WE ARE STUDYING THE FOUR GOSPELS MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE AND JOHN TO KNOW THE LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.
TO KNOW HIM IS TO LOVE HIM.
Our Savior was rejected in Nazareth see;
Jesus Rejected at Nazareth.
The Wedding at Cana.
Then He;
Cleanses the Temple.
We see that He;
Knows What Is in Man.
He then tells us how to get saved;
You Must Be Born Again!
For God So Loved the World!
Jesus ends His Ministry in Judea and;
John the Baptist Exalts Christ.
Jesus finished His Ministry in Judea and went up to Galilee but did not take the long road the Jews normally take to avoid going through Samaria but went straight to a place called Sychar near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there.
Jesus and the Woman of Samaria.
Jesus returned via Samaria to Galilee and we see The Rewards Of Service John 4:28-38, The Growth Of Faith John 4:39-45 and lastly The Reward Of Trusting Jesus’ Word John4:46-54.
The Rewards Of Service
Back in Galilee after a year in Judea;
Jesus Ministers to Great Crowds.
Nazareth’s loss was Capernaum’s gain. The people in the latter city recognized that His teaching was authoritative. His words were convicting and impelling.
The Sermon on the Mount.
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
The Beatitudes. Salt and Light.
Lust-Divorce-Oaths.
Retaliation and Love Your Enemies
Secret giving and secret praying
How to pray and how to fast
What to Seek and Whom to Serve
Do Not Be Anxious
Judging Others
Ask, and It will Be Given & The Golden Rule.
A Tree and Its Fruit
I Never Knew You
Build your House on the Rock.
The Authority of Jesus
Rewards Of Faith, The Great Physician
The Helper Of The Needy And The Friend Of Sinners
a Sermon Christ in Me by Dr. Sidlow J. Baxter.
Jairus daughter Restored to Life, a Woman Healed, Jesus Heals Two Blind men, Jesus Heals a Man Unable to speak.
Hope for the hopeless. Tender Ministry to Maid and Women. Curing the Incurable and Raising the Dead
The sending forth of the twelve in Chapter 9 opens the third year Jesus’ public ministry
The Harvest Is Plentiful, the Laborers Few
The Mission to Israel.
Not Peace, but a Sword
Messengers from John the Baptist
Woe to Unrepentant Cities
Come to Me, and I Will Give You Rest
Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
God’s Chosen Servant
The Sign of Jonah
Return of an Unclean Spirit
Jesus’ Mother and Brothers
The Parable of the Sower
The Purpose of the Parables
The Parable of the Sower Explained
The Parable of the Weeds
The Mustard Seed and the Leaven
The Parable of the Weeds Explained.
Jesus’ Parables of the Hidden Treasure-The Pearl of Great Value-Fishing Net.
New and Old Treasures.
Jesus Rejected at Nazareth
The Death of John the Baptist told to Jesus
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand men plus women and children.
Jesus Walks on the Water.
Jesus Heals the Sick in Gennesaret
Traditions and Commandments
What Defiles a Person
The Faith of a Canaanite Woman
Healing and feeding the multitudes
The Pharisees and Sadducees Demand Signs
The Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees
Matthew 16 ;13-20
When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying;
Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
He saith unto them;
But whom say ye that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said unto him,;
Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.
Frederick Brotherton Meyer, a contemporary and friend of D. L. Moody and A. C. Dixon, was a Baptist pastor and evangelist in England involved in ministry and inner city mission work on both sides of the Atlantic presents it to us this way regarding Matthew 16:13-20
“THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD”
The shadows of Calvary were beginning to gather and the Lord desired to prepare His friends for all that it stood for. His questions elicited Peter’s magnificent confession.
Notice the date of the Church. It was still future when He spoke. I will build. The materials may have been prepared beforehand, but the actual building began at our Lord’s resurrection. He is the Architect. Through the centuries He has been building, and if we are in His Church today, we are there because He excavated us out of the first Adam, and placed us in the very position we now occupy. The foundations of that Church were not in the Apostle (Petros) but in his confession (petra)of the divine sonship of Jesus. See Joh_5:18. Its impregnability is attested, for the Lord Himself defends it. See Rev_2:1. The gates of Hades, that is, the unseen world, include all the principalities and powers that are allied against God’s people. They cannot prevail, Eph_6:12.
We thank William MacDonald (1917-2007) who, for more than forty years, written directly about the key issues of Christianity. Leaving a promising business career as an employed investment analyst with First National Bank of Boston “at the foot of the Cross”, he had travelled worldwide, proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ for the Believer’s Bible Commentary on Matthew 16:13-20
Peter’s Great Confession
16:13, 14 Caesarea Philippi was about twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee and five miles east of the Jordan. When Jesus came to the surrounding villages (Mar_8:27), an incident generally recognized as the apex of His teaching ministry occurred. Up to this time He had been leading His disciples to a true apprehension of His Person. Having succeeded in this, He now turns His face resolutely to go to the cross.
He began by asking His disciples what men were saying as to His identity. The replies ran the gamut from John the Baptist, to Elijah, to Jeremiah, to one of the other prophets. To the average person He was one among many. Good but not the Best. Great but not the Greatest. A prophet but not the Prophet. This view would never do. It condemned Him with faint praise. If He were only another man He was a fraud because He claimed to be equal with God the Father.
16:15, 16 So He asked the disciples who they believed He was. This brought from Simon Peter the historic confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” In other words, He was Israel’s Messiah and God the Son.
