WWUTT 2187 Peter Confesses Jesus is the Christ (Mark 8:27-33)

In the first half of the Gospel of Mark, it's as if we have been answering the question, who is Jesus? And that question gets answered today with the disciples' confession, you are the Christ, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ in Mark 8

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we're still in chapter eight and up to the section where Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ. This is right at the heart of the Gospel of Mark and something that Mark has been building up to, and then we're gonna see how the rest of the Gospel of Mark flows out of this as well.

So let's read the section, Mark 8, verses 27 to 33 out of the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. And Jesus went out along with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way, he was asking his disciples, saying to them, who do people say that I am?

And they told him, saying, John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, but others, one of the prophets. And he continued questioning them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered and said to him, you are the Christ.

And he warned them to tell no one about him. And he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed. And after three days, rise again.

And he was stating the matter openly, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning around and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's.

Caesarea Philippi, the Confession of Christ, and the Meaning of the Messiah

Now, as we are going to consider this section today, I want to look at it in context, what Mark presents here and why he sets it where he does here in chapter eight. And then after doing that, I want to compare it with what we read in Matthew 16.

These are the only two places in the gospels where we have this exchange between Jesus and his disciples in Matthew 16, 13 to 20, and here in Mark eight, verses 27 to 33. So let's come back to Mark's account here in verse 27.

It says that Jesus went out along with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Now let me stop there for a moment. I hear many preachers do this, who will say that Jesus and his disciples went to Caesarea Philippi, or they went into Caesarea Philippi, but that's not what either account says.

Matthew 16 says that they went to the district and here in Mark eight, it says that Jesus and his disciples were in the villages surrounding Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was a city, it's named after Caesar and Philip the Tetrarch.

So those two names that are put together and you get Caesarea Philippi. It was a very pagan city. So there is a reason why Jesus and his disciples did not go into it, but there were still many people that he was gonna minister to in the villages surrounding it.

And it is there where all of this paganism was happening, the worship of many false gods that Jesus asks his disciples, not in the midst of those gods, not at any pagan altar, which I think in the show, The Chosen, that's the way they depicted it.

Like Jesus was right there at a pagan altar and asked the disciples this question. That's not how that went at all. So Jesus says to his disciples, though they're in the region and they understand the significance of the place where they are, he asks them, who do people say that I am?

And this is building up to the question, who do you say that I am? So in the midst of these false gods, it will be declared by Peter and agreed upon by the disciples that Jesus is the Christ. He is the Messiah who was sent by God, who will save his people from their sins and will restore his people back to right relationship with God.

So the location is significant, but don't think that they went into Caesarea Philippi. It was too pagan a place for the Holy One of God, Jesus Christ, to have set foot there. But it is on the outskirts of where Jesus did his ministry, like the furthest out.

It was about 25 miles to the northeast of the Sea of Galilee on the southwestern slope of Mount Hermon. So this would have been on the very edge of where Jesus was doing his ministry there in the northeastern part of Galilee.

Again, no reason to go into the city, which he did not do, but did minister to those villages surrounding or there in the district. On the way, he was asking his disciples, saying to them, who do people say that I am?

So as they're journeying between these villages, as they're continuing to minister to people there, Jesus striking up conversation with his disciples and meaning to teach them some deep theology, not just about himself and who he is, but even what is going to happen to him as that comes up in the conversation.

So in verse 28, they told him, well, some of the people say that you're John the Baptist. We had read earlier in Mark about how Herod thought he may have been John the Baptist. He thought John the Baptist had become reincarnated.

He had come back to life after Herod had beheaded him, and now here's John the Baptist come back to get his revenge. So likely that very paranoia of Herod had even reached out to some of the people in Judah and the surrounding places, thinking maybe Jesus is John the Baptist.

They look kind of the same. They were from the same family, right? They were cousins. So some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah. They're looking forward to the return of Elijah. This was prophesied in the prophets that there was gonna be a return of Elijah.

So maybe Jesus is him. Of course, what we know from the teaching that Jesus gave to his disciples is that John the Baptist was actually the return of Elijah. Elijah being a type and John the Baptist being the fulfillment of what Elijah presented in his ministry.

So then others, the disciples say, consider you one of the prophets. In Matthew 16, Jeremiah is one of the other names that's mentioned there. So then in verse 29, and he continued questioning them, but who do you say that I am?

