ELIZABETH INRIG | Women’s Ministries at Redeemer Fellowship, Loma Linda, California
“Jesus appointed Peter to oversee His establishment of the church so there would be no doubt about His including Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles equally on the basis of their faith in Him, their repentance, their birth by the Holy Spirit, and their willingness to be baptized as the sign of their commitment to Him.”
Standing before the craggy cliffs, I stared at the rough face of the mountain. This was the mountain at “Caesarea Philippi”, or Panion—the area Jesus and His disciples frequented (Mt. 6:13; Mk. 8:27) during His time on earth.
This was an important place for me and fifty other Christian pilgrims who had come to walk the steps of Jesus in the Holy Land. Now here we were, looking up at the huge rock formation where Jesus had posed the most important question any human being will ever answer: “Whom do men say the Son of Man is?” These mountains had witnessed the answers to this question as well as Jesus’ prophetic words about how He would build His church.
I tried to imagine what the disciples were thinking two thousand years earlier when they heard Jesus’ question. They saw what we saw outside the Israel of their day which was a short sixty-four miles north of Jerusalem: rough, rugged mountains once given over to the honor of the pagan god Pan. They heard the sound of rushing water—one source of the Jordan River. They also heard Jesus’ voice, and they did not mistake His question. Matthew says they answered quickly: ‘Some say you are John the Baptist, others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?” He asked, “Who do you say I am?”
Peter spoke up. By this time, he was the leader of the group, the most eager to share his opinion. He regularly said what he was thinking. This day was no exception: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”
This was no politically correct word nor a shoe-polishing statement designed to impress Jesus. It came from Peter’s heart. And Peter was, as Jesus said, “Blessed for blurting it out!” He had not gained this information from “flesh and blood” or from his good Jewish family. No one could take credit for teaching Peter Jesus’ eternal identity. The Father in heaven alone had revealed it to Peter. As He had watched this Man called Jesus, God the Father had opened the eyes of Peter’s heart to the truth about Jesus’ true nature: “You are the Christ, Messiah, Anointed One. You are the One promised in the Old Testament, come to earth. You fill full the shadows of the Law by living out in real and human substance God’s promises to Israel and to the world. You are God in human flesh, and You are about to establish a New Community.”
Jesus’ promise/prophecy of the church
What Jesus says to Peter next is significant for all who take the name “Christ-follower”. His words clarify the identity of those made alive by the Spirit, those whom He immerses into the body of Christ. Jesus’ prophetic words set Peter apart as God’s primary Apostolic voice for the planting of the church. Christ’s words that “…I will build my church…” know their infant fulfillment after three singular events: first, when Peter preaches in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and 3,000 Jews come to faith in Christ (Acts 2); second, when he and John visit the Samaritans to confirm their faith in Christ (Acts 8); and third, when Peter witnesses Cornelius and his family receiving Jesus—the first Gentiles to come to faith in Christ (Acts 10). Each group—Jew, half-breed and Gentile—receives the Holy Spirit at Caesarea and so completes the birth of the church.
Remembering Jesus’ words as members of the body of Christ two thousand years after He spoke them thrilled us:
“You are Peter (little stone—petros, which is Peter’s name, no figure of speech intended) and on this rock (petra—the word is used of Christ Himself—a fact Peter understood and records in 1 Peter 2:4,5,6 and Acts 4:11, 12) I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven—whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven…whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:17-19).
After standing at Caesarea Philippi where Peter received Jesus’ prophetic commission, we followed Peter’s Pentecost journey, remembering his marching orders to “preach the gospel for the loosening (forgiveness) of sins” so the Christ could build His church. Retracing the apostle’s ancient steps, I praised God for Peter who obeyed his Savior despite his momentary denial. Peter’s faithfulness to His Lord’s promise to build His church caused him to proclaim the truth of Christ in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. There, three thousand Jews believed, repented, and were baptized into the body of Christ. Later, in the area of Samaria, I imagined how overjoyed the Spirit-birthed believers were as the door of the gospel was opened to them, and many came to faith. Finally, in concurrence with the Scripture, as we stood at the Roman Aquaduct (pictured) in Caesarea by the Sea, I remembered how Peter opened the door of the church and of the kingdom to the Gentile Cornelius and his family.
By proclaiming the truth about Jesus to Jews and Gentiles, Peter was doing more than conducting evangelistic crusades! He was opening the door to the kingdom through the Church – to Jews first, then to half-breeds (the Samaritans whom he had learned to despise that descended from the Israelites of the northern ten tribes who had intermarried with the Babylonians during the exile) and finally to the Gentiles (that group whose food he had loathed and whose table he had spurned). More than that, he was ushering in the grand program planned from before the foundation of the earth: the gathering in of the New Covenant Community prophesied in the Old Testament (Jer. 31:31-33) to include Jews and Gentiles (John 1:12).
Furthermore, by being present when each of these three people-groups received the Holy Spirit as God’s seal on them (Ephesians 1:13-14), Peter gave Apostolic oversight and authority to the validity of their conversions. If he had not been present, the apostles in Jerusalem would likely have disbelieved that the previously “unclean” Samaritans and Gentiles could be included as full-fledged members of God’s people, and the church would have been split from its inception. Jesus appointed Peter to oversee His establishment of the church so there would be no doubt about His including Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles equally on the basis of their faith in Him, their repentance, their birth by the Holy Spirit, and their willingness to be baptized as the sign of their commitment to Him.
The rock of the church is Christ
Since my recent trip to the Middle East, I have thought about Peter, “the stone”. Nothing in his behavior, particularly in his denial of Jesus, assumes that Peter is the “rock”. Everything in Peter’s words recorded in the book of Acts assumes the church will be built on His Lord Jesus—the One who forgave him for his betrayal! Peter’s Pentecost message fulfilled God’s plan for him; he used the “keys of the kingdom”—those eternal and penetrating truths about Christ, His person, and His substitutionary atonement for man’s sin—to preach boldly in order to usher new believers into the Kingdom of God: first Jews, then Samaritans, and finally Gentiles.
Last spring as I stood in Caesarea Philippi, in Jerusalem, in the area near Samaria, and finally in Caesarea on the Mediterranean, I rejoiced! Christ Jesus has been building His church for 2,000 years. With 50 other Gentile believers from Redlands, California, I praised God that our names had been written in the Lamb’s book of Life. As we sang “The Church’s One foundation Is Jesus Christ Her Lord”, we stood as “living Gentile stones” (1 Peter 2:25). Each one of us had been individually placed by the Holy Spirit into the church of Christ—His own body—now 2,000 years old and growing!
A time is coming, Paul says in similar language, when the last stone will be placed in the body of Christ; it will be finished, complete, done (Eph. 2:19-22). Until then, we who are His Bride, His church, have the awesome privilege of preaching to those who are near (the Jews) and to those afar off (the Gentiles) [Ephesians 2:13] the gospel which reveals the unsearchable riches of Christ. † [First published in 2006]
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