Peter the Rock
13 Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of man is?
14 And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.
15 He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am?
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven.
18 And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
19 I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Matthew 16
In the previous discussion, I talked about the need for there to be only one true church. Here I want to start talking about why the Catholic Church is that Church. Peter was the first one to recognize that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. For this, Jesus said four promises to Peter.
1. Peter is the Rock on which Christ will build His Church
2. The gates of death and hell will not prevail against this Church
3. Peter has the keys of the kingdom
4. Whatever Peter binds on earth shall be bound in heaven
Peter is the Rock
He was born with the name Simon. Jesus changed his name to Peter. In the Old Testament, there were times that God changed the name of someone, that signified a change of role in their lives by God. God changed Abram to Abraham. He changed Sarai to Sarah. He changed Jacob to
What is missed in our translation is what Peter means. It means rock. So, in essence, what Jesus said to Peter in verse 18 is “And I say unto thee, the thou art Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my church”. Some Protestants will argue that the Greek word for Peter was Petros and that the rock upon which he builds his church is
This is my rebuttal:
2. The reason that Matthew used “Petros” for Peter and “
3. It is true that elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus is the chief cornerstone upon which the church rests. But so what? No Catholic would deny this. Just because one is true, it does not mean that the other is false. Jesus calls Himself the Light of the world. At another place, Jesus said to the disciples “You are the light of the world”. One does not negate the other. We are able to be the light of the world because we are in Christ, and Christ is the Light of the world. In the same way, Peter can only be the rock because he is in Christ, who is the ultimate rock. The Catholic Church does not teach that the pope is the rock because of his own ability. It is only because of God, who is the ultimate rock.
4. Jesus starts by saying to Peter “Blessed art thou”. The whole tone of His message is an uplifting message to Peter. It does not make sense for Jesus to mean “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for you are a small, insignificant pebble…”
5. The whole topic is about Peter. He says about Peter that he will receive the keys to the kingdom and that whatever he binds on earth will be bound in heaven. Since it is about Peter and all the benefits he will receive, it is natural that when Jesus said that this is the rock He would build His church, He would mean Peter and not something else.
6. The words themselves fits that Peter is the rock upon which Christ will build His church. Jesus said “Thou art Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my church”. Notice that Jesus used the word “and” instead of “but”. By using the word “and”, it is a logical extension, not a contrast, to what Jesus said. Jesus did not say “Thou art a Rock, but upon this other Rock I will build my church”. Also, Jesus said “upon THIS rock I will build my church”. By using “this”, Jesus is referring to the closest previous reference to rock, and that would be when Jesus gave Simon a name meaning rock.
7. Remember, Peter’s name was changed from this time on. Can you imagine someone asking Simon why the Lord changed his name to Rock? Would it not be absurd for his reply to be that “The Lord changed my name to rock because I am not the rock”? That does not make sense! God in the Old Testament changed the names of people to reflect what their mission was or what they were. God did not change their name to reflect that their mission or identity was not that.
8. The
a. Tatian the Syrian - "Simon Cephas answered and said, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah: flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee also, that you are Cephas, and on this rock will I build my Church; and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it" (The Diatesseron 23 [A.D. 170]).
b. Tertullian - "Was anything withheld from the knowledge of Peter, who is called ‘the rock on which the Church would be built’ [Matt. 16:18] with the power of ‘loosing and binding in heaven and on earth’ [Matt. 16:19]?" (Demurrer Against the Heretics 22 [A.D. 200]).
"[T]he Lord said to Peter, ‘On this rock I will build my Church, I have given you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [and] whatever you shall have bound or loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. . . . What kind of man are you, subverting and changing what was the manifest intent of the Lord when he conferred this personally upon Peter? Upon you, he says, I will build my Church; and I will give to you the keys" (Modesty 21:9–10 [A.D. 220]).
c. Origen - "Look at [Peter], the great foundation of the Church, that most solid of rocks, upon whom Christ built the Church [Matt. 16:18]. And what does our Lord say to him? ‘Oh you of little faith,’ he says, ‘why do you doubt?’ [Matt. 14:31]" (Homilies on Exodus 5:4 [A.D. 248]).
d. Augustine – "If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them [the bishops of Rome] from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer it.’ Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement. ... In this order of succession a Donatist bishop is not to be found" (Letters 53:1:2 [A.D. 412]).
"and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it"
This is important. Christ is promising that the church Christ built will never fall. And yet all the Reformers said that the Church lost the gospel or corrupted the gospel – it took Martin Luther, John Calvin and the other Reformers to "re-discover" the gospel. Reformers also argued that people should leave the Church because it was thoroughly corrupted with heresy.
But is that is true, then Jesus Christ would be a liar. He promised that the gates of death and hell will not prevail against His Church. If the Church lost or corrupted the gospel in the Middle Ages, than that would mean that Satan had prevailed against Christ's church.
If the Church has preached a false gospel, is worshipping Mary and other saints, has fallen into legalism, that is a very serious charge. No other cult ha been accused of as many heresies as the Catholic Church. The Church has been accused of idolatry, of denying the gospel of grace, of placing the pope over the Word of God, of worshipping saints, and worship bread as being Christ. If any of these accusations are valid then that would mean that the gates of death and hell did prevail against the church.
