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. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.” (Matthew 16:17–20 (ESV)
Following Peter’s confession of Christ (Matt.16:13-16), Jesus pronounced an oracle of weal, or blessing, upon His disciple. Simon received not only a unique commissioning from the Lord, but also a significant name change.
First, Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” Jesus wanted Simon to understand that it was not his innate ability that permitted him to comprehend and confess Jesus as Lord. Rather, it was through a sovereign revelation from God the Father.
“Jesus emphasizes that ‘flesh and blood,’ that is, merely human calculation, cognition, intuition, or tradition, could never have produced in this disciple’s heart and mind the insight into the sublime truth that he had just now gloriously professed,” explains Dr. William Hendricksen.
“To this disciple, and to all those similarly minded, He, this Father in heaven, had revealed (Matt. 11:25-26); and this not necessarily directly, by whispering something into the ear, but by blessing to the heart the means of grace, not the least of these means being the lessons which issued from the words and works of Jesus.”
Second, Jesus exclaimed, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” What did Jesus mean by this statement? There are many interpretations, but only one true meaning.
Some scholars say the passage is unauthentic and was never in the original text. Others argue this is biblical evidence that Simon/Peter was the first pope. Still others explain that Jesus’ statement does not implicate Simon at all.
The preferred interpretation is that Jesus said to Simon that he was a petros (little rock). Then, on this petra (large rock or bedrock), referring to Jesus, the Son of God, who God the Father revealed to Peter and who he confessed, the Lord would build His church.
“The word for “Peter,” Petros, means a small stone (John 1:42). Jesus used a play on words here with petra, which means a foundation boulder (cf. Matt. 7:24–25). Since the NT makes it abundantly clear that Christ is both the foundation (Acts 4:11–12; 1 Cor. 3:11) and the head (Eph. 5:23) of the church, it is a mistake to think that here he is giving either of those roles to Peter. There is a sense in which the apostles played a foundational role in the building of the church (Eph. 2:20), but the role of primacy is reserved for Christ alone, not assigned to Peter. So Jesus’ words here are best interpreted as a simple play on words in that a boulder-like truth came from the mouth of one who was called a small stone. Peter himself explains the imagery in his first epistle: the church is built of “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5) who, like Peter, confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Christ himself is the “cornerstone” (1 Pet. 2:6–7)” states Dr. John MacArthur.
We will examine what else Jesus had to say to Peter when next we meet. Have a blessed day in the Lord.
Soli deo Gloria!
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