“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.'” Matthew 16:21-23
Now that Peter had confessed that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah, the Son of the One True God, now he could know what that truly meant. But He couldn’t quite wrap his head around it.
He knew Jewish eschatology, or End Time studies. He believed that, as the Messiah, Jesus would: depose corrupt leadership, cast down idols, glorify Jerusalem, forgive sins, pour out God’s Spirit to restore an obedient heart to the nation, make Israel a light that would draw all nations to come and worship the One True God and divinely reverse all that was wrong in the world.
But how could Jesus do any of that if He were dead? Or even if He were raised back to life?
Peter sharply criticized Jesus (for that’s what rebuke means). You’re not talking any sense, Teacher. I just acknowledged that You alone are the Son of the Almighty God. No one can lay a finger on you. You’re not going to die! Those religious scoundrels can’t overpower you. You’re going to live and do all that we humans have been expecting!
But, had Peter not just come to understand Jesus’ divinity, he certainly would not have been ready to take the next step in understanding what being the Messiah truly meant. Jewish eschatology wasn’t wrong, it just wasn’t complete. Jesus did come to do all those things and certainly would do them, but not in finite earthly fashion as people had come to believe.
Jesus came to establish sinless eternity. And that started with paying the debt of everyone’s sins with His own death [Romans 6:23].
Jesus didn’t criticize Peter in return. He did put the rebellious, Satanic attitude in its place–that attitude of dissuasion hearkening back to the temptation in the wilderness [John 4:1-11]. This cup of God’s will was not to be removed, and Jesus knew that full well despite Satan’s many attempts to deter Him [Luke 22:42].
Peter knew who Jesus was. He recognized the truth of his own sin nature and the need to be cleansed from all of that sinful filth. But he still had more to learn to understand.
Even when we’ve grown up in church our whole lives. Even when we daily study God’s Word and pray, there is more to God than we can ever understand in one lifetime. And there is always more human perception needing to be undone if we are to see God and human history for what they truly are.
Is God speaking to undo the cultural finiteness of your understanding? Do you seek to know Him better?
KCS
Generation Heroes 