3  The Supreme  Confession  (16:13-17)

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He began asking His disciples, saying, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” (16:13-17)

This passage represents the climax of Jesus’ teaching ministry. It was, in effect, the apostles’ final examination, consisting of but one question, the ultimate question that every human being must face: Who is Jesus Christ? A person’s answer is of the most monumental importance, because on it hinges his eternal destiny. It is a question that no one can escape or avoid. Every soul, as it were, will be pinned against the wall of eternity and forced to answer that question.

For some two and a half years Jesus had been moving to this moment—teaching and reteaching, affirming and reaffirming, demonstrating and redemonstrating, building and rebuilding the truth of who He was in order to establish it completely and securely in the minds and hearts of the Twelve.

During the previous several months the Lord had largely shunned the crowds and the Jewish leaders. His few encounters with them were brief and terse. The misguided multitudes wanted to make Him their political deliverer from the military bondage of Rome and the capricious ambitions of Herod. The scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees were, for the most part, thoroughly convinced He was a threat to their religious system and were determined to be rid of Him, if necessary by taking His life.

As He spent more and more time alone with the Twelve, Jesus went more often into Gentile territory and stayed longer. He withdrew to the fringes of Palestine in order to be free of the misguided and fickle adulation of the multitudes and the growing hostility of the Jewish religious leaders.

THE SETTING

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, (16:13a)

The city of Caesarea Philippi was originally named Paneas (or Panias), after the Greek god Pan, who, according to pagan mythology, was born in a nearby cave. Caesar Augustus had given the region to Herod the Great, who built a temple in Paneas in honor of the emperor. Herod’s son, Philip the tetrarch, inherited the land, greatly enlarged the city, and renamed it after Caesar. He added the name Philippi both to gain honor for himself and to distinguish this Caesarea from the one on the Mediterranean coast west of Jerusalem.

Caesarea Philippi was located some 25 miles northeast of the Sea of Galilee and 40 miles southwest of Damascus, on a beautiful plateau near the headwaters of the Jordan River. A few miles to the north, snow-covered Mount Hermon rose to a height of more than 9,000 feet above sea level. On clear days the majestic mountain can easily be seen from northern Galilee towns such as Capernaum, Cana, and Nazareth.

Caesarea Philippi was but a few miles from the ancient Jewish city of Dan, which for centuries had been considered the northernmost boundary of the Promised Land, the southernmost being Beersheba (see Judg. 20:1; 1 Chron. 21:2). On the north it was the last outpost of Israel and had always been especially susceptible to pagan influence.

The location offered Jesus and the disciples welcome relief from the hot Galilean lowlands and from the pressure of the Jewish leaders and the threat from Herod Antipas.

From Luke 9:18 we learn that Jesus posed His all-important question to the disciples just after He had spent time praying alone, and from Mark 8:27 that the group had not yet arrived in the city of Caesarea Philippi proper but were passing through some of the villages on the outskirts. At this crossroads of heathenism and Judaism Jesus left a time of intimate fellowship with His heavenly Father and confronted His disciples with the question that every person and every religion must one day answer.

THE EXAMINATION

He began asking His disciples, saying, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” (16:13b-15)

Son of Man was Jesus’ most common designation of Himself and is used of Him some eighty times in the New Testament. It was clearly recognized by Jews as a title of the Messiah (see Dan. 7:13); but because it emphasized His humanness, many Jews preferred not to use it. No doubt it was for that reason that Jesus did prefer it—to focus on the humiliation and submission of His first coming and His work of sacrificial, substitutionary atonement.

Jesus’ priority ministry in the world was to reveal Himself, to teach and to demonstrate who He was. He therefore began the examination by asking His disciples, . . . “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” The people to whom the Lord referred were the Jews, God’s chosen people, to whom the Messiah was sent first (Rom. 1:16; cf. John 4:22).

It was not that Jesus was unaware of what the people were saying about Him but that He wanted the Twelve to think carefully about those popular perceptions. He was not concerned about the opinions of the unbelieving and hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, some of whom had even accused Him of being in league with Satan (Matt. 10:25; 12:24). He was rather asking about the thoughts of those who looked on Him positively, although uncertainly, and who recognized Him to be more than an ordinary religious leader. After hearing His teaching and witnessing His miracles, what was their final verdict about Jesus, the Son of Man?

“Some say John the Baptist,” the Twelve replied. Perhaps following the frightened assessment of Herod the tetrarch (Matt. 14:1-2), some of the Jews believed Jesus was a reincarnated John the Baptist, come back from the grave to continue his ministry of announcing the Messiah. Like Herod, those people recognized that Jesus’ miraculous power was unexplainable on a human basis.

Others believed Jesus was a reincarnated Elijah, considered by most Jews to be the supreme Old Testament prophet, whom the Lord was to send again “before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5). In modern Jewish Passover celebrations an empty chair is reserved at the table for Elijah, in the hope of his one day coming to announce the Messiah’s arrival.