Once I realized this, I realized that to remain a Protestant was to admit that the gates of death and hell had prevailed for at least a thousand years before the Reformation. And that would mean that Christ did not keep his promise.
"I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven"
Jesus also gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven to Peter. What does that mean. We need to turn to the Old Testament:
15 Thus saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto Shebna, who is over the house, and say,
16 What doest thou here? and whom has thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out here a sepulchre? hewing him out a sepulchre on high, graving a habitation for himself in the rock!
17 Behold, Jehovah, like a strong man, will hurl thee away violently; yea, he will wrap thee up closely.
18 He will surely wind thee round and round, and toss thee like a ball into a large country; there shalt thou die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory, thou shame of thy lord's house.
19 And I will thrust thee from thine office; and from thy station shalt thou be pulled down.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah:
21 and I will cloth him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of
22 And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; and he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.
Isaiah 22:15-22
Shebna was the king’s royal steward, comparable to a prime minister today. The royal steward was appointed to be take care of the daily concerns of running a kingdom. The steward was in control whenever the king left the kingdom. And look at verse 22: I will give you the key of David. Receiving the key to the kingdom symbolized receiving authority delegated from the king to rule for him and in his place while he is gone. This is what we mean when we call the Pope the vicar of Christ. He is Christ’s royal steward, to take care of things until the King comes back.
This makes total sense to me. If a shopkeeper is going on a trip, would he not leave someone in charge of the shop when he is gone? Do not even parents leave one of their children in charge when they leave for the evening? Jesus told the disciples that He was their Messiah, their King. He also told them that in a little while He would no longer be with them. Would it not make sense that He would leave someone in charge? Some Protestants try to argue that James or Paul were the ones in charge. But that does not make sense. No where is there anything even hinted that Jesus left them in charge. Maybe Peter was reluctant to take his leadership role. But this does negate that fact that Jesus delegated this authority to Peter.
"and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Jesus is basically giving Peter a blank check. Whatever he binds on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever Peter loosens on earth will be loosened in heaven. This must be looked at in context that the gates of death and hell will not prevail against His Church. Putting both verses together supports the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility. Whatever Peter bound on earth will be bound by God, and God will make sure that this power given the Peter will never cause the gates of death and hell to prevail. Peter will never lead His Church into heresy.
The darkest period ever in our country's existence was when we had slavery over 150 years ago. One must remember that this country has predominantly a Protestant country back then, and slavery was mostly predominant in the Bible-belt South. True, the Northern Christians had much to do about ending slavery, but in the South the Christians were able to use the Bible to justify slavery. The Southern Christians argued that the Bible does mot explicitly condemn slavery. And they did have a point. Jesus never condemned it. And in Paul's letter to Philemon, Paul sends a runaway slave back to his master. So based on the Bible alone, it was hard to prove that slavery was a sin.
But the Bible was never intended by God to exhaust God's message in every situation. The reason Jesus did not condemn slavery is that His message was usually accepted by the poor and the slaves. At that time the important issue was our spiritual salvation not social justice. If Jesus had spoken out against slavery then, people would been side-tracked from getting right with God to revolution by the underclass. The Bible is not God's last word on the subject. But later on the Church did condemn slavery. From the begining of the slave trade the popes at that time condemned the slave trade and forced slavery. So only the Catholic Church was able to provide moral clarity at this time of confusion. It was not that no Protestant peacher spoke at against it, but since he believed that everying must be supported in scripture, and scripure did not condemn slavery, his message had no authority and was not accepted by all Protestants. But no Catholic could own slaves without threatening his salvation, the pope let it be known in clear terms that slavery was a grave sin. He did not have to appeal to the authority of scripture. He had his own authority. Whatever he bound on earth will be bound in heaven. I remember as a child saying to my father why I could not do something. My dad would say "Because I say so!". That is what the pope is saying. Actually, "pope" means "Papa" in Italian. He is our spiritual papa, our daddy. Just as with my father, what he says goes. He does not have to prove his position from the Bible. He has spoken. End of discussion. That is what I mean by moral clarity.
Not only did the pope speak out against slavery but he has spoken against other things as well. When everyone was cheering in Europe about entering Word War I, the pope warned us that we would regret it. When Naziism started, it was the pope who was the first to speak out aganst it. When communism started, the pope condemned that. But the pope also warned us about the excess of capitalism. Before 1930, all Protestant churches were against birth control. Since then, all Protestant churches compromised with the world and allows it. Throughout the world, because of birth control, we are facing negative population growth. In the future years, this will be the biggest crisis to face us. In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI warned us that the pill would open the doors to sexual promiscuity, divorce, and abortion. The world laughed. But he has shown to be right. Where all the other churches compromised their position on birth control, only in the pope do we find the one still teaching what Christians have taught for 2,000 years. I will write on this elsewhere.
There is an issue facing us today - cloning. Since obviously there was no technology about cloning 2,000 years ago, the Bible is silent on this. But is human cloning OK to do? And if we do clone, is the cloned being a human life, or can we use that being to harvest body parts? And does that cloned being have a soul? Should we preach the gospel to this being? Did Christ die for the cloned? Each one of these questions has been answered by the pope. Only in the Catholic Church do we have moral clarity.
