Matthew 16:13-23

Chapter 68

Prayer

Almighty God, thou art light, and in thee is no darkness at all. May we walk in the light as thy children, as children of the day, called to thy glory and called to thy service, and capable of rendering thee continual praise. May we know the high meaning of our being, may none of its lower aspects tempt us downward, may every impulse of the soul be toward thyself, and our daily yearning be for the opening of the temple gate. We are at rest in the sanctuary, we are quiet in God's house; this is God's acre for the living, not for the dead may we be here planted as living trees and as blooming flowers, made glad by every vernal glance and breeze of Heaven, and in the time to come do thou satisfy thyself with our fruits, and transplant us into the upper garden. Here may we see the inner beauty; in this place may we hear the inner music; whilst we tarry in our Father's house, may our Father's blessing fill to overflow our desirous hearts.

We have come with our weekly song; it is of mercy and not of judgment, for wherein there has been judgment it has been swallowed up of love therefore shall our song be of love and mercy, pity and care, heavenly patience and almighty protection, and high above all other notes shall be heard our acclaim because of thy tender mercy. We have walked in and out safely because thine hand has been laid upon us. No lion has been in our way, nor any ravenous beast gone up thereon, because thou hast redeemed us from all fear. We have seen the cross, and that has made us glad; we have beheld the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, and in his sight all other sights have perished. After this we can look at nothing that is little: we are transfigured by its power, we are emancipated by its grace.

We have come with our weekly confession, but thou dost meet us with eternal forgiveness, because we come to the cross and speak the all-prevailing Name. Do thou come to us according to the necessity of each heart, and rule over us with the sweet sovereignty of love; draw us by the tender compulsion of grace, give our souls a heavenly setting, and by mighty yet tender stress may they be drawn upwards in every aspiration and every thought.

Thou hast surrounded us with temptation, thou has poured down thy moods upon the roof of our life, and thou hast caused many things harmful to us to test the strength and security of our foundation. Thou hast not spared the whirlwind, a great raging storm has sought out every weak place in our life-house yet hast thou preserved us, thou hast given unto us deliverance, and in our mouth this day is a noble psalm of noble praise. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, it is because his compassions fail not that we are now in his house, and that our hearts are now in Heaven. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.

We ask thee to comfort us when our distress is keenest, put into our hands the keys of gates for which there is no other opening. We ask thee to accompany us up the hill, that in thy society we may forget its weariness. We put our whole life into thine hand; we look back upon it and we have filled it with shame, but thou hast filled it with grace: we look forward to its years yet unborn, and we meet every one of them in the strength and love of Christ. We are well when Christ is with us, the soul is glad in the Saviour's keeping there is no night in the soul in which he shines in all the tenderness of his veiled glory, nor is there any fear in the heart that is pervaded and penetrated by his holy love. This is our desire that so it may be we thus speak to thee in words which do not express all our meaning, but thou hearest the sighing of the heart and thou knowest the desire for which there is no speech. Receive our utterances of praise for mercies given, for protection vouchsafed, for travelling mercies, for home comforts, for family delights, for commercial success, for trials well borne, and for afflictions sanctified.

Put around us all thy strength, and may we feel its gentle pressure, and rejoice that our security is not human but divine. Amen.

Mat 16:13-23

13. When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi (the ancient Leshem), he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

14. And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

15. He saith unto them, But (the decisive moment!) whom say ye that I am?

16. And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

17. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon (obedient hearer) Bar-jona (son of oppression): for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

18. And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell (Hades, or kingdom of death) shall not prevail against it.

19. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

20. Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.

21. From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes (a general conspiracy), and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

22. Then Peter took him (seized him from behind) and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.

23. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence (a trap) unto me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Christ's Personality Defined

Christian history takes a new departure from this point. We now come more closely than ever upon the spirit and purpose of Christ's life and work. We have passed through the porch, and now we are about to enter the inner sanctuary.

Jesus Christ here puts a direct question to his disciples. The time had come for putting it, and it was his place to propose the vital inquiry. He seems to say to his disciples, "You have seen much work, now tell me what is thought of the worker. The doctrine and the miracle ought to have had some effect upon the minds of the people; what is that effect? I have left the public very much to form their own opinion to what conclusion concerning me have they come? I have treated you and the community in general as I treated John the Baptist when he sent two of his disciples to ask me if I was the Christ, or whether they were to look for another. You remember my reply: I said to them, 'Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see;' and then I pointed out to them the miracles which I had done, and the supreme, sublime miracle that the poor have the Gospel preached unto them; and I left the imprisoned herald to form his own opinion regarding my authority and my qualifications. It is in this way that I have treated you; I have delivered to you no lectures concerning my deity, divinity, personality; I have gone in and out amongst you, speaking the word and doing the mighty deed, and now the time has come when I may fitly ask you what is the result of it all Who am I?"

