When Jesus and His disciples arrived in Caesarea Philippi, He asked them, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” (Matt. 16:13). Then, they began to rattle off different names of prophets, showing that people generally thought of Jesus as a man of God who would speak His word. Yet, this was not enough. Jesus asked more pointedly to His disciples, “But whom say ye that I am?” (Matt. 16:15). Peter answered with what we have commonly referred to as the Great Confession: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Thus, it is not enough for one to believe that Jesus is a great man, or even a prophet, as many allege. Jesus wanted everyone to know Him as He really is—the promised Redeemer, who is deity. This belief and confession is necessary for all to find redemption from sin, as we see from the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:36-37). Based on this, one will obey God in baptism and find entrance into the kingdom, the churc
Confess He is Lord!
h (cf. Matt. 16:19). Therefore, as we continue further into the text of Matthew 16, notice with me this confession.
First, the Father in heaven revealed it (Matt. 16:17). Jesus said that this understanding could never come from humanity as its source—this knowledge could only come by revelation. When Paul mentions his conversion to the Galatians, he stated, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood” (Gal. 1:15-16).
Thus, the gospel of redemption that Paul preached did not originate from any human source, just as the great declaration Peter made did not originate from any human source. It only came through revelation of the Father in heaven.
Second, Jesus built the church of Christ upon it (Matt. 16:18). When Peter would preach the first gospel sermon in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, he declared,
Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it…Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear…Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. [Acts 2:22-24, 33, 36]
Therefore, this great proclamation of Jesus being “the Christ, the Son of the living God” was the anthem that apostles and Christians would proclaim as the church began to establish. We read of this fact throughout the rest of the New Testament.
Third, the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). With the purpose of God fulfilled through the scheme of redemption that He planned, the fact that Jesus was the Messiah and Immanuel led to its planting in the hearts of men and women, even today. Once planted in the hearts and minds of Christians, its proclamation of good news would loudly proclaim from all who believed its life-altering message. Even as Satan thought that he was victorious as he watched the Jews crucify the Lord, little did he know that even death itself would never prevail—in fact, the opposite would hold true (1 Cor. 15:54-57).
Therefore, the Great Confession means so much to the child of God—the Father in heaven revealed it, the Son of God built His church upon it, and the gates of Hades would not prevail against it! May God be praised as we boldly declare to a lost and dying world in all that we say and live, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!”