MATTHEW 16:16-17 THE GREAT CONFESSION

As a follow-up to my two-part post on the importance of context in Bible interpretation, I picked these important and well known verses to see how a proper consideration of all the biblical contexts involved might increase our understanding of the Great Confession.

Words 

The smallest verbal unit in a passage to consider is an individual word. At this point, unless one has a specialized word study book for the Greek or Hebrew language, the best thing to do is consult several different English translations to see where there is general agreement and where there is not. The only real differences I could detect when comparing several translations involved “Christ” (or Messiah), “Bar-jona(s)” (son of Jonah), and “blessed” (favored, “good for you,” “a happy man”).

All three of these words could be, and have been, misunderstood by some. For example, there are still people who hear the title Jesus Christ and think that “Christ” was his last name. It is actually the Greek equivalent of Messiah, meaning “Anointed One.” Ironically, the only anointing the earthly Jesus will get is not as king but an anointing for his burial (Mark 14:8).

And the literal Aramaic construction “Barjona” would cause few people to associate it with the name Jonah at all (This may be important, as explained below). Lastly, those coming from a Roman Catholic background might easily associate the benediction “blessed” with the recitation of “Hail Mary” and take this as a sign that Peter was to be venerated almost as highly as Mary. The other, more mundane translations for this word shown above would not at all possess that nuance.

Phrases

“Son of the living God,” “flesh and blood” and “Father in heaven” are probably the most important phrases in these two verses. Fortunately, we still use “flesh and blood” as a figure of speech in the same way that the NT writers did. In this instance it clearly distinguishes between a human and divine source for Peter's revelation. However, readers must be careful not to take for granted that they automatically know what a given idiom in the Bible means since usage often changes with time and culture.

“Son of God” is an important term for Matthew since he uses it exactly ten times in his gospel account, and it is not found in either Mark or Luke. Interestingly, Matthew also calls Jesus “Son of David” ten times. Thus, he gives equal stress to his earthly and heavenly parentage. It is a subtle way to express that Jesus was true man and true God.

The specific phrase “Son of the living God” does not appear in the other Synoptic Gospels but becomes important later in this Gospel account when the high priest questions Jesus in Matthew 26:63: “I adjure you by the living God, tell us whether you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Notice the striking similarity in wording to that in Matthew 16. It is not surprising that Matthew, in light of his primarily Jewish audience, uses the phrase “living God” more than the other Synoptics since that was a very common designation for Yahweh throughout the Old Testament. Parenthetically, the phrase became common again as Christianity spread into the pagan world where it was necessary to first distinguish the true God from the idols worshiped there.

Finally, Matthew's use of “Father in heaven” is no surprise in view of his Jewish audience, which had an aversion to using the Holy Name. Thus, Matthew substitutes “heaven” for “God” more than the other three gospels combined either alone or in phrases such as “kingdom of heaven,” “heavenly Father,” and “Father in heaven.”

Sentences

I am probably the only one on the face of the earth that can both remember diagramming sentences in school and also loving to do so. It is definitely a lost art, but it can sometimes keep one from going astray in Scripture interpretation. Usually the sentence structure is understood on an almost unconscious level, especially if the reader is used to reading anything more sophisticated than text messages and Tweets. But even simple points might be misunderstood by some. In the two sentences under consideration, for example, one might note that “Messiah” and “the son of the living God” are used as appositive terms, meaning that they are closely related to one another. Secondly, consider Jesus' reply to Peter: “flesh and blood has not revealed that to you, but my Father in heaven.” The reader must supply the understood but missing phrase at the end: “...has revealed that to you.” Otherwise, one could possibly interpret the sentence to mean that the revelation was given to God instead of to Peter, admittedly a rather absurd idea.

I am not at all immune from such obvious misunderstandings. I must admit that up to recently, I totally confused the intended meaning in the very next verse, Matthew 16:18. The sentence structure there is just enough out of the ordinary that I somehow got the idea that the forces of Hades were attacking the Church, but that we could fight them off. In fact, it is the exact opposite, and we are the ones attacking the gates of Hades and successfully breaking them down.

Immediate Context

The importance of considering verses 13-15 which precede the Great Confession is obvious. They show that Peter's statement did not come out of the clear blue, but (1) is in direct contrast to the various opinions that outsiders had given concerning Jesus' identity and (2) was prompted by a direct question of Jesus. As usual, although all of the apostles were present, only Peter speaks up. Then his leadership role is acknowledged in the subsequent verses, although the extent of that leadership position continues to be debated.

Some commentators feel that the identified setting of the discussion between the apostles and Jesus (see Matthew 16:13) is important to consider. Caesarea Philippi, for one thing, contained a prominent shrine to the God Pan located in a cave that was popularly felt to guard the entrance to Hades. (An additional consideration will be given below.)

This setting may seem to be a strange one for such an important discussion since at the time it was a pagan, Hellenistic area. On the other hand, it may have been specifically chosen by Jesus far from any Jewish ears who would have prematurely spread the word of Jesus' identity (see the warning of secrecy in v. 20).

Proximate Context

Traveling just a little farther afield in the Gospel of Matthew can yield additional insights. The first to note is that earlier in the chapter, verse 4, is a prior reference to Jonah besides the marked identification of Peter as the son of (a different) Jonah. By the way, only Matthew mentions his father's name as Jonah although there are two disputed passages in John's Gospel that may also do so.