And Peter answered and said to him, you are the Christ. Christ is a word meaning Messiah. Messiah meaning the anointed one of God. He is the one who was chosen to save his people and restore the people of God to a right relationship with God.

Now, in addition to that, of course, the Jews believe that Jesus or their Messiah rather, they believe the Messiah is coming as an emancipator. He is gonna free us from the tyranny of Greece and then later Rome and all of our enemies that have come against us.

This Messiah is going to free us from any occupation from anybody else. We will not have to be ruled by anybody. He will ascend to the throne of David. He will establish Israel as a great superpower again, and all of the nations will come bowing before us.

This was the way that God was going to fulfill all of those prophecies about bringing the nations to himself. It was going to be through his people, Israel, and this Messiah that would sit on the throne of David above them.

The greater David, this is what they were looking for. And even here, the disciples are expecting that at some point, Jesus is going to rise to that throne. And they think that as his disciples, that they will get to rule with him.

We're gonna have special places over the kingdom of Israel and over the world because we are following the one that we know is the Messiah. There is probably some selfish reasons that they have for following Jesus.

Of course, this is part of their sanctification. Jesus is gonna work all of that out. But in the meantime, having a selfish motivation, hence why Peter rebukes Jesus coming up here in just a moment. But they believe him to be the Christ, the Messiah, the one who is gonna set us free from the tyranny of Rome, is gonna set us above every other nation.

When the Greeks were ruling over the Jews, they thought there was a Messiah that was going to come then. They thought it might've been Judas Maccabeus, perhaps, but it wasn't gonna be him. There was still another Messiah, another savior who would come.

So they confess, you are the Christ. Whatever reason or motivation they may have had in saying that, nonetheless, they got the confession correct. Peter got it correct. As Jesus congratulates him on saying this, knowing that it had been revealed to him by God according to what we have in Matthew 16.

But here in this account, in Mark 8, we don't have any of that congratulatory remark like we have in Matthew 16. It just simply says in verse 30, Jesus warned them to tell no one about him. And then he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed.

He goes on to detail everything that is going to happen. Jesus is prophesying of himself, but of course he is sharing what had been prophesied hundreds of years earlier through the prophets as well. Now he says he's going to be killed.

We'll go back to Jerusalem. I'm going to be killed, but have no fear. In three days, I'm going to rise again. Even tells them he's going to come back from the grave, but they were concerned about the words that he said, Peter especially.

He was stating the matter openly and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. And if you'll remember the rebuke in Matthew 16, we don't have any dialogue from Peter here necessarily, but in Matthew 16, he says, God forbid it, Lord, that this should ever happen to you.

As though Peter was saying, I will never let this take place. I won't ever let you be put to death. And Peter thinks that he is just protecting his Lord. He thinks he's expressing his love for his savior.

But what is Jesus' response to this? Turning around and seeing his disciples. Jesus finds it necessary in their midst to see Peter rebuked for what it is that he is saying. And he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan.

For you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's. You are not thinking with the mind of God, but with the mind of a man. And even though Peter's intentions may have been good and may have been loving, yet it would have been incredibly destructive for the rest of mankind, wouldn't it have been?

We would not be Christians today if Peter had had his way in that moment. He was thinking with the mind of Satan instead of the mind of God. So let us not think to ourself that just because we're very heartfelt and intentional about the things we want, the ministry we want to pursue or whatever else it might happen to be, just because we want it that way, the way we worship in church, let's genuine worship because I feel good about it.

What does God say about how he is to be worshiped? Our feelings have nothing to do with it. Do you love God the way that he says that he is to be worshiped? Do you live in the way that God says you are to live?

Not the way you want to live, not what feels good to you, but what is right according to what God has said in his word. Let us consider that lest we be thinking with the mind of Satan instead of the mind of God.

No matter how well intentioned we might be, we could be completely wrong. We are very sincere people. I sincerely believe this. Well, you could sincerely be wrong. And so we conform our thinking, our actions, our desires, our thoughts, our motivations, all of these things according to God's word.

And this is pleasing in his sight. Now, everything in the gospel of Mark has been a crescendo up to this point. And Matthew kind of the same way. Matthew's structured a little bit different, but it's still right in the middle of the gospel that we have this exchange take place where Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ.

