Sam.
7), it is likely that Peter meant just that. He was convinced that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the coming
king who would miraculously heal the people and drive out the oppressors in the land. As we have noted
before, the description of Jesus as Son of God, however, is filled with meaning, and will go beyond His
description as king to His description as one who is the same as the Father. But Peter would not yet know
all that, judging from the things that he said and did after this event.
II. The Teaching of Jesus Mission (17-19).
Critical scholarship thinks that these verses should be deleted because they are not in the other gospels.
Others suggest they are simply in the wrong place. But there is good evidence to support these verses as
original and necessary. In fact, the idea of Gods revealing these things goes back to Matthew 11:25 where
the Fathers revealing Christ to people is correlated to faith. What Jesus would be saying here in the
argument of the book is that the system was working as He said in 11:25. The Father had been revealing the
Son, and Peter got the message.
Therefore, the first point in the teaching is that Jesus appraised the work of the Father in Peter (17). He said,
Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in
heaven. In spite of the leaven (teaching) of the Pharisees and Sadducees, in spite of the confusion among
the people, Peter got it right. And this, Jesus said, was revealed to Peter by the Father. The procedure had
worked; no one could know the Father or the Son unless it was revealed to them. And so the revelation of
the Son to Peter, with all the authenticating signs and miracles, was received. Such knowledge cannot
originate in flesh and blood, that is, it cannot originate from mortal flesh. It has to come from above (see 1
Cor. 15:50; Gal. 1:16; Eph. 6:12; He. 2:14).
Peters confession assumes a deeper level of understanding than other confessions that had been made.
Now, this is not the first time that he and the disciples were made aware of the Messiahship of Jesus. In fact
the disciples followed Jesus, believing that He was the Messiah. But their understanding of what Messiah
was to do was still weak. What made Peters confession so important was the fact that it came against the
backdrop of all the confusion and false teachings about Jesus. His confession of faith was so strong that
Jesus could begin talking about His death on the cross.
Second, Jesus announced that He was about to build His Church (18). This verse and the next have been at
the center of controversy for ages. In verse 18 Jesus declared, And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this
rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. The saying relies on a pun on the
name of Peter. The Aramaic name is Kepa (Cephas), and the Greek translation is Petros. The Aramaic word
means rock. But the saying on this rock uses the feminine form of the word, petra. Many have argued
that because there are two different words for rock used here, the meaning would be that Peter is a small
stone, but Christ is the rock on which the church if founded. This would be a difficult sense since Jesus said
He would build the Church; would He also be the rock on which it is built?
Or, others argue that the rock on which the Church will be built is the confession that Peter just made, the
revealed truth about Jesus. This too is a fairly common view, and there may be some reasonable support for
it. But both these views have probably been developed mostly in reaction to Roman Catholic teachings
based on this passage. And yet, to say that Peter is the rock would be the normal way to interpret the line.
However, and this is important, to say that Christ was going to build his church on the foundation of the
apostles does not in any way teach an apostolic succession, papal infallibility, or exclusive authority for
successors of Peter. Those doctrines were developed later. All the text would be saying is what the rest of
the New Testament affirms, that Christ established His Church on the apostles. Their teaching, their writing
the Scriptures, their establishing and organizing the Church, all were the necessary ways that Christ began

to build His Church.

If Matthew had wanted to make a contrast between rock (Jesus) and stone (Peter), he probably would
have used lithos for the latter. But then there would be no pun in the passageand the pun (called a
paronomasia) is the force of the line.
The metaphor of the rock is consistent with other uses in Scripture. Here Jesus will build his church; but
elsewhere Paul and the apostles build it (1 Cor. 3:10). Jesus is the foundation of the Church (1 Cor. 3:11);
but the apostles and prophets are also the foundation (Eph. 2:19,20; Rev. 21:14). Peter has the keys here; but
in Revelation 1:18 and 3:7 Jesus has the keys.
So here in Matthew 16 Jesus is the builder of the Church. The foundation will be the apostles. Peter was the
first to make this profound confession, and so he is prominent in the early church. But the other apostles
have equal authority, even to rebuke Peter (Acts 11:1-18; Gal. 2:11-14). Peter is simply first among equals.
If there had been succession, then Peters successor would have had authority over John and the other
apostles still alive. And that is not the case.
Christ will build His Church. The Church, as most people know, is the called out body of believers,
Christian congregations of people redeemed by Christ. The Church is known as the assembly of the people
of the Messiah. The people of the assembly are the people of Godbut this will be a new type of assembly.
