Topic: This Quotation Has
Been Misunderstood!
Text Of Interest:
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it.”
Matthew 16:18
There is nothing as thrilling as understanding the
stipulations of the scripture rightly. It gives one joy because in its totality
it is an assurance that one is not walking in error. It is very painful to
discover that one has been walking in error especially when one has passed such
error to others and they have believed it and as well spread it across the
board. Therefore, it is very important as students and believers of the scripture that we dig doggedly in the content of the scripture in order to find out what the
lines of the scripture says and have right interpretation of them. The benefits
of having right interpretation of the lines of the scripture are enormous in
the sense that it helps the believer and the student of the scripture to have
right application. The right application of the lines of the scripture would
mean that the relationship of the student or believer between other believers
and unbelievers and even situations will definitely be affected positively. The
reverse is the case in a situation where the absence of right interpretation is
available.
The text of interest says “And I say also unto thee,
That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18. I want us to elucidate on
this quotation and extract some facts from it and establish the right doctrine
from it. Firstly we should understand that this quotation is a response to a
statement made by Peter. Therefore, it is not a standalone statement, it means
a better understanding of it must be in connection with what Peter said if not
anything said about it is said out of context. So let’s see what Peter said “And
Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
(Matthew 16:16). Understand that before Jesus made the statement He made in
verse 18, in verse 17, Jesus called the statement of Peter a revelation from
His father. This is an indication that the statement of Peter at that
particular time wasn’t born out of human wisdom since flesh and blood didn’t reveal
it to him.
However, before we go further is important we examine
what Peter said again. He said “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Here Peter made a statement to identify who Jesus was and is and this is very
striking because the identification of Jesus means a whole lot to the Jews and
even to the entire world because of His mission on this earth. So he called
Jesus ‘the Christ’ this is an emphatic statement because he didn’t say thou art
Christ, that would have mean another thing. The question therefore is who is
the Christ? The Greek word for the word Christ is Christos, which is taken from
the word the anointed or the Messiah in the Hebrew. In other words, what Peter
is saying is that Jesus is the Messiah who is the Savior that all the Jews were
expecting to come and save them from oppression and sin.
Again, Peter didn’t stop at identifying that Jesus is the
Christ, he went ahead to say that He is “the Son of the living God.” This
statement augments the fact that the Christ is God because He is an incarnate
of God, otherwise known as Son of God. Therefore it comes down to the fact that
Christ is the name of God in human flesh. And surely, it takes divine
intervention for a revelation of such to be bestowed on any human and that is why
Jesus exclaimed in 17 that it is not of human wisdom. And based on this
dexterity of Peter in identifying who the Christ is, His real identity, was
also made known. Jesus called him Peter “Rock” instead of Simon which means a Reed.
Thereafter, Jesus made this statement “and upon this rock
I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
This statement in the Church world has been mishandled and therefore it has
been misapplied in many senses. Here, Jesus didn’t say upon Peter He’s going to
build His Church as wrongly believed by many. What Jesus said was that upon the
revelation that He is the Christ, His Church shall be built and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it. On the other hand, many Christians are using
this quotation to pray against obstacles in their life and when it comes to
churches having situations to resolve especially in persecution.
Well, this quotation has nothing to do with one facing
obstacles or persecution of the church. What Jesus said is an aoristic
statement that He’s going to fulfill in the near future as the Christ.
Therefore, it was a promissory statement indicating as the Christ He will die
and the gates of hell will not prevail against Him in establishing His church. It
is important to understand what Jesus meant by the statement “gates of hell”.
In this context, the statement gates of hell do not literally mean gates of
hell but death. So what Jesus meant base on the fact that He is the Christ
according to the revelation of Peter, He will build His church and death will
not prevail and prevent Him from doing so.
Another lesson to draw from this quotation is that since
it is an aoristic statement or promissory in nature, the question that should
come out of it is “Has Jesus fulfilled it? And the answer is a capital yes!
This is because, the gates of hell actually didn’t prevail against Jesus, He
was able to rise from death and defeated death, and the consequence of that is
that His Church was built. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus from death gave
birth to what we call the church of Christ today. So Jesus will not build His
church, He has built it on the day He rose from the dead.
Till I come your way again, keep on basking in the Arena
of Indubitable Truth!
Chukwuemeka C. Asiegbu
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