Notes for the Ekklesia Meeting
Sundays @ 10:00 a.m. Info: (651) 283-0568 www.dtminc.org Today’s Date: May 29, 2005
by Dan Trygg
"He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am? [Lit., "Whom do you say Me to be?"]’ 16 Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ 17 And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’" Matt. 16:15-18
The Church’s Foundation
The core of Peter’s confession was that Jesus was the King, the Anointed One (= Christ = Messiah) of God. Peter’s insight and confession form the bedrock of the new congregation of God’s people, a multitude gathered and assembled from every tribe, tongue, people and nation to begin the Kingdom assault on planet earth.
The "Peter Problem"
Some have misunderstood the emphasis of Jesus’ words to mean that Peter was somehow special, that special authority would be given to him above the other disciples. That perception totally misses the point of Jesus’ affirmation.
First, the word "blessed" [Gk., makarios] simply means "happy" or "fortunate". It is a congratulatory exclamation. It’s as if Jesus said, "Good for you, Simon, because you understood what the Father has showed you." A different word [eulogeo] was used to invoke a blessing upon someone else. In other words, Jesus was not saying, "I bless you, Simon", rather, He was just saying, "Hey, great!"
Secondly, the statement that God, not flesh and blood, was the source of this insight did not set Peter apart from other believers. "Flesh and blood" was a phrase used to describe humanity in its natural state (I Cor. 15:50; Eph. 6:12; Heb. 2:14). All Jesus was saying was that this insight was not by Peter’s human ingenuity or intelligence. It came as a revelation from God. Only a short time before, right after Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000, the Lord had said that no one could come to Jesus, unless the Father drew him. In fact, quoting from Isa. 54:13, Jesus said that all those who come to Him would be "taught by God" (Jn. 6:44,45). To use Isaiah’s words, "This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD."
Thirdly, the Peter/petra comparison does not at all identify Simon Peter as the "rock upon which [Jesus] will build [His] church." To what am I referring? In John 1:42, when Jesus originally met Simon, He gave him the nickname, Cephas, the Aramaic equivalent for Peter, both names meaning "rock" (cf. Lk. 6:14). On a surface reading of the English, then, it would appear that Jesus is saying, "You are Rock (Peter), and upon this rock I will build my church." It looks as though Jesus is identifying Simon Peter as the foundation for the church. The Greek, however, tells a different story. The word for Peter is petros, a masculine noun meaning, a stone, boulder, or detached fragment of rock, while the word translated as "rock" on the second occasion is petra, a feminine noun referring to the underlying bedrock, a rocky crag, or a rock cliff (Matt. 7:24,25; 27:51,60; I Cor. 10:4; Rev. 6:15,16). So, actually Jesus is making a distinction between Peter and the bedrock. Peter is only representative of a "chip off the block", so to speak. What is the bedrock, then? The realization and affirmation which Peter had expressed, namely that Jesus was the King. Therefore, Peter, as a detached stone, would be one of the foundation stones laid upon the bedrock (petra), but he was not the foundation itself. As Paul says, "There is no other foundation able to be placed beyond the one existing, who is Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 3:11).
Fourth, in the book of I Peter, Peter himself uses the image of Jesus as a living stone, by men having been rejected but precious and chosen by God. We are like living stones being built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices well-pleasing to God by means of Jesus Christ. After saying this, Peter quotes several OT passages which are clearly prophetic about Jesus as the object of faith (2:6), and the "bedrock (petra) of offense" over which the disobedient stumble (vs. 8). Notice that he never claims any special place for himself in this word picture. His focus is on Jesus as the bedrock, not himself.
