Posted on 01/16/2015 3:29:49 PM PST by RnMomof7
June 10, 2014
In Matthew 16:18, Jesus said to Simon, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”
Roman Catholics interpret Matt. 16:18 to mean that Peter is the rock upon which the church is built. That interpretation then becomes the basis for the doctrine of papal succession. If Peter is the rock on which the church is built, and if the bishops of Rome are Peter’s successors, then it follows, they say, that the papacy remains the foundation of the church.
But that is not at all what Matthew 16:18 teaches.
The name “Peter” was a nickname given to Simon by Jesus, all the way back in John 1:42 when Peter first met Jesus. Coming from the Greek word petros (or the Aramaic word “Cephas”), the name Peter means “Rock” or “Stone.” To use an English equivalent, Peter means “Rocky.”
But when Jesus said, “I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church,” He differentiated between Peter and the “rock” by using two different Greek words. The name Peter is petros, but the word for “rock” is petra.
Those terms may sound similar to us, but ancient Greek literature shows that they actually refer to two different things. Petros was used to signify a small stone; petra, by contrast, referred to bedrock or a large foundation boulder (cf. Matt. 7:24-25).
So, to paraphrase Jesus’ words, the Lord told Peter, “I say to you that you are a small stone, and upon this bedrock I will build My church.” It was a play on words that made a significant spiritual point.
What then was the bedrock to which Jesus was referring? The answer to that question comes a couple verses earlier in Matthew 16.
Matthew 16:13–17: Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” [14] And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” [15] He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” [16] Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” [17] And Jesus 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.”
Peter was just a small stone built atop the bedrock of something much bigger than himself: namely, the truth that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God. Put simply, Peter was not the rock; Christ is the Rock. And as Peter and the other apostles testified to the truth about Christ (which Peter did in verse 16), the church was built upon its only sure foundation.
The rest of the New Testament bears this out.
In 1 Corinthians 3:11, Paul wrote that “no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
In Ephesians 2:20, Paul further explained that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone on which the church is founded by the apostles.
Even Peter himself, in 1 Peter 2:1–10 compared all believers to small stones that are part of the superstructure of the church. By contrast, Peter noted in vv. 6, 7, the Lord Jesus is the cornerstone on which the church is built. Peter said the same thing to the Jewish religious leaders in Acts 4:11. Speaking of Jesus, Peter proclaimed, “He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief corner stone.”
If we were to go beyond Peter’s lifetime, and consider the writings of the church fathers from Origen to Chrysostom to Augustine – we would likewise find that the vast majority of ancient interpreters did not view the rock in Matthew 16:18 as a reference to Peter. The church fathers generally understood the “rock” to refer either to the apostles collectively, or to the specific content of Peter’s confession. In either case, they understood that Matthew 16:18 ultimately centered on Christ – the One to whom the apostles testified, and the One to whom Peter’s confession pointed.
Thus, we see the Roman Catholic understanding of Matthew 16:18 falls short on at least four levels:
1) Grammatically, it does not account for the lexical distinction between petros (Peter) and petra (Rock).
2) Contextually, it makes Peter the focal point of Matthew 16, when the text is clearly featuring truth about Jesus.
3) Theologically, it tries to make Peter the rock when the rest of the New Testament declares Christ to be the Rock.
4) Historically, the Roman Catholic view is not the patristic view of the first few centuries.
(Moreover, even if Peter were the “rock” of Matthew 16:18, such an interpretation would still not necessitate the notion of papal succession. But that is the topic of another post.)
Peter’s nickname might have been Rocky, but Peter himself understood that the Rock was Jesus Christ. The Rock on which Peter’s life was built was none other than the Rock of Salvation; the Rock of Deliverance; the Chief Cornerstone; and the Rock of Ages.
Peter bore witness to that truth in Matthew 16:16. The rest of the Apostles bore witness to that throughout their ministries. And it was the truth of that apostolic witness to Jesus Christ that formed the foundation of the church.
Thanks, Mark. God bless.
I did that when I became a Christian as a child but actually accepter the Bible before that. The Rock is not Peter.
Thanks. I thought of that as soon as I read that post.
Wow! That's a stretch if not an outright corruption of what it says. It was Paul who had the argument with those trying to impose rules in the first place. The this is James statement "It is my judgment, therefore". James was simply agreeing? Putting men over what is written seems to the Catholic way.
Matthew 15:
[21] Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.
[22] And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
[23] But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
[24] But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
[25] Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
[26] But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.
[27] And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
[28] Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour
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After much debate had taken place, Peter got up and said to them, “My brothers, you are well aware that from early days God made his choice among you that through my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness by granting them the holy Spirit just as he did us. He made no distinction between us and them, for by faith he purified their hearts. Why, then, are you now putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they.” (Acts 15:7-11)Yes, it was James' judgment but he was only affirming what Peter had already said. James was stating that his judgment agreed with that of Peter; he was not introducing a new or contrary judgment. Additionally, the letter was issued in the name of all the apostles and presbyters, not just as the judgment of James.
By his own words our Lord differs from you.
I call them by their given birth names, not the names of Greek mythology.
“Jesus” is a Greek transliteration of an acronym ‘YSHU’ from a Rabbinical curse on Yeshua: Yimach Shimo Uezichro, which means “Let his name be forgotten and never remembered.”
Since repeating that absurd curse dishonors my Lord, I do not speak it.
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Use more analysis when reading!
Peter and Paul were appealing to their fellow apostles, peers, not masters, nor underlings, to protect the sheep they had evangelized from the false influence of the Pharisees, who also sought to influence them to keep the false laws contained in their Takanot and Ma’asim. The same “commandments of men” that Yeshua spent most of his life denouncing and demolishing.
You are trying to create a hierarchy among the believers that Yeshua denounced in no uncertain terms. Read Matthew 23 for understanding, not the catechism.
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>> “The Rock is not Peter.”
>> “By his own words our Lord differs from you.”
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Then your ‘Lord’ must be Satan?
Yeshua is the only person called “The Rock” in the entirety of scriptures.
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I have to disagree. They were waiting for the King to set up his Kingdom on earth so they can go to the ends of the earth preaching the KINGDOM gospel.
They thought they would go through the trib, survive to the end and become priests to the gentiles.
But God opened up the timeline and that’s the mystery that Paul speaks of. : )
The Aramaic words were never spoken by Yeshua.
They were deviously inserted centuries after Yeshua ascended.
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That is great scripture though. Healed and more then likely saved by belief.
Glory to God
Gibberish!
The only ‘mystery’ that Paul presented was the Savior’s death releasing his bride to remarry (Romans 7)
None of the apostles were so deluded as to be waiting for the kingdom; they saw the kingdom partly come to them at Pentecost.
They wrote of how the fullness of the kingdom would come at the last trump.
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That healing was a symbolic confirmation that those that attach themselves to the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel were also to be made a part of Israel.
And how do you know this? Were you there?
Do you have some sources for that etymology?
The writings of the early church teachers show it plainly.
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Have you never wondered why, in most English Bibles, the names of Yehoshua (Joshua) of the Old Testament, and Yehoshua our savior in the New Testament are translated differently, even though they both had the very same name?
The translators applied the curse to our savior, but not to his ancient namesake. Yet they are shown identically in the vast majority of Greek MS.
Yeah, that's why James said "My judgement is"
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