When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ”But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered,\”You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 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. 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.” Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
A Major Turning Point
In Matthew’s Gospel the Caesarea Philippi incident is presented as a pivotal moment. In 16:21 we are informed:
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised (ESV).
It is what happens at Caesarea Philippi that leads Jesus to commence instructing his disciples in this particular way.
What must not be missed is the parallel between this and Jesus’ declaration that he would build his church on “this rock.” That is, the crucial thing that happens is encapsulated by “this rock”, with the new content to Jesus’ instruction illustrating how Jesus will build his church on this rock.
A Revealing Context
Treatments of verses 13-20 often stress the importance of Peter’s confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v16). However, once we appreciate the extent to which the preceding context has focused on revelation, we are led to place yet greater importance on Jesus’ immediate response to Peter’s confession:
Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven (v17; ESV).
Revelation and Idolatry
In both chapters 15 and 16 Matthew explains how the Jewish religious leaders’ improper approach to revelation necessarily involves false worship or idolatry.
Chapter 15 begins with the Pharisees and scribes confronting Jesus over the failure of his disciples to observe the tradition of the elders with respect to the ceremonial washing of their hands before eating. Jesus responds by accusing them of making nonsense of God’s word by effectively according primacy to their traditions. Significantly, he refers them back to Isaiah 29:13, commenting:
This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (15:8-9; ESV).
The religious leaders represent “this people”, that is, the entire generation of Jesus’ contemporaries. The phrase “in vain do they worship me” is another way of saying that the Jewish people, as led by such Pharisees and scribes, engage in idolatrous worship, with “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” constituting idolatrous vanities.
In citing Isaiah 29:13 Jesus effectively brands the people, as represented by their religious leaders, as having idolatrous hearts which cause them to replace God’s word with traditional teaching. Jesus goes on to teach that it is from such an idolatrous, revelation-rejecting heart that all evils emanate: “evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Mt 15:19; ESV).
The uncleanness of Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries, as represented by their leaders, is immediately set in contrast with the supposed uncleanness of the Canaanite woman who implores Jesus to heal her demon-oppressed daughter. By contrast, she responds to God’s revelation in Christ with ‘great faith’, fully recognizing Jesus to be the son of David and the Master (15:21-28).
Chapter 15 concludes with Jesus performing a miraculous sign, pointing to the fact that he is even greater than Moses, through whom God had similarly provided food in a miraculous manner for his hungry people in the wilderness.
Notwithstanding this clear “sign from heaven” the Pharisees and Sadducees, proving themselves to be indeed “blind guides” (15:14; cf. Isa 56:10), incapable of interpreting such “signs of the times” (16:3), demand that Jesus show them a sign from heaven. Significantly, Jesus comments,
An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah (16:4).
Once again Jesus sees the idolatrous nature of the Jewish people (his “generation”), as epitomized by this demand on the part of their religious leaders. Once again the nexus is between idolatry and revelation.
The adjective “adulterous”, drawing on a rich vein of Old Testament invective, serves as a cutting synomym for “idolatrous.” Presupposed is the reality that the marriage covenant is the closest human analogy for understanding the essential nature of the covenant relationship between God and his people. Jesus charges Israel with ‘bedding another lover’ and the evidence of this adulterous idolatry is seeking a miraculous sign from heaven, from God. That is, instead of responding properly to God’s revelation in Christ, as, for example, illustrated by the miraculous sign just performed, these people insist on their own approach to determining ultimate truth.
Bridging this confrontation with the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Caesarea Philippi incident is Jesus’ warning to his disciples to be on their guard against the yeast, that is, the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (16:6, 12). In the course of this conversation it becomes apparent that Jesus’ disciples are indeed in danger of being like the Pharisees and Sadducees precisely because they too have been almost as blind as them in their failure to understand and interpret the significance of the great ‘signs of the times’ constituted by the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000 respectively. The failure of the disciples to respond rightly to revelation in Christ thus makes them susceptible to alternative revelation, namely the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Revelation and Grace
Considerations of 16:13-20 frequently accord primacy to Peter’s confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” However, given the background as presented above, with its focal attention on the issue of revelation, it becomes apparent that even greater weight must be placed on Jesus’ immediate response:
Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven (v17).
The Jewish people, as epitomized by their religious leaders, have idolatrous hearts that cause them to replace God-given revelation with humanly developed traditional teaching and a demand for revelation on their terms (“miraculous signs”). By contrast, the disciples, as represented by Simon, are the beneficiaries of God-given revelation. Jesus recognizes that apprehension of such revelation is a work of grace when he says “Blessed are you.”
In this exchange Simon performs a similar role vis-à-vis Jesus’ disciples as the religious leaders perform vis-à-vis the Jewish people (“these people”; “a wicked and adulterous generation”). Also, in speaking of this revelation as coming “by my Father in heaven” Matthew depicts Jesus as forging a deliberate contrast with the demand of the religious leaders for “a sign from heaven.”
The appellation “Simon bar-Jonah” is unique. Given that Jonah has just been referred to in the immediately preceding context we must ask whether the association of Simon Peter with the name Jonah is merely coincidental or involves a deeper purpose.
It is this matter we will take up later.
Posted October 4, 2009
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