Still others said Jesus was Jeremiah, another of the most revered prophets. In the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees (2:4-8), Jeremiah is said to have taken the Ark of the Covenant and the altar of incense out of the Temple and hidden them on Mount Nebo in order to preserve them from desecration and destruction by the Babylonians. Some Jews thought that before the Messiah returned to establish His kingdom, Jeremiah would return to earth and restore the Ark and the altar to their proper places in the Temple. The same apocryphal book pictures a white-bearded Jeremiah handing a golden sword to the great Jewish hero Judas Maccabaeus to use in overthrowing the Greeks (15:12-16).

Some of the people perhaps saw in Jesus something of the character and message of John the Baptist. Some saw in Him the fire and intensity of Elijah; and still others saw in Him the lament and grief of Jeremiah. In all three of those identities, however, Jesus was thought to be only the Messiah’s forerunner, who had come back to life with God-given miraculous powers.

The rest of the people who recognized Jesus’ uniqueness did not speculate about His particular identity but simply considered Him to be one of the prophets who was “risen again” (see Luke 9:19).

In each instance the people considered Jesus to be a forerunner of the Messiah but not the Messiah Himself. They could not deny His supernatural power, but they would not accept Him as Messiah and Savior. They came as close to God’s ultimate truth as they could without fully recognizing and accepting it.

Since Jesus’ day, much of the world has similarly wanted to speak highly of Him without recognizing His deity and lordship. Pilate said, “I find no guilt in this man” (Luke 23:4). Napoleon said, “I know men, and Jesus was no mere man.” Diderot referred to Jesus as “the unsurpassed,” Strauss, the German rationalist, as “the highest model of religion,” John Stuart Mill as “the guide of humanity,” the French atheist Renan as “the greatest among the sons of men,” Theodore Parker as “a youth with God in His heart,” and Robert Owens as “the irreproachable one.” Some in our own day have called Him the ultimate Superstar. But all those titles and descriptions fall short of identifying Jesus as He fully is—the Messiah, God in human flesh.

After the disciples reported what the multitudes were saying about Him, Jesus then asked, “But who do you say that I am?” The Twelve knew that most of the people’s views of Jesus were inadequate. Now they had to answer for themselves.

THE CONFESSION

And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (16:16)

As usual (see, e.g., Matt. 15:15; 19:27; John 6:68), Simon Peter was the spokesman, “the director of the apostolic choir,” as Chrysostom called him. Also as usual, his comments were brief, emphatic, and decisive: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah, God’s predicted and long-awaited deliverer of Israel, the supreme “Anointed One,” the coming High Priest, King, Prophet, and Savior. Without hesitation Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah, whereas the multitudes of Jews believed Him to be only the Messiah’s precursor.

On first meeting Jesus, Andrew had excitedly proclaimed Him to be the Messiah, and Nathaniel had called Him “the Son of God . . . the King of Israel” (John 1:41, 49). The disciples knew that John the Baptist had borne witness that Jesus “is the Son of God” (John 1:34), and the longer they stayed with Him, the more evidence they had of His divine nature, power, and authority.

Like their fellow Jews, however, they had been taught to expect a conquering and reigning Messiah who would deliver God’s people from their enemies and establish forever His righteous kingdom on earth. And when Jesus refused to use His miraculous power for His own benefit or to oppose the Roman oppressors, the disciples wondered if they were right about Jesus’ identity. His humility, meekness, and subservience were in total contrast to their preconceived views of the Messiah. That the Messiah would be ridiculed with impunity, not to mention persecuted and executed, was inconceivable. When Jesus spoke of His going away and coming back, Thomas doubtlessly echoed the consternation of all the disciples when he said, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” (John 14:5).

It was similar bewilderment that caused John the Baptist to question his earlier affirmation of Jesus’ messiahship. “When John in prison heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples, and said to Him, ‘Are you the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?’” (Matt. 11:1-3). Jesus’ miracles were clear evidence of His messiahship, but His failure to use those powers to overthrow Rome and establish His earthly kingdom brought Jesus’ identity into question even with the godly, Spirit-filled John.

Like John the Baptist, the Twelve fluctuated between moments of great faith and of grave doubt. They could proclaim with deep conviction, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69). They could also display remarkable lack of faith and discernment, even after witnessing hundreds of healings and dramatic demonstrations of supernatural power (see Matt. 8:26; 14:31; 16:8). They were sometimes strong in faith and sometimes weak. Jesus frequently spoke of their “little faith.”

Now, at last, the truth of Jesus’ divinity and messiahship was established in their minds beyond question. They would still experience times of weakness and confusion about what Jesus said and did, but they would no longer doubt who it was who said and did them. He was indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God. God’s own Spirit had now imbedded the truth indelibly in their hearts.

It took two and a half years for them to come to this place of confession, through the struggles and hatred of the Jewish religious leaders, the mounting fickleness and rejection of the people, and their own confusion about what the Messiah had come to do. But without question they now knew He was the fulfiller of their hopes, the source of their salvation, the desire of the nations.

On behalf of all the apostles, Peter not only confessed Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, but as the Son of the living God. The Son of Man (v. 13) was also the Son of . . . God, the Creator of the universe and all that is in it. He was the true and real God, not a mythological figment such as Pan or a mortal “deity” such as caesar—both of whom had shrines in Caesarea Philippi. The disciples’ Lord was Son of the living God.

