Matthew 16
McGeeCHAPTER 16THEME: Jesus continues the conflict with the Pharisees and Sadducees; Jesus calls for a confession from His disciples, and Peter speaks for the group; Jesus confronts them for the first time with the church, His death and resurrection
Matthew 16:1
THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES ASK FOR A SIGNFor the second time the Pharisees and Sadducees ask for a sign from heaven, and again they are referred to Jonah. In Mat_12:38 the scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign. At that time the Lord gave them the sign of Jonah. He is going to do that again, but first He calls their attention to the fact that, although they are very good at predicting the weather, they don’t seem to be able to recognize the signs of the times. Actually, the religious rulers are trying to trap the Lord Jesus, and He is going to warn His own men to beware of them. Notice that this is the second time He calls them “O ye hypocrites.”
Matthew 16:4
Our Lord had provided them with many signs, but they would not accept them. For the second time He predicts the sign of Jonah (“Jonas” is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Jonah). Back in chapter 12 verse Mat_12:40 He had said, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” These Pharisees and Sadducees were not about to accept that as a sign. In this chapter we will see three viewpoints concerning Jesus. The Pharisees and Sadducees consider Him an imposter and do not believe that He is the Messiah. The multitude thinks He is John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or another of the prophets. In this, they were complimentary, although they missed the mark completely. His disciples present the third viewpoint. They believe that Jesus is the Messiah (Christ), the Son of the living God. The Pharisees and Sadducees were asking for a sign. Jesus said that no sign would be given them but the sign of the prophet Jonah. “And he left them and departed.” There is a note of finality in His action as He turns and walks away from them. Then He warns His disciples of the leaven of these religious rulers.
Matthew 16:5
JESUS WARNS HIS DISCIPLESIn Matthew 13 we learned that leaven is always a principle of evil and never a principle of good. The Lord says to beware of the leaven. If you are cautioned to beware of something, it will not be welcome or good. The disciples missed the understanding of the leaven at first, thinking it was bread.
Matthew 16:8
If it were a matter of material bread, the disciples should have remembered the two miracles of Hisproviding food for the five thousand and the four thousandbut it was not a matter of material bread. Leaven, according to our Lord’s interpretation, is false doctrine. It is that which is evil. When people speak about the “leaven of the gospel,” they are using a contradiction of terms. Leaven is never a picture of the gospel. Leaven always is symbolic of evil. If you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as an authority, this ought to clarify once and for all what leaven represents.
Matthew 16:13
JESUS CALLS FOR A CONFESSION OF HIMSELFAll the way through the Gospel of Matthew we need to keep our thinking caps on because this Gospel is the key to the rest of the Scriptures. We need to make sharp distinctions and note carefully what happens. If you look on a map, you will find three Caesareas. Caesarea Philippi is located to the north of the Sea of Galilee. The Lord Jesus is in the north, and He is in a position from which He is going to turn and begin a movement directly toward Jerusalem and the Cross. Before He begins that journey, there are two things that must be clear in the minds of His disciples: (1) who He is, and (2) what He is going to do. My friend, these are the two things that all of us have to be clear on in order to be Christians. We have to know who He is, and we have to know what He did. We need to know these things in order that we might exercise faith and be saved. Note our Lord’s first question: “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” This is a question which He is still asking, and it is a question that is still being answered in our day. He still is the most controversial Person who has ever lived on the topside of this earth. Now we will hear the viewpoint of the multitudes, the crowds that followed Him. I believe that if you or I asked this question on a street corner of our own towns, we would probably get similar answers because folk are still confused about Him.
Matthew 16:14
“Some say that thou art John the Baptist.” John the Baptist was a great man, and the people recognized him as such. In our day there are many folk who say that Jesus was a great teacher. Some said regarding Jesus that He was “Elias”. (The name Elias was the Greek form of “Elijah”.) Elijah was certainly a great person, and there are those in our day who say that Jesus was a great person. “And others, Jeremias.” (Again, the Greek form is used.) Jeremiah was the weeping prophet, and the people saw our Lord weep. The crowds gave Him the credit for being a great prophet. “Or one of the prophets.” I suppose there was a variety of viewpoints as to which prophet Jesus was. These, then, were the viewpoints of the average persons of that day. A young preacher friend of mine, an extrovert, heard me speak of this; so he went out on the street corners and asked the question concerning Jesus Christ of folk who passed by. He got all sorts of viewpoints. Some said that He was the greatest teacher this world has ever seen. One person said that He was a founder of religion. Another felt that He was a good man. Another put Him in a class with other men who were famous in historyjust “one of the prophets,” you see. Now the Lord Jesus turns to His apostles and asks them
Matthew 16:15
The time has come for the disciples to make a decision and render a confession. Simon Peter was evidently the spokesman for the group. He said, “Thou art the Christ,” which meant the Messiah, the Anointed One, the One who was predicted in the Old Testament, and the Lord Jesus was the fulfillment. Also"the Son of the living God." Up to this point, that was the best confession and the highest tribute that could be made to Him. This is who Jesus is!