It will differ from Old Testament congregations of believers in that Christians were now living in the new
covenantMessiah had come and that changed things. In the Old Testament congregations the people knew
nothing of the fulfillment of the promises, or of the coming of the Spirit.
But the Church is not completely identical to the kingdom either. The Church is a form of the kingdom in
that Christ rules over his Church, and people who become believers and enter the Church also enter the
kingdom. But the kingdom for which we pray will be a new order in which Christ will put down all enemies
and rule over the whole world. So there is overlap between the terms and the times they cover; but there are
distinctions as well. Jesus announced here that he was going to build His Church, indicating clearly that the
Church was a future program and not a continuation of Old Testament assemblies.
Because the Church is a part of or a form of the kingdom, nothing can prevent it from realizing its fully
promised blessings when Christ returns. It is tied to the coming kingdom of God. And so the gates of Hades
cannot prevail over it. Gates is figurative for the power or the powerful leaders of Hades (in the Hebrew
literature gates could be substituted for those who sit in the gates). Thus it would represent Satan or
Satanic forces, the powers of Hell, who inflict death and destruction on the human race. Since Jesus the
Messiah was building His assembly of believers, the powers of death and destruction could not prevail over
it. This is especially true since Christ has defeated sin, death and the grave through His resurrection. Since
He has done that, there is no power in the world below that can win over His program. The Church may
seem at times to be weak, divided, and ineffective. But that is usually the result of human leaders and
institutions creating problems; the Church itself, the company of the people of Jesus, will be victorious,
because Christ has overcome the world. Even death, a weapon of Hell, cannot destroy the true Church. It
may ruin denominations or local churches that lose sight of the vision; but the universal body of believers,
the universal Church, will be victorious.
Third, Jesus gives the keys to the kingdom to Peter (v. 19). Now the metaphor changes from rockfoundation to the keys of the kingdom. The person with the keys has the power to admit or exclude people
(Rev. 9:1-6; 20:1-3). The allusion is to the chief stewards of the monarchs (Isa. 22:15, 22). The king was
still sovereign; but whoever had the keys had authority over the house. What then was the binding and the
loosing?
A literal translation of this line would yield: whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. If this is the translation, there is no
place for earthly ministers to claim the power; they simply speak for God and enact what heaven has
enacted. Unfortunately, the history of the Church has shown many who think they have the power to admit

to heaven or confine to hell. For the many views ad arguments on the verse you can consult the
commentaries at will.
The meaning of the binding and loosing in the verse probably refers to people and not to teachings (see
18:18 for whatever). The keys then speak of the permission of entering the kingdom or being excluded
from it. The meaning of this idea is clarified by the teaching of Jesus in Luke 11:52. There Jesus denounced
the teachers by saying that they had taken away the key of knowledge and had not only failed to enter the
kingdom themselves but had hindered others from doing so. This meant that by their approach to Scripture
they were making it impossible for people under their teaching to accept the revelation about Jesus and
enter the kingdom. In strong contrast, Peter, by confessing Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, had
received the revelation and so was to be given the keys. The metaphor of the keys refers then to the
clear teaching about Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel. Peter, by proclaiming the good news of the
kingdom, which by revelation he was understanding more and more, would open the kingdom to many and
shut it to others. See Acts 2:14-39 and 3:11-26, and the result that the Lord was adding to the church those
who were to be saved (Acts 2:45). There we see how Jesus would be building His Church. But the
proclamation of the Gospel message would also alienate and exclude people as well (see Acts 4:11-12;
8:20-23).
This view then harmonizes with the translation of whatever you bind . . . will have been bound . . . and so
forth. By making the proclamation of the Gospel, the message of the kingdom, Peter would be binding and
loosing what heaven had already bound and loosed. Peter would preach the Gospel, and that preaching
would be the means by which those bound in heaven would be bound, and those loosed in heaven would be
loosed. As long as Peter proclaimed the true Gospel, he would be binding or loosing what had been bound
or loosed in heavenhe would be using the keys to the kingdom properly.
There is a strange use of these expressions among Christians today for a commanding, authoritarian form of
praying. In it people say they bind or loose evil spirits in people when praying for healing. There is no
warrant for that use of the words; the context clearly ties the keys of the kingdom to salvation, who enters
and who does not, and the authority to grant entrance and announce exclusion comes only with the
proclamation of the Gospel already revealed. When the Gospel is preached, it appears that it brings some
into the kingdom and repels others. But the Gospel being preached is only the earthly manifestation of the
heavenly process.