Position within Matthew's Gospel

To determine the above is not necessarily an easy task. I have summarized the overall arrangements of all the books in the Bible in my posts with the subheadings “Introduction to the Literary Structure” for those who wish to consult them. The analysis of Matthew's Gospel gives the overall symmetrical organization shown below:

Major Section Divisions for the Gospel of Matthew

I. Birth and Preparation for Ministry (1:1-4:17)

    II. Early Ministry [in Galilee] (4:18-8:34)

        III. Ministry and Conflict (9:1-12:45)

            IV. Teaching in Parables (12:46-13:58)

                V. Contrasting Responses to Jesus (14:1-16:4)

            VI. Jesus' Identity (16:5-17:23)

        VII. Late Ministry [in Jerusalem] (17:24-23:39)

    VIII. Eschatological Discourse (chs. 24-25)

IX. Death and Resurrection (chs. 26-28)

IV // VI These sections deal respectively with two of the major questions posed in the Gospel – What is the Kingdom of Heaven? and Who is Jesus? One can see a notable, and perhaps purposeful, contrast between these two sections in that Jesus' teachings in parables (Section IV) were always in somewhat veiled terms whereas Section VI begins with our passage in question by an open confession of Jesus' true identity.

Looking further into Section VI, we can see (below) a whole set of parallel sections in Matthew 17 that can be used to illuminate 16:16-17. Especially useful are the similar question concerning Jesus' true identity in 17:1-13 and Peter's inappropriate response in 17:4 that contrasts with his insight given in 16:16. The latter shows that Peter is still by no means infallible despite his confession of faith.

Structure of Section VI

A. “Evil and adulterous generation;” Failure of the disciples (16:5-12)

    B. Question of Identity: Son of Man, Elijah, John the Baptist (16:13-19)

        C. “Tell no one” (16:20)

            D. Peter's inappropriate response (16:21-23)

                E. Followers need to deny themselves (16:24-26)

                    1. Jesus' glory predicted (16:27-28)

                    1'. The Transfiguration (17:1-3)

            D'. Peter's inappropriate response (17:4)

                E'. Followers need to listen to Jesus (17:5-8)

        C'. “Tell no one” (17:9)

    B'. Question of Identity: Son of Man, Elijah, John the Baptist (17:10-13)

A'. “Faithless and perverse generation;” Failure of the Disciples (17:14-23)

Context Within the New Testament

This even more remote context needs to be considered next, more specifically a comparison with the other Gospel accounts. One aid in doing this is to consult a Gospel Harmony that will put all parallel events side by side for easy comparison. The volume I have also contains footnotes that comment on the text. From this resource, several points stand out:

A. Only Matthew includes Jeremiah among the guesses as to Jesus' identity. One possibility for Matthew's specific inclusion of Jeremiah here near the exact center of his Gospel is that he also is the only Gospel writer to quote from Jeremiah. Those quotations are introduced by almost identical formulations at 2:17 (the first section of the Gospel) and 27:9 (the concluding section). There is thus almost a perfect literary symmetry achieved (see the overall structure of the book given above).

B. There is a slightly different wording to Peter's confession: Matthew calls Jesus “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Luke calls him “the Messiah of God,” and Mark simply says “the Christ.” There is no real contradiction here, and the addition of “Son of the living God” was no special insight on Peter's part since God had already given Jesus that designation at his baptism by John. Calling Jesus “the Son of the living God” had special implications when proclaimed at Caesarea Philippi since that was the site of a temple to the Roman emperor, Augustus. Some of the emperors such as Augustus, dead by this time, called themselves the Son of God.

C. Only Matthew contains Jesus' detailed response to Peter's confession of faith.

John's Gospel does not contain this account at all; however, he indicates that the apostles had known Jesus was the Messiah from the very start of their call (see John 1:41, 45, 49). One way out of this seeming contradiction is to say that after their call, the Twelve were beginning to have doubts. However, Peter's continued firmness on this point brought the rest of them back to belief. Another approach is given by Ellison: “The early acknowledgement of Jesus as Messiah had been an act of enthusiasm; Peters's confession expressed mature conviction by divine revelation.

The Whole Bible as Context

This is a complicated issue that cannot be discussed in any detail here, but at the very least one needs to further explore the following issues in order to completely understand how these two verses fit into the whole of biblical teachings and history:

    What were the OT expectations concerning the coming Messiah and how did Jesus fit into those expectations?

    Why did the general populace feel that Jesus was either John the Baptist, Elijah, or another OT prophet?

In light of the Jewish tenor of Matthew's Gospel, it is not surprising that more insights can be obtained from the OT. Unfortunately, most of them are not easy to identify without recourse to a commentary or specialized book such as Carson and Beale's Commentary on the NT Use of the OT. For example, those authors feel that “Son of the living God” may specifically allude back to Hosea 1:10 “and further the theme of Jesus doing right what Israel did wrong.”

If the above is true, the same sort of reversal might be intended by calling Peter “son of Jonah.” Alternatively, Hendricksen says that “The designation...was for the person addressed a reminder of what he was by nature, simply a human son of a human father [i.e., in contrast to the Son of God].” In contrast to both these views, R.T. France sees little significance to the fact that Peter's father's name is Jonah except the fact that his father's name is also given in John 1:42. Both are places where Simon's nickname of Peter is given.

Walton suggests that Jesus' comparison with Jeremiah may have stemmed from the fact that the prophet also condemned Jerusalem with his message, was imprisoned and rejected. However, none of that was known at the time of the events recorded in Matthew 16 and would have to have been inserted after the fact and not be historically true to the setting. Most evangelicals would reject that scenario.

Context Outside the Bible

On occasion, one can gain additional insights by looking at other documents in circulation at the time of the events in the New Testament. Consider the interesting inclusion of Jeremiah in the list of proposed identities for Jesus. Some commentators point out that Jeremiah reappears in II Maccabees 2:1-12; 15:12-16; and V Esdras 2:16-18. However, France counters these references as being irrelevant since (a) the appearances in II Maccabees are only in a vision and (b) V Esdras was almost certainly a late document and may have actually gotten the idea of Jeremiah's return from Matthew's account.