Peter: Upon This Rock

... you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. 
                                                             - Matthew 16:18


"See? I told you so!"

That summarizes how many people read the Bible. Because they are convinced it says a certain thing, they search high and low for passages that seem to prove their point of view. But if we approach God's Word with open minds and closed mouths, instead of the other way around, we learn the great truths given us by God.

The above passage from Matthew is routinely misunderstood because of people's biases. Here are some of the interpretations for the word "rock" that I have heard preached, and there are probably others:

1. Peter, who is to lead the Church.
2. Jesus Himself.
3. The outcropping on which Peter and Jesus are standing.
4. The "nugget of truth" of Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah.

Roman Catholics, committed to the papal system, cite the passage as the source of their Doctrine of Apostolic Succession. Thus, Jesus is naming Peter to be the first pope.  Why this understanding? Well, it affords the Catholic Church a great measure of control over church government. Yet it flies in the face of Peter's own words written later, in which he describes believers as a "holy priesthood" [1 Peter 2:5]. If everyone is a priest, who needs a pope? Further, the early Church never considered Peter to have been endowed with any special authority over other believers. The notion of the Bishop of Rome being a Supreme Pontiff did not develop until centuries later when it was used as a clever political maneuver by the Roman Emperor Constantine.

Ironically, the other three interpretations are propagated by non-Catholic Christians, arise as a result of the Catholic interpretation, to steer their flocks clear of it. In support of Idea #2, Jesus is indeed referred elsewhere in the Scriptures as The Rock. But this idea suffers from the same weakness as #3 and #4: It requires an abrupt shift of reference in Jesus' well-chosen statement. For any of these to be accurate, Jesus would have had to say, "You are Peter [which means rock]", and in the same sentence indicate that Jesus would build His Church on some other rock, not on Peter the Rock himself.

How, then, do we approach such a well-plowed (and fertilized?) passage? The psalmist repeatedly gives us direction. For example,

Blessed are You, O LORD! Teach me Your statutes.
I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways.
                                                                 -- Psalm 119: 12,15

The keys:

(1) looking to God, not man, for understanding. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would be here to teach believers [John 14:26]. We must read our Bibles with a prayerful attitude, begging God to reveal His truth. The Bible says that the people of Berea were "noble" because "they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things [that the Apostle Paul was preaching] were so."

(2) Meditating on the Scriptures. Again, the psalmist tells us, Blessed is the [righteous] man... his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. [Psalm 1:1-2]

What, then, about the passage from Matthew? What does Jesus mean by "rock"? Would it not be great if we could tap Peter on the shoulder and ask him what Jesus meant? We can't do that on this side of Glory, but we can do the next best thing, namely, search Peter's writings for references.

There is a reference by Peter to people as stones. As he tells it,

You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house...
                                                                        -- 1 Peter 2:5

The Apostle Paul also refers to this spiritual house:

Now, therefore, you are ... fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. [Eph 2:19-22]

Thus, when Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus named him Peter "the Rock." He then told Peter that He was beginning to build His Church, with Jesus as the Cornerstone -- the rock with which the rest of the building must be aligned -- and Peter as the first stone laid in place. Paul, then, refers to the apostles and prophets as the foundation of the Church. Lest we question the significance of this picture of the Church, John also describes the New Jerusalem as a building with 12 foundations, named after the apostles.

This author does not claim to have the last word in biblical interpretation, but does try to study the Scriptures with humility and a desire for the Holy Spirit to teach him all things.

One last word about the Matthew passage: Many people read Jesus' statement about gates from the translation, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Then they teach that "gates are not offensive weapons but defensive" and therefore "the church needs to be on the offensive against Satan and hell." This is clearly wrong, as the more accurate New King James rendering "gates of Hades" makes clear.

Hades is not gehenna (hell), the place of eternal punishment, but the "place of the dead." Jesus was only saying that the Church would not be destroyed by death, but would live forever.
    

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