Jesus affirms his answer and then changes his name.
The focus of the sermon is on three questions: Who was/is Jesus? Why does it matter? And, Who do you say he is? For time’s sake, I had to cut my explanation of Simon’s name change. What follows is what I would have said if I had a few more minutes. It’s off the cutting room floor.
Jesus changes Simon’s name, much like many of the Old Testament folks’ names are changed at a significant point in their story. The name change usually was aspirational. It spoke of who and what God was calling them to be.
Mathew 16: 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, 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.
Verse 18 is notoriously difficult to understand. To get it, you have to know that Jesus spoke in Aramaic. On that day in Caesarea Philippi, he used the word Cephas, the Aramaic word for “rock.” Matthew wrote in Greek, and the Greek word for rock is Petra. But petra is a feminine form, so it’s changed to Petros, a masculine form of the word. And that’s where we get Peter in English. But here’s the thing, nobody called their kids Cephas back then. It’s a virtually unknown name.
In The Chosen, Simon Peter's’ wife asks, “So, do I have to call you Peter, too. Or is that just for Jesus?” He says, “It’s for everyone.” And she says, “I’ve never met anyone named Peter before.” Once again, I’m impressed by how the writers have done their research.
So, to get this, you have to hear it like this: “Simon, your name is now Rock.” It probably sounded as weird to them as it does to us.
So Jesus says, “You are Rock (Cephas, Petros), and on this rock (cephas, petra [because the Greek word is feminine]) I will build my church.”
Every week, I say that understanding the Bible doesn’t have to be a mystery. By that, I don’t mean everything in the Bible is easy to understand. There are many mysterious passages, and this is one of them.
I wrote and rewrote this part of the sermon several times. I could easily spend the rest of the time we have today on this, but I want to get back to the big idea of who Jesus is, why it’s important, and who you think Jesus is. So I’m going to share with you the growing consensus opinion on what this means. If you look at this in the NIV Study Bible notes or the ESV Study Bible notes, they agree on this. Here’s what you need to know:
Because of the wordplay, the rock upon which Jesus will build his church is almost certainly Simon Peter. It just doesn’t make much sense otherwise. D.A. Carson, the top theologian in our own denomination’s seminary and one of the founders of the Gospel Coalition, holds to this position, as do many of the most respected evangelical biblical scholars. As you read the book of Acts, Peter plays a foundational role in the establishment of the church as the representative of the apostles. In Acts 2, God uses Peter’s sermon to launch the first church. For the first years of the church, he is the leader of the church, eventually passing the baton to James, the brother of Jesus. He plays a prominent role in expanding the church to non-Jews without non-Jews having to first become Jewish and follow the purity laws.
The other leading alternative interpretation is that the second rock Jesus mentions refers back to Peter’s confession. Some people have argued this is the case because Jesus used a different word for rock the second time. But that’s only in Greek and is necessitated by grammar.
Other than that argument, it’s really hard to see how we’re supposed to get that “this rock” refers back to what Peter confessed: “You are Cephas, and on this cephas, I will build my church.” It’s not impossible, but it seems to require a prior conviction that he simply could not have been talking about Peter.
A few folks throughout the years have argued that it might be a literal rock, the one in Caesarea Philippi [I will talk about this rock in the weekend sermon], and Jesus is pointing to that rock as he speaks. Centuries later, a church was indeed built on that rock. Others have argued that Jesus is referring not to the confession but to the object of the confession—himself.
All that said, the interpretation I landed on has one problem. Jesus is talking to Simon. But the second part of the first sentence shifts audiences. He says, “You are Rock.” The next phrase in the same sentence should say, “And on you I will build my church.” The only way it makes sense is if Jesus turns to the disciples and finishes the second part of the sentence. Looking at Peter, he says, “You are Rock.” Turning to the disciples, he finishes the sentence: “…and on this Rock will build my church.”
This is just one of those cases where every interpretation has some problems and you just want to ask God why it has to be so complicated. “With all due respect, what were you thinking!” I’m sure he would have an answer that would make perfect sense.
As many of you know, this verse plays an important role in Roman Catholic beliefs about apostolic succession and the papacy, but their arguments for this include other biblical passages, church tradition, and historical references to make their case since this passage says nothing about succession. There’s nothing here about others taking Peter’s place as a first among equals.
Whatever this passage means, as you read the rest of the New Testament, Jesus is clearly the ultimate foundation of the church.
The Apostle Paul says this while writing about the nature of the church. Ephesians 2: 20 [The church is] built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
Another important point from this passage is that the church that Jesus built (“I will build my church”) is central to his plan. So many people today make the church irrelevant to their faith in Jesus. If you do, I’d encourage you to look deeply at what this verse and hundreds of others say about the church’s part in God’s plan.
The church will prevail over the powers of death. There are many popular notions about what Jesus is saying here. Some, for example, speak of the church as storing the gates of hell, doing battle with the forces of evil. That’s how I’ve understood it. But serious scholars agree that given the Old Testament background to what Jesus is saying here, this is really saying that the powers of death won’t overcome the church. The church will not die.
Next time you hear someone say that if the church doesn’t get with the times on issues where it disagrees with the culture, it’s going to die, just remember this verse. Humbly and lovingly, stand firm on what Scripture stands firm on. Ironically, churches that abandon biblical teachings in order to get with the times not only cease being churches, they also predictably die as a result of becoming irrelevant.
We’ll talk about what Jesus says about handing Peter the keys to the kingdom when we get to it again later in Matthew, a later passage where Jesus says basically the same thing to all the disciples regarding the keys, not just to Peter.
