You are the Christ: Peter's confession and the first announcement of the cross

Matthew 16 stands at the hinge of the Gospel. The traditional view, going back to the second century, is that the apostle Matthew wrote the book. Many scholars hold that an unnamed Jewish Christian wrote it in Greek in the 80s, using Mark and other sources, and some argue for an earlier date. The first readers were probably Jewish-Christian churches who had to answer the claim of the synagogue that Jesus was not the Messiah. They would have heard Peter's confession as the church's own.

The parallels show how Matthew shapes his material. The demand for a sign appears in Mark 8:11-13, where Jesus refuses any sign; in Matthew the sign of Jonah is named, as at 12:39-40, and in Luke 11:29-32 it is given in a longer form. The warning about leaven is in Mark 8:14-21. Peter's confession is in Mark 8:27-30, where Peter says 'You are the Christ', and in Luke 9:18-21, where he says 'The Christ of God'. Only Matthew adds 'the Son of the living God' and Jesus' blessing of Peter in 16:17-19. The prediction of the passion and the call to take up the cross are in Mark 8:31-9:1 and Luke 9:22-27. A well-known proposal by Jack Dean Kingsbury notes that the phrase 'from that time on Jesus began' marks two turning points in Matthew, at 4:17 and at 16:21, dividing the Gospel into the presentation of Jesus and his movement toward the cross.

The place is Caesarea Philippi, at the foot of Mount Hermon near the sources of the Jordan. It was a Gentile city rebuilt by Philip the tetrarch and named for Caesar and himself, with a shrine to the god Pan at a cave. It lay north of Galilee, outside Herod Antipas's territory. In this place of pagan worship and imperial flattery, Jesus asks who people say he is.

The chapter is narrative with embedded dialogue and teaching, and it is organized around the question of identity. The Pharisees and Sadducees test Jesus. The disciples misunderstand a metaphor. Crowds offer partial answers. Peter confesses. Peter then fails to understand what the confession entails. Each section is a different answer to who Jesus is.

The best way to read the central passage, 16:13-20, is to read it in its place between two scenes. Before it, the disciples fail to see the meaning of a saying about leaven; after it, Peter rebukes Jesus for speaking of the cross. The passage is a high point, and its meaning is limited by those surroundings. Peter's confession is a gift of the Father's revelation, and yet his understanding is still incomplete. This keeps the chapter from being read as a simple moment of triumph.

Matthew 16:18-19 has been central to disputes among Christian traditions, and a fair reading begins with the words. Jesus most likely spoke Aramaic, in which 'Peter' and 'rock' would be the same word, kepha. In Greek they are Petros and petra. He speaks of building his church (ekklesia), a word Matthew uses only here and in 18:17 among the Gospels, and of the keys, which echo Isaiah 22:22, where the steward of David's house is given the key. Binding and loosing are terms used in Jewish teaching for forbidding and permitting, and perhaps for imposing and lifting a ban. These are the words the class reads in their first-century setting.

Verses 1–4

Pharisees and Sadducees, groups that seldom agreed, come together to test Jesus by asking for a sign from heaven. Jesus says they can read the weather but not the signs of the times. (Verses 2-3, about the red sky, are missing from some early manuscripts.) He says an evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, and none will be given except the sign of Jonah. 'Adulterous' uses the prophets' language for Israel's unfaithfulness to God (Hosea 2; Jeremiah 3). Jesus leaves them.

Verses 5–12

Crossing the lake, the disciples forget to bring bread. Jesus warns them to beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They think he is talking about their lack of bread. He rebukes them as people of little faith and asks whether they remember the five loaves for the five thousand and the seven loaves for the four thousand and the baskets left over. They then understand he meant the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Leaven is a small quantity that spreads through the whole, and here it stands for teaching that corrupts.

