When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” His disciples answered, “Some say that you are Elijah come back from Heaven or John the Baptist, Jeremiah or one of the other prophets come back from the dead.” Then, Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter jumped right up and boldly declared, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Not much has changed since the days of Jesus. People still say many things in response to life’s most important question: “Who do you say Jesus is?” The Muslim says that Jesus is a servant of Allah whom Allah can destroy anytime he takes a notion to. The Hindu says that Jesus was an avatar or enlightened one. The Jehovah’s Witness says that Jesus was Michael the archangel. The Mormon says that Jesus is the brother of Lucifer and a product of the actual sexual union between God and the Virgin Mary. The Orthodox Jew says that Jesus was a false and phony Messiah. The atheist says that Jesus was merely a man; that is, if He ever really existed at all.
Who do you say Jesus is? You’ll never answer a more important question in life than this one. Your answer will not only determine what your life will be like in the here-and-now, but also your eternal destiny in the hereafter. If you’ve ever got a question right, you better get this one right. Your immortal soul depends upon it.
The Apostle Peter got it right! Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. In response to Peter’s magnificent confession, our Lord explained how Peter had not figured this out on his own or been taught it by others. Instead, it had been revealed to Peter by the Heavenly Father (Matthew 16:17). Make no mistake about it; divine revelation is the only way anyone ever comes to know Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11-12).
After crediting Peter’s reception of divine revelation for his correct answer to life’s most important question, Jesus said to Peter, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Perhaps, no words of our Lord have been more misinterpreted and misunderstood.
The Greek word Jesus uses for “Peter” means “little stone” or “pebble.” The Greek word He uses for “rock” means a “large immovable boulder.” Obviously, Peter, whom Jesus calls a little stone or pebble, is not the large immovable boulder that Christ declares He’ll build His church on. Instead, the large immovable boulder that the church is built on is Christ Himself, whom Peter professed to be the Son of the living God.
Far from the Roman Catholic contention that the church is built on Peter, the first in a continuous succession of popes, the church is built on Christ Himself. That Peter understood this and had no illusions of his own papacy is made clear by his own writings. In 1 Peter 2:4-8, Peter explains how the church is built on Christ, “the chief cornerstone,” but built with little or “living stones” like himself who have confessed Christ as the Son of the living God.
That Peter was no infallible pope is easily proven in the passage that follows his magnificent confession (Matthew 16:21-23). Here, he is confiscated by Satan as his spokesman and sternly rebuked by our Lord for being a stumbling block who was seeing things from man’s point of view rather than from a divine perspective. Furthermore, Peter was married, not celibate (Luke 4:38-39; 1 Corinthians 9:5), he held no supremacy in the early church (Acts 15:13-21; Galatians 2:6), he found Paul’s writings difficult to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16) and he was even publicly rebuked by the Apostle Paul in Antioch (Galatians 2:11). I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t sound like a pope to me.