Matthew 16:17
Only the Holy Spirit can make Christ known to any person. No man today can call Jesus “Lord” but by the Holy Spirit. Only the Spirit of God can take the things of Christ and reveal them to us. Jesus said, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee”; that is, “You didn’t learn it by being with Me.” I hear folk say, “Well, if I could have been with Jesus for three years [the apostles had been with Him about two and one half years now], then I would really know who He is.” Would you? My friend, you can know Him just as well today because the Spirit of God has to make Him real to you.
Matthew 16:18
Let us look at this verse carefully. On what rock did Jesus build His church? There are those who say that it was built on Simon Peter. Well, obviously it was not, because there is a play upon words here. In the original Greek it is, “Thou art Petros [a little piece of rock], and upon this petra [bedrock] I will build my church.” There are others who hold that Christ is building His church upon the confession that Simon Peter made. I don’t agree with that at all. Who is the Rock? The Rock is Christ. The church is built upon Christ. We have Simon Peter’s own explanation of this. In 1Pe_2:4, referring to Christ, he writes, “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious.” And he remembers Isa_28:16, “…Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded” (1Pe_2:6). The church is built upon Christ; He is the foundation. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1Co_3:11).
Christ is the stone, and He says on this rock He will build His church. The church was still future when the Lord made this statement. And please don’t tell me there was a church in the Old Testament because the church did not come into existence until after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. There could not have been a church until all of these things had taken place. “I will build my church"this was future. The “gates of hell” refers to death. The word used for hell is the Greek word hades, the sheol of the Old Testament, which refers to the unseen world and means “death.” The gates of death shall not prevail against Christ’s church. One of these days the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout. That shout will be like the voice of an archangel and like a trumpet because the dead in Christ are to be raised. The gates of death shall not prevail against His church.
Matthew 16:19
What are the keys of the kingdom of heaven? Were they given only to Simon Peter? No, Jesus gives them to those who make the same confession made by Peter, those who know Christ as Savior. If you are a child of God, you have the keys as well as any person has the keys. The keys were the badge of authority of the office of the scribes who interpreted the Scriptures to the people (see Neh_8:2-8). Every Christian today has the Scriptures and, therefore, the keys.
If we withhold the Word, we “bind on earth”; if we give the Word, we “loose on earth.” No man or individual church has the keysto the exclusion of all other believers. We have a responsibility today to give out the gospel because it is the only thing that can save people. This is a tremendous revelation. Who is sufficient for these things? You and I have a responsibility that is awesome indeed!
Matthew 16:20
The Lord made this request because the mere knowledge of who He is will not save you. To find salvation you must know who He is and what He did and accept Him by faith.
Matthew 16:21
JESUS ANNOUNCES HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTIONFor the first time the Lord Jesus announces to His disciples His death and resurrection. The time was approximately six months before He was actually crucified. Why did He wait so long to make such an important announcement? Obviously, His disciples were not prepared for it, even at this time, judging from their reaction. He repeated five times the fact that He was going to Jerusalem to die (Mat_17:12; Mat_17:22-23; Mat_20:18-19; Mat_20:28). In spite of this intensive instruction, the disciples failed to grasp the significance of it all until after His resurrection. This is what the Lord Jesus did for you and me. This is the gospel: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried and raised again. You must know who He is. You must know what He did for you. If you know these two things, and by faith believe and receive them, you are saved. This had never been revealed before except to Nicodemus at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry in Joh_3:1-16.
Matthew 16:22
In essence Peter said, “You are the Messiah; You are the Son of God. You must not, You cannot go to the cross!” The cross was not in the thinking of the apostles at all, as you can see.
Matthew 16:23
It is satanic for anyone to deny the facts of the gospel which are that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was buried, and rose again from the dead. It is satanic when a man in the pulpit will deny these truths. The substitutionary death of Christ is the only thing that can save us, my friend. Later on Peter wrote this: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (1Pe_2:24). My, what a transformation had taken place in the mind of Peter! Our Lord said to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Imagine this: Here is Peter by whom the Spirit of God could say that Jesus was the Son of God, and yet he could in the next moment let Satan deceive him!
Matthew 16:24
Many people interpret this verse, “Let him deny himself ice cream” or “Let him deny himself some luxury down here.” What this verse says is “Let him deny himself!” You already know that the hardest person in the world to deny is yourself. To deny myself dessert is hard enough, but to deny myself is difficult indeed. To deny myself is to put self out of the picture and to put Christ in the place of self. “And take up his cross, and follow me.” We are not to take up Christ’s Cross but our own cross. There is a cross for you and a cross for methat is, if we are going to follow Him.
Matthew 16:25
The person who will not assume the risks involved in becoming a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ will, in the long run, lose his life eternally. The opposite is also true. At Christ’s second coming all accounts will be settled and everyone will receive his proper rewards.
Matthew 16:28
This verse belongs with chapter 17 because the account of the transfiguration of Jesus explains what He meant when He made this statement.