Are these keys given to Peter only, or to the apostles only, or to all Christians? If the keys refer to the
proclamation of the Gospel to the world, then they are the possession of all believers, because that is the
task for the church. Christs disciples were and are to be fishers of men (Matt. 4:19), lights to the world
(5:14-16), and witnesses who proclaim the message of the kingdom (10:6-42). They are also commissioned
to teach the nations all that Christ commanded (28:18-20). Even though the glorious kingdom will come
suddenly in the future, in the meantime Christ builds His church. He established it on the foundation of the
apostles; but He builds it through the proclamation of the Gospel, the accurate preaching of the word of
God. In proclaiming the Good News the people of God will make it clear how others can enter into the
kingdom, but they will also make it clear what will exclude people from the kingdom. Their message will
include and exclude. But the passage in no way teaches that they, or the apostles, have a direct pipeline to
heaven, or even worse, can make the final decision of who is bound and who is loosed. God does that, has
done that; and we by our preaching the Gospel will see it all work out, what has already been bound or
loosed in heaven. The passage is not concerned with Peters power or infallibility, but rather the role that he
and the disciples of Jesus will play in the building of the Church. Since his proclamation is the basis of
preaching about Christ, it precipitated Jesus teaching about how the Church would be built.
Finally, Jesus safeguards the method of the kingdom by forbidding publicity (v. 20). Jesus was not trying to
keep the message quiet, or his identity a secret. He was refusing to bow to the demands of the people to
declare himself with a sign. He wanted people to come to faith in Him as Peter and the disciples had done,
through the response of faith to the revelation. He wanted to make sure that they would come to Him by
faith, and not because of messianic zeal without true repentance. And He wanted to ensure that the steady
progress to the cross would not be hindered by full disclosure. After the resurrection there would be

complete proclamation to the world. The disciples were beginning to understand how all this was to work,
but they still were unclear on the death and resurrection (see 16:21-23).
Old Testament Correlation
If you have time you could study many Old Testament passages about the Messiah as the Son of the Living
God (some of these are in the archives under the daily devotions on Old Testament Christology). But there
is one passage that is parallel to this one in Isaiah 51. There the prophet writes: Look to the rock from
which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were hewn; look to Abraham your father, and to
Sarah who gave you birth. In that passage the LORD is reminding the Israelites of their heritage in the
Abrahamic Covenant. God began with Abraham and Sarah and built a nation, the people of God. Now, in a
parallel fashion, the Lord begins with Peter and the other apostles to build His Church, a ew program in the
New Covenant.
Conclusion and Application
This is one of those passages that will involve more reading of different interpretations than of simply
studying the text. And some of those views will involve a lot of passages and a lot of theological reasoning.
That may be more than most people wish to do, but it is important to understand traditions of churches. But
a careful study of the text of this passage will show how far the passage can be taken; and thereafter
teachings allegedly based on this passage will ave to be evaluated carefully. If a church denomination holds
to apostolic authority, it would have trouble proving it from this passage alone. If a church denomination is
adamantly opposed to such a teaching, it would have trouble basing its view on this passage if it sought to
remove Peter as the rock. In other words, that debate is more involved, and this passage is brought into it
because of Peter and because of the keys. The views are not going to change.
Putting aside the centuries of Christian debate on that issue, we can conclude that in this passage:
1. Peter declared his faith in the Messiahship of Jesus, the Son of God. His words fit the language of the
Bible; but in time he and the others would come to realize that those words meant more than they had
understood at the time. And as they studied the Old Testament again and again they would see that the
higher meaning of those words was in there. Today, how people answer the question, Who do you say I
am? will reveal whether or not they have faith, and so whether or not they are part of Gods program.
An aside is necessary here. Some may be satisfied that Jesus was a prophet (as Islam would claim). If He
was a prophet, then His words must be trueand He claimed to be God, and to have come to die for our
sins. If people reject that, then they cannot say He is a prophet, or at least not a true prophet.
2. Christ declared that he was going to build His church on the apostles; they would proclaim the
message of Christ, record it in Scripture, and establish the Church throughout the known world. Everything
we do today is based on the work and the teachings of the apostles, who were commissioned by Christ and
inspired by the Spirit.
3. Christ gave to the apostles and to all disciples the privilege of proclaiming the Gospel to the world, and
by that proclamation binding and loosing what was already bound and loosed in heaven. This was no
mysterious power reserved for a few; by proclaiming the Gospel one would see faith or rejection in the
hearers, and understand how the kingdom of Christ was growing in a world that often refused to enter. We
all have the keys of the kingdom because we can proclaim entrance into the kingdom. Our task is the
faithful teaching of the truth of the Gospel, even though some will be offended and refuse it. The message is
based on the person of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, and on His work, the work of
redemption.