As evidenced by numerous things the Twelve later said and did, they did not at this time have a full comprehension of the Trinity or even of the full nature and work of Christ. But they knew Jesus was truly the Christ and that He was truly divine, the Son of the living God. Son reflects the idea of oneness in essence, because a son is one in nature with his father. So Jesus Christ was one in nature with God the Father (cf. John 5:17-18; 10:30-33).

THE RESULT

And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, (16:17a)

Those who truly confess that Jesus is God, which is to confess Him as Lord and Savior (1 John 4:14-15), are divinely and eternally blessed. They are “blessed . . . with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” chosen “in Him before the foundation of the world . . . [to] be holy and blameless before Him,” and “in love [are] predestined . . . to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself” (Eph. 1:3-5). God pours out all His supernatural resources on those who come to Him through faith in His Son, because through Him they become God’s own children.

Emphasizing Peter’s human inadequacy, Jesus called him by his original family name, Simon Barjona, the second part of the name being an Aramaic term that meant son of Jonah (or John).

THE SOURCE

because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” (16:17b)

The disciples were not finally convinced of Jesus’ messiahship and divinity because of His teaching or His miracles, amazing as those were. Those things alone were not sufficient to convince the Twelve, just as they were not sufficient to convince the thousands of other people who heard the same truth and witnessed the same miracles but failed to accept and follow the one who taught and performed them. Man’s human capabilities, here represented by the metonym flesh and blood, cannot bring understanding of the things of God (cf. 1 Cor. 2:14). The Father Himself must reveal them and bring understanding of His Son to human minds.

From the gospel accounts it seems clear that the Father disclosed the Son primarily through the Son Himself. There is no record or intimation that any divine revelation was given to the Twelve during Jesus’ earthly ministry other than that given through Jesus Himself. As the light of Jesus’ teaching and the significance of His miraculous power began to dawn on them, the Spirit opened their minds to see Him as the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

Jesus had made many astounding claims about Himself. He declared that He Himself had come to fulfill the law and the prophets (Matt. 5:17) and that in the last days many people will address Him as Lord (7:22). He said, “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever” (John 6:51), and, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved” (10:9; cf. 14:6).

Jesus had also performed astounding miracles. He had turned ordinary water into the highest quality wine (John 2:6-11), healed multiplied thousands of every sort of disease (see, e.g., Matt. 4:24; 8:16; 9:35), and even quieted a raging storm with a word (Matt. 8:26).

Perhaps the greatest testimony to Jesus’ messiahship, however, was His claim to be Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8), a claim that for a Jew of His day could only have been interpreted as presumption of deity. The Sabbath, which has the basic meaning of rest or cessation, was the center of Jewish life. Not only their week but their entire calendar of feasts and holy days was built on the concept of sabbath. The seventh day of the week (Ex. 20:11) and every other sabbath observance was a time of rest and worship. The book of Leviticus mentions nine sabbath-based festivals, which included the weekly Sabbath (Lev. 23:3); the Passover (vv. 4-8); the feast of first fruits (vv. 9-14); Pentecost (vv. 15-22); the feast of trumpets (vv. 23-25); the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur (vv. 26-32); the feast of tabernacles (vv. 33-44); the sabbatical year (25:2-7); and the year of jubilee (vv. 8-55), when, every fiftieth year, all slaves were freed and all land restored to its original owners.

All of those sabbath observances were pictures of the final and eternal rest of the children of God, the time when Messiah would come to earth to set His people free and establish His divine kingdom. Every time a Jew celebrated a sabbath he was reminded that some day he and all his fellow Jews would be released from all bondage—whether the bondage of political oppression, the bondage of continual sacrifices, or the bondage of labor to make a living. The entire sabbath system pointed to the true, perfect, and eternal rest that Messiah would bring to His people.

For Jesus to claim that He fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 61:1-2, as He did in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:18-21), was unmistakably to claim messiahship. For Him to present Himself as the source of rest (Matt. 11:28) was to present Himself as the source of holiness, and to claim lordship over the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8) was to claim lordship over everything.

Because Jesus is Himself God’s perfect sabbath rest and the source of true holiness, believers have no more reason to observe the seventh day of the week or any other special day. “For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said. . . . There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His” (Heb. 4:3, 9-10). “Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day,” Paul wrote. Such things “are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:16-17).

The command to keep the Sabbath day is the only one of the Ten Commandments that the New Testament does not require of Christians. By His grace, Jesus Christ gives every believer in Him a jubilee liberation that is perfect, final, and eternal. A Christian therefore does not violate the Sabbath when he works on the Lord’s Day but when he persists in self-righteous works in the presumptuous hope of adding to what the Savior has already accomplished.

“All things have been handed over to Me by My Father,” Jesus had explained on an earlier occasion; “and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27).

As with the disciples, when people today confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and fellowship with Him through His Word, the Spirit opens their minds and hearts to more and more of His truth and power. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ,” Paul declared (Rom. 10:17). As we continue to gaze into His glory we are transformed into His image (see Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49; Col. 3:10).