16:17, 18 Our Lord pronounced a blessing on Simon, son of Jonah. The fisherman had not arrived at this concept of the Lord Jesus through intellect or native wisdom; it had been supernaturally revealed to him by God the Father. But the Son had something important to say to Peter also. So Jesus added, “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” We all know that more controversy has swirled around this verse than almost any other verse in the Gospel. The question is, “Who or what is the rock?” Part of the problem arises from the fact that the Greek words for Peter and for rock are similar, but the meanings are different. The first, petros, means a stone or loose rock; the second, petra, means rock, such as a rocky ledge. So what Jesus really said was “ … you are Peter (stone), and on this rock I will build My church.” He did not say He would build His church on a stone but on a rock.
If Peter is not the rock, then what is? If we stick to the context, the obvious answer is that the rock is Peter’s confession that Christ is the Son of the living God, the truth on which the church is founded. Eph_2:20 teaches that the church is built on Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone. Its statement that we are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets refers not to them, but to the foundation laid in their teachings concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ is spoken of as a Rock in 1Co_10:4. In this connection, Morgan gives a helpful reminder:
Remember, He was talking to Jews. If we trace the figurative use of the word rock through Hebrew Scriptures, we find that it is never used symbolically of man, but always of God. So here at Caesarea Philippi, it is not upon Peter that the Church is built. Jesus did not trifle with figures of speech. He took up their old Hebrew illustration—rock, always the symbol of Deity—and said, “Upon God Himself —Christ, the Son of the living God—I will build my church.”
Peter never spoke of himself as the foundation of the church. Twice he referred to Christ as a Stone (Act_4:11-12; 1Pe_2:4-8), but then the figure is different; the stone is the head of the corner, not the foundation.
“I will build My church.” Here we have the first mention of the church in the Bible. It did not exist in the OT. The church, still future when Jesus spoke these words, was formed on the Day of Pentecost and is composed of all true believers in Christ, both Jew and Gentile. A distinct society known as the body and bride of Christ, it has a unique heavenly calling and destiny.
We would scarcely expect the church to be introduced in Matthew’s Gospel where Israel and the kingdom are the prominent themes. However, consequent to Israel’s rejection of Christ, a parenthetical period—the church age—follows and will continue to the Rapture. Then God will resume His dealings with Israel nationally. So it is fitting that God should introduce the church here as the next step in His dispensational program after Israel’s rejection.
“The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” may be understood in two ways. First the gates of Hades are pictured in an unsuccessful offensive against the church—the church will survive all attacks upon it. Or the church itself may be pictured as taking the offensive and coming off the victor. In either case, the powers of death will be defeated by the translation of living believers and by the resurrection of the dead in Christ.
16:19 “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” does not mean that Peter was given authority to admit men to heaven. This has to do with the kingdom of heaven on earth—the sphere containing all who profess allegiance to the King, all who claim to be Christians. Keys speak of access or entrance. The keys which open the door to the sphere of profession are suggested in the Great Commission (Mat_28:19)—discipling, baptizing, and teaching. (Baptism is not necessary for salvation but is the initiatory rite by which men publicly profess allegiance to the King.) Peter first used the keys on the Day of Pentecost. They were not given to him exclusively, but as a representative of all the disciples. (See Mat_18:18 where the same promise is given to them all.)
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” This and a companion passage in Joh_20:23 are sometimes used to teach that Peter and his supposed successors were given the authority to forgive sins. We know that this cannot be so; only God can forgive sins.
There are two ways of understanding the verse. First, it may mean that the apostles had power to bind and to loose that we do not have today. For example, Peter bound their sins on Ananias and Sapphira so that they were punished with instant death (Act_5:1-10), while Paul loosed the disciplined man in Corinth from the consequences of his sin because the man had repented (2Co_2:10).
Or the verse may mean that whatever the apostles bound or loosed on earth must have already been bound or loosed in heaven (see NKJV margin). Thus Ryrie says, “Heaven, not the apostles, initiates all binding and loosing, while the apostles announce these things.”
The only way in which the verse is true today is in a declarative sense. When a sinner truly repents of his sins and receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, a Christian can declare that person’s sins to be forgiven. When a sinner rejects the Savior, a Christian worker can declare his sins to be retained. William Kelly writes, “Whenever the Church acts in the name of the Lord and really does His will, the stamp of God is upon their deeds.”
16:20 Again we find the Lord Jesus commanding His disciples to tell no one that He was the Messiah. Because of Israel’s unbelief, no good could come from such a disclosure. And positive harm might come from a popular movement to crown Him King; such an ill-timed move would be ruthlessly crushed by the Romans.
Stewart, who calls this section the turning point of Jesus’ ministry, writes:
The day at Caesarea Philippi marks the watershed of the Gospels. From this point onward the streams begin to flow in another direction. The current of popularity which seemed likely in the earlier days of Jesus’ ministry to carry him to a throne has now been left behind. The tide sets toward the Cross. … At Caesarea, Jesus stood, as it were on a dividing line. It was like a hilltop from which he could see behind him all the road he had traveled and in front of him the dark, forbidding way awaiting him. One look he cast back to where the afterglow of happy days still lingered and then faced round and marched forward toward the shadows. His course was now set to Calvary.
Please pray the Holy Spirit-The Paraclete will use these sermons and studies to bring many to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Tell someone today how much you Love Jesus Christ!
Join our closed group at : Quo Vadis Christian Community Group to read and partake in the Bible study to learn to know Jesus Christ. To know Him is to Love Him.
We also have a open Page at Quo Vadis Christian Community you might what to know more about.
Please ad yourself to our Messenger group to receive notification and chat to other members of the group.
You may however wish to disable notification and look at post when you have the time.
Join our messenger group at Friends in Jesus.
If you want a Bible please contact: Please let me have a Bible.
You may also want to join Creation Ministries International.
Find more Study topics at Quo Vadis Australia