And so that happens here in Mark as well. We're a little more than halfway, but we still have in Mark 8 with Peter confessing that Jesus is the Christ, just like we have in Matthew. Mark, structured different than Matthew though, where Matthew was kind of built around five discourses, Mark is divided in half.

So in the first half, we're coming to understand who Jesus is. And here we have the question answered for us in the middle part of the gospel. Jesus is the Christ. He is the Messiah. He is the chosen one, the anointed of God, the one who is coming to restore fellowship between God and man.

So that question is now answered by his disciples in this question that Jesus has asked of his disciples. Now in the second half of Mark, now as we continue on from here, we're going to see what kind of savior Jesus is.

So up to this point, the people see Jesus, but they don't really know who he is. Remember the miracle that we looked at yesterday with the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida. And it was kind of like a two-step process where Jesus healed his eyes and then healed his mind to understand what it was that the man was seeing.

He could perceive the images that his eyes could now see. And all of this kind of representative of the fact that the people saw Jesus, but they didn't really understand what it was that they were seeing.

Now we have this confession that Jesus is the Christ. And so from here on, we're going to see what kind of Messiah he is. This is the turning point now in the gospel of Mark. And so we'll pick up on that theme again tomorrow as well, as we finish up chapter eight.

But before concluding the lesson today, I want to make a comparison between this exchange that we have in Mark 8 and the exchange that we have in Matthew 16. I've somewhat done that comparison already as I've kind of contrasted some various points.

But you'll note that the exchange in Matthew 16 is very much the same as what we read here in Mark 8 up until Peter confesses, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Mark says that Jesus just told them not to tell anyone who he was.

But Jesus' response in Matthew 16 was this, blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah because flesh and blood is not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it or the gates of hell in some translations.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. And then he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ.

That won't happen until after Christ's resurrection. And then he will commission the disciples to go out and tell people who he is. But that whole exchange that we have there in Matthew 16 of Jesus congratulating Peter and everything that he says about building his church, that's not included in Mark 8.

Now we know or surely you know that Roman Catholics build almost their entire theology on that response that Jesus gives to Peter in Matthew 16 because it is understood that according to that passage, Jesus has just established the Pope and Peter is the first Pope.

So the papacy comes right out of that. If that is such a critical section and if that indeed was Jesus intention to set Peter as the Pope above the church and that he would even be the Prince above all the other apostles, then why is that not included in Mark's account?

That is such a critical thing for the entire church. Why would Mark not include that? Incidentally, if you ever have an exchange like this with a Roman Catholic who will stress the importance of the Pope and how you have to acknowledge that God established this office of the Pope or whatever else, a good response to a Roman Catholic if you are ever having this kind of a conversation, a good response to them would be, where are the qualifications in the New Testament for the Pope?

Where does it say, this is what the office of the Pope is supposed to be and here are the requirements of the Pope and likewise here are the requirements for you as Christians to be in submission to the Pope.

Where do we find that in scripture? Because the answer is nowhere. In fact, we don't even find the establishment of that office given in Mark's account and if that is such a critical thing for the entire church, then you would think that would come up in more than one place than in just the exchange that Jesus had with Peter and the rest of the disciples in Matthew 16.

We can go to the scriptures and we can find the qualifications for an elder or an overseer or bishop or pastor, all of those words being the same. Places like 1 Timothy 3, verses one through seven, Titus 1, five through nine, there are a few other passages as well in 2 Peter 2, in 1 Peter 5, being some of those other places.

We can even find qualifications for deacons and incidentally, a deacon is an office that can be held in Roman Catholicism but it is a very, very low office. Nonetheless, for that low office, you can still find qualifications for deacons in 1 Timothy 3, but where are the qualifications for the Pope and where does it say anywhere in the New Testament or the gospels or the epistles or otherwise, where does it say that Peter somehow has this primacy that he sits over the rest of the apostles and the rest of the apostles acknowledge that?

Where do you find that in the rest of the New Testament writings? Hey guys, Peter's the Pope. He's the one over the church in Rome. He's the one that we have to submit to or where do you even find it in the gospels that the church in Rome somehow has a special place over the rest of the churches that are being written to in the New Testament?