The answer of the disciples, when the question related to the public, was prompt, and not wholly satisfactory. The public had come to respectful conclusions regarding Jesus Christ. "Some say thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets." There is no mention of Beelzebub in that report of the public impression. It was a respectful reply, because the public had formed a respectful opinion. It was also historical: John the Baptist, Elias, Jeremias this man is connected with the historical and heroical past, he is a grand man: this is no common claim. Behind this fine porcelain there burns a marvellous fire; if we have to name him we will accord him an appellation that has about it the saintliness of devotion or the nobility of heroism. The opinion was conflicting yet unanimous. The people were not certain whether it was the Baptist or Elias or Jeremias or one of the prophets, but it was certainly some great man.

Jesus Christ having heard how he was regarded by the general public, brought the question nearer home. He had a subtle method of advancing upon the heart. Really his concern was not so much about the public impression as about the effect which had been produced upon the minds and hearts of those who had been nearest to him all the time. Said he, "But whom do ye say that I am?" The original is emphatic: "But ye whom say ye that I am?" The Church should always have a more distinct opinion than the world. If there are two voices about Christ, the inner voice should be louder, clearer, nobler than the outer voice. There should be no difficulty whatever in distinguishing between the man who has been a long time intimate with Christ, and any man who is simply looking upon his history from an outside standpoint. Unction should be in the voice of the one, manifold music should be involved in the one utterance and should pronounce itself in many a happy and suggestive tone. Judgment begins at the house of God, not the judgment of denunciation alone, but the judgment of true-hearted criticism. If we are uncertain about Christ, what wonder that we make an uncertain impression upon the public mind? The fire at the centre of the earth is hotter than any other fire. So in the church of Christ there should be an all-solving, all-fusing ardour of conviction.

That conviction was sublimely represented in the answer given by Simon Peter. Instantly, with the suddenness of lightning, and yet with the graciousness of light, he said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." He was never so great a man before, nor has he ever been a greater man since he returned that infinite reply. Simon Peter was transfigured by his own answer; he was no longer a meanly-clad fisherman the fire burned through his clothes: he was the tabernacle of the indwelling God. Never man spake like this man at that moment of his utterance. We know what it is to have a thought in us which transfigures the face and makes the countenance shine with unearthly lustre. The great speaker is always surprised by his own utterances, and suddenly there falls upon him an all-transfiguring fire from Heaven the very flesh is a new flesh, and every pore of it an outlet for the inner light. Could we have seen Peter then, we should have seen him at his best he has never been the same since. Some moments in life can never be repeated. There are some firsts which have no seconds, there are voices which seem to have no echoes once for all their ineffable music rolls itself over the welcoming spaces, and it can never be repeated.

Yet in that very hour Simon Peter was not only transfigured, he was humbled. Beyond a certain line we cannot be allowed to go. Jesus Christ said to him, "Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jona," why? Because of wit, genius, cleverness, superiority of mental energy? Nothing of the kind. But blessed art thou because this is not an answer of thine own suggestion, nor art thou repeating what any book has taught thee, nor art thou saying in thine own words what flesh and blood hath thought or conceived. This is nothing but the voice of the divine in the human: this is a revelation of God, this is an announcement from the skies thou hast this treasure in earthen vessels, the excellency of the power is of God and not of thee. So lest the little trumpet should be proud of its own blast, Christ took it and held it up and said, "It was God's breath that startled thee into the energy of that grand music." Thus gently are we chided, rebuked in the midst of blessing, kept right in the very hour of our inspiration, and brought down from the mountain to be told that we should never have ascended so high but for the directing eye and the protecting hand of God.

Not only was Simon Peter transfigured by the indwelling presence, and humbled by the divinely granted and not humanly conceived revelation, but he was exalted as no man before him was ever lifted up. Humanly speaking, he surprised Christ into a new revelation. Jesus instantly handed Peter the keys. There is no difficulty in understanding the handing the keys to such a man in such a moment. Inspiration always carries the keys. No need of angry controversy or grammatical wordiness or critical inquiry into the exact meaning of the term, "the keys." This kind can only be understood by such minds as have almost realized the fulness and the elevation of inspiration itself. When you are inspired you have the keys. In your sublimest moods, when earth fades into a fleck hardly to be seen, and heaven crowds itself in noble fellowship upon your soul, the whole man is lifted up in an ecstasy divine. In that hour the church holds the keys. You do not hold the keys because of hereditary descent, or ecclesiastical relationship, or mechanical contrivance, or superior patronage you hold the keys only so long as you realize the inspiration. And no man can take those keys from you; everywhere the inspired man keeps the keys in merchandise, in statesmanship, in philosophy, in adventure, in religious thinking, in Christian civilization, you cannot keep down the inspired man. It is as if Christ had said: "Thou art filled with the Holy Ghost; this is oneness with God, this is pre-resurrection and pre-glorification this is the very wisdom of heaven, and therefore I say unto thee, the keys are thine."