Verses 13–20

At Caesarea Philippi Jesus asks, 'Who do people say the Son of Man is?' The answers are John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. These are good answers, placing Jesus among God's messengers. Then he asks, 'But what about you? Who do you say I am?' Simon Peter answers, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Christ is the Greek for Messiah, the anointed king. 'Son of the living God' adds the language of divine sonship, which has been used of Israel's king (Psalm 2:7) and which Matthew has taken further in the voice at Jesus' baptism (3:17). The disciples have already called him Son of God in the boat (14:33). Jesus pronounces Peter blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to him, but 'My Father in heaven'. He then says, 'You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.' The gates of Hades represent the power of death. The church is the community of the Messiah, and death will not overcome it. Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and says whatever he binds on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever he looses will be loosed. The promise is repeated to all the disciples in 18:18. The meaning of the rock, the keys and binding and loosing is discussed in the note below. Then he orders the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Christ. The title could be misread as a call for a political uprising, and the true nature of his messiahship has not yet been shown.

Verses 21–23

'From that time on Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.' The word 'must' (dei) expresses divine necessity. Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him: 'Far be it from You, Lord! This shall never happen to You!' Jesus turns and says, 'Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me. For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.' The man called a rock a few verses earlier is now called a stumbling block (skandalon). The rebuke echoes the temptation in the wilderness (4:10), where Jesus rejected a kingdom without a cross.

Verses 24–28

Jesus tells his disciples that anyone who wants to come after him must deny himself, take up his cross and follow him. The cross was a Roman instrument of execution, and the listeners knew what it meant. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for his sake will find it. What profit is there if a man gains the whole world and loses his soul (psyche, which can mean life or self)? The Son of Man will come in his Father's glory with his angels and repay each according to what he has done. Verse 28 says some standing there will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Interpreters link this to the Transfiguration, which follows after six days (17:1), to the resurrection, to Pentecost, to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, or to the final return. The nearness of the Transfiguration in the text makes it the most common choice, though the others are held.

The chapter holds three central teachings.

• The first is Christology. Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, is the church's foundational statement, and Jesus says it comes by the Father's revelation. Human insight alone does not reach it.
• The second is the church. Jesus speaks of building his church on a rock, and of keys and the authority to bind and loose. Christians agree that the church is Christ's own, that it will survive death, and that it has authority from him. They differ on who holds that authority and how, which the tradition note describes.

• The third is the necessity of the cross. Jesus' declaration that he must suffer, be killed and be raised is the main turning point in Matthew's story, and it is followed at once by the call to take up the cross. Discipleship is shaped by the pattern of Christ. The Bible teaches that the way to life is through death (Philippians 2:5-11; Romans 6).
• The fourth is judgment. The Son of Man will repay each according to what they have done. The Gospel here links the Son of Man of Daniel 7:13-14 to the final judgment. The question 'what does it profit to gain the whole world and forfeit the soul?' sets an eternal measure against all earthly gain.

The chapter is one of the Gospel's main statements of who Jesus is. Peter's confession is a fulfilment: Jesus is the long-promised Christ, God's anointed king, and also the Son of the living God, a title that goes beyond a human ruler. Jesus accepts the title and says it came from the Father. But he immediately redefines it, speaking of suffering, death and resurrection. The Messiah the Old Testament promised is the one who suffers (compare Isaiah 53), and Jesus' 'must' ties his path to what God has willed.

The sign of Jonah is a type, and Jesus himself explains it in 12:40: as Jonah was in the fish three days, the Son of Man will be in the earth. The prediction in 16:21 states the same pattern in plain terms. The title Son of Man coming in his Father's glory with his angels draws on Daniel 7:13-14, where one like a son of man receives dominion and a kingdom from the Ancient of Days. In Jesus' mouth, this figure of glory is joined to the figure of suffering, and the Gospel holds them together.

Peter's rebuke and Jesus' answer show the cost. The cross is not an accident but the way Jesus defines his mission, and anyone who would follow him follows that road. At the same time, the call to take up the cross is a call to follow someone who goes first.