None of these things can be established. The Roman Catholics believe that it is all built upon Matthew 16, verses 13 through 20 and also the exchange that Jesus has with Peter in John 21. They may include that as well, but none of that there, that's even more vague than what we have in Matthew 16 with regard to Peter having this particular office.

Largely though, outside of those references, this is a great big argument from silence that there simply is nothing that can be established matter of factly that Jesus created this office of the Pope, that Peter is the first Pope and that he has primacy over all the rest and that there was gonna be a succession of Popes that would come after him and here's what that office entails and here's what everybody that would fulfill that office must do and everybody must do in subjection to that office.

You don't have anything like that written in Matthew 16, definitely not in Mark 8, nor do you find it anywhere else in the scripture. In fact, I think it's rather damning of the position to consider that in Mark 8, Jesus doesn't say anything congratulatory to Peter at all and remember what I said in our introduction to Mark that this is likely the gospel the way that Peter preached it and no testimony is given whatsoever to Peter having primacy over anybody else.

We just simply have Peter confessing that Jesus is the Christ and then Jesus warning them to tell no one about him and then what is the next word that Jesus gives to Peter? Get behind me, Satan. So in fact, no primacy is being established here whatsoever.

As a matter of fact, we would see that Peter is being brought down quite low because of his answer. He thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think or as Jesus will say to him later on, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and then Peter denies Christ three times and Jesus has to reestablish him as a shepherd of the sheep which is that exchange that we read in John 21.

That was a merciful exchange on Peter's behalf for his benefit but it in no way established Peter as being some kind of higher authority over the rest of the disciples. So quite interesting that we can compare these two exchanges between Matthew 16 and Mark 8 and Mark 8 takes even less of a stance when it comes to any kind of praise that is given to Peter here with the way that Jesus has asked this particular question.

I mean, it's also noteworthy that Jesus doesn't say here, I will build my church. That doesn't come up in Mark 8 either but remember this also going back to the introduction of the gospel of Mark, Matthew would have been written first.

This is another argument I believe for Matthew having been written before Mark. There's actually not much historical evidence whatsoever to say that Mark was written first even though skeptics wanna say that Mark was written first but this is one of those evidence as I think that sits on Matthew being the first gospel and then Mark comes later because the church would have already been established.

There's not a reason for Mark to have to say that Jesus in this exchange with Peter and his disciples is building the church. The emphasis on the exchange in Matthew 16 is not on Peter being the Pope, it's that Christ will build his church and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

The rock being the profession of the gospel of Christ that Jesus is the Christ. That's the rock upon which the church is built. So we have in Ephesians 2 and 1 Peter 2 and other places that the church is built on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles with Christ being the cornerstone and then the rest of the church built up from there.

Nowhere else does it say that Peter has any kind of primacy. You would think that Paul would find it important to include that in Ephesians 2 where he talks about the foundation of the church being the apostles and the prophets.

You'd think he'd say something right there about, oh, by the way, Peter has this primacy that the rest of the church needs to be built upon. No, he says Christ is the cornerstone. Christ is the head of the church.

The Pope does not sit over the church, nor do we need to be in subjection to the Pope. There is not some unbroken line of papacy that extends from Peter all the way to the present Pope Francis. It is a fabrication.

It is a myth. It is a false doctrine and dare I say, it's even a heresy. Don't believe it. They are twisting the word of God, the Roman Catholics do, just by the very existence of the Pope. It is not in scripture.

Don't follow it. Ironically, the whole establishment of the Pope thing is thinking with the mind of man, not with the mind of God. They are not obeying God's words in the creation of the papacy. They are following their own tradition, just as we had seen previously in Mark 7, Jesus rebuking the Pharisees and saying, you are good at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

And Roman Catholicism is full of all of that. Remember what I said though, when we were back in Mark 7 regarding all of that. It's very easy for any of us to fall into that same trap, to elevate our own interpretations, our own desires, our own feelings, our own traditions over God's word.

But we must be in subjection to God's word, in obedience to what it is that we have read, not thinking with the mind of a man, but let us have the mind of Christ. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read here.

And I pray that you continue to work these words out in our hearts that we would desire to be like Christ. And we would grow in our knowledge of this word and our knowledge of who you are. May we be obedient today, following what it is that you have said, putting aside every sin and weight, which so easily entangles and fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.

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