How Christ ennobled the occasion, and how Peter evoked the new revelation of Christ himself! Christ never spake in this tone before. We sometimes surprise ourselves into new conditions, so that we become in a degree new selves and are a surprise to our own consciousness. Jesus Christ never made any occasion little. He always saw the best of every man, and never did he withhold from any human soul the meed of commendation which seemed to be due. He was all grace. Said he, "Ye are the light of the world, ye are the salt of the earth, ye are a city set on a hill. Blessed art thou, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven." If we have fallen below the occasion, the fault is in us and not in the Master. He now waits to see the proofs of our inspiration, and then he will not withhold the keys. We are not now inspir. ed. We are clever, we are learned, we are respectable, we are orthodox, we are correct, we are negatively blameless; but Inspiration, Enthusiasm, Ecstasy these angels we have succeeded in strangling

From this point a new and closer fellowship is set up between Jesus Christ and His disciples. They were now bound together by a new secret; one glimpse of the true light had been vouchsafed to the followers the spiritual Christ had been revealed, and their nature was sanctified by a new inspiration; a great expectation was created in them, and that great expectation was confounded by temporary shame. Mark the compression of the twenty-first verse: "From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." The whole tragedy is crushed into that one inch of space. There is nothing more to be said. The cross is there, the bloody sweat, the mortal agony, the last gasp, the resurrection glory. He must go not that he would go, but something more he must go. The pressure of eternity was upon him, destiny beckoned him, supreme purposes gather themselves up into one grand appeal and claimed him.

He must suffer. We have regarded suffering as an accident, we have debased it into an affliction; the heroic aspects of suffering and sacrificial outcomes of endurance and discipline we have forgotten or allowed to fall into disesteem. Jesus Christ saw that to get to any crown worth wearing, he must go through suffering, he must be killed. He talked to himself in plain language: every man who is going to undertake any solemn business in life ought to set it down before himself in the tongue in which he was born, in the plainest terms which that tongue can supply. Do not shut your eyes and then run into anything that may happen to turn up; be master of the situation by forecasting it. Why should we be living a life of continual surprise as to trial and danger and affliction and pressure of various kinds? Why not put it all down in cold ink, in plain words, and look at it as a fact, then live it, syllable by syllable, till the last tone has died upon the air which has listened to the whole frightful tragedy?

Herein have we been blessed by the Almighty with sufficient knowledge of the future. We can tell that every one of us whose life is set in the right direction must go to Jerusalem, must suffer, and must be killed. Better for us to say all that to ourselves than be shutting our ears and closing our eyes and leaving the world to announce it in harsh and destructive tones. Commune with the tragedies that are about to befall you, charm from them their solemn secret; by long, faithful, honest communion with the suffering which must befall life, you may be enabled to say in the long run, when the great encounter transpires, "O death, where is thy sting?"

But Jesus not only spoke of his going to Jerusalem, of his suffering and his killing, but of his resurrection. We break off the story too soon, we have a long tale of complaint and reproach and pining and sadness, and too frequently is the sob too thick and strong in our throat to allow us to utter the word which would dissolve the cloud and make us men again. We talk too much of our discipline and suffering and slaughter, and say too little about the promised and inevitable resurrection. He who speaks the word "death" in the same sentence with the word "resurrection" will forget the overthrow in the exaltation.

Now we return to inquire how things stand with Peter, and we read this statement, "Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But Christ turned and said, Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou art an offence unto me," and Peter lost the keys his binding and loosing power was taken from him in that instant! He who was the blessed one a short hour since was ordered behind like a dog. The church lives on its own good behaviour; you cannot live upon yesterday's inspiration today. Every morning brings its own dew; every morning must bring its own inspiration. To tell me that as a church you were inspired seven years ago, and therefore you are inspired today, is to speak irrationally if not wickedly. There is no inspiration seven years old or seven days old. God will depose the mightiest prince amongst us when that prince loses his inspiration. You cannot live upon the bread you ate twelve months ago your prayer is, "Give us this day our daily bread." As with the body, so with the soul. The grace that ennobled your youth must be renewed day by day, or it will never mellow your old age.

So Peter fell. Christ names us just as swiftly as we do our deed. "Blessed art thou," and Peter seemed to stand in the sun. "Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto me, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." He had fallen back again to the human point; he who had touched the divine glory fell into the dust trodden by the feet of men, and he was no longer either blessed with a benediction or entrusted with an authority.

Christ himself never fell below the divine. In no instance can you lay your finger upon a single line which contains the announcement that for one moment the great life faltered. Every other life hesitated, had its spasms of virtue, its sunshiny hours, its unfaithful actions, but I cannot find a line in all the Book in which Jesus Christ falls below the purpose with which he began his life. In such a consistency there ought to be some force of logic.

How subtle was this temptation. It came from a friend, from the first friend, the senior disciple surely there could be no poison in such a suggestion; it sprang from the heart, it was the utterance of tender compassion and protective sympathy. It came from a friend just honoured, from a man to whom the Lord had just granted the sublimest revelation. It was a generous thought the intention was to spare suffering; it was the voice of nature. Peter could not endure that his Lord should be so treated. Yet such a temptation fell impotently upon Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ's fundamental principle was this: that whatever was not sacrificial was Satanic. A philosophy in a sentence, an inspiration in a breath! Written in his heart, inscribed in his mind, higher than Pilate's superscription engraven on his cross, was the profound philosophy

Whatever is not sacrificial is Satanic.