Fifth, some believe that Jesus’ reference to giving Peter the "keys of the Kingdom of heaven" and the power to "bind and loose", mentioned in vs. 19, sets Peter apart from all others. The "keys to the Kingdom of heaven" refer to that which opens the way into the Kingdom. What can that be but faith in Christ? The "keys" are simply the message of the good news regarding who Jesus is, why He came, and the invitation to follow Him as King. Since Peter was the first to clearly confess the truth of who Jesus is, he also was the first one to utilize the "keys" by his confession. The binding (forbidding) and loosing (permitting) capabilities of which Jesus spoke on this occasion are extended to all the disciples in Matt. 18:18. They are not special prerogatives enjoyed by Peter alone, anymore than the employment of the "keys" to entering the Kingdom of heaven belong to him alone.
Finally, the fact that the disciples soon would be disputing which of them was the greatest, and would do so repeatedly (Matt. 18:1; 20:20-28; Lk. 22:24-30), indicates that none of them, including Peter, understood Jesus’ words to him at Caesarea Philippi as giving him any special authority, place or position among the apostles. It would have been so easy for Peter to make a claim based upon this incident, if it could be perceived as placing him above the others, but he never does so.
Building Up A People
The language that Jesus used next would have sounded very different to the ears of the disciples than it does to us. First of all, the employment of two words by Jesus in this phrase would have perked up the ears of these Jewish men in a way that gentiles of that time, and modern people of our time, would have missed entirely. The first significant word is "I will build". It was common enough Greek word for constructing houses, repairing and strengthening them, if needed. Metaphorically, it was used for building up individuals with encouragement and teaching. What was absent in Greek usage, however, was the notion of building up a nation or a group of people. However, that particular usage was employed several times, with forms of the same word Jesus used here in Matt. 16, by the prophet Jeremiah, in the Septuagint Greek translation of the OT. (The Septuagint translation would have been familiar to Galilean Jews, as well as Jews dispersed outside of Palestine.) God had appointed Jeremiah as a prophet over the nations, at times to pluck up and destroy, and at other times to build up and to plant (1:10). After allowing Israel to be defeated and exiled for their sins, God promised that He would regather them from the nations where they had been scattered, and would turn His eyes toward them for good, to build them up and to plant them once again in the land (24:6). They would be built up again and would celebrate in the land (31:4). God promised to restore their fortunes, and to rebuild them as He had before (33:7). So, the language Jesus used here at Caesarea Philippi would have been very familiar to the twelve. They would have understood that Jesus was going to establish, grow and prosper a people.
The second significant term which Jesus used was the Greek word, ekklesia. He said, "…upon this bed-rock I will build My ekklesia…" This Greek word meant "assembly", literally, "those ‘called out’ for a purpose". It was a term used in both Greek and Jewish cultures, but in both it was a fairly non-descriptive, generic term. In the Septuagint, it had been used for the congregation of Israel, but it was not used for the specifically religious gatherings. The term which had been commonly used for those was "synagogue", which continues to be used today. So, when Jesus uttered these words, His disciples would have recognized immediately that the Lord was saying that He was going to build up a congregation of people. While there was continuity with the congregation of OT saints, there was also a difference. Jesus was not going to be simply continuing the synagogue system that He and His disciples had grown up with. This was important for the Jewish readers of Matthew’s gospel to understand. Being a Christian meant that you did not have to separate from your OT heritage, but, on the other hand, it did mean that you weren’t going to be doing what other Jewish people were doing. Jesus was calling out His people for a purpose, …and it wasn’t to "play synagogue".
Called Out For A Purpose
What is this mysterious purpose? Jesus did not go in to much detail here, but what He did say will rock your world, if you truly grasp it. He said, "…and the gates of Hades will not be able to prevail against her…" The target is the very gates of the underworld. In those days, attacking a city meant trying to break down, burn, or open the gates of the city under assault, so that your armies could enter and wrest control away from the enemy. The gates were the most vulnerable place to focus the attack. The church is "called out" to assail the strongholds of the enemy, to defeat his forces, and liberate people for Jesus. We are to be an aggressive force to go out and take ground away from Satan.
No comments:
Post a Comment